http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/indonesia-clamps-down-on-reporting-of-west-papua/2006/04/12/1144521396954.html
Indonesia clamps down on reporting of West Papua April 13, 2006 I was last in West Papua in early 2003, reporting on the rise of Islamic militia groups aligned with the Indonesian army on the PNG-West Papua border, the intimidation and attacks on human rights workers by the Indonesian military and the outrage of the West Papuan leaders at the insincerity of the Government in Jakarta in honouring the 2001 autonomy law. In the intervening three years, these issues have remained the main concerns for West Papuans. The only difference is that now the Indonesian authorities have just got better at keeping the information out of the Western media and now the people of West Papua are more desperate to be heard. The Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club confirmed in February that in the previous 18 months not one foreign correspondent had received permission to travel to West Papua. As for visiting journalists, I had direct experience of the new restrictions in May 2003 when I received my temporary press card in Jakarta. Stamped across the front of the card was a very clear "NOT FOR VISITS TO ACEH PAPUA OR MALUKU". That was then introduced as the standard for visiting journalists. In a bizarre twist, the man who authorised my restricted accreditation back then, M. Wahid Supriyadi, is now consul-general for Indonesia in Melbourne and wrote an opinion piece in The Age this week in which he said we are now in an age of global communications, when not a single untoward death in West Papua could possibly go unnoticed in the world's media - an interesting comment from a man given the job of keeping foreign journalists out of West Papua for the past three years. But journalists are only one of many groups and organisations still being kept out of West Papua. The ban has extended to academics, church groups, non-government organisations, human rights monitors and even an ambassadorial level EU delegation last year. Local human rights organisations in West Papua have come under very real and direct threat from the Indonesian military and are restricted in what information they can gather and what they dare report publicly. One of the most chilling interviews I had in West Papua on my last visit was with Johannes Bonay, director of West Papua's only functioning human rights organisation, ELSHAM. He told me how his wife and daughter were seriously wounded on December 28, 2002, when unidentified gunmen ambushed the car in which they were travelling between the border posts of West Papua and Papua New Guinea. The police investigation identified Indonesian military as being present when the shooting occurred. If we analyse the reports by the people and the investigation by the police, we can divine that Kopassus is behind this, Bonay told me at the time. At that time, he was receiving none-too-subtle threats, with recordings of someone being tortured being repeatedly left on his answering machine. He has since left West Papua. It is in this information-poor environment that West Papuan protests against the division of Papua and rejection of the 2001 autonomy law have taken place largely unnoticed by the press in Australia. Last year on August 12, 10,000 people marched for 20 kilometres into the capital Jayapura to protest against what they called the total failure of the autonomy law. This law had as its centerpiece the formation of a Papuan People's Assembly as a representative body for Papuan leaders. But in January 2003, concerned that the proposed assembly would favour independence, Megawati Soekarnoputri had declared a restructuring of the administration of West Papua into three provinces, basically rendering the autonomy law unworkable. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has endorsed this with last month's elections for the new province of West Irian Jaya going ahead to the dismay of local Papuan leaders. Canberra and Jakarta can talk all they like about implementing autonomy, but the people of West Papua have already firmly rejected it. Whether that rejection is reported or not, that is what is driving events on the ground, not, as the Prime Minister implies, the encouragement of supporters of independence in Australia. Maybe Canberra just doesn't know what is happening. As a US State Department official told me in West Papua in 2002, Australian embassy officials in Jakarta showed no interest in events there; they didn't want to be caught out by knowing too much, as they had been in East Timor. The police investigation identified Indonesian military as being present when the shooting occurred. If we analyse the reports by the people and the investigation by the police, we can divine that Kopassus is behind this, Bonay told me at the time. At that time, he was receiving none-too-subtle threats, with recordings of someone being tortured being repeatedly left on his answering machine. He has since left West Papua. It is in this information-poor environment that West Papuan protests against the division of Papua and rejection of the 2001 autonomy law have taken place largely unnoticed by the press in Australia. Last year on August 12, 10,000 people marched for 20 kilometres into the capital Jayapura to protest against what they called the total failure of the autonomy law. This law had as its centerpiece the formation of a Papuan People's Assembly as a representative body for Papuan leaders. But in January 2003, concerned that the proposed assembly would favour independence, Megawati Soekarnoputri had declared a restructuring of the administration of West Papua into three provinces, basically rendering the autonomy law unworkable. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has endorsed this with last month's elections for the new province of West Irian Jaya going ahead to the dismay of local Papuan leaders. Canberra and Jakarta can talk all they like about implementing autonomy, but the people of West Papua have already firmly rejected it. Whether that rejection is reported or not, that is what is driving events on the ground, not, as the Prime Minister implies, the encouragement of supporters of independence in Australia. Maybe Canberra just doesn't know what is happening. As a US State Department official told me in West Papua in 2002, Australian embassy officials in Jakarta showed no interest in events there; they didn't want to be caught out by knowing too much, as they had been in East Timor. John Martinkus is the author of Quarterly Essay 7, Paradise Betrayed: West Papua's Struggle for Independence. -- ---------------------------------------- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter for private users. It has removed 141 spam emails to date. Paying users do not have this message in their emails. Try www.SPAMfighter.com for free now! 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