Jakarta – Indonesia's first democratic presidential poll has helped distance the country from its days of authoritarian control, but it has also intensified calls for justice as the wounds of military atrocities and dictator Suharto's rule remain open, Agence France-Presse reported.
Retired general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is due to take office later this month after a landslide victory in presidential polls marking the country's graduation as a democracy and emergence from the shadow of the Suharto era.
But although many see Yudhoyono's victory on a tide of reform promises as a chance to open a new chapter in Indonesia's history, there have been increasing demands that the new government resolve dark issues of the past.
"I think that if you want to clean the record of Indonesia, you have to pave the way to charge Suharto," said Carmel Budiardjo, director of Tapol, an Indonesian human rights campaign group.
She said although Yudhoyono is "surrounded by a number of generals who worked for Suharto," he appears to be the best hope yet of achieving reconciliation with the past.
Campaigners want justice regarding military atrocities perpetrated in the country's recent history – including East Timor's 1999 independence vote and the renewed campaign to crush rebels in Aceh province.
But the past remains an issue as the "Petition of the 50," an anti-Suharto movement founded in the 1980s, and two student bodies this week called for the revival of legal action against Suharto suspended in 2000 for medical reasons.
The former dictator has lived quietly at home in Jakarta since he was forced to step down in 1998 during widespread unrest.
This week also marks the 39th anniversary of a massacre that saw civilians become victims of a purge against alleged communists and their sympathisers after a putsch that then-general Suharto claimed was a communist coup attempt.
The number of deaths is estimated at 500,000, while scores of Indonesians suspected of being leftists were also imprisoned or sent to labour camps where some, such as celebrated author Pramoedya Ananta Toer, spent more than a decade.
Unless events such as these are adequately dealt with, the national unity desired by Yudhoyono to enact his broad promises of reform will be fruitless, the Jakarta Post newspaper said in an editorial.
"History once again comes knocking at the door of the nation's collective conscience," it said.
"When a nation is mature enough to democratically and peacefully elect its president, shouldn't it then be civilised enough to determine the truth ?," said the paper's columnist Kornelius Purba.
Tapol's Budiardjo said that, although Indonesia's parliament has agreed to set up a South Africa-style truth and reconciliation body, there is still work to be done to "face up to the reality of what happened during Suharto".
"Impunity is a huge problem in Indonesia. No army officer has been brought to justice," she said, comparing Suharto's situation to that of Chilean former dictator Augusto Pinochet and Iraq's Saddam Hussein.
"In Chile, Pinochet faces the possibility of being brought to justice, Saddam Hussein is in prison, Suharto should also be treated in the same way, but he is living as a free man".
Mohammad Budiyatna, an analyst from the state Universitas Indonesia, said bringing Suharto and others to justice would be an important step for Yudhoyono if he is to fulfill pledges of tackling rampant graft.
"The sentence is not important, whether they serve two weeks or one month in also not important. What is important is that they are convicted," he said.