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AGO says reconciliation the only way
Seeking justice: Scores of students from Atmajaya University stage a demonstration in front of the State Palace in Jakarta on Friday
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Seeking justice:: Scores of students from Atmajaya University stage a demonstration in front of the State Palace in Jakarta on Friday. They demanded that the government prosecute the violators of human rights in the Semanggi II tragedy. (JP/DON) (JP/DON)
Seeking justice: Scores of students from Atmajaya University stage a demonstration in front of the State Palace in Jakarta on Friday. They demanded that the government prosecute the violators of human rights in the Semanggi II tragedy. (JP/DON)
As the 50th anniversary of the 1965 communist purge nears, Attorney General M. Prasetyo defended the government's decision to resolve the gross violation of human rights through reconciliation instead of judicial means.
Prasetyo said that the non-judicial method would be a less arduous path given that decades had passed for many rights abuse cases, including the communist purge.
'The President has already said that there has been some propositions, suggestions and hopes that we have prepared to settle [the past rights abuses] through non-judicial and reconciliation methods. We have already considered this fully as the cases are so old, some 50 years old,' Prasetyo said on Friday at the Attorney General's Office (AGO) in South Jakarta.
Prasetyo insisted that going through judicial means would bring 'many difficulties and obstacles, from finding evidence, witnesses and even the suspects'.
'Even if they're still alive. [The incidents] were so chaotic and who did what would be hard to determine,' he said.
Furthermore, Prasetyo argued that settling past rights abuses through reconciliation was justified according to Law No. 26/2000 on the human rights court.
Article 43 of the law stipulates that any gross human rights abuses that occurred before the enactment of the law should be tried at an ad-hoc human rights court. However, it also stipulates in Article 47 that the law does not prohibit the possibility of settling the cases through a truth and reconciliation team.
Prasetyo also guaranteed that the relevant institutions, namely the AGO, Law and Human Rights Ministry, National Police, National Intelligence Agency (BIN), Indonesian Military (TNI) and National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), would soon meet to follow up on their last discussion in July to discuss the future of a government-sanctioned team that would manage the reconciliation program.
The government has committed to resolving seven past human rights violations; the 1989 Talangsari incident in Central Lampung, the 2001 and 2003 Wamena and Wasior incidents in Papua, various kidnappings and unresolved shootings in the 1980s, the 1965 communist massacre and the 1998 May riots.
Komnas HAM has launched its own investigations into the cases but its recommendations have never been followed up by the AGO.
Separately, the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) lambasted the government's commitment to move forward with the reconciliation plan.
'Reconciliation means that [there is a perception] that the position of the victims and the perpetrators is equal. To this day in Indonesia, the state does not even acknowledge the presence of a community of victims. President Jokowi [Joko Widodo] does not even visit the Kamisan protests, which occur only a few steps from the Presidential Palace,' Kontras research division head Puri Kencana Putri said, referring to a weekly rally staged by families of victims in a number of rights abuses cases.
She said Prasetyo should be aware of the fact that the Law No. 26/2000 does not include the establishment of a working unit that could kick off a reconciliation program.
'There had been steps to establish a law on reconciliation in 2004 but it was quickly nixed by the Constitutional Court because it said that the law did not uphold the victim's need for justice and gave too much of an incentive to the perpetrators,' Puri said.
She also criticized the AGO's refusal to follow up on Komnas HAM's investigations and said that many of Prasetyo's predecessors had also said that Komnas HAM had not prepared enough evidence.
'When asked for clarification on what part was not enough, former attorney generals could not clearly explain and refused to help [Komnas HAM] work on the evidence,' Puri said.
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