Papuan villagers in Nduga being protected, says TNI
RNZI 4:20 pm today
Papuan civilians in troubled Nduga regency are returning to their villages after recent conflict in the area, according to Indonesia's military.
Since late last year, a large joint operation by military and police has been underway in this Highlands region in pursuit of the West Papua Liberation Army.
Thousands of villagers were reported to have fled to remote bush to avoid being targeted in the military pursuit, amidst reports of civilian casualties.
But an Indonesian military spokesman said with police and the provincial government, it was providing protection for villagers to return home, as well as food and health services.
Colonel Muhammed Aidi said it was unclear how many people remain displaced.
However, fighting persists in the area, and he said gunfire on 9 January left one "separatist" killed.
But the United Liberation Movement for West Papua has accused the TNI of targeting remote Papuan communities with impunity.
The Liberation Movement's US-based deputy secretary-general Octo Mote said the Indonesian military couldn't make distinctions between the civilians and the guerilla forces of the Liberation Army.
"The delegation that was formed by the provincial government identified innocent villagers (who were) killed. They found dead body in the road. That's not an guerilla person, this is [an] innocent [person]," Mr Mote said.
"They were there in order to try and track down the three Indonesians that were missing. What they found was Papuan bodies in the ground."
Mr Mote accused the TNI of aerial bombardment of Papuan communities in Nduga, a claim that the TNI has repeatedly denied.
Colonel Aidi said the TNI was performing its role to ensure legal authority and to protect civilians, and was appealing to villagers to return from the bush through traditional, community and religious leaders.
The joint TNI police operation in pursuit of the Liberation Army is concentrated on the regencies of Nduga, Puncak, Puncak Jaya and Lanny Jaya in Papua's central Highlands.
Colonel Aidi denied that there had been blockades on access to Nduga, saying the military was facilitating transportation for residents, as well as social and humanitarian services.
He said those operating civilian transportation services had been afraid to enter Nduga without security forces escorting them, due to recent "terror" attacks.
Concerned for the welfare of those villagers who fled to the bush, Papua's provincial governor Lukas Enembe last month urged militaryto withdraw from the region.
Mr Mote said it was sad and disappointing that apart from the Kingmi church, no Papua-based churches have spoken out to try and stop the conflict.
"In the middle of this I really appreciate the role that was played by (Papua's) governor. He offered how to deal with this peacefully, but no."
The troops did not withdraw and the governor faced criticism for his call from nationalist elements.
"He took a risk because he has to protect his people," Mr Mote said.
1) Inalum target US$1.8 revenue from Freeport in 2022 2) A Highway Megaproject Tears at the Heart of New Guinea’s Rainforest 3) Rights lawyers challenge Indonesia detention of 3 activists ——-
https://www.thejakartapost.com/amp/news/2019/01/16/inalum-target-us1-8-revenue-from-freeport-in-2022.html 1) Inalum target US$1.8 revenue from Freeport in 2022 Jakarta / Wed, January 16, 2019 / 12:34 pm State-owned mining holding company Indonesia Asahan Aluminium (Inalum) president director Budi Gunadi Sadikin has said the revenue that the state will receive from gold and copper miner PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) will increase to US$1.8 billion in 2022, from $180 million in 2018. In 2019 and 2020, there will be no revenue from the company because the mine will not operate, Budi said in Jakarta on Tuesday, adding that in 2021 and in 2022 mining revenue was expected to reach some US$470 million annually. He added that there would be additional revenue from metal strip production worth $900 million in 2022. “With the additional revenue of $900 million from metal strips, the total revenue will be [approximately] $1.8 billion [in 2022],” he said as quoted by kompas.com. The Indonesian government became the majority owner of PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) after increasing its share ownership from 9.36percent to 51.23 percent through a US$3.85 billion deal, last month. Previously, a government official said PTFI would lower its copper concentrate production target of 1.2 million tons – 900,000 tons fewer than last year's output of 2.1 million tons – to accommodate its transition from an open pit to underground mining operation, an energy official has said. PTFI’s mine in Mimika, Papua has potential gold and copper reserves worth $170 billion, while the annual earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of the company were set at $4 billion with a net profit of $2 billion in 2022. “We hope we will be able to maintain the production and the quality of the underground mine,” Budi added. (bbn) ——— 2) A Highway Megaproject Tears at the Heart of New Guinea’s Rainforest
1) Rights groups urge police to drop ‘rebellion’ charge against KNPB activists
News Desk
Human rights groups have called on the Papua Police to immediately and unconditionally drop the “rebellion” charge against three activists from the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) and release them.
Amnesty International and Yayasan Pusaka issued a recent statement saying that the activists "were prisoners of conscience" who had not employed violence or hatred, and were imprisoned solely for expressing their political views in a peaceful manner.
“The Indonesian authorities have used Article 106 of Indonesia’s Criminal Code, along with Article 110, to criminalize dozens of peaceful pro-independence political activists with the charge of rebellion in the last decade,” said Amnesty International Indonesia spokesman Haeril Halim.
The incident began on Dec. 31, when the Indonesian Military (TNI) and regional police raided and seized the KNPB headquarters in Timika, Mimika Baru district. Security forces have since been using the organization's offices as a TNI-police post.
A few days prior to the takeover, the KNPB had sent a letter notifying the police that the organization would be holding a religious prayer and traditional Papuan feast to celebrate its anniversary. The police, who did not present a warrant for either arrest or search, came to the organization's headquarters on the same day, arrested six activists and transported them to Timika Police Station. The police later released the activists without charge.
Halim said that the organization's legal representatives had sent a letter to the Mimika Police chief on Jan. 3, requesting that the security forces depart the KNPB offices and stop obstructing its members' access to the building.
On Jan 5, the Mimika Police summoned eight KNPB activists for questioning under suspicion of committing "acts of rebellion”. Three of the activists, Yanto Awerkion, Sem Asso and Edo Dogopia, were named as suspects and charged with rebellion on Jan. 8.
“Article 106 of the Criminal Code enables authorities to sentence a person to life imprisonment or a maximum of twenty years for any attempts undertaken with the intent to bring state territory, wholly or in part, under foreign rule or as a separate part thereof,” Halim said.
Feby Yoneska, an Indonesian Legal Aid Institute activist, shared his views, stressing that the organization's recent activities should not have been deemed to be violating the law.
"The article on rebellion can be applied only if it is proven that the activists prepared an attack with a subversive intention," he told The Jakarta Post.
He added that charging certain groups with rebellion was clearly a form of persecution.
In the past decade, the West Papua National Committee has organized mass demonstrations in several Papuan cities to call for a referendum for self-determination.
KNPB spokesperson Ones Suhuniap said it was unacceptable that someone could be charged with “rebellion” when they had merely voiced a different opinion. He said he believed that the charge was made only to justify the police's seizure of the organization's headquarters.
“This shows the terrible state of law enforcement in Indonesia,” he said.
The rights groups said that they took no stance on the political status of any Indonesian province, including calls for independence, and that the right to freedom of expression protected the right to peacefully advocate independence and other political solutions.
“In some cases, law enforcement use excessive force against peaceful protesters, but these cases are not adequately investigated and no one suspected of being responsible for them has ever been brought to justice,” Halim said. (ggq)
———-
2) Indonesian students protest Papua military action
Jayapura, Papua (ANTARA News) - An Indonesian military officer was killed in a shootout with armed criminal group (KKB) members in Longsran Baganbaga, Yambi Sub-district, Puncak Jaya District, Papua Province, on Friday.
"Yes, a military officer was shot dead in a shootout with KKB members in Yambi," Col Muhamad Aidi, Cenderawasih/spokesman of the Regional Military Command XVII, stated here, Saturday.
The shootout took place during the time of logistics distribution by several members of the Indonesian Defense Forces when all of a sudden KKB members, led by Lekagak Telenggen, attacked them.
First Private Makamu was shot in the left thigh and later died of bleeding owing to delay in being moved to the hospital on account of bad weather and difficult terrain.
Reporting by Evarukdijati, fardah
Jayapura, Jubi – Rev. Nataniel Tabuni asked Colonel Infantry Muhammad Aidi, sopeksman of the Military Command Cenderawasih XVII to clarify his statement saying Tabuni has met Rev. Gimin Nirigi who reportedly killed by soldiers in Mapendupa, Nduga Regency and confirmed that the priest was healthy and fine.
In his statement to a media in Jakarta, the colonel made an impression that he talked directly with Rev. Nataniel Tabuni who then asked him to forward this information to media.
Then, an online media in Jakarta wrote,” The news of the murder of Reverend Gemin Nirigi whose body then burned by the security forces was a hoax. The hoax deliberately spread by irresponsible people,” said the Reverend Natatiel Tabuni via the Chief of Public Affairs of the Military Command Cenderawasih XVII, the Colonel Infantry Muhammad Aidi in Jayapura on Friday (1/11/2019).
“Nataniel admitted that he had met with Reverend Gemin Nirigi and confirmed that Nirigi was in good condition,” this colonel said.
In opposite, Reverend Natanile Tabuni told Jubi that he never said it to the colonel as reported by media.
“I never said that. Mapenduma is far away from here. I have never been there. If someone tells a lie like this, it’s not good, especially using my name,” said Tabuni to Jubi in Wamena on Tuesday (1/15/2019).
Therefore, he asked the colonel to immediately clarify his statement because it might risk his image as a priest who serves the church in Nduga. “I am a priest. If this information turns out that is not true, it’s also my sin. Don’t use my name to lie,” he said.
On the same place, Rev. Esmon Walilo, the Coordinator of Jaya Wijaya Kingmi Church said he had talked to Colonel Aidi regarding his statement. However, when he asked for further clarification, the colonel not answering and their conversation ended.
He further said the colonel must understand that any statement made by a priest is related to his church. Therefore he asked for further clarification from the military public affairs chief. “But until today, I have not received any answer. So who spreads the hoax, actually?” asked the priest.
Moreover, according to him, the information about Reverend Gemin Nirigi’s murder was obtained from Nirigi’s family.
On 19 December 2018, the Reverend Gemin joined the local people to flee from Mapenduma to Paro, but then he decided to return due to his long-suffering of knee-joint pain. However, his son Mincena Nirigi found his father’s burned body behind their house on 3 January 2019.
Reverend Gemin Nirigi was one of the church leaders in Nduga District and also known as a Bible translator into local language.
Unfortunately, due to limited access of transportation and communication to Mapenduma, the information about his death still cannot be verified.
“To have clear information about Reverend Nirigi’s murder, we recommend the authority to open all access to Nduga, especially Mapenduma, so that journalists, NGOs or church can verify whether it is true or hoax and who are spreading this hoax,” said Rev. Walilo. (*)
Reported by Victor Mambor
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5) Indonesia’s Rights Struggle: Deciding Which Candidate Is the ‘Lesser Evil’
1) Concern for villages amid conflict in Papuan Highlands
From Dateline Pacific, 5:03 am today
The United Liberation Movement for West Papua says it's deeply concerned about the welfare of innocent civilians in Papua's central Highlands.
Since late last year, a large military operation has been underway around Nduga regency in pursuit of the West Papua Liberation Army the armed wing of the OPM Free Papua Movement
The Liberation Army killed at least 16 Indonesian road construction workers and a soldier in early December.
The Liberation Movement's deputy secretary-general Octo Mote says the attack angered the Indonesian president.
The Indonesian state owned mining company, Inalum, says its revenue will jump ten fold by 2022.
Inalum now holds 51.23 percent of the mine company PT Freeport Indonesia after the Indonesian government paid $US3.85 billion dollars to increase its shareholding from 9.36 percent.
The Jakarta Post reported revenue last year was $US180 million but this is forecast to increase to $US1.8 billion in 2022.
There will be no revenue through 2019 and 2020 as the company transitions from open pit mining to underground mining.
The newspaper said the company's Papua mine had potential gold and copper reserves worth $US170 billion.
3) Indonesian students protest Papua military action
about 1 hour ago
Dozens of students have turned out across Indonesia to protest military action in Papua's Nduga regency.
Since late last year, a large joint military and police operation has been underway in the Highlands region in pursuit of the West Papua Liberation Army.
The crackdown is a response to the killings of at least 16 Indonesian road construction workers and a soldier in early December, which the Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for.
The armed group accused the workers of being Indonesian military spies, a claim rejected by Indonesia's military (TNI).
On Friday, university students turned to the streets in Jakarta, Bali, Salatiga in Central Java and Ambon in Maluku.
Photos posted on social media showed demonstrators holding placards saying "Save Nduga".
Other people displayed a widely shared image published by Australia's Saturday Paper, which is reported to be of a Papuan villager in Nduga, who sustained burns from white phosphorus weapons used by the TNI. Indonesia has rejected the report.
Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman said that in Jakarta, Papuan student protestors burned a fake coffin as an "expression of anger".
This week, TNI spokesperson Colonel Muhammed Aidi said one "separatist" had been killed this year during the Nduga operations, which also extend to the central Highlands regencies of Puncak, Puncak Jaya and Lanny Jaya.
Concerned for the welfare of those villagers who fled to the bush, Papua's provincial governor Lukas Enembe last month urged security forces to withdraw from the region.
But Mr Aidi said residents were afraid to return without military escorts, which were being provided along with social and humanitarian services.
4) Attorney says Skrypski forced to attend the trial
20 January 2019
Wamena, Jubi – The trial against the Polish man Jakub Fabian Skrzypski and Simon Magal accused of treason finally be held at Wamena District Court on Monday (1/14/2019).
Chief Judge Yajis, SH, MH accompanied by member judges Roberto Naibaho SH and Ottow W.T.G.P Siagian, SH read the 14 pages charges for both defendants.
