Rights campaigner Munir dies

Born in the Central Java town of Malang on Dec. 8, 1965, Munir's small, aggressive demeanor rose to prominence in the late 1990s amid a rash of kidnappings and disappearances during the last years of former president Soeharto's rule. His co-founding of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), not long before the May riots, on April 21 1998, challenged the dismissing of acts such as kidnapping, torture and involuntary disappearances as ordinary crimes.

People began to talk of "state violence" as Kontras provided legal counsel for victims, investigated individual cases and made public the results of its investigations, which often implicated the security forces. Not long after Kontras was established, Munir and his colleagues received a number of threats, including a bomb threat targeted at his family home in Malang, East Java.

Munir almost immediately was recognized internationally for his work, and was honored with awards such as the Yap Thiam Hien Human Rights Award and the Right Livelihood Award 2000, or the "alternative Nobel", from the Swedish government.

He was involved in various high profile investigations, including the violence in East Timor both before and after the 1999 referendum. He reflected later that the national rights body, which set up a team on East Timor, was much more effective than when it investigated the Tanjung Priok case of 1984, even though the national rights body was backed by legislation.

The father of two and husband of Suciati, a former labor activist, also became a hero to the Acehnese as his presence in the war-torn province emboldened a populace used to fear. But as communal violence spread in Indonesia, Kontras was overwhelmed, and he was criticized for neglecting thousands of victims such those in Maluku.

In 2002, Munir cofounded Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial).

Of the truth and reconciliation commission, the bill for which was finally endorsed on Tuesday, he once said that the prolonged plan to set up the commission was nothing more than "an excuse for impunity." --JP