Jakarta Post, 23 Sept 2006

Miscarriage of justice

Thousands mourned, while hundreds of other ran amok in East Nusa Tenggara on Friday over the execution of the three men convicted of leading attacks on Muslims during the 2000 sectarian violence in the Central Sulawesi town of Poso. Meanwhile, many also felt relieved by their deaths in the belief that justice was finally being upheld.
Many more regretted the capital punishment given to Fabianus Tibo, Domingggus da Silva and Marianus Riwu, also known as the Poso three, and not because they were heroes or martyrs.
The three men had to die in the name of law, while so many questions concerning the circumstances of the bloodshed in Poso remain unanswered. The three have been laid to rest in their graves along with all the mysteries surrounding the massacre of nearly 200 Muslims during the prolonged sectarian conflict that hit the town a few years ago.
The executions will be remembered as part of the tragedies besetting the country's efforts to uphold justice for one reason: They took place while there was insufficient evidence beyond a reasonable doubt that the three uneducated men were the masterminds of the violence.
It was this dubiety that apparently prompted the Attorney General's Office to delay the executions twice, on March 31 and Aug. 12, apart from the arguments over whether the men had to die before a firing squad.
For sure the debate goes beyond the territory of human rights, in which the death sentence as a maximum form of punishment has been widely criticized. The controversy lies with whether justice was adequately served instead.
The lack of proof beyond reasonable doubt was the point made by a host of prominent figures who opposed to the execution, the first since President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono took office in October 2004. Under his predecessor Megawati Soekarnoputri, Indonesia executed three foreign nationals convicted of heroin smuggling within the last three months of her tenure.
Former president and Muslim figure Abdurrahman Wahid, dubbed a champion of democracy and tolerance, and others who stood against the executions warned the government of the miscarriage of justice in Tibo's case.
The case of Sengkon and Karta is another classic story of the miscarriage of justice in the country. The two modest people were sentenced to death in 1974 for premeditated murder. After 12 years in jail waiting for their executions, they found justice only after the real murderer confessed.
Only a few months ago, Bekasi resident Budi Harjono revealed a the nightmarish torture he suffered at the hands of police officers who forced him to admit to killing his own father in 2002. The police eventually arrested the real killer.
With corrupt practices apparently still common in the country's law enforcement and administration agencies, the miscarriage of justice is always a prime cause for concern.
The Poso three were just not as fortunate as Sengkon and Karta or Budi. The men testified that they were framed by 16 people, the names of whom have been passed on to the police for investigation. The Central Sulawesi Police has since launched an investigation into the "real" masterminds, but it has been fruitless so far. Until his replacement as the provincial police chief in mid-September, Brig. Gen. Oegroseno admitted to having found no clues that could lead to the whereabouts of the 16 men Tibo claimed orchestrated the bloodshed.
There was speculation that the execution of Tibo, Dominggus and Marianus came amid pressure from certain parties unhappy with the nationwide war on terror which happened to place Muslims under attack. If this is true, it will only mark a further setback in our law enforcement as political interests overrule legal considerations.
The controversial executions are yet further evidence of the country's formalistic law enforcement, in which a sense of justice is measured by procedure rather than substance. In the case of the Poso three, their executions were made possible as they had exhausted all legal measures available to escape capital punishment.
Sadly, it was the bureaucratic -- many say corrupt -- nature of the Indonesian legal system that has enabled a number of corruption convicts to sneak out of the country before the court verdicts leveled on them were executed.
On the heel of the Poso three's executions and other peculiarities in the country's law enforcement, it seems valid to question the government's commitment to serving justice.


