Tiarma Siboro, Jakarta – Human rights activists have slammed legislators for being unwilling to create a law that would ensure soldiers and rebels are tried for past human rights abuses in Aceh.
Grouped in the Aceh Working Group (AWG), they say the Aceh governing bill, which is expected to be passed into law soon, will give impunity to all perpetrators of human rights abuses committed during the almost three-decade-long conflict in which about 15,000 people died.
The activists say the worst cases of abuse occurred between 1989 and 1998 when Aceh became a military operation.
The government and legislators deliberating the bill have agreed on the establishment of a human rights court to try all rights cases that occurred in Aceh after the signing of the peace agreement in Helsinki on Aug. 15, 2005.
However, two powerful party factions on the committee deliberating the bill, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle and the Golkar Party, have rejected giving the court powers of retroactive justice, which would allow it to try people accused of crimes in the 29 years before the agreement was signed.
Defendants would likely include Indonesian Military (TNI) soldiers and Free Aceh Movement guerrillas.
The parties, which together have a majority in the House of Representatives that must pass the bill, say use of retroactive justice in the court would lead to "unfair" prosecutions of military officers.
If the factions get their way, the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation – an institution with as-yet uncertain legal powers – is likely to be left to deal with the past violations.
The Helsinki agreement – which the Aceh governance bill is based on – only specifies the creation of a human rights court and a truth commission for the province. It does not detail whether past crimes should be tried in the court.
AWG activist Choirul Anam said legislators' reluctance to try people accused of serious crimes in a human rights court showed the political elite were attempting to bury a decade of abuses committed during the military operation.
"Legislators should not just put aside the retroactive principle, because the Acehnese people have witnessed their loved ones falling victims to the 10-year military operation.
"Isn't it weird that they (government officials and House members) are trying to ignore victims of the military operation when our country has just been elected as a member of the UN's human rights council?" Anam said.
During the military operation, the AWG gathered evidence of 1,321 cases of extra-judicial killings, 128 rapes, 3,430 cases of torture, 597 cases of arson, and 1,958 cases where Acehnese citizens had gone missing. Indonesian Military (TNI) spokesman Col. A. Yani Basuki said the military would support whatever system the government decided on to resolve past abuses in Aceh.
"The TNI is not in the position to judge whether the retroactive principle of justice is necessary or not. We (the military) leave these issues up to the government," Yani said.