SBY holds key to case resolution: Activists

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Mon, 05/22/2006 12:49 PM  |  Jakarta

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

""The president now holds the key to provide the political will to resolve the case since all legal efforts have been stopped due to formal procedures,"" Mugiyanto, chairman of the non-governmental organization for missing persons, IKOHI, said recently.

He said political agendas had prevented the legal processes from proceeding further.

""The state seems to be ignoring the substance of the case: to bring justice,"" he said. ""Only the top executive can push the agenda for this case to be resolved.""

A report on the five-year investigation into the May riots, submitted by the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) in 2004, was deemed incomplete by the Attorney General's Office.

Attorney General's Office spokesman Wayan Pasek Swarta said last week Komnas HAM ""Has failed to provide additional data in their report.""

Pasek Swarta said his office had told the commission's investigators to provide more data but they had failed to do so.

The investigation has since stalled.

Investigations by separate government and non-governmental institutions have come up with different casualty numbers, but so far more than 1,000 people are believed to have died in the three-day riot that preceded the resignation of the President Soeharto.

About a dozen activists mysteriously disappeared before the political upheaval of 1998.

""The Attorney General's Office demands more solid proof to support allegations made about the perpetrators,"" said Mygiyanto, an activist who had also been ""taken into custody"" in 1998 said.

""They want testimonies saying that those named as alleged perpetrators had literally ordered the acts that triggered the riots,"" Mugiyanto said.

The report implicates top members of the security forces in human rights violations that took place during the riots.

Komnas HAM had several times summoned military officials to testify but all had reportedly declined to respond.

Mugiyanto said there was an obvious lack of political will from both the Attorney General's Office and Komnas HAM to use their authority in resolving the case.

""The Attorney General's Office was supposed to conduct further investigations if it felt that the submitted evidence was not enough,"" he said. ""and Komnas HAM has the right to force the alleged perpetrators (to testify) if they decline.""

""The calling of the generals is a preliminary test of the Inquiry Team's seriousness in carrying its mandate to reveal the cases of enforced or involuntary disappearances in 1997 and 1998,"" IKOHI and Kontras said in a joint statement last month.

Meanwhile, Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa head Esther Junus said most human rights activists felt that domestic efforts to bring justice to the case had met a dead end.

""It is more likely that outside pressure will help us seek justice,"" she said.

IKOHI and several other organizations plan to bring up their concerns over the case during the International Week for the Disappeared, which starts May 30.

The House of Representatives' Commission III on legal and human rights affairs has scheduled a hearing on the case with the Attorney General's Office for later this month.

It took some 30 years to reveal the truth about the 1965 massacre and for its victims to seek justice. Many fear it was take as long for this case.

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