Month: September 2011

Report on wrongful arrest of 15 civilians n Wahno-Varia, W Papua

Report on wrongful arrest and torture of 15 civilians in Wahno-Vuria hill, Kotaraja, Jayapura town, Papua Province, 31 August 2011

Produced by: Investigation team comprising KomnasHAM Papua, a student or representative of Cendrawasih University Jayapura, and representatives
and members of the Baptist, Kingmi and Catholic churches

Published by: the Fellowship of Baptist Churches of Papua

September 2011

This is a TAPOL summary

The report is based on the results of an investigation by the Fellowship of Baptist Churches in Papua, including witness statements from the victims and their families, in an aim to publish the facts from the ground.

During July and August 2011, there have been a number of events affecting the security situation in Papua.   These include a number of mysterious murders for which the perpetrator(s) remain unknown, civilian deaths and injuries caused by security forces, repressive actions by security forces, clashes between the security forces and OPM/TPN, election unrest including demos and violence, an attack on the 5-7 July “Papua Peace Conference” at Cenderawasih University, a simultaneous murder at Skyline Jayapura, and a series of events accompanying and following on from the seminar in Oxford, England organized by the International Lawyers for West Papua.   A common feature seems to be that on several occasions the murders and other acts of violence occurred simultaneously across different locations. In most cases the perpetrators appear to remain unknown.

Background to the event on 31 August 2011

According to Biben Kogoya, Chair of RT 08 (RT is the smallest unit of neighbourhood governance), following a meeting of all RT/RW chairs last year, all sharp weapons kept in houses of the local population under the area of their jurisdiction should be collected and kept in the houses of the RT/RW chairs, which Biben Kogoya duly did.   He had heard shortly before the incident that there was going to be a sweeping.   He states that in the week leading up to the incident he had been trying to call the local police in Abepura to inform them of some new TNI members who had been hanging around the area each night between 25-29 August, providing alcohol and encouraging the young people to drink, and asking
them to point out the houses of people they were looking for, including Danny Kogoya, Panius Kogoya, Ekimar Kogoya, Etra Yanengga, and Gidi Wenda.

However, the police did not answer the phone or respond to his reports as chair of RT 08.  On 29 August, Biben had decided to sort this out, but he did not get the chance to do so as he was then arrested.

The events of 31 August 2011:

At 05:00-06:00 on 31 August 2011 a combined unit of 115 members of the army and police carried out sweeping and a siege of 4 houses in the Wahno hill area, RT 08 in Kotaraja Luar, Jayapura.  One of the houses targeted was that of Biben Kogoya (Chair of RT 08). The combined forces arrived in 6 Avanza cars and a police truck, with two of the units equipped with black batons.   They parked 500 meters from the houses in question and placed the area in question under siege, firing a volley of shots towards the houses.

A total of 15 people, including Biben Kogoya, were beaten, tortured, interrogated and exhorted to confess to having committed the Skyline and Nafri murders. Victims were beaten with rifle butts, kicked, slapped, and forced to lie on the ground for a number of hours.   Biben Kogoya was particularly singled out for beatings, and was confronted with an apparently unearthed bullet and some documents, and told to confess to owning these items or be murdered and buried. He was then forced to dig a hole whilst surrounded by security forces who had their guns aimed at him.   He was frightened and thought that he was digging his own grave, but managed to escape into the open.   The combined unit also brought a photograph of the soldier who was murdered on Jalan Baru, Camp Wolker (23/08/11) and asked Biben Kogoya if he had killed him.   The photo was put inside his family photo album and taken out of the family room –  he said he had never put that photograph of the soldier in the photo album.

Then the soldiers said it was Kogoya who killed him, this is the proof, look, it’s in his album. Meanwhile, Ekimar Kogoya was tortured until, unable to withstand the pain any longer, he confessed to the murders.   When pushed to name an accomplice he then named Panius Kogoya.

The houses were ransacked and a number of items such as handphones, money, shoes, a watch, wallets and a bank card were seized.

Throughout the experience, the victims were subjected to degrading treatment, being called variously “dog, pig, cow, animals, murderers, cannibals.” They were also stigmatized as OPM members.

As Biben Kogoya escaped from digging the hole/grave, the Vicar Metius Kogoya arrived, shortly followed by the arrival of the Head of Abepura Police and the provincial Head of Police (Kapolda).  According to the witness statement of the Vicar, the leaders said to their staff “don’t hit them anymore, what’s happened here is already enough.”

