Fabian Januarius Kuwado, Jakarta – Human Rights (HAM) activists in Indonesia have few expectations about the first debate between the presidential (capres) and vice-presidential (cawapres) candidates on January 17.
The coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), Yati Andriani, says that like the presidential debates held during the 2014 presidential election (pilpres), both presidential tickets will only address the topic of human rights in rhetorical terms.
“The inclusion of HAM in the capres and cawapres debate will not fully guarantee that HAM will be a priority agenda for the two contesting presidential tickets”, Andriani told Kompas.com on Friday January 4.
“The inclusion of HAM will still be just a formality to enliven the capres debate, right. Bearing in mind that so far neither camp in the contest has a significant or substantive track record of fulfilling HAM, particularly in terms of the HAM agenda in the domain of protecting and fulfilling civil and political rights”, she continued.
Take presidential candidate incumbent President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, for example. During his term in office, according to Andriani, Widodo has not fulfilled his pledge to resolve cases of past human rights violations.
This has been aggravated by the still disappointing human rights situation. For example the right to life, the right to be free from torture, the protection of vulnerable [minority] groups, the right to freedom of religion, belief and worship.
“Democratic space is becoming ever more restricted, for example, freedom of association and expression is still not guaranteed or protected”, she said.
Widodo’s rival candidate, Prabowo Subianto, continued Andriani, is even worse. Legally and morally he must be questioned about human rights because he is strongly suspected of being involved in past gross human rights violations such as the abduction and forced disappearance of activists in 1997-98.
“So these issues show that the HAM agenda often just becomes a formality and commodity in pilpres”, said Andriani.
There will be five presidential debates. The first debate will be held on January 17 and will involve both presidential and vice presidential candidates.
The first debate will be broadcast by five television stations, namely TVRI, RRI, Kompas TV and RTV. The second debate is scheduled to be held on February 17, the third debate on March 17 and the fourth debate on March 30, 2019.
The date for the final debate meanwhile has not yet been finalised because the General Election Commission (KPU) and the election campaign teams still need to check their respective schedules.
Notes
During his 2004 election campaign Widodo pledged to solve eight past human rights cases which he referred to as a historical burden. These included violations which took place in 1997-98, during the Suharto dictatorship and the 1965 anti-communist purge. Although the National Human Rights Commission has submitted investigation dossiers on these to the AGO – which has the authority to prosecute cases – all have been rejected on the grounds that they are “incomplete”. Rights activists say Widodo’s failure to pursue these cases is because senior figures in his administration such as Security Minister Wiranto and others close to his PDI-P ruling party’s chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri would face indictment.
Between 1997 and 1998 as many as 23 pro-democracy activists were abducted by members of the army’s Special Forces (Kopassus). After extended periods of detention – in many cases the victims were severely tortured – most were released although 13 remain missing and are presumed dead. Former Kopassus commander Lieutenant General Prabowo Subianto who was at the time President Suharto’s son-in-law, has admitted to ordering the abductions but denies ordering their torture and claims they were all released alive and well.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was “Kontras: Bahas HAM di Debat Capres Tak Jamin Agenda HAM Jadi Prioritas”.]
