TNI chief cautions against human rights trial for Aceh
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesian Military (TNI) Chief Gen. Endriartono Sutarto cautioned against demands for a trial on past human rights abuses in Aceh, saying Sunday it should not be pressed upon if it threatened the nascent peace process in the troubled province.
He said the TNI would agree to a human rights tribunal as long as it did not hamper the implementation of the recently signed peace accord with the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
"But if it complicates things, why should we insist on choosing legal action. Can't we just do it at a more appropriate time?" he told reporters in Surabaya on Sunday.
Rights activities have called for a trial against all security personnel, arguing that ensuring justice was crucial to make the peace agreement work.
The government signed the cessation of hostilities agreement last week in what is the biggest breakthrough so far to end the war in the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam province. It has been negotiating with GAM for about two and a half years.
More than 10,000 Acehnese people, mostly civilians, have been killed since GAM began fighting for an independent state in 1976.
Most of the human rights abuses occurred when the province was occupied by the military during an operation between 1989 and 1999.
Aceh politician Gazhali Abbas warned of a pseudo-peace without trials, and human rights activist Syaifuddin said the Acehnese people would likely seek the rights tribunal through the planned all-inclusive dialog.
The dialog is part of the peace agreement that allows Acehnese people, including independence supporters, to map out their future.
However, Coordinating Minister for Security and Political Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said the government's first choice was that of reconciliation rather than the court process.
"There will be a mechanism to settle human rights abuses ... in the case of gross violations of human rights there will be a fair trial before reconciliation is achieved," he said last week.
Susilo said that waiving a rights tribunal would not be fair as GAM members who had violated human rights were not subject to criminal charges either.
He said the government would cooperate with the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and other non-government organizations to determine the form of the settlement.
Reconciliation could be achieved under Acehnese traditional custom or the sharia law of Islam. Under the latter, soldiers may face capital punishment for murder unless the victims' families accept their pleas for forgiveness. These families would also be entitled to compensation.
A rights tribunal, on the other hand, could trace the military's chain of command to bring to justice everyone involved in the crimes, including senior military officers.
Several low-ranking soldiers were sentenced to jail for the killing of dozens of students at an Islamic Boarding School in Beutang Ateuh in 1999.
Indonesia's first human rights cases for the violence in East Timor in 1999, have ended with the acquittal of nearly all the military and police officers charged with crimes.