Joint Press Statement
For Immediate Release
Sydney, 18 November 2004
Center for Peace and Conflict Studies
Sydney University
Uniting Church of Australia
West Papua Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy
Destabilization in West Papua to Affect Leadership
of Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono
"The international community should press military and hardliners in
Indonesia to resolve the West Papuan issue peacefully"
A joint statement by the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, (Sydney
University), the Uniting Church of Australia and the West Papuan Institute
for Human Rights Study and Advocacy (Elsham) has said that evidence points
to Indonesian Army involvement in an incident last Friday that caused one
policeman killed and two government officials badly wounded has the
potential to precipitate widespread bloodshed in Indonesia's contentious
Melanesian province.
The incident arose from the latest in a series of attacks in West Papua's
remote Puncak Jaya regency which have resulted in the deaths of eight
people, including a prominent Papuan pastor.
The military operation in the Mulia area, purportedly against OPM (Free West
Papua) guerrilas has already resulted in up to 5000 highlanders being forced
from their villages and the destruction of homes, food gardens and
livestock. Reports have filtered out of at least fifteen deaths from hunger,
thirteen of which were children, with people eating grass to survive. The
area has been closed by the military.
Friday's attack now threatens an escalation of military repression across
the highlands. It has been revealed that one wounded official, a local
finance administrator, has recently reported extortion by the military of
the regency government of Puncak Jaya . The money extorted, around $250,000
earmarked for development, was used to fund the military operations. A
church leader exposed the extortion earlier this month.
"It is likely that Papuans have been used to carry out this attack by the
army special forces, Kopassus, who have been using local groups in Papua in
the same way they manipulated East Timorese to fight their own people", said
John Rumbiak, International Advocacy Coordinator for Elsham. He warns, "This
is a precursor to civil war."
"The military threatens the administration of President Yudhoyono with a
situation where he must give them the green light for a new military
operation. They have already begun to engineer incidents which will
destabilize his presidency."
Journalists (domestic and international) have been barred from entering West
Papua since shortly after the election of the new President Yudhoyono. The
banning of journalists was a measure taken before the start of the military
offensive in Aceh last year.
Reverend John Barr of the Uniting Church in Australia has called for an
urgent humanitarian assistance mission to be allowed into the Puncak Jaya
area and a halt to the military assault: "Papuan leaders, from civil society
and the churches, are united in their opposition to the use of military
force, which is having such disastrous consequences for the local
communities," he said.
Tom Beanal, a senior member of the Papua Presidium Council, has called for
immediate dialogue and a demilitarization of the Papuan highlands: "The
people must not be provoked into reaction ...there will be an explosion in
Papua if Jakarta does not stop military operations," he said.
Targeted Assassinations
A week after the inauguration of President Yudhoyono, sixteen key West
Papuan leaders, mostly Papua Presidium Council members, were targeted for
assassination. A source close to the President has confirmed that the
killings were to be conducted by members of BIN (Indonesian intelligence)
and a "Black Operations" group. ("Black Operations" consists of hundreds of
ex-Suharto loyalists, military men who, following the fall of Suharto, left
office in possession of automatic weapons). They have been professional and
well-funded instigators of ethnic, political and religious conflicts
throughout Indonesia.
The group is displeased with the election of Yudhoyono as president and his
commitment to resolve the West Papuan issue peacefully.
Dr. Ikrar Nusa Bakti, a well respected Indonesian academic of the
Indonesian Institute of Sciences, has pointed out that ongoing attempts to
divide Papua into three provinces have received strong backing from the TNI
and National Police because of their politicial interest in weakening
"separatist" sentiment. With the split, which would also entail
establishing more military and police bases in the new provinces and
regencies, "separatist rebels" could be more easily controlled, he argued.
The decision made last week by the Indonesian Constitutional Court to
declare the new province of West Irian Jaya legally invalid is only an
apparent setback for the hardline groups because the court failed to order
the dissolution of the new province. Their goal remains to create tension
and conflict in Papua and elsewhere.
