Indonesia Series I of X: Urgent Statement from Indonesia
Despite the image that Indonesia is a land of smiling faces and warm hearts, human rights abusers have not been proven to be fairly prosecuted. The following is a statement issued by Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa, also known as Solidarity for the Motherland and Nation in English. They urge a thorough investigation on abuses performed during the Indonesia's former President Soeharto's New Order Regime ruling.
Starting from March 2000, this column will cover ten articles on history of human rights abuse in Indonesia.
[For further information on human rights abuses in Indonesia still occur today, kindly email the editor of this column at penpusher@suite101.com .]
STATEMENT BY SOLIDARITAS NUSA BANGSA
(SOLIDARITY FOR THE MOTHERLAND AND NATION-INDONESIA)
1 March 2000
On 28 February, Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa and the Foundation to Investigate the 1965/66 Massacre (YPKP) met Komnas HAM, the National Human Rights Commission, to ask it to set up a special investigation commission (known as KPP HAM) into the massacre, as a step towards national conciliation.
Following the meeting, Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa has issued the following statement:
1. Komnas HAM categorically refused to set up a KPP HAM to investigate the 1965/66 killings on the grounds that MPR Decree XXV, 1966 has not been revoked. (This Decree outlawed Marxist Leninist teachings and was used to legitimize the physical and political obliteration of the Indonesian communist party and associated mass organizations whose members had by that time already been decimated.)
2. Komnas HAM will continue to handle all cases brought to its attention regarding former PKI political prisoners whose identity cards continue to be stigmatized with the initials ET/OT.
Solidaritas Nusa Bangsa believes that the victims who fell in those days deserve better treatment than this. Moreover, there were racist overtones to the killings in that many of the victims were Chinese at a time when Chinese were frequently branded as being communists. People who were arbitrarily branded in this way were sentenced to death without trial. This is the essence of the human rights abuse which we discussed with Komnas HAM.
It was not our intention to discuss the cases of people who were convicted and punished in independent and fairly conducted trials. The essence of the problem is not whether some people's identity cards are still stigmatized with ET/OT. This fact is a consequence of the much more basic crime against humanity that was legitimized by the New Order. We are not demanding very much. All we are demanding is that independent and fair investigations should be conducted into the killings in 1965/66.
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