Well-known women's rights activist Saparinah Sadli said the new government must acknowledge that mass rapes occurred during widespread riots in May 1998.
”The attitude so far [from authorities] is that the rapes were 'presumed' to have happened,” she told The Jakarta Post at her home on Wednesday.
The first thing the new government should do is to revoke that statement, she said.
On May 12 1998, four Trisakti University students were shot during protests in Jakarta, triggering widespread riots and mass rapes, mainly of ethnic Chinese women, in the following days. Over 1,000 were killed, including in burning buildings, during the riots in Medan, Solo, Jakarta and elsewhere.
Low ranking police personnel were convicted in the shootings, but no one has been brought to trial for the riots, arson, sexual assault, torture and mass rapes.
Saparinah said her expectations were not so high that there would be trials, for instance, under a new president to be elected on July 9.
"Acknowledgement of the rapes, and an apology to all victims [of the riots] would be a big step already,” said Saparinah, a member of the government-appointed Joint Fact Finding Team set up in the wake of the riots.
The team submitted its findings to the government in October 1998, but there has been no follow-up on its recommendations of further investigations into the events -- the excess of an elite power struggle that peaked when then president Soeharto stepped down on May 21, 1998.
Saparinah said there did not need to be summoning of counselors, witnesses or even the victims.
”Even witnesses including journalists and counselors do not want to be reminded of the trauma,” said Saparinah, a professor in psychology.
Rape survivors have largely left the country and have assumed new identities, she added.
Without state acknowledgment all these years, victims and their families have never felt safe, she said.
Authorities had always demanded hard evidence in the case of the rapes, dismissing testimonies of counselors and physicians who had examined victims, she added.
The fact-finding team, comprising civilian and police and military officials, and NGO volunteers, had concluded there were at least 85 rapes and gang rapes in the May '98 riots. (gda)
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