The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) supports Indonesian civil society organisations to promote the eradication of torture. The organisations consist of the Sekretariat RFP (Aliansi Masyarakat Sipil untuk Reformasi Kepolisian), the LBH Masyarakat (LBHM), the Yayasan Lembaga Bantuan Hukum Indonesia (YLBHI) and the Komisi untuk Orang Hilang dan Korban Tindak Kekerasan (KontraS).

June 26 is an important moment for the international community to commemorate the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. This warning began with the formation of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture [CAT]) which came into force on 26 June 1987 for all Member Countries. The enactment of the CAT is the main instrument in the struggle to prevent the practice of torture and to respect human dignity.

Indonesia is one of the Member States that has ratified the CAT through Law Number 5 of 1998, exactly 25 years ago on 28 September 1998. However, the practice of torture and cruel punishments still occurs in the law enforcement cycle in Indonesia. Based on the findings of the YLBHI and LBH Jakarta, from 2013-2022, there were at least 58 victims of torture by members of the Police, 25 of whom were victims of wrongful arrest or wrongful conviction and six who were children. From these findings, all the actors or perpetrators were members of the Police. In 2022-2023, the YLBHI and LBH recorded 46 cases of torture with a total of 294 victims. Meanwhile, during 2020-2023, there were 24 victims of extrajudicial killings in detention handled by the legal aid offices. These extrajudicial killings all occurred by means of torture, most of which were carried out by members of the Police. 

Apart from that, from the documentation carried out by the LBHM in three Detention Centres (Rutan) in the DKI Jakarta area in the January-May 2024 period, there were 35 (three women and 32 men) out of a total of 204 detainees who admitted to being tortured. As many as 15 of the 35 detainees who admitted to having experienced torture were suspected of being involved in narcotics cases, and the remaining 20 were suspected of committing general crimes (as regulated in the Criminal Code). The torture cases occurred during the Police investigation stage. This data is a small part of the darkness of the criminal justice system, especially at the Police level, which has minimal supervision and intervention from the civil society.

Meanwhile, the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS) throughout the June 2023 – May 2024 period also documented 60 cases of torture and cruel punishment related practices spread across Indonesia. During this period, KontraS again noted that the Police was an institution that was consistently the dominant actor in various cases of torture which occurred with 40 cases, followed by the Indonesian National Army (Army, Navy and Air Force) with 14 events; and the Warden or Correctional Institution Officer with six cases. The increasing number of torture cases based on KontraS monitoring data from the previous year (2023) shows that the culture of violence in various State institutions is still a problem that must be resolved thoroughly. This ongoing practice is caused by the absence of an adequate legal system and legal culture to prevent and eliminate all forms of torture related practices.

The Government’s steps in ratifying the CAT were not accompanied by the establishment of more rigid regulations at the national level. In fact, to date, Indonesia has not yet ratified the Optional Protocol to the CAT which actually shows the Government’s compromised attitude and disregard for the act of torture itself. 

On the other hand, it took more than 20 years to accommodate acts of torture as a criminal offense in Law Number 1 of 2023 concerning the Criminal Code (New Criminal Code). 

Articles 529 and 530 actually contain elements of acts of torture that are almost similar to the CAT. However, the threat of punishment given to officials who commit acts of torture is not rational enough. Article 529 carries a maximum prison sentence of four years, while Article 530 is a maximum of seven years. This is very different when compared to criminal acts of abuse – where acts are carried out by ordinary civilians – with variations in prison sentences from six months to 15 years, and can even be made worse by qualifying certain actions (Articles 466 to 471 of the New Criminal Code). 

Apart from that, there are also many other power related practices that are equivalent to torture but may be excluded from these torture related Articles. One example is the death penalty which is part of a type of punishment that degrades human dignity. Based on data from the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR), as of 19 October 2023, there were at least 509 people on death row in Indonesia. The majority of the cases on death row were for narcotics, namely 351 people (69%). Apart from being a type of punishment that demeans human dignity, the waiting line phenomenon is also a form of torture that causes great psychological suffering because they continue to live in endless terror over the threat of death which could occur at any time.

Regulations in Indonesia still have a number of problems in the formal or procedural legal aspects of the criminal justice system, especially at the Police level. The freedom to carry out detention for 60 days opens up room for torture. A new torture test mechanism can be proposed after coercive measures are taken when someone has the status of a suspect or defendant. As the starting point for the operation of the criminal justice system, the Police actually has enormous authority without optimal supervision. Internal and external monitoring institutions (Propam and the National Police Commission [Kompolnas]) often become tools of impunity for perpetrators of precision related jargon. 

This condition is exacerbated by the discourse to revise Law Number 2 of 2002 concerning the Police of the Republic of Indonesia (RUU Polri), the substance of which actually expands the authority of the Police in invading human rights without clear control and supervision. Torture and cruel punishment should not be underestimated. The Government needs to take serious steps to prevent repeated acts of torture and create a law enforcement climate that relies on human rights based principles.

