“I could drown in the ocean / I could be poisoned in the air / I could be killed in the streets / But I will never die / Will never stop.”

I always have mixed feelings every time I listen to these lines in “Di Udara” (In the Air), a song that indie rock band Efek Rumah Kaca dedicated to Munir Said Thalib, the fearless human rights defender who was murdered 16 years ago.

On the one hand, these lines reflect the tireless struggles of human rights activists and families of the victims and the survivors of human rights violations as they continue to call for the state to fulfill its responsibility in seeking truth and reconciliation. At the same time, I realize that this song might not have been written at all if the government had made sure that justice was served.

The reform movement came with a hefty price tag: Dozens of prodemocracy activists were abducted at the end of the New Order regime in the late 1990s and thousands of people died in the antigovernment demonstrations and the rioting that ensued, while others were killed in security crackdowns.

But 22 years on, the government has continued to turn its back on the sacrifices these individuals made, whether by choice or not, to give rise to a democratic Indonesia.

The recent appointment of two former members of the Army’s Special Forces (Kopassus) to top posts in the Defense Ministry is the latest example of the government’s refusing to pay its debt to those who fought for democratic reform.

In particular, that President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo signed the controversial appointments contradicts the pledge he made before the survivors and families of the victims of past human rights abuses. Never mind that Jokowi’s handpicked choice for Defense Minister, Prabowo Subianto, was found by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) in 2006 to have ordered the abduction of prodemocracy activists in 1997-1998, when he was the Kopassus commander.

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