Earlier, the Polish Jakub Fabian Skrzypski went on a hunger strike and declined to attend the trial on 8 January 2019 as he preferred to continue the hearing in Jayapura. His act consequently caused a delay.
For the recent trial, however, as Skrzypski still denied the trial, his attorney Yance Tenoye said the prosecutor came to the police custody to force his client attending the hearing.
Furthermore, Tenoye said the attorney team has tried to persuade his client to pursue the trial, but he remained to refuse. However, they thought he has the right to do so.
“However, the prosecutor said that he would take Jakub to the trial after coordinating with the security forces. So Jakub was forced to attend the trial. Even the prosecutor said inappropriate words against him,” Tenoye told reporters after the trial.
Moreover, Tenoye said the trial run smoothly. However, the defendant’s application to have a Polish interpreter was denied by the court, as English was considered enough by the judges.
“I think it’s defendant’s right to ask for the Polish interpreter and the court should consider it,” said Tenoye.
By contrast, the prosecutor Ricarda Arsenius, who’s also the Head of the General Crime Department of Jayawijaya Prosecutor Office, said no intimidation occurred regarding the attending of the defendant at trial.
He further claimed what he did was only to prompt the order of the panel of judges to bring the defendant to the court. “Jakub initially objected to coming to the hearing, but after we talked and convinced him, he changed his mind. The next session will be held on 21 January 2019 to hear the exceptions by defendants’ attorney team,” Arsenius said.
Meanwhile, Latifa Anum Siregar from Skrzypski’s attorney team admitted that in the next trial, her team would present their exceptions from two aspects. First, the chapters of law applied by the prosecutor to charge her client. The prosecutor uses the alternative chapters 1 or 3 or 4, which show the hesitant of the prosecutor which sections should he presents at the hearing. Moreover, according to her, these articles are weak to apply in the court.
“The second aspect is we will observe the clearance and the compliance of the charges. We will prepare our exceptions for the next 21 January,” she said. (*)
1) West Papuan leaders blame deaths of three babies on Indonesian crackdown
Helen Davidson Tue 22 Jan 2019 14.18 AEDT
United Liberation Movement for West Papua says thousands of civilians displaced and 10 shot by Indonesian military
An Indonesian military ambulance evacuates the body of a soldier killed in Nduga. West Papuan leaders are calling for Indonesia to allow humanitarian and medical agencies to enter the area. Photograph: Joseph Situmorang/AFP/Getty Images
Three babies who died during childbirth are among the civilian deaths West Papuan leaders are blaming on a brutal crackdown by Indonesian forces in the region of Nduga.
They are calling for Indonesiato allow humanitarian and medical agencies access to the area, as well as foreign media.
The United Liberation Movement for West Papua(ULMWP) claims thousands of civilians have been displaced, 10 people have been shot by Indonesian military (TNI) – six of them killed – and several people have been detained and allegedly tortured.
“About four women gave birth in the bush and three children died,” Benny Wenda, the exiled leader of the ULMWP, told Guardian Australia. “Some are missing. There are more numbers on people coming but we know for the moment around 11 people are dead and some places we can’t access.”
The ULMWP, which is the umbrella organisation for West Papuan independence organisations, said: “Without urgent action by international humanitarian, aid and human rights organisations, more Papuan civilians will be at risk.
“International observers and the West Papua people are lobbying for urgent access to West Papua to provide immediate medical treatment, food aid, medical support, documentation and resources to villagers; and to investigate the illegal use of chemical weapons.”
Indonesia was accused of using the internationally banned white phosphoruschemical weapon against civilians, a charge it denied. It also denied TNI has targeted civilians, and said it had provided protection for them to return to their homes.
Wenda said the ULMWP believed at least 11 people were dead as a result of the TNI crackdown, and a number of people were missing or in hiding.
“They are scared to come out because Indonesia is bombing through helicopters. People are really scared,” Wenda said. “This is like my childhood in 1977, with the bombs on my village, and a lot of people missing and scared to come home.”
The Indonesian military operation was sent in after at least 17 people were killedon 4 December at a construction site by the liberation army – the armed wing of the domestic separatist movement known as OPM.
Indonesia said the victims were civilian workersbut the OPM – which has not been known historically to target civilians – maintains all were TNI.
The deputy secretary-general of the OPM, Octo Mote, told Radio NZhis was a “professional military organisation”.
“Direct or indirect, these, the ones that were killed are related to military,” he said on Monday. “The OPM conducted investigations before they killed them.”
West Papuan separatists have said growing support for their cause among Indonesian nationals has also prompted crackdowns. More than 500 protesters were arrested in 1 December at rallies across the archipelago, including Indonesians, they claim. Further protests have been held this week calling for an end to the Nduga operation.
Indonesian authorities have also raided and destroyed a number of headquartersof the domestic movement, the West Papua National Committee, and at least three people – including the previously imprisoned activist Yanto Awerkion – are facing “rebellion” charges after holding a prayer meeting they had notified authorities about.
2) Call for Pacific regional groups to investigate Papua chemical attacks
3:22 pm today
The United Liberation Movement for West Papua is calling for Pacific regional groups to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons in Indonesia's Papua region.
The movement's chair, Benny Wenda, said the Pacific Islands Forum and the Melanesian Spearhead Group should urgently send fact-finding missions to Nduga regency.
This comes after unverified reportsof the suspected use of white phosphorus weapons by Indonesia's military against civilians in Nduga.
Indonesia last month called the claims "totally baseless".
But Mr Wenda said its security operations in Nduga had created a "humanitarian crisis".
In a statement, he said Indonesia should also grant he UN High Commissioner for Human Rights access to West Papua to complete its own fact-finding mission.
Mr Wenda said humanitarian aid organisations should also be allowed in to Nduga to "relieve the suffering of West Papuans".
A massive joint police and military operation has been underway in the remote Highlands regency, as well as neighbouring regencies, since December, in a hunt for members of the West Papua Liberation Army.
The armed group is responsible for the killings of at least 16 Indonesian construction workers and one soldier in November.
The joint operation has sparked sporadic shootouts between the Liberation Army and Indonesia's military, with at least one soldier and one rebel fighter shot dead this year.
3) Papua Human Rights Coalition charges the police 125 million compensation in a pretrial lawsuit
Published 5 hours ago on 22 January 2019 By pr9c6tr3_juben
Jayapura, Jubi – Papua Human Rights Lawyers Association (PAHAM), Papua Legal AID Institute (LBH) and GKI Synod who are members of the Coalition for Law Enforcement and Human Rights in Papua registered a pretrial lawsuit against the police in Timika District Court, Papua on Thursday afternoon (17/01/2019).
This charge, according to the Director of PAHAM Papua Gustaf Kawer, was addressed to Mimika Regional Police Chief in regards to the detention of three KNPB activists Sem Asso, Yanto Awerkion and Edo Dogopia who arrested since 31 December 2018.
“We file a pretrial lawsuit against Mimika Regional Police Chief in relations to the arrest and illegal detention as well as the illegal confiscation,” Kawer told Jubi on Thursday (17/01/2019).
Therefore, Kawer continued, the police are asked to pay Rp. 126,538,000 compensation to KNPB as they have illegally seized its secretariat. The coalition also asked the police to openly make an apology to KNPB in mass media in Mimika Regency and Papua Province for three consecutive days.
Some KNPB activists arrested by the police and military on 31 December 2018 during the worship services to commemorate the anniversary of their organisation without a warrant. The police then detained them and accused them of treason. After that, Mimika police removed them to Papua Police Custody, Jayapura since 8 January 2019. Besides them, police also arrested the other members, namely Ruben Kogoya, Yohana Kobogau, Elius Wenda and Vincent Gobay.
Not only prohibit the worship and arrest KNPB activists, the police and military TNI also took over the house that used as the secretariat of KNPB Timika. Until now, the security forces still guard this office which is known as the property of Sem Asso.
The police, according to the activists, told people around the secretariat that their intention to use this building as their security post and did not allow KNPB member to enter the building.
Furthermore, Kawer explained that the purpose of the pretrial lawsuit is to restore the status and dignity of KNPB that had been unconstitutionally violated by Mimika Regional Police.
Meanwhile, Mimika Regional Police Chief, Adjunct Senior Police Commissionaire Agung Marlianto when confirmed about the pretrial lawsuit, declared that he did not know about it. “We have not received the copy yet. Please ask directly to Mimika District Court,” said the chief.
Regarding the secretariat that taken over by the security forces, he said it temporarily seized for further legal process against the suspects. He also claimed that the police had a recommendation from PT Freeport Indonesia who has authority over the land where the building located.
Separately, the Public Affairs Chief of Papua Police Ahmad Kamal said the police determined the status of defendants of Yanto, Sem and Edo after undergoing an intensive examination by the police at Papua Police Headquarters since 8 January.
The three activists were charged against the state as stipulated in the chapter 106 in connection with the chapter 87 of the Criminal Code and the chapter 53 of the Criminal Code (primary) and the chapter 110 section (2) of the Criminal Code in connection with the Chapter 88 of the Criminal Code (subsidiary).
However, the Amnesty International Indonesia highlighted the arrest of KNPB activists by the police and military. The security forces are considered against the law to arrest people who express their opinions peacefully.
“That is a form of violation of human rights. It must be able to distinguish between those who express their views of independence peacefully and those who use violence, “said Usman Hamid, Director of Amnesty International Indonesia.
Moreover, he said Yanto, Sem and Edo were prosecuted and detained solely for using the right to freedom of assembly and peaceful expression. “The police arrested them in a repressive manner for planning a joint prayer event,” continued Usman.
According to him, under Indonesian and international law, organisations are allowed to conduct public demonstration without asking for permission. They only need to give a notification to the police.
“However, the security forces in Papua continue to ignore this regulation. They remain to illegally restrict students, political groups and human rights organizations to conduct demonstrations peacefully,” Usman said. (*)
1) International Coalition for Papua on Nduga Case – Rescue team publishes first report on massacre and military raids
JANUARY 22, 2019
A rescue team consisting of church leaders, Nduga government representatives, local parliament members and civil society figures have published a report on the killing of 17 government contractors. The report also contains information on the rescue mission, which was launched on 13 December 2018 to evacuate the bodies of four more employees who were still missing since the killing. The rescue team collected information on the military raid between 4 and 10 December 2018 and the situation of affected indigenous communities in the districts Mbuwa, Dal and Mbulmu Yalma.
Case Narrative
The company PT Istaka Karya was contracted by the Indonesian Government to build parts of the Trans Papua Road in the Nduga Regency. In 2017, members of the West Papuan National Liberation Army (TPN-PB) came to an agreement with workers of the road construction company PT Istaka Karya that every year all construction workers must leave the work camp on 24 November. The agreement was made to prevent that the workers would disturb the commemorations of the Papuan National Day on 1st December. Notwithstanding the agreement, the project management did not allow the workers to leave the camp before 24 November 2018. Only a few workers decided to leave work camp, fearing that the TPN-PB feel provocated by their presence.
On 1 December 2018, PT Istaka Karya project supervisor, Joni Arung, and one of his colleagues participated in a worship ceremony and subsequently watched the collective cooking of a pig at the Congregation of the Papuan Tabernacle Church (KINGMI Papua) in Wuridlak Village. The ceremony was also attended by TPN-PB leader Egianus Kogoya and his men, who had donated a pig for the commemoration.
As Joni Arung took pictures of the TPN-PB fighters, Egianus Kogoya became angry. He suspected that Joni Arung was cooperating with the Indonesian security apparatus and would share the pictures of him and his men to the military and state intelligence. The TPN-PB leader seized his mobile phone, checked the pictures and threatened to kill Joni Arung if he would refuse to unlock his mobile phone. Egianus Kogoya checked the pictures and messages on the phone while questioning Joni Arung about the content of messages. As Joni Arung refused to answer, Egianus Kogoya gave the order to arrest all workers at the PT Istaka Karya camp.
On 2 December 2018, the TPN-OPM fighters went to the work camp and arrested 24 PT. Istaka Karya employees. The resistance members tied up the workers’ hands and brought them to the Kabo Mountain, which is located between the districts Yigi and Mbuwa of Nduga Regency, where the TPN-OPM members killed all employees which they suspected to be members of the Indonesian military. A few workers were allegedly released because the resistance leaders believed they were civilian workers. While the exact number of executed workers is uncertain, security forces evacuated 17 bodies, all of them employees of PT Istaka Karya.
On 3 December 2018, at 6.00 am, TPN-PB members attacked the 756 military post in Mbuwa Regency. The exchange of fire lasted until 6.00 pm in the evening. On 4 December 2018, at 11.30, joint security forces launched a military offensive in response to the attacks on the workers and the military post in Mbuwa district. Ground troups were closing in from the Jayawijaya regency, while four military helicopters from a military base in Timika were deployed to Kenyam, the main city in the Nduga regency. Eyewitnesses claimed that one helicopter dropped seven explosives in two locations named Opmo and Ditbobo, while the other three helicopters fired large caliber machine guns at various targets, including several villages in the Mbuwa District. It is unclear which types of explosives were used. Eyewitnesses claimed that the projectiles exploded in the sky and subsequently produced a dense smoke. The military raids continued until 10 December 2018 in various districts of the Nduga regency.
Rescue mission to evacuate bodies and meet victims
On 13 December 2018, a team consisting of church leaders, Nduga government representatives, local parliament members and civil society figures launched a rescue mission to evacuate the bodies of four more employees who were missing since the massacre at Kabo Mountain. The team collected information on the military raid and met with witnesses. Security forces were excluded from the team in order to avoid further exchange of fire.
