This festering wound

The objection aired by the Indonesian police and military faction in the House of Representatives to having the truth behind the many human rights abuses of the past revealed is certainly more than a bit disconcerting. It is especially painful to have to learn of that objection on this particular day -- May 12 -- which is the day when, exactly five years ago, cold-blooded snipers shot to death four Trisakti University students inside their campus in West Jakarta, thereby triggering some of the most vicious, bloodiest riots this nation has seen in its relatively brief history.

Five years have passed. But it cannot be far off the truth to say that the image of what happened in front of the university on that day, May 12 1998, will remain forever seared in the memory of those who have seen the television footage of that brutal shooting. As thousands of students milled about in front of the campus, yelling anti-government slogans and taunting the troops, soldiers in full battle dress were standing high above on a nearby overpass, rifles at the ready. The Asian economic crisis was at its peak and Indonesia's economy was in a shambles. Students all over the country were clamoring for political and economic reform but despite all the clamor, the May 12 demonstration was peaceful.

Then, as the students were starting to withdraw and began to move back into their campus, a single shot rang out, followed by more. One student fell just as he had reached the campus grounds. More shots followed and more students fell. In all, four Trisakti students died on that day. But that was only the beginning of a national tragedy that was to take thousands of lives in the next couple of days and caused unmentionable grief to thousands of individuals and their families.

The reason for the students' protest has always been clear: It was the oppressive character of President Soeharto's dictatorial New Order administration that finally led to the nation's economic and financial bankruptcy through mismanagement and unbridled corruption. But who fired the shots that felled the four students, and at whose orders were they fired? Why were the students killed while they were already back inside their campus? Was it all part of a plotters' plan to lure the students out into the street and provoke violence so that they could be blamed and their protest movement crushed once and for all -- as some observers have suggested?

Those are among the questions that have never been satisfactorily answered. True, a number of junior officers have been given light prison sentences, but the much more important question of who or what was behind the May 14 and successive incidents still remains unanswered, five years after the event. It is little wonder the wounds the incident has left have continued to fester for all those years. That is why reformers and legislators have been calling for a truth and reconciliation commission after the South African model.

Unfortunately -- although perhaps not very surprisingly -- the military/police faction in the House of Representatives has voiced its opposition to the use of the word "truth" in the draft bill to set up such a commission, warning that any attempts to reveal the actual truth would only lead the nation down the path to new conflicts. "Finding out the truth will require a trial in court, with all the impact (of this)," the faction's spokesman, Maj. Gen. Djasri Marin, warned.

More pathetically, only 20 out of the House's 50 committee members for the bill's deliberation in the House turned up during the debate. It seems that with the passage of time, interest in finding out the truth behind many of the human rights violations of the past seems to be waning. It seems that not all of the people's representatives in the national legislature share the opinion of the Reform Faction's Mashadi, that any future truth and reconciliation commission must clearly reveal the truth as well as the people held ultimately responsible for those rights violations.

Whatever the case, the road to getting at the truth for the sake of reconciliation must be kept open. To achieve that will be one of the important tasks for the incoming government and legislature to accomplish. Unless that can be accomplished and existing discontents resolved, the danger of festering old wounds bursting open in the future is far from imaginary.