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May tragedy, remembered
Black tragedy:: Trisakti University students hold a peaceful rally at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta on Saturday to remember the May tragedy
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span class="inline inline-center">Black tragedy:: Trisakti University students hold a peaceful rally at the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle in Central Jakarta on Saturday to remember the May tragedy. The students demanded the government thoroughly investigate the incidents and observe the day as National Reform Day.Antara/Reno Esnir
The fact that a number of Indonesian Military (TNI) generals responsible for security in the country during that fateful day will likely run for the country’s top job has only added insult to their injuries.
Hiratety, the mother of slain Trisakti student Elang Mulya Lesmana said she no longer had words to express her distaste of plans by Gen. (ret) Wiranto and Lt. Gen. (ret) Prabowo Subianto to join the 2014 presidential election.
“Even if I disagree, what can I do about it? They’re the ones who own the world. I hope someday people will learn the truth,” she told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.
She could only hope that a majority of Indonesians did not suffer from amnesia and could judge for themselves the qualities of the two former generals.
Wiranto and Prabowo were both implicated in the Trisakti incident.
Wiranto, the TNI commander in 1998, is now the chairman of the People’s Conscience Party
(Hanura), while Prabowo, then commander of the Army Special Force (Kopassus) is the chief patron of the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra).
Wiranto and Prabowo ran in the 2009 elections as vice presidential candidates to Jusuf Kalla and Megawati Soekarnoputri, respectively, but both lost to the incumbent President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his running mate Boediono.
The 2014 presidential race will likely see Wiranto and Prabowo joining the race again, as both have expressed interest in joining the contest one more time. In public opinion surveys, Prabowo has received high approval rating from voters, which has only cemented his reputation as one of the strongest contenders in the race.
Recently, he backed the candidacy of Surakarta Mayor Joko Widodo in the 2012 Jakarta gubernatorial elections, which some analysts have said could predict the outcome of the 2012 presidential race.
Hiratety said it was obvious that after 14 years she could not rely on the current administration to resolve the Trisakti incident as it would implicate too many other big names in national politics.
Fourteen years after the Trisakti incident, some families of the victims are still fearful.
Lasmiyati, the mother of Heru Hertanto, another victim of the incident, declined to comment on Wiranto’s and Prabowo’s political futures for fear that she could be accused of defaming them.
“I’ll let people make their own judgments,” she added.
Lasmiyati also called on the
Yudhoyono government to make an admission that a human rights abuse had taken place in the Trisakti incident.
“Only after admitting the mistake can the government ask for forgiveness,” she said.
She referred to Yudhoyono’s plan to make an apology to families and victims of past human rights abuses, including the Trisakti shooting incident.
On May 12, 1998, Heru and Elang, along with Hendriawan Sie and Hafidin Royan were shot dead during a protest at the Trisakti campus in Grogol, West Jakarta. The students were demanding the resignation of then president Soeharto.
Soeharto resigned nine days later but only after massive rioting and looting engulfed the capital and other cities in Java.
Separately, M. Daud from the Commission for Missing Person and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said that there was little hope left for the families of Trisakti victims to see the case settled.
Daud said that the investigation of the case hit the wall after the prosecution of the case was handed over to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO).
“The AGO has been ignoring results of an investigation by the National Commission on Human Rights [Komnas HAM],” Daud said in a statement made available to the Post.
Komnas HAM chairman Ifdhal Kasim, said that it had submitted its investigation results to the AGO in 2004, but no big names had been named suspects for their alleged complicity in the incident.
“The AGO does not want to launch a formal investigation because the President must first establish an ad hoc human rights court by issuing a Presidential decree,” Ifdhal said.
He added that the issuance of such a decree had to follow a recommendation by the House of Representatives. The House, however, has ruled that the incident was not a gross violation of human rights, and therefore, an ad hoc human rights court was not necessary.
Lasmiyati and Hiratety said that now, they could only rely on themselves to carry on with their lives.
When contacted on the phone, both said they had just returned from a visit to a housing complex in Nagrak, Sukabumi, West Java. The Trisakti management is building houses for the families of each of the four students.
“The house’s construction will be finished in three months. It’s a two-bedroom house. It’s more than enough for me,” Lasmiyati said. (tas)
