Indonesia: Escape of Suspected NGO Killers
Indonesia: Escape of Suspected NGO Killers
New York, March 28, 20001
Human Rights Watch expressed outrage over
reports yesterday that
four suspects in the killings of
NGO workers in Aceh had escaped
from detention in Medan,
North Sumatra. The international
monitoring group called
for an immediate investigation by the
Indonesian National
Human Rights Commission into the
circumstances
surrounding the reported escape and asked
the government to provide
tangible evidence that the
remaining four suspects, all members
of the Indonesian
army, are still in custody.
"This was a test case for the
capacity of the government to prosecute
human rights
violators. If the security forces can't even hold
high-profile thugs like these, what hope is there for
justice in
Indonesia?" said Sidney Jones, Asia director
of Human Rights Watch. "If
the reports are true, this
escape means that no civilian between
Medan and
Lhokseumawe is safe. The men who ran were
guns for hire,
and now they're guns for hire with a grudge." The Medan
newspaper Waspada reported yesterday that the four had
escaped five days
ago.
The December 2000 murders for
which the men were detained became one of
the highest
profile cases in recent years because of the involvement of
the army, the survival of a key eyewitness, and the
nature of the work
the victims were doing. All were
young volunteer
fieldworkers for the North Aceh branch
of a nongovernmental
organization called Rehabilitation
Action for Torture Victims in Aceh or
RATA.
On
December 6, 2000, while in a clearly-marked RATA vehicle,
they were
stopped on the road by a group of armed men,
including both civilians
and soldiers. After stopping at
several army posts, their captors took
them to an
abandoned house outside the town of Lhokseumawe in Aceh and
executed them. One RATA worker managed to escape and
provided
information to police that led later in
December to the arrest of eight
men. Four were civilian
informers for the military, known as cuak: Ampon
Thaib
Geudong, 48, known as Teunku Pon; Abdullah bin Yusuf, known
as
Guru, 37; Maimun, known as Buyung, 44, and Madiah,
44. These are the
four who escaped from the North
Sumatra provincial command of the Mobile
Police Brigade
(Brimob) in Medan last Thursday.
The army detainees,
reportedly in custody in the Bukit Barisan regional
military command in Medan, are Maj. Jerry Patras, head
of
intelligence for military resort (Korem) 011 in
Lhokseumawe and three of
his subordinates, Sgt. Slamet
Jawa, Sgt. Ermanto, and Lt. Harry Ruman.
"Someone should
verify whether these men are still in custody or whether
they, too, have vanished," said Jones. She noted that in
another
high-profile murder in 1999 in Aceh where the
army had opened fire at a
religious school killing more
than fifty people, the commander in charge
disappeared
and was never prosecuted for the killings. Twenty-four
others were convicted.
"The men who escaped were the
Acehnese equivalent of militia leaders in
East Timor,"
said Jones. "They were army-backed goons, and we find it
odd that they escaped just as the army and police are
embarking on a new
military offensive in Aceh."
Coincidentally, Human Rights Watch last Friday sent a
letter to Attorney
General Marzuki Darusman asking for a
clarification of the detainees'
legal status. The
Indonesian National Human Rights Commission had
planned
to use the RATA killings as a test case before a new human
rights court established in Medan on March 12. The Banda
Aceh police,
who had arrested and investigated the eight
suspects, turned the case
over to the High Court in Aceh
in late February for prosecution in a
koneksitas court,
a hybrid court involving both civilian and military
judges. In the latter court, the eight would be tried
for pre-meditated
murder.
In a human rights court,
they could be prosecuted for the much more
serious
charge of crimes against humanity if it could be shown the
killings were part of a broader pattern of
state-sponsored abuse. The
Attorney General claimed that
if he took the case away from the police
and turned it
over to National Human Rights Commission for prosecution
in the new court, he would have to release the men
pending their
re-investigation on the new charges. The
dispute over jurisdiction was
unresolved at the time of
the escape.
For more information on Indonesia, please see:
Indonesia: Sole Survivor of Attack on Humanitarian Aid
Workers Speaks
(HRW Press Release, December 13, 2000) at
http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/12/acehtest.htm
Indonesia:
Transition and Regional Conflict (HRW Campaign Page) at
http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/indonesia/index.htm
ENDS