By Setyo Budi
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono won July’s election with a landslide. Amidst the general relief that Megawati and Jusuf Kalla lost – can you imagine Prabowo or Wiranto as vice-president? – one question continues to jar. Why does the brain behind Munir’s murder remain at large five years later? SBY’s failure on this issue hints at a darker side to his presidency. Good economic management is one thing, but maybe it is time to focus on human rights.
Munir Said Thalib was Indonesia’s most famous human rights and anti-corruption activist between 1998 and 2004. He was Indonesia’s Anna Politkovskaya. An assassin poisoned him with arsenic on 7 September 2004, on a Garuda plane en route to Amsterdam. Utrecht University had invited him to pursue a master’s degree in international law and human rights. He died in agony somewhere over Hungary, three hours before the flight landed at Schiphol airport.
Read the full story here: Inside Indonesia: Munir’s murder still free
Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 12:14 amand is filed under Java. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.