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espite an unwillingness to take judicial action to resolve past human rights abuses, the government has initiated several measures to mitigate rights violations.

The Law and Human Rights Ministry said on Wednesday that it was currently working on a long-awaited anti-torture bill.

The head of the ministry’s law research and development center, Agus Anwar, said that it was concentrating on the academic drafting of the bill before conveying it to the House of the Representatives for deliberation.

“All of the norms within the International Convention will be stipulated in the bill. We also plan to include gross violations of human rights, like genocide, in the bill, because it has a strong connection to the practice of torture,” Agus told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of a discussion in Kuningan, South Jakarta.

“Provisions on torture are already stipulated in a vast number of regulations, including the Indonesian Criminal Code, the Criminal Law Procedures Code, the Penitentiaries Law and the National Police Law,” Agus added.

The convention Agus referred to is the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment that was signed in 1984 and came into force in 1987 following ratification by all of its first 20 state parties.

Indonesia ratified this convention in 1998, a move touted by scholars and human rights activists as a major feat following the overthrow of the authoritarian New Order regime under former president Soeharto.

In the 18 years since the ratification, however, the government has faced criticism for not stipulating the convention’s norms in specific legislation.

The government has also been criticized for failing to resolve past human rights abuses.

Rights activists have expressed skepticism about a recent plan by Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan to hold a public dialogue to reveal the truth about the past abuses.

Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS) research director Puri Kencana
Putri said a recent pledge by the government to expedite the resolution of 16 severe past rights abuse cases showed how it had failed to address the enormity of human rights issues by choosing methods that risked oversimplifying documented violations.

Puri suspected that the state’s handling of the 1965 communist purge — by hosting a symposium for reconciliation on April 23 — was a shortcut for the government to say that all relevant stakeholders had been duly consulted, while the available legal means remained unused.

Puri also lambasted a recent comment by Luhut, who called on civil society to come forth with evidence related to the 1965 atrocities to ensure that due judicial procedure was observed.

She took issue with the coordinating minister’s “arrogance” in assuming that 18 years of documentation by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) of such cases was not considered sufficient proof to bring to court.

Komnas HAM reiterated again the importance for the government to reveal the truth surrounding past human rights abuses to truly settle the cases.

The national rights body emphasized the significance of including truth-telling in the process of reconciling all stakeholders.

Head of the Komnas HAM task force in charge of the matter Roichatul Aswidah stressed that truth-telling should form part of the government’s accountability in past abuse cases including the massacres that took place during the 1965 communist purge, which Komnas HAM has declared to be gross violations of human rights.

“We are still discussing the best way to resolve such cases, whether we solve them via a judicial mechanism or a non-judicial one. We have not reached a decision. However, regardless of where the discussion leads, truth-telling is a must,” Roichatul said. (mos)