Tag: west papua

Civil and political rights violations will continue to occur in Papua

Bintang Papua, 4 January 2011

Civil and political rights violations will continue to occur in Papua

In this year of 2011, violations of civil and political rights [will]
still continue to occur in Papua, with such incidents as demonstrations,
shootings, torture, hostage-taking, killings and so on, which result in
conflict between the law enforcement agencies and civil society,
according to a human rights observer, Yusack Reba.

He said that freedom of expression is regarded by law enforcement
agencies as treasonous actions or separatism.

He said that there were two irreconcilable positions. According to the
state, every person is guaranteed the constitutional right to freedom
of expression, and there is nothing about people not being able to talk
about freedom. But according to the Criminal Code, expressions of
opinion are seen as being acts of separatism, which is treated by the
authorities as being a threat to the territorial integrity of the state.
As a result, the law enforcement agencies dont regard this as
expressing an opinion but as an act of treason.

He said that when people express their opinions in the provincial
legislative assembly (DPRP), this is not seen as an attempt to change
the philosophy of the state.

There is nothing in law that prohibits people from giving expression to
their aspirations but when such expressions go in the direction of
wanting independence, that enters into a diffrent legal framework. ‘But
if this is done peacefully and in a well-behaved manner, this is quite
legal and acceptable. If these are handled according to a different
procedure, human rights violations will be perpetrated in the form of
shootings, torture, and other actions.

He said that for the Papuan people, there are numerous instances of
human rights violations but they are not seen as being within the legal
framework and are not handled according to the rule of law, such as for
instance the Abepura case and other major cases which were not handled
by a proper court process.

‘This is why Papuan people have no confidence in the law as regards
actions to deal with human rights violations.

———————-

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Buchtar Tabuni and friends are still in police custody

[Slightly abridged in translation by TAPOL]

Bintang Papua, 30 December 2010

Buchtar Tabuni and friends are still in police custody

Jayapura:

Two convicted prisoners charged with treason [makar], Buchtar Tabuni and Filep Karma, along with three other prisoners, Dominggus Pulalo, Alex Elopere and Lopes Katubaba are still in police custody. Buchtar and the others are in police custody and face charges of causing damage and incitement in Abepura Prison on 3 December 2010.

Confirming this in a press release on the security situation at the end
of 2010, Police Inspector-General Bekto Suprapto said that although
Buchtar and his colleagues were convicted prisoners and already serving sentences in Abepura Prison , they now had the additional status of facing new charges. ‘This means that their sentences will certainly be increased,’ he said. (sic)

The police chief said that with their removal from Abepura Prison,
conditions at Abepura Prison had improved. It was much easier now to
keep control of the prisoners in Abepura than it was when Buchtar and
the others were there, he was quoted as saying. ‘We have received
reports that the prison inmates are easier to control, they are more
obedient and now do as they are told, whereas before they were not easy to control.’

He said this was an indication that Buchtar and the others had been
inciting the other prisoners to be disobedient.

Asked about the number of prisoners who had escaped from the prison, he said that they were all on the wanted list [DPO] and their capture was the top priority for 2011 but he did not mention the number of prisoners involved. According to information from other sources, at least fifty prisoners have escaped from the prison.

He said that Buchtar and the others would face several new charges such as causing damage (Article 170) and incitement (Article 160), and could face up to seven years in prison.

When Bintang Papua requested permission to take photos of Buchtar and his friends in police custody, this was refused. The police officer said that this would only infuriate the general public.

As previously reported, Buchtar and his friends [allegedly] caused
damage after an inmate Wiron Wetipo disappeared from the prison and was shot dead by a joint patrol of the police and the army, while they were raiding a house in Tanah Hitam which is suspected as being the
headquarters of the OPM/TPN.

On hearing that Wiron had been shot dead, the six persons [not five
which is the number of names given in this article] now face charges for causing damage and inciting the other prisoners.

Filep Karma is serving a 15-year sentence while Buchtar is serving three years. The other prisoners are serving sentences of two or three years.

[Note how this senior police has no doubt that Buchtar and Karma will
be found guilty of the new charges they face. Such is the rule of law in Indonesia. – TAPOL]

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The official Website for West Papua – A Journey To Freedom

We are excited to announce the official website for West Papua – A Journey to Freedom is now live.  Here you can find information about the film, updates on future screenings and the official trailer.  Please forward the link on to anyone who may be interested.
West Papua – A Journey to Freedom will be screened at Bhurat Murali Open Air Theatre in Kerala, India on Friday, January 14th @ 8:50pm as part of the ViBGYOR International Film Festival.

Erin Morris
Director
West Papua – A Journey to Freedom



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Indonesia’s “slow motion genocide”

    Article by Jay Griffiths in The Guardian, UK

    I have a hit list in my hand. Fifteen people are threatened with assassination because they speak out for freedom and democracy, against a massacre. One of them, in a list of civilians including church ministers, youth leaders, legislators and an anthropologist, is a friend of mine.

    The hit list is compiled by Kopassus, the Indonesian army’s notorious special forces unit, responsible for vicious human rights abuses in Timor-Leste and West Papua. Kopassus targets these 15 for their “prohibited speech” that has “reached the outside world”, bearing witness to “the issue of severe human rights violations in Papua”. These are the words of Kopassus itself, in a leaked report given to investigative reporter Allan Nairn, last month. Kopassus has not denied its veracity.

