Terrorism on the rise in Dili. A group of youths believed to be supporters of the Fretilin movement have reportedly resorted to terrrorism here following disappointment over the aborted mission of the Lusitania Expresso ferry last Wednesday. Some unidentified young people pounded on the door of Filomeno de Jesus Hornay, chairman of the student council of the Timor Timur University, after throwing stones at his house.In 2017, on August 2, The Jakarta Post ran a story about the "problem" of being outmaneuvered by campaigners who want to see Papua separate from Indonesia.
This handout picture taken on May 10, 2017 and released by the Indonesian Presidential Palace shows Indonesian President Joko Widodo posing with his motorbike as he embarks with his delegation to get a first hand look at the proposed trans Papua highway, from Wamena in the insurgency-hit region of Papua. (AFP/Indonesian Presidential Palace)
So, what is the problem?
To put it bluntly, the "problem of Papua" is another version of the "problem of Timor" in the 1990's. The invasion, occupation and oppression of East Timor by Indonesia is discussed in the Information Wrap for Maribaya in the article You're NOT Indonesian people!
West Papua - the backstory
The term 'Papua' first appeared in a Malay dictionary made by William Marsden in 1812. Sollewijn Gelpke, a Dutch colonial official conducted a study of the origin of the word 'Papua'. In the Portuguese and Spanish archives the word 'Papua' is a term for residents who inhabit the Raja Ampat Islands and coastal areas of the Bird's Head Peninsula. F. C. Kamma, a missionary and a linguist says 'sup-i-papwah' comes from the Biak language which means 'land under the sunset'. At that time, residents of Biak Island during sunny weather could see a large island located on the west, the island under the sunset.
West Papua is well known for its Raja Ampat Islands, which contain the richest marine biodiversity in the world.
West Papua (and Papua), is, as a region, Western New Guinea, previously known as Irian Jaya from 1973 - 2002, and the Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea. Since the whole island of New Guinea is alternatively named, geographically speaking, as Papua, the region is also called West Papua. Lying to the west of the independent state of Papua New Guinea, it is the only Indonesian territory to be situated in Oceania, a geographic region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia.
There are two Indonesian provinces within this territory, West Papua and Papua. These apparently ordinary administrative names have a significant political edge, connected to the fundamental, and "problematic", issues of regional identity, colonialism and a local form of neo-colonialism being carried out by the Indonesian state.
Province of West Papua
Province of Papua
This state policy is inseparable from the ruthless commercial exploitation of the regions natural resources by a few well connected wealthy individuals and powerful regional business interests.
The "Act of NO Choice."
Following its declaration of independence from the Netherlands in 1945, Indonesia claimed all of the territory of the former Dutch East Indies, including Western New Guinea. However, the region was retained by the Dutch until the mid-1960s, which caused Indonesia to repeatedly launch military operations there.
This was resolved to a limited degree by the New York Agreement, an agreement signed by the Netherlands and Indonesia regarding the administration of the territory of West New Guinea.
The first part of the agreement proposed that the United Nations assume administration of the territory, and a second part proposes a set of social conditions that will be provided if the United Nations exercises a discretion proposed in article 12 of the agreement to allow Indonesian occupation and administration of the territory. Negotiated during meetings hosted by the United States, the agreement was signed on 15 August 1962 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City.
The agreement was added to the agenda of the 1962 United Nations General Assembly and precipitated General Assembly resolution 1752 (XVII) granting the United Nations authority to occupy and administrate West New Guinea. Although agreements are not able to negate obligations defined in the Charter of the United Nations, and the agreement asserted that it was for the benefit of the people of the territory, some people believed that the agreement was sacrificing the people of the territory for benefit of the foreign powers.
A United States Department of State summary from 1962 asserts the "agreement was almost a total victory for Indonesia and a defeat for the Netherlands", that the United States "Bureau of European Affairs was sympathetic to the Dutch view that annexation by Indonesia would simply trade white for brown colonialism", and that "The underlying reason that the Kennedy administration pressed the Netherlands to accept this agreement was that it believed that Cold War considerations of preventing Indonesia from going Communist overrode the Dutch case."
It was therefore agreed in the New York Agreement in 1962 that the administration of Western New Guinea would be temporarily transferred from the Netherlands to Indonesia and that by 1969 the United Nations should oversee a referendum of the Papuan people, in which they would be given two options: to remain part of Indonesia or to become an independent nation.
This vote was referred to as the Act of Free Choice, but has often been criticized and disparagingly referred to as the "Act of No Choice".
