Indonesia Law Shields Past Rights Abuses

Indonesia’s top legislative body amended the constitution Friday to prevent any new human rights laws from applying to military abuses committed in the past.

The change, approved overwhelmingly, in effect provided an amnesty to the country’s disgraced armed forces for their sometimes brutal tactics in the former Indonesian province of East Timor and other parts of the strife-torn archipelago.

The amendment is expected to scuttle large portions of a new human rights law making its way through parliament. That groundbreaking law would have created special courts to try human rights cases, bypassing Indonesia’s notoriously corrupt judiciary. It also would have criminalized an officer’s failure to stop abuses by soldiers under his command.

Both provisions were aimed at prosecuting senior military leaders for their roles in the East Timor violence, including the armed forces commander at the time, Gen. Wiranto. Human rights investigators have accused Wiranto of failing to prevent his soldiers from engaging in widespread destruction in East Timor after the territory voted for independence last August.

The Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Assn. called the amendment “disturbing.”

The amendment was part of Indonesia’s first bill of rights, which attempts to guarantee civil rights in the emerging democracy. The amendment also provides Indonesians with freedom of speech and outlaws torture and discrimination.