Not
a mere case of bad apples : Acts of state terrorism
Budi Hernawan ; A research fellow at the Abdurrahman Wahid
Center for Interfaith Dialogue and Peace of the University of Indonesia
|
JAKARTA
POST, 18 November 2014
Thirteen
years ago on Nov. 10 — Heroes’ Day — the Papuan leader Theys Eluay was found
dead in the vicinity of Jayapura city after attending an event at the local
headquarters of the Army’s Special Forces, Kopassus.
His body
was left abandoned in a public place. His driver, Aristoteles Masoka, went
missing, and remains unaccounted for.
On Feb.
5, 2002, as Papuan Christians celebrated the anniversary of the arrival of
the first Christian missionaries in Papua, then president Megawati
Soekarnoputri established a national investigation commission chaired by a
retired police officer and commissioner of the national rights body,
Koesparmono Irsan. The commission’s sole purpose was to investigate the case
of Theys’ assassination.
As a
result, Aristoteles’ fate has been ignored completely since the inception of
the commission.
In its
report to the president, the commission recommended the naming of six
suspects from within Kopassus, but failed to offer any explanations as to why
the crime was committed.
On April
21, 2003, the martial high court in Surabaya found the six Kopassus members
guilty of murder and mistreatment and sentenced them to imprisonment.
Lt. Col.
Hartomo, Pvt Ahmad Zulfahmi, Maj. Hutabarat and First Lt Agus were sentenced
to three and a half years’ imprisonment and dismissed from the Indonesian
Military (TNI), while Capt. Rionardo and Sgt Asrial were imprisoned for three
years.
Nothing,
however, was ever said about Aristoteles during the trial. Only his family
remembers him. Later, the army chief of staff Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu, now the
defense minister, publicly praised the perpetrators as heroes.
Many
inside and outside Papua may have forgotten the case. The marker of the site
where Theys and Aristoteles were abducted along a hilly road outside Jayapura
has been left abandoned.
Similarly,
Theys’ grave, in a cemetery located across the road from Sentani airport,
receives minimal public attention and respect. The story seems to be
forgotten.
Meanwhile,
public display of dead and or broken bodies is not novel in our history.
Since the counter insurgency operation against the movements to establish an
Islamic state, the DI/TII (Darul Islam / Tentara Islam Indonesia) in the
1950s, this has been a common method of state terror against Indonesia’s own
citizens accused of being enemies of the state.
The
tactic was used extensively during the massacre of suspected communists in
1965.
At least
500,000 people were killed that year; many of the killings were carried out
in public. The method was again used during the killings of gangsters in the
1980s known as petrus (penembakan misterius/mysterious shootings).
Many of
their bodies were left abandoned in public spaces as a means of intimidation.
Later, in front of the media and the public eyes, the state security
apparatus did not hesitate to use the method to disperse the Papuan congress
in 2011.
Hundreds
of Papuans were rounded up and abused. The Papuan activist Mako Tabuni was
shot in front of the public on the outskirts of Jayapura; he later died in
the Bhayangkara police hospital in Jayapura.
Ironically,
having been confronted with so many public atrocities, public memory has been
normalized. We are no longer sensitive to or repulsed by the message of
terror.
Terror
is designed not only to communicate the message of state power but also to stigmatize
the bodies, to make us unwilling to get any closer to them.
We do
not want to get tainted. As a result, many of us have become bystanders who
might believe that these people deserve such treatment because they were
enemies of the state.
Is the Indonesian
state responsible for such crimes? We almost always hear the standard answer
from the authorities that it is all about bad apples who operate
independently beyond the chain of command or misinterpret orders.
Such
arguments are no longer valid. It was the Commission of Truth and Friendship
for Timor Leste and Indonesia that concluded that the Indonesian state was
responsible for crimes against humanity in Timor Leste in 1999.
Both
Indonesia and Timor Leste came to a “conclusive” truth about the
responsibility of the state for what happened in Timor Leste in 1999.
This was
the first time in our history that a state body held the state responsible
and accountable and thus set the precedent that the state and state
institutions are not immune to justice.
Unfortunately,
this investigation has had a minimal impact on our struggle to combat
impunity. Just as Theys’ history has been forgotten, so too has the history
of Timor Leste been erased from our consciousness.
Theys
Eluay was not the only one and nor was he the last. He was only one piece of
the large mosaic of silenced history of the forgotten.
Aristoteles Masoka is even more forgotten. Perhaps it is time for us to
restore their dignity as a gesture of solidarity to those who have been silenced
and forgotten in our history, in the wake of our commemoration of national
heroes. ●
|
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar