*EPF306 04/02/2003
Text: Report Says Indonesian Human Rights Improved, But Still Poor
(Dept. of State's Report on Human Rights Practices in Indonesia) (4820)

The Indonesian government has taken notable steps to improve human rights practices, but the overall situation remains poor, according to the 2002 U.S. Department of State Report on Human Rights Practices in Indonesia.

The report says the Indonesian government "continued to commit serious abuses."

"Soldiers and police murdered, tortured, raped, beat, and arbitrarily detained both civilians and members of separatist movements," says the report. At least 898 persons, both combatants and non-combatants, were reportedly killed in Aceh Province during the year.

Security force members also committed severe human rights abuses in other conflict zones such as Papua, the Moluccas, and Central Sulawesi.

The U.S. government report noted: "Despite the reduced death toll in most conflict zones, the [Indonesian] Government largely failed to deter social, interethnic, and interreligious violence."

In addition to violations by security force members, child labor and sexual abuse "remained major problems."

The complete Department of State report on Indonesia can be found online at:

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18245pf.htm

Following are excerpts from the Country Report on Human Rights Practices 2002 for Indonesia:

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Indonesia

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2002
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

March 31, 2003

Indonesia is a republic. The country has a presidential system with three branches of government. The President is the Head of State and serves a 5-year term for a maximum of two terms. In July 2001, Vice President Megawati Soekarnoputri succeeded President Abdurrahman Wahid after he was impeached. The Cabinet consists of 30 Ministers. The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) is the supreme legislative body and has the power to amend the Constitution. The MPR includes the entire 500 member House of Representatives (DPR), which enacted legislation and appointed regional members. The Government continued to make progress in its transition to a more pluralistic and representative democracy during the year. Since 1999 the MPR has adopted four major constitutional amendments. The Third Amendment was passed in 2001, and the Fourth Amendment, which was passed during the year, provide for direct election of the President and Vice President; create a new legislative body to be made up of regional representatives; and abolish all appointed seats in the legislature, including those for the military (TNI) and the police, known together as the security forces. Some implementing legislation pertaining to these two amendments still was pending at year's end. The amendments established the executive as a separate branch of the Government answerable to the country's citizens rather than to the MPR. During the year, a major decentralization program continued to empower district governments. The Constitution provides for an independent judiciary; however, in practice the courts remained subordinate to the executive.

The TNI is responsible for external defense and the police are responsible for internal security. However, in practice, the division of responsibilities continued to be unclear, with the military playing an overlapping role in internal security matters, particularly in conflict areas such as Aceh, the Moluccas, Central Sulawesi, and Papua (formerly known as Irian Jaya). A civilian defense minister supervises the military, but in practice only exercises limited control over military policy and operations. The TNI continued to wield significant political influence and occupied 38 appointed seats in the DPR. Police and soldiers occasionally clashed, sometimes resulting in the deaths of security force members as well as civilians. Members of the security forces, particularly the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus) and the Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob), committed many serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, torture, rape, and arbitrary detention.

During the year, the economy, which increasingly was market-driven, grew from 3 percent to 3.5 percent; the Government stabilized the country's currency, the rupiah, and reduced annual inflation to 10 percent. A more stable currency encouraged trade, while lower inflation boosted consumption. Government statistics, however, reported 8 million persons unemployed and another 30 million persons under-employed out of a total population of approximately 230 million persons. Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) was $688 in 2001. Large disparities in the distribution of wealth and political power contributed to social tensions and continued to create demands for greater regional autonomy.

The government's human rights record remained poor, and it continued to commit serious abuses. Soldiers and police murdered, tortured, raped, beat, and arbitrarily detained both civilians and members of separatist movements. These abuses were most apparent in Aceh Province, on the northwest tip of Sumatra, where members of an ongoing separatist movement killed at least 898 persons, both combatants and non-combatants, during the year. Human rights violations in Aceh were frequent and severe during the year. On December 9, in Geneva, the Government and the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM) signed a Framework Agreement on Cessation of Hostilities. Security force members also committed severe abuses in other conflict zones such as Papua, the Moluccas, and Central Sulawesi, but at reduced levels compared with the previous year. In Papua members of the TNI and the Brimob committed assaults, rapes, and supported militias, which raised fears of interreligious conflict. During the year, the Government detained and named as suspects seven soldiers for the killing of Papuan pro-independence leader Theys Hiyo Eluay. The Government also arrested seven men, including GAM member Tengku Don, in connection with the killings of prominent Acehnese.

