Mahfud MD Will Visit Europe To Pick Up Exiled Victims Of Human Rights Violation

JAKARTA - The Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs (Menko Polhukam) Mahfud MD will visit a number of countries in Europe to meet exile victims of past gross human rights violations (HAM) in order to pick them up back to Indonesia.

"After this, I will visit several European countries, those who want to go home, they have civil rights," said Mahfud in a working meeting with Committee I DPD at the parliament complex, Senayan, Jakarta, as reported by ANTARA, Tuesday, July 4.

Mahfud said that he would schedule his visit to a number of countries in Europe, after the kick-off of the non-judicial settlement of cases of past gross human rights violations held in Aceh on Tuesday (27/6).

"Later, there are a lot of 12 countries, if I'm not mistaken, there are still citizens of our country who were former service bond students, who were then exiled, it's okay to schedule later, this is just kick-off," he said.

Mahfud explained that the state had to intervene for the sake of humanity because the exiled students had been abroad for decades and they could not return to their homeland after the 1965 incident.

"They can't go home because of the '65 incident, up to 58 years old, can you imagine 58 years old, from the age of 23 to the ages of 81-82 now, more have died abroad, we have to intervene for humanity," he said.

He also talked about the yearning of the exiled students to return to their homeland, which had not been realized until the end of their life.

"There are some people telling me, 'Sir, I have been unable to (go home) for 58 years, sir, I want to return to Indonesia, I want to die in Indonesia'. Then we pick them up, they are victims, not perpetrators," he said.

However, Mahfud said that some of the other exiles also chose not to return to their homeland because their lives had become institutionalized in that country.

"Because of what? It's been 58 years, his assets here (in Indonesia, ed) are gone, his family is gone, and he's afraid of being ridiculed by society. They've been successful there," he said.

However, he stressed that the state still has the right to restore the rights of the exiled victims of gross human rights violations.

"They only want their pride and their love for this Motherland, to be returned with this by the country. Why don't you agree? Is it considered that there is no law? Can we just keep quiet watching this? While the state has ordered to resolve it through the courts and non-courts," he said.

Previously, Mahfud MD mentioned temporary data that there were 136 exile victims of gross human rights violations abroad.

Most of those recorded were exile victims of human rights violations during the 1965–1966 incident, and the other two were exiles from the May 1998 riots and the Aceh KKA Intersection.

Of the 136 people, 67 exiles who were victims of Event 65 were in the Netherlands, one person and 37 of their descendants were in Russia, 14 people were in Czech, 8 people were in Sweden, two exiles and one of their descendants were in Slovenia, one exile in Albania.

Then one in Bulgaria, one in Syria, one in England, one in Germany, and two exiles who were victims of the May 1998 riots, and victims of the Aceh KKA Simpang Incident in Malaysia.