Soeharto trial may end up as a show of compromise

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.