The referendum and its conduct had been specified in the New York Agreement; Article 17 of which in part says:
"Indonesia will invite the Secretary-General to appoint a Representative who" ... "will carry out Secretary-General's responsibilities to advise, assist, and participate in arrangements which are the responsibility of Indonesia for the act of free choice. The Secretary-General will, at the proper time, appoint the United Nations Representative in order that he and his staff may assume their duties in the territory one year prior to the self-determination." ... "The United Nations Representative and his staff will have the same freedom of movement as provided for the personnel referred to in Article XVI".The agreement continues with Article 18:
Article XVIII
Indonesia will make arrangements, with the assistance and participation of the United Nations Representative and his staff, to give the people of the territory, the opportunity to exercise freedom of choice. Such arrangements will include:
a. Consultation (musyawarah) with the representative councils on procedures and methods to be followed for ascertaining the freely expressed will of the population.b. The determination of the actual date of the exercise of free choice within the period established by the present Agreement.
c. Formulations of the questions in such a way as to permit the inhabitants to decide (a) whether they wish to remain with Indonesia; or (b) whether they wish to sever ties with Indonesia.
d. The eligibility of all adults, male and female, not foreign nationals to participate in the act of self-determination to be carried out in accordance with international practice, who are resident at the time of the signing of the present Agreement, including those residents who departed after 1945 and who returned to the territory to resume residence after the termination of the Netherlands administration.
Under Article 17 of the New York Agreement, the plebiscite was not to occur until one year after the arrival of U.N. representative Fernando Ortiz-Sanz (the Bolivian ambassador to the United Nations) in the territory on 22 August 1968.
The New York Agreement specified that all men and women in Papua who were not foreign nationals had the right to vote in the Act.
General Sarwo Edhie Wibowo reportedly instead selected 1,025 local men and women out of an estimated population of 800,000 as the Western New Guinea representatives for the vote, which were asked to vote by raising their hands or reading from prepared scripts, in a display for United Nations observers. They voted publicly and unanimously in favour of Indonesian control. The United Nations took note of the results with General Assembly Resolution 2504.
According to Hugh Lunn, a journalist from Reuters, men who were selected for the vote were blackmailed into voting against independence with threats of violence against their persons and their families.
Contemporary diplomatic cables showed American diplomats suspecting that Indonesia could not have won a fair vote, and also suspecting that the vote was not implemented freely, but the diplomats saw the event as a "foregone conclusion" and "marginal to U.S. interests". Ortiz-Sanz wrote in his report that "an act of free choice has taken place in accordance with Indonesian practice”, but not confirming that it was in accordance with international practice as the Act of Free Choice had required.
After the Fall of Suharto in 1998, celebrity Archbishop Desmond Tutu and some American and European parliamentarians requested United Nations Secretary Kofi Annan to review the United Nations' role in the vote and the validity of the Act of Free Choice. There have been calls for the United Nations to conduct its own referendum, with as broad an electorate as critics say the New York Agreement obliged but the Act of Free Choice did not fulfill.
Freeport-McMoRan operates the Grasberg mine, the largest gold mine in the world and the second largest copper mine.
Those calling for a vote also point to the 30 year license which Indonesia sold to the Freeport-McMoRan company for Papuan mining rights in 1967, and to the Indonesian military's response to the East Timor referendum as support to discredit the 1969 Act of Free Choice. The Indonesian Government position is that the United Nations' noting of the results validates the conduct and results.
A new referendum is supported by many international organisations including the Free West Papua Campaign which works with West Papuans to provide all West Papuans with self-determination and full independence from Indonesian rule.
The result of this bogus vote was rejected by West Papuan nationalists, who established the Free Papua Movement (OPM). The independence movement for West Papua has continued, primarily through peaceful protest and international pressure. But the pent up frustration that has built up over the decades has also inspired a resistance movement against the Indonesian administration where guerilla tactics employed occasionally lead to violent confrontations resulting in fatalities.
What's in a name?
"West Papua", since this effective Indonesian "annexation" of the region, has been used by Papuans as a self-identifying term, especially by those demanding self-determination, and usually refers to the whole of the Indonesian portion of New Guinea. The other Indonesian province that shares New Guinea, West Irian Jaya, has been officially renamed as West Papua, or Papua Barat. The entire western New Guinea is often referred to as "West Papua" internationally – especially among networks of international solidarity with the West Papuan independence movement.
The West papuan independence movement - a history
Indigenous Papuans still fight for self-determination, more than 40 years after Indonesia acquired the territory in a sham ballot
Marni Cordell Thu 29 Aug 2013
Indigenous Papuans still fight for self-determination, more than 40 years after Indonesia acquired the territory in a sham ballot
Indonesia officially acquired West Papua in 1969, after a sham ballot on independence in which only a handful of the local population were allowed to vote.
The region, which makes up the western part of the island of New Guinea to Australia's north, was once a Dutch colony, but the Netherlands began to prepare for withdrawal in the 1950s.
