Tag: Indonesian National Armed Forces

Komnas HAM calls for harshest punishment for killing civilian

In a statement issued today, 25 July, the Papuan branch of Komnas HAM, the National Human Rights Commission, has called on the authorities to mete out the harshest possible punishment for the member of the army who murdered the Rev. Ginderman Gire and wounded Gembala Pitinius in Tingginambut on 17 March 2011.Deputy chairman of Komnas HAM, Mathius Murib,  said he appreciated the decision of the Indonesian army to launch legal proceedings against  those who tortured and killed Rev Ginderman and wounded Gembala Pitinius. The latter man survived after being tortured. in Tingginambut, Puncak Jaya district. ‘We very much hope that the perpetrators  will be punished as harshly as possible according to the law so as to act as a deterrent, to ensure that such a crime doesn’t happen again.’

This was in connection with the forthcoming trial of the three army officers  who had committed acts of violence against two civilians

As has been reported, the trial is now under way before a military tribunal of three officers: First Sergeant  Torang Sihombing, NCO Hery Purwanto and NCO  Hasirun. The three are charged with using violence and torture according to articles 351 and 103 of the Military Code for causing the death of Ginderman Gire.

The crime againt Ginderman occuurred on 17 March 2010, At the time, First Lieutenant  Sudarman as commander of Post Illu Puncak Jaya had ordered the three accused to go on patrol in Pos Illu Post, in the Mulia area  in Puncak Jaya. The three men followed a convoy of vehicles which were transporting foodstuffs. After reaching Pintu Angin Alome, one of the drivers of the trucks reported to First Sergeant Saut Torang Sihombing that a local man named Ginderman Gire had asked for fuel. whereupon the sergeant asked why  he was asking for fuel, when another man Pitinius Kogoya also asked for fuel. When they said nothing, Sergeant Sihombing became very angry and struck Ginderman in his chest and hit Pitinus in the face.

After being struck, Ginderman said: ‘I’m not afraid of the army and I have friends up in the mountains who are well armed.’

The sergeant then handed the two men over  to another soldier, Hery Purwanto for questioning. During the questioning, the two men were beaten. Pitinus was able to escape  and jumped into a ravine. One of the soldiers fired shots into the air as a warning while Ginderman tried to grab a weapon from Hery Puwanto.  The officer fired his SS3 V-1 hitting him in the chest. The soldiers looked down and realised that the man they had shot was dead.

The soldiers then reported the incident to their  superior and were ordered to get rid of the body. The body of Ginderman was then loaded onto a truck and driven away. When they reached the Tingginambut bridge,they threw the body into the river.

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Sorry: Indon Army Backs Down Over Threats

via NewMatilda.com

By Alex Rayfield

The chief of the Indonesian Army in West Papua has taken the unprecedented step of issuing a public apology to the Kingmi Papua Church over a leaked letter first published in New Matilda, reports Alex Rayfield

In an extraordinary media statement dated Monday 18 July the chief of the Army in Indonesian occupied West Papua, Major-General Erfi Triassunu, issued a very public apology to the leadership and congregation of the Kingmi Papua Church.

In the statement, a copy of which has been obtained by New Matilda, the general writes, “if I caused any offence to the Kingmi Papua Church I am sorry”.

Reverend Benny Giay, the moderator of the embattled Kingmi Papua Church, and a subject of the general’s initial ire, said that “this is perhaps the first time in West Papuan history that an Indonesian Army Chief has apologised to the West Papuan church”.

A copy of the original letter was also obtained by New Matilda who published an exclusive story on 7 July. The article was then republished in Open Democracy, written about in daily newspaper Bintang Papua and discussed extensively in blogs, Facebook and email lists inside and outside West Papua.

In the original letter (marked “secret” and dated 30 April 2011) Triassunu repeats claims made by representatives of Kingmi Indonesia, an Indonesian-wide church, that Kingmi Papua is a separatist organisation. In his letter, the general weighed into a conflict that he himself notes is an internal church matter.

The most disturbing phrase in the original letter is a veiled threat by the chief of the Army to take “assertive action” if the conflict between Kingmi Indonesia and Kingmi Papua is not resolved. What is implied here is that the Kingmi Papua Church must cease all efforts to establish an autonomous church in West Papua or risk violent retaliation from the state. It is these kinds of statements that can encourage Indonesian nationalist militias to take the law into their own hands, says Benny Giay.

However, in the three-page apology to Kingmi Papua Church, the general claims that the military command in Papua has never stated that Kingmi Papua is a separatist organisation. He also clarifies the meaning of the phrase “assertive action”, insisting that he did not mean to imply “repressive action” but rather wanted to encourage the civil authorities in Papua to resolve the internal church conflict “on the basis of peace and mercy”.

