[Kabar-indonesia] Bush Officials Cover-Up Indonesian Military Role in Murder of U.S. Citizens

[John M Miller]

PRESS RELEASE

Bush Officials Cover-Up Indonesian Military Role in Murder of U.S. Citizens

*Embargoed for April 9th, 2007*

Contact:
S. Eben Kirksey             Andreas Harsono
University of California    Pantau Foundation
+1.831.429.8276             +62.815.950.9000
skirksey at ucsc.edu           aharsono at cbn.net.id
Santa Cruz, California      Jakarta, Indonesia


Evidence of Indonesian military involvement in 
the deaths of two American citizens has been 
suppressed, according to a report released today 
by Joyo Indonesian News Service and Pantau 
Foundation. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza 
Rice, and other senior administration officials, 
have been misleading Congress and the public 
about a 2002 assault near the gold and copper 
mine of Freeport McMoRan (FCX) in the remote 
Indonesian province of Papua. The Bush 
Administration sees Indonesia, the world’s most 
populous Muslim nation, as a key ally in the Global War on Terrorism.

“It’s sad to see that U.S. terrorism policy has 
once again sacrificed truth and justice,” said 
Andreas Harsono, a journalist of the Pantau media 
group, who co-authored the report.

F.B.I. agents entrapped at least one innocent 
man, Reverend Isak Onawame, in connection with 
this murder. Rev. Onawame, an elderly human 
rights advocate, was detained by the F.B.I. in 
Papua and delivered to Indonesian custody where 
he was strip searched, deprived of sleep, and 
interrogated. On November 7th, 2006, an 
Indonesian court found Rev. Onawame guilty of 
supplying attackers with food, based on a false 
confession extracted during interrogation. Six 
other men, including Antonius Wamang, who has 
admitted to participating in the attack, were 
given sentences of 18 months to life in jail during the same trial.

“By all accounts Wamang’s group only had three 
guns,” said co-author S. Eben Kirksey, a doctoral 
candidate at the University of California at 
Santa Cruz. The report authors obtained a copy of 
a classified Indonesian ballistics report, which 
is being released to the public for the first 
time today. Through microscopic analysis of 
bullet fragments, this ballistics report 
concluded that a total of 13 guns were fired at the scene of the crime.

“We’re the first to publicly identify a smoking 
gun. In fact, we have unearthed evidence of 10 
smoking guns,” continued Kirksey. “There was 
another group of shooters wielding enormous 
firepower.” Eyewitnesses, and logs of vehicle 
traffic through road checkpoints, place 
Indonesian soldiers at the scene of the crime.

The full text of the report, “Murder at Mile 63”, 
and the Indonesian ballistics report, will be 
available as of April 9th, 2007, on the websites 
of the East Timor Action Network 
(http://www.etan.org/) and TAPOL­-The Indonesian 
Human Rights Campaign (http://tapol.gn.apc.org/).