Category: News alert

Strike pressures PT Freeport Indonesia into serious negotiations

Alex Rayfield and Claudia King, 11 August 201

Indigenous Papuans are waging a four-decade long nonviolent struggle for independence from Indonesia. At the heart of Papuan grievances lies Freeport, the world’s largest gold and copper mine, owned and operated by US based company Freeport McMoRan and their Indonesian subsidiary PT Freeport Indonesia.

Perched on the western rim of the Melanesian Pacific, adjacent to independent Papua New Guinea is West Papua. Here, in a land so diverse that you can stand on a tropical glacier 15,000 feet high and peer down on the equator, indigenous Papuans are waging a four-decade long nonviolent struggle for independence from Indonesia. At the heart of Papuan grievances lies Freeport, the world’s largest gold and copper mine, owned and operated by US based company Freeport McMoRan and their Indonesian subsidiary PT Freeport Indonesia.

Recently trouble at the mine flared up again, as around 12,000 Indonesian and Papuan Mine workers and contractors went on strike, joined by local indigenous leaders. Walking off a job has never been so hard, Yan Ampnir told us. When he decided to join the mine workers’ strike in the remote Indonesian province of Papua, it was not a simple case of heading out the gate and driving home to his family. It involved a gruelling 40-mile trek down a roller-coaster road that plunges 8,400 feet down from the vertiginous cloud-cloaked mountain walls of Tembagapura, the remote mine base camp, to the sprawling swamp lowlands of Timika.


SPSI collection. Freeport Mine.

Tembagapura is a company town. The only people who live there are mine workers. After long shifts in the Grasberg open pit or in the underground mine, workers are bussed on four-wheel drive trucks back to Timika or the US lookalike suburb of Kuala Kencana, replete with shopping malls, manicured lawns and street lights, all carved out of the middle of the jungle. So, when the company refused to bus the workers outside the Indonesian military– guarded mine area, Ampnir and his compatriots picked up their bags and started walking.

Seventeen hours later the first group arrived in Timika; tired, wet, cold and hungry. Eight days later the strike ended. In the process some 12,000 mine workers (of a total workforce of 23,000) halted production at the world’s largest gold and copper mine, inflicting a loss of USD$95,000 per day on US-based Freeport McMoRan, Indonesian subsidiary PT Freeport Indonesia and their Anglo Australian partner, Rio Tinto.

After a quick search on the Internet, Albar Sabang, the local union branch secretary, hands us an excel spreadsheet. On it is a list of pay scales. Sabang is a mechanic who fixes heavy machinery like bulldozers and excavators. He has worked for PT Freeport Indonesia since 1994 and earns $3.00 per hour. He is one of the highest paid local employees out of a group PTFI calls “non-staff”. Others earn as little as $1.80 per hour, a wage that rose 98% after a similar workers strike in April 2007.

Sudiro (his only name) is a softly spoken tall Javanese man, unassuming in person. He is the local SPSI (Seluruh Pekerja Serikat Indondesia – or All Indonesian Workers Union) chair of the Freeport Mine Workers Union, an affiliate with the national SPSI network. Recently sacked by PT Freeport Indonesia for organising workers, he only just got his job back. “Of all the Freeport mines”, Sudiro tells us, “PT Freeport Indonesia is the most profitable. It has the lowest production costs. But workers are paid the lowest salaries. We are even paid less than Freeport mine workers in Mongolia and the Democratic Republic of Congo. That’s not right.”

A history of local grievances 

Freeport is emblematic of much that is wrong in West Papua.

The company’s Contract of Work was signed in 1967, two years before the Act of Free Choice was concluded, a referendum that was supposed to give the indigenous West Papuans a chance to say whether they wanted to be independent or part of Indonesia. In fact, there was no vote. Instead, 1,022 West Papuans, less than 0.01% of the population, were corralled into camps and told to “vote” for integration with Indonesia or have “their tongues cut out”. But it was not just the Indonesian government that consented to democratic fraud writ large; the US, Australian and European governments were also not prepared to contest the election or risk stability in the region for what one US Embassy source at the time called a handful of “Stone-Age illiterate tribal groups”.


SPSI collection.Strike Leaving Tembagapura.

The biggest prize of all was Freeport. Suharto declared the company a national asset and instructed the military to guard the mine, which led to a long history of human rights violations, including un-investigated mass killings, theft of Papuan land and massive environmental degradation, all of which has led to ongoing violent and nonviolent resistance.

This was the era before the notion of “free, prior, and informed consent” became best practice for extractive industries. According to local indigenous landowners, they still feel that they have not been consulted or their rights respected.

