Amnesty International Report 1994 - Indonesia

INDONESIA AND EAST TIMOR

More than 200 suspected government opponents were prisoners of conscience or possible prisoners of conscience, including 33 people arrested or sentenced during the year. An estimated 250 other political prisoners continued to serve lengthy sentences imposed after unfair trials. Hundreds of people were arrested and held without charge or trial. The fate of possibly hundreds of Acehnese and East Timorese who "disappeared" in previous years remained unknown. Torture and ill-treatment of political detainees, peaceful protesters and criminal suspects was common, resulting in some deaths. Reports of extrajudicial executions continued. At least 32 prisoners were under sentence of death, two of whom were sentenced during the year. No executions were known to have been carried out.

President Suharto was elected unopposed for a sixth term as President in March. The army's continued dual role in national security and politics was debated openly during the year. The government continued to face both armed and peaceful opposition from groups seeking independence for Aceh, East Timor and Irian Jaya. There were some allegations of abuses by armed opposition groups, but details were difficult to verify.

A personal envoy of the UN Secretary-General visited East Timor in April to examine the implementation of recommendations made the previous year concerning the November 1991 massacre in which the security forces killed at least 100 and possibly as many as 250 people (see Amnesty International Report 1992). On three occasions between January and June, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) felt obliged to suspend visits to political prisoners in East Timor because of restrictions placed on the organization by the government.

Two resolutions, of the UN Commission on Human Rights in March and of the UN Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in August, expressed concern about persistent human rights violations in East Timor and urged the Indonesian Government to allow access to the territory by humanitarian and human rights organizations.

In June a national human rights commission was established, but its members were not appointed until December. Access to East Timor and parts of Indonesia continued to be restricted, making effective human rights monitoring almost impossible. Hundreds of thousands of former members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), banned since 1965, remained subject to heavy restrictions affecting their freedom of movement and basic civil rights.

The perpetrators of human rights violations were rarely brought to justice: a small number of police officers and prison officials were convicted of killing or torturing criminal suspects but they generally received very short sentences.

Lukas Luwarso and Poltak Ika Wibowo, university students from Semarang, Central Java, were sentenced to four months' imprisonment in November for taking part in a cultural event which criticized the country's electoral process and urged young people to boycott the 1992 national elections. Both were prisoners of conscience.

Cheppy Sudrajat, a farmer and a prisoner of conscience, received a 10-month prison term for organizing a peaceful demonstration over land issues in West Java in September. The following month, there were suspicions of police complicity in death threats and in an attack on the house of Ahmad Jauhari, a human rights lawyer.

Eleven East Timorese prisoners of conscience sentenced to long prison terms after unfair trials in 1992 remained in prison at the end of the year. Two of them, Carlos dos Santos Lemos and Bonifacio Magno Pereira, had their sentences reduced by two years. Four others, Gregorio da Cunha Saldanha, Fernando de Araujo, Jo o Freitas da Camara and Virgilio da Silva Guterres, had their final appeals rejected by the Supreme Court. Their lawyer said that he had been unable to file appeals on their behalf within the allotted time because he had not been supplied promptly with copies of court decisions concerning his clients.

At least 50 alleged supporters of the armed pro-independence group Aceh Merdeka, sentenced after unfair trials in 1990, continued to serve prison terms. Two others were sentenced during the year, including Usman bin Muhammad Ali. A possible prisoner of conscience, he was sentenced to five years' imprisonment in July after being convicted of channelling funds to Aceh Merdeka.

Over 100 political prisoners from Irian Jaya, including at least 59 prisoners of conscience, remained in jail for advocating Irian Jaya's independence. Most had been sentenced after unfair trials in 1989 and 1990 to terms of between five and 20 years for planning or participating in peaceful demonstrations. Eight of the prisoners were released during the year, after completing their sentences.

At least 50 out of more than 150 Islamic activists, imprisoned for subversion and serving sentences of up to life imprisonment, were also prisoners of conscience. At least 11 Islamic activists were conditionally released, including prisoner of conscience Andi Mappetahang Fatwa, who had been sentenced in 1985 to 18 years' imprisonment for subversion.

More than 30 prisoners sentenced in the 1960s after unfair trials for alleged involvement in a 1965 coup attempt or for PKI membership remained in prison. Most of them were believed to be prisoners of conscience. Seven were on death row, one of whom, Iskandar Subekti, died in custody in August after 25 years in prison, most of them on death row.

Political trials failed to meet international standards of fairness or to conform to Indonesia's Code of Criminal Procedure. East Timorese resistance leader Xanana Gusm o was sentenced to life imprisonment for rebellion and illegal possession of firearms in May after a blatantly unfair trial. He had been held incommunicado for the first 17 days of his detention and there were fears that he may have been tortured. In August his sentence was reduced to 20 years.

Hundreds of alleged government opponents were detained without charge or trial and denied access to relatives and lawyers. More than 200 villagers in North Sumatra, including women and children, were arbitrarily detained in March and held incommunicado for up to two months, following a confrontation with security forces concerning a land dispute. Dozens of people, possibly many more, were arrested in East Timor before US and Swedish officials visited the area in September. Apparently the arrests were made in order to prevent pro-independence demonstrations.