On the first day of the mission, the evacuation team went to Sombeloma village of Mbuwa district. The team found two dead indigenous Papuans named Nison Umangge (18 years) and Mianus Elokbere (18 years) and returned the bodies to their families. Mianus Elokbere’s body was found in the Otalama village, Mbuwa District. Both victims were allegedly killed by bullets as they tried to flee into the forest when helicopters attacked the village on 4 December 2018.
Several indigenous villagers stated that approximately ten military members came to the village and intimidated the villagers. A military member allegedly threatened several families by saying ”You have killed members of our families so we are going to kill you as well”. The military officers gave the order that the villagers were not allowed to leave their houses between 5 and 12 December 2018. Indigenous villagers with long hair and dread locks were allegedly forces to cut their hair.
Further attempts to find the bodies of workers on the 14 and 15 December 2018 were cancelled after joint security forces followed the rescue team to the Kabo mountain. However, the team managed to meet with a victim named Mentus Nimiangge (21 years). He sustained a bullet wound near the right side of the neck during a ground military attack near the Saidlema mountain, which is located in the district of Dal. The bullet had pierced the body and exited on the left side of the back. Mentus Nimiangge died as a result of the injury on 15 December 2018, after security forces were not able to evacuate him with a helicopter. A further villager named Yarion Kogoya died in the Mbulmu Yalma district due to an alleged heart attack. Witnesses stated that he tried to leave the house and then collapsed as he heard the shots during the military raid on 4 December 2018.
A further villager named Rabu Gwijangge was allegedly shot dead by military members as military members launched an attack on Wuridlak Village, Yigi District, on 5 December 2018. Rabu Gwinjangge, his son and a group of villagers watched several military members climbing out of a helicopter. As the soldiers saw the villagers, they allegedly opened fire at them. According to eyewitness reports, Rabu Gwijangge died during the attack, while his son and the other villagers were able to flee. The evacuation team did not find Rabu Gwinjangge’s body because the rescue mission to Yigi had to be aborted.
The team was able to interview Yulianus Tabuni, an active church member who was initially reported dead a few days after the first attacks. Yulianus Tabuni was able to flee an attempted execution by military members. Military members intercepted him and three other villagers at gunpoint, threatening to execute them as an act of revenge. Yulianus Tabuni managed to escape the execution by jumping down a ravine when the military members asked him to speak his final prayer. One of his thighs was injured because of the impact of the landing. The soldiers allegedly released multiple shots in an attempt to kill him after the jump.
It is till uncertain how many indigenous civilians have been injured or killed in the areas Yigi, Dal, Mugi, Mam, Kagayem, Koroptak, Mapenduma, Paro, Yenggelo, Kilmid, Geselema, Meborok during the attacks. Since the initial incident on 2 December 2018, education facilities and activities in these areas have been stopped. According to the rescue team, the health care institutions in the affected areas are dysfunctional or have been abandoned after the armed clashes between the TPN-PB and Indonesian security forces.
Displacement of villagers and missing civilians
Pastors in three affected districts Mbuwa, Dal and Mbulmu Yalma reported that many villagers decided to flee their homes. They feared repressive acts by military members and were unable to collect food from the gardens during the military raid. Cases of displacement were reported from seven KINGMI Papua church congregations of the Mbuwa District and seven congregations in the districts Mbulmu Yalma and Dal. Eye witnesses reported that the refugees could not find any food in the forest. Particularly, children and and elder people carried the burden of the food shortage and extreme weather conditions. Several children reportedly became sick because they only drank water without eating for several days.
In the district of Mbulmu Yalma, five male indigenous villagers – Leniut Gwijangge (19 years), Imanus Nimiangge (21 years), Anol Nimiangge (15 years), Netes Nimiangge (16 years), Alinus Nimiangge (40 years) – are still missing since the beginning of the military offensive on 4 December 2018. They panicked and ran into the forest to hide in the woods. According to the rescue team it was the first time for many indigenous people in the Nduga regency to see helicopters or hear gunfire. Accordingly, the incident caused a panic and trauma among the indigenous peoples in the attacked villages.
On 14 December 2018, joint security forces again launched a large offensive between the villages Iniknggal and Nitkuri, in the Yigi District. A large number of indigenous peoples in the area reportedly fled into the forest and neighboring regencies because they feared repressive acts by Indonesian security forces.
About International Coalition for Papua (ICP): ICp is a faith-based coalition of civil society organisations focusing on human rights abuses in Papua and West Papua. Their extensive research and reporting can be found at www.humanrightspapua.org
2) Free Papua Movement looks to PNG to push for negotiations
7:27 am today
The Free West Papua Movement, or OPM, says it has political support in Papua New Guinea to push for negotiations with Indonesia.
Along with its armed wing, the West Papua Liberation Army, the OPM plans to hold a press conference in PNG's capital next week
The Port Moresby press conference scheduled for the last day of January is expected to unveil the OPM's plans for proposed negotiations with Indonesia.
It will also address a humanitarian crisis in the central Highlands of Indonesian-ruled Papua.
It's in this remote region where the Liberation Army's fight with Indonesian security forces escalated significantly late last year.
OPM and Liberation Army spokesmen gathering in Moresby said the conflict must be ended peacefully.
Port Moresby's governor, Powes Parkop, is expected to join them at the conference to directly invite Indonesia's government to the negotiating table, they said.
In recent weeks, Mr Parkop has publicly called for PNG to push for an independence referendum for West Papuans.
However, Jakarta has previously refused to negotiate with either the OPM or the Liberation Army, branding them criminal groups.
3) Indonesia Takes a Page Out of China’s Playbook to Cement Control Over West Papua
Nithin Coca Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019
Earlier this month, the Indonesian military raided and destroyed the offices of the West Papuan National Committee, a separatist group in the country’s easternmost region, which has long agitated for independence. The raid came amid allegations that the military had used chemical weapons in airstrikes on separatists in West Papua in late December. The Indonesian government has responded harshly after at least 17 construction workers were killed by West Papuan militants in early December, the deadliest such attack in West Papua in years.
This surge in unrest in the region is the outcome of a harder line that the Indonesian government has taken on West Papua in recent years. During the United Nations General Assembly last September, the prime minister of the tiny Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, Charlot Salwai, criticized that approach. Referring directly to West Papua, he said the Indonesian government needed to “put an end to all forms of violence and find common ground with the populations to establish a process that will allow them to freely express their choice.”
The reaction from Indonesia, which is usually quiet at the U.N., was fierce. President Joko Widodo hasn’t even bothered to attend the General Assembly in his five years in office, but his government immediately lambasted Salwai. Jakarta’s permanent representative to the United Nations, Dian Triansyah Djani, declared that “Indonesia will not let any country undermine its territorial integrity.” Referring to separatist and independence groups in West Papua, he said Indonesia also “fail[ed] to understand the motive behind Vanuatu’s intention in supporting a group of people who have [struck] terror and mayhem [on] so many occasions, creating fatalities and sadness to innocent families of their own communities.”
West Papua was not part of Indonesia when the country gained independence from the Netherlands in 1949. The region, which has a distinct ethnic and linguistic identity from mostly Polynesian Indonesia, was formally annexed in 1969 after what Indonesians call the “Act of Free Choice,” when a group of hand-selected Papuans voted unanimously in favor of Indonesian control in a vote marred by allegations of blackmail and coercion.
Since then, West Papua has been the site of regular violence, either from one of the many separatist groups on the island, or, more often, the Indonesian military. The island is rich in minerals, the revenue from which make up a significant portion of Indonesia’s budget. Freeport-McMoRan’s huge Grasberg mine alone provided more than $750 million in revenue in 2017.
Many West Papuans, either living in Indonesia or abroad, have been advocating for self-determination for years. But what was primarily a local conflict has now become more regional, as both sides have attempted to internationalize the issue. West Papuans are ethnically Melanesian, like the citizens of Vanuatu and other Pacific Island nations, such as the Solomon Islands and Fiji. West Papuan activists have been working to build connections with these countries, with the goal of having them speak up for Papuan independence, like Salwai did at the General Assembly.
“West Papua is a regional issue, because we are part of Melanesia, connected culturally and linguistically,” Benny Wenda, an exiled leader of the Free West Papua organization currently based in the United Kingdom, told WPR. “The majority in the Pacific islands, they don’t see West Papua as distant. It’s close to them.”
The main entity for cooperation in the region is the 18-nation Pacific Islands Forum, founded in 1971, and the Melanesian Spearhead Group within it, which counts the four Melanesian nations as members. West Papuan advocates have used the forum to push for global recognition, including formal membership for West Papua as an occupied country.
The core problem is that the Indonesian government is refusing to engage peacefully with West Papua, instead allowing the military to take the lead.
Indonesia, however, has been pushing back by sowing discord among the forum’s members. It provided military support to Fiji after the island’s 2006 coup, which had led to the imposition of Western sanctions, and offered significant aid to Papua New Guinea. With both countries’ support, in 2011, Indonesia was granted observer status in the Melanesian Spearhead Group. Since then, attempts by the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, an umbrella organization of independence groups, to get a similar status have proved futile. Now, both Fiji and Papua New Guinea say they support Indonesia’s full membership in the group, which would push the West Papua issue to the sidelines.
Since Indonesia got its observer status, “the MSG has become an empty house,” says James Elmslie, a political scientist with the West Papua Project at the University of Sydney. “The MSG is now split on the issue.”
Indonesia’s pressure tactics resemble the actions of a much bigger power in Asia dealing with territories it considers its own: China. Having long sought to isolate supporters of Tibet, China regularly pushes countries to refuse access to the Dalai Lama, as both Russia and South Africa have done in recent years. Beijing also uses a carrot-and-stick strategy to shrink the number of countries that recognize Taiwan, which it sees as a breakaway province. In the past year, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic have dropped their diplomatic recognition of Taiwan in favor of China. Like other countries that have done this, they can expect to be rewarded with aid, investments and more. Conversely, countries that refuse to switch, like Palau, have been squeezed by China and seen their tourism industries suffer.
Unlike China, though, Indonesia is a democracy, one that is often hailed as a model for both Asia and the Islamic world. There was a small window of opportunity, right after the fall of the three-decades long Suharto dictatorship in 1998, when newly democratic Indonesia was engaging with pro-independence activists in West Papua. At the time, East Timor was permitted to hold an independence referendum, and there were calls for something similar in West Papua.
But when reformist President Abdurrahman Wahid—facing corruption allegations, economic woes and political unrest—was forced to step down in 2001, that window slammed shut. The Indonesian military reasserted control, killing Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay, and things went back to the status quo of repression. Indonesia continued to exploit the region for resources and suppress the voices of Papuans. Democracy may have transformed Indonesia, but it brought little change to West Papua.
Now the situation is only getting worse. The core problem is that unlike a decade ago, the Indonesian government is refusing to engage peacefully, instead allowing, either implicitly or explicitly, the Indonesian military to take the lead.
Getting an independent view of what’s taking place in West Papua remains as difficult as ever. For decades, the Indonesian government has essentially closed off the region to journalists, international observers and NGOs. The few who do enter face risk of arrest, like Jakub Fabian Skrzypzki, a Polish citizen who is now on trial for alleged ties to Papuan separatists and faces potential life imprisonment in Indonesia if convicted.
It looks like another move out of China’s playbook. Why would democratic Indonesia go that route? Because so far, it’s working.
Nithin Coca is a freelance journalist who focuses on social, economic, and political issues in developing countries, and has specific expertise in Southeast Asia.
4) West Papuans: An indigenous people that the world forgot
By Jessica Franklin Last Updated: Tuesday 22 January 2019
More than 300 different Papuan tribes of ethnic Melanesian origin on the western half of New Guinea have been brutally suppressed by the Austronesian-dominated government at Jakarta since 1963
In December 2018, Survival International began receiving disturbing reports from the Nduga region of West Papua. Church leaders were saying that congregations from 34 churches in the Papuan highlands were missing. A violent military operation by the Indonesian army had forced scores of innocent men, women and children to flee their villages in fear of their lives and seek shelter deep in the forest.
Just before Christmas, things took an unexpected and alarming turn. Survival started to receive disturbing photographs of disfigured bodies, horrific wounds and burns, and of strange canisters that the people say had been dropped on their villages. An Australian newspaper reported that the mysterious canisters appeared to contain white phosphorous, an incendiary and chemical weapon, which “burns through skin and flesh, down to the bone.”
The use of air-dropped incendiary weapons against civilian populations is banned under Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. The Indonesian government has categorically denied the use of white phosphorous, with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stating on Twitter that the allegation is “totally baseless, non-factual, and gravely misleading.”
Military operations are frequent in West Papua where soldiers and police kill and torture with impunity. West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea, colonised and governed by Indonesia, and distinct from the independent country of Papua New Guinea. The indigenous Papuan peoples under Indonesian occupation have endured extraordinary suffering and oppression since Indonesia took control in 1963. Papua’s tribal people are Melanesians: ethnically, culturally and linguistically distinct from the Malay Indonesians who rule them from Jakarta. The government represses political dissent and attempts to “Indonesianize” Papuans, destroying not only lives but also the astonishing cultural and linguistic diversity of more than 300 different tribes.
The highland tribes live by shifting cultivation and hunting; they also keep pigs. During military raids they are too frightened to go to their vegetable gardens or to hunt. According to an independent investigation by Papua’s churches, during a similar military operation in 1998, at least 111 people died from hunger and disease in three villages alone and women and girls as young as three years old were systematically raped and gang-raped.
In the December 2018 attacks, soldiers were searching for militants from the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), an armed group fighting for West Papua’s independence from Indonesia. The militants had killed an estimated 19 road construction workers in December, believing them to be Indonesian soldiers. In such cases, Indonesian military operations to track down perpetrators disproportionately victimise innocent civilians, who are terrorised, abused, and killed. Even those who escape the army are not safe. Vulnerable villagers, especially the very old or very young, die from exposure and hunger while hiding in the forest.