As the Amungme people’s sacred mountain is consumed, tailings are dumped in the Ajkwa River at the rate of 200,000 tons a day. The result: over 30,000 hectares of rainforest have been wiped out and huge levee banks built to stop Timika from being smothered by sludge waste. In the process, Freeport became a lightning rod for all Papuan grievances.

Although the company tried to respond to local indigenous West Papuan grievances by hiring Papuan staff and redirecting 1% of the profits to support members of the local seven tribes, new problems continue to be added on top of old, unresolved issues. The local tribes (a number of whom work in the mine) and Freeport mine workers from elsewhere bring in massive profits for the company. They work under extreme conditions at high altitude but feel like they have little stake in the company and few worker benefits.

“We are not valued as human beings. We are treated as an instrument of the company. Our goal is to get to a position where we are treated as human” says Sudiro.

According to miners interviewed in July 2011, many workers are forced to take out bank loans to pay for basic needs and to support their families. After retirement, some must seek alternative types of income. Yet when workers attempt to raise these issues with Freeport management, they have received warning letters from them in return.

“It seems like the company sees us as the troublemakers. But,” says Sudiro, referring to workers’ contributions to gold and copper production, “we are the solution-makers.”

SPSI finds its teeth 

SPSI PT Freeport Indonesia is one local branch of the national labour union federation of Indonesia. The organization has represented PTFI mine workers in 16 Collective Labor Agreements (CLA) dating back to 1977. But until recently it functioned as little more than a rubber stamp for company policies.

Freeport has a history of suppressing workers’ rights and union organizing. Under Suharto, independent labour organising was prohibited. Those that tried were often killed or spent years in jail. But over the past decade, as political space has slowly opened up, Sudiro and other workers have been quietly organizing. But because of the closed-off nature of West Papua, they have done so through exchanges on the Internet, educating themselves on best practice and lessons learned from unions in other parts of the world. “We particularly admired the quiet, peaceful way Japanese workers raised their grievances,” said Sudiro.


SPSI collection. Strike Congregate at Tembagapura.

SPSI PT Freeport Indonesia’s mission and objectives are limited to workers’ rights and their tactics are exclusively nonviolent. But they continue to be associated with violence and separatism. “We use a peaceful way. We don’t want to get into the political arena, this is not our area. We just want to struggle for our rights, and to have the same rights as workers elsewhere.”

Campaigns to educate fellow mine workers about their rights and the role of unions in protecting workers seem to be paying off. Reflecting on worker participation in the recent strike, Sudiro said, “The workers finally opened their eyes and minds to the situation. The company cannot stop this. We have woken up. We will never go back to how we were treated before the strike.”

Nevertheless, SPSI Freeport members continue to face threats and intimidation from the company. When two of the union members travelled to Jayapura to seek advice from Papuan leaders, they were followed by Indonesian security forces who have long been paid by Freeport to guard the mine.

“The company does not like us organizing for workers’ rights, but we are not doing anything wrong. The strike is an action that is guaranteed by the law. Indonesia is a member of the ILO and the ILO is very clear. We have the right to form a union and we have done so according to Indonesian law” says Sudiro.

Article 104 (1) of Indonesian National Law Number 13, 2003 explicitly states: “Every worker/ labourer has the right to form and become a member of a trade/ labour union.”

The decision to strike 

The company has utilized a range of “dirty” tactics to avoid dealing with SPSI demands over wages and conditions. One of the most galling for mineworkers was the creation of a ‘new’ union aimed at pushing out SPSI’s union. The new union was created in response to SPSI Freeport mineworkers’ agitation around wages and conditions.

At the same time the company declared the SPSI Freeport Mine Workers Union – an organisation that has grown from a low of 4,000 to 8,200 members – illegal, and promptly fired six of the leadership including Sudiro himself. The only problem was this ‘union’ had no members. Its board was appointed by Nur Hadiah, a lawyer based in Jayapura, in violation of SPSI regulations. “It was a completely fake union” said Sudiro.

The reaction from the workers? An overwhelming decision from all of the 254 union representatives to strike and nearly 100% participation from SPSI Freeport union members. “We were up against a wall. We had no other choice,” Sudiro said.

But the strike was not just about wages. “We wanted the company to recognise the union, the right to freely organise, and to reinstate the six SPSI Union leaders who were dismissed by Freeport for conducting union business” said Sudiro.

 

SPSI collection. A female striker
After more than a week of strikes and continuous demonstrations, on the evening of July 11 PT Freeport Indonesia gave in to SPSI’s

demands. They reinstated the union leaders without any deduction in salary, agreed to pay the wages of all striking workers for the duration of the strike, agreed to recognise SPSI Freeport Mine Workers Union as the sole legal representative of Freeport mine workers and also agreed to enter into Collective Labor Agreement negotiations. Those negotiations opened Wednesday July 20 at the Freeport-owned Hotel Rimba Papua in Timika. They are still continuing and according to Company sources are not expected to finish until 19 August. Both workers and management are remaining tight-lipped about their progress.

