Truth needed to reconcile the past: Golkar Party
Abu Hanifah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The Golkar Party, which many political observers say is a legacy of the authoritarian and corrupt New Order regime, has put forward the idea of establishing a national truth and reconciliation commission.
Golkar legislator Rully Chairul Azwar told an Assembly session on Monday that a commission would provide the means for a coming to terms with the nation's past on a morally acceptable basis and would advance the cause of reconciliation.
"Amid this euphoria of democracy, a truth and reconciliation commission would be a good forum to reconcile all the segments fractured in the past," he said.
In fact Golkar's idea is nothing new. Many human rights and law activists have floated the idea of a South African-style commission.
The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) was formed in 1995 by the Government of National Unity to help deal with the problems that stemmed from the apartheid era.
The conflict during that period resulted in violence and human rights abuses involving all sides.
The South African TRC carries out its mandates through three committees: the Human Rights Violations Committee, which investigates human rights abuses that took place between 1960 and 1994; the Reparation and Rehabilitation Committee, which provides victim support to ensure that the Truth Commission process restores victims' dignity and an Amnesty Committee, which sees to it that applications for amnesty are dealt with in accordance with the provisions of the Reconciliation Act.
Golkar's proposal has won commendation from human rights activist Munir and legislators from the largest faction in the legislature, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI Perjuangan).
Munir, founder of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, said that the commission was what Indonesia needed now, as the judiciary system had been unable to cope with the large number of human rights abuses in the past.
"People need to know what actually happened in the past, as it has never been honestly explained," he said.
The commission that Indonesia needs is probably not exactly the same as the South African one because the two countries are historically and culturally different.
"In South Africa, the violence and abuses were caused by discrimination and their fight against the apartheid policy. Here in Indonesia, the violence concerns abuses of power involving the military.
"Furthermore, many cases of rights abuse were quite specific," Munir explained.
Posdam Hutasoit, a legislator from PDI Perjuangan, said his faction and others had given support to the proposal.
But legislator Faisal Baasir from the United Development Party (PPP) faction was skeptical that Golkar's proposal would work because in his opinion the whole system was fundamentally flawed and Indonesia had no central figure like South Africa's Nelson Mandela.
"No matter how sophisticated the system, if we do not have reliable institutions, nothing can work," Faisal said.