Category: News alert

New Docos examine upheaval in West Papua

As the 1st of December looms, two new short documentaries published by West Papua Media take a look at the recent wave of unprecedented political and industrial action and state repression in the lead up to the 50th anniversary of West Papuan Independence.

The Third Papuan People’s Congress

PLEASE NOTE: FOOTAGE FROM TIMECODE 04:59 – 05:43, OF PAPUAN GUERRILLAS FROM TPN/OPM RAISING THE MORNING STAR FLAG IS INDICATED AS FILE FOOTAGE FROM “FORGOTTEN BIRD OF PARADISE”, AND IS USED PURELY FOR HISTORICALLY ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES.  THIS FOOTAGE WAS SHOT IN 2008 IN THE HIGHLANDS OF PAPUA AND DOES NOT INDICATE, IMPLY OR ILLUSTRATE ANY ARMED PRO-INDEPENDENCE PRESENCE AT THE THIRD PAPUAN PEOPLE’S CONGRESS, WHICH IS FACTUALLY CONFIRMED AS BEING A PEACEFUL, NON-VIOLENT ASSEMBLY, WITH NO WEAPONS OF ANY SORT PRESENT BEFORE, DURING, OR AFTER PROCEEDINGS, OTHER THAN WEAPONS USED AND BELONGING TO INDONESIAN SECURITY FORCES.
PUBLIC OR PRIVATE MISREPRESENTATION OF THIS FACT WILL BE CONSIDERED DEFAMATION AND LEGALLY ENFORCED.

Credits

Production:  traverser11 and Nick Chesterfield

Music: Airi Ingram and Ak Rockefeller

Script: Nick Chesterfield and Mark Davis

Video Supplied by: West Papua Media, Tapol/Down to Earth, Dominic Brown; ABC  Lateline, SBS, TV Papoes, Metro TV Papua
Freeport Miners Strike

Video from the three month long strike at Freeport Mine in West Papua, police repression and actions in solidarity with the miners. Produced by traverser11 with music by Airi Ingram.

Credits

Production:  traverser11 and Nick Chesterfield

Music: Airi Ingram and Ak Rockefeller

Video supplied by:  SPSI Freeport (miners Unions), West Papua Media, Lococonut, Theagapaipho, WPACTION Network, Yerry Nikholas, Beni Pakage

and public domain content from: Al Jazeera English, Reuters

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(JG) 51 Tortured by Indonesian Security Forces in Papua Violence: Elsham

51 Tortured by Indonesian Security Forces in Papua Violence: Elsham
Farouk Arnaz & Ronna Nirmala | November 29, 2011

The National Police said on Monday that it handed out punishments to a total of 17 officers for last month’s deadly crackdown on the Third Papuan People’s Congress but refrained from firing or demoting any of their own.

Ethics tribunals were held for members of the Mobile Police (Brimob) and the Jayapura Police believed to have been responsible for the incident, according to a National Police spokesman, Insp. Gen. Saud Usman Nasution.

Two Brimob officers were reprimanded, while two low-ranking enlisted officers were sentenced to 14 days detainment in a special cell.

In Jayapura, the capital of Papua, the chief of police at the time of the violence, Adj. Sr. Comr. Imam Setiawan, and seven of his subordinates received reprimands, while five enlisted officers were sentenced to seven days of detainment.

“They failed to follow proper police procedures in carrying out their security duties,” Saud said of those punished. “[Their actions were] excessive.”

No officer, however, was dismissed from the force or demoted for a violent incident that left at least three congress participants dead.

Sau d said the none of the officers would be charged with murder or face any other criminal charges. Police investigators, he said, put the victims’ times of death after the officers had left the scene.

He said one of the congress participants, Daniel Kadepa, had died from a stab wound, while the other two victims, Max Saseyo and Jacob Samansabra, could not be autopsied because they had already been buried by their families.

Separately on Monday, the Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy (Elsham) and the Communion of Churches in Papua (PGGP) said at least 51 people had been tortured by members of the military and police during and after the congress.

Congress participants told the groups they had been beaten and kicked repeatedly by security forces both at the congress site and while being transported to police headquarters. Some participants said they were beaten at the police station.

There were also reports of verbal abuse, the groups said.

One person said a policeman hit him in the head with the butt of an assault rifle. Another said he was shot in the buttock and thigh.

Also, a nearby monastery was looted and vandalized by security forces, the groups said.

The Rev. Wellem Maury of the PGGP said the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) needed to take over the case and form a fact-finding team to investigate allegations of human rights abuses, torture and excessive use of force.