Based on the above, we encourage the Government and the law enforcement officials to:

1. The Government and the House of Representative (DPR RI) must immediately ratify the Optional Protocol to the CAT;
2. The Government and the DPR RI must immediately revise or amend the Criminal Procedure Code, specifically regarding control and testing mechanisms for the authority of law enforcement officials, as well as for the reparation for victims of acts of torture;
3. The Government and the DPR RI must immediately stop discussing the National Police Bill which threatens democracy and human rights. The revision of the Police Law of the Republic of Indonesia should be carried out comprehensively, not carried out behind closed doors and ignoring the meaningful participation of citizens. The Bill needs to be directed at institutional and system reform that ensures that the National Police becomes a professional, transparent and accountable institution through a humanist approach, rather than strengthening the character of militarism with large powers of repression but without supervision;
4. In order to effectively prevent the practice of torture, institutions that are the dominant perpetrators, such as the National Police, the National Military (TNI), correctional institutions and prison guards, must improve and develop preventive and anticipatory steps in order to reduce the number of torture cases in their respective institutions. These various institutions can build intensive collaboration with various external supervisory institutions to encourage public accountability;
5. There must be an improvement in the supervision and law enforcement system that is impartial, transparent and fair to perpetrators of torture, whether in the National Police, the TNI, correctional institutions or other institutions so that there is no impunity for the perpetrators and the practice of torture does not continue to be repeated.

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The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) works towards the radical rethinking and fundamental redesigning of justice institutions in order to protect and promote human rights in Asia. Established in 1984, the Hong Kong based organisation is a Laureate of the Right Livelihood Award, 2014. 

Read this Statement online

By David Hutt
April 26, 2024

ASEAN BEAT | SECURITY | SOUTHEAST ASIA
Indonesian Imperialism Is Alive – And Brutal – in West Papua
In the restive eastern province, Cold War realpolitik continues to reverberate.

David Hutt
By David Hutt
April 26, 2024
Indonesian Imperialism Is Alive – And Brutal – in West Papua
Supporters of the independence of the West Papua shout slogans during a rally
commemorating the 59th anniversary of the failed efforts by Papuan tribal
chiefs to declare independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1961, in Jakarta,
Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020.

Credit: AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim
Last month, videos emerged of 13 soldiers from an elite Indonesian battalion in
West Java torturing a Papuan man, Definus Kogoya. According to Human Rights
Watch, Kogoya “had his hands tied behind him and been placed inside a drum
filled with water. The soldiers taunted Kogoya with racist slurs, kicking and
hitting him. In another video, a man used a bayonet to cut his back. The water
turned red.” The military, while apologizing for the incident, insisted that
Kogoya was a member of the West Papua National Liberation Army and that he and
two comrades – one of whom “died when he jumped from a military vehicle after
arrest” – had burned down a clinic. Later, the police released the two alive
men without charge.

At least 10 Papuan teenagers were killed by Indonesia’s military last September
alone, while the implications of the 2019 Papuan uprising, the largest
pro-independence mobilization in decades, are still being felt. Douglas Gerrard
produced an excellent article on the conflict (“Indonesia Is Stepping Up Its
Repression of West Papua’s Freedom Movement”) last year.

When the rest of Indonesia won independence in the 1950s, West Papua remained
part of Dutch New Guinea. Jakarta wanted the entire territory. Sukarno’s first
foreign minister demanded that Jakarta and its forces “get them down from the
trees,” a racist notion of West Papuans that aped the racism of the European
colonizers and which continues today. In the 1950s, Indonesian troops led some
incursions into the Dutch colonial holdout but they were rebuffed, in part
because Washington was unsure of which side to take, not least because Sukarno
was still flirting with the communists.

But by the end of the 1950s, as the Cold War became more intense and Indonesia
was seen as a country that had to become an ally, by hook or crook, the
Americans made it known to the Dutch that they could no longer count on U.S.
support for the status quo. Knowing that its empire would soon end and motivated
to maintain some influence in Southeast Asia once it did, the Dutch cautiously
favored independence for the West Papuans and supported the formation in 1961
of the New Guinea Council, which drafted a manifesto for Independence and
Self-Government and declared the territory Papua Barat – “West Papua.”

Still, Washington wouldn’t support the effort. Instead, it orchestrated talks
that led to the August 1962 New York Agreement. Jakarta gained control of West
Papua (renamed West Irian), and after a brief transitional period overseen by
the U.N., things were supposed to climax in (and Indonesia was obligated to
hold) a referendum on self-determination.

