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The House of Representatives on Monday agreed to push the government to act on past cases of activists who went missing during the tumultuous political period from 1997 to 1998, the last years in the long rule of former President Suharto.

A House plenary meeting agreed to accept the recommendations of one of its special committees that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono must issue a presidential decree to establish an ad hoc human rights tribunal to try those allegedly involved in the kidnappings of the missing activists.

In addition to recommending the president establish the ad hoc tribunal, the House also urged the government to set up teams to investigate exactly what happened to the activists, whether they had all died or were still alive.

The government was also called on to provide compensation and rehabilitation for the victims and their families.

“We also recommend that the government immediately ratify the UN Convention against Enforced Disappearances as a form of commitment and support to stop the practice of enforced disappearances in Indonesia,” the chairman of the special committee, Effendy Simbolon, said at the meeting, reading from the House’s recommendations.

At least 22 pro-democracy activists disappeared between 1997 and 1998. Nine of them resurfaced with harrowing accounts of torture at the hands of the military, also known as the TNI, but 13 still remain missing.

Azlaini Agus, a legislator from the National Mandate Party (PAN), told the meeting that human rights law mandated the establishment of an ad hoc tribunal by the president with a recommendation from the House.

“We want this problem to be settled after more than 10 years without knowing the real facts,” she said.

Azlaini added that Attorney General Hendarman Supandji should immediately investigate the activists’ disappearances as recommended by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM).

“[The Attorney General’s Office] used to say that it could not conduct investigations because the ad hoc tribunal had never been recommended. Now there shouldn’t be such reasoning anymore.”

Dozens of family members of the disappearance victims were present at the plenary meeting, each holding a white rose in their hands. They did not applaud nor shout out when the decision was announced.

Tuti Koto, mother of one of the missing activists, Yani Afri, said that although the decision was a step forward to settling her son’s case, she felt unsure whether a presidential decree could help to shed any new light on the matter.

“What we can expect right now is just that such forced disappearances will not happen again to our next generations,” she said.

Mugiyanto, the chairman of the Indonesian Association of Families of the Disappeared (Ikohi), said that the House’s decision was the first step to finding out the facts. Far more important though was for the government to help locate the missing victims.

“President SBY must pay attention to this issue and make it one of his major agenda items for the first 100 days of his next presidential period,” Mugiyanto said.

Military spokesman Air Vice Marshal Sagom Tamboen said the military would wait for the president’s reaction and added that the Armed Forces would abide by any decision made by the government.

“If [the establishment of the ad hoc tribunal] becomes a state decision, then there is no reason for the military to avoid it,” he said.

“But now, we should wait to see how the president will respond to the House’s recommendation: whether he follows it or not.”