Retired and active duty military officers who were known to have committed serious human rights violations occupied or were promoted to senior positions in both the Government and the TNI. By year's end, the East Timor Ad Hoc Tribunal on Human Rights had found only one member of the security forces--Army Lt. Col. Soedjarwo--guilty of crimes against humanity. Soedjarwo was convicted and sentenced to 5 years in prison for failing to prevent attacks by anti-independence militiamen against the Dili residence and office of Archbishop Carlos Belo in September 1999, which killed at least 13 civilians (see Section 1.e.). During the year, the tribunal completed 14 out of 18 trials and convicted only 3 defendants--Soedjarwo, former East Timor Governor Abilio Soares, who was sentenced to 3 years in prison, and fellow ethnic East Timorese Eurico Guterres, former leader of the Aitarak militia, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison. All three remained free pending appeals at year's end. The tribunal's performance reinforced the impression that impunity would continue for soldiers and police who committed human rights abuses.

Terrorists, civilians, and armed groups also committed serious human rights abuses. On October 12, two bombs exploded in the Bali tourist enclave of Kuta, killing 186 and injuring 328 persons. The government subsequently issued a regulation that expanded the government's power to detain and prosecute suspected terrorists. A government investigation resulted in the arrest of 15 suspects in the Bali attack. On August 31, in Papua, unidentified gunmen killed 3 persons, including 2 foreigners, and injured 12 others when they ambushed a civilian convoy near the Freeport mine. In resource rich Aceh, Gam rebels killed, tortured, raped, beat, and illegally detained civilians and members of the security forces.

The eastern part of the country experienced widespread abuses, particularly in the Moluccas and in central Sulawesi, where ongoing conflicts between Muslims and Christians resulted in violence, segregation, and displacement. The number of serious abuses there, however, declined sharply from the previous year. During the year, conflicts in the provinces of Maluku and North Maluku killed an estimated 75 persons and prevented at least 300,000 displaced persons from returning home. In central Sulawesi, violence resulted in the deaths of dozens of persons and kept approximately 70,000 displaced persons from returning home. In Kalimantan occasional killings occurred during clashes between indigenous Dayaks and ethnic Madurese migrants, although the overall level of violence fell sharply from the previous year.

Despite the reduced death toll in most conflict zones, the Government largely failed to deter social, interethnic, and interreligious violence. Mob vigilante action and religious groups purporting to uphold public morality continued to dispense "street justice." Meanwhile, extremist groups increasingly limited freedom of expression by intimidating or attacking news organizations whose content they found objectionable. The DPR passed a restrictive Broadcasting Bill, which alarmed journalists and activists who called it a major threat to press freedom. During the year, the Government strengthened its legal framework to protect children by passing the Child Protection Act and other related forms of legislation; however, child labor and sexual abuse remained major problems, and implementation of the law remained weak. The Government continued to allow new trade unions to form and to operate, but it frequently failed to enforce labor standards or address violations of worker rights. Trafficking, particularly for prostitution, remained a significant problem. Indonesia was invited by the Community of Democracies' (CD) Convening Group to attend the November 2002 second CD Ministerial Meeting in Seoul, Republic of Korea, as a participant.

RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

The security forces continued to employ harsh measures against rebels and civilians in separatist zones where most politically motivated extrajudicial killings occurred. The security forces also committed numerous extrajudicial killings that were not politically motivated. The Government largely failed to hold soldiers and police accountable for such killings and other serious human rights abuses.

