A human rights lawyer has urged the government to apologize to the families of victims of mass killings in 1965 during the International People's Tribunal in The Hague, the Netherlands, scheduled for Tuesday.

It was reported by tempo.co on Monday that the tribunal will be held from Nov. 10 to 13, to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the massacre that is believed to have killed up to 1 million people accused of being members or supporters of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) from 1965 to 1966.

Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, the general coordinator of the International People's Tribunal said that there would be seven judges, six international prosecutors and 16 witnesses taking part in the tribunal.

"The [government's] apology would be the first step toward recognition of the crimes the government committed in the past,'€ she told Tempo last week.

Nursyahbani said that the 16 witnesses were Indonesians, some of whom had lived overseas since being exiled around the time of the tragedy.

She said the tribunal committee had conducted various research on the tragedy. There was 1,200 pages of research that have been summarized into 250 pages to be presented to the judges.

Nursyahbani said that tribunals of this kind generally resulted in conclusions or recommendations being sent to the relevant government. Therefore, she called for the government to use any recommendations made to help shape better policy around the issue.

Just an apology, however, would not be sufficient she said. The four-day tribunal is expected to also discuss reconciliation efforts, aimed at preventing such a crime from re-occuring.

The tribunal results could also give wider voice to victims '€“ in national and international forums.

"Hopefully one of the recommendations will be that the government follows up on reports from the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), which has also conducted research on the tragedy in various regions in Indonesia," she said.

Human rights activists have long urged the government to make a formal apology to the families of the massacre victims, to bring closure to one of Indonesia's darkest moments.

This year marked the 50th anniversary of the mass killings, which several groups' efforts to commemorate got shut down. Lentera, a student magazine from Salatiga, Central Java, was recalled last month by campus authorities after its third edition published a cover story on the massacre in Salatiga. Local authorities also banned a session discussing the 1965 massacre at the international Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in Bali in late October. (afr/rin)(+)

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