By James Balowski, in Jakarta
After a three-year investigation and testimonies from 349 witnesses, Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) has declared that the systematic prosecution of alleged members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) when former president Suharto and the military seized power in 1965 constituted gross human rights violations. It urged that the military officers involved be brought to trial.
Speaking at a press conference on July 23, Nur Kholis, the head of the investigative team into what is officially described as a coup attempt by the PKI, said that state officials under the Operational Command for the Restoration of Security and Order (Kopkamtib) who served from 1965 to 1967 and between 1977 and 1978 should be tried for crimes including murder, extermination, slavery, eviction or forced eviction, deprivation of freedom, torture and mass rape. Kholis said that his team had handed over the 850-page report to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) and “hoped that the AGO would follow up the report”.
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