West Papua Report June 2012
Tuesday, 5 June 2012, 1:25 pm
Press Release: West Papua Advocacy Team
West Papua Report
June 2012This is the 98th
in a series of monthly reports that focus on developments
affecting Papuans. This series is produced by the non-profit
West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) drawing on media accounts,
other NGO assessments, and analysis and reporting from
sources within West Papua. This report is co-published with
the East Timor and Indonesia
Action Network (ETAN).
Back issues are posted online at
http://www.etan.org/issues/wpapua/default.htm
Questions regarding this report can be addressed to Edmund
McWilliams at
edmcw@msn.com. If you wish to receive
the report via e-mail, send a note to
etan@etan.org.
Summary
The
Indonesian Government's human rights record came under
scrutiny at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva which
convened a quadrennial review of Indonesia's progress on
human rights protection. The focus on developments in West
Papua was more intense than the last review with the denial
of freedom of speech and the holding of political prisoners
among the leading concerns. Indonesia promised to invite the
UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Speech though it was
unclear if he would be allowed to visit West Papua. The U.S.
State Department released its annual global review of human
rights observance. The report gave significant attention to
human rights violations in West Papua with some focus on the
role of the security forces. As in the past, the State
Department report ignored the Indonesian government's
failure to provide minimally adequate health, education and
other vital services to the Papuan people. Amnesty
International also issued its annual report on human rights
with a significant focus on rights issues in West Papua. A
detailed study revealed the Indonesian government's failure
to protect Papuans from unscrupulous land developers in West
Papua. Demonstrators in Vanuatu targeted their government's
warming relationship with Indonesia, particularly with
Indonesian security forces.
Contents
• Indonesia's Rights Record in West Papua Under Fire
in Geneva
• U.S. State Department Human Rights Report
on Indonesia Includes Focus on West Papua
• Amnesty
International Highlights Human Rights Abuses in Its Report
on Indonesia for 2011
• Indonesian Government Allows
Foreign Corporation to Rip-off Papuans
• Vanuatu
Citizens Support Papuan Rights
Indonesia's Rights
Record in West Papua Comes Under Fire in Geneva
TAPOL,
in a May 23 press release, noted that
concerns about human rights in West Papua increased sharply
since the last review in 2008, with a significant number of
member states also raising concerns about freedom of
expression, human rights defenders and political prisoners
in the region.
The Indonesian government claimed
it had taken numerous concrete steps to put into effect the
seven recommendations that Indonesia accepted from its last
UPR review in 2008. These recommendations were to develop
human rights education and training, sign and ratify various
human rights instruments, support and protect the work of
civil society, combat impunity by security forces, revise
the Penal Code, and develop systems to improve and share
best practices to support human rights.
However, Human
Rights Watch and the Indonesian human rights groups KontraS
pointed out that the Indonesian
Government report only painted a partial picture of the
serious challenges that remain, especially regarding
religious freedom, free expression, and accountability for
serious abuses committed by security forces. In particular,
the groups observed: "The right to freedom of opinion and
expression are guaranteed by the Constitution and national
laws. However, various laws are on the books continue to be
enforced that criminalize the peaceful expression of
political, religious, and other views. Offenses in
Indonesia's criminal code such as treason (
makar) and
'inciting hatred' (
haatzai artikelen) have been used
repeatedly against peaceful political
activists."
Switzerland and Mexico were among those
questioning Indonesia’s worrying human rights record in
West Papua, joined by regional neighbors New Zealand and
Japan. The United States, echoing concerns by NGO's such as
HRW, KontraS, TAPOL, WPAT and others, called for action on
Indonesia’s repressive treason laws. This call was backed
by Canada and Germany who further called for the release of
peaceful political prisoners. The treason laws (notably
Article 106 of Indonesia's Criminal Code) have been employed
extensively in West Papua to impose harsh prison sentences
for peaceful dissent. These laws directly violate
Indonesia's obligations under international law and its own
constitution guaranteeing the right to freedom of speech and
of assembly.
Germany pressed Indonesia on whether it
intended to release
Filep Karma and other political
detainees who are being held arbitrarily and accused
Indonesia of violating Article 20 of the Universal
Declaration on Human Rights, which states that “everyone
has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and
association." In November 2011 the UN Working Group on
Arbitrary Detention issued
an opinion saying the Indonesian
government is violating international law by imprisoning
Filep Karma and called for his immediate release. Karma is
serving a 15-year term in Abepura prison
Restrictions on
access by foreign media and civil society were raised by a
number of states, including France and Australia, while
Germany called for immediate access for the International
Committee of the Red Cross, which was ejected from Papua in
2009.
