Vaudine England, Jakarta – Attempts to investigate military involvement in the killing of students and civilians in Jakarta during the fall of former president Suharto have been thwarted after generals refused to appear at a special inquiry.

The refusal bodes ill for international efforts to prosecute the men over their rampage through East Timor as it chose independence from Jakarta in 1999. Both Vice-President Hamzah Haz and Defence Minister Matori Abdul Djalil have urged the accused generals to appear at a special Commission of Inquiry, established by the National Human Rights Commission. "They should come forward so that they can give their accounts," Mr Hamzah said.

But the former armed forces chief, retired General Wiranto, and former Jakarta police chief General Hamami Nata, failed to answer their second summonses.

Under investigation are the deaths of four students at Trisakti University on May 12, 1998, in a demonstration which helped topple Suharto, and the deaths of 26 students and policemen in two separate demonstrations at the Semanggi junction in central Jakarta.

The first Semanggi incident, also known as "Black Friday", occurred during the Special Session of the People's Consultative Assembly on November 13, 1998. A clash between students and police left 16 people dead. The second Semanggi incident, another student demonstration, took place on September 23-24, 1999, when 10 people were killed.

The impunity the armed forces and police have already enjoyed over the incidents is tragic enough, say groups set up by the victims' parents and supporters. Successive changes of government have brought them no closer to justice.

"They [the generals] are operating in a political climate that obviously allows them not to show up. That they are still able to do this is a very significant point," said Marcus Mietzner, an expert on the Indonesian military.

The House of Representatives has already decided the Semanggi incidents do not qualify as human rights violations – raising the question of whether the National Commission on Human Rights has the legal teeth to tackle those killings.

Years of delays have also fundamentally damaged efforts to secure justice. Independent lawyers and rights experts say many of the prosecutors and judges chosen for an ad hoc court to try the East Timor crimes are incapable and corrupt.