President Yudhoyono has advocated dialogue with West Papuans. In his first
weeks in office he held meetings with key Papuan leaders and
parliamentarians seeking peaceful solutions to the four-decade long struggle
in Papua. The strategy favored by the new president includes the early
implementation of Special Autonomy, promised by the Megawati administration
but never implemented.
Yudhoyono indicated the position he takes on the military's role when,
referring last week to the operations in the highlands, he called for care
to be taken to minimize civilian casualties in Papua. "Don't let the people
suffer from excesses during the operation, " the President warned.
Nevertheless, following a troop build-up in Papua over the past two years
there are now more than 25,000 soldiers stationed in the province and they
are a ticking time bomb for the future of the Papuans and the whole Pacific
region as well.
Professor Stuart Rees of Sydney University's Centre for Peace and Conflict
Studies has called on the TNI to refrain from action that will only cause
further alienation and upheaval for the Papuans. "These people have suffered
enough. It's time there was a negotiated and internationally supported
solution ... here is an enormous opportunity for the new Indonesian
administration to promote peace with justice." (END)
Contact:
Prof. Stewart Rees, Director of Center for Peace and Conflict Studies,
Sydney University: Phn. +61-2-93517686; Rev. Dr. John Barr, Chairman for
International Relations of the Uniting Church, Australia: Phn.
+61-(0)408826742; John Rumbiak, Coordinator of International Advocacy of
ELSHAM in Sydney: Phn. +61-(0)424572475
--------------
Sydney Morning Herald/The Age
November 23, 2004
Indonesian army accused of deadly attacks in Papua
By Matthew Moore, Herald Correspondent in Jakarta
Human rights advocates in Australia and Indonesia fear a new military
campaign in Papua province is behind eight recent deaths and has caused up to
5000
people to flee their villages.
Several groups have issued statements in recent days blaming the military for
a series of incidents in Puncak Jaya regency in the Highlands, warning that
the military is likely to step up operations.
A statement, released in Jayapura and signed by human rights groups Elsham
and Kontras, the Legal Aid Foundation and church groups, details a series of
killings and attacks that began on Indonesian Independence Day, August 17.
According to the statement, an army helicopter dropped bombs and shot at
villagers at undisclosed locations on October 17, causing people to flee to the
forests. On October 12 six drivers in Mulia in Puncak Jaya were shot dead in
the
bloodiest attack and a priest was killed on September 14, the statement says.
A police officer was killed on November 12 and two local government officials
were badly wounded while delivering food and medicine in the Mulia district.
Major Ganda Situmorang, a spokesman for the military in Papua, denied the
military was killing innocent people but declined to discuss the specific
allegations. He said some media reports about the spate of incidents had been
"twisted".
He said many people had accused the TNI (army) of carrying out an attack near
Timika in Papau in 2002 in which two American and one Indonesian school
teachers were killed.
He denied 5000 villagers had fled to the forest, a claim supported by a
spokesman for the Papuan provincial government, Fred Menufandu.
Mr Menufandu said he had heard of the alleged attacks, and of the refugees,
but had "not received complete data".
Human rights groups and churches have called on Indonesia's new President,
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to immediately order troops out of Puncak Jaya
regency
to begin a dialogue with Papuans as he has promised.
------------------------------------------
- Transcript: Thousands Displaced After
Papua Raids
Radio Australia
November 8, 2004
[not available until 11/9]
-transcript-
INDONESIA: Thousands Displaced After Papua Raids
In Indonesia, at least three people are dead, and as many as 20,000
may have been displaced, after raids in Puncak Jaya district in Papua
province. Thousands of Papuans who fled the raids, allegedly by
Kopassus Special Forces, are sheltering in the Highlands and badly
in need of food. It's believed at least two people died when villagers
were fired on from a helicopter.
