Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Wiranto was the Indonesian Military (TNI) commander in 1999, when the country’s army and military-backed militias carried out numerous atrocities against East Timorese after they voted for independence.

In February 2003, it said, Wiranto was indicted for crimes against humanity by the UN-sponsored Special Panels for Serious Crimes of the Dili District Court and named a chief suspect by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM). The charges against Wiranto led to the US decision in 2014 to place Wiranto and five others accused of crimes in East Timor (now Timor Leste) on a visa watchlist that could bar them from entering the country.

“President Jokowi’s decision to appoint Wiranto to his Cabinet is a slap in the face to Indonesians seeking accountability for past atrocities in Indonesia,” HRW deputy Asia director Phelim Kine said on Thursday.

“Wiranto’s alleged complicity in murder, arson, and mass forced expulsions in East Timor in 1999 entitles him to a fair criminal trial, not a seat in the cabinet.”

HRW says Wiranto’s appointment calls into question President Jokowi’s commitment to pursuing accountability for human rights violations. Those abuses include the 1965-1966 massacres and 11 high-priority human rights cases in Papua.

Wiranto’s predecessor, Luhut Pandjaitan, had led the government’s efforts toward accountability, which included plans to exhume mass graves from the 1965-1966 massacres and the creation of an investigation team to probe abuses in Papua.

"By offering Wiranto a Cabinet position, President Jokowi is undermining his own important efforts to obtain accountability for the terrible abuses of Indonesia’s past,” Kine said. (ebf)

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