By David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

JAKARTA, Indonesia – On Wednesday, a Dutch judge turned down demands by a separatist group for the arrest of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono of Indonesia on charges of human rights abuse if he set foot in the Netherlands, a court spokeswoman said.

Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (L) postponed a visit planned this week to the Netherlands, citing a human rights trial in the host country that might threaten him with arrest [AFP]

Yudhoyono’s cancelled his trip to the Netherlands came after the Republic of South Moluccas (RMS) group requested The Hague District Court to order his arrest.  Indonesian authorities beat the RMS after it declared independence in 1950.

The Netherlands government voiced its regret at the decision and said it had reassured the president he would have diplomatic immunity.

Three Dutch citizens supporting Moluccan separatists filed the claims. The group holds President Yudhoyono responsible for the alleged mistreatment and torture of detained Moluccan separatist activists.

The Indonesian government has been suspected of abusing human rights in suppressing local separatists in the region. Indigenous Moluccan groups live in Maluku Province in the eastern part of Indonesia, and they have laid claim for self-governance, which is claimed to have been promised more than a half-century ago as Dutch rule came to an end.

Members of the separatist group are frequently subjected to torture, arbitrary arrest and extrajudicial killings by Indonesian security forces, human rights organizations say.  Ninety political prisoners have been sentenced or are awaiting trials for separatism in the region, with some serving sentences as long as 20 years, said Andreas Harsono, Indonesia consultant for Human Rights Watch.

Indonesia frequently hands down lengthy jail terms, with a maximum of life in prison, for displaying banned “separatist symbols.” Indonesia’s Special Detachment 88 antiterrorism squad has recently been accused of rights abuses, including torture of separatists in Maluku.

Citing international legal custom, the foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen, of the Netherlands, said his government had assured Indonesia that the president’s immunity could not be challenged by a claim filed in a district court.

“For Indonesia, for me, if this lawsuit is held while I’m visiting, that concerns our self-respect as a nation; it concerns our honor as a nation.” said President Yudhoyono.

The visit would have been the first in 40 years for an Indonesian president to the Netherlands, Indonesia’s former colonial ruler. Given the complex history of the two countries, even recent relations have often been tense.

Historically, the RMS has had a strong base in the Netherlands, many Moluccans emigrated there when Indonesia gained independence, some having served as soldiers in the Dutch army. The Dutch government initially promised their exile would be temporary, and they were settled into temporary refugee camps.

Mahfudz Siddiq, of the Indonesia’s parliament, told Al Jazeera that the RMS represents a serious threat to Indonesia’ territorial integrity.

For more information, please see:

Al Jazeera English – No arrest warrent against Yudhoyono – 6 Oct 2010

New York Times – Dutch Court Rejects Demand for Indonesia President’s Arrest – 6 Oct 2010

BBC – Dutch court dismisses Indonesian president arrest call – 6 Oct 2010

By David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

RANGOON, Union of Myanmar – The anticipated release of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, scheduled for November 13, has placed the Burmese government under International pressure.  Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won in a landslide election success in Myanmar in 1990, but the military junta overruled the results.  

Suu Kyi, has become the icon of Myanmar’s pro-democracy movement and remains the military government’s most well-known opposition.  Myanmar has been under military rule since 1962. Critics say the coming elections aim to create a disguise of democracy. The regime recently passed a law that made her ineligible to stand in the November 7 election because of her court conviction, due to a bizarre incident in which an American swam to her lakeside home.

The November poll is part of the junta’s long-announced “roadmap to democracy”, but critics have dismissed it as a sham designed to keep the military in power.

The country needs to show the world that its November elections are credible by releasing Suu Kyi and all other political prisoners, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said this week.

“The regime has repeatedly claimed it intended to release her on various dates over the years and has then failed to follow through on its commitment to release her.  So, ultimately, I don’t tend to follow what they say, but rather what they do,” said attorney Jared Genser, who is based in Washington.

Mr. Ban said after Monday’s meeting, that the ministers had reiterated the need for the election process to be “more inclusive, participatory and transparent”.

Nyan Win, the foreign minister, rejected international condemnation on Tuesday, insisting that the junta is committed to a “free and fair” vote.

But, uncertainty continues to mount over whether the military regime will actually release the 65-year-old human rights and democratic activist, known reverently among Myanmar’s people as “The Lady”, will remain until the moment she appears in public.

Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) was forcibly disbanded in May, under the new and prohibitive election laws.

Government hurdles to opposition candidates include a fee of $500 per candidate, the equivalent of several months’ pay, for the majority of the Burmese people.

The National Democratic Force (NDF), a breakaway opposition party, is among those planning to contest the vote, a decision that put it at odds with Suu Kyi.

