Tribunal urged for military rapists

JAKARTA: Rights activists called on the government on Thursday to set up an ad hoc tribunal to try security officers suspected of raping women while carrying out their duties in conflict-torn areas, arguing that the alleged crimes could spark widespread public terror.

Coordinator of the National Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) Usman Hamid said security officers who abused women should be brought before an ad hoc rights tribunal because the violence was sometimes used as an interrogation method.

He also said that superiors of soldiers were also responsible for violations because, "they failed to control their troops."

"In many cases of violence against women, security officers use sexual threats as a way of forcing the victims to give information.

"They (sexual threats) are also used to cause terror among locals in an effort to drive them to support the security operation," Usman said, referring to widespread instances of rape in the country's troubled province of Aceh during the previous military operation, which lasted for 10 years from 1988 to 1998.

Recently, a court-martial in Aceh convicted three soldiers of raping four women, with the heaviest sentence being just three years and six months, compared with a possible 12-year maximum.

All three were also discharged from military service. --JP