Presenter/Interviewer: Kathy Leverett
Speakers: Pastor Socrates Sofyan Yoman, President of the Fellowship
of Baptist Churches in Papua
LEVERETT: Reports are only now filtering in, of a raid carried out on
October the 17th, in pursuit of members of the Free Papua Movement.
Pastor Socrates Sofyan Yoman, President of the Fellowship of Baptist
Churches in Papua, has just returned from a visit to the town of Mulia.
He says that on the 14th September, the military killed a clergyman there,
the Reverend Eleesa Tabuni.
YOMAN: The Special Forces shoot him, and is killing him. And I have
meeting with the military commander, Kopassus commander, I meet them.
And then I make contact with the local people, and I confirm with them.
LEVERETT: Shortly afterwards, the Pastor says, troops in a helicopter fired
on Papuans who were gathering food in a garden, killing two of them.
The villagers fled and, he says, are now starving, because the military
destroyed their crops.
YOMAN: 22 churches empty now. No people. People run to the mountains.
Now they need food, yeah? Now, they need food.
LEVERETT: The human rights organisation, Elsham, says the operation
was carried out in revenge for the killing in September of a group of road
workers.
According to Elsham, local church members refused to hand over a witness
to the execution of the clergyman.
Members of the Papuan parliament say they'll set up an investigation into
the raids, and the move has been backed by Indonesia's President, Susilo
Bambang Yudhoyono.
Observers say Kopassus Special Forces may be trying to pressure the
President into giving up his plan for special autonomy for Papua.
They say the region provides the military with considerable income, from
sources such as the illegal logging of timber. -end-
----------------------------------
The Jakarta Post
Thursday, November 18, 2004
AIDS Decimating Two Papuan Tribes
Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post/Jayapura
Around 500 locals and religious leaders staged a rally around the Provincial
legislature in Jayapura, the capital of Papua province, protesting the
prolonged supply of liquor and sex workers with HIV/AIDS from other
provinces that
has infected many people in the southern part of the country's easternmost
province.
The demonstrators marched around the building while holding banners reading:
Grill and prosecute security apparatus involved in the Mappi case, The
Indonesian Military is the protector of the people, not the killer of the
people and
AIDS has claimed many lives in Papua.
They said that the fatal disease could infect all Papuan people and
ultimately exterminate backward Papuan tribes, unless concrete measures were
taken to
control the fast spread of the disease.
Corrupt security personnel have been accused of supplying liquor and sex
workers from Java and Sulawesi to locals in Assue in their bid to collect
the
prized wood gaharu (a type of fragrant wood) in the regency. The sex workers
with
HIV/AIDS have contributed to the spread of the fatal disease in the regency.
The Forum of Care for Assue, which organized the mass rally, called on the
government to stop the sale of liquor and gambling and prostitution in Mappi
regency, which has damaged social life over the last 10 years.
So far, 35 people with AIDS have been detected while many more with HIV have
gone undetected because of their isolation in remote areas in the regency.
Rev. Yus Felix Wewengkang, director of Solidarity, Justice and Peace in
Merauke Diocese, warned that the Awyu and Wiyagar tribes inhabiting the
newly
formed regency would be eliminated within five to 10 years because of the
fast
spread of HIV unless concrete measures were immediately taken.
The Mappi issue has attracted the concern of local churches and
non-governmental organizations as the local government has turned a blind
eye to the issue.
"In the 1,900 square-kilometer Assue subdistrict with 15 villages and a
total
population of 9,500, there are 12 bars and entertainment centers offering
many kinds of liquor, sex workers and gambling machines," said Rev.
Wewengkang.
Local activists have blamed the gaharu trade for the inflow of liquor and
sex
workers in the regency.
Hundreds of ships from Java, Sulawesi and Malaysia have come almost every
month since 1995 to the regency to supply gaharu gatherers and to transport
the
high-priced commodity to be supplied to the international market.
Over the last few years, the business has been backed by unauthorized
security personnel who usually offered prostitutes, many of whom have
HIV/AIDS, to
gain support for the business from tribal chiefs and informal leaders in the
regency.