The fate of possibly hundreds of Acehnese and East Timorese who "disappeared" in previous years remained unknown (see Amnesty International Reports 1992 and 1993).

Torture and ill-treatment of political detainees continued to be widespread. At least 17 students who had taken part in a peaceful protest in support of farmers from Belangguan, East Java, were reportedly tortured or ill-treated during interrogation by military intelligence authorities in East Java in January. The students were said to have been forced to undress, hit with metal rods and punched, and at least 11 of the 17 were reportedly given electric shocks. The authorities denied that any ill-treatment had occurred and no investigation into the case had been undertaken by the end of the year.

Criminal suspects were also tortured and ill-treated, resulting in some deaths. A construction worker, his wife and their nine-year-old child were reportedly tortured by police in West Java in January in order to extract a confession that they had stolen a wallet. The father, Sudarmono, died as a result of torture; his wife, Dasmen, had to be hospitalized after falling into a coma while under interrogation; and their son, Junyonto, suffered injuries to his legs. Under pressure from local residents five police suspects were reportedly detained for questioning. However, to Amnesty International's knowledge, none of the suspects had been charged or brought to trial by the end of the year.

Extrajudicial executions continued to be reported. In East Java, a young factory worker was raped, tortured and then murdered in May because of her role as a labour activist. In November it was announced that a local military commander was among 10 people due to be tried in connection with her death. Despite evidence of his involvement in her abduction, it was reported that he was charged with a disciplinary offence only. He was to be tried in a military court, closed to the public. Four members of an outlawed religious group, Haur Koneng, were killed when government forces stormed their meeting place in West Java in July. Despite the findings of national human rights organizations that security forces had used excessive force and had deliberately killed group members, no member of the security forces had been detained or charged by the end of the year. By contrast, by the end of the year at least eight Haur Koneng members had been tried on various charges and sentenced to between four months and one year's imprisonment. The trials of other members of the community continued.

In September, four people were killed and three injured when security forces opened fire on about 500 peaceful demonstrators in East Java who were protesting over the building of a dam. Four police and military officers were removed from their posts after public protests, but the government and military authorities insisted that there was no need for an independent investigation.

At least 2,000 civilians were reportedly extrajudicially executed by Indonesian soldiers in Aceh between 1989 and early 1993, but no official investigations into any of the killings had been initiated by the end of the year. Most of the victims were ordinary villagers living in areas of suspected rebel activity. Nearly two years after completing its investigation, the government had yet to identify the vast majority of the up to 250 civilians believed to have been killed during and immediately after the 1991 massacre in East Timor. More than 200 people who reportedly "disappeared" after the massacre remained unaccounted for.

At least 17 criminal suspects were shot dead in Jakarta as part of a continuing "shoot-on-sight" policy instigated by the city's police chief in 1989. Despite claims by police authorities that proper procedures were followed, most died in suspicious circumstances and some may have been extrajudicially executed.

At least 32 people were in custody and under sentence of death at the end of 1993. Six were political prisoners, all elderly men sentenced for involvement in the 1965 coup attempt or PKI membership. In April former army sergeant Robert Suryadarma, accused of supporting Aceh Merdeka, was sentenced to death in absentia for subversion. At least one person was sentenced to death for murder. In January lawyers submitted a second request for presidential clemency on behalf of Kamjai Khong Thavorn, sentenced to death for drug-smuggling in 1988. The President's decision had not been announced by the end of the year, but there was deep concern that the execution was imminent. No executions were known to have taken place but in September President Suharto announced that there were no grounds for granting a stay of execution for Sukatno, a former parliamentarian and PKI member, and that he would have to be executed in accordance with the law.

In June and July a group of seven East Timorese asylum-seekers who entered the Finnish and Swedish embassies in Jakarta were turned away despite inadequate guarantees for their safety. They were allowed to leave the country in December.

Amnesty International appealed throughout the year for the release of prisoners of conscience, for the fair trial or release of other political prisoners, for urgent government action to halt torture, extrajudicial executions, "disappearances" and the use of the death penalty. The organization continued to call for investigations into past violations.

In January an Amnesty International delegate attended the second UN Asia-Pacific Workshop on Human Rights Issues in Jakarta, the first time in 15 years that the organization had been allowed to visit Indonesia. The government, however, limited the delegate's visa to five days.

In July Amnesty International issued a report, Indonesia: "Shock Therapy" - Restoring Order in Aceh, 1989-1993, which documented evidence of human rights violations in Aceh and called for urgent action to tackle the pattern of gross human rights violations in the province. References to Amnesty International's concerns in Indonesia and East Timor were included in an oral statement to the UN Commission on Human Rights in March. In July Amnesty International outlined its human rights concerns in East Timor in an oral statement to the UN Special Committee on Decolonization as well as referring to its concerns in Indonesia in a separate oral statement.