http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/sby-attacked-over-failure-to-investigate-1998-abuses/582585
SBY Attacked Over Failure to Investigate 1998 Abuses Yohannie Linggasari | March 30, 2013 Activists protest at the offices of Djoko Suyanto, coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs. (JG Photo/Yohannie Linggasari Rights activists have blasted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for his failure to order a human rights tribunal set up to investigate the widespread abuses surrounding the fall of Suharto in 1998. Putri Kanesia, a lawyer at the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), called on the president to at least order the Attorney General’s Office to immediately open an inquest into the events of the tumultuous period so that an inquiry might begin. “On September 30, 2009, the House of Representatives recommended that the president establish an ad hoc human rights court,” she said. “The fact that he hasn’t taken action to date means he is neglecting the need to resolve these cases of rights abuses.” Putri added this omission by the president had not escaped the notice of the Indonesian Ombudsman, which issued a letter last year on the matter. “In that letter, the ombudsman accused the president of maladministration and of betraying the principles of good governance by ignoring the House’s recommendation,” she said. Kontras, she went on, felt that if anything, the Yudhoyono administration was moving backwards rather than facing up to the need to address the spate of kidnappings, forced disappearances and sniper shootings of democracy activists that occurred throughout 1998. She pointed out in a meeting last month between the House and Djoko Suyanto, the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, the two sides agreed to hand the case back to the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM), which last year formally called for an inquest in a groundbreaking report. “Their reasoning was that an ad hoc human rights court could only be established once suspects of rights violations had been identified,” Putri said. “And they claimed the Komnas HAM report failed to identify any suspects. We believe this reasoning is flawed because the only institute authorized to name suspects is the AGO, and it can only do so by undertaking an investigation.” She said the government’s faulty rhetoric indicated it had no serious intention of setting up a rights court. Fathnan Harun, a spokesman for Djoko’s office, said separately that the minister was out of town and unable to respond immediately to Kontras’s accusations about efforts to resolve past abuses. “We’ll be sure to pass their thoughts on to the minister,” he said. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