Many people who earn from the sale of gaharu, frequent the entertainment
centers and bars offering prostitutes.
The sex workers who come from Surabaya, Manado, Timika and Agats often go to
villages in remote areas to offer their services to locals and gaharu
gatherers.
Jacobus Yufu, a tribal chief in Assue, lamented the poor condition in his
hometown, saying that gaharu's fame has destroyed traditional values in
Mappi and
trapped local people into illicit sex with the inevitable consequence of the
fast spread of HIV/AIDS in the regency.
He called on the government to prohibit the collection of the precious wood
and the sale of liquor and to close down entertainment centers in the
regency.
People with HIV/AIDS have also been detected in neighboring regencies
Merauke
and Timika, giving the province the highest rank in the spread of the
disease
in the country. According to the recent study, the number of people with
HIV/AIDS in the province has reached more than 15,000.
---------------------------------
Courier-Mail (Queensland)
November 27, 2004
Thousands of Papuans Flee Troops
By Greg Poulgrain
THOUSANDS of people were starving after they were driven from
their villages by Indonesian forces and militia groups, a Papuan
leader claimed yesterday.
Tom Beanal said the number of Papuan refugees now exceeded
15,000 people from 147 villages. Some were forced to hide in caves
in the mountains in the central Puncak Jaya district.
"These people do not have food. People are starving to death. They
need food now," he said.
The death of 15 peoples, mainly children, was reported on Thursday.
There are tent encampments for 2800 troops in several locations
around Tingginambut, 25km from Mulia in Puncak Jaya.
These are blocking off access to Papuans who fled into the forest
in October seeking refuge from machine-gunners in helicopters.
Mr Beanal and other Papuan groups claim that the mid-October
incident which prompted military action was a fabrication.
The feared Kopassus special forces reported that six non-Papuans
were killed in a bullet-ridden burnt-out car but no bodies were seen.
Indonesia has fought a low-level battle against separatist OPM
guerillas since the 1960s. In the past year, the military has faced
allegations that it is using East Timor-style militia groups to stir
up regional hostilities.
Mr Beanal said the axing to death last week of two government officials
and a policeman was the work of militia. When he briefed newly elected
Vice-President Jusuf Kalla in Sulawesi this week, he explained that one
militia comprised 2000 Papuans, mainly from the Dani tribe.
He accused the military of "wanting to turn Papua into another Aceh",
a reference to the western Indonesian province where troops are fighting
a determined independence movement.
In his talks with Mr Kalla, Mr Beanal said the army had undermined
autonomy and was urging President Susilo Bambang Yudhuyono to
establish a new army command of 3000 troops in Puncak Jaya. Mr
Beanal is the acting executive director of the political mass organisation
Papua Presidium Council and has emerged as a leading spokesman
since the assassination three years ago of independence figure
Theys Eluay. ***
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~-->
Make a clean sweep of pop-up ads. Yahoo! Companion Toolbar.
Now with Pop-Up Blocker. Get it for free!
http://us.click.yahoo.com/L5YrjA/eSIIAA/yQLSAA/BRUplB/TM
--------------------------------------------------------------------~->
***************************************************************************
Berdikusi dg Santun & Elegan, dg Semangat Persahabatan. Menuju Indonesia yg
Lebih Baik, in Commonality & Shared Destiny. www.ppi-india.uni.cc
***************************************************************************
__________________________________________________________________________
Mohon Perhatian:
1. Harap tdk. memposting/reply yg menyinggung SARA (kecuali sbg otokritik)
2. Pesan yg akan direply harap dihapus, kecuali yg akan dikomentari.
3. Lihat arsip sebelumnya, www.ppi-india.da.ru;
4. Posting: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
5. Satu email perhari: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
6. No-email/web only: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
7. kembali menerima email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Yahoo! Groups Links
<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ppiindia/
<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
