1965 victims to summon Yudhoyono over request for rehabilitation

Source
Tempo Interactive – September 21, 2007
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Placard reads 'We victims of 1965 are already elderly' (Tempo)
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Placard reads 'We victims of 1965 are already elderly' (Tempo)
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Rofiuddin, Sohirin, Semarang – Victims of the September 30 Movement/Indonesian Communist Party (G30S/PKI) affair will issue a summons against President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono because up until now the president has never provided rehabilitation to the victims of the 1965 affair.

Semaun Utomo, the chairperson of the Struggle Institute for the Rehabilitation of New Order Regime Victims (LPR-KROB) said that around one month ago, together with the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), they had submitted a request for rehabilitation to the president. “But up until now the president has still not responded to our request”, said the former chair of the PKI Central Committee History Institute when speaking with Tempo in the Central Java provincial capital of Semarang on Friday September 21.

Utomo said that in accordance with Paragraph 14 Article 1 of the 1945 Constitution, it states that the one with the right to provide rehabilitation is the president. “Because the current president is Yudhoyono therefore we are summoning President Yudhoyono”, said Utomo.

Utomo was unable to explain when the summons will be presented. “Within the next two or three days”, he said. He added that two years ago victims of the G30S/PKI affair had already obtained a recommendation from the Supreme Court (MA) that PKI victims be rehabilitated.

In addition to this said Utomo, the House of Representatives (DPR) and the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) had also made similar recommendations. “But we don’t know why the president has not provided rehabilitation for us, whereas we have already attached the recommendation from MA, DPR and Komnas HAM [in the request sent] to the president”, he said.

Notes:

G30S/PKI – An acronym referring to an alleged coup attempt in 1965 which the New Order regime officially described as a PKI conspiracy. Since the overthrow of former President Suharto in 1998 however, the involvement of the PKI in G30S affair has been publicly questioned and it is now generally referred to only by the acronym G30S. Despite this, the Attorney General’s Offices has continued confiscating history school books that fail to mention the PKI’s involvement in the affair.

[Translated by James Balowski.]

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