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resident-elect Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo will inherit a number of unresolved human rights cases, with outgoing President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono failing to bring closure to the cases after 10 years in power.

During his presidential campaigns of 2004 and 2009, Yudhoyono pledged that he would resolve past human rights abuses, including the murder of prominent human rights defender Munir Said Thalib. Yet, all cases remain unresolved due to a conflict of authority between the Attorney General'€™s Office (AGO) and the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM).

'€œJustice for all is the moral commitment as well as the agenda of the government I will lead from 2009 until 2014,'€ Yudhoyono said during his speech at the House of Representatives last week.

But the facts show that Yudhoyono has failed to obtain justice for the victims of seven historic unresolved gross human rights violations.

In his speech, Yudhoyono avoided mentioning the issue.

The gross human rights violations include the massacres of 1965-1966; the 1989 Talangsari massacre; a number of mysterious shootings in the 1980s; the Trisakti University shootings; the Semanggi I and Semanggi II shootings and the disappearance of pro-democracy activists in 1998.

Following Yudhoyono'€™s dismal record, human rights campaigners have called on president-elect Jokowi to immediately take action to resolve cases of past abuses after he is officially inaugurated on Oct. 20.

Poengky Indarti, director of human rights watchdog Imparsial, suggested that Jokowi could sign a presidential decree to set up an ad hoc human rights tribunal to hear cases of gross human rights violations during the 1998 anti-Chinese riots.

'€œThe only thing we need to finally set up an ad hoc human rights tribunal is a presidential decree. After years of negligence by the current President, Pak Jokowi must issue such a decree as soon as he takes office,'€ Poengky told The Jakarta Post Article 43 of the 2000 Human Rights Law stipulates that an ad hoc human rights tribunal can be set up with a recommendation from the House and a presidential decree.

The House included the establishment of an ad hoc human rights tribunal in the recommendations it issued to Yudhoyono in 2009 but the outgoing President has yet to make any significant move to do so.

A report published by Komnas HAM in 2003 alleged that Prabowo Subianto, then commander of the Army'€™s Special Forces (Kopassus), and Wiranto, then commander of the Indonesian Military (TNI), were responsible for gross human rights violations that occurred during the extensive rioting in Jakarta in 1998, which preceded the end of former president Soeharto'€™s long reign.

Prabowo, chief patron of the Gerindra Party, lost the election to Jokowi, while Wiranto, chairman of the Hanura Party, was a member of Jokowi'€™s campaign team.

Activist Haris Azhar, who chairs the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS), urged Jokowi to come up with concrete policies on how to resolve past rights abuses.

'€œJokowi'€™s administration must create a concrete policy on solving all historic cases of human rights abuses. Revealing the truth and punishing the perpetrators is the only way to bring about justice,'€
Haris said.

Jokowi himself has repeatedly said that his team was preparing a reconciliation plan as part of an effort to resolve past rights abuses, but declined to give details due to '€œthe sensitivity of the matter'€.

'€œThere will be a time to talk about it in detail. It is too sensitive a matter to discuss in the current heated political climate,'€ Jokowi said recently.