Jokowi and Human Rights Solution of the Past
Joko Widodo is a president who is not of the past and is separate from the past. He was never involved in any human rights violations.
Joko Widodo is a president who is not of the past and is separate from the past. He was not an official or party cadre during the New Order era. He was never involved in any human rights violations.
For example, his predecessor president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY), as we all know, is the son-in-law of Sarwo Edhie, the commander of the Army\'s Special Forces (RPKAD) in who led the operation to eradicate members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). It will be easier for Jokowi to solve the various human rights cases of the past on paper.
Joko Widodo, alias Jokowi, was not a member of the PKI or its offspring. He was born in 1961, so he was just 4 years old on Sept. 30, 1965. His mother, Sujiatmi, married his father, Widjiatno, who later – as was common among the Javanese –took Notomihardjo as his family name.
Notomihardjo was a chairman of a Nationalist Party branch office. Nevertheless, he was a quiet person and it was usually his wife, Sijiatmi, who was asked to speak at family and neighborhood meetings. In 1965, they were living in Gilingan, Solo. They had just moved there when soldiers ransacked the kampong. Their house was untouched, but a number of their neighbors were arrested, as they were thought to be sympathizers of the PKI and the Gerwani women’s communist organization.
This backstory caused a writer in Semarang to accuse Jokowi\'s family of being involved in the PKI’s G30S aborted coup in a book titled Jokowi Undercover. The writer was tried and sentenced, and it is hoped that no one else will ever emulate the criminal act.
During his 2014 presidential campaign, Jokowi launched his Nawacita pledge, under which one program intends to settle past wrongs. This was reinforced in the Medium-Term Development Plan (RPJM) of the Joko Widodo-Jusuf Kalla government.
Settling past wrongs is normal for a country that is transitioning from an authoritarian regime to a democracy. Gross human rights abuses of the past are to be settled through the Ad Hoc Human Rights Court as well as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (KKR). Indonesia once established an ad hoc human rights court for the East Timorese cases. A law on the truth and reconciliation commission has been drafted. Before the commission was formed, the law was quashed in an ultra petita judgment by the Constitutional Court.
The 1965 cases
Reconciliation between victims of the 1965 incident and the Nahdliyin (followers of Nahdlatul Ulama) have taken place at the grassroots level through the initiation of the Syarikat youth group in Yogyakarta that spread throughout Java. The Forum for Bonding the Nation’s Chidren (FSAB), which comprised children of conflict figures in the past, such Amelia Yani, Ilham Aidit, Sarjono Kartosuwiryo, the late Farid Prawiranegara and Ferry Omar Dani, agreed to prevent conflicts and inheriting conflicts.
Meanwhile, in East Java, before he became a minister, Dahlan Iskan was a mediator between his family’s Islamic boarding school in Magetan and Soemarsono, a youth fighter in the November 1945 battle in Surabaya who was later involved in the 1948 Madiun incident. Following the G30S event of 1965, Sumarsono was arrested and detained for several years. After he was freed, he sought asylum in Australia and now lives in Sydney. Let reconciliation take place naturally, without government involvement.
The Jokowi government really wants to put the 1965 case to rest. This can be seen in the scientific meeting that was organized in April 2016 in Jakarta specifically for this purpose, and which was financed for the first time using the government budget. The Presidential Advisory Council set up the meeting with the 1965 victims on the initiative of National Resilience Institute (Lemhannas) governor Lt. Gen. (ret.) Agus Widjojo. In the meeting, Agus Widjojo said that he had searched for a solution, and that a condition had to be created so the President could make a decision without any resistance from any party.
In other words, settling the mass murder cases of 1965/1966 is entirely difficult, because it involved not only the military, but also community groups such as the NU’s Banser youth group. In 2002, the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) handed over the results of its investigation into the gross human rights violations to the Attorney General\'s Office. However, the documents were exchanged between the two institutions without any decision being taken.
Therefore, cases that fall purely under state policies must be settled first. The first case is the revocation of Indonesian citizenship for students and other groups who were abroad in 1965-1966. This policy caused them not only to lose their Indonesian citizenship, but also great difficulty to see their families in the country for dozens of years. Some of them have been granted citizenship in the countries where they now live.
The solution for these victims is easy. On a state visit to a European country, President Jokowi had the chance to meet with these Indonesian students whose citizenship was revoked at the Indonesian Embassy. The President admitted that the policy to revoke their citizenship had been implemented in the past, that he deplored it, and hoped it would not happen again.
Buru Island case
Second is the case of Buru Island, which was used as a prison camp. Over 11,000 people were forcefully relocated to Buru Island without trial over 10 years (1969-1979). In this case, the place is clear, the time is clear, the victims are clear, and the perpetrators are clear: from the now defunct Operational Command for the Restoration of Security and Order (Komkamtib), which was directly under the President, to the Buru Island Resettlement Executor, who was also the Attorney General.
There, the victims were forced to work from sunrise until sunset, often into the night, to dig paddy fields and serve the needs of the guards’ commander without pay. If they were found resting before the commander had ordered it, they were beaten.
In this case, the President can issue a presidential decree to rehabilitate the victims’ good names. The President can make provisions for this rehabilitation upon the consideration of the Supreme Court. Supreme Court Chief Justice Bagir Manan used to send letters to the President on this matter. In the 1970s, the number of victims was 11,000 people. After nearly half a century and at an average age of 80, it is not known how many are still alive.
ASVI WARMAN ADAM
Historian at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI); a member of the Investigative Team on Soeharto\'s Gross Violations established in 2003 by Komnas HAM