[Kabar-Irian] News: August 21-23 2007

[Admin-Editors Kabar-Irian]

KABAR IRIAN NEWS

Aug 21-23

TOPICS

* Papuans protest autonomy status
* PNG police seek Indonesian over weapons
* The many faces of poverty in Indonesia
* Quality education
* Papua forests at risk: NGO
* Drinking problem
* Tussle for Papua's forests
* WePa: Mysterious killings are a return to the Suharto era style of
repression
* Australian Coalition of West Papua Support Groups


---

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnation.asp?fileid=20070821.G05&irec=4


Papuans protest autonomy status

JAYAPURA, Papua: Some 300 protesters who said they were from the Coalition
of People and Students

Care of Papua held a rally at Papua Legislative Council on Monday
demanding the provincial

government, the local council and Papua People's Council reject the
province's special autonomy status.

Protest coordinator Buchtar Tabuni said in his speech, "the special
autonomy brings no benefit to most

Papuans".

He said it was about time to stop using poor people as an excuse because
the money was only enjoyed

by officials and civil servants in Papua.

Buchtar said MRP head Agus Alua has told the Australian media the special
autonomy has failed.

"Today, we also want to tell the council a similar thing, that the special
autonomy has failed and we reject

it," he said.

The protesters were received by council members Yani and Heny Arobaya who
told the protesters to

deliver their demands when the council was back in session. -- JP

---


http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/PNG-police-seek-Indonesian-over-

weapons/2007/08/22/1187462346024.html

PNG police seek Indonesian over weapons

August 22, 2007 - 6:39PM

Police are hunting for an Indonesian man after discovering a cache of
bullets, equipment for making

ammunition and a collection of passports and drivers' licences in Papua
New Guinea.

But officers have downplayed local media reports that the man could be
part of a bomb and drug-making

operation linked to terrorist networks.

Firing devices, gunpowder, chemicals that could be used to make drugs,
passports, drivers' licences,

scanners and printers were discovered in the man's rented house in the
capital, Port Moresby, police

said.

Port Moresby police chief Alfred Reu said the materials and equipment were
what a loader in a pistol club

would use, and the man being sought had been a member of the Port Moresby
club.

He said he had yet to examine the finds and could not comment on media
reports the materials could be

used to make bombs and drugs, and that the man may be connected to terrorism.

"At this stage we are still looking out for this fellow. We need to pick
him up and ask him why he held on

to the material," Reu said.

Police searched the property after receiving a break and enter report.

The wanted man is in his 30s and worked for a company in Port Moresby but
the Indonesian Embassy

reported it did not know of him, Reu said.

An embassy official told local media that Indonesian officials would work
with local authorities

investigating the matter.

The official expressed the embassy's concern that an Indonesian citizen
was suspected of producing

illegal ammunition, drugs and fake documents.

"The image of Indonesia is bad because of this person who we do not have
any record of," he told The

National newspaper.

"But we trust the police investigators can arrest him and establish his
real identity and country of origin."

© 2007 AAP

---

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20070822.F03&irec=2

The many faces of poverty in Indonesia

Roy Voragen, Bandung

Intuition many hold that pluralism in society is a destabilizing factor
for democracy. There seems to be

only so much diversity a society can handle. Many Indonesians fear that
ethnic, linguistic, cultural and

religious plurality could cause disintegration or even "balkanization".

In recent years violence has occurred in Aceh, Poso, Ambon, Papua, Bali
and Jakarta -- this list is

indeed long.

Secular Indonesians fear that applying (parts) of sharia in some cities,
for example, endangers inclusive

citizenship as enshrined in the 1945 Constitution.

Religious people, on the other side, fear that sexed-up trash on TV will
morally corrupt the young.

While discussions on Islam, Pancasila and secularism are important for the
future of Indonesia's

democracy, there is another more pressing problems: structural poverty.

All this talk about public morality seems to obscure the economic fact
that 100 million Indonesians have to

live on Rp 20,000 (about US$2) a day, and 10 million of them on less than
Rp 10,000 per day (these

numbers are from the World Bank; see www.worldbank.org/id).

The differences between Muslims and non-Muslims, or religious people and
secularists are not as

important as the gap between the rich and the poor. It is this gap that
could endanger the democratization

of this country. Can a democracy flourish when such huge inequality persists?

It is possible with Rp 20,000 a day to get enough food to live. But living
is more than eating.

For the poor their situation becomes much like a curse, which stays in the
family for at least seven

generations, because it is impossible to educate their children. Public
education is still very expensive,

despite the government's continuous efforts to allocate more money for the
sector.