In Aceh, where separatist GAM rebels remained active, military and police personnel committed many extrajudicial killings and used excessive force against non-combatants as well as combatants; at least 898 persons were killed during the year. This figure included civilians, rebels, and security force members, with civilians accounting for most of the fatalities. However, security forces and rebels gave conflicting information on victims' identities, making it difficult to determine the breakdown of civilian, rebel, and security force deaths. Many of the killings appeared to be executions. The Government and the GAM accused each other of killing captured combatants, and there was evidence to support such claims. Press reports undercounted the number of casualties, and some deaths never appeared in the newspapers. Police rarely investigated extrajudicial killings and almost never publicized such investigations. . . .

Police in Aceh did not announce the results of any investigations into extrajudicial killings carried out by the security forces in previous years. In addition, the Government released soldiers suspected of involvement in the December 2000 slaying of three NGO workers in North Aceh because the suspects already had served the maximum period of detention before trial. During the year, credible sources in North Aceh spotted civilian suspects in the same case who had disappeared from police custody in 2001.

Investigation continued into the August 2001 massacre of 31 persons at a palm oil plantation run by PT Bumi Flora in Idi Rayeuk, East Aceh. The National Commission on Human Rights (KOMNASHAM) formed an investigation team (KPP HAM), whose members visited the site in July. The team examined evidence, spoke with local residents and met with officials. However, the team did not announce the results of the investigation. Human Rights Watch (HRW) released a report containing the text of interviews with witnesses to the slaughter and noted that "all of the witnesses believed that the Indonesian Army was responsible for the killings."

During the year, GAM members killed many police, soldiers, civil servants, politicians, and other Aceh residents. Although many Acehnese feared and resented the security forces because of their involvement in human rights abuses, local support for the GAM declined during the year, according to neutral Aceh-based observers. The GAM alienated large segments of Acehnese society through a campaign of extortion and kidnaping for profit. . . .

Occasional clashes between the police and military resulted in civilian deaths as well as fatalities among the security forces. Chronically underfunded soldiers and police clashed periodically over control of criminal enterprises, including drugs, gambling, illegal logging, and prostitution. In September in the north Sumatran town of Binjai, an armed confrontation between soldiers and police left seven police, one soldier and three civilians dead, and at least four civilians injured. The dispute reportedly began when police arrested a soldier for selling the drug ecstasy. On October 2, Army Chief of Staff Ryamizard Ryacudu dishonorably discharged 20 soldiers who were involved in the dispute. On December 18, a military tribunal sentenced 9 of those soldiers to between 5 months and 30 months in prison.

Police and soldiers clashed 23 times during the year, a decrease of at least 35 percent from the same period a year earlier. During the year in Entiekong, West Kalimantan, a shootout between police and soldiers caused an unknown number of casualties. The clash reportedly occurred when police tried to close a TNI protected gambling operation. On August 12, in the West Java village of Cicurug, Bogor Regency, a brawl between police and soldiers left one policeman dead and three injured. The clash reportedly occurred after police tried to rescue an alleged pickpocket who was being beaten by troops. . . .

In the eastern Provinces of Maluku, North Maluku, and Central Sulawesi, ongoing communal conflicts between Christians and Muslims continued, but at a much lower level than in previous years. Nevertheless, civilians and sectarian civilian militias committed scores of extrajudicial killings. The reduced death toll in those areas resulted mainly from the heavy deployment of security forces and, to a lesser extent, from government-brokered peace agreements between the two sides. . . .

Historically, Central Sulawesi has shared certain similarities with the Moluccas, including an evenly divided population of Christians and Muslims and political and economic tensions. In April 2000, in the city of Poso, communal violence quickly escalated. Mobs killed numerous persons and destroyed vehicles and homes. LJ leveled entire villages, some of them Christian and some of which were home to Hindu migrants from Bali. Muslim and Christian religious leaders were accused of incitement. On September 10, police arrested Christian leader Rinaldy Damanik after they found firearms and ammunition in a vehicle in which he was travelling. Observers said Protestant and Muslim groups overreacted to violent incidents, with the effect that reciprocal attacks became exponentially more lethal. By the end of 2001, interreligious violence in the province had killed approximately 2,000 persons and displaced more than 100,000 persons. . . .