Despite horrific evidence from the tribes themselves and the appalling history of Indonesian violence and human rights abuses, it has not yet been possible for the alleged use of chemical weapons to be independently verified. International journalists, humanitarian organisations and human rights observers are denied free and open access to West Papua. Survival and other organisations are calling for a halt to the violent and indiscriminate military operation in the Nduga region and for independent investigators, including international weapons inspectors, to be allowed into the area to investigate the alleged use of white phosphorus and other abuses of the civilian population.
As well as the military operations in the highlands, Indonesia’s security forces are brutally repressing peaceful political dissent. In 2018, on December 1, the date commemorated by many as “Papuan Independence Day,” more than 500 peaceful protestors were arrested in cities across Indonesia. On December 31, the Indonesian police and military violently broke up a meeting of the West Papua National Committee (Komite Nasional Papua Barat–KNPB), a non-violent Papuan peoples’ organisation calling for a referendum on the independence of West Papua. More than one hundred police and soldiers stormed and then destroyed KNPB’s office. Nine members of KNPB were arrested and beaten; three have been detained and charged with treason.
West Papuans have described what is happening to them as a ‘silent genocide.’ Its invisibility is, in no small part, due to the restrictions on journalists and the repression of peaceful organisations. The abuse of the Papuan peoples by the Indonesian government is one of the worst atrocities of our times. Papuan voices must be heard; Papuans brave enough to speak out must be protected and the international community must expose and stop the human rights violations that are happening there.
(The author is Survival International’s media officer)
1) The elected president urged paying attention to the environmental issue
Published 3 hours ago on 23 January 2019
By pr9c6tr3_juben
Jayapura, Jubi – The Indonesian Forum for Environment (WALHI) Papua urged the elected president for 2019-2024 to include the environmental issue in his main agenda to provide access to environmental management for indigenous Papuans as applied in the constitution.
Indonesia will run the presidential and legislative elections simultaneously in April 2019. Both presidential candidates demanded to notice the environmental issue in their programs.
Moreover, the elected president and vice president are also expected to give full authority to Papua Provincial Government in the implementation of Special Autonomy Law without being intervened by national policies. Therefore, indigenous Papuans would have access to natural resources management.
As reported in kpu.go.id, both presidential candidates Joko Widodo-Maaruf Amin and Prabowo Subianto-Salahuddin Uno mentioned about the environmental issue in their points of the campaign. Widodo-Amin talk about the sustainable environment, while Subianto-Uno put the environment-based national development program for the people of Indonesia through politics and economy. On 17 January 2019, both candidates attended the presidential debate held by KPU on the issues of corruption, law and human rights, and terrorism.
In addition to the presidential candidates, the legislative candidates are also expected to understand the environmental issue comprehensively, not merely talk about it. Hence, WALHI asked them to be open and wise in addressing this issue, particularly related to human security.
Meanwhile, as an environmentally concerned civil organisation, WALHI invites young people to use their right to vote the legislative candidates who care about the environmental issue and still keep their eyes on the elected ones.
“Because the environment is the most crucial issue that must be considered and led by legislators,” said Aeshs Rumbekwan of WALHI Papua in a press release received by Jubi in Jayapura on Thursday, 17 January 2019.
WALHI declared that currently, the environmental governance in Indonesia is getting worse. If the environmental management is in accordance to the Law No. 32 of 2003 on the Protection and Management of Environment, there should be no pollution including from hazardous and poisonous materials, and land clearing by cutting and burning the forest.
Poor environmental management, according to WALHI, occurred because the State regards the natural wealth as a commodity. Therefore, it does not acknowledge the local wisdom in managing natural resources. Instead, it hands over the natural resources management to corporations.
Based on WALHI’s records in 2017, there were 302 environmental cases, 163 persons have criminalised and 13 provinces involved as the crime scenes. Meanwhile, the indigenous landowners also harmed by this mismanagement. As a result, they lost their communal land and exploited as workers.
In the same occasion, WALHI also urged Papua Provincial Government to pay more attention to the environment, implement the Special Autonomy Law and open access for implementing the national policies.
Meanwhile, the activist of Port Numbay Green Forum (FPPNG) Gamel Abdel Nasser assessed that the environmental issue, particularly in Jayapura, Papua, was addressed by certain groups. For a while, environmental problems have not become a common issue for all stakeholders. Both government and NGOs work independently. Though some NGOs have collaborated with the government to address this issue, their collaboration so far has not fully raised awareness among people.
“There is no massive awareness to understand the importance of balanced ecosystem,” said Gamel.
According to him, if one ecosystem disrupted, it will affect other ecosystems. Therefore, it needs to handle this holistically. Furthermore, he gave an example of Jayapura City which often hit by floods and garbage. Efforts to make people aware, he continued, must be supported by the lowest level of government administrations.
Furthermore, he said both presidential candidates Jokowi and Prabowo need to reminded from the start that Papua is the last biodiversity fortress on Earth.
“Papua’s forests must be protected. One of the preventions is to prohibit palm oil plantations in Papua. It’s just enough for Kalimantan and Sumatra became victims of palm oil plantations, not Papua,” he said. (*)
2) Indonesian, PNG national arrested at mouth of Fly River
BY MIRIAM ZARRIGA
POLICE have arrested an Indonesian and a Papua New Guinean for their role in illegal fishing at Wariobodoro village in the Kiwai Islands at the mouth of the Fly River, Western Province.
The men were captured after a police tip off on Friday afternoon.
Following the tip off, police officers from Daru and Mobile Squad 14 left town by boat and travelled 10 hours to reach their destination, arriving early Sunday morning.
They surveyed the area and made their move on Sunday afternoon, capturing the Indonesian and the PNG man who is believed to be an agent for the fishermen from Indonesia.
Three other Indonesians jumped overboard and escaped.
Taken along with the two men were three dinghies, three 40 horsepower engines, one 25 horsepower engine, several kilograms of marijuana and pornographic materials.
South Fly Commander Brian Kombe said that police searched for the three other men but couldn’t find them.
“My officers came back with the two men to Daru on Tuesday morning.
“We are now awaiting the arrival of customs officers with immigration officers to greet the police officers and speak to the Indonesian man.
“The Indonesian national was charged with illegal entry, with the PNG national was charged with aiding an illegal entry, both under the immigration laws of the country,” Mr Kombe said.
He said when the investigation progresses, more charges will be added.
“I would like to take this time to remind law and order agencies in the province that policing the border of this country is not only the work of the police. I need the cooperation of the Immigration Office, Customs, NFA and PNGDF,” Mr Kombe said.
“Seems like the police only is looking after the police, we are understaffed and we have had no support from the provincial government…but we continue to do what we can.
“It’s time, if the country is serious about protecting our borders and its flora and fauna, and marine life we need to start thinking of working together to ensure our borders are protected.
Allan Gyngell’s Fear of abandonment is a masterpiece on the history of Australia’s foreign policy. The most important storyline is Australia’s journey from being a mere dominion of mother Britain to increasingly shaping its own new destiny in the burgeoning Indo-Pacific Century.
Most readers will be surprised to learn that Australia only reluctantly assumed responsibility for its foreign policy in 1942, more than 40 years after federation, when the Australian Parliament ratified the British Statute of Westminster of 1931, long after other dominions like Canada and South Africa were brave enough to do so. According to Gyngell, “Australians thought of themselves as much a part of the British Empire as residents of London or Manchester. They were children of the mother country.”
But Australia was not totally absent from foreign affairs prior to 1942. Britain transferred ownership of the colony of Papua to Australia in 1906. The League of Nations granted Australia control over German New Guinea after World War 1. And Nauru was transferred to joint control by the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. Thus, newly-independent Australia became a colonial power itself.
Australia’s pivot to the US
After World War 2, the UK was a greatly diminished power, and, with the progressive loss of its Asian colonies, the US became the predominant power in the Pacific. As Australia’s external affairs minister, Percy Spender, noted in 1950, there had been “a shift in the gravity of world affairs… from the Atlantic to the Pacific.” In light of Australia’s ongoing “fear of abandonment”, a constant preoccupation for Australian policy makers was how to keep the US engaged in the Pacific, writes Gyngell.
The Australian government was very keen to enter into a security pact with the US, and eventually did so in the form of the 1951 ANZUS Treaty. This involved some costs, or “insurance premiums” to pay, according to Gyngell. The US held Australia back from recognising communist China after Mao’s victory in the Chinese Civil War. And Australia’s involvement in the Korean, Vietnamese, and future wars were in order to pay the insurance premium on the ANZUS alliance.
Reorienting international economic relations
International economic relations were a major post-war issue. “Coming out of [World War 2], the Australian economy was characterised by preferential trade with Britain, which took around half the country’s exports, import quotas, high tariffs, and a currency tied to the British pound and managed by the government”, according to Gyngell.
Australia’s international economic relations would soon been transformed through a switch to non-discriminatory and multilateral trade through the GATT/WTO. And in more recent years, as the multilateral trading system seems to have ground to a halt, Australia has been very active in securing bilateral free trade agreements with China, Japan and Korea, and in keeping the Trans-Pacific Partnership alive in cooperation with Japan.
A major post-war achievement was building a substantial economic relationship with Japan, argues Gyngell. Australia was also an early leader in development cooperation in Asia, notably through its initiative to create the Colombo Plan in 1950. Over the years, its membership expanded to include most Asian countries, along with Fiji (1972) and Papua New Guinea (1973).
Tending to the South Pacific
The countries of the South Pacific, with their fragile politics, have been a constant foreign policy preoccupation for Australian governments. Gyngell writes that Prime Minister Paul Keating assessed that he spent more time dealing with the “complex, psychologically sensitive relationship” with Papua New Guinea than with any other relationship, apart from Indonesia.
Indeed, Gyngell recounts the difficulty that every Australian government has confronted in dealing with Papua New Guinea, “a democracy with its own sometimes impenetrable logic”, and the major recipient of Australia’s foreign aid. “Each new government would seek ways of differentiating itself from the problems of its predecessors but would gradually accumulate its own set of problems”, according to Gyngell.
Elsewhere, former Foreign Minister Alexander Downer is quoted as saying that “foreigners do not have answers for the deep-seated problems afflicting Solomon Islands”, a comment of lasting relevance throughout the Pacific, and notably so in Fiji with its political instability. But the Pacific became a region of greater challenges as a growing transit route for drugs and place for money laundering, as well as a theatre for outside powers, such as China and Taiwan, to compete for regional influence.
Forging closer links with Asia
Despite Australia’s numerous foreign policy successes, the new Labor government of Gough Whitlam inherited much unfinished business when it came to power in 1972, according to Gyngell. It established diplomatic relations with communist China, abolished the last remnants of the White Australia policy, and disengaged from the Vietnam War. Under Whitlam’s leadership, Papua New Guinea was granted independence, without being sufficiently prepared, as a new country, for the immense challenges involved.
Although it would be successive Labor governments which demonstrated the greatest leadership for Australia’s engagement with Asia, between April 1975 and October 1980 Australia accepted nearly 42,000 Indochinese refugees, the highest number per capita of any country of asylum except Hong Kong, under the Liberal government of Malcolm Fraser (1975-83).
Hitching wings to Asian Century
Gyngell recounts that Hawke was the driving force behind the creation of the APEC forum, with the first (Ministerial) meeting being held in Canberra in November 1989. Keating convinced US President Clinton to hold the first APEC leaders’ meeting in 1993, and then convinced Indonesian President Suharto to do so in 1994, thereby regularising this annual meeting, which was most recently hosted by Papua New Guinea in 2018.
Kevin Rudd played a key role in the development of the East Asia Summit. And Rudd was also the driving force behind the transformation of the G20 into an annual summit. While global in focus, the G20 does include all of Asia’s major economies, namely China, India, Indonesia, Japan, and Korea, along with Australia.
As Australia navigates its way towards an Indo-Pacific century, it faces arguably the most complex point in the history of its foreign relations. In particular, four relationships stand out in Gyngell’s narrative as being at least as problematic as they have ever been.
Keeping the US interested
Since the fading of Britain as an Asian power, Australia has always worked to maintain America’s interest in the region. And today, with the rise of China and the unpredictability of Trump’s America, this is still a major worry for Australia. However, Gyngell reminds us that there may be nothing new in this when he writes “In 1992, following the end of the Cold War, the government was already concerned that the US military presence in the region will decline”.
Managing relations with the Pacific
Australia has been caught seemingly flat-footed by China’s initiative to deepen relationships and finance infrastructure in the Pacific. The government’s very recent efforts, together with the US and Japan, to offer new financing to Pacific neighbours is welcome, even though it is basically an effort to compete with China. Although it sounds like the same old song, we can only hope that Prime Minister Morrison was sincere when he said ‘It’s time to open, I believe a new chapter in relations with our Pacific family. One based on respect, equality and openness.’
Ups and downs with Indonesia
Paul Keating once said that there is “no country is more important to Australia than Indonesia”. And with this country being the world’s fourth most populous country, having the world’s largest Muslim population, and being Australia’s closest large neighbour, Keating’s assessment may well be true.
But Australia’s relationship with Indonesia has had many ups and downs, with many problems disturbing the relationship, for example Australia’s role in East Timor’s independence; refugees from Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan travelling through Indonesia to seek asylum in Australia; death sentences and imprisonment for Australian drug smugglers; disputes over live cattle exports; and revelations that the personal mobile phones of former President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife were wiretapped by Australian intelligence.