The seven tribes

The current  (seventeenth) Collective Labor Agreement negotiations are different. They are not only about wages and conditions. They also concern the company’s relationship with local landowners, the Amungme and Kamoro, as well as five other major highland tribes – the Dani, Moni, Damal, Mee/Ekari and Nduga.

Amungme tribal elder Hengky Uamang speaks to us at one of the SPSI union leaders’ rented duplex house in the back lanes of Timika. His voice is quiet and one of his compatriots translates from Amungme into Indonesian so that we can understand what he is saying. His message is simple and profound.

“My heart is broken. It is as if we are not human beings but a piece of gold to be consumed. I am gold but I get no benefit.” Tears slowly roll down his face.

Others in the crowded living room become angry. “Does Moffet (the US Chair of Freeport McMoRan) have no shame?” Jecky Amisim rhetorically asks. “Does he not fear God? Don’t you people in America know that if you come to someone’s place and want to take something, you have to ask first?”

The seven tribal leaders nod in agreement. Sudiro tells us: “If these negotiations fail, we will see it as a death of democracy.”

“If Moffett and Armando Mahler (the president of PT Freeport Indonesia) can’t help us, if the wealth of these mountains do not bring a benefit to us the local tribes, the workers and the people of Papua,” says Mr. Amisim, “then it is better we just kick this company out.”

The strike may be over,  but as union and management begin month-long negotiations over their biannual Collective Labour Agreement, the company continues to face the possibility of continued disruption from disgruntled workers and restive landowners seeking significant changes after years of opposition to Freeport mining.

“This article was originally published in the independent online magazine www.opendemocracy.net”

About the authors
Alex Rayfield is a freelance journalist based in Timika
Claudia King is a freelance journalist reporting from Timika


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13

SMH: Under the long arm of Indonesian intelligence

Tom Allard, Indonesia

August 13, 2011
Papuans calling for a referendum for Papua in Jayapura.Papuans calling for a referendum for Papua in Jayapura. Photo: AFP

IT WOULD seem an unremarkable venture – a group of American tourists visiting a cultural centre in the Papuan town of Abepura. But to one observer the event (lasting, as he later reported, precisely 35 minutes) was laden with potential significance.

The man in the shadows as the visitors watched a traditional dance was an informant for Indonesia’s elite special forces unit, Kopassus. In a subsequent report, he noted that, while the visit had been ”safe and smooth”, there was no room for complacency. It was a point heartily endorsed by his Kopassus contact, Second Lieutenant Muhammad Zainollah, who alluded, in a report to his own commander, to the risk of foreign tourists ”influencing conditions of Papuan society”.

”Politically, there needs to be a deeper detection of the existence hidden behind it all,” he warned, ”because of the possibility of a process of deception … such as meetings with pro-independence groups.”

One of hundreds of intelligence briefs from Kopassus intelligence posts in Papua obtained by The Saturday Age – and part of a cache of 19 documents that includes a detailed analysis of the ”anatomy” of the separatist movement pushing for independence from Indonesia – the note is bizarre, even amusing, but also revealing. The Indonesian government runs a massive network of spies and informants in Papua, illustrating the level of paranoia in Jakarta about its hold over the resource-rich region in the western half of the island of New Guinea.

Situated in the easternmost reaches of Indonesia’s sprawling archipelago, the Papua region is a source of continuing embarrassment for Indonesia – a country that has otherwise made substantial strides as a democratic and economic power. Despite being granted special autonomy 10 years ago and targeted for accelerated economic development, its indigenous Melanesian people are the country’s poorest and many are deeply unhappy with Jakarta’s rule and a heavy security presence.

The documents, which date from 2006 to 2009, reveal that independence activists and members of the OPM-TPN, the small armed resistance, are under intense surveillance, but so too are many ordinary Papuans and civic leaders who do not advocate independence but are concerned about the advancement of their people, or are influential in the community.

”Everyone is a separatist until they can prove they are not,” says Neles Tebay, a pastor and convener of the Papua Peace Network that is promoting dialogue with Jakarta.

Around the capital, Jayapura, where many of the documents originate, there are 10 Kopassus spy networks infiltrating ”all levels of society”, including the university, government agencies, the local parliament, hotels and the Papuan Customary Council.

A worker at a car rental agency tips off his Kopassus handler whenever a suspicious customer visits the establishment or talks about ”M”, shorthand for ”merdeka” or freedom. A phone shop employee ”often provides information on the phone numbers of people purchasing phone credits”.

