The commission demanded that President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo issue a regulation in lieu of law (Perppu) or a presidential regulation (Perpres) regarding the establishment of the commission.

“We are in legal limbo. There is no law that regulates the KKR since the Constitutional Court scrapped the law on the KKR,” Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) secretary-general Ady Irfan said on Thursday.

Initially, the government and the House of Representatives passed a law on the KKR in 2004 but it was revoked by the Constitutional Court in 2006 on the grounds that such a commission would not be able to provide legal certainty and settle human rights abuses.

However, the Aceh Legislative Council passed a bylaw in 2013 and established a KKR in 2016, on the basis of the Helsinki agreement that was signed in 2005 between the government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) to end the decades’ long insurgency.

The commission was formed to probe the human rights violations during the armed conflicts between 1976 and 2005. Over time, it had handed over several recommendations to find the truth and worked on reconciliation and reparations regarding the past abuses.

“The KKR was promised in the Helsinki peace agreement. The promise resulted in GAM fighters giving up their weapons and willingly integrating themselves back into society, and it’s a hard thing to do,” KKR Aceh head Afridal Darmi said.

“It is a debt that needs to be settled. It has been 15 years [since the government] made its promise.”

The legal annulment has created uncertainty for the commission, as it exists at the provincial level but does not have legal standing at the national level.

Afridal said the legal limbo made it difficult to get testimony from victims, as they could not fully protect them from prosecution by law enforcement personnel.

“When a victim wants to file a report about human rights abuses, they fear being reported for defamation. That’s why legal protection is important,” he added.

Furthermore, Afridal said, the commission also struggled to obtain funding from Aceh’s provincial administration.

“Even though we have requested funds for 54 people, we haven’t received any because we are not included in the [province’s] financial administration,” Afridal said.

Airlangga University legal expert Herlambang Wiratraman said a Perppu or a Perpres could provide legal certainty for the commission and the victims and their families who gave testimonies.

“The Perppu could be a single regulation regarding the KKR or complement a 2006 law on Aceh’s governance. A Perpres is also possible as the Aceh governance law and the 1999 law on human rights could act as the legal basis for the regulation,” he said.

While the KKR advocates the issuance of a regulation from the executive branch of government, lawmakers are also mulling the reintroduction of a KKR law.

“The NasDem Party faction has proposed a KKR bill to be discussed alongside the government,” said House Commission III overseeing legal affairs lawmaker Taufik Basari.

He said the KKR was first designed as a prototype for a tribunal to resolve human rights abuses in the country, before the KKR law was scrapped by the Constitutional Court.

“The KKR is very important in revealing the truth, as it accommodates the victims to express their grief and gain admissions from the perpetrators. That’s why, my colleagues and I will try to give political support for the discussion of the KKR bill,” he said.

Another Commission III lawmaker from the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS), Nasir Djamil, said discussion regarding KKR establishment would not be easy, as lawmakers with military backgrounds had shown resentment toward the KKR.

Despite the lack of legal certainty, Afridal claimed the commission had made significant progress in starting public discussions about the province’s human rights abuses.

“As of December, we’ve acquired 3,900 testimonies from victims and witnesses. There have also been three public hearings where we talked about allegations of torture, kidnappings and other things that occurred during the conflict,” he told The Jakarta Post.

Afridal added that most Acehnese had accepted the reality that their relatives were killed during the conflict but they wanted the perpetrators to admit their actions.

“We’re already at peace with the fact that our family members and relatives were murdered. But show us the graveyard, so we can pay our respects and pray for them,” he said. (mpr)

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