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Indonesian acquittal has shades of the past By Vaudine England International Herald Tribune
WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 2005 HONG KONG The recent acquittal of 12 soldiers in a politically sensitive court case in Indonesia is seen to indicate the failure of the nation's human rights tribunals and the continued impunity of the armed forces, analysts and rights activists said Tuesday.
The case involved the massacre of at least 33 civilians, possibly as many as 100, by Indonesian Army units at Tanjung Priok, Jakarta's port district, in 1984.
After a series of interim verdicts over the years, the appeals court pronounced its verdict in the Tanjung Priok case in closed sessions in May and June. The decision was made public July 7.
Two senior military officers who had also been charged in the case were acquitted last year.
Separately, those Indonesian citizens thought to have played a role in the violence that swept East Timor in 1999 have also been acquitted.
With the fall of the authoritarian regime of General Suharto in 1998, rights advocates had hoped that the prosecution of military officers would at last be possible. But today, progress is uncertain.
"Even now, the armed forces of Indonesia still have powerful influence in Indonesian politics," said Usman Hamid, coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, a local nongovernmental organization that has long represented the victims at Tanjung Priok. "So there is no conducive atmosphere in the justice system for such cases."
In the Tanjung Priok case, army units were charged with having opened fire on Muslim demonstrators who had been outraged by the behavior of Suharto's troops. The demonstrators found the troops' acts to be offensive to Islam.
In particular, a soldier at Tanjung Priok had marched into a mosque - blasphemously still wearing boots - and torn down posters that were deemed subversive. Violent demonstrations - and action by the army to suppress them - ensued.
"We're raising a flag that the human rights tribunals have completely failed to do what they were set up to do," said Charmain Mohamed, a researcher in London for Human Rights Watch.
The human rights group issued a statement Tuesday underscoring the acquittals as evidence of continued military impunity in post-Suharto Indonesia.
That the Tanjung Priok case was even brought to court was seen as a victory of "Reformasi," the period of reform period that followed Suharto's forced resignation.
But the collapse of the case is no less symbolic, lawyers say.
"Yes, this has been a big backtrack for reform in this country," said Asmara Nababan, a lawyer at the Jakarta-based Demos Center for Democracy and Human Rights Studies.
"We were very hopeful of convictions and our recommendations went to the top of the armed forces," Asmara said. "Now we are very disappointed by the acquittals."
There is a chance that the cases could be taken to the Supreme Court, should the Indonesian government wish to show a commitment to human rights, Asmara added. "But that's a big 'if."'
The acquittals are a sign of continuing military influence, according to human rights advocates. The latest acquittals, made public last week, involved a retired major general, a captain and 10 lower-ranking officers.
"Whether it is a massacre from the Suharto era or killings in East Timor, these verdicts show that the Indonesian military continues to get away with murder," said Brad Adams, Asia Director at Human Rights Watch in New York. "The military remains above the law, apparently too powerful for the courts to tame."
Part of the problem, human rights groups say, is the lack of a witness protection program in Indonesia, something Parliament is soon to deliberate. But there are more general problems in Indonesia's judicial system.
"Certainly judicial reform is necessary," said Ken Conboy, managing director of Risk Management Advisory, a security firm in Indonesia. "But we don't see the impetus in the current administration for that at the moment."
"They're hitting a whole bunch of other areas, the president's got a lot on his plate," Conboy said. "He would have to burn a lot of political capital to make progress, so judicial reform has taken a back seat.