In partial response to the sharp critiques,
Indonesia announced on May 23 that it planned to issue an
invitation to the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of
expression, Frank La Rue. It was not immediately clear,
however, whether La Rue would be permitted to visit West
Papua. In 2007, the UN's special Rapporteur on torture was
allowed to visit West Papua, but her visit there was
monitored and following her departure Papuans with whom she
met were harassed and threatened by Indonesian security
elements.
U.S. State Department Human Rights Report on
Indonesia Includes Focus on West Papua
(Note: WPAT is preparing a more comprehensive
analysis of the annual State Department Report. The
following notes only the more significant elements of the
report, including identification of several
shortcomings.)
Reflecting the particularly egregious
violations of human rights in West Papua, much of the report
focused on developments there. The Executive Summary notes
that "Major human rights problems included instances of
arbitrary and unlawful killings by security forces and
others in Papua and West Papua provinces." However, the
sentence preceding this accurate account contends that
"security forces reported to civilian authorities." That
contention can be interpreted to mean that the "arbitrary
and unlawful killings by security forces" accurately
described in the succeeding sentence is somehow undertaken
on behalf of "civilian authorities." In reality, Indonesian
security forces have long been a rogue force perpetrating
human rights violations with near impunity. This reality is
alluded to indirectly in the report which acknowledges in
the Executive Summary that "the government attempted to
punish officials who committed abuses, but judicial
sentencing often was not commensurate with the severity of
offenses, as was true in other types of crimes as well." The
body of the report includes examples of failed justice,
notably in addressing human rights crimes committed by
security force officials in West Papua, are cited with good
detail.
The Report provides accounts of numerous
violations during the 2011 reporting period, usually with
appropriate detail. For example, in describing the security
force assault on the October 16-19, 2011 Third Papuan
National Congress the U.S. State Department accounts writes:
"...police and military units violently dispersed
participants in the Third Papua People’s Congress, a
gathering held in Jayapura October 16-19. Activists
displayed banned separatist symbols and read out a
Declaration of Independence for the 'Republic of West Papua'
on the final day of the gathering. Police fired into the air
and detained hundreds of persons, all but six of whom were
released the following day. Three persons were found shot
and killed in the area. Police spokesmen claimed that the
police were equipped only with rubber bullets and other
non-lethal ammunition. Police beat many of those detained,
and dozens were injured. At year’s end, six of the leaders
of the Third Papua People’s Congress faced charges of
treason and weapons possession."
The State Department
writes that "the Indonesian National Human Rights Commission
(Komnas HAM) found that Demananus Daniel, Yakobus Samsabara,
and Max Asa Yeuw, whose dead bodies were found near the
Congress area, had been shot. Komnas HAM called for an
investigation."
The report acknowledges that
violence continued to afflict the Papuan people on a massive
basis. Troubling, the report downplays a key element of that
violence, i.e., the impact of security force "sweeping
operations." These operations in 2011, as in previous years,
continued to drive villagers from their homes and often into
life-threatening refuge in nearby forests. The report raises
doubt about the human impact of sweeping operations by
claiming that the remoteness of these operations precludes
accurate accounts of that impact:
"Violence affected the
provinces of Papua and West Papua during the year. Due to
the remoteness of the area it was difficult to confirm
reports of burned villages and civilian deaths. Much of this
violence was connected to the Free Papua Movement (OPM) and
security force operations against OPM. For example, OPM
forces wounded three soldiers in a July 5 exchange of fire.
In another incident on July 12, attackers, whom the
government alleged were OPM-affiliated, injured four
soldiers and two civilians. On October 24, alleged
OPM-affiliated attackers shot and killed the chief of the
Mulia police station."
This U.S. Government rendering of
the harming of civilians entailed by the "sweeping
operations" also seeks to implicate the armed Papuan
resistance, the OPM. The State Department report fails to
note that Indonesian Government claims of OPM activities as
constituting triggers for the sweeping operations are widely
suspect.
The State Department acknowledges that security
forces continue to resort to torture: "During the year the
Legal Aid Institute of Jakarta conducted a survey on the
prevalence of torture in Papua that found 61 percent of
survey respondents suffered physical abuse while being
arrested and 47 percent of respondents suffered physical
abuse during questioning."
The State Department Report
usefully notes that the Indonesian Government regularly
interferes with and intimidates human rights monitors,
including journalists:
"However, some government
officials, particularly in Papua and Aceh, subjected the
organizations to monitoring, harassment, and interference as
well as threats and intimidation. Activists said
intelligence officers followed them, took their pictures
surreptitiously, and sometimes questioned their friends and
family members regarding their whereabouts and activities."
The report, however, fails to relate this repression to
the intimidation of journalists, such as in the case of the
stabbing of Banjir Amarita who reported on the police rape
of two women in Papua, nor does it note that foreign human
rights monitoring in West Papua continues to face persistent
government restrictions. The report does note that the
Indonesian Government continues to ban the International
Committee of the Red Cross from reopening of its office in
West Papua, which was closed by the government in
2009.
