Reconciling truth and geopolitical truth
The Jakarta Post, May 11, 2006
Aboeprijadi Santoso, Berlin, Germany
Truth and reconciliation tribunals have been in vogue since former South African President Nelson Mandela launched formal pre-judiciary processes to help heal the victims of apartheid and re-unite his nation during the 1990s. Yet few other countries burdened with a troubled past have satisfactorily dealt with it by experimenting with transitional justice processes.
Some countries, such as Germany, succeeded without it. Whether the „Truth“ will finally prevail over the „geo-political truth“ (politics), only time can tell. As Indonesia’s experience with the legacy of the 1965-1966 massacre and the case of East Timor both illustrate, domestic conditions and geopolitics are crucial. Yet hope for „Truth“ and true reconciliation remain.
Dealing with a Burdened Past — Transitional Justice and Democratization, an international conference held in Berlin recently, considered various methods of coping with troubled national histories. What place better suited to the discussion of such a topic could there be than Germany, a country with a totalitarian past, in the form of Hitler’s Nazi regime and then communist East Germany and Berlin, the very capital of those systems, and now that of a re-united nation? „We want to share our experience,“ Alex Flor of Watch Indonesia!, who organized the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung conference with Justitia et Pax told Radio Netherlands.
About a hundred delegates from Asian countries discussed various issues, ranging from the double totalitarian experience (Afghanistan under Soviet Union and Taliban) to Cold War victims (Cambodia and East Timor), to a still divided nation (Korea) and a former military dictatorship tainted with mass murders (Indonesia). Obviously there is no universal remedy for these legacies, each of which is historically conditioned by particular experiences.
„We, the host country,“ Alex Flor wisely emphasized, „do not wish to be a teacher.“ Indeed, even Germany, sixty years after World War II, still has some problems. Public institutions started to re-educate themselves, as past good guys became today’s bad guys and victims turned perpetrators — the most well known example being Erich Mielke, a former Nazi victim who later led the East German Stasi secret police. „Only recently we started to rewrite our history and erected memorials,“ said Alex.
Yet, for all the differences of historic experiences, a few general threads are visible.
First, political changes are necessary to generate a real process of seeking ‘Truth’ and reconciliation.
Second, victims should not wait for changes to be initiated by the state or the political elite.
Like in South Africa, transitional justice processes in Cambodia and East Timor have been made possible by regime changes. The Cold War had for decades blocked the search for justice for millions of victims of the murderous Khmer Rouge regime as regional superpowers – – the U.S., China and ASEAN, including Soeharto’s Indonesia – supported the Khmer Rouge faction representing Cambodia at the United Nations.
Only now, with a national hybrid tribunal (with a few foreign judges) which is about to start, „could Cambodian people’s demands for justice be satisfied,“ said Helen Jarvis of the Extra-Ordinary Cambodian Court.
The case of East Timor is both simple and complex. There have been three (pre) judicial processes, but two of them (Indonesia’s Human Rights ad-hoc court in Jakarta and East Timor’s UN authorized Serious Crimes Units in Dili) have failed simply because Jakarta refused to hand over most of the alleged perpetrators.
The third process is huge and has been partially successful. East Timor’s UN mandated process of Truth, Reconciliation and Reception (CAVR) has been very impressive in documenting tens of thousands of human rights violations, detailing both Fretilin’s and Indonesian military’s crimes during the 25-year conflict.
Here, seeking the „Truth“ has been largely successful, but finding justice and true reconciliation have failed as Jakarta and Dili have ignored CAVR’s recommendations and are attempting to buy impunity via the Joint Commission of Truth and Friendship. However, as former CAVR staffer J.C. Guterres emphasized, this injustice is also sustained by the international community as the UN Security Council has refused to act on the UN Secretary General’s report on CAVR.
The absence of regime change in Indonesia since President Soeharto stepped down in May 1998 has essentially been responsible, both for the naked failure of the case of East Timor, and the nation’s inability to resolve the 1965 legacy.
Nothing has been done to restore the civil rights of exiled Indonesians since President Abdurrachman Wahid’s envoy, then Justice Minister Yusril Ihza Mahendra, broke the promise he made in The Hague in 1999 to do so. Even today, more than a year after its deadline, Indonesia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission is still awaiting the presidential green light.
Yet, there are reasons for hope. Just as some Germans, troubled by the past generation, initiated some rethinking in the 1970s, many Cambodians have pressed for justice despite the geo-political blockade. Most impressive has been the great enthusiasm among thousands of Timorese villagers in telling the stories of their suffering before the public. In Indonesia, victims of 1965-1966’s political crimes have started to do the same.
A recent gathering in Yogyakarta of hundreds of former left-wing woman activists revealed both the scale of past sufferings and the great demand for justice among victims. Father Bhaskara Wardaya SJ of Pusdik (the Center of Historical Investigation and Political Ethics) who did not campaign for the meeting was taken by surprise by the fact that victims have turned themselves into truth seekers. He emphasized the long-term importance of documenting cases.
Civil society should take the lead to seek „Truth“ and justice. The case of Chile’s Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s arrest in London is a reminder of what victims and lawyers could do for similar crimes in East Timor.
Justice delayed is not necessarily justice denied. Sooner or later, the „Truth“ will confront the „(geo)-political truth“. It’s a time bomb.
The writer is journalist with Radio Netherlands.