Housing is also complex. As architect John Turner once said: "Housing is a
verb." There are many trade

-offs to be dealt with. Illegal settlements are seldom free. These
settlements are illegal because the

occupants lack land tenure -- and thus the legal security that comes with
it -- but the occupants have to

pay "rent" to get an informal form of safety.

And the farther away from a city center the cheaper housing is, the more
money has to be spent on

transportation. Sometimes it is easier to sleep in the open air, close to
-- possible -- jobs.

Toll roads, high-rise apartment buildings and malls are seen as essential
parts of modern life. Urban

kampungs have been and are being demolished to make way for these
developments. These urban

settlements are seen by the rich as the sour spots of a city, and
modernization is used as justification for

their demolition.

Is the (global) market the only answer? And what is then the role of the
Indonesian state? The language

of the market sounds fair: you will have a chance to succeed if you use
your talents and work hard. In

short, meritocracy.

Meritocracy is a society where socio-economic status is derived from one's
own efforts and capabilities.

In such a society one should not get rich because of one's family name, or
skin color, or religion, or

place of birth or party membership.

In Indonesia, though, unemployment (masked by underemployment) is so
massive that a meritocratic is

simply unfeasible. Even with good macro-economic prospects most
Indonesians will not enjoy the --

literal -- fruits of these prospects. This leads to a widening gap between
the rich and the poor, and it can

also lead to conflicts (for instance the returning occurrence of
anti-Chinese violence).

Not all poor are, of course, jobless. A job is no guarantee that one can
escape poverty. A poor person

with talent will have difficulty prospering. It will be very hard to leave
the kampung behind. If the ideal of

meritocracy is the hard currency it will seem as if poverty is one's own
fault: One is just too lazy to make

use of one's own capacities. But without networks one cannot advance. It
is easy to stigmatize the poor,

and to see them as an amorphous mass that can be pushed around.

Poverty is indeed a major threat to democracy, perhaps even more than
fundamentalism.

The writer lives in Jakarta and teaches philosophy at Parahyangan
University, Bandung. His blog can be

accessed at http://fatumbrutum.blogspot.com/.

---

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20070822.E01&irec=0

Quality education

"We want our children to benefit from a quality education," President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said in

his Independence Day speech last week. To achieve that, the President
said, education would get the

largest budget allocation. We definitely share the President's wish. All
of us want our children to get a

quality education, the best available. But reality is often different.

For those of us who live in big cities and can afford good education, we
have many choices available,

from kindergarten to university. We have western-style kindergartens,
complete with English as a medium

of instruction, international and national plus schools, as well as
international-standard universities. For

us, quality is number one.

However, for those who live in small villages in the country and for those
who cannot afford even basic

education, good schools are beyond the imagination. Elementary schools in
Papua, for example, often

have one teacher per school -- and who is also the headmaster. For these
people, quality is not an issue.

If they can send their children to school, that's good enough.

>From here, we can see that quality will improve in line with rising
demand. More and more national plus

schools and international-standard universities will be built whenever the
demand for such schools keeps

rising. However, driving up demand is not an easy undertaking as it
correlates directly with purchasing

power, and creating purchasing power takes time. But people cannot wait.
Here is the role of the

government, to drive up quality from the supply side.

The government has done its part by giving the education sector the
highest budget allocation. The

president revealed that next year, the education sector would get Rp 61.4
trillion (US$6.7 billion), an

increase from Rp 52.4 trillion this year, but he did not elaborate on how
this money would translate into

quality education.

He only promised to continue the government's school operational
assistance program and scholarships

for poor students, and continue extending special allocation funds to
local governments to rehabilitate

schools and purchase educational equipment.

Of course, we could not expect the President to go into the details of how
to translate an increase in

education spending into a rise in the quality of our education system. But
the President should at least

share his vision for what kind of quality education he wants to see at the
end of next year or at the end of

his term in 2009.

The budget is an effective tool to drive up education quality. Only
through the budget can the government

raise teachers' salaries, finance training for teachers and thus improve
their quality, provide better

textbooks for students and build more versatile school buildings -- all of
which are important factors in

improving quality.

>From the budget side, our Constitution has already ensured that the
government must allocate enough

money for education. The constitution says that 20 percent of the budget
must go to education, which is

strengthened by our education law, which stipulates the 20 percent
spending does not include teachers'

salaries.