In 1961, West Papuans held a congress to discuss independence and raised the West Papuan "morning star" flag. But a newly independent Republic of Indonesia began to assert its claim over the province and a conflict broke out between Indonesia, the Netherlands and the indigenous population.
In 1962, a United Nations-sponsored treaty known as the New York agreement was drawn up to put an end to this territorial battle, and Indonesia was appointed temporary administrator of West Papua from May 1963 – without West Papuan consultation or consent. A key requirement of the treaty was that all West Papuans be allowed to vote in a referendum on independence, which was to be overseen by the UN.
But when the ballot was held in 1969, it was far from free and fair: the Indonesian military handpicked 1,026 leaders to vote on behalf of the entire population, and threatened to kill them and their families if they voted the wrong way. In this environment, the outcome of the so-called "Act of Free Choice" was unanimous – and Indonesia's takeover of West Papua was rubber-stamped by the UN.
Almost all indigenous Papuans reject the referendum, dubbing it the "act of no choice", and many continue to demand a real vote on self-determination to this day. This history forms the basis for West Papuans' call for independence – but it is not just historical injustice that fuels the movement today. Indigenous West Papuans face daily surveillance and intimidation by the Indonesian military and police, and many report living in constant fear. Thousands have been killed, detained and tortured since 1963.
Those who agitate for independence openly do so at a high personal cost. It is illegal to raise the morning star flag and many of the province's leaders are sitting out long jail terms for peaceful acts of defiance. The region has an armed movement for independence that has been responsible for the deaths of Indonesian security personnel and actively engages in armed skirmishes, but there is a much larger civil movement that is also heavily suppressed.
In October 2011, the Third Papuan People's Congress, a civilian gathering that addressed issues of self-governance, was violently quashed by Indonesian forces. Six people were killed and dozens more injured.
Indonesia guards its "territorial integrity" jealously. And it's no surprise – the massive Freeport McMoran gold and copper mine in West Papua is one of the country's largest taxpayers.
For its part, Indonesia argues that since West Papua was once a part of the Dutch East Indies, it should also be part of today's independent Indonesian Republic. Both major Australian political parties support them in this stance. Indonesia is seen as an important political ally for Australia, and politicians from both sides are loth to antagonise their Indonesian counterparts. Australia maintains close ties with the Indonesian military. It also provides training and funding for its counter-terror police unit, Detachment 88, which has been involved in recent crackdowns on the independence movement.
But Australia is home to a significant West Papuan community and a large network of supporters of West Papuan independence. The West Papuan Freedom Flotilla is the latest in a long history of co-operation between activists from the two countries.
Freedom Flotilla
Currently in West Papua military repression has intensified with the proclamation of the Federated Republic of West Papua, increasing mass mobilisations organised by the West Papuan National Committee (KNPB), and the escalating resistance to foreign rule by West Papuan society as a whole. The targeting of human and environmental rights groups has intensified since KNPB leader Mako Tabuni was assassinated in June 2012. Australian Government funded and trained military have been responsible for such illegal killings and torture of West Papuans, who are simply expressing their right to self-determination.
Land and Sea Convoy from United Struggle on Vimeo.
The time has come to take international action, to take responsibility for our complicity in these injustices, and recognize the humanity we share is more important than the military and economic interests of our governments and corporations. The Freedom Flotilla to West Papua will break down the borders imposed by colonisation and capitalism and reunite two peoples separated by the sea.
Today The Freedom Flotilla West Papua has chosen to respond to the joint US and Australian 'war games' with a direct action on the high seas, drawing attention to the West Papuan struggle for independence against the cruel Indonesian occupation.
The Flotilla are focusing on the US and Australia's engagement in enabling and supporting this occupation, which dates back to the flawed 1961 U.N. facilitated takeover of West Papua. Both US and Australian ongoing financial and
Military support has continued to the present day as have the subsequent widely reported killings and human rights violations in West Papua by Indoensian forces.
West Papua has been under Indonesian military occupation since the 1969 vote when Indonesia handpicked 1025 West Papuans who were forced to vote at Indonesian gunpoint. Since, West Papua has suffered a widely reported genocide with now over 500,000 Papuan citizens killed, raped and tortured. Flotilla initiator, Arabunna Elder Kevin Buzzacott, says that "We can no longer have this murder on our doorstep"
''Australia and the U.S. are complicit in the genocide happening in West Papua. The blood of west Papua is on your hands'' Izzy Brown – Freedom Flotilla West Papua
The 2014 U.S Department of State report on Human rights released recently highlighted Indonesian forces continued human rights abuses in West Papua. http://www.state.gov/…/r…/hrrpt/human... This report revealed systematic cover ups of torture and killings.
Freeport mine is also renowned for complicity and systematic human rights abuses by security forces employed by Freeport including surveillance, mental torture, death threats and house arrest. Freeport’s operations in West Papua have caused severe degradation to the Amungme people's environment and habitat, contributing to the ongoing cultural genocide throughtout West Papua.
