Tag: indonesia

West Papua political prisoner Filep Karma warns of the danger that new US-Indonesia ties present in secret interview for Al-Jazeera

From Al-Jazeera

Around 200 people raised the Morning Star flag in Indonesia’s Papua province in December 2004, in a symbolic move to mark the Papuan independence campaign that has been pursued since 1962.

Filep Karma was arrested at that ceremony and jailed 15 years for flying the outlawed Papua flag.

And he warns, in a secretly recorded interview with Al Jazeera, that the decision to renew military co-operation between the US and Indonesia could have dangerous consequences for the Papuan people.

Watch the interview here
http://english.aljazeera.net/video/asia-pacific/2010/07/201073124515884622.html

OPM pledge to increase attacks against Indonesian forces

Please note: this is a repost of a Indonesian press report. West Papua Media Alerts makes no assertion as to its accuracy.

The separatist Free Papua Movement, which has been engaged in a low-profile armed resistance against the Indonesian presence in the province since the 1960s, on Thursday threatened to step up attacks against the government until Papuan independence was granted.

“We, the people of Papua, remain steadfast in our initial stand to safeguard the dignity of the Papuan nation by gaining independence,” Anton Tabuni, secretary general of the group, known as the OPM, said in a video released to journalists in Papua.

“The people of Papua will continue to struggle to secede from the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia,” continued Tabuni, who claimed to be speaking on behalf of OPM commander Goliat Tabuni .

The video was released a day after armed men believed to be from the OPM ambushed and burned a convoy of three trucks carrying diesel oil and food in Pagargom, in the Tingginambut area of Puncak Jaya district.

“Whether civilians, plainclothes or uniformed security members, we will rid Papua of them,” Tabuni said.

The video also showed an OPM gathering in Tingginambut, believed to be a congress held by the organization on June 31. The meeting ended in a renewed resolve to fight for independence.

Papua Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Wahyono declined to comment, saying police had yet to see the video. “We have not watched the video, so we cannot comment on it,” Wahyono said. “But we are going to investigate it.”

Adrianna Elizabeth, a researcher of conflict areas at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), said the government should not dismiss the threat, even though the OPM was not a heavily armed organization.

“Even if the social and economic conditions of Papuans improve, the OPM will always be there because it wants its political demands to be met,” Adrianna said, adding that OPM’s vast network had spread throughout urban and rural areas in the territory.

“Human rights are not being upheld in the province and we should also realize that the Papuan autonomy law has not been well implemented,” she said, citing possible reasons for the persistence of separatist aspirations in the province .

In a report released in March, the global think tank International Crisis Group warned that some elements of OPM were becoming increasingly militant.

It also said OPM and the National Committee for West Papua (KNPB) — a group with its roots in the student movement — were likely behind the deadly attacks last year on workers near a mine run by a unit of Freeport McMoran Copper and Gold.

The ICG recommended broadening talks between Jakarta and Papuan leaders to address political, historical and economic grievances.

Meanwhile, police in pursuit of the perpetrators of Wednesday’s attack in Pagargom are concentrating on Tingginambut, known to be home to OPM’s central headquarters.

“Since [Thursday] morning, our officers have been hunting them, especially in the Tingginambut area,” Wahyono said, adding that a thick fog and the mountainous, thickly forested terrain were hindering the operation.

Wahyono said there were no plans yet to send reinforcements since the force already in Puncak Jaya was considered to be adequate. Papua Police have already deployed about 100 members of the elite Mobile Brigade (Brimob) to Tingginambut .

Amnesty International Disappointed by U.S. Government Decision to Train Suspected Human Rights Violators in Indonesian Military

Amnesty International today expressed disappointment in the announcement from the Department of Defense that the United States will provide training to the Indonesian Special Forces unit, Kopassus, which is known for grave human rights violations. The following statement can be attributed to T. Kumar, AIUSA’s director for international advocacy.

“Amnesty International is disappointed by the decision that U.S. forces will train the Kopassus unit. It sends the wrong message in a country where mass and severe human rights violations have taken place in an atmosphere of impunity. U.S. support to this unit undercuts the recent efforts advocating reform within the Indonesian military.  Amnesty International calls upon the U.S. administration to make public what commitments they received from the Indonesian authorities about bringing Kopassus military leaders to justice and also calls upon President Obama, in his upcoming visit to Indonesia, to speak publicly about human rights abuses in Indonesia and to meet the families of those killed by the Kopassus.

The Kopassus unit has been linked to serious human rights violations in Indonesia including killings and torture in East Timor, Papua, Aceh and elsewhere. Amnesty International calls for all crimes allegedly perpetrated by Kopassus members and others in the Indonesian military to be brought to court in proceedings that meet fair trail standards and victims should receive reparations.

While the Secretary of Defense offered assurances that all training will be conducted within the confines of U.S. law and that the collaboration does not weaken U.S. support of human rights, Amnesty International recommends that background screenings be conducted prior to any Indonesian military official suspected of involvement in human rights abuses, before receiving  U.S.-backed training.”