Here lies the problem. As teachers' salaries are not included in the
calculation of the education budget,

the government will never be able to meet its Constitutional obligation.
Next year's education budget, for

example, amounts to only 12.4 percent of the government's total spending.
The government simply cannot

increase its education spending to 20 percent because if it does so, it
will jeopardize the whole budget.

This means the government cannot do anything but break the law.

Therefore, we support a proposal from Vice President Jusuf Kalla to amend
our education bill, to

incorporate teachers' salaries into our education budget. If teachers'
salaries, which total Rp 30 trillion,

are included, it would automatically boost the government's education
spending to 17.5 percent. By

amending the education law, we help prevent the government from
continuously breaking the law and

hopefully end the controversy surrounding the education budget.

However, such big spending for education would not necessarily result in
an improvement in education

quality. It needs a lot of work in planning, implementation and oversight
to make sure that the budgeted

money goes to the right projects and right targets, especially those who
cannot afford education. Only

then would an increase in education spending mean an increase in quality.

---

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnation.asp?fileid=20070822.G05&irec=4

Papua forests at risk: NGO

JAYAPURA, Papua: Papua is home to 10 percent of the world's remaining
Intact Forest Landscape, but

2 percent of that is at risk of forest conversion, according to an NGO.

"Unfortunately, Papua's tropical forest is threatened with being converted
into plantations in the near

future ...," said Greenpeace forest campaigner Bustar Maitar in Jayapura
on Tuesday.

The provincial administration has proposed converting some of Papua's
forests into palm oil plantations to

feed the demand for biofuel.

The Forestry Ministry has identified at least 9 million hectares for
forest in Papua and West Papua

provinces for possible conversion.

"Our data shows that 17.9 million hectares of forest are still intact.
Only half would remain if 9 million

hectares was taken, that is if there was a guarantee it would never be
touched," said Maitar.

Greenpeace and a joint forum of non-governmental organizations in Papua
have reminded Papuans of

the importance of healthy forests.

"We want to support the people and the provincial administration to
preserve and reap as many benefits

as possible from the forest, without turning it into palm oil
plantations," said Maitar. -- JP

---

From:  Tapol <tapol at gn.apc.org>
Cenderawasih Pos, 22 August 2007

(Two items on drinking problem)
Summary only

Jayapura municipality and district officials say they will soon respond to
calls for drink licenses to be repealed to put an end to drunkenness in the
community. But they said that withdrawing licenses for well known brands
will not be effective  as long as local producers can still produce
home-made brews. 'These are the brands that have caused people to die,' one
official said.

He also said that a ban in one location will not be effective unless it is
banned throughout Papua, including the province of West Papua as it could
be smuggled over borders; more liquor would be produced and the price would
go down resulting in more people buying the stuff.

He also said this was not just a matter for the authorities. Organisations
and church leaders in the community also need to take action, with appeals
by church leaders in their sermons and action by adat leaders.

Meanwhile, Zadrak Wamebu, deputy bupati of Jayapura who has recently been
appointed head of the Narcotics Agency in Jayapura, said the matter needs
to be taken up by the DPRD. 'With deaths now occurring, I see it as my duty
as Narcotics Agency chief to  deal with the matter.' He said that he agrees
with the demands made by demonstrators recently for administrations at all
levels, from the province down, to take firm action.

He said that public consultations should also be held to discuss a draft
regulation which should also consider the misuse of pure spirits that are
on sale in pharmacies.

According to a report from Nabire, tens of thousands of bottles of illegal
alcohol of a variety of brands have been destroyed. The local head of the
police criminal investigation bureau said this has been underway since
January this year. Operations have also taken place at the harbour when
passengers coming on white ships arrive (these are mostly used to bring
people to Papua from other parts of Indonesia). The alcohol is carried in
water bottles, jerrycans and plastic containers, he said.. Altogether
20,400 litres of alcohol have been confiscated.



TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign
111 Northwood Road, Thornton Heath, Croydon CR7 8HW, UK.
tel +44 (0)20 8771 2904 fax +44 (0)20 8653 0322
tapol at gn.apc.org  http://tapol.gn.apc.org

---

Contributed by: "Watch Indonesia!" <watchindonesia at snafu.de>

"Responsible for the article below are author and publication. The
contribution does not necessarily mirror the views of Watch Indonesia!"

The Straits Times (Singapore)
Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Tussle for Papua's forests

By John McBeth, Senior Writer

PAPUA Governor Barnabas Suebu appears to have put the brakes on
a major palm oil plantation expansion that would have
transformed the demographic balance in Indonesia's easternmost
province and raised the spectre of widespread land disputes and
a reinvigorated independence movement.

