Soeharto trial may end up as a show of compromise

Amid plans to start the trial of former president Soeharto on charges of corruption, justice may remain elusive, warns Kusnanto Anggoro, a senior researcher at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, and a lecturer in the postgraduate studies department of the University of Indonesia in Jakarta.

JAKARTA (JP): Dealing with past violations of human rights and abuses of power often take center stage in postauthoritarian regimes. Even a minimal form of justice will arguably affect efforts to garner the public trust needed to nurture a young democracy and to instill the rule of law needed to protect human rights in the future.

Trials of former authoritarian rulers have been instrumental in obtaining popular and moral legitimacy for new regimes. More often than not, however, justice remains elusive.

Many Asian countries have faced similar challenges. The government of Kim Young-sam administered a political catharsis that marked the end of South Korea's authoritarian past.

The fact that 16 former military generals, among them two former presidents (Chun Doo-hwan and Roh Tae-woo), accused of human rights abuses and corruption, and the heads of the largest Korean corporations stood before judges was in and of itself a cornerstone in Korean history.

It was a monumental event for instituting democracy and the rule of law, as for five decades previously South Korea had been ruled by successive regimes that systematically violated human rights, perpetrating crimes such as the infamous Kwangju massacre in May of 1980.

However, the trial was a mere political show. The purity of its legislative justice was undermined by the impure political motivations of Kim Young-sam, the then Korean president.

Kim ignored a popular judgment and mandated the very same prosecution that had previously decided not to arraign the former presidents for abuse of power to sign the new indictment, a signal of the limited scope of the trial and the justice it could bring.

Many of those who engaged in treason and killings in Kwangju, not to mention other human rights violations after the military coup, have not been held accountable for the crimes. Some still remain in office.

In the Philippines, former president Corazon Aquino was fairly successful in promoting human rights and pursuing the ill-gotten wealth of Ferdinand Marcos. Following the fall of Marcos in 1986, transitional justice started out strong, with the power of the people supporting it.

Marcos was found guilty of violating the human rights of thousands of Filipinos and was ordered to pay US$2 billion in compensation to the victims.

The murder case of former senator Benigno Aquino, Marcos's chief political rival and Aquino's husband, was reopened on the grounds of a mistrial, resulting in the conviction of 16 soldiers implicated in his 1983 assassination.

Successful as it may be, justice in the Philippines remains elusive. Who ordered the killing of Aquino remains uncovered. More importantly, Ms. Aquino failed to address the fundamental institutional obstacles to justice: the army, the police, the judiciary and the civilian bureaucracy.

Most of the victims of human rights violations under the Marcos administration are still waiting for justice. Former political prisoners sued ranking military officers for torture and other human rights violations and claimed multimillion peso damages. A six-year trial found some officers guilty. However, an appeal to a higher court stopped the execution of the decision.

The South Korean and the Philippine cases demonstrate the challenges of transitional justice, even in countries where new democratic government has been brought into existence through massive popular support.

Presidents Kim and Aquino expressed a firm belief in the universality of human rights. The court made it clear that even the president is not above the law and must be held responsible for illegal acts. The lesson would act as a preventive warning against any future abuse of power. In both cases, the long and perilous process of trial ended up in, at best, incomplete justice.

Former president Soeharto is now on trial. High-ranking military officials are among 30 people suspected of involvement in last year's violence in East Timor. Indonesia seems to face more serious challenges than that of South Korea and the Philippines.

Problematic questions are as much related to the complexities inherent in transitional justice as to the change in power structure of the regimes. The supporters of Soeharto and some renegade generals have been subverting the authority of the government.

While the people expect justice, the trial may end up as a show of compromise and face-saving among the political elite.