IV. CONDUCT OF THE OBSERVATION MISSION

Given the importance of the Bumi Flora case, Komnas HAM should have made an extra effort to include commissioners with established reputations for independence and commitment to accountability. Neither B.N. Marbun nor Mohammad Salim fit that description.

Marbun became well known to the international community in East Timor in 1999 after the United Nations Mission in East Timor (UNAMET) was established. He was appointed to a body set up by the Indonesian government in April 1999 called the Commission on Peace and Stability (KPS), which was supposed to ensure that militias and guerrillas in East Timor lay down their arms and abide by a code of conduct. In the view of U.N. officials and many East Timorese, Marbun and the current chair of Komnas HAM, Djoko Sugianto, acted as little more than surrogates for the Indonesian government and pro-Indonesia elements in East Timor.¹⁴

Mohammad Salim had been charged with setting up a Commission of Inquiry to look into the killings of three humanitarian workers in Aceh in December 2000. He not only failed to take any action, but he and Marbun actively worked to undermine efforts to have the case treated as a serious human rights violation rather than an ordinary crime.¹⁵

In investigating the Bumi Flora case, Marbun and Salim did make a conscious effort to find eyewitnesses from whom they could hear first-hand testimony. One person present at the interviews said that when the wives of the victims were interviewed, the general demeanor of the commissioners was gentle and not threatening to those questioned.¹⁶ But some of their tactics were highly questionable.

For example, in their visit to the doctor and staff of the clinic in Idi Rayeuk, East Aceh, to which the bodies of the Bumi Flora victims had been taken, the Komnas HAM team was accompanied by the East Aceh military commander. Throughout Marbun's interview with the doctor, the commander sat within earshot of the conversation, a fact that may well have deterred the doctor from conveying any sensitive information. Marbun never asked about any bullets that had been recovered from the bodies or the location or nature of the wounds, but confined his questions to establishing the chronology for the arrival and disposal of the bodies.¹⁷ The team asked no questions relating to the huge military presence around the hospital or how this might have affected the work of the clinic. One of the women who went to the Idi clinic on the night of August 9 told Human Rights Watch that she thought there might have been as many as 150 troops surrounding the clinic at the time.¹⁸

The Komnas team frequently failed to pursue leads that might have resulted in more information. Not once, for example, did they ask any of the witnesses about who seemed to be in command or giving the orders during the operation. Many of the witnesses testified that of the dozens of men present, only one was not wearing camouflage. While the details of his clothing varied slightly from witness to witness, this individual appears to have been key, but the team did no probing to find out what his precise role was.

According to one of the team members interviewed by Human Rights Watch, some obvious follow-up interviews were not pursued. The manager of the Bumi Flora plantation, reportedly resident in Medan, North Sumatra, was not interviewed. His testimony would have been important, since local government officials later told Human Rights Watch that they believed the massacre was carried out by GAM because of the manager's refusal to make a large payment to GAM.¹⁹ The military denied holding one eyewitness, Abdul Wahab bin Hussein, whom the local human rights group said was in the East Aceh district military's custody. The Komnas HAM team appeared to accept the army's statement that the man was not in custody and made no effort to track down that lead, ascertain the man's whereabouts, or ask the human rights group how they knew he was in detention. According to one team member, Marbun and Salim made no effort to seriously look into the report of an armed clash between GAM and TNI in the area the day before in which some TNI soldiers may have been killed or wounded.²⁰

At a minimum, efforts should have been made, if not in East Aceh then in Banda Aceh or Jakarta to investigate reports of clashes in the area and to document what army units were involved. Military posts were known to have been established in and around Bumi Flora.²¹ A local human rights group interviewed by Human Rights Watch mentioned battalions 142, 312, 142, and 401 as having units in the area, but not once did the Komnas HAM team try to map these out or otherwise inquire about what the different units operating in the area were.²² When eyewitnesses interviewed by the Komnas-HAM team reported being stopped in the road en route to the clinic and virtually instructed to acknowledge that GAM was behind the massacre, the team made no effort to follow up and ascertain the units involved or raise questions about the behavior of the troops.

Despite widespread reports of intimidation of witnesses by the army and police, particularly the wounded in the hospital, the Komnas team made no effort, with one exception, to determine who else had talked to the witnesses or under what circumstances.

Any of the above follow-up could have been done without the security guarantees recommended by the Komnas HAM team. There was no reason to wait until January 2002 to formally establish a Commission of Inquiry.

14 Ian Martin, Self-Determination in East Timor: The United Nations, the Ballot, and International Intervention, International Peace Academy Occasional Paper Series, p.70. Martin does not refer to the Komnas HAM representatives by name.

15 Human Rights Watch interviews, Jakarta and Banda Aceh, August 2001. The local police in Aceh and the Attorney-General's office in Jakarta argued that if the charges against the men in question were changed from murder to serious human rights crimes, after they were already detained, they would have to be released while evidence to support the new charges was gathered. Komnas HAM was divided, with several of the commissioners arguing that the police argument was flawed and the RATA case was too important to be treated as an ordinary homicide. B.N. Marbun and Salim supported the police argument.

16 Human Rights Watch interview, Banda Aceh, January 21, 2002.

17 Interview in Banda Aceh, January 25, 2002, and Observation Report, pp.2-5.

18 Interview in Banda Aceh, January 21, 2002.

19 Human Rights Watch interview, January 2002.

20 The TNI death toll from this attack was almost certainly not the dozens reported by SIRA or initial press reports suggested. Human Rights Watch talked to a well-connected individual in Banda Aceh in August, not an eyewitness, who said his army sources confirmed the clash but at the most, one or two soldiers had fallen. A GAM source told Human Rights Watch in January 2002 that GAM fighters do not stay around after an attack to count the dead, they can only estimate how many people fell.

21 For example, Indonesian Army Infantry Battalion 203 had a post inside the grounds of PT Bumi Flora, about three kilometers from the site of several multiple graves containing victims of an extrajudicial execution that occurred on August 18, 2001. The victims were young men, aged thirteen to twenty-six. A human rights NGO documented the circumstances under which the men and boys were taken away from a coffee shop in Baro Village, Idi Tunong, East Aceh after giving a pro-independence salute to a group of armed men. The men then asked to see the identity cards of the group, forced them to strip, burned the clothes and identity cards, then took the victims away. The subdistrict army and police denied any involvement in the killings. Observation Report, Attachment 18, and Human Rights Watch interviews, Banda Aceh, January 21, 2002.

22 Interview with observation team member, Banda Aceh, January 25, 2002.