The report also accurately describes government
culpability in the exploitation of Papuans by foreign and
domestic firms exploiting resources:
"During the year
indigenous persons, most notably in Papua, remained subject
to widespread discrimination, and there was little
improvement in respect for their traditional land rights.
Mining and logging activities, many of them illegal, posed
significant social, economic, and logistical problems to
indigenous communities. The government failed to prevent
companies, often in collusion with the local military and
police, from encroaching on indigenous peoples’ land. In
Papua tensions continued between indigenous Papuans and
migrants from other provinces, between residents of coastal
and inland communities, and among indigenous tribes."
The
report, however, pulls its punches in describing the impact
of the Indonesian government's social engineering entailed
in the "transmigration" program:
"Some human rights
activists asserted a government-sponsored transmigration
program transplanting poor families from overcrowded Java
and Madura to less populated islands violated the rights of
indigenous people, bred social resentment, and encouraged
the exploitation and degradation of natural resources on
which many indigenous persons relied. However, the number of
transmigrants as compared with spontaneous economic migrants
was relatively small. During the year, 7,274 families
participated in government-sponsored transmigration
programs. In some areas, such as parts of Sulawesi, the
Malukus, Kalimantan, Aceh, and Papua, relations between
transmigrants and indigenous people were poor."
Contending that the number of transmigrants in 2011,
7,242 families, was small, fails to take into account the
hundreds of thousands of transmigrants who have been
re-located to West Papua over the years by the government
and the reality that those transmigrants continue to receive
formal and informal Government support. Government support
for these transmigrants is a key factor in the systemic
marginalization of Papuans.
WPAT Comment: The gravest
omission in the State Department's evaluation of human
rights in West Papua is its systematic failure over the
years to address the Indonesian government's neglect of
fundamental services for Papuans. Jakarta continues to
ignore its obligation, as set forth in international human
rights agreements, to provide basic health and education
services for Papuans or to foster employment. This neglect
has had a devastating impact on Papuan communities, notably
in rural areas, where health and education outcomes are
among the worst in the world. Despite a relatively
meticulous account of human rights abuses in West Papua, and
of the impunity granted to the perpetrators of those abuses,
the report ignores Jakarta's decades old policy of malign
neglect which has had a genocidal impact on the Papuan
people.
Amnesty International Highlights Human Rights
Abuses in Its Report on Indonesia for 2011
Amnesty
International (AI) highlighted human rights abuse in West
Papua, Aceh and Maluku in its
2011 report on Indonesia.
The report
observed that "peaceful political activities continued to be
criminalized in Papua and Maluku." Specifically it observed
that "the government continued to criminalize peaceful
political expression in Maluku and Papua" and that "at least
90 political activists were imprisoned for their peaceful
political activities."
The AI report cited several
incidents to document this denial of the right of freedom of
expression:
• In August, two Papuan political
activists, Melkianus Bleskadit and Daniel Yenu, were
imprisoned for up to two years for their involvement in a
peaceful political protest in Manokwari town in December
2010.
• In October, over 300 people were arbitrarily
arrested after participating in the Third Papuan People’s
Congress, peaceful gathering held in Abepura town, Papua
Province. Although most were held overnight and released the
next day, five were charged with “rebellion” under
Article 106 of the Criminal Code. The charge could carry a
maximum life sentence. A preliminary investigation by the
National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) found that the
security forces had committed a range of human rights
violations, including opening fire on participants at the
gathering, and beating and kicking them.
The AI report
also noted that throughout Indonesia "police accountability
mechanisms remained inadequate" and that "security forces
faced persistent allegations of human rights violations,
including torture and other ill-treatment and use of
unnecessary and excessive force."
"Perpetrators of past
human rights violations in Aceh, Papua, Timor-Leste and
elsewhere remained free from prosecution. The Attorney
General’s office failed to act on cases of serious human
rights violations submitted by the National Human Rights
Commission (Komnas HAM). These included crimes against
humanity committed by members of the security forces."
Amnesty noted that repression of those engaged in the
defense of human rights and of journalists continues to be a
problem in Indonesia:
"Some human rights defenders and
journalists continued to be intimidated and attacked because
of their work. AI provided examples of this abuse:
• In March, journalist Banjir Ambarita was stabbed by
unidentified persons in the province of Papua shortly after
he had written about two cases of women who were reportedly
raped by police officers in Papua. He survived the attack.
• In June, military officers beat Yones Douw, a human
rights defender in Papua, after he tried to monitor a
protest calling for accountability for the possible unlawful
killing of Papuan Derek Adii in May.
AI documented the
continuing practice of torture and physical abuse
perpetrated by security forces: "Security forces faced
repeated allegations of torturing and otherwise ill-treating
detainees, particularly peaceful political activists in
areas with a history of independence movements such as Papua
and Maluku. Independent investigations into such allegations
were rare."