Mobs carried out vigilante justice on many occasions, but reliable nationwide statistics were not available. Incidents of theft or perceived theft triggered many such incidents. On June 14, in the north Jakarta community of Tanjung Priok, pedicab drivers beat and severely injured two municipal guards. On June 20, in the West Java city of Tangerang, a mob burned to death a man who had allegedly stolen a television and a VCD player from a house. The man's fingers were removed, making a positive identification of the body more difficult. On August 26, hundreds of residents of the West Java town of Majalengka attacked and killed two plainclothes policemen suspected of stealing motorbikes. The victims were investigating reports of motorbike theft. On September 9, in the same city, a mob fatally assaulted a local resident after he attacked a motorcycle taxi driver and tried to steal the vehicle.

According to the Committee for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), large numbers of persons who disappeared over the past 20 years, mainly in conflict areas, remained unaccounted for at year's end. In addition, hundreds of new disappearances were reported. Many of the disappearances occurred in Aceh, where according to the Aceh branch of Kontras, approximately 224 persons disappeared during the year. . . .

The Government did not take significant action to prevent security force members from carrying out kidnapings. According to a credible human rights activist, police and soldiers in Aceh frequently and illegally detained citizens. The activist said dozens were held at any given time. It was unclear whether any such detainees died in custody during the year.

The Criminal Code makes it a crime punishable by up to 4 years in prison for any official to use violence or force to elicit a confession. In practice, law enforcement officials widely ignored such statutes. Security forces continued to employ torture and other forms of abuse to produce confessions and as a form of punishment. Police often resorted to physical abuse, even in minor incidents.

During the year, the security forces committed numerous acts of torture in Aceh. According to the Aceh branch of Kontras, 1,472 persons were tortured in the province during the year. On May 6, the military released Acehnese Rizki Muhammad, after more than 1 week of detention, during which soldiers allegedly clubbed and burned him with molten plastic. Kontras stated that on May 19, soldiers in the north Aceh village of Alue Dua visited the home of farmer Nurdin Doni, a suspected GAM member. When they learned he was not home, they broke his wife's feet and forced the couple's three children, aged 8 to 14, to stand in a fish pond for 3 hours. The Government did not hold anyone responsible, nor did it launch an investigation into the case. On May 24, a joint military/police squad questioned M. Thaleb, in the village of Meunasah Blouk, Blang Mangat subdistrict. The troops accused Thaleb of being a GAM member and tortured him, peeling some of the skin off his face and causing injuries to his lips and teeth. On June 6, in the north Aceh village of Jawa-Banda Sakti, three Brimob policemen entered the home of Syahrul Gunawan and inflicted severe injuries to his head, eyes, nose, and cheeks.

Police in Papua occasionally also tortured detainees, and in rare cases, their injuries resulted in death. On July 31, according to ELS HAM, Yanuarius Usi died in police custody as a result of torture.

Rapes, some punitive, occurred frequently in conflict zones. Human rights advocates blamed many of the rapes on soldiers and police. Statistics were unavailable, but credible sources provided a number of accounts that involved both soldiers and police. Kontras stated that in April, for an unknown reason, police arrested a 17-year-old girl at her home in the Acehnese village of Ulee Blang. They forcibly intoxicated her with alcohol then raped her. An interfaith organization operating in Poso, Central Sulawesi, reported that high rates of depression among female IDPs because many had been raped and impregnated by Brimob members.

Prison conditions were harsh, with 12 inmates typically sharing a 2-meter by 4-meter cell. Guards regularly extorted money and mistreated inmates. The wealthy or privileged had access to better treatment in prison. In July Hutomo "Tommy Suharto" Mandala Putra started serving a 15-year sentence at Batu prison on the island of Nusakambangan, off of Java's south coast. Tempo magazine reported that his cell, unlike most, had a bathroom of its own and no bars on the windows. Prison authorities housed female inmates separately from men, but in similar conditions. Juveniles were not separated from adults. There was no official restriction against prison visits by human rights monitors. In practice, prison officials and guards rarely provided access, although the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) visited convicted prisoners on occasion. . . .

