Indonesian President Joko Widodo Wednesday expressed remorse over human rights abuses in the country committed between 1965 and 2003. He listed around 12 incidents in the country’s history for which he was sincerely apologetic. Widodo’s statement came after he received a report from the “Non-Judicial Settlement Team for Serious Human Rights Violations.” The team was formed to fulfill a promise Widodo made after coming to power in 2014. The group’s objective is to provide relief to the victims of gross violations of human rights through non-judicial restitution measures, such as scholarships, medical aid and rehabilitation. However, the government has not ruled out a judicial settlement.

The incidents acknowledged by Widodo included the 1965-66 Indonesian mass killings (“anti-communist purge”), the 1988-89 torture of suspected insurgents in Aceh, the 1997-98 disappearance of anti-government activists, among others. Previously in 2016, Indonesia rejected an International People’s Tribunal (formed at the Hague) finding that held Indonesia responsible for over 400,000 killings.

Some, like retired civil servant Maria Catarina Sumarsih who lost her son in one of the incidents, have welcomed the gesture. However, other human rights groups emphasized the importance of judicial recourse for gross human rights abuses despite Widodo’s statement.

Andreas Harsono, an Indonesian researcher at Human Rights Watch, said:

If President Jokowi is serious about past human rights violations, he should first order a government effort to investigate these mass killings, to document mass graves, and to find their families, to match the graves and their families, as well as to set up a commission to decide what to do next.