RI's anti-separatism bid fueled rights abuses: Amnesty
RI's anti-separatism bid fueled rights abuses: Amnesty
Agencies, London/Jakarta
Indonesia resorted to increasingly repressive methods last year in its attempts to crush separatist movements in Aceh and Papua provinces, Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
In its annual report, the human rights group reported a rise in extrajudicial executions, "disappearances", arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence, forced displacement and destruction of property since martial law was declared and a military operation launched in Aceh on May 19, 2003.
The report, however, did not get much marks from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"With its track record, nothing that Amnesty says surprises us anymore," foreign ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.
"Come what may, with or without such a report, the government and people remain steadfast in working toward the promotion of human rights in Indonesia," he said.
Amnesty also criticized Indonesia's Antiterrorism Law, which was enacted in 2003, saying it did not fully guarantee suspects' rights. It said there were reports that a number of Islamist activists had been tortured or ill-treated.
Police have denied torturing terror suspects.
Marty said the accusation was baseless.
"Indonesia has been consistent in dealing with the threat of terrorism in a manner consistent with the principle of civil liberties and human rights."
Amnesty noted that tight restrictions on access to Aceh effectively prevented independent monitoring.
Official sources say over 1,100 people had been killed by the end of 2003, including 470 civilians, but local rights groups claimed that many more civilians were among the dead, Amnesty said.
In addition, tens of thousands of people were displaced by the military operations, some forcibly, while people detained as members or sympathizers of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) "were at risk of torture or ill-treatment, apparently routine in military and police custody".
GAM was also found to be guilty of human rights abuses, including kidnapping.
Amnesty said peaceful expressions of support for independence in Papua, at the other end of the archipelago, were banned and several people were jailed unlawfully, and that military operations against both armed and peaceful independence activists in Papua had "also resulted in human rights violations, including arbitrary detention and torture".
It quoted reports from the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas-HAM) as saying seven people were killed during an April 2003 military operation in Jayawijaya, Papua, to recover weapons allegedly stolen by separatists.
During the operation, "villagers were allegedly tortured and ill-treated, and houses and other property were destroyed or damaged".
Amnesty also lashed out at other Southeast Asian countries that made little progress on the human rights front in 2003, with many of them using perceived internal and global security threats to curtail freedoms.
The global human rights organization expressed concern about every country in Southeast Asia, saying a penchant for unfair jail sentences and capital punishment was a common theme across the region.
Amnesty pointed out that the death penalty was legal in all Southeast Asian countries, with the Philippines lifting a ban on capital punishment and Myanmar sentencing journalists and political activists to death in 2003.
While thousands of people are on death row in Southeast Asia, executions were reported to have been carried out only in Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Amnesty also singled out the government of Laos for its handling of armed conflict, while criticizing that country for its stepped-up military campaign against the ethnic Hmong tribe in a long-running but little-known conflict that was only publicized in 2003 after Western journalists reported on the situation.
Myanmar was again criticized for its ongoing crackdown against Aung San Suu Kyi and her democracy movement.