Jakarta – Families of missing persons reiterated their demand for the President and the government to establish an ad hoc court tasked with resolving the mysterious disappearances of activists between 1997 and 1998.

"We are waiting for the government's response because we still do not know the whereabouts and conditions of our missing relatives," a mother of missing victim Rumina said during a public discussion on the disappearances of the victims in Jakarta on Friday.

The discussion, held by the Indonesian Association of Families of the Disappeared (Ikohi), was attended by families of the 13 missing victims, a member of the special committee for missing persons of the House of Representatives and human rights activists.

Ikohi chairman Mugiyanto said the government had made only empty promises about bringing the cases to light.

"The National Commission on Human Rights investigated the cases for 15 months in 2005 and 2006 and uncovered gross human rights violations in the cases. The commission submitted the results to the Attorney General's Office, but it did nothing," he said.

The House then established a special committee on missing persons in 2007 to put pressure on the government to settle the cases, but it then halted its push for the new commission until last month.

"We really appreciate and place our hope in the special committee as it is the only institution showing concern for the cases," Mugiyanto said.

However, he warned there was a possibility the committee would be manipulated by political parties seeking to bury opponents linked to the disappearance cases in the build up to next year's elections.

"The most important thing is that the special committee should not use the victims as a means to benefit their own interests. Instead, they should seek resolutions by recommending the President establish an ad hoc court for human rights violations," he said.

The special committee's representative, Darmayanto, said the committee was preparing an agenda to discuss the case comprehensively.

"We will include related parties in the discussion, including the Indonesian Military, families of the victims and NGOs with an aim to build a recommendation for the President to establish the ad hoc court," he said.

Mugiyanto said that even if there were an ad hoc court, the government should take political action, such as establishing a government-run special commission to discover the whereabouts of the missing victims.

According to data from the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, about 3,000 people were reported missing under President Soeharto's regime.

Of the number, some disappeared in the bloody wake of the failed coup by the now disbanded communist party in 1965, as well as during the Tanjung Priok rioting in 1984, and in military operations in Aceh and Papua in the 1990s.

Sutomo, father of Pertus Bimo, one of the 13 who disappeared in 1998, said he kept hoping that the government would find his son. (pmf)