P. Parameswaran, Washington – Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is under US pressure to get to the bottom of the murder of a leading human rights lawyer – a case which suggested a cover up and links to the powerful national intelligence agency.
The human rights arm of the US Congress held a staff briefing Wednesday on the bizarre murder of Munir Said Thalib, one of Indonesia's most respected activist who exposed military and police atrocities.
Munir was only 38 when he was killed after his drink was found laced with arsenic on a flight operated by the national carrier Garuda from Singapore to Amsterdam in September 2004.
A Garuda pilot with links to BIN, the Indonesian intelligence agency, was jailed 14 years for the murder but the Indonesian Supreme Court overturned his conviction early this month despite overwhelming evidence, rights groups said.
Yudhoyono has refused to publish the final report and recommendations of his fact-finding team set up to investigate the murder despite a deluge of requests to do so, including from 68 US lawmakers who wrote to him last year expressing concern over the case.
Senior legislator Tom Lantos, co-founder and co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, which convened the meeting Wednesday, is "very concerned about this issue," his spokeswoman Lynne Weil said.
"He wants to see that report as to the other members of Congress who voiced their opinion a year ago and these questions should not go unanswered," Weil said. "You can expect to see Congressional follow up before the end of the year," she said.
A draft US legislation calls on the State Department to monitor the progress of the Munir case, said Matthew Easton of Human Rights First, a US group which is pressing for a new probe into the murder.
The US State Department wants the Indonesian government "to ensure that justice is served wherever the evidence may lead and that Munir's murderers undergo a transparent and professional legal process," a department spokesman said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The New York Times, in an editorial this week entitled "Poisoned Justice," said the investigation into Munir's death was an "important test" for Indonesia's still young democracy.
The influential newspaper said if Yudhoyono was sincere about defending human rights and building an honest legal system, he "should immediately release the suppressed report."
Munir's widow Suciwati, herself a labor activist and who testified at the Congressional meeting, said efficient resolution of her husband's case was "crucial to protect other human rights defenders whose lives could also be under threat."
An international investigation into the case is the "only option left" as Munir's family had exhausted seeking justice in Indonesia and Yudhoyono refused to make the key report public, said T. Kumar, Amnesty International's Washington-based advocacy director for Asia-Pacific.
Indonesian intelligence officers had snubbed requests that they submit to questioning by Yudhoyono's fact-finding team and they were not compelled to do so.
Usman Hamid, coordinator of the group Kontras, which helps locate and bring justice to missing persons and victims of violence, said the matter should not be allowed to linger on like the numerous unresolved human rights abuse cases in the former Indonesian territory of East Timor.
The United States froze all military ties with Indonesia in 1999 to protest alleged human rights abuses by Indonesian troops in East Timor. The ban was lifted last year.