Kafil Yamin, Jakarta – August 17 this year was the first day of freedom in 32 years for Pujo Prasetyo, jailed for his involvement in the abortive communist-inspired coup of 1965.
But in a sense, freedom for the 79-year-old Pujo came too late. On the day marking the 53rd anniversary of Indonesia's independence on Aug 17, he left prison in a wheelchair – aged, weak and paralysed. Reporters chasing him at the prison gate could hardly make out what Pujo was saying, when asked about his experiences in prison.
Pujo was among the 27 political prisoners who were granted clemency from President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie this week, the latest of several batches of detainees freed since Suharto stepped down in May. So far, Habibie has freed at least 73 political prisoners. For that, he has scored political points. But like his piecemeal releases of prisoners, his actions on human rights issues are selective and have yet to be consistently proven, sceptics say.
Reformists say Habibie has to be judged also by how he deals with issues like the military's accountability for past abuses and repression and disappearances of opposition activists. People are looking to see how he deals with inquiries into May violence that led to the deaths of 1,200 people and the rapes of more than 150 ethnic Chinese women at the height of the riots.
The 62-year-old Habibie has vowed to abide by human rights standards, to regain international confidence for Indonesia and prove a "democratic resurgence" in the country. In his State of the Nation address before the House of Representatives on Aug 15, he apologised for atrocities committed by security forces in dealing with separatist movements and democracy activism in the past.
"We are all concerned at the violations committed against the dignity of citizens," Habibie said. "In all sincerity to uphold and respect human rights, I hereby extend our apology to the people, especially to the families of the victims."
Recently, the government restarted negotiations on East Timor and pulled out troops from there and Aceh in northern Sumatra, where rebels have been fighting for an independent Islamic state over the past decade. But these have not been enough to bring back confidence in the Indonesian government.
"Serious investigations into old practices of rights abuse will cultivate public confidence," Marzuki Darusman of the National Commission on Human Rights said in an interview. "We see the release of political prisoners. We hear the encouraging statements. But we see various rights violations are still going on," said Munir, head of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence or Kontras.
Munir pointed out that the president issued a recent ruling on anti-street rallies and takes a discriminatory stance toward releasing political prisoners. "He is just trying to win the people's support for political gain," he told IPS. Likewise, critics also question Habibie's pushing of a bill regulating freedom of expression and a proposal to license working journalists.
And recently, Munir said, his commission found 28 corpses along the Biak coast. Kontas says they are victims of the military shooting that occurred after a student rally on July 20 in Jayapura, the capital of Irian Jaya, a province home to a separatist movement. The rally went peacefully until an undercover military agent provoked the crowd, giving security forces reason to disperse the protests, activists say.
In Aceh, Kontras said it found 60 people missing and 40 women raped only within the January-May period. The London-based Amnesty International reported that between 1989 – when Aceh was declared a military operation zone – and 1992, some 2,000 people including local civilian supporters of the Free Aceh Movement, were killed in the military operations.
Acehnese Teuku Ayah was an eyewitness to killings carried out by military troops, many of which occurred in the late eighties and early nineties. "My knees trembled when I saw hundreds of corpses piled up in a hole in front of me, like dead rats. Just before I fully recovered my composure, an officer ordered me and my companions to bury the bodies and level the ground over the mass grave," he recalled.
Such cases occurred before Habibie's time. But many want to see him prove his will to bring past perpetrators to justice – which would require Habibie to dig up abuses committed during the regime of his personal and political mentor, Suharto.
For instance, human rights activists want a probe into the violence that followed the forced takeover by pro-government camps of the headquarters of the opposition Indonesian Democratic Party on Jul 27, 1996. Party leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, daughter of Indonesia's founding president Sukarno, had been seen as a challenger to Suharto.
Despite a recommendation by the National Commission on Human Rights for an inquiry, the case remains on hold. "The government has not yet shown positive response to this matter, whereas this is a serious rights violation," Darusman said.
Likewise, he says legal measures alone are not enough to settle the July 27 incident. "It should be dealt with by a thorough political solution. The government should promise that it will not interfere internal affairs of any political organisation in the future," Darusman said.
Habibie's critics add they are not heartened by recent clues to the president's priorities, such as awarding national medals to his relatives on Independence Day. That day, Habibie conferred the country's highest honour, the Bintang Republik Indonesia medal, on his wife Hasri Ainun Besari. His brother, Junus Effendi Habibie, got the second highest medal, the Mahaputra.
"His decision to confer meritorious services star on his wife and brother has undermined what little credibility he has in the public eye, for it clearly smacks of nepotism," the English-language daily "Jakarta Post" said the following day. But others say Habibie has already confounded critics for surviving three months in office.
Despite doubts about his ability and the economy's free fall, William Liddle, political science professor at Ohio University, said: "I think Habibie is stronger now and more likely to stay in power."