Tony Hotland, Jakarta – Indonesia has seen positive human rights developments in the last year but a lack of political will has prevented accountability for rights abuses in the past, a US report has concluded.
"The government respected the human rights of its citizens; however, weak legal institutions, limited resources, and insufficient political will prevented accountability for serious abuses that occurred in the past," the US State Department said in its annual human rights report.
Released Tuesday (Wednesday in Jakarta), the report praised developments such as the prosecution of the 2004 murder of rights activist Munir Thalib, the signing of an anti-trafficking bill and the handling of large-scale rallies by the police without lethal force.
The report said problems in the last year included killings by security forces, vigilantism, harsh prison conditions, impunity, corruption in the judicial system, interference with freedom of religion, instances of violence and sexual abuse against women and children and failure to enforce labor standards and worker rights.
M. Ridha Saleh, a deputy of the Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), said the commission's annual report had reached similar conclusions. "The government was negligent on the economic, social and cultural rights of its citizens, which led to abuses of political rights," he said.
He said Komnas HAM was probing various rights cases from 1965 to 1966 and mysterious shootings in the 1980s, all under the administration of the late president Soeharto.
Wiwiek Setyawati, the director of human rights and humanity at the Foreign Ministry, said the ministry would respond only to a report issued by the UN, not a country.
"But in general, we realize we're not perfect yet and we're going in that direction. We ratify conventions, report to the UN, review the implementation. "We know there are some unresolved issues in the past, but we can't hang on to the past all the time," she said.
The US report noted there were no known developments regarding the 1998 killing of four students at Trisakti University and nine at Semanggi intersection and the 1999 killing of four students at Semanggi intersection.
Indonesia, it said, reported "little progress in accounting for persons who disappeared in previous years or in prosecuting those responsible for the disappearances".
The Indonesian government also "used its authority, and at times intimidation, to expropriate land for development projects without fair compensation".
The government also "generally viewed outside investigations or foreign criticism of its human rights record as interference in its internal affairs. The security forces and intelligence agencies tended to regard with suspicion foreign rights organizations".
The US, which annually releases its reports on human rights conditions in countries worldwide, has also been reproached for its own record. UN experts on torture criticized Washington on Tuesday for denying access to prisoners held by US troops in Iraq.
The US was lambasted in 2003 after leaked photos showed soldiers abusing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib detention facility and posing proudly with battered corpses and injured prisoners.
A UN panel on racism last week criticized Washington's extraordinary rendition practice, under which terrorism suspects taken into custody abroad have been transported to third countries where rights groups say they could face torture.