<<previous  |  index  |  next>>

I. Summary

If it was the morning I was beaten by two men, if it was the evening I was beaten by the guard on duty. They hit me with a piece of wood, one used the butt of a gun and one kicked me. I was beaten for three days and three nights...and we were shocked with electric current.
Sopyani, sixteen-year old torture victim¹

“Arbitrary detention, abuse and torture, these appear to be standard operating procedure [in Aceh].”
Foreign embassy official, Jakarta²

Sopyani is currently serving a three-year sentence for treason in a prison in Central Java.  He was convicted after a trial in which he had no legal representation and no opportunity to present a defense, and in which the prosecution presented no evidence against him apart from his confession, extracted under the conditions described above.  While in pre-trial detention he was seriously and regularly beaten by police and military officials.  He has not seen his family since he was transferred to a prison more than 1,100 miles from his home in the northwest province of Aceh.  He did not appeal his conviction because he feared his sentence would be increased to penalize him for appealing.  Sopyani is sixteen years old.  His age may be unusual.  His story is not.

The Indonesian government has been fighting an on-again, off-again war with the armed separatist “Free Aceh Movement” (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, or GAM) for more than two decades.  After a brief ceasefire and sporadic peace negotiations in late 2002 and early 2003, on May 19, 2003, President Megawati Sukarnoputri imposed martial law and a state of military emergency in Aceh.  An estimated 40,000 military and police were then deployed to Aceh to fight an estimated 5,000 armed members of GAM.  Indonesia has thrown a curtain over its military operations, closing most of Aceh to independent observers since May 19, 2003.  The situation has not materially changed since the status of Aceh was formally changed to a civil emergency in May 2004.  The military campaign, Indonesia’s largest military undertaking since the invasion of East Timor in 1975, continues. 

When it resumed military operations in May 2003, Indonesia announced that this time it would pursue an “integrated operation” (operasi terpadu).  Instead of only pursuing military victory over GAM, this time the Indonesian government would also make efforts to win the “hearts and minds” of the Acehnese people.  Humanitarian operations (to mitigate the damage caused by a return to war) and good governance (to win the loyalty of the Acehnese)––two of the “hearts and minds” provisions publicly highlighted when the operation was initially announced—have not commanded the sustained attention of senior officials or sufficient resources. 

Largely unnoticed by the few diplomats, journalists, and others who follow the bloody armed conflict in Aceh is the “law enforcement” (penegakan hukum) prong of the integrated operation.  Since May 2003, the government has arrested an estimated 2,000 alleged members or supporters of GAM.  While membership in GAM is not a crime under Indonesian law, hundreds have been tried and convicted in Aceh, primarily on criminal charges of “makar,” which translates into English as “treason” or “rebellion.”

Interviews by Human Rights Watch with thirty-five adult and child prisoners from Aceh in five separate prisons in Central Java make it clear that to gain these convictions––and at other times just to punish alleged GAM members and sympathizers––the Indonesian military and police have often relied on torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment to coerce detainees into making signed or oral confessions of criminal conduct.³  Interviewees told Human Rights Watch of routine beatings and threats of beatings, cigarette burnings, and the use of electro-shock. Several prisoners showed Human Rights Watch scars from torture at the hands of Indonesian security forces.

Forced confessions signed under such conditions have later served as the basis for convictions in trials that fail to follow Indonesian law or meet international standards of fairness and due process.  In most cases arrests were made without necessary arrest warrants, defense counsels took no part in preparing a defense or participating in the trial, and no evidence or witnesses beyond dubious confessions were produced in court, making cross-examination of witnesses or testing of evidence impossible.  The crime of makar is so broad and ill-defined as to make a legal defense extremely difficult.  No less than in regular criminal cases in Indonesia, judicial corruption was rampant.  Acehnese prisoners said that decisions appear to have been made in advance of court proceedings, reflecting political or financial motivations of judges and prosecutors instead of reliance on evidence and the criminal code. 

Human Rights Watch interviewed several convicts who freely admitted they were either members of GAM or had financially or materially supported the separatists.  In some cases they claimed that they had offered such support under duress or simply to avoid being accused of being unsympathetic by men with the power of life and death over them.  The vast majority of convicts interviewed vehemently denied that they had any association with GAM.  However, this report does not attempt to prove the guilt or innocence of these prisoners. 

It is important to note that even if an accused was in fact guilty of a criminal law violation, the use of torture and other forms of mistreatment, as well as major defects in the trial process, undermines the validity of any convictions obtained against that individual.  Only if fair trials are conducted in an atmosphere free of mistreatment and coercion can the results of those trials be given any credence.

The scale of torture and the failure of due process documented in this report makes it clear that these are systemic failures, not just the acts of rogue soldiers and police or untrained, poorly resourced judges and prosecutors.  The stories of torture are chilling and sadly similar to accounts of abuses committed by Indonesian security forces in Aceh in the past and in other parts of the country. 

