Trisakti rekindles zeal to settle cases
Trisakti rekindles zeal to settle cases
Tertiani ZB Simanjuntak, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Fearing that the government would freeze the human rights
violation case on the shooting of students and other citizens in
1998 and 1999, the students of Trisakti University opened on
Friday a 10-day event to mobilize people's support on the
adjudication of the perpetrators.
Four Trisakti students were shot on May 12, 1998 at the
university campus after a student demonstration was held to
protest Soeharto's New Order regime amid the financial crisis.
The four became heroes of the reform as their deaths triggered
the widespread riots across the country that forced Soeharto to
step down.
At least a dozen students and other citizens were killed
during separate demonstrations near the Semanggi cloverleaf on
Nov. 13, 1998 and on Sept. 24, 1999 during the tenure of
Soeharto's successor, B.J. Habibie.
"We owe it to the dead, who wanted to see a better Indonesia,
to settle their cases," said Dadan Umar Daihani, head of the
Trisakti legal team fighting the May 12 shooting case.
He deplored the government's lack of will in bringing the
cases to court, as was evident in the recommendation made by the
House of Representatives and prosecutors, who suggested that the
cases be handled as normal crimes.
The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) had
investigated into the Trisakti shooting incident, along with the
other two cases, known as the Semanggi I and Semanggi II
incidents.
Although the three cases had been submitted to the human
rights prosecutors at the Attorney General's Office in October
last year, no further progress has been made.
Instead, the prosecutors returned the case files because the
investigators failed to obtain statements from the security
officers who were allegedly involved in, or had knowledge about,
the three incidents.
The security officers refused to be summoned, arguing that
Komnas HAM's inquiry was illegal, since the House said no rights
violations had been committed in the three incidents.
A military court had earlier sentenced a number of low-ranked
policemen over the shootings, who received lenient sentences of
several months in jail and were discharged from the force.
Legislators and prosecutors suggested that the three incidents
be tried separately, but rights activists objected, saying that
they all three involved the same violation, that of the state
committing a crime against the people.
Parents and relatives of the victims plan to take the cases to
the International Court of Justice.
As part of the 10-day event, a discussion is to be held on
Monday with military and police officers, students and legal
experts, with select legislators as speakers.
"During the discussion, we expect to make a breakthrough on
the settlement of the cases," Dadan said.
A reenactment of the Trisakti incident is to close the event
on May 12, the fifth anniversary of the shootings.