9 Jun
Prabowo v Jokowi 4b (Human Rights)
What we know: Prabowo-Hatta Coalition
The Prabowo-Hatta duo is supported by the Greater Indonesia Movement (Gerindra), the Golkar Party, the National Mandate Party (PAN), the Prosperous Justice Party, the United Development Party (PPP), and the Crescent and Star Party (PBB) with 292 seats or 52.14% in parliament.
NB. It should be noted that both Golkar and PPP joined the coalition at the insistence of their respective chairmen, decisions not supported by the majority of their memberships.
Prabowo Subianto
What we know
– In 1998, Prabowo was dismissed from the military on the grounds of a number of cases of insubordination and disregard for the military code as well as charges of human rights violations. See this document (in bhs. Indonesia)
– In March this year, a New York Times report stated that in 2000 the US State Department denied the former general a visa to attend his son’s university graduation in Boston, but has never said why.
– Prabowo told Reuters in 2012 he was still refused a US visa due to allegations that he instigated riots that killed hundreds after Suharto’s overthrow. He has denied wrongdoing.
– Robert Gelbard, former United States Ambassador to Indonesia, described Prabowo as “somebody who is perhaps the greatest violator of human rights in contemporary times among the Indonesian military. His deeds in the late 90s before democracy took hold, were shocking, even by TNI standards.”
– In 1996, Prabowo led the Mapenduma Operation to secure the release of 12 researchers from the World Wildlife Fund’s Lorentz expedition taken hostage by the OPM several months earlier. The campaign began with the assault on Ngeselema using an Indonesian military helicopter disguised to look like the helicopter that ICRC mediators had been using for several months, [and] led to a brutal campaign of reprisal attacks by the Indonesian military (largely Kopassus) against highland villages thought to be sympathetic to the OPM.
What we think we know
– Prabowo had a questionable role in the 1983 massacre in Kraras, East Timor.
Hatta Rajasa
What we think we know
– Was Rasyid Rajasa, son of Hatta, given a lenient sentence following the fatal crash he caused because of who he was?
– Why was the BMW car driven by Rasyid not included in Hatta’s wealth report?
– Hatta’s name crops up in various corruption trials, such as this one and this one
Supporters of Prabowo-Hatta Coalition
– The reputation of Aburizal Bakrie, Golkar’s chairman, has been severely tainted by the mud-flow disaster in 2006 caused by the alleged negligence of one of his companies, Lapindo, and that the company has yet to fully compensate the ‘refugees’ as mandated by presidential decree.
– His maneuvering in 2010 to oust reformist finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati after she tried to make his coal companies pay their tax, has been viewed with disdain by all but his closest associates.
– Suryadharma Ali, chairman of fundamentalist Muslim PPP, has since resigned as Religious Affairs Minister after he was charged by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in relation to alleged impropriety in the country’s $5 billion fund for the hajj pilgrimage.
Under his watch, abuses against religious minorities rose alarmingly. (Report .pdf, pub. Feb. 2013)
– Bara Hasibuan, a spokesman for Prabowo’s campaign team, said last week that the coalition, did not condone religious intolerance or violence but would still welcome the endorsement of the FPI, the fundamentalist Muslim group notorious for mob attacks on religious minorities and illegal raids on legitimate businesses selling alcohol.
Go figure!
– Hercules Rozario Marshal, the infamous Jakarta gang leader. is publicly supporting Prabowo’s presidential bid – and using his large group of followers to cash-in on Indonesia’s for-profit protest market.
– TNI jails soldier for harassing residents, but denies coercion …. eh?
Retired military figures are split between the two coalitions. Many inevitably carry human rights baggage, but it is difficult to determine what roles they are playing in the campaigns, let alone if they will have a role in whichever government is formed.