Between 12 and 13:00 on 31 August the 15 people were brought to the Polresta.  They were left in the locked truck for some time in the full sun, finding it hard to breath and hurting from their wounds.  They complained, and the truck was moved to the shade.  Then they were taken one by one to sign a notice, without having a lawyer present.  They were each photographed, then sat in front of the door of the investigation unit and interrogated. They were put back in the truck around 23:00-24:00 to sleep except Ekimar and Panius who were detained separately.   They reportedly waited for hours in the truck without food or drink until 06:00 on 1 September. 3 of them became ill and were laid on the floor of the truck.  One policeman helped us, giving us a litre of water (between 13 of us) and a packet of cigarettes.  When they woke in the morning they were not allowed to go to the toilet to urinate or defecate but were told to go to the toilet in the open yard of the police station.

On 1 September at 11:40, the leaders of the Baptist church and human rights activists, accompanied by Matius Murib arrived to visit the detainees, who were sitting in front of the investigation unit of the police station, with the others lying asleep as they had malaria.  13 detainees were released and were taken home at 15:00, arriving at their house at 17:00.  Ekimar and Panius remained in custody.

On 2 September, the 13 victims who had been sent home were taken to the hospital for a medical check up to be given the OK.  It turned out three of them were sick with malaria, so were not given the all clear.  They were:

1. Uwne Kogoya (23) malaria tertian +4

2. Yawenus Kogoya (21) malaria tropika +2

3. Nusman Kogoya (19) high leukosits.

On 3 September the Vicar was called by the police station to come and collect the arrest and detention notices for Panius Kogoya and Ekimar Kogoya, who were both charged with murder and/or violence in a public place against a person or object.

Condition of the victims

Following the incident, the victims suffered internal bruising and were traumatized. They were not able to carry out normal activities or travel very far.  Biben Kogoya’s ability to remember, hear and see properly was reportedly impaired, and his control over his emotions was abnormal.  On 6 September Uwen Wenda was reportedly still in Abepura hospital with malaria tropika and tersiana.

Key recommendations

· Intelligence should be good, accurate and accountable.

· Those currently imprisoned should be released as they are not guilty for the Nafri and Skyline cases.

· The central and Papuan provincial governments should sit down together and discuss the security situation across Papua, which is increasingly unstable.

· The Head of Jayapura Police must be accountable for the arrest and torture of 15 civilians on 31 August, which took place without due legal process.

· Those police and soldiers involved should be punished in accordance with the law.

· The torture, humiliation and stigmatization which happened during the arrests are considered to be grave human rights violations (pelanggaran HAM yang berat).

· The police are responsible for reparations for both material damage and for the psychological recovery of the victims.

· A formal and public apology is needed from the Indonesian police to the victims and their families within ten days.

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15 Papuans mistreated and tortured by army and police

16 September 2011

FIFTEEN PAPUANS MISTREATED AND TORTURED BY ARMY AND POLICE


TAPOL strongly condemns the use of violence and torture against Papuan detainees

A report has been released following a joint investigation into the maltreatment and torture of a group of 15 Papuans in connection with two criminal incidents that occurred recently in West Papua.  The report, published by Papuan church leaders, the NGO network Foker and the Papua Human Rights Commission, states that 15 Papuans were arrested in Jayapura on 31 August and were mistreated and tortured for nine hours by a joint force of military and police.  They were reportedly beaten with  rifle butts, punched, kicked in the stomach with army boots and subjected to continual verbal abuse in an attempt to force them to
confess to the as yet unsolved murders at Nafri and Skyline in Jayapura.

One of the men said he had been threatened with death if he failed to confess to owning items including a bullet and some documents which he said he had not seen before, and another was reportedly tortured until he confessed to the murders and named another of the men as his accomplice.  During police interrogation, the two were threatened with death if they did not confess to the crimes. They were then charged with the murders and remain in detention.

After the remaining thirteen men were released, they said that they had also been forced to lie on their backs on the ground facing the blazing sun for seven hours. They further commented that they felt as though they were being treated like cattle. They were deprived of water and food for lengthy periods while being beaten and tortured and no attention was paid to the injuries and bruises that they suffered during their ordeal. They said that they were weak and in some cases fell ill as a result of their treatment but were denied access to a toilet and ordered to urinate and defecate out in the open.

Apart from the appalling treatment to which they were reportedly subjected, the detainees were arrested without arrest warrants and during their interrogation, they were not accompanied by lawyers despite the associated requirement for persons in detention when they are given notice that they are about to be questioned.

Moreover, according to legal requirements they should have been released within 24 hours, a binding requirement for persons who are held without being charged for any crime. They were in fact held for 27 hours.