At the heart of the local government's development ambitions has
been a major infrastructure programme - involving highways,
seaports and airports - and the creation of four million
hectares of plantations, mostly concentrated in the
south-eastern districts of Merauke, Boven Digoel and Mappi.

'Development in Papua is being done to attract more economic
activity,' National Planning Minister Paskah Suzetta told a July
11 seminar in Jayapura. 'The consequence of that is there will
be many more people coming into Papua, not just from other
provinces, but also from other countries. So the people of Papua
must be prepared.'

Local critics have hit out at big-spending development projects
and say the local government should be paying more attention to
improving the province's woeful human resources situation and
empowering native Papuans economically to prepare them for the
onslaught.

Now, with the UN Climate Change Summit looming in Bali in
December, Governor Suebu is shifting emphasis away from
extensive palm oil cultivation and towards preserving the forests
as a way of winning the province a future stake in a
still-undefined global market for carbon credit avoidance.

In a recent interview with the Asian Wall Street Journal, Mr
Suebu said he has been under pressure from Jakarta to create
more plantations, partly to provide new jobs. But Trade Minister
Mari Pangestu and other people who talked to him just two months
ago say he was 'gung ho' over a plan that was actually
formulated before he was elected governor in July last year.

Aides insist he has been taking a prudent approach all along and
say he is holding off on approving large-scale oil palm ventures
because he wants to ensure they are being planned in a
sustainable way and are not simply an excuse - as
conservationists have charged - for rampant logging in the
country's last great stands of tropical rainforest.

For the past three decades, the central government has been
accused of plundering Papua's vast store of resources and giving
nothing back. Even now, with the province awash in cash as a
result of its special autonomy status, Jakarta is still seen to
be falling short in showing more respect for the Papuans and
their culture.

Mr Suebu is well aware that vast new areas of plantation would
widen the resentment among indigenous communities, with the
influx of hundreds of thousands of outside workers from other
job-starved parts of Indonesia dwarfing former president
Suharto's controversial transmigration programme.

'The companies can have all the plans they want, but the
governor is following very closely the prerequisites laid down
for sustainable development,' one adviser told The Straits
Times. 'When he talks plantations, he wants the people to be in
a position to go and negotiate directly (with the companies).'

Mr Suebu takes the view that because the 2001 Special Autonomy
Law stipulates that only foreign affairs, defence, justice,
religion and fiscal affairs are the responsibility of the
central government, Papua's forests belong to the Papuans.

In its latest report on Papua, the International Crisis Group (ICG)
notes that tensions among tribal groups,
and between indigenous Papuans and non-Papuan settlers, as well
as competition over political power and access to spoils at the
regency and sub-district levels all carry the potential for
trouble in the years ahead.

The report focuses on Boven Digoel, one of two new regencies
carved out of the Merauke region in 2002, where the key local concerns
are land
rights and ethnic politics. The report points out that balancing
traditional land rights with forestry and plantations is fast
becoming a critical issue.

Korean-owned Korindo and its three Indonesian subsidiaries have
been operating in Merauke since 1993, felling timber for plywood and now
moving into biofuel projects.

Although there has been no major violence, conflicts between the
company and Papuan customary landowners over access and
compensation are widespread.

Korindo is considered only a marginal player in an area where
influential Merauke regent John Gluba Gedze, a member of the
majority, land-owning Marind tribe, is pushing hard for outside
investment - partly to boost his campaign for a separate
province of South Papua. For this reason, he and Mr Suebu are
not said to be on amicable terms.

Other investors include Malaysia's multinational Genting group,
which wants to pump US$3 billion (S$4.5 billion) into a
400,000ha palm oil plantation, Indonesian-owned Muting Mekar
Hijau which is aiming for 540,000ha of palm oil and sugar, and
the diversified Rajawali Corp and several other local companies.

But all their plans pale in comparison with what Indonesian
agri-giant Sinar Mas has in mind. While an internal presentation
obtained by The Straits Times lays out a plan to create one
million ha of palm oil plantations covering four districts, a
detailed breakdown indicates the company has designs on a much
wider area than that.

The wish list, carefully plotted out on a map, includes Merauke
(603,000ha), neighbouring Mappi (637,000ha) and Boven Digoel
(914,000ha) to the west and north, and Sari (313,000ha), Keerom
(186,000ha) and Jayapura (163,000ha) regencies on the northern
side of the Central Highlands.

The project will require 300,000 workers, about 70 per cent of
whom will have to come from outside the company, and facilities
ranging from a seven-million-tonne-a-year crude palm oil
refinery to a five-million-tonne biodiesel plant and
bulk-handling terminals.