The Criminal Procedures Code contains provisions against arbitrary arrest and detention, but lacks adequate enforcement mechanisms, and authorities routinely violated it. The code provides prisoners with the right to notify their families promptly and specifies that warrants must be produced during an arrest (except if, for example, a suspect is caught in the act of committing a crime). The law allows investigators to issue warrants, but, at times, authorities made arrests without warrants. No reliable statistics exist on how many arbitrary arrests and detentions took place during the year. . . .

A defendant may challenge the legality of his arrest and detention in a pretrial hearing and may sue for compensation if wrongfully detained. However, it was virtually impossible for detainees to invoke this procedure or to receive compensation after being released without charge. Military and civilian courts rarely accepted appeals based on claims of improper arrest and detention. The Criminal Procedures Code also limits periods of pretrial detention and specifies when the courts must approve extensions, usually after 60 days. The courts generally respected these limits. The authorities routinely approved extensions of periods of detention. . . .

The Constitution provides for judicial independence. However, in practice, the judiciary remained subordinate to the Executive and was often influenced by the military, business interests, and politicians outside of the legal system. The law requires that the Justice Ministry gradually transfer administrative and financial control over the judiciary to the Supreme Court by 2004. However, judges were civil servants employed by the executive branch, which controlled their assignments, pay, and promotion. Low salaries encouraged corruption, and judges were subject to pressure from governmental authorities, which often influenced the outcome of cases. . . .

On March 14, the ad hoc human rights tribunal for East Timor convened in Jakarta after the government failed to investigate instances of gross human rights abuses within the timeframes stipulated by the human rights tribunal law. According to a broad interpretation of this law, the attorney general should have commenced prosecution no later than February 23, 2001, or a maximum of 310 days after the formation of his special investigative team on April 19, 2000. A stricter reading of the statute would have moved forward the deadline for prosecution by approximately 3 months, or 310 days after Komnasham provided the results of its inquiry into the East Timor atrocities on January 31, 2000. The DPR did not recommend the tribunal's establishment until March 2001; the presidential decree authorizing its establishment was withheld until late the following month, and the government deferred selection of non-career tribunal jurists until mid-January. The government's failure to meet statutory deadlines in preparing cases for the tribunal represented a major procedural violation that could provide grounds to overturn any convictions on appeal. . . .

The law requires judicial warrants for searches except for cases involving subversion, economic crimes, and corruption. Nevertheless, security officials occasionally broke into homes and offices. The authorities generally did not monitor private communications but they occasionally spied on individuals and their residences, and listened in on telephone calls. There were reports that the Government occasionally infringed upon privacy rights of migrant workers returning from abroad, particularly women. Corrupt officials sometimes subjected the migrants to arbitrary strip searches, expropriated valuables, ordered currency conversions at below-market rates, and extracted bribes at special lanes set aside at airports for returning workers. . . .

RESPECT FOR CIVIL LIBERTIES

The Constitution provides for freedom of speech and for freedom of the press, and the Government generally respected these rights in practice; however, various forms of censorship continued to threaten press freedom.

Journalists, human rights activists, and others expressed alarm over the DPR's November 28 passage of a Broadcasting Bill, which would establish an Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) of questionable independence. Critics said the law would limit foreign-produced news and require broadcasters to make unspecified "corrections" if there were protests over news content. The law's supporters said it would promote local broadcasting after decades of Jakarta-centric news and bring order to the industry. The bill was sufficiently vague to be interpreted in any number of ways. For this reason, and because lawmakers and the Government put off a crucial decision on whether the KPI would have the sole right to issue broadcasting licenses, it was not immediately clear whether the law would seriously undermine press freedom. . . .

The Constitution provides for freedom of assembly; however, the Government restricted this right in certain areas. The law generally does not require permits for public social, cultural or religious gatherings; however, any gathering of five or more persons related to political, labor, or public policy required police notification (see Section 6.a.). The law requires that persons planning to hold a demonstration notify police 3 days in advance and appoint someone accountable for every 100 demonstrators. . . .

