Waiting for justice for Munir's murderers

Waiting for justice for Munir's murderers

Patrick Guntensperger, Jakarta

It is perhaps appropriate that the verdict in the Munir murder
case comes just as the year 2005 draws to a close. The fact that
Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto' sentence of 14 years
for the cold blooded and cowardly murder by poison of a highly
respected human rights activist comes at this time gives us pause
to reflect on how our expectations have changed over the last
year.

Nobody who has followed the case, even cursorily, seriously
believes that Pollycarpus acted alone. That the airline security
officer, with ties to the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), was
inspired to such an act by his having taken offense at the
victim's criticisms of the state doesn't even pass the laugh
test. Indeed, even Pollycarpus claims that he is a "scapegoat".

The judges, in their decision, stopped short of pointing to
BIN as being directly involved in the murder but were clear that
they were not satisfied that the matter has now been laid to
rest. Police spokesman Brig. Gen. Paulus Purwoko has expressed
the intention of the police not only to continue the
investigation, but to widen its scope, to "see if others were
also involved in Munir's death".

Meanwhile, despite former BIN chief Hendropriyono's repeated
defiance of a summons by the team investigating the murder,
current BIN chief Syamsir Siregar blames the police for their
failure to find the masterminds behind the murder. After
Hendropriyono's numerous refusals to cooperate with the
investigation, citing reasons from a lack of politeness in the
wording of the summonses to more pressing business elsewhere,
Siregar has gone on record as saying, "We supported and
facilitated them in this case, but the results have been fairly
disappointing". Perhaps Siregar is demonstrating a hitherto well
hidden ironic sense of humor.

A year ago there was a sense that such a high profile case,
combined with the new President's commitment to eradicating
corruption and other abuses of power, would tear the lid off an
entrenched rot in the corridors of power. In this space, I wrote
a piece that suggested that Munir's death might even be seen as a
final sacrifice that would have a far-reaching impact on reform
in this country. That was a time of optimism, a honeymoon period
in which President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was seen as the great
hope for rapid and long overdue changes to the status quo.

Then came a year that Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain
might have described as our annum horribilus. The tsunami hit on
Dec. 26. World oil prices skyrocketed. Bird flu became an issue.
The Schappelle Corby soap opera caught the attention of the
world. The Nias Island earthquake gave us a sense of deja vu. The
terrorist threat continued to grow and peaked (thus far) this
year in the second cluster of Bali suicide bombings. Inflation
climbed to over 18 %. One crisis after another occupied the
president's time.

But along with the crises came the gradual erosion of
optimism. The hopes held for a radical change for the better in
Indonesia did not go out with a bang, or even a whimper, but
rather, withered by attrition. The sweeping clean-up of systemic
corruption failed to materialize.

Certainly a number of high-profile bandits have been
prosecuted and convicted, but to be realistic, they were pretty
low-hanging fruit. There is a pervasive sense that the
convictions were little more than a few bones thrown on a pro
forma basis. The surface of the problem has barely been
scratched, public sentiment goes, while the business of the
systematic pilferage of the people's assets proceeds as usual.

Susilo, at first seen as a methodical consensus builder, has
come to be seen as indecisive. His deliberative approach to
addressing critical issues is perceived as wishy-washy; note his
fundamentally correct, but insufficiently far reaching "mini
cabinet reshuffle".

It might be reasonable to argue that expectations merely
became more realistic. Perhaps one year into the first directly
elected Indonesian president's term, we are as far along the road
as we could reasonably have hoped. Indeed, Susilo has suggested
that the first year has been one of consolidation, of setting the
stage for the sweeping measures that true reform demands. As the
new year approaches, Susilo still commands sufficient goodwill
and carries enough credibility that when he tells us that next
year, real progress will be made, people don't dismiss it as
empty rhetoric.

That goodwill is not inexhaustible, however. If Susilo's
credibility is to survive, if real change is to come, if Susilo
is not to become a mere footnote to Indonesian history, it is
time to live up the hope he inspired when he was given his
overwhelming mandate. The time has come for Susilo to live up to
our expectations and to fulfill our hopes. While we follow the
sputtering Munir case, we will see if it fizzles and dies. If it
does, so will the hopes of Indonesians for transparent,
accountable and truly democratic governance.

The writer is a consultant with Van Zorge, Heffernan and
Associates, a Jakarta-based political risk consultancy. The
opinions expressed are his own. He may be reached at
patrickg@vzh.co.id