T

he National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has filed a request to the Central Jakarta District Court to force Maj. Gen. (ret) Kivlan Zen to attend a hearing at the rights body so he can give information on his claim that he knows the whereabouts of the 13 pro-democracy activists who went missing over a period of months in 1997 and 1998.

Komnas HAM exhausted all legal avenues after Kivlan, a politician of the United Development Party (PPP) and a member of the national campaign team for the Gerindra Party'€™s presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto, twice declined to meet Komnas HAM'€™s summons.

'€œWe met the deputy chief of the Central Jakarta District Court today to ask him to issue the warrant for Kivlan because it is the last option we have in terms of obtaining his testimony. In the meeting, we also discussed formal requirements and the technical process [to forcibly summon Kivlan],'€ commissioner Otto Syamsuddin Ishak said Tuesday.

Otto, the head of a team tasked with handling Kivlan'€™s case, added that '€œKomnas HAM'€™s demand to forcibly summon Kivlan was legal under Law No. 39/1999 on human rights and that the court had no reason but to support it.'€ He said Komnas HAM had also written to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to request a meeting to discuss the issue.

Yudhoyono has already rejected a request to meet with the rights body, citing his busy schedule.

Komnas HAM was also expecting to hold a meeting with the House of Representatives'€™ Commission III overseeing law and human rights. The House has not seen its 2009 recommendations on the disappearances of the pro-democracy activists implemented by the government.

After years of deadlock, discussions over the fate of the missing activists came to the fore again last month after Kivlan told a talk show on news channel TVOne: '€œAll of those people are dead. I know their whereabouts and I know who executed them and where their graves are.'€

Following the statement, Kivlan said he was willing to provide details to Komnas HAM but later refused to do so and instead appointed an advocate to deal with the matter on his behalf.

Last Monday, Kivlan and his lawyer Mahendradata even filed a complaint against Komnas HAM to the Indonesian Ombudsman over '€œthe abuse of its authority in planning to force him to testify'€.

Kivlan'€™s legal team also questioned Komnas HAM'€™s intentions in expediting an investigation into his statement, suspecting it could be politically motivated to smear Prabowo, who, according to a Komnas HAM investigation, was alleged to have been involved in the disappearances of the pro-democracy activists.

Komnas HAM'€™s move to forcibly summon Kivlan also stirred debate among Commission III lawmakers, with some of them, particularly politicians from parties in Gerindra'€™s coalition, attacking the rights body for making the move.