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Five years on, impunity reigns in Indonesia |
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Written by Norman Voss
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Friday, 11 September 2009 |
 Prabowo and Wiranto
On September 7, 2004 human rights
defender, reformer and leading civil society activist Munir Said Thalib
was murdered with a poisoned dinner aboard a Garuda Indonesia flight to
Amsterdam for his critical views of the government and military in
Indonesia.
One of Munir's main achievements was
the elucidation of crimes committed by the military in both Indonesia
and East Timor. More than 10 years after Suharto's regime came down and
five years after Munir's murder none of the reforms in Indonesia have
made it possible to hold military officials accountable. Instead, the
re-elected President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recently called for an
increased territorial command structure in the military to address the
problem of terrorism. Was Munir's lifework in vain?
Before and after the end of Suharto's
rule in 1998 the military was notorious for human rights atrocities
such as killings and disappearances. It was only in 2002 that the
police became a separate body, independent of the military as part of
the country's security sector reform. In some areas of Indonesia, this
separation has not yet resulted in a stabilized co-existence of the two
bodies, the police and the military. In Papua, for example,
confrontations and even shootings between the police and the army have
been reported. The military, which is strongly affected by corruption,
especially in the outlying regions, often protects private mining
companies or even run their own mining businesses.
Killings of civilians by the army, as
happens repeatedly, cannot be brought to a justice process that would
hold the perpetrators adequately accountable. This immunity of the
military has seriously damaged the image of the Indonesian military
forces (TNI) as a whole.
When the founder of the Indonesian
Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS) helped
in making military crimes public and called for reforms, the National
Intelligence Agency (BIN) sent Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, then a
Garuda captain, to poison Munir by lacing his dinner with arsenic.
While Pollycarpus has been sentenced for the murder, the instigators of
the killing have not yet been brought to justice.
The evidence points at Major General
Muchdi Purwoprandjono, deputy director at the National Intelligence
Agency at that time. However, the Supreme Court acquitted him in June,
neglecting vital evidence. The trial has been criticised for being
flawed. This acquittal is of course a slap in the face for all victims
who Munir was supporting and for his family and friends.
Indonesia has a National Human Rights
Commission, a Human Rights Court Law, an Anti-Corruption Commission and
has undergone many other political reforms, but none of them has led to
accountability of the military criminals of the past. In fact, the very
same people – Generals Wiranto and Prabowo Subianto, both of whom were
accused of murder by human rights groups -- were even running with
their parties in the 2009 elections.
President Yudhoyono himself is a
retired general of the TNI and promised, upon his first election in
2004, to make Munir's case the test case for Indonesia's reform
process. However, key reforms such as the final establishment of a
Witness Protection Agency have been delayed. While the law for this
crucial institution was passed years ago, no budget has been allocated
by the government to facilitate its long overdue start.
Civil societies, both local and
international, have been pushing for progress in Munir's case. However,
hopes that President Yudhoyono would sincerely fulfil his promise to
bring the perpetrators to justice have faded. More and more voices are
pointing at his stake in a military elite that continues to hold
Indonesia in a vice-like grip. What we see instead are continued
reports of military and police encounters that destabilize the social
climate and undermine acceptance of the oversized role of the TNI in
the Indonesian state and territory.
Instead of containment, the reign of
the military in civil areas is further consolidated. The response to
the recent bomb attacks that shook Jakarta was not a further
professionalization of investigations of the police but rather the
introduction of draconian anti-terrorism laws that allow for detention
of up to two years. This in turn helped to foster the role of the
military as a key power holder in the country.
What was it that Munir has been
fighting for? Munir wanted an Indonesia based on justice, rule of law
and human rights, where all victims would have access to remedies.
Munir was fighting for a democratic society that would be able to hold
any public officer accountable for corruption and other crimes and that
would take the military out of the civil aspects of life.
Munir risked his life for this dream
and he has paid for it with his life. But not even the very least that
Indonesia owes him has been done – to bring his murderers to justice.
The fifth year after Munir's death is a moment of disappointment. It is
also disillusionment for the reform process in Indonesia.
Norman Voss works at the Asian Human Rights Commission/ Asian Legal Resources Center.
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