Ridwan Max Sijabat, Jakarta – Two years after the signing of the Helsinki peace agreement, justice is not being properly upheld in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam province and prosperity remains an illusion for many Acehnese, activists said Tuesday.
A coalition of rights monitoring groups – the Aceh Judicial Monitoring Institute (AJMI), Imparsial, ICJT Indonesia, Kontras, the Human Rights Working Group, Elsam and the Demos Institute, said that despite the signing of the agreement on Aug. 15, 2005, human rights abuses during the prolonged conflict in Aceh have been left unresolved and the government has yet to rehabilitate a large part of the victims of the conflict and their families.
"This condition might cause the new Aceh government to lose the trust of the Acehnese and the international community. And as a consequence, it could create legal uncertainty in the province," coalition spokesman Usman Hamid told a forum evaluating the implementation of the two-year-old peace agreement here.
Usman, also executive director of Kontras, warned that the absence of justice and the people's lack of confidence in the government might cause disharmony among the Acehnese in the future.
He said the peace agreement had undoubtedly achieved significant things in the forms of recovering a peaceful situation, as indicated by the decreasing number of cases of violence against civilians and the enactment of the 2006 Aceh regional administration law with the establishment of a new administration and the first democratic election of an Acehnese governor ever.
"In a comprehensive settlement of the conflict, all stakeholders should not only build peace but also resolve the human rights violations occurring during the conflict and give fair compensation to victims and their families as a preliminary requirement to a rehabilitation and reconciliation process," he said.
Executive director of the Demos Institute Asmara Nababan said that despite the improving political situation, the Acehnese wanted to improve their livelihoods, which the new Aceh government was yet to address in its development policy.
"Ideally, the governor (Irwandi Yusuf) could make breakthroughs, particularly in settling the unresolved human rights abuses during the 1976-2005 bloody conflict that claimed hundreds of thousands of human lives and destroyed unknown numbers of assets belonging to the people," he said.
Both Usman and Asmara said it was unfortunate that the government had focused more on post-tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction work over the past two years than conflict-related issues.
They acknowledged that the devastating tsunami in December 2004, which claimed some 210,000 human lives and displaced more than 500,000 others, encouraged the government and the Free Aceh Movement to go to the negotiating table.
"But the provincial administration should establish a truth commission as an instrument to reveal all human rights abuses during the conflict, resolve them and pay fair compensation to the victims and their families," Asmara said.
AJMI coordinator Hendra Budian said that despite the improving situation, shootings by unidentified men are frequent occurrences, contributing to public anxiety. "Ironically, the police have made only statements to the media and carried out no investigation to uphold the law," he said.