Journalists, university students, bureaucrats, church leaders, teachers, motorcycle taxi drivers, clan leaders, village chiefs, farmers and forest workers are all on the books of Kopassus.

One leader of the OPM-TPN has eight Kopassus informants within his network, including a 14-year-old family member.

Other units of the Indonesian military, known as the TNI, run similar intelligence operations, as do the police. There are also scores of agents in Papua from Indonesia’s national intelligence agency, known by its acronym BIN.

Benny Giay, a leader of the Gospel Tabernacle Church, is one of the civic leaders branded a separatist by Kopassus. For Dr Giay, the suffocating presence of the intelligence network is part of daily life, as is interference in the affairs of his church by the military. ”If someone joins the church, we always have to ask ourselves, ‘What did they come here for? Are they intels or worshippers?’ ” he says.

Given the disappearance and deaths of other leaders under the gaze of Kopassus, the surveillance leaves Giay constantly uneasy. ”I have to check my meals to make sure they are not poisoned and I have to be home by 7pm. If I walk around after then, I have to bring someone with me, always.”

Marcus Haluk, the secretary general of the Central Highlands Papuan Student Association, features heavily in the documents. It seems most of his meetings are attended by a Kopassus spy. ”I’ve lost count of the attempts to kill or threaten me,” he says. ”I’ve had guns pointed at my head, I’ve been thrown from a motorcycle. There are always SMS threats.”

Underpinning the spying is the view that most institutions in Papua are riddled with separatists. The documents outline a two-stage intelligence operation to address the perceived problem. The first involves disrupting alleged separatist networks and the second is dubbed the ”diminishing dominant influence phase” or ensuring ”traditional institutions used for politics in Papua lose the trust of the indigenous peoples of Papua”.

In short, the objective is to discredit the institutions and arrangements introduced by the central government under Papua’s special autonomy deal introduced in 2001 – the very policy supposed to give Papuans economic and cultural rights, dampen independence sentiment and secure national unity.

Agus Sumule, a long-term resident of Papua and adviser to governor Barnabas Suebu, is an immigrant and a nationalist and was a key player in drafting the special autonomy laws which created a new legislative body – known as the Majelis Rakyat Papua (MRP) – to represent indigenous Papuans.

Special autonomy has never had a chance, he argues, and much of the blame lies with Jakarta’s refusal to implement it properly. Papua was divided into two provinces – Papua and West Papua – in 2003 against the wishes of the MRP, Dr Sumule says. Moreover, the home affairs ministry interferes in the election of MRP candidates, and has banned people from taking their seats. Despite provisions in the special autonomy law for symbols of Papuan identity to be displayed, the cherished Morning Star flag has been outlawed. Those caught displaying it can be sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Some $3 billion in aid has flowed from the central government to the region in the past decade, but it is handed out haphazardly and most of it has been siphoned off by corrupt officials or wasted on bureaucracies to support the new province and dozens of new regencies in Papua.

Meanwhile, Papua has been swamped by migrants from other parts of Indonesia who dominate its economy. Explaining the economic disparity, one Kopassus report claimed that indigenous Papuans ”lack the willingness to work and the lack the willingness to make a better life, so their lives seem to be making no substantial progress”. Migrants, in contrast, had a ”high spirit and work ethic”.

Asked about the extensive intelligence operations, Sumule observes: ”On the one hand it’s paranoia, but it’s also much more than paranoia. It shows they don’t have a relevant policy for Papua, an understanding of Papua or what Papua should be in Indonesia.

”The problem with the intelligence is it’s not intelligent,” he adds. ”They send so much wrong information for the people in Jakarta, and they make decisions on it. It’s very dangerous.”

Indeed, the major report on the ”Anatomy of Separatists” had a detailed section on the alleged foreign support networks for a ”Free Papua” and it bears out Dr Sumule’s criticism of the quality of the intelligence. The list of 32 names for Australia includes academics, politicians and religious leaders who could understandably be placed in the category, but many others are not separatist supporters – they have simply shown an interest in Papuan affairs, raised concerns about human rights or are journalists who have reported from the region. The appearance of the former current affairs host Naomi Robson on the list is a standout.

Foreigners in Papua are viewed suspiciously, especially non-government groups. Indeed, Indonesia has expelled several foreign NGOs from the territory in recent years. The International Committee of the Red Cross, for example, is allowed into Guantanamo Bay but banned from visiting more than 100 political prisoners in Papuan jails.

One part of the intelligence analysis that is presumably more accurate is the assessment of the strength of the OPM-TPN. It is reckoned to have just 1129 fighters with mixed weapons totalling only 131, plus some grenades.