The Australian government reduced foreign aid to Indonesia this year but funding, including Indonesian police training and assistance have remained to secure fragile relations between the nations. Indonesian forces are guilty of gross human rights violations and Australia has to stop funding and feeding the fear and brutal killings.
West Papuan people are struggling for freedom. Many Papuans are struggling for their lives. They have asked for our help. We helped the Timorese in their time of need.
The people of West Papua also deserve our support.
Contact Freedom Flotilla to West Papua freedomflotillamedia@gmail.com
Papua - open to the world?
Human Rights Watch drew attention to Indonesia's restrictions on media freedom and rights monitoring in Papua in a 2015 report called Something to Hide?
This is the Report Summary:
Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo—popularly known as Jokowi—announced on May 10, 2015, that the government would immediately lift longstanding access restrictions on accredited foreign journalists seeking to report from the provinces of Papua and West Papua (referred to as “Papua” in the rest of this report). The president’s announcement sparked optimism that Indonesia would soon end its decades-long restrictions not only on foreign reporters, but also on UN officials, representatives of international aid groups, and others seeking to work in Papua.
The access restrictions—fueled by government suspicion about the motivations of foreign nationals in a region troubled by widespread public dissatisfaction with Jakarta and a small but persistent pro-independence insurgency—have limited in-depth reporting on Papua, have done little to prevent negative portrayals of Jakarta’s role there, and continue to be a lightning rod for Indonesia’s critics.
To date, however, President Jokowi’s welcome announcement has produced almost as much confusion as clarity. This report—based on interviews with 107 journalists, editors, publishers, NGO representatives, and academics—traces the history of access restrictions in Papua and developments since the president’s announcement. It shows that access restrictions are deeply ingrained, that parts of the government are strongly resisting change, and that a genuine opening of the provinces will require more sustained and rigorous follow-through by the Jokowi administration.
For at least 25 years and likely much longer, foreign correspondents wanting to report from Papua have had to apply for access through an interagency “clearing house,” supervised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and involving 18 working units from 12 different ministries, including the National Police and the State Intelligence Agency. The clearing house has served as a strict gatekeeper, often denying applications outright or simply failing to approve them, placing journalists in a bureaucratic limbo. In some periods, the process operated as a de facto ban on foreign media in Papua. While the government appears to have eased its restrictions over the past decade, the process for foreign correspondents to acquire official permission to travel to Papua has remained opaque and unpredictable at best.
Bobby Anderson, a social development specialist and researcher who worked in Papua from 2010 to 2015, described the government’s clearing house screening of foreign media access to Papua as “illogical and counterproductive.” He told us:
The clearing house system of consensus voting means any one person has veto power, which generally means that the opinion of the most paranoid person in the meeting carries the day. These restrictions fuel all manner of speculation about Papua: the notion that the Indonesian government has “something to hide” finds purchase. But the Indonesian government finds itself in the illogical position where they hear of inflammatory reporting and this actually makes them impose restrictions, and then those restrictions prevent good journalists from writing of the complexities of the place.President Jokowi’s May 10 announcement, while greeted by acclaim in some quarters, produced backlash in others. And it was not followed with an official presidential instruction, allowing room for non-compliance by government agencies and security forces opposed to the change. Various senior officials have since publicly contradicted the president’s statement. Even the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which said it had “liquidated” the clearing house, said that prior police permission is required for access to Papua and that foreign journalists should inform the ministry of likely sources and schedules.
Other parts of the government have pushed back more strongly. On August 26, 2015 Indonesia’s Ministry of Home Affairs announced a new, even more restrictive regulation that would have required foreign journalists to get permission from local authorities as well as the State Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Negara) (BIN) before reporting anywhere in the country. President Jokowi revoked the rule the following day and Minister of Home Affairs Tjahjo Kumolo subsequently apologized to the president for the “confusion” created by the now-canceled regulation. But the willingness of some senior officials to even consider such measures is an alarming indicator of the disregard for media freedom among some elements of Jokowi’s government.
The problem is not only limited to the barriers that keep foreign journalists out of Papua, but also extends to the conditions facing those who get in, including surveillance, harassment, and at times, arbitrary arrest by Indonesian security forces. This is particularly true of journalists seeking to report on Papuan social or political grievances or on the practices of the military, police, and intelligence agencies.
While there are no comparable access restrictions for Indonesian journalists in Papua, they too—particularly ethnic Papuan journalists—face serious obstacles to reporting freely on developments in Papua. Reporting on corruption and land grabs can be dangerous anywhere in Indonesia, but national and local journalists we spoke with say that those dangers are magnified in Papua and that, in addition, journalists there face harassment, intimidation, and at times even violence from officials, members of the public, and pro-independence forces when they report on sensitive political topics and human rights abuses. Journalists in Papua say they routinely self-censor to avoid reprisals for their reporting. That environment of fear and distrust is magnified by the security forces’ longstanding and documented practice of paying journalists to be informers and even deploying agents to work undercover as Indonesian journalists. These practices are carried out both to minimize negative coverage and to encourage positive reporting about the political situation.
