Unfinished messy affair
As much as the government insists that the riot which rocked Jakarta in July last year is a closed case, we find this decision hard to accept. The July 27 incident, as the case has come to be known, has left many unanswered questions for the nation, especially the government.
There is the question of 23 people who went missing in the riot, as listed by the National Commission on Human Rights. There is the question of what provoked the riot in the first place, which, again according to the commission, pointed to a government role, albeit an indirect one. There is also the plethora of lawsuits being heard in various courts in Jakarta and across the country, which are connected in one way or another with that incident.
The July 27 affair is indeed a big blot on the recent history of the nation's political development. It is something that everyone, and not just the government, wants to put behind them quickly so that we can all get on with our lives.
The riot was the ugly culmination of a conflict within the minority Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). It was sparked by the violent attack on the PDI headquarters, then occupied by supporters of Megawati Soekarnoputri, by people claiming to be supporters of Soerjadi.
This was not an internal affair of the party, as some people would have us believed. And even if it was, this conflict had reverberations that went well beyond the party's tiny circle and took on national proportions. Judging by the strong foreign reaction to the riot and the events leading up to it, the July 27 affair also has some international implications.
It is true that the government has given its explanation about the riot. And it is also true that some of the rioters have been tried and convicted and served their time in jail. And the nation conducted the general election in May as scheduled, with the full participation of the PDI under the government-backed chairman Soerjadi. These however, are not sufficient grounds to close the book on the messy July 27 affair.
Many of the questions posed by the National Commission on Human Rights have not been answered, or if they have, they were not given in a satisfactory manner. The supporters of Megawati Soekarnoputri, the deposed PDI chairperson, still carry a sense of injustice because those who attacked them on that July morning are still roaming free. The election debacle, which the Soerjadi- led PDI suffered in May, should also say something about the party's popularity, or unpopularity, not to mention its legitimacy, after the riot.
Unless the nation comes to terms with the many unanswered questions regarding the July 27 affair, then they will continue to haunt us for a long time to come. We have plenty of examples to know we want to avoid a repetition.
There is the bloody incident in a Dili cemetery in November 1991, in which dozens of East Timorese people went missing and have not been found to this day. The question continues to surface at various international human rights meetings and will likely continue until an acceptable official explanation is given of their whereabouts. Even relatives of dozens of missing people from a bloody riot in Tanjung Priok district in North Jakarta in 1984 still question the fate of their loved ones 13 years later.
Everyone would like to see the July 27 affair closed as soon as possible. For some, especially those who lost relatives, they want to put an end to the suffering and anxiety as quickly as possible, before it turns into frustration. In other words, it is in the interest of everyone, not just the government, to resolve the case as soon as possible.
The government still holds the key, though. It boils down to a question of political will to resolve the problem thoroughly. Unfortunately, the government seems to have developed a habit of closing the book on such national tragedies prematurely. Declaring the July 27 affair case closed will not get rid of the problem.