Minority Rights in Indonesia

Introduction

Minority rights are the normal individual rights as applied to members of racial, ethnic, class, religious, linguistic or gender and sexual minorities; and also the collective rights accorded to minority groups. All countries in the world include persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, enriching the diversity of their societies.

Although a great variety of minority situations exist, common to all is the fact that, too often, minorities face multiple forms of discrimination resulting in marginalisation and exclusion. Civilians from minority ethnic groups suffer violations and abuses, including war crimes, at the hands of Myanmar’s military and ethnic armed groups in the country’s Kachin and northern Shan States. These minorities suffer: Conflict, Displacement and Abuse in Northern Myanmar details how soldiers Myanmar’s Armed Force, mete out torture and extrajudicial executions, shell civilian villages indiscriminately and place punitive restrictions on movement and humanitarian access.

Meanwhile, some ethnic armed groups at times abduct civilians seen to support an opposing party, forcibly recruit men, women and children into their fighting forces and impose “taxes” on impoverished villagers trapped in the conflict. More than 98,000 civilians are currently displaced in northern Myanmar amid fierce fighting between the Myanmar Armed Forces and various ethnic armed groups in the area, including the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), the Arakan Army (AA), and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).

Myanmar’s government has exacerbated the difficulties for many displaced persons by restricting humanitarian access to certain affected areas, particularly those controlled by armed groups. Humanitarian officials said this undermined their ability to respond quickly to emergency situations and to provide necessary humanitarian assistance like shelter, access to water, and sanitation. Almost 100,000 people have been torn away from their homes and farms due to conflict and human rights violations in northern Myanmar. All sides must protect civilians amid the conflict and the Myanmar authorities need to immediately end the humanitarian access restrictions that have further harmed this already-vulnerable population. (Matthew Wells)

Country Indonesia relation with topic

The Republic of Indonesia is a sprawling archipelago of nearly 14,000 islands, which divides into two tiers. The main islands of the more heavily populated southern tier include Sumatra, Java, Bali and Timor. The northern tier includes Kalimantan (most of Borneo), Sulawesi, the Moluccas and Papua (the western half of New Guinea). Sumatra lies west and south of peninsular Malaysia and Singapore across the narrow Strait of Malacca. Kalimantan, the Indonesian section of Borneo, is bounded to the north by Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei. North of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi is the Celebes Sea and beyond that the Philippines. Indonesia’s geographic position has made it a gateway for human migration throughout history.

Humans may have inhabited parts of today’s Indonesia from between 2 million to 500,000 years ago, but most Indonesians today are of Austronesian stock whose ancestors may have migrated into this part of the world in waves, starting perhaps from Taiwan some 4,000 years ago, displacing in the process an already existing population of Papuan people.

Indonesia has more than 350 ethnic groups, 700 local languages and five religions that are recognised by the state. These religions are: Islam, Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, Hinduism, Buddhism. More than 85% of Indonesians consider themselves to be Muslim, making Indonesia nominally the largest Muslim nation in the world. Indonesia is linguistically extremely diverse.

Since the end of the Suharto presidency in 1998, Indonesia has been moving towards a more liberal democratic system, with increased human rights provisions and mechanisms and other major political and structural changes: presidential elections in 2004 were the first where the president and vice-president were directly elected.

The constitution contains a number of human rights guarantees. There are a number of human rights institutions such as the National Human Rights Commission (KOMNASHAM), and a human rights court set up in 2000. Despite some good work in the past by KOMNASHAM, Indonesia appears to be unable to address very serious human rights violations such as extra-judicial killings, torture and other abuses by the security forces, which often target minorities in restive provinces. Corruption, including within the judicial system and inadequate training, resources and leadership, all combine to weaken the potential legal and constitutional protections. The human rights court’s effectiveness is limited because cases involving military personnel fall instead under the jurisdiction of the Indonesian Military Court.

Recent attempts to address past breaches have encountered setbacks. The establishment of a special Truth and Reconciliation Commission to investigate human rights violations since the 1960s was struck down by the Constitutional Court in December 2006 as having no legal basis. The earlier conviction of a pilot for the murder of human rights defender Munir Said Thalib on board a flight to Amsterdam was overthrown by the Supreme Court in Jakarta in October 2006. The case remains unsolved.

Indonesia is not an Islamic state. The state ideology, Pancasila, requires only that citizens believe in one supreme God, and that they accept membership of one of five officially sanctioned faiths, Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Hinduism and Buddhism (as stated before). Orthodox Muslim groups have argued since independence that Islam should play a greater role in government and society, with some pushing for an Islamic state based on Sharia law. Secular nationalists have countered that this risks provoking secessionist moves in regions of Indonesia where Muslims are not a majority.

The political divide between the state and orthodox believers caused riots and a wave of bombings and arson attacks in the mid-1980s. However, Suharto successfully suppressed the more militant Islamic organizations, and co-opted the others. Under his authoritarian rule open reporting and discussion of religious and ethnic friction was banned.

Indonesia has its share of experience of ethnic violence and a number of community initiatives have been carried out to support reconciliation.In Ambon, the capital of Indonesia’s Moluccas islands, the local government, security forces, religious and community leaders re-introduced pela, a traditional inter-village friendship agreement, after the conflict between Christians and Muslims ended in 1999.

Pela was utilised to foster cooperation between Christian and Muslim villages. Various projects were introduced, such as mosque or church constructions, which require workers from different faiths to become partners in building houses of worship.?The government and other stakeholders have also established interfaith dialogue. This includes forums such as MADIA (Society for Interreligious Dialogue), Dian Interfidei, Interfaith Women’s Forum in Bali, and the Young Interfaith Forum in Bali.