Since the publication of Gyngell’s book, Australia’s relations with Indonesia have tripped up yet again with Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s announcement that Australia would recognise West Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. The Indonesian government has thus put on ice the signing Indonesia-Australia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
Responding to Chinese power
Australia’s relationship with China has also had its share of ups and downs. During the 1950s, well before Australia recognised Mao’s communist regime, China was the biggest customer for Australia’s wheat exports. The 1989 Tiananmen Square incident resulted in a temporary freeze in relations, as it did with most advanced countries.
Economic relations between Australia would boom, especially following China’s membership of the World Trade Organization in 2001, such that China is now Australia’s most important trading partner, and source of international students and tourists. It has been estimated that Australia is now the most China-dependent G20 country.
In recent years, during the presidency of Xi Jinping there has been a substantial renewal of tensions in light of concerns about Chinese investments and business interests in Australia, and in view of evidence of Chinese government interference in Australian politics and society.
In an interview last year, Gyngell was quoted as saying “…China is big and wants to have influence and is finding its voice in the world.” But on Chinese influence he says Australia has the tools to protect its democratic institutions. “Essentially it’s our problem and the solution lies in our own hands.”[1]
Conclusion
In the same interview, Gyngell concluded “I can’t think of a more challenging time to be a policymaker in Australia.” And there may be no better preparation for a maker of foreign policy than the history outlined in Fear of abandonment, which is a veritable tour de force.
Journal of Political Risk, Vol. 8, No. 1, January 2019
By Ben Bohane
Reports of the Indonesian military using white phosphorous munitions on West Papuan civilians in December are only the latest horror in a decades-old jungle war forgotten by the world. But new geopolitical maneuvering may soon change the balance of power here, prompting regional concern about an intensifying battle for this rich remote province of Indonesia. It is time for the US and Australia to change policy, complementing Pacific island diplomacy, or risk a major strategic setback at the crossroads of Asia and the Pacific.
Once again, Papuan highlanders have fled their villages into the bush where they are starving and being hunted by Indonesian security forces.
Supporters carry West Papuan leader Benny Wenda through Port Vila, Vanuatu, during a visit on December 1, 2016. Pacific island countries across the region are growing in solidarity with the West Papuan independence movement, according to the author. Credit: Ben Bohane.
Fighting between OPM (Free Papua Movement) guerrillas and the Indonesian military has increased in recent months creating a fresh humanitarian crisis in a region cut off from the world: Indonesia prevents all foreign media and NGOs from operating here. This makes West Papua perhaps the only territory besides North Korea that is so inaccessible to the international community.
For years West Papuans have claimed that Jakarta has been building up its forces including local militias here, ready to unleash just as they did in East Timor before its bloody birth in 1999. Different to East Timor however, is the presence of jihadi groups too, something the OPM has warned about for some time. Recent comments in the Washington Post by Indonesia’s Security Minister General Wiranto, who oversaw the death and destruction during East Timor’s transition to independence in 1999, are alarming:
Earlier this week, security minister Wiranto, who uses one name, said there would be no compromise with an organization the government has labeled a criminal group.
“They are not a country, but a group of people who are heretical,” he said.”
Heretical?
This is significant – by using the word “heretical” rather than “treasonous” is Wiranto signalling a coming jihad against the West Papuans?
A low level insurgency waged by the OPM guerrillas has for decades sought independence for the mostly Christian, Melanesian population. Church groups and NGOs claim more than 300,000 Papuans have perished under Indonesian occupation since Indonesia formally annexed “Dutch New Guinea” via a UN referendum in 1969 known as the “Act of Free Choice”. It was the UN’s first decolonisation mission and it was a farce – the UN allowed a handpicked group of 1025 Papuans to vote from a population estimated at the time to be close to one million. Just in case they didn’t get the message, Indonesia’s Brig General Ali Murtopo flew in and warned:
“This is what will happen to anyone who votes against Indonesia. Their accursed tongues will be torn out. Their full mouths will be wrenched open. Upon them will fall the vengeance of the Indonesian people. I will myself shoot them on the spot.”
The UN’s own envoy overseeing the plebicite, Chakravarty Narasimihan, former UN Under secretary general in charge of the “Act of free Choice” said:
“It was just a whitewash. The mood at the United Nations was to get rid of this problem as quickly as possible. Nobody gave a thought to the fact that there were a million people there who had their fundamental human rights trampled. Suharto was a terrible dictator. How could anyone have seriously believed that all voters unanimously decided to join his regime? Unanimity like that is unknown in democracies.”
The fix was in and had US blessing; Washington arm-twisted Australia and Holland to back Indonesia’s annexation of West Papua, despite the position of both nations to have West Papua prepared for independence by 1970. Australia would go on to deliver independence to the eastern half of New Guinea island, known as Papua New Guinea (PNG) in 1975.
For decades Australia’s first line of defence was considered to be the rugged 800 km border that separates PNG from Indonesia. Long before the recent rise of China, Australia’s chief strategic concern was Indonesia, especially during times of direct conflict such as the Konfrontasi period of the 1960s and more recently when Australia led an international intervention force that secured East Timor’s independence in 1999. Since the 1960s Indonesia has been pushing east, with then President Sukarno taking “West Irian” (West Papua) by force while at the same time calling PNG “East Irian” and Australia “South Irian”.
It remains one of the great “what ifs” of Australian strategic history – if Australia and Holland had ignored US pressure and continued to support West Papuan independence, it would have prevented the long running civil war there and may well have stopped Indonesia’s subsequent invasion of East Timor in 1975. Instead, Australia reluctantly agreed to the US “New York Agreement” of 1962 and found itself being dragged into the US war in Vietnam.
It fought the wrong war.
In the decades since, Australia has sought to manage its often turbulent relationship with Indonesia, recognising its size and importance within southeast Asia, by studiously ignoring the ongoing “slow-genocide” happening in West Papua. Not only has Australia never provided material support for its rebels or refugees, it continues to arm and train Indonesia’s elite anti-terrorism unit Densus 88, which has been accused of “mission creep” in extending its operations to take out not just Islamic terrorists post 9/11, post Bali attacks, but Papuan nationalists too.
This has resulted in a lose-lose policy for Australia; after East Timor, no amount of Australian assurances of Indonesian sovereignty will ever convince Jakarta’s generals that Australia does not have designs on West Papua; at the same time Australia has lost much moral and strategic credibility among its Pacific island neighbours who all support West Papuan independence and question why their two big brothers in the Pacific – the US and Australia – continue to ‘throw the West Papuans to the wolves’.
But while they may have been able to ignore West Papua’s independence movement for decades, new geopolitical manouverings have emerged in the past year which signal a need to re-assess long running policy. The explosion of social media in recent years has taken this hidden war out of the shadows for good. Pacific diplomacy is isolating ANZUS policy and the West Papuan struggle will not remain a bow-and-arrow affair for much longer.
It is only a matter of time before China begins offering substantial material support and training – they are already in discussions with the West Papuan leadership. Nor are they the only player getting involved.
In December 2017, Russian Tu-95 nuclear bombers made sorties from bases on Biak island in West Papua probing the air space between Australia and Papua. It was the first time Russian nuclear bombers have operated in the South Pacific, prompting Australia to scramble fighter jets from RAAF Tindal for the first time in many years. Jakarta has likely invited Russia to display a show of force as a warning to Australian and US forces stationed in Darwin – as well as China – lest they show any inclination to support West Papuan independence.
But can Jakarta trust Russia? Although there is considerable military co-operation between the two, Russia may have its own agenda in West Papua, recognising its resource wealth and strategic position due south of Vladivostok. West Papuan leaders speak of Russia’s sense of having been betrayed by Indonesia in the 1960s. After Khrushchev met with Sukarno at their historic Bali summit in 1960, a time when Indonesia’s communist party the PKI was the third largest in the world, Moscow believed it had done a deal to become Indonesia’s partner in helping annex West Papua and thus gain access to the known mineral riches of West Papua, not to mention its strategic position as a gateway between Asia and the Pacific.
Instead, US President Kennedy was able to woo Sukarno (both were young, charismatic “ladies men” who hit it off together) sufficiently to broker a deal where the US would recognise Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua in an attempt to temper both Sukarno’s leftist leanings and the growing PKI. The deal signed in 1962 was called the New York Agreement and signalled America would not support Holland’s defence of an independent West Papua. By 1965 Kennedy was dead and Sukarno had been overthrown in a coup that led to a “re-orientation” of Indonesia. Newly installed General Suharto purged Indonesia of communists and granted the first foreign mining licence to US company Freeport to establish a gold mine in the Puncak Jaya mountain range of West Papua, soon to become (and remain) the biggest gold mine in the world.
Russia was furious, but could do little then. China’s support for the PKI was also checked and Suharto’s 30 year dictatorship, backed by the US and allies, ensured both Russia and China lost their influence in Indonesia. Today it is a different story.
While Russia influence in the Pacific is small but growing, Chinese influence has surged to become a major force in Pacific politics and security. Part of its engagement with Pacific island nations is to support those nations such as Vanuatu who back West Papuan independence in the face of Indonesian threats.
China’s relationship with Indonesia continues to deteriorate over issues such as rival claims in the South China Sea, nationwide demonstrations across Indonesia in support of persecuted Uighers in China, and concerns about the growing Islamification of Indonesia threatening the local Chinese (often Christian) communities. Last year, the (Christian) Chinese Governor of Jakarta was hounded out of office by hardline Islamist groups accusing him of blasphemy. Indonesia’s Chinese community has long been subject to periodic pogroms (such as during the PKI crackdown in the ‘60s and during the fall of Suharto in 1998) and as they watch the growing Islamification of Indonesia, they are all preparing Plan B exits, with Singapore, Malaysia and Australia top of their list.
In the past, Beijing could do little to protect the Chinese diaspora here, but today that has changed. West Papuan leaders suggest that China may have a plan to help liberate West Papua and thus provide a sanctuary for Indonesia’s persecuted Chinese community. Were China to support West Papuan independence it would have the backing of the vast majority of Papuans and give China not just access to its huge mineral wealth, but also a strategic foothold in the south, south China Sea and a major gateway between the Indian and Pacific ocean. It would also win the kudos of many Pacific island nations who feel the US and Australia have not defended Pacific island interests all because of the avarice of one US company. China is also taking note of the recent decision by neighbouring PNG to allow a major new military base on Manus island for US and Australian forces. Manus island, a naval base since WW2, would allow US and Australian naval and air force projection into the South China Sea and beyond, once again amplifying the strategic position of West Papua next door to thwart such allied projections if China got a foothold there.
China is also anticipating a Prabowo presidency in Indonesia this year, who they regard as a CIA asset, ironically backed by hardline Islamic groups, and who will be hostile to the Chinese community there. And not just hostile to China, but Australia and the Pacific too.
Australia has had a good run with amenable leaders such as SBY and Jokowi in recent years, but a Prabowo presidency would see a Duterte-like strongman likely to cause friction.
The answer in such circumstances is not to take a reflexive pro-Indonesia stance against Chinese moves, but to check both Indonesian and Chinese expansion by helping the Christian Melanesians of West Papua secure their freedom as part of the Pacific family. Doing so is not just the right moral thing to do (correcting a previous injustice) but the right strategic thing to do: it prevents a Chinese foothold in the South Pacific, prevents Indonesian jihadis and territorial expansion east into the Pacific, secures an “air-sea gap” for Australia, properly secures a border between Muslim Asia and the Christian Pacific, and in so doing wins the admiration and loyalty of the rest of the Pacific island community precisely at a time when they are being aggressively courted by China.
This year Vanuatu, backed by dozens of countries in the ACP block (Africa, Caribbean, Pacific) is expected to introduce a motion before the UN General Assembly calling for a proper referendum on independence for West Papua and its inclusion on the United Nations De-Colonisation list.
Unless this long-running struggle is resolved soon, West Papua may soon become a major battleground between Indonesian forces including jihadis and Papuan guerrillas backed by China. US policy has long been guided by Freeport’s commercial interests (helped by such prominent board members as Henry Kissinger and ex-President Ford), but that now pales in comparison to the strategic calculus as China moves in. Besides, Freeport is now losing its grip – in December it finally accepted a new deal with Jakarta losing its majority ownership of the mine and the Carstenz deposit. Freeport now has been reduced to 49% ownership. Of course China is playing both sides of the fence – guess who provided funds for Jakarta to increase its equity?
It is time for the US to get on the right side of history. It should go back to supporting Australia and Holland’s original policy – and the rest of the Pacific’s today – by supporting a process towards West Papuan independence to halt growing Islamic and Chinese influence in the Pacific.
As one West Papuan leader told me recently:
“We have suffered for decades. If the democratic west continues to ignore our struggle we have no choice but to look east for our liberation”.
Ben Bohane is a Vanuatu-based photojournalist covering the Pacific, who has reported on West Papua for the past 25 years. He is the only foreigner to have been in the three most active Command areas of the OPM operating in West Papua. JPR Status: Opinion.
Invasion Day Rally 2019 (Sydney). Hosted by Fighting In Resistance Equally (FIRE) Thousands took part in the Invasion Day Rally in Sydney today. Aboriginal people and their supporters from all walks of life marched from Sydney’s Hyde Park to Victoria Park where the Yabun Festival was being held.
In West Papua, a development plan that doesn’t require clearing forest
Analysis by Een Irawan Putra on 23 January 2019 |
Indonesia’s West Papua province on the island of New Guinea has pledged to set aside 70 percent of its land area as protected or conservation areas. Local government decisions will be key to the plan’s success or failure.
In the administrative district of Tambrauw within West Papua, local indigenous communities depend on the forest for their livelihoods.
The head of Tambrauw district, Gabriel Asem, says he prioritizes the land rights of local communities and that conservation and sustainable development can go hand in hand.
