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Munir’s family’s sacrifice, reminder of nation’s homework
Every turn to seek answers for Munir's death have added insult to injury.
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Human rights icon: Students and rights activists carry an image of the late human rights defender Munir at a rally outside the legislative council in Malang, East Java, on Sept. 8. Munir was killed through poisoning 18 years ago. (Antara/Ari Bowo Sucipto)
“Let's swap roles,” the wife of human rights defender Munir told him one evening. “You do the chores and stay hungry as you want us to eat together. You prepare dinner... then I come home and say ‘Oh I’ve eaten and I had a good laugh with friends’....”
The famous Munir was taken aback and apologized profusely. Suciwati writes she only wanted to remind him he should have told her that she did not need to cook. A former labor activist, she had never planned to be “uprooted" from Malang, East Java, to sit at home in a “golden cage".
Following several spats early in their marriage, he was always prepared “to learn and change", she writes in Mencintai Munir (Loving Munir).
It’s a new book on life before and after her humorous, romantic husband was snatched forever from her, their six-year-old son and two-year-old daughter 18 years ago.
An ad hoc human rights court may, or may not, open anytime soon on the assassination of Munir Said Thalib. Suciwati provides a first-hand voice of what the family has gone through to understand their loss since she heard his autopsy results – that Munir died of an arsenic dose “enough to kill two elephants”. On Sept. 7, 2004, he was found dead on a Garuda Indonesia flight bound for Amsterdam where he was to study.
It is theoretically “case closed” on Sept. 7 this year as the 18-year legal limitation has passed – unless the attorney general says otherwise – though the deadline for the decision is not quite clear.
But as Suciwati and fellow activists repeatedly highlight the absurdities of earlier investigations and trials on the case, the potential new evidence and suspects, what other excuses will the law enforcers produce? One was “Oops, we lost the report,” by the government’s fact-finding team of the Munir case.
