Is Indoneesian President Widodo just paying
pre-election lip service to human rights?
Volunteers and NGO workers who helped
Indonesia’s president win election say the leader has mostly forgotten their
causes, doing little to make abusers and war criminals face justice
While she was a student at University
of Indonesia, Raisa Widiastari began volunteering with the Commission for the
Disappeared and Victims of Violence, a big national NGO dedicated to raising
awareness for the victims of human rights abuses. She saw it as a way to make
her country confront its chequered past.
But last year, Widiastari herself
became a victim of abuse. In September, she and about 200 other activists were
trapped in a building by Islamic vigilantes for more than eight hours on
suspicion they were harbouring communists.
WATCH: Islamists descend on Jakarta legal aid institute
So when President Joko Widodo agreed
last week to meet her and other activists who gathered outside the presidential
palace to protest against the government’s seeming inaction on human rights
issues, you might think she would be excited. She wasn’t.
“Jokowi lies. He is just trying to
raise hopes before 2019,” Widiastari says, referring to next year’s
presidential election.
After disappointing the very
activists who helped sweep him to victory in 2014, Widodo is in the middle of a
charm offensive to help bring them back on board ahead of elections next year.
Late last week, for the first time he
met victims and their relatives who had gathered outside his official residence
every Thursday, rain or shine, for more than decade. Days earlier his
administration agreed to drop a ban on gay sex in a revised criminal code.
But for many like Widiastari, the
overtures are too little, too late.
“He just wants us to choose him
again,” says Widiastari who refused to meet Widodo.
Widodo’s troubles with human rights
activists started during his election campaign, when he promised to confront
the country’s dark past and make amends on behalf of victims of abuse. Item No.
4 in his nine-point election platform, Nawacita – Sanskrit for
priorities – was a vow to resolve historic human rights abuses.
To be sure there have been attempts
to make good on his promises. He directed his top lieutenant, Luhut Pandjaitan,
coordinating minister for maritime affairs, to look into evidence of mass
graves dating back to the anti-communist purges, as well as splashing out on
much needed infrastructure in poor and remote Papua.
But activists say the measures
resulted in few tangible results, in part because of the company Widodo keeps.
Pandjaitan, who has publicly scoffed at the notion of mass graves, was a
general during the dictatorship of former president Suharto. Accompanying
Widodo in his meeting with the Thursday group was Wiranto, his security
minister who is wanted for war crimes by the United Nations.
Earlier this year, in a bid to
appease religious conservatives, Widodo agreed to include a ban on sex outside
marriage and to expand the definition of sexual molestation to include
consensual sex among adults of the same gender.
But last week the administration
backed off the ban in the proposed revision of its criminal code. Widodo’s
parliamentary deputy who is overseeing the revision, Enny Nurbaningsih, said
the government would remove all mention of same-sex relations. The wording now
simply enjoins Indonesians from engaging in “indecent” sex.
The change of heart comes after a
torrent of lurid headlines over the country’s treatment of its homosexuals,
including the public caning of two young gay men in Aceh. In February, UN Human
Rights Chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein publicly criticised the efforts to
criminalise homosexuality.
Even so, with the government now in
the business of regulating sex between adults, police are no less likely to
harass the country’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered (LGBT) citizens,
says Andreas Harsono of Human Rights Watch. Last year police rounded up more
than 200 gay men.
“The changes aren’t enough to prevent
law enforcement officials and vigilantes from using those articles to raid and
to abuse potential victims,” he says.
Widodo’s meeting with the Thursday
protesters, who are known locally as Kamisan – derived from the
Indonesian word for Thursday – came only after activists forced his hand.
Every Thursday for 11 years about 50
protesters assemble outside the presidential palace just ahead of evening rush
hour calling on the administration to investigate abuses ranging from suspected
mass killings in Papua, to the thousands of disappearances of dissidents during
Suharto’s dictatorships, to the shootings of unarmed students who struggled to
bring his regime to an end.
Widodo’s attorney general, Muhammad
Prasetyo, has refused to investigate the alleged human rights abuses owing, he
says, to the lack of evidence. Prasetyo hasn’t even brought charges against the
hardliners who trapped Widiastari and other activists, even though their faces
were broadcast on television.
Last September thugs linked to the
hardline group Islamic Defenders Front encircled the headquarters of Jakarta
Legal Aid Institute as the human rights group convened a symposium focusing on
the 1965 anti-communist purges. They hurled bottles and rocks into the window
and attempted to force their way past police, injuring many officers.
For two weeks following the siege,
Widiastari couldn’t return to her family, fearing she would lead attackers to
them.
“Jokowi’s meeting with Kamisan
created an impression that the administration wanted to have a useful photo
opportunity,” said Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono.
It wasn’t always like this. Slamet
Rahardjo remembers a time when Widodo wasn’t so circumspect.
Rahardjo, an HIV/Aids activist in
Solo, Central Java, where Widodo was mayor for seven years until 2012, said
Widodo took meetings with him and other LGBT residents and would attend
community events such as Solo Batik Carnival.
“Most of the designers and the models
were gay and he still came,” Rahardjo said. Those events, often used to raise
awareness of HIV, were safe. he recalls.
While Rahardjo understands Widodo has
more at stake now as president relative to when he was a running a medium-sized
town, he worries that his former mayor has lost his voice in fear of upsetting
conservatives.
“His silence has been disappointing
on LGBT issues,” Rahardjo says.
“We just want him to say that LGBT people are
citizens of Indonesia, too.”
SCMP
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