A Myanmar analyst based in Thailand said any release would come with conditions and that Suu Kyi “won’t be free to go out”.  “It’s a military dictatorship. No matter what the legal background of the issue, if they don’t want to release her, she won’t be released,” Aung Naing Oo said.

Along with promises to release Suu Kyi, the government, this week, moved to quash what it views as attempts to undermine the vote.

For more information, please see:

CNN World – Lawyers skeptical about Myanmar releasing Suu Kyi – 1 October 2010

Al Jazerra English – Suu Kyi to be ‘freed’ after polls – 1 October 2010

BBC – UN chief call for ‘inclusive’ Burma election – 27 September 2010

Nameless North Korean refugees (Photo Courtesy of Chosun Newspaper)

By Joseph Juhn
Impunity Watch, Asia

SEOUL, South Korea – North Korean refugees who escaped the country’s authoritarian regime have many untold stories.

Sometime in July, Choi Young-hee, a woman in her 70s, offered smugglers some cash to carry her across the heavily guarded Tuman river that separates North Korea from China.

Soon, her daughter also tried to cross, but was caught and is now in a North Korean political prison, where she can potentially face hard labor, torture, or even death.

North Korea is known as one of the worst violators of human rights in the world. Seeking a better life and liberty, countless individuals attempt to flee the nation that is currently under the leadership of one of the most notorious dictators, Kim Jong-il.

Any North Korean defector who is caught face extraordinary hardships. If they are women, the story can be even worse.

Many surveys and newspaper accounts show that 90 percent of those who are able to evade Chinese border guards and police are sold and trafficked. If the refugees are captured by Chinese authorities, they are forcibly repatriated to North Korea in violation of international law, where they will be locked up in a political concentration camp for imprisonment, beatings, torture, and sometimes a public execution.

The primary motivation of the defectors arises from hunger. Congressman Chris Smith (R-New Jersey) said at the hearing held by the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on September 23 that this summer’s food shortages in North Korea were reportedly as bad as in the 1990s, when estimated up to 2 million people starved to death.

“I thought that once I went to China my children would not starve to death, and that is why I crossed the Tumen River, but once we arrived on the other side, what awaited us were fear of capture by Chinese security officials and forced repatriation back to North Korea,” said Ms. Mi Sun Bahng, one of North Korean refugees who eventually made it to the West and freedom.

In describing her encounter with Chinese brokers when she first crossed the river, she said, “I was separated from my children and sold for 4,000 yuan, [approximately, US$594]. What was most infuriating was that these Chinese [traffickers] called [us] North Korean defector-women ‘pigs,’ and treated us like animals.”

In a period of a few months, Ms. Bahng was “sold three times like livestock.” She managed to escape but in the course of looking for her children, she was captured by Chinese authorities and was repatriated to North Korea.

She witnessed horrors in prison. Ms. Bahng saw her inmates, who were dying of hunger, trying to catch insects, among many other things, to eat for survival.

“To this day I have unending nightmares of the people I saw there, those who would be working out in the fields and if they saw a snake or a frog would catch them and swallow them whole; there were people who would be defecating and if a piece of radish came out they would immediately wipe it on their sleeves and eat it; if there were pieces of beans or kernels of corn found in cow manure, the person who found them would consider that day to be their lucky day.”

Currently, China does not recognize the North Korean defectors as refugees and it also won’t allow the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) access to them.

For more information, please see:

The Epoch Times – North Korean Defectors Give Grim Testimony of Experiences with China – 29 September 2010

AFP – US lawmaker presses China, India over human trafficking – 30 September 2010

The Washington Times – Repatriation policy links China to rights violations – 23 September 2010

David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

NEW DELHI, India –“Not just kids playing in the dirt or using a hammer as a toy”, Harvard fellow and trafficking expert Siddharth Kara told Becky Anderson of CNN.

As the Commonwealth games approach, the Indian government has been marred by construction delays, corruption scandals, a fever outbreak due to sweltering temperatures, the failure of a footbridge near the main stadium and security concern after last weekend’s shooting where two tourists outside Delhi’s Jama Masjid mosque, reported John Coats of the BBC

New evidence has surfaced showing children from age seven being used in the preparation stage of building.

In the exclusive interview with CNN International, Harvard fellow and trafficking expert Siddharth Kara reported that child labor was a widespread and well known issue in New Delhi. He also stated that he tried numerous attempts to contact the Dehli department of labor, with no success.

In a few day of observation Kara documented 32 cases of forced labor and 14 cases of child labor, all for production interconnected with the Commonwealth Games.

