September is a month of collective wounds for the nation. Wounds that have been passed down from one generation to the next without ever being truly healed or resolved by the state. From the 1984 Tanjung Priok tragedy and the 1965 massacre that remains shrouded in official history, to the seizure of farmers’ land that is commemorated every National Farmers’ Day, and the murder of Munir Said Thalib on September 7, 2024. All of these events point to one reality: the state has failed to resolve gross human rights violations and continues to choosen the path of impunity.
Munir was not just an ordinary individual. He was a human rights activistand, a lawyer who stood tall in defending the victims of the 1997-1998 activist kidnappings, victims of forced disappearances, and human rights violations in Aceh, Papua, and Timor Leste. His name became a symbol of courage in challenging an increasingly repressive state.
Therefore, when Munir was poisoned with arsenic on a Garuda Indonesia flight to the Netherlands on September 7, 2004, it was clear that this murder was not just an ordinary crime. It was a political assassination, a strong message from those in power: anyone who dares to expose the state’s atrocities will be silenced forever.
Munir died on his way to the Netherlands, where he planned to continue his studies while remaining active in human rights advocacy. An autopsy in the Netherlands revealed high levels of arsenic in his body. Garuda pilot Pollycarpus was convicted of his murder, yet to this day the fundamental question remains unanswered: who was the mastermind behind Munir murder?
Various fact-finding teams, including the Munir Fact-Finding Team (TPF), have been formed. However, the TPF’s recommendations have never been officially announced by the government. Investigation documents have been hidden, evidence ignored, and the real mastermind remains protected. This is the face of legal impunity in Indonesia,sharp at the bottom, but blunt at the top.
Twenty-one years is not a short time to search for the mastermind behind Munir’s murder. For more than two decades, civil society movements, families, and human rights advocacy networks have continued to speak out. However, the state has chosen to turn a deaf ear, as if it bears no responsibility. Munir’s case has become a symbol of a case of gross human rights violations that continues to be deliberately kept unclear so that the public will tire of it and the nation will forget.
But we refuse to forget. We refuse to submit. We refuse to make peace with impunity.
We believe that Munir’s murder is not just about one person but about the face of justice in this country. If Munir can be killed by the state, then any one of us can be silenced in the same way. Therefore:
- The truth must be revealed. The state must publish the Munir TPF documents in their entirety and transparently.
- The mastermind must be brought to justice. There must be no protection for the intellectual actors behind the murder.
- Impunity must end. As long as human rights violators are allowed to go free, democracy will remain an illusion. The struggle must continue.
- Munir is an inspiration for all resistance movements. His voice and his actions are a legacy that we must preserve together.
Today, 21 years after arsenic poison took his life, we reaffirm: Munir never died. He lives on in every act of solidarity, in every act of popular resistance, and in every voice demanding the truth.
Fighting against forgetting is our duty. Fighting against impunity is the way forward. Continuing Munir’s struggle is our shared promise.
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