Markus Junianto Sihaloho, Jakarta – The Attorney General's Office, and not the president, is to blame for the lack of resolution in the forced disappearance of student activists between 1997 and 1998, a senior Golkar Party official says.

The activists, most of them university students, were believed to have been kidnapped by security forces to silence their protests that would eventually topple the regime of then-president Suharto.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a military general at the time of the unrest, has been criticized by rights groups and the activists' families for not doing enough to bring closure to the cases.

On Tuesday, families of the victims held rallies in front of the State Palace to demand the president resolve the cases.

On Wednesday, however, Muladi, a Golkar official and governor of the National Resilience Institute (Lemhannas), said the Yudhoyono administration was committed to resolving past rights abuse cases, as seen by the president's repeated calls to settle the matter.

He said the latest call to resolve the cases, made last year by the House of Representatives, should have been directed at law enforcement agencies, in particular the AGO, rather than the president.

Muladi said a previous report on the disappearances, compiled by the national Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM), had already been submitted to the AGO, which had failed to follow up on the findings.

"It's up to the AGO now to prepare the case for prosecution," Maludi said. "This would be a good way to finally find out the fate of all the victims."

He added that once the AGO's preparations were finished, the president could then work on establishing a rights tribunal to try the alleged perpetrators.

However, Muladi stopped short of blaming Hendarman Supandji, the former attorney general, for failing to follow up on the findings. "We hope the next attorney general does something with this case," he said.

The House's recommendations last year also included a call for the government to ratify the UN's International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa signed the convention in New York. Under the convention, the 84 signatory countries must ban enforced disappearances at all times, including times of war, political instability or other emergency situations.

Marty said signing the convention was part of the government's "vision on human rights issues" and a result of political pressure from civil society groups in Indonesia.

"We will continue this [vision] with the ratification process at the House of Representatives," he said as quoted by state news agency Antara.