In January, three soldiers who had been filmed
kicking and verbally abusing Papuans were sentenced by a
military court to between eight and 10 months’
imprisonment for disobeying orders. A senior Indonesian
government official described the abuse as a “minor
violation."
Indonesian Government Allows Foreign
Corporation to Rip-off Papuans
An international
environmental group accused a Hong Kong-owned palm oil
developer with paying traditional Papuan landowners as
little as $0.65 per hectare for their land. (See full report
at:
Clear-Cut Exploitation.)
The
London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA),
joined in conducting its research by Indonesian partner
"Telapak" found that PT Henrison Inti Persada paid less than
$1,000 for 15 square miles of forest from the Moi clans of
West Papua. When the Hong Kong-based commodities
conglomerate Noble Group purchased a majority stake in the
company in 2010, analysts calculated that the plantation
would be worth US$162 million when developed.
The company
paid as little as $25 per cubic meter to landowners for
timber harvested during clearance of their forests,
including for valuable merbau. The company made millions by
then selling the exported merbau for $875 per cubic
meter.
The EIA/Telapak research highlighted a history of
legal irregularities in the plantation’s development and
in timber harvesting – crimes never pursued by government
officials tasked with safeguarding West Papua’s forests
and people. Violations include forest clearance and timber
utilization prior to permits being issued, and failure to
develop smallholder estates in line with legal requirements.
Impoverished landowners never received promised development
benefits such as houses, vehicles and education.
EIA
Senior Forest Campaigner Jago Wadley said: “Papuans, some
of the poorest citizens in Indonesia, are being utterly
exploited in legally questionable oil palm land deals that
provide huge financial opportunities for international
investors at the expense of the people and forests of West
Papua.”
The briefing also describes how Norway has a
stake in the plantation via the multi-million dollar
shareholdings of its sovereign wealth fund – the world’s
largest – in Noble Group. Norway has been internationally
feted as a climate change leader following its significant
political and financial investment in the Reduce Emissions
from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD+) program in
Indonesia and elsewhere.
These contradictions highlight
how, if left unreformed, investment and commodity markets
will continue to destroy forests and undermine local
communities in spite of efforts to reduce emissions from
deforestation, argue EIA and Telapak.
“That Norway -
Indonesia’s biggest REDD+ donor - will also profit from
this destructive exploitation is ironic in the extreme.
Norway could be paying Papuans to maintain their forests
instead of profiting from deforestation in West Papua,”
said Telapak Forests Campaigner Abu Meridian.
Vanuatu
Citizens Support Papuan Rights
A
May 16 report by Johnny Blades of Radio
New Zealand provides a timely update regarding tensions in
Vanuatu between those who support the rights of their fellow
Melanesians in West Papua and Vanuatu officials who have
been lured by offers of Indonesian assistance to support
Jakarta, which has offered police training and other
assistance in exchange for Vanuatu's silence on human rights
violations and the denial of the right to
self-termination.
A police crackdown and the arrest
of 24 protesters who demonstrated against the arrival of an
Indonesian military plane highlighted these tensions. The
demonstration in Vanuatu's capital of Port Vila was peaceful
and did not violate any local laws. The Indonesian Hercules
aircraft reportedly was carrying equipment to assist in an
upcoming meeting between African, Caribbean and Pacific
(ACP) countries and the European Union.
Under a recently
signed cooperation agreement, Indonesia will provide police
and paramilitary training to Vanuatu. West Papuan leaders
living in exile in Vanuatu have called on its government to
reconsider its policy in regard to Indonesia, which in 2011
became an observer of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).
Andy Ayamiseba, speaking to Radio New Zealand from jail
after his arrest at the airport protest said that “If
there is any such force to train Vanuatu police, Indonesia
should be the last on the list. These people, they're
committing atrocities on other Melanesian
people."
Opposition Vanuatu MP, Sela Molisa, said the
people of Vanuatu strongly opposed the cooperation with
Indonesia: “The government can get assistance from
anywhere including Indonesia. But people have different
opinion from the government. In as far as the NGOs and
members of the public are concerned, they do not agree with
the government making any deals with Indonesia, that’s in
opposition to the situation in West Papua.” he said.
Molisa witnessed the arrests and condemned the police and
government actions. He said people had the right to express
themselves and that no permit was required for holding
banners in a peaceful way at the airport.
WPAT Comment: In
addition to bullying small regional neighbors, Jakarta has
successfully employed its powerful regional status to ensure
that governments throughout the world limit their public
criticism of its policies in West Papua. The international
movement of solidarity with the West Papuan people,
including NGO's, some media, a growing number of
Parliamentarians, and concerned individual activists like
the Vanuatu protesters continue to play the role of the
international community's
conscience.
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