Max Lane, Sydney
Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific (ASAP) is deeply concerned at the news that 38-year-old Indonesian human rights campaigner Munir, who died in September aboard a flight to Amsterdam, was murdered, according to an autopsy performed by the Netherlands Forensic Institute.
During his September 7 flight to the Netherlands, Munir fell ill, vomiting and suffering from considerable pain. He died before the flight landed in the Netherlands, where he was planning to study law.
On November 12, the Netherlands Forensic Institute, a part of the Dutch justice ministry, made public the findings of its autopsy, which found that a lethal dose of arsenic was present in Munir's body.
Many of Munir co-activists in Indonesia had feared that he had been murdered.
The UK-based human rights organisation Tapol, which worked closely with Munir, described him as "a fearless fighter for human rights who took up numerous causes in many parts of Indonesia, from Aceh to Papua, during the closing years of the Suharto dictatorship. In the dying days of the dictatorship, Munir was instrumental in highlighting the disappearance of dozens of activists, many of whom were recovered thanks to his efforts. This led to the founding of Kontras, the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence. Several years earlier, Munir took up the issue of workers' rights in East Java where he lived with his family, and soon became active in the Legal Aid Institute, initially in his native East Java and later at its head office in Jakarta."
In 2000, Munir played a leading role in investigations into human rights abuses in East Timor in September 1999, shortly after the East Timorese voted overwhelmingly for independence.
ASAP joins all our Indonesian friends in conveying our deepest condolences to Munir's wife, Suciwati, and children, who now have to endure this news on top of their loss of Munir himself.
The whole Indonesian and international human rights movement will watching closely to see that the Indonesian government conducts a genuine and serious investigation into this heinous murder.
[Max Lane is the chairperson of ASAP, a Sydney-based organisation of solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the Asia-Pacific region.]
From Green Left Weekly, November 17, 2004.
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