HS Dillon, Jakarta – The report of the joint Commission for Truth and Friendship, recently presented to the two heads of state who established the body, could certainly be lauded for ending a culture of denial by affirming that gross violations of human rights preceding and immediately after the East Timor referendum did indeed take place.
The commission went to great lengths to stay within the confines of its mandate by not arriving at the logical conclusion that the perpetrators of crimes against humanity should be brought to justice.
Instead, it heaped the blame upon faceless institutions, just as the UNHCHR's so-called Commission of Inquiry had done many years earlier.
After talking to people in Indonesia, Australia and Timor Leste, this UN commission had simply stated the TNI was among the institutions responsible for all the crimes.
However, its credence was overshadowed by the superior methodology employed by our own commission of inquiry established by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas Ham). It managed to build a strong case in identifying a number of key perpetrators and recommending they stand trial.
The institution of an Indonesian human rights tribunal for the express purpose of trying these perpetrators had been one of the preconditions demanded by the president prior to Komnas Ham establishing its commission. Thus convinced that Indonesia was committed to the pursuit of justice, the international community dropped its demands for an international tribunal.
Politics of expediency, however, took precedence over justice. Then president Megawati Soekarnoputri appointed an attorney general who immediately proceeded to carve up these crimes into separate cases, effectively demolishing the systematic and widespread underpinnings of the crimes-against-humanity case painstakingly built by the rights body. It was a sad day for justice in both countries when the Supreme Court absolved all Indonesians, convicting two ethnic East Timorese instead.
The words of Eurico Guterres, the young pro-Indonesia militia commander found guilty by Indonesian courts, continue to echo in my ears. "You sacrifice me for the sake of the generals!" he said upon entering the room of inquiry. "No, my dear brother," I tried to assuage his fears, "we will not sacrifice you to protect our generals." But events have borne him out and made liars of me and my colleagues in Komnas Ham's commission of inquiry.
Thus, a historic opportunity to firmly establish that the rule of law applied to all was missed because the entrenched politicians were more bent upon regime maintenance. Instead, they fueled a culture of violence that continues to plague us today.
This culture of violence has manifested itself time and again; Ambon, East Kalimantan and Poso, to name just three. We had witnessed it before, most notably during the May 1998 riots, which left thousands of victims in its wake. Before that, one of the prime suspects in East Timor had set up a 5,000-strong militia with the express purpose of smashing the student protests against the autocratic regime.
None of the commanding officers responsible for the troops that murdered innocent students around Semanggi have been brought to justice. The culture of violence is flourishing, with the selfsame group which had demonstrated against Komnas Ham and demanded its dissolution when it was questioning the generals resorting to violence whenever it so desires.
Was this inevitable? If the prosecutors had aligned all findings toward proving, beyond any doubt, that the then TNI commander was responsible – on account of his position – for the systematic and widespread violence, the courts might have convicted him of crimes against humanity. Would the commander-in-chief have been convicted, too? I very much doubt that, even though his unstatesmanlike decision brought great grief and shame upon the nation.
I, for one, think it highly unlikely that professor B.J. Habibie ordered the violence. However, even if the courts had passed down a sentence, president Megawati could have easily pardoned him. The human rights minister spent several days in Seoul meeting the South Korean speaker of the House, the attorney general and the prosecuting attorney himself to try to understand how they had arraigned two former commanders of the army and presidents and then convicted and pardoned them to put closure on the crimes against humanity for which they had been responsible. We, too, could have traveled down a similar path.
What would have been the implications of such an outcome? If the commanding general had been convicted, the dignity and honor of our nation (including our institutions such as the TNI) would have been restored. The restitution of the victims would have served as a salve on their wounds, paving the way for a friendship based on sound foundations, while measures instituted to prevent recurrence would have nipped the culture of violence in the bud. Only then would restorative justice have truly been served.
There is no denying that friendship with Indonesia is crucial to Timor Leste's development, and in the counterfactual case with restorative justice, we would have forged even closer friendship. For under such a scenario the people of both nations, and not just their ruling elites, would also have been able to forgive and put all that transpired behind them.
Is all hope lost? Are our children doomed to live amid a culture of recurring violence and impunity, all the while carrying the burden of shame? No, not if President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono acknowledges his debt to those who founded the TNI, sacrificing their lives in the process. He needs to remember his oath of office to uphold the integrity and dignity of our republic, and not allow cowards hiding behind uniforms to bring shame upon our people.
A single stroke of the president's pen could set the wheels of justice into motion once again, and bring the CTF findings – that gross violations of human rights had been committed in East Timor – to bear fully upon those who were responsible for the institution of the TNI then. The fearless dedication of a single commission had enhanced our credibility and prevented Indonesia from being condemned by the international community in 2000; there must certainly be some Indonesians left with enough courage to prosecute the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and restore our national dignity.
[The writer was a member of the National Commission on Human Rights from 1999 to 2002.]