TAPOL strongly condemns the atrocious treatment of these Papuans. We call on Komnas HAM, the National Human Rights Commission, to conduct an investigation into the treatment of these Papuan detainees. TAPOL also calls on the Minister of Justice and Human Rights to call to account all those persons who were responsible for using extreme violence and torture against this group of men.

The government of Indonesia should make it absolutely clear that all persons who work for government agencies within the military and the police, including those which were involved in the detention and mistreatment of these fifteen men should at all times treat persons being held in detention without resorting to violence and torture and should be instructed to refrain from using such methods or face dismissal if they do so.

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The TNI Should Withdraw From Papua to Prevent Another Lacluta

By Daniel Pye

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Lacluta massacre in East Timor by battalions of the Indonesian military, or TNI.

One of the enduring horrors of the occupation of East Timor was the “fence of legs” campaign of 1981 where civilians were rounded up and forcibly marched across the island to flush out resistance fighters – including Xanana Gusmao, now the fledgling nation’s Prime Minister.

Many died along the way. The campaign led to “very serious humanitarian consequences,” including famine as it took place during planting season and many of those press-ganged were subsistence farmers.

The march headed to Lacluta where the UN Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation determined hundreds of East Timorese were murdered by Indonesian armed forces. “The commission received evidence of a large massacre of civilians, including women and children, at this time,” it said.

Indonesian authorities admitted to only 70 deaths, while Martinho da Costa Lopes of East Timor’s Catholic church said the death toll was closer to 500. One East Timorese fighter said the attack was carried out by Battalion 744, later to be commanded by Indonesia’s current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“I witnessed with my own eyes how the Indonesian military, Battalion 744, killed civilians in front of me,” Albino da Costa said. “They captured those unarmed people, tied them up then stabbed them to death. There was a pregnant woman captured and killed just like that. I saw it from a close distance, just 100m from where it happened.”

Costa Lopes died in Lisbon in 1991. His repeated calls for intervention by the United Nations and for curtailment of United States military aid to the Indonesian Government went unheeded.

The US, Japan and a number of Western European countries continued to provide Indonesia with about $5 billion in military aid. In the aftermath of the 1975 invasion the media largely ignored, as one Australian parliamentary report called it, “indiscriminate killing on a scale unprecedented in post-World War II history,” because of Indonesia’s vast natural resources. It was, as former US President Richard Nixon put it, the “greatest prize in the Southeast Asian area”.

Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor ended with independence and perhaps as many as a third of the population killed.

But today there is another war for independence in Indonesia: West Papua. And the parallels with East Timor are striking.

Papuans have endured horrific violence since Indonesia first invaded in 1963. Amnesty International and other human rights groups agree that as many as 100,000 Papuans have been killed under occupation.

West Papua is rich in minerals and oil. Transmigration, commercial logging, mining and other government-sponsored programs are considered to be in the interests of the nation, and take priority over any local land claims.

It has the world’s largest gold mine, controlled by the Freeport-McMoRan Company of Louisiana and the Anglo-Australian company Rio Tinto. General Suharto granted the concession under the 1967 foreign investment laws that opened Indonesia to near-unrestricted foreign wealth exploitation.

When guerrillas from the Free West Papua Movement sabotaged the mine in 1977, the army responded by killing at least 800 Papuans. This was not the first, not the last time the Indonesian military would be used to protect Western capital under the guise of “protecting the unity of the nation”. It is happening still.

Grasberg workers walked out on strike over pay and conditions on Wednesday. The mineworkers are paid between $1.50 and $3.50 per hour, less than a tenth of what their colleagues in other countries get, while between April and June 2011 Freeport made a profit of $1.73 billion. Most of the wealth extracted from the mine goes abroad – a tiny percentage benefits Papuans. Two thirds of West Papua’s forests – which are at the heart of Papuans’ traditional way of life – are designated for “production” by Jakarta.

An Indonesian military intelligence report leaked to the press in August showed how the island is awash with spies. And how badly equipped are the Papuan separatists to fight the Indonesian military. The TNI is armed and trained by the US and its allies as part of the East Asia Summit grouping, which is fast developing into a Nato for Asia.

Ahead of the planned Third Papuan Peoples Conference, Indonesian paramilitary forces linked to the police and Special Forces of the army appear to have stepped up military operations in the province, which have been described as a campaign of terror by people on the ground. According to KontraS, The Commission for the Disappeared, the army’s actions are illegal under Indonesian law.

Just like in East Timor before independence, West Papua is a prime example of a colony where the extraction of wealth for the benefit of a few outweighs a people’s fundamental right to self-determination. If atrocities such as the one at Lacluta are to be prevented in the future in West Papua, the TNI should withdraw and international investigators should be allowed access to the region.

