Is Widodo just paying pre-election lip service to human rights?
Volunteers and NGO workers who helped Indonesia’s president win election say the leader has mostly forgotten their causes, doing little to make abusers and war criminals face justice
While she was a student at University of Indonesia, Raisa Widiastari began volunteering with the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence, a big national NGO dedicated to raising awareness for the victims of human rights abuses. She saw it as a way to make her country confront its chequered past.
But last year, Widiastari herself became a victim of abuse. In September, she and about 200 other activists were trapped in a building by Islamic vigilantes for more than eight hours on suspicion they were harbouring communists.
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So when President Joko Widodo agreed last week to meet her and other activists who gathered outside the presidential palace to protest against the government’s seeming inaction on human rights issues, you might think she would be excited. She wasn’t.
“Jokowi lies. He is just trying to raise hopes before 2019,” Widiastari says, referring to next year’s presidential election.
After disappointing the very activists who helped sweep him to victory in 2014, Widodo is in the middle of a charm offensive to help bring them back on board ahead of elections next year.