Cases of human rights violations from Aceh, East Timor and Irian Jaya to Tanjungpriok have shamed Indonesia in the eyes of the world. To avoid the embarrassment of an international tribunal, as experienced by Bosnia, Rwanda and Cambodia, in 1999 the Indonesian government under president B.J. Habibie promised to establish a human rights court in Indonesia to try human rights violators under Indonesian law.

So far this promise has proved to be mea