Hans David Tampubolon, Jakarta – The government's compensation for the victims of the 1998 May riots is useless without a concrete settlement of the tragedy, a human rights group says.

"It [the compensation] will not restore the dignity of the victims without the state's acknowledgement of the human rights violation and official apology," Usman Hamid from the National Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) said Wednesday.

"The clear status of the victims is everything. Unless the truth is revealed and justice is served, then Indonesia's open democracy in the last 12 years will mean nothing."

Previously, Law and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar said the government had found it difficult to find and punish those responsible for the riots and therefore it would focus on compensation for families of the victims.

The May riots took place at the dawn of the New Order era under Soeharto.