A small crowd in dark outfits taking shelter under black umbrellas from the scorching sun grabbed my attention when I passed by the north corner of the National Monument (Monas) Park across the street from the Presidential Palace last week.
The gathering turned out to be a regular silent protest that has taken place there every Thursday since early 2007.
The protesters are mostly human rights activists and relatives of victims of political murders, imprisonment and forced disappearance that took place under the New Order and during the political turmoil following the regime's demise.
Instead of shouting their demands through a megaphone, the protesters write their grievances on the large black umbrellas that were later displayed from across the presidential office fences and grabbed the attention of every passer-by.
To get more attention, they rang kentongan, traditional bamboo chimes.
An elderly protester with wrinkled cheeks held an umbrella bearing a slogan "We're fighting against amnesia". Of course the man did not mean to tell the world that he suffered from Alzheimer's or senility.
He and the rest of the protesters were accusing the Yudhoyono administration of being oblivious and forgetful of the mounting cases of past human rights abuses that have left untold scars on the victims and their relatives.
It seems that their demand for fair trials for perpetrators and the need to rehabilitate the reputation of the victims have fallen on deaf ears.
But this elderly protestor has a good point and he unwittingly reminded me of other things.
Amnesia is currently plaguing the country's politicians, former top officials and businesspeople and it is the number one disease afflicting those entangled in legal woes.
In 2000, a Jakarta court acquitted Soeharto of corruption charges after a team of doctors diagnosed him as suffering memory loss .
But the public began to question the credibility of the diagnosis after a string of public appearances by Soeharto looking healthy and as if to thumb his nose at the law, he even attended the wedding of one of his grandchildren.
Following in Soeharto's footsteps is political entrepreneur Nunun Nurbaeti.
She claimed to develop a case of "serious amnesia" and this subterfuge was convincing enough that she managed time and again to ignore summons to testify at the Corruption Court as a key witness in the Rp 24 billion traveler's check scandal involving former Bank Indonesia senior deputy governor Miranda Goeltom and 39 legislators.
Her doctor swore that his client's absent mindedness was so serious that she would be unfit to testify as most of her recollections of the past were lost.
The amnesia was so severe that she decided to fly to Singapore for medical treatment in late February. She was not seen or heard from again and the trial went nowhere.
Even in her absence, the whole trial has turned into a comedy full of absent-minded players whose lines seem to consist purely of "I forget" and "I don't know".
Miranda claimed she couldn't remember who hosted a meeting at Hotel Dharmawangsa between her and Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) politicians - her main supporters in the election for deputy BI governor.
"I've been trying to remember it since I was questioned by the KPK *Corruption Eradication Commission* but I failed. I forget," she told the court.
PDI-P legislator Panda Nababan, who allegedly received Rp 1.4 billion, could only answer "I forget" and "I don't know" in his testimony. The amnesia also spread to Nunun's former secretary, Sumarni.
The anti-graft trial, which should have been a somber session, has become a stage for comedy complete with a laugh track from those in attendance.
This is no laughing matter however. If these forgetful politicians prefer to play the role of amnesiac court jesters, we need to do something soon about our anti-graft laws.
And more than anything else, we also need people like those regularly staging vigils at Monas to wake the government up from their slumber and make-believe amnesia.
- Pandaya