“Komnas HAM must also announce its findings to the Coordinating Ministry for Politics, Legal and Security Affairs so there is an open and fair trial,” he said.

International human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, he added, must also be given access to those still being detained for treason, particularly Forkorus Yaboisembut, who was named president of an independent Papuan republic at the congress.

In a report released on Nov. 4, Komnas HAM alleged that the crackdown violated a raft of basic human rights and called on police to conduct a thorough investigation. It also said the central government should accelerate a dialogue with the Papuan people and do more for development in the province

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Indon Army preparing to attack OPM in Paniai.

November 28, 2011

URGENT

West Papua Media has received unconfirmed multiple reports from credible sources that 150 Brimob troops and 4 truckloads of Indonesian police from Polda Papua have surrounded the village of Markus Eduda in Paniai district, and are threatening to take action imminently prior to December 1st, the day on which massive civil resistance to Indonesian rule will be seen across Papua.

West Papua Media has not been able to independently confirm the veracity of these reports as local journalists have been barred from the area.

According to sources, Indonesian forces claim Markus Eduda contains persons in the Free Papua Movement whom they regard as secessionist.  In accordance with the declaration made by Governor of  Lemhanas (the Defence Institute in Jakarta), because West Papuan people are secessionist, Indonesia has an obligation to destroy, annihilate and eradicate them, refusing to honour basic human rights of peaceful free expression.

This is an escalating situation that international journalists should monitor.

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AWPA calls on Rudd to monitor Increasing tension in West Papua, focused on 1st December

The Australia West Papua Association (Sydney)

 

Media release   28 November 2011

 Increasing tension in West Papua, focused on the 1st December 

AWPA has written to the Kevin Rudd concerning West Papua national flag day (letter below) . Joe Collins of AWPA said “because of the dangerously deteriorating situation in West Papua we are asking the Foreign Minister to use his good offices with the Indonesian Government asking that it controls its security forces in West Papua, urging that the security forces should be kept in their barracks during any West Papuan celebrations on the 1st December as a way of avoiding possible bloodshed. We are also urging the foreign minister  to ask the Indonesian Government to allow full and free access of journalists to Papua and to send Australian embassy staff to monitor and observe events on December 1″.

Australia West Papua Association (Sydney)

PO Box 28, Spit Junction, Sydney, Australia 2088

The Hon Kevin Rudd MP

Minister for Foreign Affairs

Parliament House

Canberra

ACT 2600

 

28 November 2011

Dear Mr Rudd,

I am writing to you concerning increasing tension in West Papua[1], presently focused on the 1st December which is West Papuan national flag day.  Fifty years ago on the 1st of December 1961, in the then Dutch colony of West New Guinea, The West Papuan flag, called the Morning Star was flown for the first time officially beside the Dutch Tricolour.  The Dutch were finally about to give the West Papuan people their freedom. However, it is one of the great tragedies that at their moment of freedom it was cruelly crushed and West Papua was basically handed over to Indonesia in 1963.

The West Papuan people raise their flag as an act of celebration but also of protest against the injustices they suffer under Indonesian rule. We believe that the West Papuan people will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first flying of their flag with peaceful rallies in various parts of the territory on the 1st December. We are concerned that the security forces will use any rallies as an excuse to crackdown on the West Papuan people.

One of the most famous West Papuan political prisoners is Filep Karma who was arrested on the 1st December 2004 for being part of a rally where the Morning Star flag was raised.  In May 2005, a court sentenced Filep Karma to 15 years jail on charges of treason against the state. Amnesty International considers Filep Karma to be a prisoner of conscience who has been detained solely for the peaceful exercise of his right to freedom of expression.

Because of the dangerously deteriorating situation in West Papua we urge you to use your good offices with the Indonesian Government asking that it controls its security forces in West Papua, urging that the security forces should be kept in their barracks during any West Papuan celebrations on the 1st December as a way of avoiding possible bloodshed.

We also urge you to ask the Indonesian Government to allow full and free access of journalists to Papua and to send Australian embassy staff to monitor and observe events on December 1.

Yours sincerely

Joe Collins

Secretary

AWPA (Sydney)

[1] AWPA (Sydney) uses the name “West Papua” to refer to the whole of the western half of the Island of New Guinea.

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Triple J Hack: Papuans fear bloodshed after footage emerges of Congress Violence

ABC Triple J Hack – Sophie McNeill reports that footage has surfaced of the violent Indonesian military crackdown on the Third Papuan People’s Congress in West Papua on October 19, and speaks to West Papuan student’s about their friends’ experiences and concerns for Papua.

Aired on Hack: Wednesday 23 November

Listen/Download here:  WEST PAPUA 4-33

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