Why should they fear the (angry) masses?
George J. Aditjondro, Jakarta

"This is the largest deployment of troops in the history of Central Sulawesi." So a police commander in Palu told me, in the wake of the execution of Fabianus Tibo, Marinus Riwu, and Dominggus da Silva last night. Nearly 5,000 police personnel have been stationed in Palu, the capital of the province, in the troublesome district of Poso, and neighboring Morowali, where the three farmers from Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, had migrated to work at the oil palm estates, to find a better life.
Fearful that their executions would trigger mass protests, the authorities did not want to release their bodies to their families to be buried with proper Catholic rituals. A requiem mass, which Bishop of Manado Yosephus Suwatan was going to celebrate, was prohibited by the authorities.
According to plans, by daybreak, a Skytrack plane chartered by the police flew the remains of Tibo and Riwu to Beteleme, their home subdistrict since arriving as transmigrants in Central Sulawesi, to be buried in the home villages of their respective wives, native Mori women.
Meanwhile, the parents of da Silva, who have been waiting and grieving for their son for the last five weeks (the executions were originally set for Aug. 12), are now in further agony. Fearful of the reaction of the angry masses in Flores, the authorities have rejected da Silva's last request to be buried in Flores, burying him instead in an unknown place in or around Palu.
Rejecting a dying man's last wishes, even if he has been labeled a criminal by society or the state, is quite unacceptable in Indonesian society. What is even more unacceptable is to prohibit last rites for Indonesian citizens, including those who have been on death row.
So why are the Indonesian authorities so fearful of the people, the masses, that all these security precautions have been taken to bury the bodies of these three Flores farmers, allowing only the minimum presence of their relatives? And, in the case of da Silva, without any of his relatives from Flores?
The big question then is, why fear the masses? Even the angry masses, if the authorities have not done any wrong to the three simple migrant farmers from Flores? The fact it that from the very time of their detention and trial, the fate of the trio had already been sealed as scapegoats for the social unrest in the Poso region in Central Sulawesi.
Although a double minority, both ethnic and religious, in Poso, they have been accused of masterminding a communal conflict, and especially a so-called attack on a Muslim religious school, nine kilometers south of the town of Poso. Yes, they had been sentenced to death by a court in Palu in April 2001, where the judges had to pass their sentence under the threatening eyes of thousands of refugees, hungry for revenge: eye for an eye, three lives for the hundreds lost.
Further research by myself and colleagues at the Tanah Merdeka Foundation has cast serious doubts on the fairness and truth of the accusations against the Flores trio. Even the previous police commander of Central Sulawesi, (Pol) Brig. Gen. Oegroseno doubted the decision of the Palu lower court, which was endorsed by the Central Sulawesi high court and Supreme Court.
Thus, he tacitly rebelled against Jakarta's decision to execute the trio, by being absent from the provincial capital on Aug. 12, 2006. A daring stance to take, which cost him his position since soon after that he was demoted to a position at police headquarters in Jakarta.
The ordinary people in Central Sulawesi and in the trio's home province, however, cannot grasp the logic of capital punishment for Tibo, Riwu, and da Silva. How could these three simple farmers, whose presence in the town of Poso was simply to protect their children in the Catholic school in Poso from attacks by angry riots, could at the same time be the masterminds and executors of the "attack" on the Walisongo pesantren at Km 9?
Yes, I emphasize the word "attack", since during the initial years of the Poso unrest from late 1998 till late 2000 (with a year of calm in 1999), two religious communities were attacking each other. So, how could three persons from one community, who were not even from the dominant ethnic group and denomination, be single-handedly "chosen" to be the masterminds of the riots at that time?
This is why many people in the Poso and Morowali districts in Central Sulawesi, and many more people in Flores and West Timor in East Nusa Tenggara, cannot accept the executions of the three farmers. As far as the educated elite in Central Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara and in Java are concerned, there is a bigger problem at stake.
The executions of Tibo and his two colleagues is seen simply as an attempt by the regime of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Jusuf Kalla to cover up the real persons and institutions who should be held accountable for the ongoing unrest in Central Sulawesi, where violence from Poso spread to Morowali and even to the provincial capital, Palu. So, while Tibo and his colleagues were sitting in Palu prison for more than five years, violence had been continuing in the province, escalating in scale and method.
History will judge SBY and Kalla for neglecting their sworn duty to protect the safety and well-being of the people of the Poso region, who included Tibo, Riwu, and da Silva. They know this and that is why they fear the angry masses in Poso and Flores and hide behind the thousands of police persons and hundreds of military men, where ebony thieves are the only main local villains.
The writer is a research and publication consultant to Yayasan Tanah Merdeka in Palu. He has conducted research on the background of the unrest in Poso for the last four years.