[list_indonesia] [ppiindia] Letter from Asia: Outrage, but no answers in killing of an activist New Feature
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- Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2005 03:58:05 +0100
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http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/03/17/news/letter.html
Letter from Asia: Outrage, but no answers in killing of an activist New Feature
By Jane Perlez
Friday, March 18, 2005
JAKARTA The murder of one of Indonesia's most dedicated human rights
campaigners, Munir Said Thalib, reads like a classic who-done-it.
.
En route to Amsterdam on the national airline, Garuda, last September, Munir,
38, died from a massive overdose of arsenic that apparently was hidden in food
served to him in the business-class cabin. In the moments before the plane left
Jakarta, an off-duty Garuda pilot, Pollycarpus Budhari Priyanto, called Munir's
cellphone three times and then boarded the flight. It was Pollycarpus who
offered Munir his business-class seat (the human rights activist had been
booked in economy class) on the first leg of the flight to Singapore, where the
pilot got off. The pilot then caught the first plane back to Jakarta.
.
These are a few of the facts released by a commission established by President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to look into the death that has outraged the human
rights community in Indonesia and raised questions about how serious the
government really is in wanting to get to the bottom of it.
.
The police began questioning Pollycarpus for the first time this week, though
he has not been named a suspect. His lawyer has vigorously denied that
Pollycarpus, whose name has been linked in the Indonesian media with the
National Intelligence Agency, was involved in the death.
.
Corruption pervades every corner of Indonesian official life, not least the
criminal justice system. So people took notice when President Yudhoyono
declared the investigation was a "test case for whether Indonesia has changed."
.
But why, asks Smita Notosusanto, a fellow human rights activist and friend of
Munir, did the president give the fact-finding commission only a narrow
mandate? Notosusanto was appointed to the panel but resigned because she
thought it could not do justice to her friend.
.
"We were so disappointed that the president did not give us the authority to
summon anyone we wanted from the government, particularly from the National
Intelligence Agency," she said.
.
Of importance to Munir's colleagues, and for those concerned about Indonesia's
reputation, is the motive for the murder. Munir was imaginative and unrelenting
in his pursuit of human rights.
.
In the period leading to the ouster of the strongman General Suharto in 1998,
Munir formed the Commission for the Disappearance of Victims of Violence. He
was a key figure in establishing the Indonesian human rights body that did more
than a similar United Nations group, naming 43 army and police officers
involved in the atrocities of East Timor in 1999. He spearheaded efforts to
uncover military abuses in the civil conflict in Aceh.
.
And while it is not clear what he was specifically investigating before his
death, his friends say he was interested in the nexus of the military and
corruption.
.
It is possible, Notosusanto speculates, that Munir's targets were afraid he
"had something very important that he would publicize."
.
What unnerves many Indonesians about the case is the apparent role of Garuda,
the national airline that dominates domestic as well as international routes
out of Indonesia. The head of the presidential panel, Brigadier General Marsudi
Hanafi, said there were "strong indications" that Garuda employees were
involved in Munir's death. He called the murder a "conspiracy."
.
"There is no way it was committed by individuals," the general said.
.
For those interested in the who-done-it aspect of the case, and the likely use
of Garuda by the intelligence agencies, there is plenty to mull over.
Pollycarpus was assigned to go to Singapore to review a past mishap involving a
Garuda Boeing 747 passenger jet with a faulty undercarriage, Garuda officials
said. But Pollycarpus piloted Airbus planes, and it seemed odd to send a pilot
rather than a senior mechanic or engineer on such a mission. Just as odd,
according to the results of the panel, was the fact that the Garuda letter
authorizing Pollycarpus's mission was dated more than a week after Munir's
death and was typed and signed on a Saturday, when Garuda's administrative
offices are closed.
.
If the murder was the work of conspirators, there were some strange
miscalculations. Munir, who became violently ill after the Singapore stopover,
died as the plane flew over Central Europe.
.
That meant the autopsy was done by Dutch authorities rather than in Indonesia,
where it would have been easier for conspirators to influence the outcome. The
Dutch coroner found that Munir, who was traveling to Utrecht University to
begin studies for a master's degree in international law, had swallowed three
times more arsenic than his body could tolerate.
.
Some of his friends wonder why those who killed him went to such lengths. "He
went around the city on his motorcycle; they could have just done it then,"
Notosusanto said.
.
Then there is Pollycarpus, who has a history of turning up in strange places
for strange reasons. An Indonesian journalist, Muhammad Rusmadi, who covered
the conflict between the army and the separatists in Aceh, recalled being in
Lhokseumawe, the city close to some of the fiercest fighting in late 2003. A
man came up to Rusmadi and offered to take him to meet the rebels free of
charge, an offer the journalist turned down.
.
From photographs connected with the Munir case, Rusmadi now recognizes the man
as Pollycarpus.
.
For those who believe an overhaul of Indonesia's justice system is long
overdue, the modus operandi of the inquiry into Munir's death is hardly
encouraging. Why has it taken so long? Why are the police hesitating to carry
out a thorough investigation, asks Marsilam Simanjuntak, a lawyer and reformer,
who was a candidate to be Yudhoyono's attorney general. "If Pollycarpus is part
of scenario, he must be an instrument of a bigger organization such as the
intelligence apparatus," Marsilam said.
.
So far, he said, there had been no moves to look in the direction of the
intelligence services. The president had forestalled that, Marsilam said, by
limiting the jurisdiction of the inquiry panel. The Indonesian police did not
have the fortitude - "the legal and psychological ability," he called it - to
stand up to the National Intelligence Agency.
.
"I'm quite pessimistic," Marsilam said, indicating that, sad to say, it would
be business as usual in the search to find who really killed Munir, Indonesia's
most prominent human rights activist.
.
E-mail: pagetwo@xxxxxxx
.Tomorrow: Roger Cohen on the rising force of nationalism in Asia.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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