Joko Widodo ‘drags feet’ on investigation of PKI massacres

Families of victims of Indonesia’s 1965-66 massacres are calling for the UN to launch an investigation.

Members of the Youth Wing of the Indonesian Communist Party are truck to prison in Jakarta in October 1965.

Families of victims of the 1965-66 massacres of suspected Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) members are threatening to call in the UN over the head of President Joko Widodo.

The chairman of the Institute for the Study of the 1965-1966 Massacre, Bejo Untung, accused the government of ignoring demands for justice for at least half a million PKI members and sympathisers slaughtered during the ascent of Suharto, which was chronicled by Australian novelist Christopher Koch in The Year of Living Dangerously.

Mr Untung said despite pledges from Mr Widodo to resolve past human rights cases during his 2014 election campaign, his government was showing no commitment to the issue.

This was compounded by the administration sidelining findings by its own human rights agency and by independent investigations.

Mr Untung said little had been done since April when, for the first time, the government sponsored a symposium to determine what happened during the tumultuous years that saw the rise of Suharto’s military dictatorship.

“The symposium was a landmark because it brought together victims, witnesses and perpetrators. The government was ­provided with unprecedented amount of testimonies and evidence during that symposium. So why haven’t they done anything? There is not even an official summary of the symposium presented to the President,” Mr Untung told The Australian.

Mr Untung said survivors had written to Mr Widodo and the Security Ministry requesting a meeting to discuss progress in the promised investigation into mass graves that human rights groups say are ­dotted across the country.

They also wanted to discuss the government’s pledge to compensate victims for the years of suffering under Suharto’s 32-year-rule, during which suspected PKI members were jailed and tortured without trial and stigmatised upon their release.

Last week Mr Widodo and Security Minister Wiranto, a former military chief, refused the request.

Human rights lawyer Hari Wibowo said victims were exhausted by the government’s lack of political will. “Both the criminal investigation and the non-litigation mechanisms seemed to have stagnated,” he told The Australian.

“The government keeps making excuses. If they are serious, they can meet the victims, talk to witnesses, exhume the mass graves. Victims and human rights groups have already submitted enormous amount of data.”

Mr Wibowo said the President one last chance to talk to them.

“We have met all the formal requirements to lodge a report to the UN. If they keep ignoring us we will do so,” he said.