Jokowi, thanks for acknowledging, but what’s next?

 

Two days ago, Indonesian President Joko Widodo acknowledged no less than 11 gross human rights violations had taken place in his country's history, including the bloodshed and arrests in 1965 and 1966, which claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands.

In the worst instance, an estimated 500,000 people were killed in violence that started in late 1965 after then-general Suharto and the military took power following an alleged abortive communist coup against the Sukarno administration.

A million or more people were jailed, suspected of being communists at a time when Indonesia’s Communist Party was the third largest in the world, after that of the USSR and China.

“The streets and drains were filled with bodies, even of children,” an eyewitness who lived through that era told me, but many young Indonesians I know are blissfully ignorant of the 11 violations their president is talking about.

Jokowi, who in my opinion, is Indonesia’s finest president, said: "With a clear, genuine mind and conscience, I as a head of state acknowledge that there were gross human rights violations that did happen in many events.”

The president cited incidents spanning from 1965 to 2003, prior to his tenure as leader, including the killing and abduction of students during protests against Suharto's three-decade rule in the late 1990s.

Students leading the protests were targeted and there were also many victims during this period from Indonesia’s Chinese community.

There were also massive atrocities committed in East Timor, Aceh and West Papua, in which independence movements were brutally suppressed.

Jokowi said the government would seek to restore the rights of victims "fairly and wisely without negating judicial resolving", though he did not specify how this would be done.

The president also cited human rights violations in West Papua, noting his acknowledgement came after reading the results received from a team he formed in 2022 to investigate these violations.

Time to revisit West Papua referendum

So my question is, what next? The killings of the mid-1960s are in the history books. East Timor finally is independent and I was glad to speak to its president Jose Ramos-Horta three months ago. He assured me that his nation will not turn its back on human rights commitments.

East Timor president Jose Ramos-Horta

Jokowi is in the last stretch of his presidency as the general election to choose his successor will be held on Feb 14, 2024, and if that replacement is less liberal, then we could see a rollback of reforms and openness.

I would like to see the sincerity of Jokowi’s statement turned into real action in West Papua. West Papuans are indigenous to their island but they have a colonial occupier called Indonesia.

Papuan activists are arrested and murdered and their homeland is exploited for its vast national resources. This is another Palestine happening on our doorstep.

Incidentally, the eastern half of this island is independent as Papua New Guinea.

The Western half was formally incorporated into Indonesia (initially as Irian Jaya) after a widely criticised 1969 referendum which was conducted in an atmosphere of intimidation with just over 1,000 tribal chiefs selected and instructed to vote for West Papua to join Indonesia.

Since then, thousands of civilians - almost all of them indigenous tribal people - have been killed in this silent struggle.

Unlike Timor Leste (East Timor), which Indonesia invaded in 1975 and relinquished in 1999, the freedom movement in West Papua has failed to garner many headlines.

In 2019, the situation flared up following the mass detention of Papuan students in Surabaya, East Java, for bending a flagpole bearing the Indonesian flag in front of a dormitory on Indonesia’s national day, which was celebrated on Aug 17.

This resulted in the West Papua Uprising which swept across 22 towns in the Indonesian province of West Papua and 17 cities in other parts of Indonesia from Aug 19 to Sept 30, 2019, during which a total of 61 people lost their lives.

Indonesia also expelled foreign journalists and imposed an internet blackout on the region. Even scientists who reported on the terrible exploitation of West Papua’s amazing natural resources have been booted out.

Mind you Jokowi was already president at the time. The violence, intimidation and suppression still continue, even as activists call for a new referendum.

So, what are you going to do about it, my brother? Please do something before you go. - Mkini

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MARTIN VENGADESAN is an associate editor at Malaysiakini.