Rights body to investigate forced disappearance cases
Muninggar Sri Saraswati, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) said on Friday that it had decided to form two teams to probe disappearances during the New Order era.
Commission member M.M. Billah said that one of the teams would investigate the disappearance of suspected members of the outlawed Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), and the other the victims of the so-termed mysterious shootings from 1983 to 1985.
Thousands of suspected PKI members disappeared from 1965 to 1966, while over 300 alleged criminals were found dead from 1983 to 1985. The mysterious shootings were rumored to be an attempt to curb crime.
Billah, who once led a Komnas HAM team that reviewed a number of disappearances in the country, said the planned probes had their legal basis in Law No. 99/1999 on human rights.
"If the teams find strong indications that the disappearances were involuntary, we will upgrade the status of the investigation for prosecution," he said, here on Friday.
The PKI case will be investigated by the team that is currently examining the government's decision to ostracize alleged PKI members without trial.
Billah said his team had recommended an investigation of the implementation of the military operation zone (DOM) in Aceh from 1989 to 1998, the military operation in Papua from 1971 to 2001, the attack on the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI) headquarters in 1996, the disappearance of 14 activists of the Democratic People's Party (PRD) in 1998 and the disappearance of a number of people in the 1998 riots.
During the DOM in Aceh, as many as 874 people were reported missing, while in Papua at least 23 people went missing. As many as 23 people disappeared during the July 27 incident, while after the May riots, dozens of people were reported missing.
Billah said Komnas HAM was reviewing the police's investigation of those cases.
According to Komnas HAM's review team led by Billah, state apparatus -- namely the Indonesian Military (TNI), police, forest rangers and bureaucrats -- were behind the disappearances.
"In some cases, like in the July 27 incident, political party members were involved," the team said in a statement, referring to the forced takeover of the PDI headquarters by a party splinter group in 1996.
In Indonesia, according to the team's findings, victims could be witnesses of incidents allegedly involving state apparatus, non-governmental activists, university students, or civilians who stood up for their rights -- such as farmers or labors -- members of certain groups of parties whose ideologies were against that of the state, activists of Islamic groups who were branded militant or hard-liners, or people whose names were coincidentally the same as those of people on the state's most- wanted list.