The Australian 26/6/02

Army on trial for assassination

By Don Greenlees, Jakarta correspondent


INDONESIA'S military is trying to contain fallout from the assassination of Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay by putting on trial nine officers and non-commissioned personnel in a military court that human rights groups claim is incapable of identifying the masterminds of the murder plot. The military police have characterised the kidnapping and strangulation of Eluay in Papua last November as "purely a criminal act", according to media reports, and intend to put the suspects on trial before a panel of fellow officers next month.

The most senior of the nine soldiers to go to trial will be the commander of the army's special forces garrison in Papua, Lieutenant-Colonel Hartomo, and his deputy, Major Doni Hutabarat. They are accused of taking part in a conspiracy to murder Eluay, who was chairman of the pro-independence Papuan Presidium and tribal council. Eluay's car was intercepted soon after he attended a dinner to mark Indonesian Heroes Day at the Kopassus special forces barracks in the Papuan capital, Jayapura, on November 10. The car and Eluay's asphyxiated body were found dumped in a ravine outside the city the next day.

Despite two police investigations, a military police inquiry and an investigation by a national team appointed by the President, the motive for the murder and who ordered it are yet to be established. The two main theories are that it was an attempt to cause chaos among the Papuan independence movement or that it arose from a financial dispute in the corruption- ridden timber industry. Evidence from the police investigations points to the murder having been carried out by members of the Kopassus unit in Jayapura. But investigators and human rights groups say it is almost certain these soldiers were not acting on their own initiative.

Human rights activists said yesterday the decision to put the soldiers on trial in a military court rather than in a newly created human rights court would prevent the facts emerging about the real impetus for the killing. "If the process is to be handled by the military court, we cannot obtain either the truth or justice," said Asmara Nababan, the secretary-general of 
the National Human Rights Commission. "It is not just an ordinary crime. That is why we need an independent investigation."

Others say the case has highlighted the weakness of human rights laws passed by the parliament in 2000. The head of the Indonesian office of the International Crisis Group, Sidney Jones, said the definition of a human rights crime used in the legislation excluded cases of individual assassinations, such as the Eluay case.