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.