T

he hope of bringing closure to human rights abuses has been dashed now that the transition team of president-elect Joko '€œJokowi'€ Widodo and vice president-elect Jusuf Kalla has turned down the proposal to reopen investigations into unresolved rights violations.

Now, only a few weeks before Jokowi'€™s inauguration, rights activists continue to express their disappointment over the way the pair'€™s camp has dealt with human rights issues, in spite of their rhetoric about resolving past rights abuses during the presidential election campaign.

'€œIt is really a shame that human rights was just used as an issue to take votes away from the Prabowo Subianto-Hatta Rajasa ticket,'€ human rights activist Haris Azhar, the coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), said.

Andi Widjajanto, one of the deputy heads of Jokowi-Kalla'€™s transition team tasked with setting priorities for the future government, acknowledged that human rights issues, particularly past abuse cases, were not on the priority list.

Andi said that the lack of existing legal and organizational instruments to handle the cases was a stumbling block to the effort.

'€œThe KKR [the Commission on Truth and Reconciliation] was supposed to be established. But the law on it was scrapped by the Constitutional Court,'€ Andi said.

The KKR was expected to enable victims of old human rights violations to have their cases resolved and receive compensation.

'€œIf we insist on having the KKR scheme then we need to draft a new regulation. However, such a bill is not included in the 2015 National Legislation Programs. So, legislating a new law on KKR can only be done by late 2016. And the process might not be as smooth as many would expect, not to mention the organizational and other preparations needed if the bill is passed,'€ he added.

Andi also argued that some unresolved abuse cases had been actually '€œjudicially resolved'€.

'€œIn the murder [human rights activist] Munir Said Thalib, for example, the judicial process ruled in a final and binding decision to declare Pollycarpus [Budihari Priyanto] guilty. So the case can be considered closed. The suggestion that Muchdi [Purwoprandjono] and [AM] Hendropriyono should have also been sentenced is entirely a different issue,'€ he said.

Pollycarpus is a former pilot of national flag carrier Garuda Indonesia who has been serving a 14-year prison sentence handed down to him by the Supreme Court for putting arsenic in Munir'€™s tea at Singapore'€™s Changi Airport where Munir was transiting en route to Amsterdam in September 2004.

Maj. Gen. (ret.) Muchdi is a former National Intelligence Agency (BIN) deputy chief who was once charged with masterminding Munir'€™s murder but then acquitted by the court.

Gen. (ret.) Hendropriyono is a former BIN chief who has also been accused of having played a role in the murder as well as in the Talangsari massacre in Lampung in 1989. He is now an adviser to the transition team.

Andi also said that resolving past human rights abuse cases would not be easy because investigations must be able to identify the suspects. '€œTo declare something a human rights violation, we need to identify, not only the victims, but also the perpetrators. We do have many claiming to be victims or the family of victims but we have never had anyone admit that they have killed hundreds of people,'€ he said.

Andi also said, contradicting Jokowi'€™s plan to set up ad-hoc human rights court to hear past rights violations, that establishing such a court would be impossible in the near future.

'€œSetting up such a court need funds and the 2015 draft state budget does not allocate any for that purpose. A bill needs to be passed first and then funds can be allocated in the revised budget next year,'€ he said.

The transition team has also been accused of giving false hope to the pair'€™s volunteers on many issues, including human rights.

Last month, a group of 88 volunteers came to the team'€™s headquarters in Central Jakarta demanding that it keep its promises and involve them in the team'€™s activities.

The team'€™s leadership then agreed to placate their demands by placing the volunteers on the team'€™s existing task forces and letting them form new task forces, including one on human rights, according to the team'€™s other deputy head, Akbar Faizal.

Former National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) chairman Ifdhal Kasim, one of the volunteers who was said to be a member of the human rights task force, said such a team never existed.

'€œWe got the sense that the team did not consider human rights a priority. Andi said he himself would handle the formulation of recommendations on human rights issues to be presented to Jokowi,'€
Ifdhal said.