Tag: village burnings

Socrates is not afraid; DPRP should summon military command and police chief

Bintang Papua, 11 August 2010

Sokrates is not afraid

DPRP should summon military command and police chief

Jayapura: Although faced with the threat of the use of force by the police, the chairman of the Central Board of the Baptist Churches in Papua, Reverend Socrates Sofyan Yoman, is not afraid.

On the contrary, he has accused the police of lack of fairness in their law enforcement in the Land of Papua. He said that complaints about the involvement of the police and the army have been made by many other people but he is the only person to have been summoned by them.

‘I am very concerned at the unfairness of the police and their lack of professionalism,’ said Socrates in a short statement to the press..

He said that many other people have criticised the security situation in the district of Puncak Jaya but none of them have been summoned by the police. ‘In my opinion, the forces of law enforcement are acting on behalf of sponsors keen to exert pressure on me as a church leader.’

He has repeatedly said that he is ready to face any consequences and will never run away should the police use force against him.

‘If they want to come and arrest me, I am waiting for them in my office or at home. I am not going anywhere because this is my homeland,’ he said.

It is worth recalling that Yoman rejected a decision by the Constitutional Court in April this year to prohibit the delivery of several of his books to the shops, and he said quite frankly on the Kick Andi programme on Metro TV that he totally rejected this ban. The Baptist Church believes that the security forces are imprisoning justice and democracy.

He said that the Papuan Baptist Church has called on the Indonesian parliament, the DPR, to summon the military commander of West Papua and the chief of police of Papua to explain why it is that the Puncak Jaya case which has been going on since 2004 has never ended, to reveal who is behind it and who is benefiting from a case that has caused so many casualties among the people.’

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Bintang Papua, 11 August 2010

Sem Yaru not afraid of being punished

On Thursday 12 August, the court in the case against Semuel Yaru aka Sem Yar, Luther Wrai and Alex Mebri (on the wanted list) who are being tried for rebellion in conection with a peaceful demonstration and flying the Morning Star flag, is due to announce its verdict, according to a member of legal team, Gustaf Kawer.

He said that the defendant Sem Yaru has said on several occasions during the trial that he is ready to face the verdict and will comply with the court’s decision. ‘I have been confronted for years with the issue of ‘makar’ (rebellion). I am ready for whatever happens,’ he said.

Making it clear that he is not guilty, Sem Yaru said that he is not afraid of whatever happens, however harsh the sentence will be. ‘Why should I be afraid? This is a democracy and everything that I have done is in accordance with [the principles of ] democracy.’

On 16 November 2009, Sem Yaru, along with Luther Wrait and Alex Mebri mobilised the masses and produced a leaflet, as well as making other preparations for a demonstration in the forecourt of the office of the Majelis Rakyat Papua in Koraraja. On that occasion, Sem Yaru held aloft the Morning Star flag and tied it to a tree.

Thereupon he was arrested by the police and charged under Article 106 of the Criminal Code for rebellion and under Article 110 for incitement.

Komnas HAM calls on security forces to halt military operations in Puncak Jaya

Bintang Papua, 11 August 2010

Komnas HAM calls on security forces to halt military operations in Puncak Jaya

The Papuan branch of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) has called on the police and the army to immediately end their military operations in Puncak Jaya district because they will never solve the root of the problems in the area.

The Komnas HAM statement was made public at its office in Jayapura by deputy chairman Mathius Murib on Wednesday.

He said that from 17 August 2004 up to August 2010 the inhabitants of Puncak Jaya have lived in a constant state of trauma because of reports that dozens of people as well as members of the security forces have been shot dead and murdered in Puncak Jaya. ‘As a result, the people there are traumatised and unable to carry on with their activities, with some of them leaving the area in search of tranquillity elsewhere.’

Murib said that in order to avoid further casualties, the police and the army (Polri/TNI) should immediately stop all operations to hunt people down in Puncak Jaya district and consider other ways of resolving the problems there.

‘We believe that force of arms or other forms of violence will never resolve these problems and will only lead to yet more problems and more casualties.’

He also urged the civilian population in the area to remain calm and consolidate their efforts so as to be able to function normally, and to avoid being provoked by issues coming from irresponsible elements.

Murib said that Komnas HAM will be urging the district chief of Puncak Jaya as well as civil society, in particular the church, to draft a comprehensive account of developments during the current year.

He said that the role of the church was important because church mediation has been able to solve a number of problems in the Land of Papua, and moreover those involved in the conflict were all members of the church.

The Komnas HAM team which has just returned from Puncak Jaya has also called on senior police officers in Puncak Jaya to initiate legal proceedings against all those persons or groups deemed to be involved in the Puncak Jaya case from 2004 up to 2010.

‘The Puncak Jaya case is not a new case and thereforre all individuals or groups involved in the case for the past six years should be brought to account in accordance with the laws in Indonesia,’ said Murib, who has just returned from Puncak Jaya where he conducted investigations.

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30% of Papua's forests destroyed; 3,100 kms of road to be built across Papua

Bintang Papua
6 August 2010

Jayapura: Already 30 percent of Papuan forests have been destroyed according to Benja Viktor Mambai, director of WWF Sahul Jayapura, speaking at a seminar in Jayapura. This means that close attention needs to be paid to the impact of future development projects.