AYAPOKIAR, Indonesia — Mince and Atafia Momo make light work of the rocky terrain as they press toward higher ground deep in the Tambrauw forest. The pair move with a practiced agility, hauling gear in wicker baskets tied to a stretch of colorful fabric suspended around their foreheads.
For Mince, who is 40, and Atafia, 22, these green valleys in the west of the island of New Guinea are a second home, a place to hunt, to fish, to find medicines and to forage for sago, a crucial source of carbohydrates in the diet of the Momo Kaa indigenous community. For them, and for Atafia’s two toddlers, conservation of these Tambrauw hillsides carries a sense of immediacy.
“We can find sago, vegetables, fish, pigs or deer all here in the forest. And in the village we plant taro, sweet potatoes and chili,” Atafia tells Mongabay. “We never go hungry.”
I met the pair by accident. I happened to be in Ayapokiar, Atafia and Momo’s village in Tambrauw, along with 12 University of Papua students participating in a bird survey led by researcher Sebastian “Bas” van Balen and Mirza Kusrini from the university’s forestry department. In 2017, Van Balen followed in the footsteps of Henry Cushier Raven’s 1912-1914 journey through Borneo to document biodiversity declines. I was looking for a companion to enter the forest and ran into Agustinus Momo, who suggested her sister, Atafia.
She was at pains to make sure I had no problem working with a woman. “Here it’s much better,” she says. Whether it’s handling an unruly toddler at home or hauling sand on a construction site, women are generally considered the more diligent of the sexes. Atafia, for example, keeps watch over her two young children and helps pay the bills while her husband studies on a university scholarship in Palangkaraya, far away on the island of Borneo.
Atafia, left, and Mince. Image by Een Irawan Putra.
Atafia brings a dog with her to take down a forest deer before she kills the animal with a spear, butchers the carcass and smokes the meat for preservation. “We don’t sell the venison, we eat it ourselves,” she said. “Because from here, everywhere is far.
“Even if I had the time to go to Sorong [the provincial capital], the transportation is 500,000 rupiah [$35] one way,” she says. The journey can take around eight hours.
This time Atafia and Momo have brought fishing rods. The Iri River is around a kilometer (0.6 miles) from camp. It might not sound far, but the steep, irregular inclines are enough to make pulses quicken. “This river is full of fish,” Atafia says.
The rainforest in Tambrauw. Image courtesy of the Indonesia Nature Film Society.
Tambrauw is one of more than 500 districts within 34 larger provinces in the Indonesian archipelago. Indonesia emerged from one of the most centralized forms of government in the world following the ouster of strongman ruler Suharto in 1998. The hundreds of district governments like Tambrauw now have considerable latitude over education and health spending, as well as authorizing permits for extractive industries in the forests Atafia and Momo call home.
The district chief, known in Indonesia as a bupati, of Tambrauw is Gabriel Asem, a well-built man with a mustache as thick as the tree line in the Tambrauw valleys. Gabriel was elected head of Tambrauw when the administrative district was first created, in 2008. In his office he explains to me that around 80 percent of the 11,000 square kilometers (4,250 square miles) that make up the district are conservation areas.
“In total there are 29 subdistricts and 216 villages in Tambrauw and we make the rules for protecting forests, beaches and elsewhere,” he told Mongabay last year. “It must all be agreed with the community of customary owners, because they have territorial rights.”
Gabriel says he has long been told that by prioritizing conservation of these valleys he will sacrifice development. He disagrees.
Indonesia’s statistics agency said in March 2018 that 35.3 percent of the rural population here in West Papua province lived in poverty (defined as the equivalent of 85 U.S. cents a day or less). That is the second-highest rate among the 34 provinces across Indonesia, while malnutrition remains one of the biggest killers of children under 5.
But Asem points to his district’s pristine beaches and mountains, as if to say they have assets beyond carving up land parcels into concessions for development. “That is where the community can benefit, because they will have a direct stake,” he says. “In the future they will be a source of income.”
It’s a view in line with the larger development agenda in West Papua. Last October, the governors of West Papua and Papua provinces, which together make up the Indonesian half of New Guinea, signed a pledge to set aside 70 percent of their jurisdictions as protected or conservation areas. The region is home to some of the best forest left in Indonesia.
Atafia. Image by Een Irawan Putra
The sun often beats down into the humid corridors of Tambrauw forest, but the weather can change in minutes, causing heavy rains to rush down mountainsides and accumulate in sumps on the forest floor. Atafia and Momo arrive back at camp from the river in driving rain. The pair have returned with dinner. They set down edible greens — pakis, gohi, gnemon — as well as a haul of fish.
“We are very happy to be able to bring people here,” Atafia says. “They can see how us protecting the forests is good for our children and grandchildren.”
***
Een Irawan Putra is director of the Indonesia Nature Film Society, a media partner of Mongabay.
Banner: A flower in West Papua. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.
1) West Papuan separatists hand petition to U.N. human rights chief
By Reuters• last updated: 27/01/2019 - 19:32
GENEVA (Reuters) - A separatist movement in Indonesia's West Papua province delivered a petition with 1.8 million signatures demanding an independence referendum to U.N. Human Rights chief Michelle Bachelet on Friday, its leader told Reuters after the meeting.
Benny Wenda, chairman of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), said he hoped the United Nations would send a fact-finding mission to the province to substantiate allegations of human rights violations.
"Today is a historic day for me and for my people," Wenda said after the meeting in Geneva. "I handed over what I call the bones of the people of West Papua, because so many people have been killed."
He said West Papuans had no freedom of speech or assembly and the only way to be heard was through the petition, signed by almost three-quarters of the 2.5 million population.
"It weighs 40 kg. It’s like the biggest book in the world."
He said he also spoke to Bachelet about the situation in the Nduga region, where he said at least 11 people had been killed and more may have died after fleeing into the bush to escape Indonesian forces, and 22,000 people had been displaced.
Provincial military spokesman Muhammad Aidi said the allegation was unfounded.
"He cannot show the evidence of what he has accused (Indonesia and the military) of," Aidi said on Sunday. "It is the Free Papua Movement that killed the innocent civilians."
Last month members of the military wing of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) claimed responsibility for killing at least 16 people working on a bridge on a high-profile road project, and a soldier, in the Nduga area.
The OPM has said it views the project workers as members of the military and casualties in their war against the government.
The governor of the province subsequently called for an end to a hunt for the rebels, saying villagers were being traumatised.
The military rejected the plea to suspend the search in the remote, heavily forested province on the western half of New Guinea island, a former Dutch colony incorporated into Indonesia after a widely criticized U.N.-backed referendum in 1969.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo wants to develop impoverished Papua and tap its resources. Since coming to power in 2014, he has tried to ease tensions in Papua by freeing prisoners and addressing rights concerns, while stepping up investment with projects like the Trans Papua highway.
(Reporting by Tom Miles and Augustinus Beo Da Costa; Editing by Catherine Evans)
2) Foreigner in Papua coup plot: arms dealer or ‘adrenaline junkie tourist’?
Polish citizen Jakob Skrzypski accused of joining the Papua National Liberation Army and offering to help supply it with weapons
Observers describe him as an avid ‘extreme’ traveller with a passion for other cultures, languages, and humanitarian issues
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 27 January, 2019, 4:46pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 27 January, 2019, 11:17pm
Jakob Skrzypski left a stable job in Switzerland to travel through Indonesia last year. He visited Java, Sumatra and the tourist island of Bali before heading to the restive provinces of West Papua and Papua.
But three months ago, Indonesia authorities detained the 39-year-old Polish citizen in the Papuan capital of Jayapura. On January 15 this year, he was charged with treason.
He was the first foreigner in Indonesia to be charged with the offence, one that could see him spend 20 years in prison, if found guilty.
Skrzypski has been accused of plotting a coup with a pro-independence Papuan armed group and offering to help supply it weapons to overthrow the Indonesian government.
Skrzypski, who sports a bushy beard and has his hair tied back, has been held in a small, poorly-lit jail cell as he awaits trial in Wamena, an isolated town in Papua’s highlands.
A photograph seen by the South China Morning Post shows a jail cell with filthy streaks on the walls and a hand drawn sketch of Jesus Christ hanging on the cross.
“No freely available hot water. Washing water is dirty,” Skrzpski wrote in a letter to the Post, adding that he shared the cell with up to four other prisoners, and that he got one meal a day of rice and vegetables.
His court case is an unexpected twist in the long-running independence struggle between Papuans and the Indonesian government.
A low-level insurgency has simmered in the provinces, which share a border with Papua New Guinea, ever since the former Dutch colony came under Indonesian rule in the 1960s.
Papua declared itself an independent nation in 1961, but Indonesia took control of the resource-rich region by force in 1963. It officially annexed Papua in 1969 with a UN-backed vote, widely seen as a sham. The province was split into two in 2003 to become Papua and West Papua.
The pro-independence movement has little international backing, except for a small number of Pacific nations.
In his correspondence with the Post, Skrzypski described how Papua had “nurtured” his curiosity for some time, and that we wanted to visit.
He visited Papua’s urban centres of Sorong, Jayapura, Timika and Wamena, making friends in each place through social media.
“Papua is … virtually unknown, seldom ever mentioned in Europe. Since it’s very different from the other parts of Indonesia, it has been nurturing my curiosity for some time,” he wrote.
Skrzypski graduated from Warsaw University in Poland, worked in Britain, then studied at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, before getting a job there.
He had travelled to Indonesia several times, and also to Armenia, Myanmar and Iraq.
In August 2018, while he was in Wamena, the largest town in the highlands of Papua province, local police asked him to report to them.
Skrzypski said he did so, accompanied by a man who was his tour guide.
He said police offered him a ticket to leave Indonesia, but he refused. They then asked the guide to stay at the police station, while they allowed Skrzypski to go back to the hotel.
The next day, the police picked up Skrzypski in the hotel and brought him to the Papuan capital of Jayapura, an hour from Wamena by flight, where he was arrested.
The guide was later freed.
According to Skrzypski, police accused him of joining the West Papua National Liberation Army, a militant group and one of four active separatist organisations.
They cited his online friendship with Simon Magal, a student with links to prominent West Papuan human rights activist Mama Yosepha Alomang, as evidence.
Mama Yosepha received international acclaim after she lobbied against American mining firm Freeport McMoRan, which has been accused of causing grave environmental damage in its decades-long operation of the giant Grasberg copper mine.
The National Liberation Army had also waged attacks against Freeport, saying that the province’s integration with Indonesia was a conspiracy between the government and the mining giant.
Skrzypski says he discussed Freeport with Simon.
But Jayapura police commissioner Ahmad M. Kamal said they had evidence from Facebook Messenger chats and video testimony from three pro-independence fighters that Skrzypski had expressed his support for the militant Papuan independence movement.
Magal was subsequently arrested and also charged with treason.
A statement issued by Skrzypski’s lawyer Latifa Anum Siregar and several human rights groups said police alleged the Polish citizen was an arms dealer and relied on photos of him holding guns as evidence.
But according to one of Skrzypski’s friends, the photos were taken in an indoor sport shooting range in Vaud, Switzerland, where he had been living.
The police also claimed to have confiscated more than 130 rounds of ammunition from Skrzypski and three Indonesian citizens.
Veronica Koman, a lawyer for the National Committee for West Papua (KNPB), which is campaigning for the national referendum, said police become paranoid when foreigners make contact with Papuans.
Access to the region for international media is limited.
“Based on my correspondence with [Skrzypski’s] family and close friends, he is just an adrenaline junkie tourist,” she said.
Tapol, an NGO monitoring human rights issues in Indonesia, described Skrzypski as an avid “extreme” traveller with a passion for other cultures, languages, and humanitarian issues.
In his letter, Skrzypski claimed access to his lawyer was obstructed and authorities were holding his trial in Wamena instead of the capital Jayapura where his case would get more attention from media and the diplomatic community.
He said he felt isolated and depressed, not knowing when he would have to go to court next.
To pass the time, he had been reading old copies of National Geographic magazines and books on Papuan culture.
“Every step of the investigation was held secretly. I was never informed of anything in advance. At least not by the police,” he wrote.
Police insisted this was not the case. During their investigation of Skrzypski, foreign ministry officials in Jakarta were kept in the loop and they communicated with the Polish embassy there, they said.
Skryzypski’s trial continues and his next court appearance is scheduled for January 29.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: QUE STI O NS O VER POLish m an accu sed IN PAPUA COUP PLOT
Papua rebels fire at aircraft in Indonesia; 1 dead
ByAssociated Press
January 28 at 5:12 AM
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Separatists opened fire on an aircraft carrying military personnel and local government officials in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua region, killing one soldier, the military said Monday.
The incident, in Nduga district where rebels killed 19 people in an attack last month, happened shortly after the light plane took off from Kenyam airport Monday morning, said Muhammad Aidi, a military spokesman.
He said two soldiers on the plane were injured and one later died in a hospital.
The chief of Nduga district and two other district chiefs were passengers on the plane, which was transporting supplies to another remote area.
The rebels fled into the jungle after soldiers on the ground opened fire and it was unclear if any was killed, Aidi said.
An insurgency has simmered in the Papua region since it was annexed by Indonesia in 1963.
1) PNG civil society group wants change on Papua policy
18 minutes ago
Civil society groups in Papua New Guinea are urging the government to speak out about violent conflict in the neighbouring Papua region of Indonesia.
This comes amid a recent escalation of conflict between the West Papua Liberation Army and Indonesian security forces in Papua's Central Highlands.
The chairman of PNG's Union For Free West Papua, Kenn Mondiai said Papua New Guineans are deeply concerned about the conflict but their government remains silent.
