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Given this aversion to ending a culture which has provided legal cover to the perpetrators of gross human rights violations, one wonders about the real sense of the declaration made on March 12 at the fourth session of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva by the minister of law and human rights, H. E. Hamid Awaluddin, in which he stated that Indonesia is ready to sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. In fact, it is the people of Indonesia who in their millions, and without bowing to intense military pressure during Suharto's dictatorship, have continued their struggle to find justice for the hundreds of thousands that were abducted, tortured and, in most instances, murdered.
It is this lifelong struggle of the victims, their families and concerned individuals and organisations that has compelled the state to make this decision: it is a victory of the people! It is thus perhaps an occasion to celebrate, together with all members of the humanitarian community, the Indonesian government on this momentous decision, which will certainly bring a ray of hope to thousands, if not millions, of Indonesians for whom justice has so far remained a distant dream. Though no time frame has been indicated for the signing of the convention, it is hoped that it will be done as soon as possible given its urgency and relevancy.
However, this historic decision, when seen against the backdrop of the series of massacres beginning in 1965, will no doubt be a major challenge to the Indonesian government. The victims of the massacres of 1965, Semanggi I and II, Trisakti, Tanjung Priok, Talangsari, the democracy activists in 1998 and 1999, the May 1998 riots, East Timor, Papua and Aceh have not given up their hopes for justice. The question is whether the Indonesian government will live up to its obligations without failing the Indonesian people and the international community. The Indonesian government will be judged, not on its promises, but on its actions.
Judging from its past performance, however, there is little cause for optimism, for the government has failed miserably to promote and protect human rights for many decades. The creation of the Ad Hoc Human Rights Tribunal, for example, was designed to hear all cases deemed "gross violations of human rights" committed in both East Timor and Indonesia, but it failed to prosecute any of the people responsible for widespread human rights violations. Similarly, the domestic law against torture passed on the occasion of the ratification of the U.N. Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) has been so inadequate that within the past 13 years not a single prosecution has been made, nor have the endless victims of human rights violations been awarded compensation or restitution.
Thus, the government's promise to sign the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, coming on the heels of the previous ineffective laws and the lack of their enforcement, will not generate much credibility unless the Indonesian government starts investigating and prosecuting the perpetrators of the gross human right violations committed earlier.
The National Human Rights Commission, or Komnas HAM, which conducted independent investigations into the massacres in Trisakti and Semanggi I and II, the democracy activists who disappeared in 1998 and 1999 and the May riots of 1998, has, and with good reason, declared them to be "gross human rights violations." These findings were dismissed, however, by the House of Representatives and attorney general on the basis of petty technicalities, once again providing impunity to the perpetrators at the expense of their victims. It is nothing less than the commitment of the Indonesian state to proceed with the prosecution of these cases of gross human rights violations if the confidence of millions of Indonesians is to be won.
Any government that is party to a U.N. human rights convention has the obligation to enact corresponding domestic legislation that guarantees the benefit of the rights incorporated in the convention, that is, to make the violation of specific human rights violations a crime. The long-suffering people of Indonesia, who are far too familiar with military abductions, enforced disappearances, torture and extrajudicial killings, deserve not only the promise of prosecution in the future for cases of enforced disappearances but also an effective, transparent, accountable and easily accessible mechanism for redress in order to attain compensation, restitution, rehabilitation and punishment of the perpetrators, i.e., justice. Nothing less will convince the people of Indonesia and of the international community of the government's genuine commitment to eradicate the abuse of people's rights in the country, specifically disappearances in this case, in signing the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance. It is easy to sign and ratify U.N. human rights conventions. It is much harder to ensure that the pledges that have been made are implemented and benefit people's lives.
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(Philip Setunga is a staff member of the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong, responsible for the organisation's research on Indonesia. He has a doctorate in sociology.)