While the poorly armed resistance fighters do have some success in ambushing Indonesian military posts, the low estimate of their strength calls into question why there is such a large military presence in Papua. The Indonesian government won’t release precise figures on its armed deployments in Papua but, since special autonomy was introduced, it has doubled the number of battalions from three to six. It has 114 posts along the border with Papua New Guinea alone.

Estimates put the military numbers at about 15,000, approximately 13 soldiers for every armed separatist.

As one Indonesian official told a US embassy staffer, revealed in cables released by WikiLeaks: ”The TNI has far more troops in Papua than it is willing to admit, chiefly to protect and facilitate TNI interests in illegal logging operations.”

Whatever the reason for its deployment, the massive military and intelligence apparatus in Papua makes a lie of the Indonesian government’s insistence that it long ago junked its ”security” approach to managing Papua and it is now formulating policy under the rubric of ”development and prosperity”, says Neles Tebay.

”[The troops] are trained to see Papuans as the enemy,” he adds. ”I’m not saying all the troops are bad but if one group of them is threatening the indigenous people then it creates widespread fear. Also, they are always interrogating people. It’s very threatening.”

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/under-the-long-arm-of-indonesian-intelligence-20110812-1iqtj.html#ixzz1Urwzdlye

Read the secret Kopassus report [PDF 3mb file]
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5

Imparsial: Only a state can challenge the Act of Free Choice

Benny Wenda at the IPWP launch
Image via Wikipedia

>Bintang Papua, 10 August 2011
[A very lengthy report, abridged in translation by TAPOL]

Only a state can challenge the Act of Free Choice

Jayapura: Although no official report has yet been received about the
results of the International Laywers for West Papua conference in Oxford
on 2 August with regard to challenging the 1969 Act of Free Choice
(pepera) at the International Court of Justice, Imparsial-Jakarta says
that a challenge can only be successful if it is made by a state, not
by an organisation like ILWP.

Poengki Indarti, the executive director of Imparsial, an organisation
that frequently draws attention to the activities of the Indonesian
military in West Papua as well as to the human rights situation there,
said that the ILWP is not a state and furthermore, pepera was
legitimised by the United Nations while virtually all countries
recognise that West Papua is part of NKRI, the Unitary State of the
Republic of Indonesia.

She said that what Benny Wenda is trying to do via the ILWP and the
IPWP is to win as much support as possible from countries around the
world which show an interest in West Papua’s secession from Indonesia.
However, this is very difficult indeed because all countries with the
exception of Vanuatu support the incorporation of West Papua into
Indonesia. ‘What they are trying to do is get the support of some
hopefully sympathetic states. I dont think people should overact to the
decisions adopted by the ILWP conference,’ she said.

However, Yan Christian Warinussy, executive director of Papua-based
human rights NGO, LP3BH, said that any challenge with regard to ‘legal
standing’ would depend on the interpretation of the judge before whom
the case is brought. He said: ‘As regards any efforts to challenge
pepera that may be made by the ILWP, anyone and in particular the
Papuan people could submit a challenge because it relates to their
rights as Papuans . If in the opinion of the judge before whom the case
is brought, an organisation such as the ILWP has been granted the
necessary powers by the Papuan people, the case can of course be
accepted.’ He went on to say that it would be much more strategic for
the challenge to be made first of all at the national level because
Indonesia has its own legal system and it is not certain that a
decision would be adopted by the International Court in a case
connected with a sovereign state like Indonesia.

‘Therefore, I would press for the challenge to be made within the
Indonesian legal system which could be done by the Papuan Customary
Council (Dewan Adat Papua) or another organisation that has been granted
the necessary powers,’ said Warinussy who received the John Humphrey
human rights award in 2005.

The Imparsial director-general said that she thinks that all
stakeholders in Papua should focus primarily on peaceful endeavours and
dialogue to find a ‘middle way’. If everyone sticks to their own
opinion, the ones whose interests are damaged are the Papuan people who
do not have a very good understanding of political affairs. (sic).
Meanwhile, she drew attention to the long drawn out Papuan problem with
many actions being taken about the unsatisfactory implementation of
OTSUS (the special autonomy law), many acts of violence that have
resulted in civilian lives being lost, as well as actions calling for
independence, all of which point to the lack any serious attention from
the central and provincial governments. She said that the Indonesian
government is half-hearted about Papua and seems to want conditions in
Papua to stay the same as they are now. ‘We all hope to see the
government pay serious attention to Papua.’ She said it seems as though
the government just wants to keep the conflict in Papua going. It shows
no interest in enacting regulations or laws and seems to be acting at
cross purposes, with the government frequently pursuing the repressive
approach while the military have said that that they have made drastic
changes in the way they handle Papua. However, people feel that the
situation is no different from what it was in the past.

