JAKARTA, 22 May 2004 — Washington has no moral authority to assess other countries’ human rights records, Indonesia said yesterday in criticism of the US State Department’s latest human rights report.
The report said Indonesia made progress in its transition from authoritarian rule to democracy but its “overall human rights record remained poor.” Released Monday, the report is entitled “Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The US Record 2003-2004.”
“The US does not have the moral authority to assume for itself the role of judge and jury on matters of human rights. This is more evident with the revelation of human rights abuses in Abu Ghraib prison,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Marty Natalegawa told a press conference.
Natalegawa was referring to abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US troops in Iraq.
He said the US report “has absolutely no standing whatsoever.”
“It may give the US government moral satisfaction in their imaginary world. But in the real world the US is not at all in the position to preach on human rights to other countries,” he said.
Natalegawa said the US could not take credit for any progress on human rights in other countries as the report implied.
Iraqi prisoners said they were sexually assaulted by female soldiers and forced to eat food from toilets in documents described by The Washington Post yesterday that included hundreds of new photos and short video clips of torture by US military at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib jail.
The paper said the testimony of abuse obtained from 13 Iraqi detainees, as well as hundreds of photographs and short digital video clips, are part of evidence gathered by army investigators for the courts martial in Iraq of seven US soldiers charged with abusing detainees.
Meanwhile, hundreds of students and other activists marched through cities across Indonesia yesterday to reject what they called creeping militarism on the sixth anniversary of the President Suharto’s resignation.
Protesters expressed concern that three of the 12 presidential and vice presidential candidates in Indonesia’s July 5 elections are retired generals.
“Watch out! Fascism is right before your eyes,” said a placard carried by about 300 demonstrators marching toward Jakarta’s central traffic circle.
They called for two presidential candidates, Wiranto and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to be disqualified. Another retired general, Agum Gumelar, is the vice presidential running mate of Hamzah Haz, the current vice-president.
The presidential candidate Wiranto, Suharto’s last armed forces chief, is charged in East Timor for murder and other crimes against humanity in connection with that country’s bloody 1999 separation from Indonesia.
Protesters also warned of a return of “Suharto’s cronies.”
Near the former president’s central Jakarta home, another group of about 100 activists issued a statement calling Suharto “the biggest human rights criminal in this decade.”
One protester, Monang, said commemorations are bigger this year “because six years after Suharto fell militarism still exists in Indonesia and he still remains untouchable by law ... People everywhere in Indonesia remain poor and oppressed.”
Demonstrators and local radio said other protests occurred in West Java, the Sumatran city of Jambi, Yogyakarta, Solo, and Indonesia’s second city, Surabaya.
