Ary Hermawan, Jakarta – Losing trust in the new police investigating team, activists demanded Saturday that the government involve the United Nations in the probe into the 2004 murder of rights activist Munir.
UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions Philip Alston has promised his assistance provided that the Indonesian government grants formal approval for the investigation.
"He will send the letter in November," Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Usman Hamid told reporters Saturday. Last week he returned from a visit to the US with Munir's widow, Suciwati.
He said Alston's visit would open the way for the UN to get involved in the probe. One possibility was the establishment of a joint investigating team involving the UN representatives.
The envisaged joint investigation, Usman added, would be the most effective scheme with the UN and would hopefully gain support from all parties.
Besides establishing a joint investigating team, he said, the UN might also form an independent team apart from the police or review the overall investigation by Indonesian teams.
The investigation to probe the killing of Munir Said Thalib reached an impasse after the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of Garuda pilot Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto last month. Munir died of arsenic poisoning on a Garuda flight from Jakarta to the Netherlands in 2004.
Rights activists grouped under the Committee of Solidarity and Action for Munir (KASUM) has given information needed by Alston to study the case, including the findings of the government-sanctioned fact finding team.
The UN involvement, however, will depend entirely on the government's willingness to involve it.
Asmara Nababan, a former member of the above team, said the government should respond seriously to pressure from the international body, as failure to do so would undermine the nation's credibility as a member of the UN Human Rights Council. "Ignoring international pressure would come at a high cost," he said.
Tom Lantos of the United States Congressional Human Rights Caucus is said to be planning to visit Indonesia by the end of the year to pressure the Indonesian government over the case.
The US Committee had recommended $163.3 million in assistance for Indonesia to help the Southeast Asian country strengthen democracy and implement reforms in various sectors, including the rule of law and human rights. "They hope the Indonesian government could use the money to improve its accountability and transparency," Usman said.
He dismissed the pressure of the U.S congress as a form of intervention and regretted cynical comments from some lawmakers and government officials on what was done by Munir's widow, Suciwati, in the US "This is not an intervention. There are precedents for this," he said.
He said Radhika Coomaraswamy, a UN special rapporteur on women, visited Indonesia in 1998 to help investigate the case of mass rape during the 1998 anti-Chinese riots. Param Coomaraswamy, a UN special rapporteur on independence and impartiality of judges, also visited the country in 2003.