Rights body to exhume eight Priok graves

Rights body to exhume eight Priok graves

JAKARTA (JP): The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas
HAM) plans to start exhuming eight of the 22 graves believed to
contain victims of the 1984 bloody incident in Tanjung Priok,
North Jakarta, later this month, its executive said on Friday.

Komnas member Maj. Gen. (ret) Koesparmono Irsan said the
decision to exhume the eight graves was made after a team from
the commission succeeded in gathering detailed information on the
remains.

"The remaining 14 are still being looked into," the former
senior police detective told a meeting between dozens of
relatives of the victims and Attorney General Marzuki Darusman at
the latter's office here.

According to Koesparmono, Komnas HAM had yet to decide on the
precise date for the procedure. He gave no reason.

The remains of the victims, he said, would be important
evidence for the team to aid their work in completing their
findings to be submitted to the Attorney General's Office.

The unearthed remains would be examined later by forensic
experts to help find the cause of their death which could become
legal evidence for the Attorney General's Office in bringing the
case to the court later, he said.

"That's why we asked officers from both the National Police
and the Attorney General's Office to accompany the team during
the digging of the graves," he said.

Koesparmono explained that the commission's team had obtained
consent from Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso to exhume the graves, as
required by a city regulation.

The victims' relatives, led by Beni Biki, the son of the late
Amir Biki, a local Muslim preacher who was shot dead in the
incident, were accompanied by Koesparmono and several other
Komnas HAM staff and activists from the Commission for Missing
Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras).

The case of the Tanjung Priok incident, which was buried for
years during former president Soeharto's rule, has been in the
hands of the Attorney General's Office.

But the office required that the commission include forensic
examination results in their findings.

The initial findings submitted by the commission were
considered by many to be based only on data and testimonies made
by the military and government.

The findings, for example, stated that there was no evidence
of intentional mass killings or burials during or after the
incident.

The Sept. 12, 1984 incident revolves around clashes between
civilians and military personnel which allegedly erupted
following emotionally charged lectures at Tanjung Priok's Rawa
Badak Mosque by preachers, who were reportedly criticizing the
government.

The military claimed 23 people were killed and 60 were
injured; eyewitnesses said they saw a truck loaded with charred
bodies.

During the Friday's hearing, Munir from Kontras handed new
evidence -- in the form of documents -- of the bloodshed to
Marzuki, proving that the past regime had deliberately obscured
the identity of the victims.

The documents consist, among other things, of copies of
publications which revealed statements made by a number of state
officials, including Soeharto, who at the time blamed the
incident on the Tanjung Priok residents. (bby)