RI tells U.S. to take the log out of their own eye

RI tells U.S. to take the log out of their own eye

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The government has denounced a U.S. report on human rights abuses
in Indonesia, saying Washington was not competent to make
judgments about what went on here.

Foreign Affairs Ministry chief spokesman Marty Natalegawa said
the annual report showed a "new standard of ignorance of what is
actually happening in Indonesia."

"Human rights conditions in Indonesia should to be judged by
the Indonesian people themselves and not by some bureaucrats
sitting in Washington," Marty told The Jakarta Post on Thursday,
when he was asked to comment on the controversial report.

The U.S. State Department said in its annual human rights
report distributed in Jakarta on Thursday, Indonesian security
forces had committed serious human rights abuses, including
murder and rape, particularly in far-flung provinces where they
were battling separatists.

"Security force members murdered, tortured, raped, beat and
arbitrarily detained civilians and members of separatist
movements," the U.S. State Department said as quoted by Reuters.

The report also criticized the government for failing to
protect the fundamental rights of groups ranging from children to
journalists to indigenous people.

"Human rights abuses were most apparent in the Aceh province,
the scene of a long-running separatist revolt," it said. The
report admitted there was some evidence military commanders
wanted to improve the behavior of their troops in the field.

Referring to racial discrimination as a human rights violation
in the United States, Marty said: "A country should be very
confident of its own conduct on human rights issues before
assuming for itself the role of judging other countries'
performances."

The report confused the government as it overlooked the
democratization taking place in the country, Marty said.

He regretted the report, saying President George W. Bush's
government was looking at Indonesia with an outdated attitude and
had disregarded significant steps the government had made to
develop the democracy.

The government imposed martial law in Aceh on June 19, last
year, and has deployed some 40,000 security personnel to hunt for
Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels following the breakdown of a
peace agreement both sides signed in Geneva in December 2002.

The U.S. said there had been no improvement in human rights in
the country's easternmost province of Papua, another conflict
area.

An ambush in the Papua regency of Timika in August 2002, which
killed two Americans, had become a sticking contentious issues
between the two countries, it said.

A preliminary report from Washington suspected the involvement
of the Indonesian Military (TNI), but no one had been arrested
for the incident as yet, it said.

Last year, the Indonesian National Commission of Human Rights
launched a probe of possible human rights abuses in Papua,
following the stealing of TNI weapons in the province.

No report has yet been released on its findings.