Today we commemorate one of the worst tragedies to occur in Indonesia since the downfall of the dictator, Suharto, the cold-blooded murder of Munir. Although President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono himself has given his full backing to a thorough investigation of the crime, we are nowhere near to seeing the true perpetrators being brought to justice.

For the past year, his widow, Suciwati, has devoted all her energies to calling for the truth behind the murder of her husband to be brought to light. In the past few months she has travelled the length and breadth of the country as well as going abroad, to the US and Europe, to muster support for her campaign to bring his murderers to justice. In a recent statement, she said:

“I’m not just talking about the death of my husband. In the future, it could endanger human rights and democracy in Indonesia. Even an internationally known activist can be murdered. The message is: ’I can kill Munir and I can kill you.’”

She has repeated her conviction that his murder was highly political and has herself been subjected to intimidation and death threats, in an attempt to force her to abandon her efforts on his behalf.

Munir, 38 years old at the time of his death, was revered at home and abroad as Indonesia’s most fearless human rights activists, who did so much to pursue those responsible for human rights abuses, in particular the military, and who dedicated himself to ending the scourge of impunity. He devoted himself to many issues which brought him into open conflict with the Indonesian military. He was a member of the Special Commission set up in 2000 to investigation human rights violations in East Timor, he was highly respected for his efforts to expose military abuses in Aceh. In the final months of the Suharto regime, he worked tirelessly to bring to light the whereabouts of more than twenty activists who had disappeared, a campaign which led to the creation of KontraS, Commission for the Disappeared and the Victims of Violence. shortly before his death, he also set up a human rights organisation called Imparsial. He was the recipient of many international awards, including the prestigious Right Livelihood Award in 2000.

Munir died on 7 September last year, aboard a Garuda flight on his way to The Netherlands where he was intending to take a course in human rights studies. He was poisoned with a massive dose of arsenic during the flight and passed away two hours before the aircraft reached its destination.

Wide-ranging investigations were conducted by a Fact-Finding Team set up by the President which reached the conclusion that his murder was the result of a conspiracy. The Team found that the conspiracy involved Indonesia’s powerful intelligence agency, BIN, as well as senior executives of the Indonesia’s national carrier, Garuda. The Fact-Finding Team found evidence of a carefully-laid plan to eliminate Indonesia’s foremost human rights activist and discovered a BIN document which considered four possible ways of killing Munir, one of which was the way in which he actually died.

Despite all the evidence of a conspiracy, nothing has been done in the twelve months since his tragic death to bring the true perpetrators of the murder to justice. Instead, one of the persons who was part of the conspiracy, a Garuda pilot named Pollycarpus Budihari Priyanto, who travelled for part of the way on the Garuda flight on 7 September, is now on trial for the murder. Pollycarpus is known to have been an under-cover agent of BIN, who kept close contact with Munir and his family before the fateful flight, so as to ascertain which flight he would be taking. However, the trial of Pollycarpus, far from bringing to light the murder conspiracy, is likely to foreclose the case and leave the masterminds of the killing at large.

Although the Fact-Finding Team had received a powerful mandate from the President to pursue its investigations with all state agencies, the intelligence agency BIN has made every effort to frustrate the Team’s investigations. In particular, the man who headed the agency at the time of Munir’s death, retired lieutenant-general Hendropriyono, refused to appear before the Team. He has vilified the Team and has even filed formal complaints against two of its members. The Team came close to identifying this very general as the person mostly likely to have conspired to kill Munir.

It is a bitter irony that the man who campaigned for so long for justice and for an end to impunity fell victim to the very injustices he worked so hard to expose.

When he set up the Fact-Finding Team, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono declared that the investigation would be ’a test case for whether Indonesia has changed’. On this first anniversary of Munir’s murder, however, the bitter fact is that whatever the President’s intentions, nothing has changed.

In a forthright statement made in July this year, the deputy chair of the Fact-Finding Team, Asmara Nababan said: ’Let the public conclude for themselves who should be held responsible for the murder of Munir because law enforcers appear unable to bring untouchables from a feared intelligence agency to justice.’

On this day, TAPOL calls on the President to use his powers to ensure that the true perpetrators of the murder of Munir are brought to justice. Without such action, Indonesia’s claim to be a state based on the rule of law will continue to be derided as utterly false.