Amnesty International is a Nobel Peace Prize-winning grassroots activist organization with more than 2.8 million supporters, activists and volunteers who campaign for universal human rights from more than 150 countries. The organization investigates and exposes abuses, educates and mobilizes the public, and works to protect people wherever justice, freedom, truth and dignity are denied.

For more information, please visit: http://www.amnestyusa.org

ETAN Condemns U.S. Plan to Get Back in Bed with Indonesia's Kopassus Killers

ETAN Condemns U.S. Plan to Get Back in Bed with Indonesia’s Kopassus Killers
July 22, 2010 – The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) today condemned the Obama administration’s decision to resume engagement with Indonesia’s notorious Kopassus special forces.

“Slipping back into bed with Kopassus is a betrayal of the brutal unit’s many victims in Timor-Leste, West Papua and throughout Indonesia. It will lead to more people to suffer abuses,” said John M. Miller, National Coordinator of ETAN. “Working with Kopassus, which remain unrepentant about its long history of terrorizing civilians, will undermine efforts to achieve justice and accountability for human rights crimes in Indonesia and Timor-Leste (East Timor).”

“For years, the U.S. military provided training and other assistance to Kopassus, and when the U.S. was most involved Kopassus crimes were at their worst. While this assistance improved the Indonesian military’s deadly skills, it did nothing to improve its behavior,” Miller added.

“Engagement with Kopassus would violate the Leahy Law, which prohibits military assistance to units with unresolved human rights violations,” said Miller. “Even the previous Bush State Department’s legal counsel thought so, ruling that the Leahy prohibition applied to Kopassus as a whole.”

U.S. officials, speaking to the New York Times, distinguished between soldiers who were “only implicated, not convicted’ in human rights crimes. Administration officials have said that some Kopassus soldiers convicted of crimes no longer served with the unit, however many of them remain on active duty, including Lt. Col. Tri Hartomo, convicted by a military court of the murder of Papuan leader Theys Eluay in 2001.

The official American Forces Press Service wrote that a “senior defense official said Indonesia has pledged that any Kopassus member who is credibly accused of a human rights violation will be suspended pending an investigation, will be tried in a civilian court, and will be removed from the unit if convicted.” Legislation transferring members of military to civilian courts for trials has yet to pass.

“The problem remains that the Indonesian military (TNI) as a whole and Kopassus in particular rarely take accusations of human rights violations seriously and few end up in any court,” said ETAN’s Miller. “Engaging Kopassus with only token concessions will not encourage reform, respect for rights or accountability. It may do the opposite.”

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced in Jakarta that the U.S. “will begin a gradual, limited program of security cooperation activities” with Kopassus. U.S. officials told the media that “there would be no immediate military training,” However, Gates did not say exactly what criteria will be used to decide if “to expand upon these initial steps [which] will depend upon continued implementation of reforms within Kopassus” and the TNI.

Background

Engagement with Kopassus has been opposed by human rights and victims associations in Indonesia, Timor-Leste and internationally. It has been debated within the Obama administration and in Congress.

In May 2010, 13 senior members of Congress wrote the Secretary Gates and Secretary of State Clinton concerning plans to cooperate with Kopassus. The letter called for “a reliable vetting process critical… for identifying Kopassus officials who have violated human rights” and said “the transfer of jurisdiction over human rights crimes committed by members of the military to civilian courts should be a pre-condition for engagement with Kopassus.” Legislation to transfer members of the military to civilian courts has long been stalled. Trials of some soldiers before ad-hoc human rights courts, such as on East Timor, have resulted in acquittals.

Kopassus troops have been implicated in a range of human rights violations and war crimes in Aceh, West Papua, Timor-Leste and elsewhere. Although a few special forces soldiers have been convicted of the kidnapping of activists prior to the fall of the Suharto dictatorship and the 2001 murder of Theys Eluay, the perpetrators of the vast majority of human rights crimes continue to evade prosecution. Kopassus and other troops indicted by UN-backed prosecutors in Timor-Leste for crimes committed in 1999 during Timor’s independence referendum remain at large.

Kopassus was involved in Timor-Leste from the killings of five Australian-based journalists at Balibo in 1975 prior to Indonesia’s full scale invasion through its destructive withdrawal in 1999. Kopassus soldiers are alleged to have been involved in the 2002 ambush murder of three teachers (including two from the U.S.) near the Freeport mine in West Papua. The crimes of Kopassus are not only in the past. A Human Rights Watch report published last year documents how Kopassus soldiers “arrest Papuans without legal authority, and beat and mistreat those they take back to their barracks.” A report by journalist Allan Nairn describes security force – including a U.S.-trained Kopassus general – involvement in the killing of activists in Aceh last year. http://www.etan.org/news/2010/03nairn.htm

The leaders of Kopassus have consistently rejected calls to hold it accountable. In April 2010 at a ceremony marking the anniversary of the unit’s founding, Kopassus commander Maj. Gen. Lodewijk Paulus called allegations of past rights violations a “psychological burden.” He told The Jakarta Globe “Honestly, it has become a problem and people just keep harping on them. It’s not fair.”

