Indonesian President Joko Widodo on Wednesday acknowledged and expressed regret over gross human rights abuses occurring in the Southeast Asian country in past decades and promised restitution for the victims.
Voicing deep sympathy for the victims of 12 past atrocities, as well as their families, Widodo said at a press conference, "I and the government will try to restore the rights of the victims in just and wise ways without putting aside any judicial settlement."
The abuses included the massacre of those accused of being communists and their sympathizers between 1965 and 1966, led by the military and supported by the public, including the Ansor Youth Movement, a wing of the country's largest Muslim group Nahdlatul Ulama.
International human right activists say at least 1 million people were killed during the massacre.
In 1999, then President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was a former Nahdlatul Ulama chairman, apologized for the role of Ansor. But Nahdlatul Ulama and Ansor retracted his apology after he died in 2001.
In 1999, Wahid's predecessor, B.J. Habibie, apologized for gross human rights violations in the northernmost province of Aceh when it was under military emergency status from 1989 to 1998.
The status was imposed by the late strongman Suharto and revoked by Habibie.
In 2019, when Habibie died, the people in Aceh hoisted flags at half-mast in his honor.
Since being elected as president, Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, promised to seek a just settlement of the gross human right violations in the past.
Last year, he set up a team to resolve the 12 cases in an effort to find nonjudicial resolutions.
Human rights activists, however, accused him of trying to close the cases and absolve the perpetrators of any guilt.
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