They are also ironic, given Indonesia’s recent condemnation of U.S. abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.  Major Farid Ma'ruf, a spokesman for Kopassus, the Indonesian military’s notorious special forces unit, said, “It is ironic that torture and sexual abuse were committed by the military of a country that always claims to be the world's human rights guardian.  The treatment of Iraqi prisoners was clearly inhumane because the military should have strict standards on how to properly interrogate detainees.”⁴  Kopassus forces are identified in this report by a number of interviewees as responsible for torture and other mistreatment. 

In response to the annual U.S. State Department report on human rights, which highlighted a variety of abuses in Indonesia, in May 2004 Marty Natalegawa, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman, shot back: “The U.S. government does not have the moral authority to assess or act as a judge of other countries, including Indonesia, on human rights, especially after the abuse scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison.”⁵  Yet Indonesia no less than the United States is obliged to respect the human rights of all people on its soil.  While rightly criticizing the United States for abuses at Abu Ghraib, the Indonesian government has signally failed to respond in a serious manner to allegations by Indonesian human rights lawyers, Human Rights Watch, and others of grave and apparently systematic human rights violations in Aceh since the resumption of war in May 2003. 

Human Rights Watch urges the Indonesian government, and particularly the Indonesian military––which is the most powerful institution in the country––to take all necessary measures to immediately end the torture and mistreatment of detainees, whether for the purpose of extracting a confession, to exact retribution for real or alleged support of GAM, or for any other reason.  No statements made as a result of torture or other coercion should be admitted into legal proceedings.  To deter these practices, courts must apply the legal requirement under Indonesian law that two forms of evidence, not merely a single confession, are required for a conviction.  Indonesian judges and prosecutors must fulfill their role as judicial officers and refuse to accept legally insufficient evidence.  The government should conduct investigations into allegations of torture and other mistreatment.  Criminal charges should be filed in cases in which credible evidence is discovered.  Military and police officials should launch their own investigations and discipline personnel found to have committed, allowed, or been complicit in or negligent in allowing such acts to take place. 

Human Rights Watch urges that in conformity with Indonesian and international law, all arrests except those in flagrante delicto (“in the act”) should be carried out with a warrant.  At the time of arrest detainees should be informed of the reasons for their arrest or detention and the charges against them.  Detainees must be permitted adequate access to lawyers, family members, and proper medical care.

Given the seriousness of the findings of this report, the National Commission on Human Rights, Komnas HAM, should launch an investigation of detainee treatment and the trial process for those convicted of makar as the result of alleged or real association with GAM.  The Indonesian government should offer its full cooperation to Komnas HAM.  Indonesia should invite the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers to investigate and report on these allegations and make relevant recommendations.  Without delay, it should also implement the recommendations made by the United Nations Committee against Torture in November 2001 to address Indonesia’s dismal record of torture and mistreatment. 

Because of prohibitions on access to Aceh, Human Rights Watch fears that the information on abuses contained in this report may represent just the tip of a dangerous iceberg.  It is crucial that the international community, in particular the quartet (the U.S., E.U., Japan, and the World Bank) that has attempted to broker a peace deal, insist in public and private that Indonesia open Aceh to independent national and international journalists, human rights workers, diplomats, and observers.  Many of the abuses documented in this report may have been committed because soldiers and police have been able to operate behind closed doors and away from public scrutiny.  Greater openness is necessary as a deterrent to further abuse. 

If Indonesia wants to win the “hearts and minds” of the Acehnese people, it is in Indonesia’s interests to ensure that acts of torture and mistreatment are ended and unfair trials and flawed convictions are stopped.  Otherwise, Indonesia’s law enforcement operation in Aceh will be––and will be seen to be––a failure.  This will only increase mistrust and resentment within the Acehnese civilian population and will undermine the Indonesian government’s efforts to convince the international community of its commitment to human rights and reform in the country. 

There has been a significant expansion of freedoms in Indonesia since the fall of President Soeharto in 1998 and, with increased public attention to the role of military brutality and abuse in exacerbating Indonesia’s internal conflicts, the prestige of the military for a time suffered a major blow, which seemed to create a space for much-needed reform for the first time in decades.  More recently, however, the momentum for reform (reformasi is the Indonesian term) has almost ground to a halt, leaving many observers and friends of Indonesia concerned that the possibility of creating a state based on the rule of law and respect for human rights, with a military under genuine civilian control, is increasingly remote.  After the recent debacle of the trials of Indonesians for the 1999 atrocities in East Timor, where all of the Indonesian defendants were either acquitted at trial or had their convictions overturned on appeal, Indonesia has little international capital on the issue of abuses by its military.  The time for action and reform is now.