Indonesian state human rights investigators have begun a wide-ranging probe of violations committed during the long dictatorship of former president Suharto.
Chief investigator M.M. Billah said the team would research a series of incidents starting with the murder of hundreds of thousands of alleged communists as Suharto rose to power from 1965-66 – the first time a government agency has properly studied the killings.
Although the Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) created by Suharto in 1993 has examined individual cases of abuse during the former general's rule, this is the first time it has examined his entire 32 years in office.
"It's true we have a heavy task and maybe we will face some tough obstacles also," Billah told AFP in a recent interview. "There has been a distortion of history and this can influence the way Indonesian people look at themselves," Billah said. Correcting the historical record could be a way to prevent similar abuses in the future, he added.
Billah credited a change in Komnas HAM's membership last year for the agency's decision to study Suharto-era abuses almost five years after the former president resigned.
Komnas HAM is now led by the founder of a respected local human rights group, while Billah himself is a long-time human rights activist as well as a University of Indonesia sociology lecturer. His 15-member team includes a law professor and a historian as well as representatives from the Chinese and Papuan communities.
He said many survivors of the 1965 tragedy, which remains a sensitive topic for Indonesians, have expressed willingness to be interviewed by the human rights team. The team will also rely on press clippings, books, government and military records as well as information from experts. "We have started gathering data and information related to various incidents," said Billah.
The team is also to review the mysterious shootings of criminals in the 1980s; the 1984 murders of 24 people by security forces at Tanjung Priok in Jakarta; military operations in separatist-leaning Aceh and Papua provinces; and the deadly 1996 raid on party headquarters of Megawati Sukarnoputri by military-backed thugs.
The disappearance of political activists, allegedly at the hands of special forces soldiers in the dying days of Suharto's regime, as well as the events in May 1998 that eventually forced his resignation, will also be investigated.
Security forces shot dead four university students before riots targeting ethnic Chinese killed more than 1,000 people and brought an end to his 32-year dictatorship. The study, which Billah hopes will be finished within five months, will seek to show whether gross human rights violations took place, whether state policies provided a basis for rights violations and whether Suharto was directly involved. "This is the preliminary step," he said.
The team's recommendations will be forwarded to a full session of Komnas HAM's members, who will then decide whether to form a follow-up investigative committee to possibly submit findings to state prosecutors.
More than two years ago the attorney general's office accused Suharto of embezzling 571 million dollars in state funds. Lawyers have argued he is too ill to be tried and the Supreme Court ruled he cannot be brought to court until his health improves. Suharto, 81, rarely leaves his home in a plush central Jakarta neighborhood.