The Honorable Hillary Clinton
Secretary of State
Department of State
Washington, D.C.

July 20, 2011

Secretary Clinton:

The West Papua Advocacy Team is writing to you on the eve of your
visit to Indonesia to request that you use this opportunity to raise
with senior Indonesians the Indonesian military operation that is
occurring in the Puncak Jaya regency of West Papua.

Media reports have indicated that up to 600 Indonesian military (TNI)
personal are involved in “sweeping ” operations in the region. This
operation is only the latest in a series of such operations which the
Indonesian military has conducted in the Puncak Jaya region over many
years. These operations have had a devastating human toll including
civilian casualties, destruction of civilian homes, churches, public
buildings gardens and livestock as well as broad displacement of
civilians from towns and villages, often to nearby mountains and
jungle. Due in part to routine military closure of these zones of
conflict to humanitarian operations, displaced civilians suffer and
die as a result of lack of food, shelter and access to medical care.

Typically, military forces, including forces which benefit from U.S.
government equipment and training, fail to distinguish between those
they are targeting, the lightly armed Free Papua Movement (the OPM),
and the general public. While the OPM is committed to peaceful
dialogue, it retains the right to self defense and protecting the
local people if attacked. Although the security forces blame all
incidents in the area on the OPM, many attacks on the TNI are by
unknown attackers. Some of these arise as a result of disputes
related to commercial interests among military units and/or with
police units which compete over exploitation of natural resources and
extortion of local and international commercial operations.

In the current sweep operation media reports indicate four civilians,
including one women and 3 children, were wounded on July 12 when
Indonesian troops from the Infantry Battalion 753, who are based in
Nabire, fired into huts in the village of Kalome while searching for
members of the Free Papua Movement (OPM). Thus far, the military has
refused to acknowledge this incident.

In May the military began a “socializing program” in Puncak Jaya
involving up to 300 Army, Air Force and Navy personnel . The program
is proposed to include the renovating of homes, churches and markets.
The military personnel, as part of the program, also lecture local
Papuans at Papuans Sunday church gatherings. Local people, according
to media and other accounts, have described the program as in reality
only a shield and a cover-up of the military and police’s violation
of human rights abuses that have transpired in the region for many years.

Papuan civil society leaders, non-governmental organizations,
churches and ordinary civilians have long called for transformation
of Papua into a “Land of Peace,” a concept that would demilitarize
West Papua and end the Indonesian government’s reliance on a
“security approach” to address peaceful, political dissent.
Currently, many Papuans are incarcerated in prisons due to their
peaceful exercise of freedoms of speech and assembly which are denied
them by the Indonesian government.

We urge you to use the opportunity of your visit to Indonesia to call
on the Indonesian President to halt all military operations in West
Papua and return all military personal to their barracks as a way of
easing tension and saving lives. We also urge you to raise with
senior Indonesians, the plight of dozens of Papuan prisoners of
conscience who were jailed as result of peaceful dissent and who now
face health and even life-threatening conditions in Indonesian
notorious prisons.

Yours respectfully,

The West Papua Advocacy Team

(Edmund McWilliams, Acting Secretary)

Contact: John M. Miller, etan@etan.org,+1- 917-690-4391

July 20 – As Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton travelled to Bali, the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) urged her to condition U.S. security assistance to Indonesia on real improvements in human rights by Indonesia government and genuine accountability for violations of human rights.

“The restoration of assistance to Indonesia’s notorious Kopassus special forces announced a year ago should be reversed,” said John M. Miller, National Coordinator of ETAN. “Kopassus training was meant to be the carrot to encourage respect for rights. There is no evidence it has done so. U.S. law bars cooperation with military and police units with such egregious human rights records. The U.S should set an example by following it’s own law.”

On the eve of Secretary Clinton’s visit, ETAN issued the following statement:

In her February 2009 visit to Indonesia, Secretary of State Clinton praised democratic reforms since the fall of the U.S.-backed Suharto, saying “Indonesia has experienced a great transformation in the last 10 years.” While Indonesia has made progress since the dark days of Suharto, crimes against humanity and other violations of human rights continue. U.S. policy has largely focused on narrow strategic and economic interests that have little to do with the well-being of the Indonesian people. Meanwhile, progress has stalled. Human rights remain under threat. The military continues to find ways to maintain its influence. The pleas of the victims of human rights crimes in Timor-Leste, Aceh, West Papua, and elsewhere in the archipelago are ignored. Senior figures responsible for the worst abuses prosper.
In recent years, the U.S. has provided substantial assistance to both the Indonesian military and police. This assistance is said to come with lessons on human rights. The human rights lessons are not being learned. People see the police as abusers, not protectors and military impunity prevails. Indonesia’s security forces are learning is that U.S. will assist them no matter how they behave.

Over the past year, horrific videos and other reports of torture, the burning of villages and other crimes offer graphic proof that the people of West Papua and elsewhere continue to suffer at the hands of military and police. Soldiers prosecuted for these and other incidents receive light sentences. Just this past week, four civilians, a women and three children, were wounded when Indonesian troops shot into a hut in the Puncak Jaya area of Papua.

As many as 100 political prisoners remain jailed: prosecuted and jailed for the peaceful expression of opinion. In many regions, minority religious institutions are persecuted, often with the active or tacit assistance of local security officials. Vigilante groups, like the Islamic Defenders Front, seek to enforce their own extra-legal version of morality, again with the backing of officials. Journalists, human rights defenders and anti-corruption activists are threatened and occasionally killed. The organizers of the 2004 poisoning of Indonesia’s most prominent human rights lawyer, Munir, remain free and seemingly above the law.

In recent years, the U.S. has provided substantial assistance to both the Indonesian military and police. This assistance is said to come with lessons on human rights. Lessons that are not being learned. People see the police as abusers, not protectors and military impunity prevails. Indonesia’s security forces are learning is that U.S. will assist them no matter how they behave.

We urge the U.S. to condition its security assistance on an end to human rights violations and to impunity. The U.S. should heed the recommendation of Timor-Leste’s Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation in Timor-Leste (CAVR), which urged nations to “regulate military sales and cooperation with Indonesia more effectively and make such support totally conditional on progress towards full democratisation, the subordination of the military to the rule of law and civilian government, and strict adherence with international human rights, including respect for the right of self-determination.” Indonesia does not yet meet this standard.

The U.S., as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, should work to establish an international tribunal to bring to justice the perpetrators of human rights crimes committed during Indonesia’s 24-year occupation of Timor-Leste. This would provide a measure of justice to the victims and their families and serve as a deterrent to future human rights violators. A tribunal is supported by the many victims of these crimes and by human rights advocates in Timor-Leste, Indonesia, the U.S., and elsewhere.

Finally, we urge Secretary Clinton to apologize to the peoples of Indonesia and Timor-Leste for U.S. support for the Suharto dictatorship. Her visit offers the U.S. a chance to decisively break with past U.S. support for torture, disappearances, rape, invasion and illegal occupation, extrajudicial murder environmental devastation. Clinton should offer condolences to Suharto’s many victims throughout the archipelago and support the prosecution of those responsible.

ETAN was founded in 1991 to advocate for self-determination for Indonesian-occupied Timor-Leste. Since the beginning, ETAN has worked to condition U.S. military assistance to Indonesia on respect for human rights and genuine reform. The U.S.-based organization continues to advocate for democracy, justice and human rights for Timor-Leste and Indonesia. For more information, see ETAN’s web site: http://www.etan.org.

see also West Papua Advocacy Team Writes Secretary of State Clinton on Indonesian military operation in Puncak Jaya