IMPUNITY RESURGENT: THE POLITICS OF MILITARY ACCOUNTABILITY IN INDONESIA, 1998–2001

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Acknowledgments This article is written in a personal capacity and does not represent the views of the FCO. The author wishes to thank the following for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this essay: Professor Gary Bass, Professor Harold Crouch, Lilian Timmermann, Tuti Suwidjiningsih, Sophia Cason and an anonymous reader. Notes 1. For example, Human Rights Watch. Justice Denied for East Timor, New York: HRW, 2006; D. Cohen, Intended to Fail: The Trials Before the Ad Hoc Human Rights Court in Jakarta. International Centre for Transitional Justice, 2003; S. Roper & L. Barria, Designing Criminal Tribunals: Sovereignty and International Concerns in the Protection of Human Rights. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006; International Crisis Group, Indonesia: Implications of the Timor Trials. Jakarta & Brussels: ICG, 2002. 2. P. Sulistiyanto, ‘Politics of Justice and Reconciliation in Post-Suharto Indonesia’, Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1 February 2007. 3. M. Cowling, The Impact of Labour. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971. 4. Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia (Armed Forces of the Republic of Indonesia). 5. Also known as the Santa Cruz Massacre. 6. The Liquisa and Timika incidents, respectively. 7. Personal observation. 8. The manoeuvre backfired; public sympathy at Megawati's treatment turned her into a far more credible opposition figure than she had been as leader of the Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI). 9. Prabowo, with his history of involvement in covert ‘security operations’ (including ones in East Timor), his known links with gangsters and radical Muslims, and his notorious ambition, was most likely behind the terror campaign. Kevin O'Rourke is in a minority in accusing Wiranto instead. He assembles some suggestive evidence, but fails to establish a clear motivation, and his attempt to prove that certain senior officers were aligned with Wiranto rather than Prabowo does not convince. K. O'Rourke, Reformasi: The Struggle for Power in Post-Soeharto Indonesia. New South Wales, Australia: Crow's Nest, 2003. 10. D. Bourchier, ‘Skeletons, Vigilantes and the Armed Forces’, in A. Budiman, B. Hatley & D. Kingsbury (eds.), Reformasi. Clayton Australia: Monash Asia Institute, 1999. 11. H. Crouch, ‘Wiranto and Habibie: Military–Civilian Relations since May 1998’, in Budiman et al. (eds.), Reformasi. 12. Eleven army personnel were sentenced to jail terms over the kidnapping of activists, though there are doubts whether they actually went to jail. The Trisakti killings resulted in the conviction of a couple of junior police officers. Prof. Harold Crouch, personal communication. 13. Quoted in Bourchier, ‘Skeletons, Vigilantes and the Armed Forces’. 14. A. Budiman, ‘The 1998 Crisis: Change and Continuity’, in Budiman et al. (eds.), Reformasi. 15. K. Young, ‘Post-Suharto: A Change of Regime’, in Budiman et al. (eds.), Reformasi. 16. Tentara Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Army), also the name of the armed forces during their revolutionary glory days. 17. The use of militias by TNI to carry out illegal or unpleasant tasks, or to disguise the true nature of the conflict, was not a new tactic, either in East Timor or elsewhere. 18. For interesting discussions of the 1999 violence in East Timor, see D. Kammen, ‘The Trouble with Normal: The Indonesian Military, Paramilitaries, and the Final Solution in East Timor’, in B. R. O'G. Anderson (ed.), Violence and the State in Suharto's Indonesia. Cornell: Cornell Southeast Asia Program, 2001. Also R. Tanter, D. Ball & G. van Klinken (eds.), Masters of Terror: Indonesia's Military and Violence in East Timor. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. A subtle revisionist line is set out in G. Robinson, ‘The Fruitless Search for a Smoking Gun: Tracing the Origins of Violence in East Timor’, in F. Colombijn, J. T. Lindblad & J. Thomas (eds.), Roots of Violence in Indonesia. Leiden: KITLV Press, 2002. 19. At a press conference on 5 September 1999. 20. R. Cribb, ‘From Total People's Defence to Massacre: Explaining Indonesian Military Violence in East Timor’, in Colombijn et al. (eds.), Roots of Violence in Indonesia. 21. O'Rourke, Reformasi. 22. S. Moore, ‘The Indonesian Military's Last Years in East Timor: An Analysis of its Secret Documents’, in Indonesia no.72, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001. 23. Crouch, ‘Wiranto and Habibie’. 24. Personal observation. 25. Many, probably most Indonesians believed the referendum was rigged by the UN. See ICG, Indonesia: Implications of the Timor Trials. 26. G. Robinson, ‘The Fruitless Search’. 27. J. Honna, Military Politics and Democratisation in Indonesia. London & New York: Routledge Curzon, 2003. 28. K. O'Rourke, Reformasi. 29. ‘Dark forces Strike Lombok’, The Independent, 23 January 2000; ‘Military Official Says Army Not Behind Unrest’, Media Indonesia, 29 December 1999; ‘Indonesia: East Java Killings to be Investigated’, Suara Merdeka, 28 December 1999; ‘TNI: A Loose Cannon’, Jakarta Post, 3 January 2000; ‘Indonesia's New Leader Improvises as he Goes Along’, Washington Post, 1 January 2000. 30. KPP HAM (Investigative Commission into Human Rights Violations in East Timor), ‘Full Report’, 2000, translated and reproduced in Tanter et al. (eds.), Masters of Terror. 31. Honna, Military Politics and Democratisation in Indonesia. 32. UN Doc. S/2001/42 33. Honna, Military Politics and Democratisation in Indonesia. 34. M. Mietzner, The Politics of Military Reform in Post-Suharto Indonesia: Elite Conflict, Nationalism, and Institutional Resistance. Washington: East-West Center, 2006. 35. International Crisis Group, Indonesia: Impunity Versus Accountability for Gross Human Rights Violations. Jakarta and Brussels: ICG, 2001. 36. See note 1. 37. Cohen, Intended to Fail. 38. S. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century. Norman, OK & London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991. 39. ICG, Indonesia: Implications of the Timor Trials. 40. UN Security Council document S/2006/580, Report of the Secretary-General on Justice and Reconciliation for East Timor. See also D. Cohen, ‘Justice on the Cheap’ Revisited: The Failure of the Serious Crimes Trials in East Timor. Washington: East-West Center, 2006. Additional informationNotes on contributorsJohn VirgoeJohn Virgoe is South-East Asia Project Director for the International Crisis Group. He served as a diplomat in Indonesia from 1995 to 1999. This article was composed during a spell at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.