‘In the many cases of violence, it is the task of the police to
investigate who was responsible but nothing concrete has happened, while
Papuans are asking whether it was the real OPM or a fictional OPM that
certain state institutions are keeping alive. Everyone is looking to
the government to explain things because as yet the Papuan question
has not been resolved whereas the government is not serious about
solving it.

A case in point is what Benny Wenda is doing in the UK. Although Poengky
Indarti has checked the Interpol list of fugitives and saw that he is a
fugitive registered with Interpol, he is nevertheless free to seek
support overseas while no action is taken against him either by the
Indonesian government or the Indonesian police. The government is
deliberately keeping the Papuan problem hanging in the air, from the
polemics about the failure of OTSUS, to the breaches of security and the
shooting incidents as well as the calls for independence that have
caused much anxiety among the civilian population, whereas the
government still doesnt regard Papua as a problem that is in need of
solution.

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1

Acts of violence are damaging the Papuan people, says DPD member

Bintang Papua, 8 August. 2011

Sofia Popy Maipauw, a member of the DPD, the Council of Regional
Representatives, said that the recent upsurge in acts of violence that
have been occurring in the Land of Papua can be very damaging for the
Papuan people and called on those who are responsible for all this
violence to stop.

She said she doesn’t want to mention any names but insists that all
those involved in violence should stop. The incident in Ilaga, district
of Puncak Jaya and the Nafri incident in Jayapura have been very
harmful for indigenous Papuan people. These incidents have had damaging
consequences for the economy. People living in the kampungs are afraid
to come to the markets to sell their products, which can result in an
increase in the price of these products, she told journalists in Jayapura.

She went on to say that the indigenous Papuan people are much weaker
economically than other people in the province which means that these
acts of violence can be very burdensome for them.

‘I would like to know what the state intelligence agency, BIN, has been
doing all this time. The recent shootings in Papua are not the first
time such things have happened. They keep on happening but no action has
been taken against those responsible,’ she said.

She said that in November last year, a similar incident occurred in
Nafri but no one has been arrested and held to account for this
incident. Incidents like this, she said, give the Papuan people a very
bad reputation. Such stigmas must end so that Papuans can feel
comfortable as part of Indonesia.

She went on to say that SBY, the president, should not keep silent about
problems in Papua but should take action to prevent these incidents from
occurring and ensure that these incidents are dealt with seriously. She
said that this was a huge challenge for the new chief of police who
should take action regardless of who is involved. ‘The acting governor
of Papua should take responsibility for safeguarding the forthcoming
local elections. He should cooperate with the Elections Commission (KPU)
of the province of Papua to deal with any violations that occur during
the elections,’ she said.

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9

Tempo: All West Papua Province’s Lawmakers Declared as Corruption Suspect

FYI

(West Papua Media comment:  these actions should be seen as an indictment of Jakarta’s failed Special Autonomy policies.  The DPRD office holders are restricted to those who are  members of Indonesia-wide political parties, and are heavily skewed toward military business interests.  A high proportion of members of the DPRP are not ethnically Papuan, and those who are, are involved in major Indonesian business ventures)

also: Big Budget, Big Leaks

Tempo Magazine
No. 50/XI/August 10-16, 2011

Law

All Suspects Together

All members of the West Papua DPRD were named as suspects in
corruption of the province’s funding. The state funds that should have
been used as capital for one of the province’s own businesses was
instead distributed to serve political interests. Governance in West
Papua is now threatened with coming to a complete standstill.

A Plenary session of the West Papua Provincial House of
Representatives (DPRD) was suddenly called for Thursday two weeks ago.
Although all the members were not present, the sitting was marked by a
tense atmosphere. Not surprisingly, as the theme of the discussion was
a very serious matter concerning the future fates of all those
attending.

The Papua State Prosecutor’s Office had named 44 members of the
parliament as suspects over corruption of Rp22 billion of West Papua
Provincial Income and Expenditure Budgets (APBD) for 2010 and 2011.
The announcement made by Deputy Chief State Prosecutor Suhardjo Tjatjo
rocked Papua. In the history of this nation, this is the first time
ever all the members of a parliament have been named graft suspects.

Not just the public, but the West Papua DPRD members themselves
admitted they were shaken when the release first appeared two weeks
ago. “I have never been questioned, so how come I am suddenly declared
a suspect?” said DPRD Speaker Johan Yoseph Auri. The Golkar Party
politician accused the investigation of the case of being loaded with
political interests. “I’m sure the prosecutor doesn’t have any strong
evidence in this corruption case,” he asserted boldly.

