[Kabar-Irian] =?iso-8859-1?q?Fwd=3A_The_Arrests_of_11_January_20?==?iso-8859-1?q?05=97A_?= Preliminar y Account
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The Arrests of 11 January 2005—A Preliminary Account
S. Eben Kirksey
The following account draws on a number of
sources on the ground in West Papua.
There was a meeting last night at “Amole Dua”, a
small hotel in the city of Timika. Paul Myers
and Ron Eiowan—two FBI agents investigating a
2002 murder of U.S. citizens—helped coordinate
this meeting. Invitations to this meeting were
sent to eleven men: suspects in the 2002
killings. A local church leader, Reverend Isak
Ondawame, delivered the invitations. Ondawame,
along with other prominent leaders in Timika,
had been in discussion with U.S. officials about
negotiating the surrender of the
suspects. Diplomats with the State Department
recently assured local indigenous leaders that
the U.S. government would ensure humane
treatment and a fair trial if the suspects handed themselves in.
Timika is in West Papua, a territory that was
incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 following a
contested referendum. On 31 August 2002, gunmen
shot to death two U.S. citizens and one
Indonesian citizen while wounding eight other
U.S. citizens near Timika. This attack occurred
on the heavily guarded main road within the
mining project area of U.S.-based Freeport
McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc. (NYSE symbol: FCX).
Initial Indonesian police reports identified the
Indonesian military as the likely culprits in
the attack. In June 2004, U.S. Attorney General
John Ashcroft announced the indictment of one
man in connection with the crime, an Indonesian citizen named Anthonius Wamang.
Wamang was among the eleven men invited to the
meeting last night at Amole Dua. At this
meeting Special Agents Myers and Eiowan
reiterated promises to bring the twelve men to
America. The two FBI agents told the 11 men,
and Reverend Ondawame, to get into the back of a
medium-sized truck. They said it was the first
stage of their journey to America. The agents
said that they would be safe from Indonesian
authorities inside of the truck. Once inside of
the truck, with the back door shut, the men
could not see out. As it traveled, they did not know where it was bound.
The truck stopped in front of a local Indonesian
police station (PolSek). The police station was
in Kuala Kencana, a gated community built by
Freeport for their employees. Indonesian troops
with the elite Brimob (Mobile Brigade) unit were
waiting in front of the police. After seeing
that the twelve men were in Indonesian custody,
Special Agents Myers and Eiowan departed from the police station.
First the Indonesian police officers strip
searched the twelve men. Some of the questioning
began while detainees were just wearing their
underwear. One of the detainees, a man named
Yairus Kiwak, claims that he was hit by an
Indonesian interrogator on his forehead. Kiwak
also claims that he was kicked in his leg. The
questioning began about 10:30 at night, and continued until well after dawn.
This morning (12 January), eight of the twelve
men were driven to the airport. They were flown
on a commercial airliner (Garuda) to West
Papua’s capital of Jayapura. While being
transported, the men were bound in plastic
handcuffs. Upon arrival in Jayapura they were
driven to the regional police headquarters
(POLDA Papua). The four other detainees
followed on a second aircraft and were also
taken to the regional police headquarters.
The Indonesian police have claimed all of the
credit for the arrests. General Sutanto, the
head of Indonesia’s national police (Kapolri),
said in a press statement “last night at 10:30
local time Antonius Wamang, along with twelve
others, were captured in Timika”. U.S.
government officials have done little to
publicly claim credit for the arrests. A U.S.
government source reported that the FBI was
planning to leave West Papua today. Reportedly,
there are no U.S. officials present at the
regional police headquarters in Jayapura as the
twelve men are undergoing further interrogations.
At this moment the fate of the twelve men
remains undecided. The Indonesian authorities
have not yet formally charged any of them with a
crime. The U.S. government is claiming that
pursuing justice in the 2002 murders is a
priority. The events in West Papua of the last
24 hours seem to parallel U.S. government
practices elsewhere—having another country
conduct interrogations frees U.S. officials from
being implicated in potential allegations of
torture. If the U.S. government is indeed
interested in pursuing justice, then it is
surprising that officials and agents are
following the Indonesian government interrogation process from afar.
S. Eben Kirksey is a Chancellor’s Fellow at the
University of California at Santa Cruz. He is
completing his doctoral dissertation on
nationalism and violence in West Papua. E-mail: skirksey@ucsc.edu
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