    Although the US Leahy Law forbids funding to military units that violate human rights, Kopassus is now being supported by president Obama, under the guise of fighting terrorism. The Kopassus document gives the lie to that, showing their systematic targeting of civilians. Number five on their list is the current president of the Papuan Presidium Council, whose predecessor, Theys Eluay, had his throat slit in 2001. While I was in West Papua, I met the then-president, who told me he had also been the victim of a failed assassination.

    My friend, a church minister, told me of widespread abuse, rape and killings. Another told me about seeing soldiers torture and murder around 100 villagers. In October, video footage showed West Papuan villagers being tortured by the military. Yelps, gulps and sobs of fear and pain momentarily broke a media silence until the websites hosting the footage were subject to cyber attacks. But the chances are you won’t know anything about this, because the media does not bear witness to it. In a form of lethal meekness so well exposed by John Pilger, journalists say Indonesia refuses entry to the media. This is entirely correct and entirely spurious. It is not difficult to go there: buy a ticket, say you’re a tourist, and get your notebook out.

    A functional media is as important to democratic freedom as voting. West Papua has been robbed of both. Indonesia invaded in 1962. In 1969, under the “act of free choice”, 1,026 West Papuans were ordered at gunpoint to vote for integration with Indonesia. This contravened international law, and was a travesty of democracy. “The process of consultation did not allow a genuinely free choice to be made,” said a British Foreign and Commonwealth Office briefing that year. The American embassy in Jakarta in June 1969 knew what was in store for the Papuans: the act of free choice, according to the embassy, “is unfolding like a Greek tragedy, the conclusion pre-ordained”.

    The reasons for this collusion become clear if you rewind to 1967, when president Suharto’s men struck a deal to hand over West Papua’s wealth of natural resources to international companies, including a mountain of copper and gold – now the world’s most valuable mine, Freeport McMoRan.

    In return, Indonesia received billions of corporate dollars plus, crucially, international connivance in covering up human rights abuses. Racism played a part: those who would suffer, said the British embassy, were merely “a relatively small number of very primitive people“, occupying what a White House adviser dismissed as “a few thousand miles of cannibal land”.

    A massive transmigration programme of Javanese aims to make Papuans a minority in their own lands. At least 100,000 Papuans, according to Amnesty International, have been murdered, with weaponry provided by British and American companies in lucrative arms deals. Obama knows this: just ahead of his November visit to Indonesia, 50 members of the US Congress wrote to him concerning West Papua’s “slow-motion genocide“, and Congress held a (barely reported) hearing on Papuan human rights abuses. Human rights organisations repeatedly bring massacres and abuses to the attention of the media, who repeatedly ignore them. In these lethal omissions, the press tacitly colludes in mass murder.

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A Veil of Silence is Killing Papua

A Veil of Silence is Killing Papua

from http://unitingworld.org.au/blogs/blog/2010/12/22/a-veil-of-silence-is-killing-papua-2/

December 22nd, 2010

John Barr
By John Barr

Isak Jeksen Mebri shot dead by an Indonesian soldier in Wutung border area with Papua New Guinea on 11th February; an estimated 30 people killed in the Paniai Regency in July: a journalist, Ardiansyah Matrais, found dead in  a river near Merauke on 27th July; Naftali Kwan and Septinus Kwan shot dead by Police Mobile Brigade in Manokwari on 16th September; video footage obtained in October showing the torture of Papuans by the Indonesian military in the Tingginambut area; Ismail Lokobal found dead from a bullet wound after police shoot indiscriminately and Amos Wetibo shot dead in the head after refusing to get down from a police vehicle in Wamena on 4th October; 29 homes burned in Brigiragi Village in Puncak Jaya by officers of the Police Mobile Brigade on 11th October – and the list goes on.

Violence against the local population continues in Papua, the most eastern part of Indonesia and few people are held accountable.

Komnas HAM is the National Human Rights Commission in Indonesia and its report on the human rights situation in the Land of Papua (commonly known as West Papua) is disturbing reading. Matius Murib, Vice Chair in Papua, highlights a serious scenario where Papuans continue to suffer human rights violations at the hands of the Indonesian military and police.

“The actors most responsible are not held accountable” says Matius. Indeed, law enforcers and military officers operating in many parts of Papua gain impunity due a lack of media and public exposure. Arbitrary detention of protesters and sexual violence against women is common. Community leaders and their families are harassed and threatened. People live in constant fear.

Papua rarely makes the news. This is because media is restricted and international scrutiny is minimal. Much has changed in the rest of Indonesia in recent years with the process of “reformasi” and real progress towards democracy. These developments deserve recognition and significant praise.

But things remain the same in Papua. Little has changed since the days of Suharto and his “New Order” regime. The military are in control and no-one appears to be answerable to the violence that is continually inflicted on locals.

A veil of silence encircles Papua and justice appears to be as aloof as ever. The Papuans I know fear the future. Effectively, they are experiencing a slow death.

This is simply not good enough. The world must take note!

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