Burma should take note of Indonesia’s failure to hold human rights violators accountable for their actions as the junta-led country prepares to hold its first elections in two decades, a human rights advocate has said.
Jakarta. “Burma could learn to avoid making the same mistake Indonesia did, which was its failure to bring military officials to justice for past human rights abuses,” Rafendi Djamin, the director of the Human Rights Working Group, said last week during a meeting with Tomas Ojea Quintana, a UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Burma.

Rafendi, who is also the Indonesian commissioner for the Asean Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission, said alleged human rights violators in Indonesia continued to “occupy high-ranking positions as government officials.”

Quintana was in Indonesia to consult with civil society organizations on the country’s human rights enforcement and its transformation from a military-run government to a democratic nation.

Before holding its first direct presidential election in 2004, Jakarta had been under authoritarian rule for 30 years.

Burma is now preparing to hold its first election in two decades, on Nov. 7. Critics, however, say the polls will be less than democratic.

Quintana said in a March report to the UN Human Rights Council that in order to have fair and democratic elections, Burma should first free democracy icon and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi .

“It is critical that political prisoners be released,” he said.