In addition to the obstacles facing journalists, staff members of international nongovernmental organizations, academics, and some foreign observers have been denied access to Papua. The security forces closely monitor the activities of international groups that the government permits to operate in Papua—those that seek to address human rights concerns get particular scrutiny. Government documents leaked in 2011 revealed that the government and security forces routinely consider foreigners in Papua to be assisting the armed separatist Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka or OPM) through funding, moral support, and the documentation of poor living conditions and human rights abuses.
International NGOs that the government asserts are involved in “political activities” have been forced to cease operations, their representatives banned from travel to the region. Over the past six years, the Indonesian government has barred on-the-ground operations in Papua of organizations including the International Committee for the Red Cross and the Dutch development group Cordaid. Peace Brigades International (PBI), an international organization that promotes nonviolence and human rights protection in conflict areas, ceased its operations in Papua in 2011 due to what it described as unremitting government surveillance, harassment, and intimidation of its staff and volunteers. As a former Papua-based PBI representative told the story: “PBI staff were refused permission to work as the police and intelligence services launched an official investigation into the organization’s status. National Indonesian staff started to receive threatening phone calls.”
Government restrictions on foreigners have extended to United Nations officials and academics Indonesian authorities perceive as hostile. In 2013 the government rejected the proposed visit of Frank La Rue, then the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, because he insisted on including Papua on his itinerary. Foreign academics who do get permission to visit the region have been subjected to surveillance by the security forces. Those perceived to have pro-independence sympathies have been placed on visa blacklists.
The Indonesian government has legitimate security concerns in Papua stemming from periodic attacks, mainly targeting police and security forces, by OPM fighters. However, the threat from an insurgency does not provide a legal justification for the broad-brush and indefinite restrictions on freedoms of expression, association, and movement that the Indonesian government has long imposed on Papua. Any such restrictions, including those on non-nationals, must be based in law, narrowly construed in application and time to address a particular government concern, and proportionate to achieving a specific aim.
Past restrictions have far exceeded what is permissible under Indonesia’s international law obligations. The government should promptly and officially end its restrictions on travel to Papua by foreign media outlets and nongovernmental organizations, and take all necessary steps to ensure that Indonesians and foreign nationals alike who go to Papua are not subjected to threats, harassment, arbitrary arrests, and other abuses.
Removing access restrictions alone, of course, will not resolve the underlying political tensions and conflict in Papua or dispel the suspicions of Indonesian officials, but it is an essential step toward broader respect for rights: shining a light on Papua, not keeping it hidden from view, is the best way to ensure the region has a rights-respecting future.
Indonesia accused of arresting more than 1,000 in West Papua
Oliver Holmes South-east Asia correspondent Fri 17 Jun 2016
Indonesian police have been accused of arresting more than 1,000 people at rallies in West Papua demanding an independence referendum.
Part of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province on New Guinea island, West Papua is ethnically distinct from the rest of the country and was annexed by Indonesia in 1969. Many Papuans consider the takeover to have been an illegal land grab.
This EDITORIAL in The Jakarta Post offered good advice to the Indonesian government:
The campaign for an independent Papua has been relentless and has made significant gains in past years. In January this year, the Free West Papua Campaign launched with great fanfare a global petition demanding an internationally supervised referendum for the region.
The petition will remain open until August this year and once it closes will be carried by a team of swimmers across Lake Geneva to be personally handed to the secretary-general of the United Nations, António Guterres. The campaign itself appears to have been designed by a techsavvy public relations team who also posted a YouTube video featuring pro-independence activist Benny Wenda calling for viewers to join the campaign.
The publicity stunt is a follow-up to the progress the movement has made in recent months. Last year, Free Papua activists managed to enlist an impressive cast of characters to support their cause, ranging from figures like Tongan Prime Minister Akilisi Pōhiva, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson.
The PR campaign followed what could be deemed as a coup for the independent Papua movement. In September last year, seven Pacific island nations raised the issue of human rights abuses in Papua to the UN General Assembly. Anecdotal observations have also shown evidence that the campaign to promote an independent Papua has gained steam in Australia and New Zealand. A senior Indonesian diplomat told of his experience of being confronted by a Pacific island student who was campaigning for a free Papua during a graduation event.
