Kompas – The families of the victims of forced disappearances in 1997-1998 are hoping that the government will soon form a team to search for the 13 people still missing. It is hoped that this demand will be fulfilled before the end of the 100 hundred days of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono administration.
“The search for the [missing] victims must be a priority, in addition to which we are also awaiting the establishment of an ad hoc human rights court, as mandated by the DPR’s [House of Representatives] plenary meeting,” said Indonesian Association of the Families of Missing Persons (IKOHI) chairperson Mugiyanto in Jakarta on Friday January 22.
The 2004-2009 DPR issued a recommendation for an investigation into the activists forcibly abducted in 1997-1998. There were four points in the recommendation, namely that the president immediately form an ad hoc human rights court, that a search be conducted for the 13 people declared still missing by the National Human Rights Commission, rehabilitate and provide compensation to the families of the victims and that the government ratify the International Convention on Forced Disappearances.
From earlier experiences and the experiences in other countries, said Mugiyanto, the process of forming an ad hoc human rights court can be long and drawn out. Never mind that President Yudhoyono has not yet issued a presidential decree on the matter. “This is the reason we want the search for the 13 victims to be a priority in the formation of an independent team”, he said.
The team, said Mugiyanto, could use as a reference the Munir Fact Finding Team, or the Team of Eight that was formed to investigate the case involving Corruption Eradication Commission deputies Bibit Samad Rianto and Chandra M Hamzah. “Part of the team’s membership must be civil figures with credibility, who have a good track record and can access the locations that are suspected to have been used to detain the disappeared,” he said.
Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) coordinator Usman Hamid added that there are no longer any grounds for the government not to implement the DPR’s recommendations on the abduction and disappearance of people in 1997-1998.
“I the era of the Gus Dur [former President Abdurrahman Wahid] administration, 28 days after the DPR issued a recommendation to investigate the Tanjung Priok [shootings in 1984], a presidential decree on the matter was produced. So why has is it now become so drawn out and protracted”, said Hamid. (AIK)
[Translated by James Balowski.]
