“We hope NU will make our request a part of its congregation’s agenda,” Yati Andriani, the head of Impunity Monitoring and Victim’s Rights Compliance of Kontras said in Jakarta.

She said she hoped NU would urge the government to take legal, political and social action to resolve human rights violations of the past.

NU executives, Slamet Effendy Yusuf, said that he would report the input from Wednesday meeting to NU’s internal meeting.

“We will discuss the matter during the meeting so it can be dealt with soon,” he said.

“We will also push NU’s members in the legislative and executive bodies to help solve the cases,” he added.

Among the people attending the meeting were relatives of the victims of the 1965/1966 anti-communist purge, the 1984 Tanjung Priok riots, the 1989 Talangsari incident, the 1997-1998 kidnapping of pro-democracy activists, the 1998 Trisakti tragedy and May riots, the 1999 Semanggi incident and the wife of murdered rights activist Munir.

Yati said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had met the victims’ families and promised to further investigate the cases in 2008, however the President had not followed up on that pledge and the victims’ families felt ignored.

At the end of 2009, the House of Representatives issued four recommendations toward solving the human rights cases.

The recommendations were to ask the President to establish an ad-hoc human rights court for missing person cases; to create a team to search for the 13 missing activists; to provide compensation and rehabilitation for victims; and to ratify the convention on enforced disappearances.   

“Until now, none of the recommendations have been acted on by the President,” Yati said.

“This is very different from when Gus Dur was president,” she added.

“Gus Dur immediately issued a presidential pecree to establish a temporary human rights court for the Tanjung Priok and East Timor cases,” she added.

One of the victims’ relatives attended the meeting was Payan Siahaan, the father of Ucok Munandar Siahaan, one of the 13 people abducted during the 1998 political uprising. He lamented that he had no assurance of the whereabouts of his son.

“The House has issued its recommendations and it is confusing as to why the President has not carried them out,” Payan said.  

“This is a state of law, but I have been waiting for 12 years without any assurance about my son.
“I hope NU can push the government to carry out the recommendations,” he said. (map)

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