So, at almost every turn, we are being outmaneuvered by campaigners who want to see Papua separate from Indonesia. And yet the Indonesian government has done very little to counter it.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has made efforts to hasten development in Papua including rolling out the one-fuel price policy, which was aimed at boosting economic growth in Papua. Jokowi also signed off on a series of massive infrastructure projects in the region. Early in his administration, Jokowi made a gesture of reconciliation by releasing five political prisoners, a decision the President said was to aid conflict resolution in the restive region.
But none of these efforts have been viewed positively by the outside world because the government continues to cordon off Papua. Despite Jokowi’s pledge early in his administration to give foreign journalists greater access to Papua, his government has maintained a policy that makes it difficult for members of the international media to operate in the region. Today, an interagency “clearing house” continues to operate to vet requests from foreign journalists and researchers before they are permitted to travel to the country’s easternmost province. Earlier this year, two French journalists were deported from Timika, Papua, after failing to obtain a reporting permit.
By maintaining this restriction, the government is operating like a paranoid regime, afraid the outside world may find the skeletons it hides in its closet. If the government has done much to improve the lives of Papuans, why not show it to the world?
Honesty is always the best policy.
On the day before The Jakarta Post published this EDITORIAL Indonesian paramilitary police shot and killed one person and wounded a number of others at a protest in a West Papuan village, according to human rights groups and local witnesses.
28-year-old man reportedly killed during the incident in Deiya regency, with up to seven wounded, including two children
Updates
West Papua independence petition is rebuffed at UN
Ben Doherty and Kate Lamb Sat 30 Sep 2017
The UN’s decolonisation committee will not accept a petition signed by 1.8 million West Papuans calling for independence, saying West Papua’s cause is outside the committee’s mandate.
In New York on Tuesday, the exiled West Papuan leader Benny Wenda presented the petition – banned by the Indonesian government, but smuggled across Papua and reportedly endorsed by 70% of the contested province’s population – to the UN’s decolonisation committee, known as the C24 and responsible for monitoring the progress of former colonies towards independence.
The petition asked the UN to appoint a special representative to investigate human rights abuses in the province and to “put West Papua back on the decolonisation committee agenda and ensure their right to self‐determination … is respected by holding an internationally supervised vote”.
“In the West Papuan people’s petition we hand over the bones of the people of West Papua to the United Nations and the world,” Wenda said of the document. “After decades of suffering, decades of genocide, decades of occupation, we open up the voice of the West Papuan people which lives inside this petition. My people want to be free.”
But on Thursday the chair of the decolonisation committee, Rafael Ramírez, said no petition on West Papua could be accepted because the committee’s mandate extended only to the 17 states identified by the UN as “non-self-governing territories”.
“I am the chair of the C24 and the issue of West Papua is not a matter for the C24. We are just working on the counties that are part of the list of non-self-governing territories. That list is issued by the general assembly.”
“One of the principles of our movement is to defend the sovereignty and the full integrity of the territory of our members. We are not going to do anything against Indonesia as a C24.”
West Papua was previously on the committee’s agenda – when the former Dutch colony was known as Netherlands New Guinea – but it was removed in 1963 when the province was annexed by Indonesia as Irian Jaya.
Ramírez, Venezuela’s representative to the UN, said his office was being “manipulated” for political purposes. Ramírez did not say the petition had not been presented to the committee, only that it was not able to accept it.
“As the chairman of the C24, not any formal document, nothing.”
Asked if he had any communication with Benny Wenda, or the West Papuan independence movement, Ramirez replied: “As the chairman of the C24, that is not possible. We [are] supposed to receive just the petitioners that are issued on the agenda.”
In a statement, Ramírez said that he supported Indonesia’s position that West Papua was an integral part of its territory.
“The special committee on decolonisation has not received nor can receive any request or document related to the situation of West Papua, territory which is an integral part of the Republic of Indonesia.”
Indonesia’s representative to the UN, Dian Triansyah Djani, is a vice-chair of the decolonisation committee.
Spokesman for the Indonesian embassy in Canberra Sade Bimantara said the provinces of Papua and West Papua were sovereign parts of Indonesia: “This fact is indisputable and internationally recognised.
“In 1969 the United Nations reaffirmed Indonesia’s sovereignty over West Papua.”
In response, independence campaigner Wenda, who was granted political asylum in the UK in 2003, told the Guardian that Indonesia’s denial of the petition was further demonstration of its head-in-the-sand attitude to Papuan self-determination.
“The unprecedented petition of 1.8 million signatures of West Papuans has been delivered to the United Nations to remind the UN of the legacy of its failure to supervise a legitimate vote in 1969 and its ongoing duty to complete the decolonisation process.”
Indonesian-controlled Papua and West Papua form the western half of the island of New Guinea. Political control of the region has been contested for more than half a century and Indonesia has consistently been accused of human rights violations and violent suppression of the region’s independence movement.
The people indigenous to the province are Melanesian, ethnically distinct from most of the rest of Indonesia and more closely linked to the people of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia.
