Tag: west papua

Papuan tells of torture by Indonesian soldiers

Tom Allard
Sydney Morning Herald

"I screamed on and on" ... Tunaliwor Kiwo.“I screamed on and on” … Tunaliwor Kiwo.   

A PAPUAN man depicted in a video being burnt, suffocated and hit by Indonesian troops says he was tortured for two days, according to his testimony recorded and translated by Papuan activists.

Tunaliwor Kiwo was shown in agony as the soldiers burnt his penis in the video, which was filmed in May and revealed exclusively in the Herald last month. It prompted a horrified response in Indonesia and around the world, and led to the rapid arrest of five Indonesian soldiers, who face a military tribunal today.

But in the new testimony Mr Kiwo, filmed two weeks ago, said the abuse was far worse than depicted in the first video.

He spoke of being repeatedly beaten and suffocated, of his head being crashed into a wall and of being burnt with cigarettes during the first day of torture, which followed his arrest as he travelled by motorcycle with his friend Telangga Gire on the road from Tingginambut to Mulia, the capital of Puncak Jaya regency, a hotbed of separatist activity.

An image from the video of Tunaliwor Kiwo being tortured by Indonesian soldiers.An image from the video of Tunaliwor Kiwo being tortured by Indonesian soldiers. 

”The next tortures were heating up a piece of iron or wire and it was put at my thighs and I screamed on and on,” he said in the video, conducted in the Lani dialect of Puncak Jaya and translated by Papuan activists. ”It got heated up again and put again on my left and right belly. I kept screaming. But they didn’t care of the pain I suffered. [The interrogators] tortured me incredibly since 9am to night to morning.”

That night, he was doused in freezing water.

The next day was even worse, according to Mr Kiwo, a 50-year-old farmer. Early that day, the soldiers threatened to burn him alive.

”The TNI [Indonesian military] put gasoline and light a fire and I was in the middle with the branches,” Mr Kiwo said. ”I couldn’t move, the flames were approaching me, trying to burn my body and my legs and hands were still tied up. I was continuously hysterical, in pain.”

At this point, Mr Kiwo said he was ”surrendering, ready to die”.

Then he says he was cut all over his body and face with a razor. The soldiers prepared a liquid concoction of chilli, shallots, onions, detergent and salt ”all smashed and mixed with water”.

The mixture was spread over his open wounds.

”I screamed loudly due to the pain but, in fact, it encouraged them to be more brutal and [they] kept showering me. They turned my body back and forth. The parts that were not showered [at first] were showered with chillies until the chillies was finished.”

Mr Kiwo was certain he would be executed. The soldiers repeatedly accused him of being a Papuan separatist fighter and demanded he reveal the location of a weapons cache. On the third day, he said, he escaped.

Mr Kiwo is living in hiding, as is Mr Gire. The filmed testimony was obtained amid great secrecy by Markus Haluk, from the Papuan Customary Council, which oversaw the translation from Lani to Indonesian. The translation could not be independently verified by the Herald.

Indonesia’s President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has condemned the action depicted in the first video, and promised a transparent investigation.

But the head of Indonesia’s military, Admiral Agus Suhartono, has played down the seriousness of the offences.

The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, during a brief visit to Papua New Guinea, would not comment on the incident but said any continuing human rights violations should be investigated and perpetrators held accountable.

0

PAPUA TORTURE VIDEO: WHETHER MANIPULATED OR NOT, IT MUST BE INVESTIGATED

From Bintang Papua, 20 October 2010

Abridged in translation by TAPOL

WHETHER MANIPULATED OR NOT, IT MUST BE INVESTIGATED

Jayapura: The video showing members of the Indonesian army (TNI) using violence against Papuans is still being hotly discussed here.

Many  people doubt whether the incident occurred while quite  a few people are convinced that it did. The military commander of the Cenderawaih military command, Major-General Hotma Marbun, has promised to  investigate the video, a decision that has been welcomed by DPRP member Deer Tabuni who formerly fought alongside the TPN-OMP in Tingginambut, Puncak Jaya. He urged the military commander to keep his promise and investigate the video. .He said: ‘If what is shown on the video is indeed true, then the security forces and all groups in society should get involved in cross-checking at the grassroots, to confirm the authenticity of the video. If it is indeed true, then whoever produced the video must be summoned as a witness and take responsibility for circulating the video. If it proves not to be true, then the person was trying to create a situation that is not conducive must be called to account. so as to prevent the local people from being victimised, chased and tortured..’

