The military has vowed to clean up its tarnished human rights record by educating soldiers on the issue, but rights activists remain skeptical it can reform.
“We’ll prioritize rights education and training so there won’t be any more violations in the future,” Gen. George Toisutta, the Army chief of staff, said on Monday.
“The main point is that we’re committed to respecting the prevailing regulations on rights.”
He said the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) would incorporate human rights studies into the military curriculum and ramp up rights training for soldiers.
George said the initiative would take time since it meant introducing a new culture and ethic into the TNI hierarchy.
“We need more time to fix it all,” he said at an annual Army commanders meeting, where they conducted performance evaluations and planned for the year ahead. “It’s not something that can happen in just a day, like preparing a drink.”
The chief of staff’s remarks came as three soldiers face court-martial for torturing two Papuan civilians last year.
George said the torture case, condemned by activists around the globe, would not stop the military from continuing to make the restive eastern province its main theater of operations.
However, he said plans to build a new headquarters in Papua — first proposed two years ago — would have to be postponed due to lack of government funds.
Meanwhile, Poengky Indarti, executive director of the Indonesian Human Rights Monitor (Imparsial), said the military should be pushed to conform to a United Nations convention against torture, which was ratified in 1999.
“Right now, torture isn’t even defined as a punishable offense under the military criminal code and code of conduct,” she said.
“The government and House of Representatives must amend the law on military tribunals, which has been a major obstacle in prosecuting military officials under civilian law.”
Indria Fernida, deputy chairwoman of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), said rights training would do little to stop abuses by the military, especially in conflict zones.
“Educating soldiers on human rights is not only long overdue, but [it] would amount to nothing,” Indria said.
“There is hardly any accountability or fulfillment of the rights of victims of violence perpetrated by law enforcers and the military,” she added.
Indria criticized President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for failing to fulfill his pledge to resolve past rights abuse cases.
“We see very clearly that these pledges haven’t been fulfilled,” she said.
However, George said the TNI was serious about cleaning up its image, including cracking down on corruption in military procurement projects.
“One of our policies to end this practice is to insist on buying new equipment at the factory price, not the distributor’s price,” George said.
Lawmaker Tubagus Hasanuddin said the House would keep an eye on procurement deals to ensure they stay transparent and graft-free