12 - Human rights and Yudhoyono's test of history

Summary

When Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono became Indonesia's first directly elected president in 2004, human rights were already a central element of the Indonesian state's political profile. After the fall of Suharto's authoritarian New Order regime, the People's Consultative Assembly (Majelis Permusyarawatan Rakyat, MPR) had enshrined the key tenets of human rights into Indonesia's Constitution through a series of amendments between 1999 and 2002 (Butt and Lindsey 2012: 22). In 1999, the People's Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR) had also passed Law 39/1999 on Human Rights, which continues to function as the key piece of legislation for the protection of human rights. Indonesia had also acceded to a number of important international human rights treaties, including the Convention against Torture and Cruel, Inhumane or Degrading Treatments or Punishments in 1998, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in 1999. Thus, with the basic framework for the protection of human rights largely in place at the time of Yudhoyono's inauguration, domestic and international observers expected the new president not only to consolidate these reforms, but also to push for the further deepening of human rights protections.

Opinion is divided on whether Yudhoyono fulfilled these expectations during his decade in power. In recent years, starkly differing assessments have emerged over whether human rights in Indonesia improved, stagnated or even worsened during his time in office. Some assessments, particularly those of foreign diplomats and media commentators, portrayed Yudhoyono's Indonesia as an increasingly open and plural society where human rights were largely protected. Others, especially those of local human rights activists, frequently suggested that the protection of civil and political rights stagnated, and in some areas even declined, during the president's ten-year reign. In light of such a lack of consensus on Yudhoyono's achievements and failures, this chapter aims to critically assess his legacy in the field of human rights, with a particular focus on his personal role and influence in this field.

A number of previous studies have attempted to locate the key factors driving human rights reform in post-New Order Indonesia. Hadiprayitno (2010: 397), for example, examined the international dimension of Indonesia's increasing adoption of human rights frameworks, concluding pessimistically that ‘Indonesia's primary motivation throughout accepting international commitments has been merely to pre-empt international action’.