He also said that whether this is true or has been manipulated, it would appear that human rights were violated. He also said that members of the TPN/OPM in Tingginambut and friends of Goliath Tabuni have called on the provincial government, the I

TAPOL calls for Papua torture enquiry

Open letter to the UK Foreign Secretary:

19 October 2010

The Right Hon. William Hague, MP
Foreign Secretary,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office,
King Charles Street,
London SW1A 1AA

Dear Mr. Hague,

We have just learnt of an incident involving two Papuan men who were
reportedly subjected to very serious acts of torture while being
interrogated in the region of Puncak Jaya in West Papua by two or
more men who appear to be members of the Indonesian security forces.

The incident, which appears to have occurred earlier this year, was
recorded on a mobile phone by an individual who was on the spot and
circulated widely on YouTube four days ago.  The video has since been
removed by YouTube, according to yesterday's issue of The Jakarta
Post, 'because of its shocking and disgusting content'.

Monday's edition of The Sydney Morning Herald, which reported the
incident at length after having obtained a copy, describes one of the
men under interrogation as having been stripped naked and bound, with
one of the interrogators placing his foot on the man's chest, while a
colleague administers the torture with a stick that has been
burnt  and is smoldering, causing the man to scream in agony.

This incident is clearly a grave violation of  the Convention against
Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
which Indonesia signed in 1985 and subsequently ratified in 1988.

In view of the extreme seriousness of this incident and the light it
sheds on alleged actions by members of the Indonesian security
forces, TAPOL urges the British Government to make immediate
representations to the Indonesian Government for an investigation to
be conducted by independent experts in order to verify the accuracy
of this report.

We in TAPOL are well aware that the British embassy in Jakarta
regularly follows the situation in West Papua which means that our
Government is well placed to seek the cooperation of the Indonesian
authorities in matters of this nature.

We believe that action by our Government is bound to be taken
seriously by the Indonesian Government and will impress upon them the
need to conduct an immediate investigation. If the incident is
confirmed, the men responsible for these acts of torture should be
called to account and should be severely punished.

Finally we urge the UK Government to suspend all forms of military
cooperation with the Indonesian security forces until there is full
accountability for this incident.  We would be grateful if you could
let us know the current extent of such cooperation and the action you
propose to take.

Yours sincerely

Carmel Budiardjo

WPAT: Torture video reveals "Indonesia's Abu Ghraib" on eve of Obama visit

WPAT: Torture video reveals “Indonesia’s Abu Ghraib” on eve of Obama visit

Contact: Ed McWilliams (WPAT) +1-575-648-2078

October 19, 2010 –  A new video shows the torture of helpless men in the Indonesian-ruled territory of West Papua. Monitoring groups are already describing the footage as “Indonesia’s Abu Ghraib.”The video reveals indisputably Indonesian security force brutality, and raises serious questions about the Obama administration’s decision to embrace cooperation with Indonesian security forces engaged in active and ongoing torture.

The video, available at http://material.ahrchk.net/video/AHRC-VID-012-2010-Indonesia.html, is the second in recent months to offer graphic footage of Indonesian  to offer graphic footage of Indonesian security force torture of Papuans. In it, a Papuan man is held to the ground while a hot stick, still smoldering from a fire, is held against his genitals. A plastic bag is wrapped around his head several times, a rifle held against him. Another man has a large knife held against him while he pleads: “I’m just an ordinary civilian, please…” One of his interrogators responds: “I’ll cut your throat… Do not lie, I will kill you! Burn the penis!” The video appears to have been taken on the cell phone of one interrogator. Although the interrogators are dressed in plain clothes, they speak in Javanese and in Indonesian with non-Papuan accents. Plain clothes dress is common for Indonesian security forces in West Papua. The techniques used mean they are almost certainly trained security personnel in the Indonesian army or police. The dialect of the victims places them in the Puncak Jaya region, where security forces are accused of repeated rights abuses.

The extreme brutality revealed in this footage is not new. What is new is that there is now additional video evidence of the brutality suffered by Papuans for nearly five decades. The international community can now clearly witness the indisputably harsh reality of life for Papuans. While Indonesia continues on the path of democratization and peaceful resolution of disputes, one region is sent on the opposite path: towards ongoing military domination, widespread suppression of political activity, and routine use of torture and other severe violations of basic human rights. In West Papua, the brutal and unaccountable Indonesian military and its accomplices, the militarized police ( Brimob), special forces ( Kopassus) and “anti-terror” force (Detachment 88) continue to operate with impunity under the old dictatorship’s rules: peaceful dissent is criminalized; civil society leaders are humiliated and intimidated and the international community is precluded from any effective monitoring of conditions in this besieged community.