If true, it marks a seismic policy shift for the Indonesian Army in West Papua — news that will certainly be welcome to Giay. Kingmi Papua’s pastors have been killed at the hands of the Indonesian Military since they first occupied West Papua in 1963. Papuan Church leaders and their congregations across Papua are regularly harassed and intimidated by Indonesian security forces. Public beatings and torture by the security forces is also systemic in Papua, meted out on the basis of race and often conducted in public view, reports ANU based academic Br. Budi Hernawan.

While welcoming the apology, Giay urges the civilian and military authorities in Indonesia to go further. In an open letter to the Susilo Bambang Yudhuyono dated 16 July, Giay asks the President to guarantee Kingmi Papua’s right to exist. An apology from the chief of the Army in Papua after all, is no guarantee of religious freedom.

Giay maintains that the real cause of the conflict, whether between Kingmi Indonesia and Kingmi Papua or the Indonesian government and the Kingmi Church, is political and fundamentally connected to the history of Papua. To break the impasse Giay repeats the call for “dialogue” and an end to “stigmatising” the Papuan people for wanting to address the root causes of state violence in Papua.

Recognition of the right of the Church in Papua to speak out on behalf of the oppressed and to take nonviolent action in protection of their congregations is an acid test for freedom of speech in West Papua.

To date the Indonesian Government has failed that test.

While the general seeks to reassure Papuans that the Army wants to resolve problems on the basis of “peace” and “mercy”, their approach has been inconsistent at best. Papuans are still not allowed to raise the Morning Star flag or sing their national anthem “Hai Tanahku Papua“. Filep Karma, who has been sentenced to 15 years for nonviolent action remains in jail along with scores of other Papuan political prisoners. A press conference by the West Papua National Committee earlier this month concerning current military operations in Puncak Jaya had to be cancelled because of police and military intimidation of the both the organisers and invited journalists.

The Indonesian constitution ostensibly guarantees the right to free speech but it looks a lot like that freedom does not reach West Papua. Until that changes any claim that Indonesia is a democracy rings hollow.

For now, however, Benny Giay and Kingmi Papua are claiming the apology as a “small victory”.

Whether that victory can be defended and extended remains to be seen.

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AFP: Languages of Papua Vanish Without a Whisper

(Comment from West Papua Media:  A very sad indictment of the policy of cultural genocide and Indonesianisation practiced in West Papua.  Deliberate refusal of allowing birth languages to be spoken at school, and persecution of people speaking traditional languages by security forces is contributing to this.  As any indigenous person knows, loss of language means loss of place, and is the last step of cruel dispossession.)

Agence France-Presse
July 21, 2011

Who will speak Iniai in 2050? Or Faiwol? Moskona? Wahgi? Probably no
one, as the languages of New Guinea — the world’s greatest linguistic
reservoir — are disappearing in a tide of indifference.

Yoseph Wally, an anthropologist at Cendrawasih University in Jayapura,
keeps his ears open when he visits villages to hear what language the
locals are speaking.

“It’s Indonesian more and more,” he said. “Only the oldest people
still speak in the local dialect.”

In some villages he visits, not a single person can understand a word
of the traditional language.

“Certain languages disappeared very quickly, like Muris, which was
spoken in an area near here until about 15 years ago,” he said.

New Guinea is home to more than 1,000 languages — around 800 in Papua
New Guinea and 200 in Indonesian Papua — but most have fewer than
1,000 speakers, often centered around a village or a few hamlets.

Some 80 percent of New Guinea’s people live in rural areas and many
tribes, especially in the isolated mountains, have little contact with
one another, let alone with the outside world.

The most widely-spoken language is Enga, with around 200,000 speakers
in the highlands of central PNG, followed by Melpa and Huli.

“Every time someone dies, a little part of the language dies too
because only the oldest people still use it,” said Nico, Cendrawasih
University’s museum curator.

“In towns but also eventually in the forest, Indonesian has become the
main language for people under 40. Traditional languages are reserved
for celebrations and festivals,” said Habel M. Suwae, the regent of
Jayapura district.

In PNG, under the influence of nearby Australia, English has spread,
though it has made little headway with some tribes, particularly those
in the isolated highlands.

The authorities are sometimes accused of inaction, or even of favoring
the official language to better integrate the population, particularly
in Indonesian Papua.

But according to Hari Untoro Dradjat, an adviser to the Indonesian
ministry of culture, “it is almost impossible to preserve a language
if it is no longer spoken in everyday life.”

Despite his pessimism about the future, anthropologist Wally believes
art and culture can stop Papuan languages being forgotten.

Papuans love to sing and celebrate and they must do these things in
their traditional languages, Wally says — this way, young people “will
want to discover the language to understand the meaning of the songs.”