He said 1986's Treaty of Mutual Respect, Friendship and Co-operation with Indonesia restricts PNG from speaking out.
"At the political level government's hands are tied because of that 1986 treaty. But as Papua New Guinean and Melanesian civil society organisations, we Melanesians are sick and tired of the manner in which the Indonesian government and the Indonesian military and the police force, their brutality," Kenn Mondiai said.
Mr Mondiai said civil society wanted PNG's government to change it policy on West Papua to become more proactive in pushing for solutions across the border.
He said he was encouraged by PNG involvement in efforts by the Pacific Council of Churches to visit Indonesia, including Papua, to gauge the latest human rights situation.
However, PNG's Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato says his government is working to support the economic development approach that Jakarta is taking in Papua region as the best response to West Papuan issues.
Mr Pato recently said the two countries had been planning and implementing joint projects in their common border areas.
Meanwhile, the PNG Union For Free West Papua is assisting representatives the Liberation Army and Free West Papua Movement (OPM) in preparation for a planned press conference on Thursday in PNG's capital Port Moresby.
The representatives are expected to address the humanitarian crisis in the Central Highlands, and unveil the OPM's plans for proposed negotiations with Indonesia.
Indonesia's Political, Legal and Security Minister Wiranto recently told media that the government would not enter any discussions with the Army, who Jakarta describes as a criminal group.
2) UK Parliamentarians welcome handing-in of historic West Papuan People’s Petition
JANUARY 28, 2019
A group of UK parliamentarians in the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for West Papua have welcomed the handing-in of the historical West Papuan People’s Petition to the UN human rights chief.
In a statement, the APPG said:
The All-Party Parliamentary Group on West Papua is overjoyed to hear that the West Papuan People’s Petition has been officially handed to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva with support from the Vanuatu government. The petition, signed by 70% of the Papuan population and calling for self-determination for the territory, was an arduous and heroic achievement of the West Papuan people. We hope the UN will now respond by fulfilling its historic duties to rectify the 1969 Act of Free Choice and allow West Papuans to freely determine their own future.
The petition hand-in comes at a time of great concern in West Papua, with chemical weapons reportedly deployed by the Indonesian military and a humanitarian crisis in Nduga. Thousands of Papuans have been internally displaced, and several have died. We call for the urgent removal of Indonesian security forces from the Nguda Regency and for Indonesia to allow humanitarian and monitoring agencies in to the area.
In a meeting facilitated by the Vanuatu government on January 25, 2019, the Chairman of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, Benny Wenda, handed the self-determination petition – signed by 1.8 million Papuans in 2017 – to Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The ULMWP will now target the UN General Assembly.
1) TNI Evacuates Soldier who Dies from Gun Attack in Papua
Translator: Ririe Ranggasari
Editor: Petir Garda Bhwana
29 January 2019 11:46 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Cendrawasih XVII Regional Military Command of the TNI (Indonesian National Armed Forces) evacuated the body of Private Nasarudin, victim of an armed group in Mapnduma, Nduga Regency of Jayapura, Papua. Praka's body is evacuated on a civil aviation to Sentani Airport, Tuesday morning, January 29.
Upon arrival at Sentani Airport, Nasarudin body will be will be laid to rest at the Battalion 751 Raider command headquarters, before being flied home to his hometown in Makassar.
Deputy Chief of Cenderawasih XVII Regional Military Command Lt. Col. Inf. Dax Sianturi said that Nasaruddin, who was a member of the Yonif 751 Reider, died during a gun attack on Monday, January 28. He was on duty securing the Mapnduma airport.
Meanwhile, his partner Private Muhamad Rivai, who was hit by a bullet ricochet, is still being treated at the Timika Regional Hospital.
The two members of Battalion 751 were attacked while securing the Mapnduma airport before the arrival of Nduga Regent Yarius Gwijangge, who came bringing logistics assistance. Shortly before the plane landed, security forces were shot at from a height, followed by gun contact.
When Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi delivered her traditional annual foreign policy review recently, she made a point of referring to last month’s separatist slaughter of 19 construction workers in rebellious Papua. ‘Indonesia’, she declared, ‘will not back down, not even an inch, when it comes to its sovereignty.’
What struck observers, however, was her failure to make the same point about the South China Sea now that President Joko Widodo has followed through on a two-year-old pledge to strengthen the country’s military presence on Natuna Besar, the largest of 272 small islands on the southern fringe of the disputed waters.
The closest land mass to an increasingly assertive China, the 1,720-square-kilometre island is being equipped with a sophisticated surface-to-air missile system, elements of a marine battalion and significantly upgraded air and naval bases.
Marsudi’s focus was interesting, given that the government has sought to keep Papua off the international agenda while trying to convince Melanesian nations in the southwest Pacific that Indonesia is treating the Papuans fairly.
Certainly, it reflected the shock that rolled through the security community over the 1 December massacre, believed to be the worst single case of bloodletting since the Free Papua Movement (OPM) launched a stuttering insurgency in the late 1960s.
But Marsudi’s failure to make more than a passing reference to the South China Sea was surprising—particularly when China now insists that it has a claim to so-called ‘traditional fishing grounds’ inside Indonesia’s 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
Traditional fishing grounds are not recognised in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea; but traditional fishing rights are, and they have already been the subject of successful bilateral negotiations between Indonesia and two of its neighbours, Australia and Malaysia.
When Jakarta produced an updated national map in 2017 renaming the EEZ north of the Natuna Islands as the North Natuna Sea, the Chinese Foreign Ministry dispatched a formal letter declaring that the two countries have overlapping maritime claims.
Changing the name, it said, had only complicated the dispute and threatened peace and security in the region—despite the fact that Indonesia is not a claimant to the Spratly Islands and doesn’t recognise any boundary issue with China.
After years of prevaricating, it was the first time Beijing had suggested that its claimed nine-dash line of historical sovereignty, which envelops most of the South China Sea and has no basis in maritime law, actually infringes on Indonesian waters.
The signs had been there for some time. After several incidents in the previous three years, tension escalated in March 2016 when the Chinese coastguard seized back a fishing boat detained in what it said was traditional fishing grounds.
What angered Indonesian officials is that two heavily armed Chinese coastguard vessels penetrated the country’s 12-nautical-mile territorial limit to force the return of the trawler, which had been caught by a fisheries protection craft deep inside the EEZ.
Two other Chinese fishing boats were intercepted in May and June 2016, but as far as is known there have been no further cases since then, an indication that Beijing may have decided to approach Indonesia differently from some of its smaller neighbours—at least for now.
That cuts little ice with feisty Indonesian Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti, who continues to accuse China of committing transnational crime by paying off Indonesian fishing boats to offload their catches onto Chinese motherships positioned just outside the EEZ.
Chinese fisheries suffered a setback late in 2014 when Pudjiastuti banned foreign fishing boats from Indonesian waters, saying they and their Indonesian partners had breached the terms of their joint venture agreements and cost the country billions of dollars in lost revenue.
Foreign policy has never been a Widodo strong suit, but his pledge to beef up Indonesia’s northern defences remains one of the centrepieces of his government’s determination to protect natural resources and to grow Indonesia as a maritime power.
Analysts believe the Indonesian Armed Forces (TNI) will deploy Norway’s advanced Kongsberg medium-range missile system (NASAMS) to the Natunas, providing an air defence umbrella covering more than 100 square kilometres.
The newly acquired weapon is based on Raytheon’s advanced medium-range air-to-air missile, or AMRAAM, which the US approved for sale to Indonesia in 2016 when its air force took delivery of an additional 24 refurbished F-16 fighters to boost its front-line air defences.
Natuna Besar may also become the base for some of the eight new AH-64E Apache attack helicopters which were sold to Indonesia on the strength of their perceived role in safeguarding the free flow of shipping through the Malacca and Sunda straits.
The government plans to lengthen the island’s 2,500-metre runway and to build more hangars and improved refuelling facilities, ready perhaps for the proposed purchase of C-130J Super Hercules cargo planes that can be configured for prolonged maritime patrols.
The air force is also likely to deploy unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to the island to expand its reconnaissance abilities over the East Natuna gas-field and the busy shipping lanes that cross the northern approaches to the Java Sea.
Indonesia is believed to be reconsidering its decision to buy four Wing Loong UAVs from the Aviation Industry Corporation of China for its squadron in Pontianak, West Kalimantan, 460 kilometres southeast of Natuna Besar. Instead, it has been looking at Turkish Aerospace Industries’ Anka drones, which can remain in the air for up to 24 hours and have already proved themselves in surveillance and armed reconnaissance missions over Syria.
The Indonesian Navy has taken over most of the patrols in the North Natuna Sea since the rash of incidents in 2016, but analysts say it will take several years for Natuna Besar to evolve into a fully fledged base with the necessary fuel stockpiles to improve the range of effectiveness of navy operations.
John McBeth is a Jakarta-based correspondent. Image courtesy of stratman² on Flickr.
Last November, the head of the Awyu ethnic group in Boven Digoel Regency, Egidius Pius Suam, sent a letter to Indonesian President Joko Widodo, with copies also sent to several ministries, the Governor of Papua Province, Boven Digoel’s Bupati and leaders of civil society organisations in Papua and Jakarta. The letter detailed the Awyu indigenous people’s oppostion and grievances against seven large-scale plantation companies that have been trying to set up on the Awyu’s traditional lands.
The letter was also signed by five clan chiefs, the heads of Metto, Hobinanggo, Ujung Kia, Kapogu villages and of Ki sub-district and the head of the LMA Boven Digoel, along with the support of three other heads of ethnic groups in Boven Digoel: Wambon, Kombai and Korowai.
The seven companies referred to in the letter are: (1) PT Perkebunan Boven Digoel Sejahtera (with a concession of 39,440 hectares); (2) PT Perkebunan Boven Digoel Abadi (37,010 hectares; (3) PT Boven Digoel Budidaya Sentosa (39,190 hectares); (4) PT Perkebunan Sawit Kifofi 19,940 hectares); (5) PT Perkebunan Dugu Fofi (38,160 hectares); (6) PT Perkebunan Papua Sentosa (38,725 hectares); and (7) PT Indo Asiana Lestari (38,525 hectares).
The companies’ concessions cover part of several administrative sub-districts: Subur, Ki, Jair, Mandobo and Fofi, all in Boven Digoel, Papua Province. The total amount of forest under threat of being handed to these oil palm plantation companies is 250,990 hectares.
The reason these community leaders are opposing the company is because of the threat it poses to their land and culture; they risk losing sites where they carry out cultural rituals and obtain customary artefacts as well as their food sources and sources of livelihood, as well as the loss of biodiversity, damage to the environment and social conflict.
“We are asking the Indonesian President to cancel and revoke the companies’ permits, and put a stop to the process of allowing oil palm plantation companies to operate in forested areas on the land of the Awyu indigenous people, based on a consideration of Law 29/2009 concerning the environment, Constitutional Court Decision No 35/PUU-X/2012, Presidential Instruction 8/2018 concerning a moratorium and re-evaluation of permits for palm oil plantations, and the rights of the Awyu indigenous people.”, asked Egedius Pius Suam in his letter.
However, the community has still not received any meaningful replies to the letters they sent. In the meantime, the company has kept up its attempts to influence members of the community to accede to its plans.
“According to our research the majority of these concessions are located in the area where plantation companies owned by the Menara Group obtained plantation business licences in 2011 and then got permits to release state forest land from the Forestry Minister in 2012. However, those companies did not make optimal use of the land and were then sold to new owners based in Malaysia: Tadmax Resources Bhd and the Pacific Inter-link Group”, explained Franky Samperante from the Pusaka Foundation.
The government of Boven Digoel Regency and the Investment Agency and One-stop Permit Centre, revoked location permits for [some of the] Menara Group companies in 2015, and [some of their] Plantation Business Licences in 2018. However, the local government just handed out new permits for the same land to the companies mentioned above.
The practice of companies buying and selling land from each other, and the government issuing permits to new companies, has all taken place without a process of consultation and collective decision making to obtain the consent of local indigenous people who hold rights in the area. This goes contrary to principles laid down in law and business norms which are supposed to respect the rights of indigenous people, including through the principle of Free Prior Informed Consent).
“Currently the Awyu indigenous people have not been able to obtain any information or permit documents, including copies of Environmental Impact Assessments and agreements that have been made by the Menara Group”, explained Father Anselmus Amo, MSC, leader of the Justice and Peace Secretariat for Merauke’s Catholic Diocese.
We have found that in this case, both local and central government have shown negligence from the outset and there have been a string of violations of regulations concerning the issuance of location permits, plantation business licences, environmental permits and forest release permits. This includes issuing location permits and forest release which exceeds the maximum permitted area: Agrarian Ministry / National Land Agency regulation 5/2015 states that location permits can only be issued for 20,000 hectares in a single province or 100,000 hectares in the whole of Indonesia; Agriculture Ministry Regulation 98/2013 states a maximum of 100,000 hectares of Plantation Business Licence should be given to a single company or corporate group; and Environment and Forestry Ministry Regulation P.51/2016 states that the area of forest estate released to a single company or corporate group should be no more than 60,000 hectares and should be issued in stages, no more than 20,000 hectares at one time.
“According to Environment and Forestry Ministry LHK P.51 Tahun 2016, it is forbidden to transfer the ownership of conversion production forest which has formerly been released to a different party and start work in that forest, because the new licencee will not have met the obligations. The way government issues permits and the ways companies transfer them is agaist the law. This case shows just how poor the governance of forest and other land in Papua is”, explained Aiesh Rumbekwan, the Executive Director of Walhi Papua.
