TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Despite all good intentions, the plan to establish a human rights abuses commission announced by the Attorney General's Office a few weeks ago, is marked by serious problems. The Commission will have many stumbling blocks for various reasons.
One of these is that there is no longer any legal basis for the commission. In December 2006, the Constitutional Commission revoked Law No. 27/2004 on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. In its considerations, the Court found that the law actually made reconciliation more difficult because of the need for a presidential amnesty if the person responsible and the victim had made their peace. The law also required an uncovering of the facts, a confession and forgiveness. If the truth behind a case could not be revealed, reconciliation would be difficult.
Because the government decided that it would take too long to pass a new Truth and Reconciliation Commission Law, it decided to issue a presidential regulation establishing a Reconciliation Commission that would be directly responsible to the president. The Commission will have 15 members, comprising representatives of the victims, the public, the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM), the AGO and retired military and police officers. Among the cases it will handle are the 30 September 1965 incident, the mysterious shootings from 1982-1985, the 1989 Talansari incident, the forced disappearances from 1997-1998, the 1998 Tristakti-Semanggi shootings, the May 1998 riots and the 2004 Wamena-Waisor incident.
The next and largest problem is that the victims, their families and organizations, such as Komnas HAM and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) have opposed from the start the AGO's approach that goes straight to the reconciliation stage, without uncovering the facts and the truth. Normally there are five stages to reconciliation. Firstly, there is an investigation and uncovering of facts and data of abuses, including the number of people tortured and died. In the second stage, the government admits that there were human rights abuses. Thirdly, the government, represented by the president, officially apologizes to the victims. Fourthly, the government promises that these violations will not be repeated. The fifth stage is when the government restores the reputations of the victims and their families.
However, the AGO seems to opt for the non-juridical route, without criminal trials. These are to be replaced by the restoration of people's reputations, compensation payments and apologies from those responsible to the victims, both by the state and by individuals. By eliminating the initial stages, namely the investigation and uncovering of facts and data on victims, the commission will remove the juridical route. This means that the people who broke the law will be free to go. The implication from such a commission is that Indonesia allows impunity, and that it will always be known as a state that fails to uphold human rights justice.
The commission to be established must not be without the word 'Truth' this word must form part of the name. This means that the commission must follow the judicial route from the first stage, the most important of the five stages: uncovering the facts. It is true that in several cases, such as the 1965 incident, it is possible that no important documents still exist, but there are still many guilty people and eyewitnesses who are still living with sharp memories.
By passing through every stage of uncovering the truth and reconciliation, we will also produce a version of Indonesian history that is more accurate and that does not only tell the version of the (old) government in power at the time. (*)