Cebongan
Prison tragedy : A human rights prespective
Hafid Abbas ; A
Member of Komnas HAM
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JAKARTA
POST, 10 April 2013
The shocking attack on Cebongan Prison has led to
social and political fallout across the nation.
According to
the Army, the brutal murders of four prisoners in their cells by a team
of armed gunman — the first assault of its kind in Indonesia — were
revenge killings perpetrated by 11 commandos assigned to a local Army’s
Special Forces (Kopassus) unit.
Military
Police investigators have alleged that two of the 11 soldiers tried to
stop the attack, but to no avail.
While the
openness of the Indonesian Military in compiling its investigation of the
incident has won appreciation from both domestic and international
communities, from a human rights perspective, however, there are some
questions that must be addressed.
First, the
attack has greatly damaged the notion of the nation’s penal system as a
symbol of human rights protection and the supremacy of law.
In a
democratic society, a prison is a site of a total security and safety
where prisoners are fed, educated, given medical care and so on. Prison
is a kind of social hospital where all inmates are to be treated for
their immediate recovery. The only element of difference is freedom.
The UN
General Assembly adopted on Dec. 14, 1990, basic principles for the
treatment of prisoners, stating that the responsibility of prisons for
the custody of prisoners and for the protection of society against crimes
shall be discharged in keeping with the state’s other social objectives
and its fundamental responsibility for promoting the well-being and
development of all members of society.
The Cebongan
tragedy obviously indicates that Indonesian prisons are no longer such
safe places. The damage to the nation’s penal system wreaked by the
killings will require collective action from the people, the Indonesian
Military (TNI), the National Police and the nation’s judicial system to
immediately restore conditions to normal.
South African
leader Nelson Mandela once said that that you cannot truly know a nation
until you have lived inside its jails — as he did, for decades. A nation
should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its
lowest ones.
Let us treat
our prisoners with the respect due to their inherent dignity and value as
human beings.
Second, the
attack simply exposed an abuse of power triggered by a misguided notion
of military solidarity. Weeks before the Cebongan killings, a group of
soldiers attacked the local police headquarters in the Ogan Komering Ulu,
South Sumatra. However, deploring such barbaric acts are the tip of the
iceberg. There have been triggering factors behind the TNI attacks on the
people and other elements of the state apparatus that must be addressed.
The violence
in Cebongan and Ogan Komering Ulu indicate an escalation of tension
between the National Police and the TNI. This disharmony requires
immediate internal reform of the two institutions. Since their separation
in 1999, the TNI and the National Police have routinely come into
conflict. More delays to these needed reforms will create more tragedies.
The National
Police, especially its Densus 88 counterterrorism unit, enjoys
extraordinary powers to carry out its mandate. In a democratic society,
however, such excessive authority can lead to the death of the ongoing
democratic process itself and degrade the promotion and protection of
human rights.
Exercise of
similar extraordinary powers by the Army’s Special Forces will also lead
to the death of democracy and the diminution of human rights — especially
since Kopassus has no such authorization or remit.
Third, the
Army’s investigation must be supplemented by a joint investigation led by
the National Police, the TNI and the National Commission on Human Rights
(Komnas HAM). Due process must be followed to ensure the attack is
investigated and resolved in an accountable and transparent manner. As
mandated by Law No. 39/1999 on human rights and Law No. 26/2000 of Human
Rights Courts, Komnas HAM has been given the authority — and
responsibility — to investigate and monitor any case of human rights
violations.
Finally, this
tragedy conveys a message to address comprehensively the presence of
low-level street thugs (preman) that has created widespread unrest in our
society. Due to massive campaigns of arrest and eradication, there has
been a massive outflow of preman to other cities. It appears that
Yogyakarta has become one of their new destinations.
It is now
important to prepare a national roadmap to address this issue
comprehensively and to declare total war on its roots, which are linked
to unemployment and poverty. As Gandhi said, “Poverty is the worst form of violence.”
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