Article 29 of the Constitution declares that the state is based upon belief in one god, and that the state provides for every resident to adhere to their respective religion and to perform their religious duties in accordance with their religion and faith . The Government generally respected these provisions, but only five major faiths--Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism--received official recognition in the form of representation at the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Other religious groups were able to register with the Government, but only with the Ministry of Home Affairs, and only as social organizations. By stipulating that the country is based on belief in one God, the Government does not recognize atheism. The Government denied members of some faiths equal treatment in areas such as civil registration. There was no change in the status of religious freedom during the year. The Human Rights Law allows conversions between faiths, but converts to minority religions sometimes felt reluctant to publicize their conversions because they feared some degree of discrimination. . . .

The Constitution allows the Government to prevent persons from entering or leaving the country, and the Government restricted freedom of movement. The revised Law on Overcoming Dangerous Situations gives the military broad powers in a declared state of emergency, including the power to limit land, air, and sea traffic; order persons to relocate; order house arrests; and prohibit migration into and out of an area. In practice the Government did not use these powers. . . .

RESPECT FOR POLITICAL RIGHTS

Domestic and international observers monitored the last elections in June 1999, and generally considered them to be open, fair, and free. Following the 1999 elections, the MPR, in a transparent manner, elected Abdurrahman Wahid as President and Megawati Soekarnoputri as Vice President. In July 2001, the MPR convened an "Extraordinary Session" to require President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was President at the time, to account for his performance. Wahid refused to appear, claiming the charges were politically motivated, and instead issued a directive to "freeze" the MPR, the DPR, the Golkar Party, and to hold new elections. This exceeded his authority under the Constitution, and the military and police refused to enforce these measures. On July 23, 2001, the MPR canceled Wahid's mandate, and Vice President Megawati replaced Wahid as President as provided by law. . . .

The Constitution does not explicitly forbid discrimination based on gender, race, disability, language, or social status. It provides for equal rights for all citizens, both native and naturalized. In practice, however, the Government failed to defend these rights adequately, and the basic rights of women and children were frequently abused. The Government did little to defend the rights of persons with disabilities.

Violence against women remained poorly documented, and NGOs estimated that only 15 percent of domestic violence incidents were reported. On July 17, the Minister of Women's Empowerment said the number of domestic violence incidents had increased 29 percent from the previous year. The NGO Mitra Perempuan reported 111 cases of domestic violence in Jakarta and its suburbs during the first half of the year. In September Jakarta's biggest hospital, Cipto Mangunkusumo, admitted 72 women injured in domestic violence. It was unknown how many spouses were prosecuted for domestic violence due to the fact that police refused to provide relevant information. The UPC studied the problem of domestic violence and concluded that domestic violence was more common than before the 1997-98 financial crisis. Two types of crisis centers were available to women in distress: Government-run centers in hospitals and NGO centers operated in the community.

The Government stated its commitment to children's rights, education, and welfare, but devoted insufficient resources to fulfill that commitment. Poverty put education out of the reach for many children. Child labor and sexual abuse were serious problems during the year (see Sections 6.d. and 6.f.). Among girls aged 7 to 12, 7 percent, or 923,000, did not attend school. Although girls and boys ostensibly received equal educational opportunities, boys were more likely to finish school. Hairiah, a noted rights activist in West Kalimantan, said many parents could not afford to educate all of their children, and concentrated their resources on their sons. . . .

Child prostitution was pervasive during the year. NGO estimates of the number of child sex workers in the country ranged from 40,000 to 300,000. Although some teenage girls entered the sex trade knowingly, many were forced or tricked into the practice. At times law enforcement officials treated child sex workers as perpetrators of crime, rather than victims. The NGOs stated that fewer than 10 percent of child prostitutes were rehabilitated successfully. Women's rights activists and religious groups accused government officials, including police and soldiers, of operating or protecting brothels that employed underage prostitutes. During the year, there were reports that corrupt civil servants issued identity cards to underage girls, facilitating entry into the sex trade (see Section 6.f.). . . .

Many trafficking victims became vulnerable to trafficking during the process of becoming migrant workers. Although the Government licensed "official" recruiting agents, many unauthorized recruiting agents operated freely throughout the country. These illegal agents often charged exorbitant fees and recruited workers to work illegally overseas (see Section 6.c.).

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(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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