Instead of saving languages on the way to extinction, some researchers
want to preserve a record of them — a difficult task when many are
exclusively oral.

Oxford University has launched a race against the clock to record
Emma, aged 85, Enos, 60, and Anna, also 60, who are the three last
Papuans to speak Dusner.

More than 200 languages have become extinct around the world over the
last three generations and 2,500 others are under threat, according to
a Unesco list of endangered languages, out of a total of 6,000 in the
world.

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JG: Low-Ranking Soldiers Indicted Over Torture, Killing in Papua’s Puncak Jaya

[The Papua Customary Council (DAP), however, disagreed with the Army’s
version of events. It said Kinderman was a local priest and had no
ties to the OPM.

“He was waiting for a delivery from Wamena, so when a convoy
approached he immediately went up to check for his package,” DAP
member Markus Haluk said. “There are thousands of innocent civilians
in Papua accused of being OPM to justify military tortures and
killings. This trial is just for show, like the previous one.”]

The Jakarta Globe
July 21, 2011

Low-Ranking Soldiers Indicted Over Torture,
Killing in Papua’s Puncak Jaya

by Banjir Ambarita

Jayapura

A military tribunal in Papua indicted three low-ranking soldiers on
Wednesday for the killing of a civilian in Puncak Jaya district last
year.

The defendants were identified as First Sgt. Saut Sihombing, Second
Pvt. Hery Purwanto and Second Pvt. Hasirun. All three serve in the
Army’s Nabire Infantry Battalion, as did four soldiers sentenced in
November for torturing two civilians in the village of Gurage in the
same district.

That incident resulted in international condemnation after a video of
the torture was posted on the online video-sharing site YouTube in
October.

Military prosecutor Capt. Jem C.H. Manibuy charged the three
defendants in this latest case with torture. They are accused of
beating and shooting to death a civilian, identified as Kinderman
Gire. The killing occurred near a military checkpoint in the village
of Illu on March 17 last year, just two weeks prior to the Gurage
incident.

The indictment says Saut, Hery and Hasirun accompanied a civilian
convoy that was delivering food supplies to Mulia, the capital of
Puncak Jaya district, around 10 hours by road from Wamena, Jayawijaya.

Kinderman, according to the indictment, stopped the convoy near Kalome
village in an attempt to extort gasoline from the driver of one of the
vehicles.

Saut disembarked from his vehicle and approached Kinderman who was
with another civilian, Pitinus Kogoya. The indictment says that
Kinderman then said, “I am not afraid of the military. I have 30
friends in the mountains and they are armed,” suggesting that
Kinderman was a member of the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM).

Kinderman and Pitinus were then beaten while being interrogated by
Hery and Hasirun, the indictment says. Pitinus was able to escape by
jumping down an embankment.

The military tribunal was told that Kinderman tried to grab a rifle
from Hery, who reacted by firing at Kinderman. The shot hit Kinderman
in the chest, killing him instantly.

Saut said he reported the incident to his superior, Sudarmin, who told
the three not to say anything about the shooting.

The three soldiers took Kinderman’s body to their vehicle before
dumping it in a river from a bridge in Tingginambut subdistrict, the
indictment says.

The Papua Customary Council (DAP), however, disagreed with the Army’s
version of events. It said Kinderman was a local priest and had no
ties to the OPM.

“He was waiting for a delivery from Wamena, so when a convoy
approached he immediately went up to check for his package,” DAP
member Markus Haluk said. “There are thousands of innocent civilians
in Papua accused of being OPM to justify military tortures and
killings. This trial is just for show, like the previous one.”

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Indonesian Army: Gunmen Kill Indonesia Soldier in Papua

FYI –

MEDIA NOTE:  West Papua Media has not received any INDEPENDENT confirmation from either human rights, church or TPN sources of this contact, despite communication.  In light of this, and in light of allegations of significant human rights abuses and killings of non-combabtants and civilians during this operation, it is wise to to treat military claims as unverified an not credible, unless they agree to allow independent international monitoring into the combat area.

The Associated Press
July 21, 2011

Army: Gunmen Kill Indonesia Soldier in Papua

An army officer says unidentified gunmen have ambushed Indonesia
soldiers and killed one of them in the easternmost province of Papua.

The chief army officer in Papua says soldiers are still searching for
the gunmen. Maj. Gen. Erfi Triassunu said the ambush Thursday morning
happened outside a village in the hilly district of Puncak Jaya.

Triassunu said the victim was a first private killed by a shot to his
head. No information was available on the other soldiers.

The attack occurred one day after a military tribunal indicted three
low-ranking soldiers for killing a civilian in Puncak Jaya last year.

Papua is a former Dutch colony incorporated into Indonesia in 1969
after a U.N.-sponsored ballot. A small, poorly armed separatist
movement has battled for independence ever since.

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