JAKARTA, RAKYAT NEWS – Human rights organizations, including KontraS, Paguyuban Keluarga Korban Talangsari Lampung, Amnesty International Indonesia, and Asia Justice and Rights, have strongly condemned the Indonesian government for its continued neglect of the Talangsari Tragedy. Despite decades of legal efforts, victims of this grave human rights violation have yet to see justice.

February 7 marks the 36th anniversary of the tragedy, which took place in Talangsari III, Rajabasa Lama, East Lampung. At least 246 people were killed in the incident, while many others were tortured, forcibly disappeared, and detained without due process.

In 2008, the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) declared the Talangsari Tragedy a serious human rights violation. This designation, under the 2000 Human Rights Court Law, triggered legal proceedings. However, the victims have yet to receive substantive justice or any meaningful acknowledgment of the truth.

The rights groups emphasize that the government’s response to Talangsari has been far from adequate. Rather than pursuing a thorough legal process, the state has taken shortcuts that undermine the dignity of the victims. These shortcuts include a unilateral “peace declaration” by the Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs in 2019, a joint commitment on infrastructure improvements in 2020 that ignored the victims’ rights, and a non-judicial settlement focused solely on material assistance in 2022.

Such actions suggest the government is treating the Talangsari Tragedy as a non-serious crime, rather than as a case of state-sanctioned abuse of power. This is compounded by the government’s current administration, which is reportedly seeking to avoid accountability for Talangsari by proposing to resolve the case through the Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (KKR).

YouTube player