Vedro Imanuel Girsang, Imam Hamdi, Jakarta – Several groups have highlighted the performance of President Prabowo Subianto's 100-day administration. They are concerned that the Prabowo's administration is trying to revive militarism and perpetuate state impunity in upholding human rights.
Military involvement in civilian affairs
The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) highlighted how Prabowo has involved so many TNI (Indonesian Military) personnel in carrying out his government's ambitious projects. In the span of the first 100 days of his leadership, Prabowo has given the military free reign to push its way into National Strategic Projects (PSN).
The YLBHI noted the deployment of soldiers through the formation of five new infantry battalions (Yonif) or Vulnerable Area Support (PDR) units in five Papua regions to support the Merauke food estate lighthouse project. The military has also been deployed to support the Rempang Island Eco City PSN project following a meeting between the Batam Free Trade Zone Authority (BP Batam) and the Wira Pratama 003 Sub-Regional Military Command (Korem).
"This pattern will be extended to other national strategic projects", wrote YLBHI in their official study entitled Steps Backward to Destroy Democracy: Notes on 100 Days of the Prabowo Regime's Power which was released on Friday January 20.
Signs of military mobilisation are also noted in the free nutritious meals (MBG) program. The government appears to be mobilising the Army and making them actors in the distribution of food to schools. The head of the TNI's Information Centre (Kapuspen), Major General Hariyanto, believes that the involvement of the TNI is in accordance with applicable legal corridors.
"Through military operations other than war or OMSP, namely to help governments in the regions, including contributions to the management of the national crisis, including the health or nutritional crisis", Hariyanto said when contacted by Tempo on Sunday January 26.
The alibi for the enactment of military operations other than war to justify the involvement of the army has been criticised by Centra Initiative Chairperson Al Araf. He says the emergency approach or securitisation of these issues is just a fabrication.
"The condition was created even though behind this securitisation there is always political, economic, business interests", Al Araf told Tempo at Tempo's offices in Palmerah, Jakarta, on Thursday, January 16.
More than that, strategic positions in the Prabowo Cabinet are also filled by the military. They include Agus Harimurti Yudhoyono (Coordinating Minister for Infrastructure and Development), M Iftitah Suryanagara (Transmigration Minister), Leodwik F. Paulus (Deputy Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security), Ossy Dermawan (Deputy Minister for Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning/Deputy Head of the National Land Agency) and Diaz Hendropriyono (Deputy Minister of Environment and Deputy Head of the Environmental Control Agency).
"Prabowo felt that besides Gerindra (his Greater Indonesia Movement Party) as his political force, the military will [also] be his political force", Al Araf added.
Pass sins and new impunity
Amnesty International Indonesia Executive Director Usman Hamid believes that the retreat on human rights in Indonesia began shortly after Prabowo was inaugurated. On the first day the government took over, the Coordinating Minister for Human Rights, Immigration and Corrections Institutions Yusril Ihza Mahendra commented that there had never been any gross human rights violations in Indonesia.
"This was a bad start for the human rights situation in the first 100 days and for the next five years", said Hamid in a statement received by Tempo on Friday January 24.
In addition to this, said Hamid, the House of Representatives (DPR) and the new government never took any concrete steps to resolve past gross human rights violations. Even the newly formed Ministry of Human Rights has seen zero movement to resolve past gross human rights violations.
Aside from this, even before Prabowo was inaugurated as president, senior Gerindra politicians Sufmi Dasco Ahmad and Habiburokhman, along with former Indonesian Association of the Families of Missing Persons (IKOHI) chairperson Mugiyanto Sipin, reportedly gave 1 billion rupiah to several families of victims of the abduction of 1998 activists.
Furthermore, in an earlier Tempo article, it was report that there was an attempt by the members of the Prabowo government's inner circle to ask the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) not to raise the 2001 Bumi Flora massacre in Aceh and the 2004 assassination of renowned human rights defender Munir Said Thalib at a 100 days of government plenary meeting.
There were three incidents of violence between 1997 and 19999 that were declared gross human rights violations by Komnas HAM. They were the forced disappearance of pro-democracy activists in 1997-98, the May 1998 riots in Jakarta, and the Trisakti, Semanggi I and Semanggi II student shootings in 1998-99.
The three incidents occurred ahead of the resignation of President Suharto, who was also Prabowo's father-in-law, and became a marker of commencement of the reformasi era – the political reform process that began in 1998. Prabowo himself is said to have been involved in the forced disappearance of pro-democracy activist 1997-98.
"Efforts to keep cases of past gross human rights violations away from the courts means to keeping Prabowo away from being indicted by the law", the YLBHI wrote in its official press release.
– Annisa Febiola, Daniel A Fajri and Rusman Paraqbueq contributed to writing this article.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "100 Hari Prabowo, Pengamat: Melenggangkan Militerisme dan Impunitas".]