Lt. Gen. Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin, who served with Kopassus and is accused of human rights violations in East Timor and elsewhere, remains as deputy defense minister. His position is being challenged in court by victims of human rights violations in the 1998 Jakarta riots and the 1997/1998 kidnapping of student and political activists.

In 2005, the Bush administration exercised a national security waiver that allowed for full engagement with the Indonesian military for the first time since the early 1990s. The conditions for U.S. military engagement, which the Bush administration abandoned, included prosecution of those responsible for human rights violations in East Timor and elsewhere and implementation of reforms to enhance civilian control of the Indonesian military. The Bush administration waited until 2008 to propose restarting U.S. training of Kopassus, which was suspended in 1998. The State Department’s legal counsel reportedly ruled that the 1997 ban on training of military units with a history of involvement in human rights violations, known as the ‘Leahy law,’ applied to Kopassus as a whole and the training did not go forward.

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.

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Support ETAN make a contribution here http://etan.org/etan/donate.htm
Thank you for your support.

John M. Miller, National Coordinator
East Timor & Indonesia Action Network (ETAN)
PO Box 21873, Brooklyn, NY 11202-1873 USA
Phone: +1-718-596-7668 Mobile phone: +1-917-690-4391
Email john@etan.org Skype: john.m.miller
http://www.etan.org

Twitter: http://twitter.com/etan009
Blog: http://etanaction.blogspot.com/
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Send a blank e-mail message to info@etan.org to find out how to learn more about East Timor and Indonesia on the Internet

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STATEMENT BY THE WEST PAPUA ADVOCACY TEAM REGARDING THE U.S. GOVERNMENT'S DECISION TO RESUME COOPERATION WITH THE INDONESIAN SPECIAL FORCES (KOPASSUS)

STATEMENT BY THE WEST PAPUA ADVOCACY TEAM REGARDING THE U.S. GOVERNMENT’S DECISION TO RESUME COOPERATION WITH THE INDONESIAN SPECIAL FORCES (KOPASSUS)

The decision of the Obama Administration to begin “gradual and limited” engagement with the Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus) ignores more than a decade-old, bi-partisan, bi-cameral Congressional consensus opposing assistance to that organization.

Opposition to U.S. military cooperation with Kopassus is based on that unit’s undisputed record of human rights abuse, criminality and unaccountability before the law. U.S. Administration claims that the organization has recently adopted a reform course is belied by credible independent reporting that Kopassus continues to abuse human rights with impunity. A June 2009 Human Rights Watch report detailed Kopassus abuse of civilians in Merauke in the troubled province of West Papua.

Administration claims that those Kopassus personnel “convicted” of human rights abuse have been removed from the organization ignores the reality that the impunity enjoyed by Kopassus personnel for decades has ensured that only a handful of Kopassus personnel have ever faced justice in a credible criminal court. In a rare example of judicial action, seven Kopassus officers were convicted of the 2001 murder of the leading Papuan political figure, Theys Eluay. Of the seven convicted of what the judge in the case termed a “torture-murder,” all remain on active duty after serving brief sentences (the longest being three and one half years imprisonment). Six left Kopassus but one remains in the organization.

Administration assurances that any Kopassus candidate for U.S. training will undergo “vetting” by the State Department ignores past failures of the State Department to screen out Kopassus rights abusers and criminals.

The Administration announcement correctly notes that since the fall of the dictator Suharto, with whose military the U.S. military maintained close ties, Indonesia has been on a democratic course. But the Administration fails to acknowledge that the gravest threat to ongoing democratic progress is the Indonesian military which continues to evade civilian control. Despite 2004 legislative requirements that the military divest itself of its vast empire of legal and illegal businesses by 2009, the military retains this source of off-budget funding.

Kopassus and other military personnel continue to enjoy impunity before the law for human rights abuse and criminal activity including people trafficking and drug running as acknowledged in past U.S. State Department human rights reporting.

The Indonesian military, and particularly Kopassus and intelligence agencies continue to repress peaceful protest, most notably targeting the people of West Papua. The military, especially Kopassus, but also the U.S.-funded “Detachment 81” and the militarized police (BRIMOB), routinely intimidate, threaten and accost Papuans who non-violently resist denial of fundamental rights, illegal expropriation of their lands and marginalization. Military and police units have repeatedly conducted purportedly anti-rebel “sweep operations” in the remote Central Highlands forcing thousands of villagers into the forests where they suffer lack of food, shelter and access to medical care. Twenty percent of Kopassus personnel (approximately 1,000 personnel) are stationed in West Papua.

The U.S. Administration’s decision to resume cooperation with the most criminal and unreformed element of the Indonesian military removes critical international pressure for reform and professionalization of the broader Indonesian military. It signals to Indonesian human rights advocates who have born the brunt of security force intimidation that they stand alone in their fight for respect for human rights and genuine reform in Indonesia.

contact: Ed McWilliams, edmcw@msn.com, +1-575-648-2078

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