‘While this means that 70 percent of Papuan forests are still preserved, this can be seriously affected if care is not taken,’ he said. He also spoke about the incomparable richness of Papua’s forests, its rich flora and fauna , the importance of the environment within the forests as well as their social and cultural aspects.

He said that research was going on to discover yet more unknown species in Papua.

‘Given the richness of its natural resources, we need not be afraid of development but the most important thing is to ensure that development takes account of these social and cultural factors as well as sustainability.’

He said that sustainability of the forests must keep in mind the sustainability of the social and cultural factors.

[Comment: These words were spoken on the eve of the launch of the MIFEE project which will profoundly affect the sustainability of the way of life of Papua’s indigenous inhabitants, as pointed out in a press release issued today by TAPOL and Down to Earth.]

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Bintang Papua, 8 August 2010

Plan to build 3,100 kms of road
Jakarta: The public works department of the Indonesian Republic is planning to build 3,100 kms of road across the province of Papua,according to Diaz Gwijangge, member of Commission X of the Indonesia parliament.

‘Many parts of the province are very isolated,’ he said, ‘added to which is the fact that because of the topography, many places are inaccessible either by air, sea or land.’

He said that if the government in Jakarta is serious about developing Papua to the level achieved in other parts of the country, building roads is part of the solution.

He told Bintang Papua that the main focus of the road building programme will be on ‘strategic’ roads.

He went on to say that besides the lack of infrastructure, Papua was also very much behind other parts of the country in the availability of education and health facilities and in empowering the local communities. All these are matters to which the central government should pay proper attention, he said.

He went on to say that Papua has enormously rich natural resources which make a huge contribution to the Indonesian state. ‘Yet, unfortunately, the people of Papua living in poverty and physical isolation. These are serious matters that must be attended to by Jakarta.’

Minister of Public Works Djoko Kirmanto explained that what meant by ‘strategic roads’. was roads that link the main centres of economic activity. ‘The products of the province can be exported through the ports of Merauke or Jayapura.

[Comment: It would be interesting to know the extent to which the Indonesian state depends on the revenue and dividends received from the Freeport mining of Papua’s copper and gold while cmmunities in the vicinity of the mine were forced to leave their land to make way for the company’s operations, with little to show for it in terms of their standard of living. TAPOL]

Socrates Yoman rejects police summons; Alleged OPM attack on civilian in Mulia

Bintang Papua, 8 August 2010
Translated by TAPOL

Yoman Socrates: Church is not subordinate to government or security forces

JAYAPURA: A summons from the police in Papua dated 7 August to Sofyan Yoman , in connection with a statement he made regarding actions of the army and police in Puncak Jaya will be ignored, he said.

Duma Socrates said no one should run away with the idea that the security forces, namely the TNI/Polri, are purveyors of the truth.This is the old way of thinking that has no relevance in the present era.

‘I will never respond to a summons to give clarifications to the police in Papua, as demanded in their summons of 7 August 2010.’ said the chairman of the Central Board of the United Baptist Churches in Papua.

Duma Socrates said that the statement he made, as reported in the media last Friday regarding the involvement of the security forces in the never-ending problem in the district of Puncak Jaya, along with data about their involvement is accurate.

‘What I was reported to have said is not rubbish. There is good reason for us to have made that statement, we have the data and we have the experience. The government and the security forces misrepresent the situation and they fail to understand us. We are not an ignorant people who are deaf, dumb and blind,’ he said.

The church, he said, is not subordinate to the government and the security forces. The Baptist Church is independent and autonomous. In the interest of the sacred spirit, the church will at all times voice the fate of its people who are voiceless and oppressed.

‘We continue to be amazed that the acts of violence that have been happening since 2004 in Puncak Jaya have continued to this day . Why have the security forces with all their intelligence agencies not been able to detect the people alleged to be from the OPM who are causing all this disruption?’

‘What we hope for is that the security forces should end this game that is going on in the Land of Papua, in particular by the police for its groundless summons to me, bearing in mind that I am part owner of this country and one of its legatees.’

He said that the police should stop summoning indigenous Papua. Let’s live together, side by side, as equals, respecting each other.’ Dont treat the creatures of the Lord like hunted animals, stigmatised, trivialising the people of God,’ he said.

He said that the time had come for this game-playing to end, in the interest of justice, peace and human rights.

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Bintang Papua 8 August 2010

On the same day as the above report, BPapua reported that a ‘separatist armed group of the OPM shot a civilian named Atril Wahid in Puncak Jaya on 4 August. Fortunately the man was only hit in the leg and survived the attack. The man is now being treated in Mulia Hospital.

A spokesman for the police said that the perpetrator was equipped with a rifle. When the victim of the incident approached him to ask why he was coming to their kampung armed with a rifle, the person responded angrily and shot him from behind in the right leg.

Following the incident, the armed man disappeared into the forest while the victim, assisted by other villagers, was taken to the hospital.

The local police arrived on the scene to examine the site of the crime and are hunting for the perpetrator.

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

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