Because of this, the Pusaka Foundation, Walhi Papua and the Justice and Peace Secretariat of Merauke Catholic Diocese urge the central and local government to swiftly implement the Oil Palm Moratorium legislated for in Presidential Instruction 8/2018, by taking proactive and transparent steps to stop the companies mentioned above from working and undertake an evaluation, revoking the permits of companies which violate communities’ rights and come into conflict with the law.
2) Indonesian military to complete Trans-Papua Highway
6:26 am today
Officials working on a troubled road project in Papua say Indonesia's military will complete the job this year.
In December, at least 16 Indonesians working on the Trans-Papua Highway in Nduga province were massacred by fighters from the West Papua Liberation Army.
The project was put on hold with the military saying it would take over work on the 4000 kilometre highway.
Combat engineers will reportedly carry out the construction, with hundreds of extra security personnel deployed to the area.
Detik News reports a military battalion has been assigned to the building of the project's remaining 16 bridges.
Indonesian army engineers had already been working on the Trans-Papua Highway project for a number of years.
Military involvement in the project was cited by the Liberation Army as a central reason for killing the road workers, who were suspected of being soldiers.
Indonesia to let UN workers into West Papua as violence continues
Helen Davidson, @heldavidson Email
Wed 30 Jan 2019 13.12 AEDT
A man with his forehead painted with the separatist flag of West Papua banned by Indonesia. Photograph: Trisnadi/AP
UNHCHR wants access after Indonesian military crackdown in response to guerrilla attack
Indonesia has agreed in principle to allow the UN office of the human rights commissioner into West Papua amid continuing violence in the region.
The long-running low-level insurgency violently escalated late last year, after West Papuan guerrillas attacked a construction site in Nduga, killing at least 17 people they claimed were Indonesian military but who Jakarta insists were civilian workers.
In response Indonesia launched a military crackdown in the region, leading to a number of deaths and thousands of people allegedly being displaced after they fled into the jungle.
The office of the high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, told the Guardian she had been engaging with Indonesian authorities on the issue of West Papua and “the prevailing human rights situation” and had requested access to the area.
“Indonesia has in-principle agreed to grant the office access to Papua and we are waiting for confirmation of the arrangements,” said a spokeswoman, Ravina Shamdasandi.
West Papuan leaders were informed of the development at a Geneva meeting between the commissioner and Vanuatu representatives on Friday, during which the exiled West Papuan leader Benny Wenda handed over a petition signed by 1.8 million of his people.
The UN spokeswoman said the meeting had not been arranged for the purpose of receiving the petition but was in the context of Vanuatu’s universal periodic review session before the UN human rights council.
The petition, smuggled out of the region in 2017, calls for a UN investigation into allegations of human rights abuses and for an internationally supervised vote on independence.
“In 2017 nearly 2 million of you risked arrest, torture and assassination to raise your voices through this historical petition,” Wenda said after the meeting.
“Today, with official state-level support from the Vanuatu government, we, the people of West Papua, have presented it to the UN high commissioner for human rights. We are working day and night to approach the UN general assembly in New York.”
The petition was banned in West Papua and blocked online at the time activists collected signatures. Papers were “smuggled from one end of Papua to the other”, Wenda told the Guardian at the time.
In September 2017 Wenda sought to deliver the petition to the UN’s decolonisation committee but was rebuffed, with the committee saying West Papua was outside its mandate.
The committee’s chair, Rafael Ramírez, said at the time the mandate extended only to the 17 states identified by the UN as “non self-governing territories”.
West Papua was removed from the list in 1963 when it was annexed by Indonesia, an act many Papuans consider to be illegal and which was the start of a long-running separatist insurgency.
The petition included new requests for UN investigations into the violence in Nduga, including allegations that Indonesian forces used chemical weaponsagainst civilians – a charge Indonesia denies.
Billy Wibisono, the first secretary of political affairs at Indonesia’s embassy in Canberra, said the allegations were baseless, “misleading and false news”.
“Armed separatists in Papua have conducted heinous crimes including murder of innocent civilians,” he said in a letter to the Saturday Paper, which published the allegations.
“As a compliant member of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Indonesia possesses no chemical agents as listed in schedule 1 of the Chemical Weapons Convention; while the schedules 2 and 3 chemical agents are used for strictly peaceful purposes. Such have been confirmed by 19 OPCW inspections since 2004. Hence, no Indonesian apparatus has ever been in possession or utilised any chemical weapons.”
On Monday an Indonesian military spokesman, Muhammad Aidi, said one soldier was dead after separatists in Nduga opened fire on an aircraft.
Aidi said another soldier had been injured in the attack on the light plane, which had just taken off from Kenyam airport, carrying military personnel and local government members including the chief of Nduga district.
Amid the crackdown, which followed mass arrests of pro-independence protesters in early December, Indonesian authorities have also raided and destroyed a number of headquarters of the domestic movement, the West Papua National Committee.
At least three people – including the activist Yanto Awerkion, who was imprisoned for his involvement with the petition – are facing “rebellion” charges after holding a prayer meeting they had notified authorities about.
The Indonesian government has been contacted for comment.
1) Indonesian Government Considering further Military Involvement in Papua
30 JANUARY 2019Jarryd de Haan, Research Analyst, Indian Ocean Research Programme
Armed rebels in the Indonesian province of Papua were involved in a gunfight on 28 January with the Indonesian Military (TNI) at an airstrip at Mapenduma in the Nduga Regency. A Chief Private of the TNI was killed and two soldiers were injured. In response to the incident, Chief of Presidential Staff and former Commander of the TNI, Moeldoko, told media that the government will reassess the current approach to Papua, possibly hinting at greater involvement of the TNI. The incident follows a recent flare-up in tensions with the arrest of hundreds of Papuans and reports of 19 to 31 victims, most believed to be construction workers, killed by a group of armed separatists, as covered in a previous Strategic Weekly Analysis. Indonesian police and military also recently took overWest Papua National Committee headquarters in Timika, Mimika Baru district, Papua, removing insignia and banning its use for all Papuans.
Comment
Following the recent gunfight, Moeldoko told media (in Bahasa Indonesia) that the government needs to re-assess how it categorises separatists in Papua. According to Moeldoko, the government categorises the recent assailants as armed criminal groups (kelompok kriminal bersenjata – KKB) putting them primarily under the jurisdiction of the Indonesian National Police (POLRI) and making it difficult for the TNI to get involved. Moeldoko instead suggests that the government categorise the perpetrators as separatists, arguing that the TNI would then need to be involved more strongly to ‘crush the groups’.
There is a strong history of violence that stems from independence movements within Papua and West Papua and the Indonesian government’s efforts to suppress those movements have often been associated with human rights abuses. Currently, both Papua and West Papua have been granted special autonomy status, which gives increased powers to local governments, but there are still elements that seeking complete independence. On 25 January 2019, a petition signed by 1.8 million West Papuans was delivered to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights seeking a referendum on independence.
Increasing the involvement of the TNI in the Papuan and West Papuan provinces will draw strong opposition from world leaders fearing escalating tensions and possible human rights abuses in the region. Currently, the TNI is allegedly limited to hunting down armed groups in Papua that have already carried out acts of hostility, while the police are freer to carry out security operations. Looking deeper, however, the TNI maintains a strong background role in security operations and, with twice as many personnel and vast intelligence networks, perhaps has more influence than POLRI through those operations.[1] Granting further jurisdiction to the TNI, therefore, may not bring any drastic changes to current security operations within Papua other than allowing the TNI to be the face of the operations. What it may change, however, is a more open military presence that could be used to intimidate and threaten separatist groups. That course of action, however, will likely only antagonise those groups and perhaps deepen discontent among the public.
That raises questions as to why Moeldoko argued that the TNI should play a stronger role, and whether or not the Indonesian government will genuinely look into it as a possible option. It is worthwhile noting that similar comments (in Bahasa Indonesia) were made by the Indonesian Minister of Defence, Ryamizard Ryacudu, on 4 December 2018. That suggests that there could be ongoing discussions on the TNI’s role within the military circles of the current government. The recent comments, therefore, likely have their roots in the TNI’s ongoing struggle to regain the influence it lost as Indonesia transitioned into the democratic era.
Granting further powers to the TNI is not out of character for the current government headed by Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, who allegedly maintains a close relationship with TNI Commander Hadi Tjahjanto. On 13 May 2018, Jokowi revived Koopsusgab, an anti-terror unit led by the TNI while there was already a well-established anti-terror unit headed by POLRI. The pressure to raise the military presence in Papua will likely continue to grow, especially if the frequency of attacks on TNI and POLRI personnel increases.
[1] Antonius Made Tony Supriatma, ‘TNI/Polri in West Papua: How Security Reforms Work in the Conflict Regions’, Indonesia, no. 95 (April 2013), pp. 93-124.
Any opinions or views expressed in this paper are those of the individual author, unless stated to be those of Future Directions International.
Published by Future Directions International Pty Ltd.
2) Why nearly 2 million people are demanding an independence vote for West Papua province
By Tasha Wibawa Posted about 8 hours ago
Earlier this week, a petition signed by more than 1.8 million people calling for an independence referendum in Indonesia's West Papua province was delivered to United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet.
Benny Wenda, chairman of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), said he hoped the UN would send a fact-finding mission to the province to substantiate allegations of human rights violations.
"Today is a historic day for me and for my people," Mr Wenda said after the meeting in Geneva.
Local media reported Indonesia's Minister for Defence, Ryamizard Ryacudu, told Parliament: "[They're] not allowed independence. Full stop."
The embattled Indonesian province has had a decades-long independence struggle, with its identity torn between several conflicting stakeholders.
Here's a look at where West Papua is, the problems it faces, and how things might turn out in the future.
West Papua and Papua New Guinea … what's the difference?
West Papua and Papua, often referred to collectively as West Papua, are the easternmost provinces of Indonesia and their acquisition has been the cause of controversy for more than 60 years.
West Papua shares its borders and cultural ethnicity with Papua New Guinea, but while PNG was colonised by the British, prior to German and Australian administration,
West Papua was colonised by the Dutch, setting it on a different course.
According to the Indonesian Centre of Statistics and the World Bank, West Papua's regional GDP per capita is significantly higher than the national average, mainly due to mining.
However, it is also the most impoverished region in the country with the highest mortality rates in children and expectant mothers, as well as the poorest literacy rates.
Control of West Papua was agreed to be transferred to Indonesia from the Dutch with the assistance of the United States government as a part of a US Cold War strategy to distance Indonesia from Soviet influence in 1962.
The Netherlands and Indonesia signed the New York Agreement, which would place Indonesia under UN Temporary Executive Authority until a referendum that would allow all adult West Papuans to decide on the fate of their independence, called the Act of Free Choice.
But in 1967, the Indonesian government signed a 30-year lease with US gold and copper mining company Freeport-McMoran to start mining in the resource-rich region, prior to the referendum.
Two years later, according to historians, a number of men were handpicked to vote under the monitor of the Indonesian military and voted unanimously to remain under Indonesian rule. It has since been dubbed the "Act of No Choice" by activists.
Indonesia and its representatives at the UN have since repeatedly rejected claims of human rights abuses in the region and demands for another referendum, saying the allegations have been spread by "Papuan separatist movements".
On Monday, the Indonesian military said separatists opened fire on an aircraft carrying military personal and local goverment officials, killing one soldier.
But verifying any information is difficult because of restrictions on press freedom and the remoteness of the location.
In 2015, Indonesian President Joko Widodo announced he would open the region to foreign journalists following decades of media blockades and bureaucratic red tape, but a series of statements by foreign journalists suggests otherwise.
A 2004 report from Yale Law School said the Indonesian government had "acted with necessary intent to … perpetrate genocide against the people of West Papua", a claim the Indonesian government has strongly denied.
Activists have been imprisoned for displaying the West Papuan pro-independence Morning Star flag, and say they face discrimination and are subject to violent attacks for expressions of political views.
There have also been a number of military crackdowns that have been referred to by Human Rights Watch as "high priority" human rights abuse cases.
The number of insurgencies in the region has declined as the Papuan indigenous population halved due to government policies of transmigration.
The late West Papuan academic and activist John Otto Ondawame described the situation as "cultural genocide".
Transmigration refers to the government resettling Indonesians from high-population regions to low-population areas, which was formally ended by Mr Widodo in 2015.
The program was deemed controversial by analysts as it involved permanently moving people from densely populated areas of Java to sparsely population regions such as Papua.
It has been criticised as causing fears of the "Javanisation", or "Islamisation" of Papua, resulting in strengthened separatist movements and violence in the region.
This time, Mr Wenda was accompanying a ni-Vanuatu delegation in Geneva and reportedly presented the document to the UN's human rights wing rather than the decolonisation committee.
Mr Wenda told the ABC he was hopeful the new petition delivered to a different branch of the UN would have an impact.
But the head of the Presidential Palace in Indonesia told local journalists this week, "The UN will respect Indonesia's sovereignty".
In the past, the ULMWP, along with other international activists, have called on the UN to review the 1969 referendum and investigate human rights abuses in the region.
These requests have been repeatedly rejected by the UN and Indonesia has continued its administrative powers over the region.
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Indonesian Government is committed to inviting the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on a visit to Papua to show the actual condition of the region.
“The Indonesian government continues to commit on inviting the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, represented by the Bangkok regional headquarters to visit the region of Papua,” said Ambassador Hasan Kleib in a text message on Wednesday, January 30.
This statement follows news from the OHCHR stating that it still awaits for the official invitation and request to access Papua on a humanitarian observation.
According to Ambassador Hasan Kleib, the official invitation was directly sent to Zeid al Hussein who serves as UN high commissioner who paid a visit to Indonesia last year.
Hasan maintains that the visit is not a question of ‘waiting for an official invitation or requesting access’ but is more of finding the agreed schedule to conduct the visit to Papua.