Yulida Medistiara, Jakarta – Attorney General Muhammad Prasetyo will discuss the resolution of gross past human rights cases with the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM). He will do this so that there are no misunderstandings about how to resolve them.
“We will talk with the Komnas HAM about what’s best. This [discussion] has been going on for some time, for years”, said Prasetyo at the House of Representatives (DPR) complex in Jakarta on Wednesday January 23.
Prasetyo said that like Komnas HAM, the government is committed to resolving past abuses. According to Prasetyo however, the most realistic approach to resolving past human rights violations is through non-judicial channels.
“Because, if not, it will go on forever, become a legacy, an unresolved legacy, because these cases of gross human right violations do not have and expiry date”, said Prasetyo.
“Komnas HAM’s leadership has changed, [like] the Attorney General, presidents have come and gone. Yeah it’s like that. So we’ll try to find a resolution that’s the most realistic possible which we can pursue”, he said.
If in the end Komnas HAM rejects this, Prasetyo claimed this is no problem because it has already been discussed with the Coordinating Minister for Security, Politics and Legal Affairs (Kemenko Polhukam) Wiranto. According to Prasetyo not all of the related parties want to be held hostage by this issue.
Earlier Komnas HAM said that Prasetyo had failed to carry out President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s instruction to resolve past rights cases. This assessment was based on the fact that the Attorney General has again returned the cases dossiers on nine past human rights violations.
Komnas HAM’s Study and Research commissioner Mohammad Choirul Anam said that on November 27 last year the commission received the returned case dossiers from the Attorney General, but no notes or guidelines were attached. He said that the cases dossiers have been returned repeatedly.
“The return of the dossiers by the Attorney General is something that been repeated numerous times. In substantive terms there has been no update on the guidelines which have been conveyed by the Attorney General”, said Anam at a press conference at the Komnas HAM building in the Menteng suburb of Central Jakarta on Thursday January 10. (yld/dhn)
Notes
In an attempt to defend criticism over the fact that the government has failed to solve a single past human rights case in the four years since Widodo was elected, the Widodo camp has on several occasions attempted to hide behind the claim that Widodo has done something by “instructed the AGO to solve past rights case”.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was “Jaksa Agung akan Bicara dengan Komnas HAM soal Kasus HAM Berat”.]