Johan admits he did accept the cash concerned. As did all his
parliamentary colleagues. But, he said: “It was a loan that was to be
repaid in three years.” Johan says he borrowed the cash from the
province-owned PT Papua Doberai Mandiri because he was under pressure
to meet his constituents’ requests.

Every day, he said, groups come to DPRD members’ offices claiming to
be constituents from various parts of Papua. They come asking for
donations for this and that and to lodge proposals for all kinds of
activities. “I have no other income, so I’m forced to look for loans,”
Johan explained.

Disastrously, those loans were not obtained from a bank, but rather
from a state-owned business that was not supposed to be involved in
borrowing and lending its shareholders cash. PT Doberai, for instance,
is a company set up by the West Papua government to look after
investment in this, Indonesia’s youngest province.

It was difficult to get other DPRD members to explain to us why they
now have the status of suspects. The plenary session, said John
Fathie—another Golkar politician—had decided that all its members were
forbidden to talk to the media. Explanations were only to be offered
by the DPRD speaker. Several members denied they had received any
money. “I already owe my bank money, so it would be impossible for me
to look for another loan,” declared PNI Marhaenisme politician Yance
Yomaki.

The difficulty is that the Papua Attorney General’s Office is fully
convinced that these people’s representatives have already done as
they liked by ‘feasting’ on the state funds to which they had no
right. Deputy Head of the State Prosecutor’s Office (AGO), Suhardjo
Tjatjo laid out to Tempo just how this case had begun, from its
investigation through to the conclusions reached and all the suspects
being determined.

Tjatjo said this was an old case whose status could only recently be
raised to that of an investigation once the AGO was convinced that
none of the money that had been claimed to be loans had been returned.
“There was no accountability for this expenditure,” he added.

Now, it so happened that Rp22 billion was cleared to be paid out at
the request of West Papua Provincial Secretary, Marthen Luther
Rumadas. Rp15 billion of that came from the 2010 APBD and the rest
from the 2011 one. “The business is under my authority,” he said
defensively.

The funds ought to have been allocated as additional capital for PT
Papua Doberai Mandiri. This provincial government-owned company is
active in very wide-ranging fields: drilling for oil and gas, non-oil
and gas exploration, as well as the acceleration of infrastructure
development, including netting new investors, both domestic and
foreign.

PT Doberai was set up around the same time as the formation of the new
province in 2009. West Irian Jaya regency was then elevated to the
status of West Papua province, with Manokwari as its capital. At its
establishment on 18 May 2009, the provincial government, that had
obtained an injection of special autonomy funds of Rp1.7 trillion,
invested Rp100 billion to buy shares in the new company.

A year later, all the shares in the province-owned business were taken
over by the West Papua government, until full control of it rested in
the hands of the provincial secretary. While that was happening, the
province treasury injected a further Rp25 billion in capital into it.
“That was when the games began,” said Tjatjo.

As the one having control of the business, Rumadas has also become a
suspect. He is accused of handing out state funds to DPRD members on
very spurious grounds: to cover their additional living expenses.

Rumadas was discovered to have issued a letter on 17 September 2010
concerning lending PT Doberai another Rp15 billion. Johan Auri gave
his written agreement to lending out this money to DPRD members.

The problem was that his letter was issued several hours after the
money had been transferred. “This meant that the money that had been
deposited then had to be hurriedly paid out,” said Tjatjo. The AGO
looked into this odd occurrence. It was also revealed that PT Papua
Doberai Mandiri’s CEO Mamad Suhadi at one point apparently refused
Rumadas’s request to pay out the money that had just been transferred.

When Rumadas had summoned him to his office, Mamad verbally declined
to comply. “Sorry, Sir, making such payouts would be a mistake,” said
Mamad, as imitated by Tjatjo. When Mamad refused to follow Rumadas’s
instruction, the Head of the West Papua Province Financial Bureau M.
Sirait was sitting next to Rumadas and later confirmed Mamad’s
statement to the prosecutor.

Rumadas paid no attention to Mamad’s objections. The money was still
paid out. Several weeks later another instruction was issued to
disburse a further Rp7 billion. The grounds were the same: loans to
the DPRD members. The AGO considered this corruption because the
members could not possibly pay back their loans in the set time,
namely July this year.

Rumadas does not reject the series of events, the results of the
prosecutors’ investigation. But he rejects claims that the loans were
deliberately given out to enrich DPRD members. Because of the loan
clause, Rumadas says, the DPRD members were required to return the
money they had borrowed.

Strangely, when he was pressed to explain why the loan money had been
taken from the company’s coffers and whether he knew what the loans
were for, Rumadas shook his head. “I didn’t know what they wanted the
loans for,” he admitted.

