I. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

This report examines the response of Indonesia's National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) to a massacre in Aceh that occurred in August 2001. Thirty men and a two-year-old child, all ethnic Acehnese, were shot and killed by a group of armed men who suddenly appeared on the grounds of the Bumi Flora rubber and palm oil plantation in Julok, East Aceh. After the killings, the men disappeared just as suddenly. The Indonesian army and police accused the rebel Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka or GAM) of responsibility; GAM insisted that the killers were members of the Indonesian security forces.

To date, no serious investigation has taken place. On January 8, 2002, Komnas HAM agreed to establish a formal Commission of Inquiry into the killings, suggesting that some movement in the case might be possible. But as this report illustrates, that hope may be illusory. Nothing Komnas HAM has done over the last two years in Aceh - or in the rest of Indonesia, for that matter - has produced satisfactory results in terms of holding perpetrators of human rights violations responsible for their crimes. (Since 2000, Komnas-HAM has had a mandate in law to conduct preliminary investigations into serious human rights violations; those investigations then become the basis for the Attorney General's office deciding whether to proceed with prosecutions.)

There are many reasons for the failure of human rights accountability in Indonesia, but the overall ineffectiveness of Komnas HAM since late 1999 has not helped. An organization that was once considered the most credible institution in the country has turned into a barrier to human rights progress.

The actions - and lack of action - by Komnas HAM with respect to the Bumi Flora massacre are indicative. Human Rights Watch has obtained an internal report of a Komnas HAM "observation" visit to East Aceh to decide whether further action was warranted. The report includes transcripts of taped interviews with witnesses, which Human Rights Watch has translated in full. Human Rights Watch also interviewed individuals who were present at those interviews. The findings are disturbing.

The Komnas HAM team obtained valuable information from eyewitnesses pointing to Indonesian army soldiers and operatives as the perpetrators of the massacre, but it failed to follow up important leads. The two senior Komnas HAM representatives on the team allowed military officers to accompany them on some interviews, a clear inhibition to free discussion. After their return to Jakarta, the commissioners sat on their findings for five months. Indications were that even if a formal Commission of Inquiry goes forward, as agreed at the January 8, 2002 meeting of Komnas HAM, it will be headed by one of the two members who performed so poorly in the initial observation visit.

Human Rights Watch believes that establishing accountability for human rights abuses in Aceh, and ensuring that the perpetrators are brought to justice, are essential if the conflict there is to be resolved. When not just the security forces and the executive branch of government, but even the national human rights commission fails to give sufficient priority to ensuring justice is done for so grave a crime, the prospects for ending the violence seem dim indeed.

Recommendations:
1. The government of Indonesia should give full support to the immediate appointment of a credible commission of inquiry to investigate the Bumi Flora massacre. The commission should be composed of qualified individuals whose integrity, independence, and impartiality is widely acknowledged.

2. The government should give the highest priority to ensuring that the perpetrators of the Bumi Flora massacre are identified and brought to justice.

3. The Indonesian parliament should hold hearings into why so many serious human rights violations in Aceh remain unsolved, the perpetrators not only unpunished but unidentified. Committees I (Defense and Security) and II (Law and Home Affairs) are probably best placed to undertake such hearings. They should examine the role of the police and security forces, the justice system, and Komnas HAM. They should also make recommendations for strengthening mechanisms for investigating allegations of human rights violations to ensure that those whose rights are violated have prompt and effective access to judicial or other remedies.

4. Donors, both private and governmental, who have funded Komnas HAM in the past should jointly fund a thorough and impartial external evaluation of Komnas HAM's work and approach to human rights over the last two years, and ensure that the findings of the evaluation are made public, in English and bahasa Indonesia.