Thanks to the courage of Papuan human rights advocates in the face of harsh security measures designed to silence them, the world periodically has been witness to the harsh rule of West Papua. In the past, the faith in international justice and humanity demonstrated by these courageous Papuans has been betrayed by the international community’s deference to the Indonesian government’s insistence that neither its course nor rule there not be challenged. Numerous governments have placed the territorial integrity of Indonesia and the desire to support its democratization process first. In the process, however, they have abandoned what could have been constructive efforts to uphold human rights in West Papua, which continue to be systematically violated.

Geopolitical and commercial goals led the U.S. government to ignore Suharto dictatorship atrocities targeting its own people and the people of East Timor for decades. President Bill Clinton acknowledged this when East Timor gained its independence in 2002, saying: “I don’t believe America or any of the other countries were sufficiently sensitive in the beginning and for a long time, a long time before 1999, going all the way back to the ’70s, to the suffering of the people of East Timor.” It was the suffering of the people of East Timor that led to Congress deciding to suspend military cooperation with Indonesia.

The system of security force rule and repression of peaceful dissent has been dismantled in much of Indonesia, but the same security system and the same systematic human rights violations continue in West Papua today. Such stopgap solutions as “special autonomy” have been clearly rejected by the Papuan people. Despite the continued human rights violations, the Obama administration has continued the Bush administration’s policy of support to the Indonesian security forces. It has continued support to the Indonesian military through the IMET program, and support through the Anti-Terror Assistance Program to the notorious Detachment 88 of the Indonesian National Police, credibly accused of torture and other rights violations. It has resumed cooperation with the Indonesian special forces (Kopassus) notwithstanding that unit’s  decades-old record of human rights abuse including recent, credible accounts of brutality targeting Papuan civilians.  In so doing the Obama Administration, like its predecessors, has wittingly or unwittingly made itself complicit in the repression now underway in West Papua.

The United States, under President John F. Kennedy, was responsible for the transfer of West Papua to Indonesian rule. In that act, the United States made itself co-responsible for the outcome of its actions. Successive administrations have not been sufficiently sensitive to the ongoing human rights violations, including torture to this day, which resulted from Indonesian rule.

President Obama’s upcoming visit to Indonesia offers an opportunity to end the silence on West Papua, and to craft new policies that advance human rights rather than lending support to human rights violators. Information about the ongoing human rights violations in West Papua was heard on September 22 by the House of Representatives Sub-committee on Asia, the Pacific.

The Obama administration should:

    Insist upon an investigation and prosecution of those who recently tortured Papuans in Puncak Jaya

    Seek an investigation by relevant United Nations human rights rapporteurs of this and other instances of torture in West Papua Suspend cooperation with Indonesian security forces accused of systematic human rights violations, including Detachment 88 and the Brimob (Mobile Brigade) of the National Police and the Indonesian special forces (Kopassus) Call for full and open access for journalists, humanitarian assistance personnel including the International Committee of the red Cross and other international monitors to all of West Papua Seek meetings between President Obama and Papuan human rights and civil society leaders during his visit to Indonesia Call upon the Indonesian government to carry out an internationally facilitated, senior-level dialogue process with Papuan officials and civil society designed to resolve the Papuan conflict peacefully, as was done in Aceh province

-30-

Posted with additional links: http://etan.org/news/2010/10video.htm

AWPA calls on AusGov to hold inquiry into use of military aid and training to Indonesia

The Australia West Papua Association (Sydney)

Media release   19 October  2010
AWPA calls on the Australian Government to hold an inquiry into how our military aid and training is being used by the Indonesian security forces

In September the Indonesian counter terrorism unit Detachment 88 was accused of the  torture of activists in Maluku  and now  footage has shown  the torture of Papuans in the Puncak Jaya region of West Papua by the Indonesian Security Forces.
Joe Collins of AWPA said “how does the Australian military and the Government justify training these people? In light of these reports it’s time for  the Government to hold an inquiry into how our aid and training is being used by the Indonesian security forces.”
“Any idea that somehow the professionalism of the Australian military will rub off on the Indonesian security Forces is now shown to be a failure.  What psychological cost is there for our troops knowing they may have trained with these people “?

Info. Joe Collins Mob. 04077 857 97




			

		
	
	

					
					



	
 

	

			
 
			
			
	
 

 


	 


	

		


			

				
				Create a website or blog at WordPress.com
				
			
				
							


			

				Up ↑