Tjatjo also admitted that the DPRD members were not told they had been
made suspects as the request for permission to question them submitted
to the Minister of Home Affairs had not yet had a response. Under
criminal procedure law, Tjatjo explained, if permission is not
forthcoming by one month after a request letter is sent, his office
may then continue its investigation and use compulsion to summon
suspects.

Last Friday, when we asked Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi for
confirmation of the request letter, he said he had not yet received
it. “Once I have received the request, I’ll certainly agree to it.
It’s just to uphold the law,” Gamawan told Tempo.

However, Gamawan does hope the AGO doesn’t have clear proof that the
DPRD members were involved in corruption, so the case won’t need to be
pursued further. He added that governance of West Papua could come to
a standstill if all the members of its parliament were detained.
“There is still an opportunity not to take this further,” he said.

Tjatjo realizes the consequences if the legal process continues.
Governance in West Papua could stall and many policies could not get
implemented, as all DPRD members would likely be non-active. The
current total confusion could get even worse, remembering that West
Papua is also due to hold the direct election of its governor in
September of this year.

But, Tjatjo added, the AGO has no other choice as, whatever else
happens, the law must be enforced. Especially as the evidence in this
case is so glaringly obvious. “If necessary, I will summon them using
compulsion,” he warned.

Bagja Hidayat (Jakarta), Jerry Omona (Jayapura)

——————

Tempo Magazine
No. 50/XI/August 10-16, 2011

Law

Big Budget, Big Leaks

The riots that recently spread in Papua have caused the government to
reevaluate the special autonomy status for the area. Last Thursday
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono discussed the issue when he met the
heads of the nations’s top institutions at the State Palace.

“Special autonomy is not just a matter of budget, but also concerns
policy,” commented Regional Representatives Assembly Speaker Irman
Gusman after the meeting. Irman said special autonomy that is focused
only on meeting its budget has been shown to be ineffective. An audit
by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) did indeed confirm what Irman said.

In its report last April, the BPK uncovered suspected budget misuse
throughout the period 2002-2010 of special autonomy in Papua. Of the
total Rp19 trillion of special autonomy funding for improvement of
infrastructure and health services, Rp4.2 trillion had been likely
misused.

Not all the autonomy funding since 2002 was examined. Because the
total general autonomy funding for Papua and West Papua provinces
already disbursed by 2010 amounted to Rp28.8 trillion.

The misuse in the sample checked covered various things: expenditure
that could not be accounted for, expenditure not in accordance with
submitted programs, overpayments, and fictive programs. The report
says, for instance, that Rp1.85 trillion of autonomy funding for the
period 2008-2010 was put on term deposit in Bank Mandiri Jayapura and
Bank Papua.

The Rp53 billion in interest from this was then not credited to the
account of the special autonomy fund. The Papua provincial government
has explained that the money stashed away as term deposits did not
come from the special autonomy fund. It was reserve funds, the
interest on which was then used to subsidize village development at
Rp100 million per village.

The BPK does not accept that. “Because special autonomy funding is
intended to accelerate development, cash management via term deposits
is then inappropriate,” reads the report that BPK member Rizal Djalil
presented to parliament.

That report concludes that leaks have clearly occurred in the absence
of any clear regulations on the use and accountability for the
jumbo-sized cash largesse. When reporting these findings, Rizal said
that to date the use of the autonomy funds only needed verbal
agreement between the governor plus a regent and a mayor within Papua.
It it is not surprising then that the BPK later uncovered fictive
expenditure. “I’m sure, from our sample investigation, the nation has
suffered a loss of Rp319 billion,” said Rizal.

Under Papua’s Special Autonomy Law, a budget of 2 percent of the
National General Allocation Fund is to be disbursed for improvement of
infrastructure and health services there, so that, in 25 years’
time—beginning from 2002—there will no longer be any transportation
problems in the area. Everything will be connected by land, sea, or
air.

But the reality is very different. The funds seem to vanish and not
make their way down—let alone get disbursed—to those at the bottom.
Corruption has spread into a number of areas. The money that ought to
be used to build facilities is instead grabbed everywhere, as with the
money of provincial government-owned businesses corruptly taken by
members of the West Papua provincial parliament.

Almost every year, for instance, hospital staff in Jayapura or Abepura
go on strike over their miniscule allowances. In turn, other hospitals
are forced to turn away patients because of lack of medicines to treat
them.

Irman says the current chaos in the management of autonomy funds is a
result of weak control and supervision. Accordingly, it will later
become not just a matter of being unclear where the money went, as the
area concerned will then become continually afflicted by chaos. “Later
the autonomy funding must no longer be dropped there just like that.
The programs for its use must be clear and supervision tight,” Irman
stressed.

BHD, Munawwaroh

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