Kara, a renowned expert on the subject of human trafficking, also outlined the harsh conditions these children were forced to work under. “The children I saw were the ones where I felt I had documented child labor — where children were working, picking up hammers, banging stones, paving entry ways and planting grass along the roads to beautify them, hours and hours at a time. I documented children aged seven, eight, nine, ten years old working alongside their families in this mad rush to get the construction completed.”

Kara reported that, “[t]he conditions are sub-human and that’s really the only word I can apply,”…”[t]hey live in the dirt, they go to the toilet behind bushes and trees …[t]he children, especially the young ones, don’t have a sense of what’s going on. They’re told to do the work and they just do the work. They don’t know that they should be in school or that they should be playing.” 

Several Indian unions have launched attacks against the government in effort to stop the dangerous labor practices done in preparation for the Games. Many of the same Indian unions have ruled out claims about child labor being used at the construction sites.

Based on government figures there is an estimated 13 million child laborers currently in India. Earlier this week Thursday, as part of an international commitment to eliminate child labor, India announced it had prepared a roadmap to eliminate the worst forms of “bonded labor, hazardous work, drugs, prostitution, trafficking by 2016”.

The Australian Olympic committee President John Coates, expressed on the Australian radio Friday that, “the Games shouldn’t have been awarded to New Dehi”. And due to an under resourced Federation, they don’t have the man power to monitor progress.

Athletes have withdrawn their Commonwealth participation because of health and safety concerns. Notable athletes include Australian world discus champion Dani Samuels and English world triple jump champion Phillips Idowu.

Delhi has had seven years to prepare, though very little work was done until 2008.

For more information, please see:

TIME – Let the Games Not Begin – 24 September 2010

CNN – Hard Evidence of Child Labor at 2010 Commonwealth Games – 24 September 2010

BBC – Games should not have gone to Delhi, says Australia – 24 September 2010

AFP- CGames: Child Labor Help ‘beautify’ Dehhi streets – 24 September 2010

By David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia

SRINAGAR, India – Anti-India protesters continued to defy government imposed, round-the-clock curfews. Indian troops continue to fight Kashmiri protesters in street battles that claimed 91 this summer and left hundreds wounded, in the deadliest day in what has been a summer of violence challenging Indian rule in the disputed territory.

Top separatist leader, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, called for sit-ins outside Indian army garrisons across the Himalayan region of Kashmir. “Peaceful sit-ins should be held outside the army camps to remind the troopers that they should stop human rights violations and leave Kashmir,” according to reporters at his home in Srinagar on Thursday.

On the same day, nine militants were killed in gun battles with the Indian military in the small town of Tral and in the frontier of Gurez.

As reports of the Quran “desecration in the United States, angers intensified, with activists chanting ‘Down with America’ and burning an effigy of President Barack Obama in a rare anti-U.S. protest”.

The outbreak of Monday’s violence came as Indian officials discussed “whether to make goodwill gestures to try to ease tensions in the war-wracked region, which is divided between India and Pakistan and fully claimed by both”.

The violence Kashmir faces has been common since armed Kashmiri insurgency erupted against Indian rule in 1989, but with the recurrence of over a hundred deaths, reports confirm this summer’s violence the worst in a decade.

Since 1989, a violent, separatist insurgency and the ensuing crackdown by Indian forces have killed an estimated 68,000 people.

“The separatists are indeed misleading the ordinary masses and trying to create a wedge between the army and the people for its vested interests,” defense spokesman Lt. Col. J.S. Brar said at a news conference. “This is a deliberate attempt to embroil the army in the ongoing agitation and distract it from its primary role.”

Analysts see recent protests as the prevalent challenge to Indian rule in Kashmir for 20 years. Correspondents have agreed that sit-ins could pose unforeseen challenges to security forces struggling to restore order.

On Wednesday, “Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh chaired an all-party meeting over continuing violence in Kashmir and the separatist leaders dismissed the gathering as a public relations ploy”.

In the past three summers, predominantly Muslim demonstrators have filled the streets, throwing stones and demanding “that the Himalayan region be given independence from Hindu-dominated India or be allowed to merge with predominantly Muslim Pakistan”.

A doctor at Srinagar’s main hospital is said to have received 25 or more wounded citizens with bullet wounds in recent weeks. He agreed to speak under strict conditions of anonymity because the government barred health officials from conversations with the press.

Syed Ali Shah Geelani said “lifting the security laws would not satisfy Kashmiris. ‘We want end to Indian occupation here and have already laid out our proposal for initiating a dialogue”.

For more information, please see:

CNN – Separatist leader calls for sit-ins at Indian posts across Kashmir – 16 September 2010
Huffington Post – Kashmir Protests Leave 15 Dead, 45 Wounded – 13 September 2010
BBC –Two die as Kashmiri protesters defy curfew – 17 September 2010