Formerly the Netherlands New Guinea, Papua was retained by the Dutch after Indonesian independence in 1945 but the province was annexed by Jakarta in 1963.
Indonesia formalised its control over West Papua in 1969 when its military hand-picked 1,026 of West Papua’s population and compelled them into voting in favour of Indonesian annexation under a UN-supervised, but undemocratic, process known as the Act of Free Choice.
A 2004 report by the International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School said: “Indonesian military leaders began making public threats against Papuan leaders … vowing to shoot them on the spot if they did not vote for Indonesian control.”
Known as Irian Jaya until 2000, it been split into two provinces, Papua and West Papua, since 2003. They have semi-autonomous status.
Many Papuans regard the Indonesian takeover as an illegal annexation and the OPM (Free Papua Movement) has led a low-level insurgency for decades. That insurgency has long been the excuse for significant military involvement in Papua.
With the heightened police and military presence, there have been reports of security force abuses including extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, excessive use of force and mistreatment of peaceful protesters. Dozens of Papuans remain behind bars for peaceful demonstration or expressing solidarity with the independence movement.
There is little independent scrutiny of the situation in West Papua, as human rights organisations and journalists are restricted from visiting.
Melanesian leaders condemn UN for turning 'a deaf ear' to West Papua atrocities
Solomon Islands and Vanuatu leaders want investigation into alleged abuses and support for independence campaign
Ben Doherty Sun 24 Sep 2017
Melanesian leaders have accused the United Nations of having “turned a deaf ear” to human rights atrocities in the Indonesian province of Papua and urged the world to support the region’s campaign for independence.
At the UN General Assembly in New York, the prime ministers of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu called on the UN’s Human Rights Council to formally investigate long-standing allegations of human rights abuses in the provinces.
Vanuatu’s prime minister, Charlot Salwai, said the people of West Papua must be allowed the right to self-determination, to free themselves of the “yoke of colonialism”.
“For half a century now the international community has been witnessing a gamut of torture, murder, exploitation, sexual violence and arbitrary detention inflicted on the nationals of West Papua, perpetrated by Indonesia, but the international community has turned a deaf ear to the appeals for help. We urge the Human Rights Council to investigate these cases.
“We also call on our counterparts throughout the world to support the legal right of West Papua to self-determination and to jointly with Indonesia put an end to all kinds of violence and find common ground with the nationals to facilitate putting together a process which will enable them to freely express their choice.”
The Solomons leader, Manasseh Sogavare, said the UN’s sustainable development goal motto of “no one left behind” would be “synonymous to empty promises unless we in the United Nations take active steps to address the plight of the people of West Papua”.
“Failing this, we as a family of nations will become complicit in perpetuating the sufferings and becoming blind to the injustices, missing yet another golden opportunity to remain true to the saying of ‘leaving no one behind’.”
Indonesian-controlled Papua and West Papua form the western half of the island of New Guinea. Political control of the region has been contested for more than half a century and Indonesia has consistently been accused of gross human rights violations and violent suppression of the region’s independence movement.
The people indigenous to the province are Melanesian, ethnically distinct from the rest of Indonesia and more closely linked to the people of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia.
Formerly the Netherlands New Guinea, Papua was retained by the Dutch after Indonesian independence in 1945 but the province was annexed by Jakarta in 1963 and Indonesia control was formalised by a 1969 referendum widely condemned as having been fixed by the Suharto government.
Known as Irian Jaya until 2000, the province has also been split into two provinces, Papua and West Papua, since 2003.
Many Papuans consider the Indonesian takeover to have been an illegal annexation and the OPM (Free Papua Movement) has led a low-level insurgency for decades.
That insurgency has long been the excuse for significant military involvement in Papua.
With the heightened police and military presence, there have been reports of security force abuses including extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, excessive use of force and mistreatment of peaceful protesters.
At least 37 Papuans remain behind bars for peaceful acts of free expression or expressing solidarity with the independence movement.
There is little independent scrutiny of the situation in West Papua, human rights organisations and journalists are restricted from visiting.
On taking office in 2014, the Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, pledged to boost economic development of Papua and he –ostensibly – eased restrictions on external scrutiny of the region, though travel strictures have not substantially changed. He visited the province in May.
Last month Jokowi met with Papuan civil society, church and customary leaders to discuss establishing a formal mechanism for debating Papua’s long-standing issues. However, Jakarta opposes independence and regards retention of Papua as a fundamental to its “territorial integrity”.
Opinion - West Papua
by George Monbiot in The Guardian
George Monbiot in an opinion article for The Guardian (Wed 21 Nov 2018), reflects on the current and historical situation in West Papua and suggests that Britain has the chance to bring a brutal colonial occupation to an end. He says:
"The treatment of West Papua has been scandalously neglected by our politicians. Now they have a chance to atone."He contextualizes this suggestion with a view of colonialism, and the bogus assumptions that colonialist have used in the past, and use in the present, to justify oppression of Indigenous People for the sake of wealth accumulation achieved through land grabs and the exploitation of their natural resources.
