Paras Indonesia, March, 31 2006 @ 09:00 am
Poso's Closing Chapter Execution
By: Lian Gogali
There are no 'good guys' or 'bad guys' in real conflicts. Everyone is a potential offender
as well as a victim. In the Poso conflict, almost all families have a history of violence.
But the history of violence does not belong to the victims. It belongs to the dominating
state, which often uses the terms "law" and "justice" to internalize and simplify the
Poso conflict into a clash of "actors" and "victims". So, in the name of justice, the
actors must be prosecuted. Ironically, the state attaches both tags to the people of
Poso.
If the legal question is 'who has ever been involved in the series of violence in Poso',
then anyone in Poso could raise their hands, or blamed. Some did nothing, some had
to do something to save themselves or their families. A teenage girl, 16 years of age
during the height of the Poso conflict, admitted she was involved in the conflict
because she helped prepare and used some homemade weapons. She was not the
only one. There are plenty more adults and kids involved in the same capacity. The
point is, there are so many actors, but the state is only interested with the leading
actors, or masterminds. The authority has also repeatedly raised such thinking.
Eventually, the state found its cast of masterminds in Fabianus Tibo, Marinus Riwu
and Dominggus da Silva. All three Catholic men are now on death row for immediate
execution. Even Pope Benedict XVI has sent his letter of sympathy. But the Central
Sulawesi Catholic Church is refusing to accompany Tibo and friends during the day of
the execution. The church says it is its way to protest the execution, but others
suggest the institution is too afraid to place itself in such a controversy.
What is the base of placing Tibo, Marinus and Dominggus as masterminds of the
Poso violence? Is it because they killed more people than the others? Several
organizations have argued that the three men are not the main actors of the Poso
violence. The legal representatives of Tibo, Marinus and Dominggus even released 16
names of people who they think are the true culprits. The men's families, NGO
activists and Poso sympathizers are now urging the court to postpone the execution.
Maybe not to cancel it, but simply to postpone the date. But Yahya Sibe of Central
Sulawesi Court answered: "It has to be done by the end of March".
General Attorney Abdurrahman Saleh also said that his institution is standing firm
with its decision, uninfluenced with the demands for a Supreme Court review. The
attorney general said the men have gone through six levels of legal processes, and
that second review appealed was in violation with the Criminal Code (KUHP). On the
other hand, article 13 of Regulation No. 22/2002 on Presidential Pardon stated that an
execution must not be conducted before the a death-row convict receives officially the
decision by the president.
The statements by the legal enforcers seem to emphasize the importance of the
immediate execution of the men. Tibo, Marinus, and Dominggus are like a thorn in the
way of other plans. The uncompromising statements seem to indicate that there must
by somebody blamed for the Poso violence. Somebody has to die in front of a firing
squad in order to accommodate the various interests in the Poso conflict. Why the
rush? Tibo, Marinus and Dominggus are like a dice in a game of "actors" or "victims".
For the sake of the dominating interests in the Poso conflict, the men must be
executed to symbolize the actors, and to show that there is justice. An execution of
these men would also cover some tracks of what really happened, and who the actual
masterminds were.
With that in mind, it would be impossible to get the government to admit that it has a
role in the Poso conflict. The government would not even admit that it has failed to
protect its citizens in Poso.
Copyright (c) 2005 - PT Laksamana Global International. All rights reserved
|
