Erwida Maulia, Jakarta – The settlement of gross human rights abuse cases in Indonesia will likely encounter a deadlock, with law enforcers continually acting "uncooperatively" and the government and lawmakers "lacking the political will" to settle the cases, a discussion heard in Jakarta on Thursday.

Kabul Supriyadhie, Member of the National Commission on Human Rights, said the commission had completed preliminary investigations of eight atrocity cases and submitted them to the Attorney General's Office (AGO) only to find the majority had been rejected.

The cases investigated the May 1998 riots, the Trisakti shootings, the Semanggi I shooting incident in 1998, the Semanggi II shooting incident in 1999, Wasior (2001-2002) and Wamena (2003) rights cases in Papua, the abduction of activists and the Talangsari massacre in Lampung in 1989.

"The AGO returned all our files except for the Talangsari case which was submitted recently," said Kabul. The commission first submitted cases to the AGO, the body responsible for the criminal investigation of the abuse cases, in 2002.

"The AGO argues that we cannot meet the formal and material requirements for the cases and that the results of our investigations are invalid, because the ad hoc courts have not yet been established," he said.

Kabul said the commission often encountered difficulties when summoning witnesses, particularly those from the military and the police, and requests to the district court to help forcibly summon these witnesses were never acknowledged.

According to the 2000 Law on Human Rights Court, the president is the only authorized person who can establish an ad hoc court, under recommendation from the House of Representatives. But this ruling creates a problem in itself, as the House only recommended the establishment of a court for a selection of the cases.

Benny K. Harman from the House's Commission III on law and human rights said lawmakers disagreed over whether or not they should actually recommended the establishment of a court.

"Some believe they should carry out their own investigations into the cases while others, like myself, believe providing a "political stance" on the commission's findings is enough.

"Lawmakers do not have the time nor competency to carry out their own investigations and what the commission has found so far is very substantial and the best possible result. If we summon witnesses for an investigation, they will not come and lawmakers end up ridiculing themselves," said Benny of the Democratic Party.

Coordinator of the Association of Relatives of Missing Persons, Mugiyanto, said the cases would never be solved unless the government and the House had the political will to do so.

Kabul said it was likely the only way to settle all the cases would be by revising the laws of the rights court and by giving the commission more power. "We want to also have the authority to carry out criminal investigations and to prosecute," he said.