Monbiot begins this article with the assertion that:
Every colonial enterprise pretends to be inspired by something other than theft.He then references the General Act of the Berlin Conference on West Africa, 26 February 1885.
The General Act of the Berlin Conference in 1885, under which the European powers carved Africa into formal colonial possessions, claimed that their purpose was “furthering the moral and material wellbeing of the native populations … and bringing home to them the blessings of civilisation”.Similar rhetoric has attended all such seizures. To save native people from their enslavement to the Devil, or the Arabs, or each other, they had to be forced into general servitude, while their land and natural wealth were transferred to more enlightened people from overseas. Preposterous as such propaganda may seem to most of us today, it was taken very seriously. In some quarters, it still is. Take the case, scandalously neglected in both journalism and politics, of West Papua.West Papua, the western half of New Guinea, is owned and run like a 19th-century colony. But in one respect its situation is even worse, as it is not formally recognised as such. Instead, it is treated by the United Nations and powerful countries – including the United States, Australia and the UK – as part of the national territory of Indonesia, the colonial power.
Until 1962 the Netherlands, which was then the colonial master, had planned to oversee West Papua’s transition to independence. But the Dutch came under massive pressure from the US government, for whom south-east Asia was nothing but a series of counters to be deployed in its great game against the Soviet Union. It insisted that Indonesia be allowed to “administer” West Papua, as long as its people were permitted a referendum on independence by 1969.
Indonesian administration consisted of imprisonment, torture, killing and the theft of everything on which officials and soldiers could lay hands. As the US embassy noted, around 95% of the people of West Papua supported independence. To encourage them to change their minds they were bombed, shelled and strafed, bayoneted and beaten to death. According to the Indonesian governor at the time, between 1963 and 1969 the armed forces murdered 30,000 Papuans.But there still had to be a referendum. So in 1969 Indonesian officials rounded up 1,026 men, took their families hostage and, under the guns of soldiers, told them to vote. An Indonesian general explained that if they made the wrong choice they would have their tongues ripped out. Swayed by such persuasive arguments, they voted unanimously for annexation. This process was officially known as the Act of Free Choice.There was, of course, no greater justification for this farce than for the treaties struck at gunpoint with native people in Africa, to fulfil the terms of the Berlin conference. A huge body of international law, including the agreement Indonesia had signed with the Netherlands, shows that questions of sovereignty cannot be decided this way, and that Indonesia has illegally annexed West Papua. But foreign governments affect to take the Act of Free Choice seriously.
Among the most preposterous justifications were those put forward by British officials. “Naturally one sympathises with the natives, but colonialism is not always such a bad thing, indeed it is often beneficial,” one diplomat asserted. A note from the Foreign Office advised that it is “in the general interest to turn a blind eye”, while another official report stated that government policy was “to help sustain the present moderate regime in Indonesia” (the moderate regime being President Suharto’s government, which had already killed around 500,000 opponents).
We’ve had 50 years of such excuses. Last year, foreign office minister Lord Ahmed told the House of Lords that the UK “retains its position on supporting the integrity of Indonesia”. But the principle of integrity does not apply, under international law, to occupied territories.
Doubtless these positions are unconnected to the tremendous mineral wealth of West Papua, now being exploited by multinational corporations without the consent of its people. BP, for example, is working an £8bn natural gas field called Tangguh. Vast deposits of gold, copper and petroleum, timber from the world’s largest contiguous tract of rainforest outside the Amazon, and fertile soils on which palm oil can be grown have been seized from the indigenous people – assisted by the government’s continued imprisonment, torture, rape and murder of those who resist it. Despite the riches being extracted from their land, the Papuans suffer horrendous levels of childhood malnutrition, preventable disease and illiteracy.
But last year something remarkable happened. At great risk to their lives, and in constant danger of discovery by the soldiers occupying their land, West Papuan campaigners gathered 1.8 million validated signatures and thumbprints on a petition to the UN to respect their right to self-determination. This amounts to 70% of the indigenous population. Many people were beaten and tortured for spreading it or signing it.
This month, after a year of being stonewalled, parliamentary supporters of West Papuan independence (who include Jeremy Corbyn) have at last been allowed to present this petition to the Foreign Office. Because the leader of the independence movement, Benny Wenda, lives in this country and because the UK, with its seat on the UN security council, has been instrumental in justifying the seizure of their land, using the age-old excuses for colonial rule, the attempt at international recognition begins here. The question is: will the government listen, or will it continue to pretend, as it did in 1885, that the theft of a nation is a sacred duty?
No comments:
Post a Comment