Starting in July 1969, U.N. officials oversaw the so-called “Act of Free
Choice,” an Orwellian term if there ever was one. The U.N. claimed it would be
a fair election conducted under international scrutiny and by international
norms. And all adults from West Papua were supposed to have a vote, per the
U.N.’s rules. However, that wasn’t the case. Jakarta upped its attacks on West
Papuan separatists, especially after Suharto became dictator in 1965. Having
already decimated much of the separatist movement, Jakarta then handpicked
1,022 West Papuans to vote on behalf of the region’s 800,000 people in the
plebiscite, despite committing to a universal ballot. Naturally, they voted
unanimously in favor of integration with Indonesia.

In July 2004, on the 35th anniversary of this Act of Free Choice, the U.S.
National Security Archive released declassified documents on U.S. policy
deliberations, which I quote liberally from below. The violation of the Act of
Free Choice was obvious long before the 1,000 or so Jakarta patsies were led
forcibly into the polling booths. In 1968, U.S. embassy officials visiting the
region noted that “Indonesia could not win an open election.”  The U.S.
ambassador, Marshall Green, fretted at the time that U.N. officials might “hold
out for free and direct elections,” while Green stressed that all U.S. and
Western officials should make known to their U.N. counterparts the “political
realities,” meaning that Washington needed the vote to go Jakarta’s way because
it was a committed anti-communist ally at the time.

By October 1968, months before the election, the U.S. Embassy wrote back to
Washington in relief that U.N. officials had conceded “that it would be
inconceivable from the point of view of the interest of the U.N., as well as
the [Government of Indonesia], that a result other than the continuance of West
Irian within Indonesian sovereignty should emerge.” Even still, Green’s
successor as U.S. ambassador, Frank Galbraith, noted in 1969, the year of the
“referendum,” that “possibly 85 to 90%” of the West Papuan population “are in
sympathy with the Free Papua cause.”

Nonetheless, Nixon and Kissinger visited Jakarta in July 1969 while the
referendum was underway. Kissinger instructed his boss, “You should not raise
this issue” of West Papua, and advised that “we should avoid any U.S.
identification with” the matter of independence or integration. This was from a
man who described Suharto as a “moderate military man … committed to progress
and reform.” (Or was that said by U.S. officials of Prabowo today?) In any
case, Indonesia’s control over the region was accepted by the international
community, West Papua became a formal part of Indonesia, and six years later
Kissinger masterminded, shadowing another U.S. president, America’s support for
Indonesia’s colonization and occupation of Timor-Leste.

Why do I write all this? For starters, it’s a story often forgotten. How many
people have heard of West Irian or West Papua or know that there remains a
separatist movement? And there remains the notion that Indonesian imperialism
ended in the 1990s with the death of the Suharto regime. That’s true for Timor-Leste,
though Indonesians traipsed off only through pools of blood. Indonesia’s
imperialism is also back in the news as Prabowo Subianto, the incoming
Indonesian president, is accused of war crimes during his time in occupied
Timor-Leste as head of the Kopassus special forces. As I argued some months
ago, it’s not always healthy to pick at history’s healing wounds, and
Indonesia’s relations with Timor-Leste, despite its barbaric past, had been
healing for several years. But it’s quite another thing for the majority of
Indonesians to elect an alleged war criminal, which must surely re-open those
wounds.

But, also, this history serves as a reminder that American foreign policy is at
its most heinous and brutally hypocritical when it wants to appease dictators
and tyrants for a greater cause. A few months ago, after the death of Henry
Kissinger, I was asked by a newspaper to write an obituary. A family emergency
meant I hadn’t the time. But, for research and pleasure, which aren’t mutually
exclusive, I did re-read a number of biographies, including Niall Ferguson’s
sonorous first volume “Kissinger: 1923-1968: The Idealist,” and its polar
opposite, Christopher Hitchens’ “The Trial of Henry Kissinger,” a short
pamphlet that dedicates a chapter to how Washington (and Kissinger) sold out
East Timorese independence and permitted an Indonesian invasion in order to
appease Suharto and to keep stoking anti-communism in Southeast Asia. Hitchens
had no space, though, for West Papua. Yet he did write: “Those who willed the
means and wished the ends are not absolved from guilt by the refusal of reality
to match their schemes.”

Realpolitik didn’t die with Kissinger last November. It is found – although not
to the same extremity as in the 1960s and 1970s – in U.S. policy in Southeast
Asia today. It’s quite obvious that Washington doesn’t just tolerate but
provokes the worst excesses of the Communist Party of Vietnam because of
China’s hostilities with Hanoi. Equally, Washington is now seeking to make
friends with Phnom Penh because it has realized that it cannot condemn
Cambodian authoritarianism at the same time as deterring Cambodia’s friendship
with Beijing, so support for Cambodian democracy has been ditched. Elsewhere,
all effort is now on rivaling China. Liberation and liberty, not least in
Myanmar, are the casualties.

Contributing Author

David Hutt is a journalist and commentator. He is a research fellow at the
Central European Institute of Asian Studies (CEIAS), and a columnist at The
Diplomat and Radio Free Asia.

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