Jakarta is at a crossroads with international attention focused on West Papua following the Pacific Islands Forum meetings in New Zealand. The head of the UN Ban Ki Moon was unequivocal when asked about Papua. Papuans’ rights should be upheld, he said. Indonesia’s government could take this opportunity to fulfill its pledge to grant Papuans autonomy. But this must include an end to the lawlessness of government-sponsored armed groups, a withdrawal of army units, and determining how Papuans’ natural resources are used must be the preserve of Papuans.

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IRONIC SURVIVAL: Surviving MIFEE

Alex Mahuze is a Malind tribesman and a sago farmer in Merauke. His clan has for generations lived in harmony with nature. The arrival of the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) program has forced him to earn money through other means, which ironically harms the environment. He lost his lands and his culture is threatened, but Alex fights on.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/29128486 w=500&h=400]

Originally at EngageMedia: engagemedia.org/​Members/​papuanvoicesmerauke/​videos/​ironic_survival/​view

Re-uploaded by westpapuamedia as courtesy to Papuan Voices Merauke and EngageMedia: EngageMedia cannot share effectively due to software restrictions in embedding iframes across many platforms. This is temporary fix to help get it out further.

video information
produced by Papuan Voices [Merauke}
contact write the producer
produced Sep 15, 2011
distributor Papuan Voices [Merauke}

* Sago, or Metroxylon sagu is a species of palm in the genus Metroxylon. It tolerates a wide variety of soils and may reach 30 meters in height. Several other species of the genus metroxylon, particularly metroxylon salomonense and metroxylon amicarum, are also used as sources of sago through Melanesia and Micronesia. In addition to its use as a food source, the leaves and spathe of the sago palm are used for construction materials and for thatching roofs, and the fibre can be made into rope.

* Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate – MIFEE – was announced on 18 February 2010 by the former Bupati of Merauke, J.G Gebze and officially launched on 11 August 2010 by the Minister of Agriculture, Siswono Yodohusodo on behalf of the Indonesian President. The project involves 36 investors, 13 of whom are already operating in the area. MIFEE covers an area of 2.5 million hectares and plans to bring into the area a work force of four million people.

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Warinussy on the politics behind the recent conflicts in Papua

Bintang Papua, 14 September 2011Manokwari: Yan Christian Warinussy, a Papuan human rights lawyer and executive direction of LP3BH, believes that the road leading toward dialogue between Papua and Indonesia has become clearer in the past few months.

The recent escalation of violence in various parts of the Land of Papua. such as Jayapura, Biak, Nabire and Manokwari as well as the Central Highlands will not dampen the aspirations of the indigenous Papuan people, that which were proclaimed in the Papuan Peace Declaration drawn up at the Papuan Peace Conference held by the Papuan Peace Network (Jaringan Damai Papua) on 5-6 July this year in Jayapura.’From the record of conflicts that have occurred in the Land of Papua up to the present day, I have been able as a human rights activist to reach a better understanding of the specific characteristics and background of the reasons for the various violent conflicts that have occurred in the Land of Papua recently. Moreover, we now know who the persons who having been plotting these incidents are, along with their political purposes. All this has helped us to understand the motivation behind these strange incidents which has made it possible for us to draw conclusions about who it is who is behind all these criminal incidents,’ said Warinussy.

Each of these incidents has occurred without leaving any trace of who was involved. This impression has been further strengthened by the fact that the police force throughout the land of Papua have been unable to identify who was behind each incident. It is also apparent that  the police have been unable to discover any significant evidence to reveal the perpetrators of these incidents.

In fact, he went on to say, each of these incidents have occurred without anything left behind that might help to identify the perpetrators. This would suggest that the criminal perpetrators are part of  a special unit that have undergone intensive training  and have been trained even to commit murders without leaving a single trace and in this way make it difficult for the police to conduct any criminal investigations. These crimes  have resulted in the Papuan people feeling more afraid to take actions in conformity with their rights to freedom of expression and freedom of opinion.

The intention appears to be to show to the central and local governments and to the international community that the security situation in West Papua is not safe because of the presence of the TPN/OPM. Yet, we have heard nothing at all from the TPN/OPM about who they think are behind these recent incidents. This has been aimed at thwarting the deeply felt aspirations of the indigenous people for dialogue with the Indonesian government.

Vested interests in the Land of Papua have for years pursued a strategy  within the context of development and general governance aimed at causing frictions  between those vested interests. This is something that needs to be discussed openly between all those involved, including the indigenous Papuan people, in order to find a peaceful solution and realise the aspirations for a Papuan land of peace as quickly as possible.

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