It is not
surprising that the Indonesian government does not want to accept the findings
and recommendations of the International People’s Tribunal on the case of the
1965 communist purge. Indonesia’s refusal is a textbook case of a state’s
pragmatism in complying (or not) with international law.
First, the tribunal’s findings
will not affect Indonesia’s international standing. Even since Reformasi,
cases of human rights violations committed by the New Order have never
engendered serious challenges to the state’s legitimate status. The
international community seems to focus more on Indonesia’s progress in
political democratization, participation in promoting stable and peaceful
regional conditions in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, as well as involvement
within intergovernmental authorities concerning transnational issues. These
roles are advantageous for Jakarta, which can use them as a means of soft power
to maintain legitimacy against human rights prosecutions.
The so-call “genocide”, in
fact, took place about 50 years ago when the nature and source of international
legitimacy for Indonesia was quite different from what it is now. That is, set
out by the global ideological politics between the US and the USSR, which was
not related to the norms and principles of human rights protection. At that
time, joining the US containment policy toward communist expansion was regarded
as a crucial source of legitimacy.
Second, there is no real
connection between accepting the tribunal’s findings and recommendations with
Jakarta’s perceived vital interests through enlisting the agenda of human
rights protection in its foreign policy.
Human rights protection is
only present as the feature but not the substance of Jakarta’s external
conduct. What it does with ASEAN gives a clear example of inconsistency. Human
rights protection is strongly invoked in collective institutional design.
However, it is weakly imposed on the domestic structure. Indonesia supports an
ASEAN human rights body established without the strength and tools to execute
orders upon individual states.
Jakarta’s position is
continually conservative, defending the relevance of the principle of noninterference
to each other’s domestic affairs. With this policy, the government does not
hinder societal efforts to internationalize the case of the 1965 communist
purge, yet it will take no responsibility for fulfilling the outcome of the
tribunal. Jakarta perceives the value of humanity as universal, but the
implementation is particular, dependent upon local social, cultural and
political circumstances.
To the government, what
happened in 1965, the alleged communist coup and violence and the events that
followed were part of internal dynamics that were not related to certain
humanitarian grounds. Even those who survived the massacre could not say
anything about the wider moral political context of the mass killings, nothing
other than intergroup hatred that led to the killings. Perhaps, this is the
logic for why Jakarta continues to ignore the genocide, while declaring its
concern for other human rights issues.
Third, Indonesia has nothing
to lose by not complying. Thus far there have been no significant international
responses to Jakarta’s refusal. Indonesia’s main economic partners, such as the
US, the EU, Japan and China, do not appear to consider the 1965 genocide as an
issue in their bilateral relations with Indonesia. This is quite different to
the case of political violence in East Timor where the US and the EU stood
against Jakarta with an arms embargo. The strategic and symbolic meaning of the
two cases is viewed differently and consequently they bring about different
effects to the Indonesian side.
Forth, there will be no
domestic political implication of the government’s position against the
tribunal’s recommendations. This is because, for one, the 1965 genocide is not
as popular as cases of religious intolerance, child abuse, terrorism and other
issues that attract the attention of the general public. Recent generations may
have forgotten about the genocide. This is possibly on account of the lack of
knowledge on the case of massacre.
For this reason, none of the
competing political elites and parties pay attention to the victims, and many
still suffer from the stigma of being communist. Bringing the discourse on
genocide to the front of national politics could be unfavorable, because it is
likely to incite counterproductive effects to the effort of national
reconciliation. No politician is courageous enough to take the risk of
splintering the country again after the loss of East Timor in 1999.
When these four factors remain
at work, it is hard to imagine that the victims of the mass killings and their
families will obtain legal justice from the current government. Despite
President Joko Widodo’s personal commitment to strengthening human rights
protections, the 1965 genocide does not occupy an important place in the
state’s human rights policy considerations.
I Gede Wahyu Wicaksana, Lecturer in International Relations, Universitas
Airlangga Surabaya
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