Rights body to investigate forced disappearance cases

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.