Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD and Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly were in Prague, the Czech Republic on Monday to reach out to Indonesian exiles and speak about the program that aims to compensate victims of past atrocities.

The policy offers reparations and state-sanctioned benefits to those who suffered in 12 officially recognized historic cases of serious human rights abuses.

Karsidi Rantiminpoetro, a political exile who attended the meeting on Monday night, raised a question about whether the sitting government could ensure that its successor carries on the program. He also pushed for the judicial part of the resolution to run in parallel.

“Could the nonjudicial settlement program continue even when Jokowi is no longer in office? And could this intention to resolve past atrocities be continued to the next stage [of bringing the perpetrators to court],” Karsidi said.

But Mahfud was vague in his response, apparently trying to appease them with promises that the next government could not take back what has been given to victims of past atrocities.

He was referring to the benefits of nonjudicial settlements, such as visa fee exemption and a temporary stay permit (KITAS), as well as the option to restore political exiles’ citizenship.

“The benefits start on the day you receive them, and it will continue to be so,” Mahfud said, without describing how the next government would continue the policy.

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A handful of exiles have received free five-year multiple entry visas since the government launched the program in late June. They include Sri “Ning” Budiarti, who resides in Aachen, Germany, as well as Wahjuni Kansilova and Siswartono Sarodjo, both residing in the Czech Republic. Some others were given temporary stay permits in late June, when the government launched the program in an event in Aceh.

Monday’s meeting was the second of two stops for the nonjudicial rights settlement implementations team (PPHAM), with the first gathering held in Amsterdam on Sunday and attended by more than 60 political exiles.

The trip is a part of the Jokowi administration’s renewed commitment to righting the wrongs of the past through nonjudicial acts, in a major policy shift for the country, which has long put human rights issues on the back burner.

Earlier this year, Jokowi acknowledged and expressed his regret over 12 incidents of violence and repression that occurred in the country between 1965 and 2003 and that amounted to gross human rights violations, including the communist purge of 1965-66. He at the time pledged to provide restitution for victims and their families “without negating the judicial resolution” and declared that they had never betrayed the country.

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But the government has since sought to settle the issue without bringing the perpetrators to court and has left judicial settlements to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) and the House of Representatives.

At least 500,000 people were killed, and more were left stranded overseas, stateless and disenfranchised, because of the attempted coup, according to some estimates by historians and activists.

According to the latest data, there are at least 130 political exiles who were stripped of their citizenship in 1965 and are living abroad in 12 countries. The Netherlands and the Czech Republic are among those with the largest exile communities, with 67 and 14 exiles, respectively.