Arghea Desafti Hapsari, Jakarta – Relatives of rights abuse victims have protested a presidential decree appointing Lt. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin as deputy defense minister.
The group filed suit against the decree Monday at the Jakarta State Administrative Court. The survivors and families of human rights violations from the 1998 riots and the 1997/1998 kidnapping of student and political activists want the decree annulled.
Sjafrie was the Jakarta Military commander at the time, during which rioters targeted Chinese-Indonesian businesses and raped Chinese-Indonesian women in Jakarta and other cities across the country.
Thirteen student and political activists who went missing in the final years of Soeharto's rule, widely believed to have been abducted by the military, remain unaccounted for.
A slew of human rights groups have accused Sjafrie of rights abuses during the 1998 riots, as well as during Indonesia's occupation of East Timor. He has never been brought before a court or tribunal to answer any of the accusations.
The plaintiffs filing suit Monday were represented by several rights groups, including the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute and the Setara Institute. Kontras coordinator Usman Hamid told The Jakarta Post that Sjafrie's appointment as deputy defense minister "could hamper future attempts to investigate his role in alleged rights violations".
"Even when he was still a military commander he ignored a subpoena from the National Commission on Human Rights, so imagine how much more impunity this new position will afford him," he said.
A rights commission team tasked with investigating the May 1998 riots summoned several military generals, including Sjafrie, former Armed Forces chief Gen. (ret.) Wiranto and former Army Strategic Reserves Command chief Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto, for questioning in July 2003. None of them showed up.
The team's report highlighted the gravity of the rights violations during the riots and "indicated that the military leadership was responsible for those incidents, including Wiranto, Prabowo, Sjafrie and others", said Abdul Hakim, the commission chairman at the time.
Wiranto and Prabowo have since gone into politics, both launching bids for vice president last year, which ultimately failed. Wiranto set up his own political party, the People's Conscience Party, or Hanura, while Prabowo fronts the Great Indonesia Movement Party, or Gerindra.
Setara Institute executive director Hendardi lambasted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for not taking Sjafrie's controversial track record into consideration when choosing to name him the deputy defense minister. He added Sjafrie's appointment was illegal under the 2004 Indonesian Military Law, which prohibits serving officers from taking up political positions.
Yudhoyono swore in Sjafrie as deputy defense minister on Jan. 6, hours after he signed off on the decree for the appointment.
"We didn't do anything at the time because we expected the President to issue a decree on the formation of an ad hoc human rights court... after the House of Representatives recommended it back in September last year," Usman said. "If such a decree is issued, there would have to be an investigation into the 1998 riots, and Sjafrie could be named a suspect."
The decree has not panned out. "The deadline to contest Sjafrie's appointment is drawing close, so we must act now," Usman said.
The House pledged to seek a resolution to the 1998 riots and the killing of student activists in 1997 and 1998.