Major-General Syamsu Djalal announced earlier this week that seven officers of the army's elite corps, Kopassus, have been arrested in connection with the disappearance of a number of activists since mid-1997. He said that five lower and middle-ranking officers had already been charged and that two others, a colonel and an officer of higher rank, were still under investigation.

The announcement has grabbed the headlines because this is the first time ever that the armed forces leadership has taken firm disciplinary action against its normally untouchable elite corps. It has taken the festering internal conflict within the armed forces between its commander in chief, General Wiranto, and the Kopassus leading light, Lieutenant-General Prabowo Subianto, to a new level of intensity. Immediately after the downfall of Suharto, Prabowo was removed as commander of the army's strategic command, KOSTRAD and appointed head of the Army's staff and command college, the first time he has held a position without being in command of troops. But the announcement begs much more crucial questions concerning the fate of the twelve missing men: where are they and are they still alive?

According to press reports, the ABRI investigation team set up by the Military Police has visited locations suspected of being used by the abductors. This would suggest that the whereabouts and fate of the men are already known so why has this not been revealed and why have the men not been released? Why have their families not been relieved of the agony through which they have been living, in some cases since April last year?

There are other serious questions about ABRI's handling of the matter. Major-General Syamsu announced that the officers would be charged in military courts for "exceeding procedures", a convenient cover that has been repeatedly been used in cases where members of the armed forces are faced with legal action for killing or other violations against civilians; this goes back to the charges against the low-ranking officers tried in connection with the Santa Cruz Massacre in East Timor in November 1991.

But as Hendardi, director of PBHI, the Institute for Legal Aid and Human Rights, has pointed out, no procedures exist under the laws in force for the armed forces to arrest people so how can they be charged for "exceeding procedures"?

The Military Police have also refused to divulge the names of the seven officers, claiming that this would violate the principle of the presumption of innocence. Such a precaution is never taken when civilians are arrested.

Several members of Komnas HAM, the National Human Rights Commission, have also raised serious questions about ABRI's announcement. Deputy chair, Marzuki Darusman has pointed out that the measures cannot be restricted to action against individual officers of the corps because it raises the question of the role of the elite corps itself. As many people, especially in East Timor, know to their cost, Kopassus officers and men are a law unto themselves, with their own intelligence gathering units, detention and torture centres and have been responsible over the years for hundreds and possibly thousands of unexplained kidnappings, disappearances and deaths.

Another Komnas HAM member, Professor Soetandyo Wignyosubroto, responded to Major-General Syamsu's announcement by saying that the facts about the elite corps' involvement was a "public secret", hence it contained nothing new. It was far more important, he said, for the lives of the missing men to be saved and for them to be returned to their families. "No less important," he went on, "is the need to reveal who is the person responsible for these disappearances".

Few commentators expect General Wiranto, the armed forces commander in chief, to allow the investigations to incriminate Lt.General Prabowo, who was commander of the elite corps when the disappearances began, as this might test the cohesion of the armed forces to breaking point. Yet it is clear that such a policy could not have been unleashed without orders coming right from the top.

According to the most recent information from KONTRAS, the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence, twelve political and human rights activists are still missing, of whom six disappeared in April and May 1997, while the others disappeared in February, March and May this year. A human rights lawyer, Desmond Mahesa, who recently re-surfaced after being held by unknown assailants for more than three months, has testified that he met three of the twelve in the place where he was held.

While contradictions within the armed forces are now being resolved (or not, as the case may be), TAPOL believes that the top priority is the fate of the missing men themselves and the question of sanctions against those responsible.

[On July 14, Kompas reported that according to ABRI spokesperson Major General Syamsul Ma'rif, the kidnapings were a result of a "procedural error" in an order issued to deal with a number of "radical activists" and that "along the way the men got out of line" - James Balowski.]