Team to push UN on May shootings

Team to push UN on May shootings

JAKARTA: A rights group has urged the United Nations to
pressure the Indonesian government to start the trial of military
and police officers allegedly involved in the May 1998 shooting
of students in Jakarta.

The May 12 1998 case completion team said it had sent
delegates to the UN Commission on Human Rights annual meeting in
Geneva, which is currently in process and will end on April 23.

The team said international pressure was crucial because the
government had no political will to pursue the case as a human
rights violation, in which four Trisakti University students were
shot dead by police officers during a rally in their campus
against then president Soeharto.

The group also plans to work with and solicit support from
European countries to push for a human rights tribunal for the
perpetrators of the incident.

The Attorney General's Office has returned case files of the
incident to the National Commission on Human Rights, saying it
did not find any elements of gross human rights abuses in the
incident. --JP