For the past eight months, teams have been criss-crossing the
province surveying plantation sites and wooing the local
bureaucracy. Because a single company cannot control more than
100,000ha of plantation, Sinar Mas has already formed 14
subsidiaries covering Merauke, Boven Digul and Mappi alone.

Sinar Mas executive Aan Slamat, head of the Papua project,
declined to discuss Mr Suebu's apparent change of heart, saying
he wanted to wait until a scheduled meeting with the two-time governor
early next month. 'I haven't spoken to him for some time,' he said. 'The
concept (for the province) should be balanced development, taking in
economic, environmental, cultural and other factors.'

Significantly, Sinar Mas' strategic partner in the US$5.5
billion, eight-year venture is the China National Offshore Oil
Corporation (CNOOC), a major shareholder in BP's Tangguh
gasfield in western Papua which is scheduled to go into full
production next year.

In July, CNOOC announced it had taken a controlling 51 per cent
stake in the phased development of biodiesel from crude palm oil
and bioethanol from sugar cane or cassava in Papua and
Kalimantan. Sinar Mas holds a 39 per cent interest and Hong Kong
Energy (Holdings) the remaining 10 per cent.

Mr Suebu's connections with some of Indonesia's companies go
back many years. Sinar Mas, for example, currently has a
12,000ha oil palm plantation on the northern coast, which was
first planted in 1992 - a period during which Mr Suebu was last
the governor of Papua.

Forestry researchers still believe Sinar Mas' main interest lies
in the expanses of eucalyptus and acacia trees that grow
naturally in the Merauke area and can be used as ideal feedstock for its
Sumatran or Chinese pulp and paper mills - or perhaps for a new mill in
Papua.

The four million ha earmarked for plantations is mostly
concentrated along the southern coast and is actually part of 10
million ha across Indonesia that was officially classified as
conversion forest by the central government in the early 1980s
to cater for future population growth and development demands.

Unlike in Sumatra and Kalimantan, however, about 90 per cent of
the designated conversion forest in Papua is, in fact, primary
forest that has never been logged. The rest is either production
forest (yielding 20 cubic metres of timber or more a hectare) or
savannah grasslands.

What has not been explained is how the companies will go about
acquiring the necessary land for a programme that would change
the lifestyles of tens of thousands of people, many of them
forest dwellers who practise subsistence farming.

Sinar Mas says in its presentation that it will offer
'reasonable' compensation for traditional holdings, but local
officials make it clear it will be done on a rental basis and
that actual ownership will remain in the hands of the people.

Sinar Mas has already formed three teams to deal with land and
licensing, technical and socialisation issues, and human
resources, finance and business. Discussing the importance of
dealing with community leaders, it notes: 'The social, cultural
and religious approach is most important for every step of the
process.'

Foresters would like to see Mr Suebu reconsider where the
plantations should be, pointing to large areas of degraded
forest and scrubland that could be utilised without having to
clear primary forest. It acknowledges, however, that a lot of
the land is non-contiguous and would represent a logistical and
planning challenge.

In the meantime, environmentalists hope Papua holds the line.
Even if avoided deforestation becomes part of the Kyoto
Protocol, policy experts warn that it will take years to work
out a functioning system for the release of funds, monitoring
and enforcement.

And even if all that is done, there is still no guarantee that
Papua on its own will get the direct benefits. It could be
decided, for example, that carbon credit payments will be made
on a government-to-government basis, with the funds going to
Jakarta first and then distributed to the regions. Given the
bitter experiences of the past, that is not something Papua will
want to hear.

---

matthew jamieson <matthew at hr.minihub.org>

Press Release                                                             
 21 August 2007

West Papua: Mysterious killings are a return to the Suharto era style of
repression

Two West Papuan men have been murdered in separate incidents in what
appears to be a return of the

‘mysterious killing’ style of political repression, which was carried out
by the Indonesian security forces

during the Suharto era.

The Institute for Papuan Advocacy & Human Rights holds grave concerns that
this new information from

Nabire suggests that the Indonesian security forces have moved to increase
the intimidation of West

Papuan community by engaging in a campaign of brutal extra-judicial
killing & torture.

Statements from the senior military commanders, like Lt General Zamroni
and Col. Siagian, to repress

political descent, which they characterize as ‘separatism’, coincides with
a deteriorating the human rights

environment in West Papua.

“What is particularly distressing is that in the past few days the
Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang

Yudhoyono, has also said he will not tolerate ‘separatism’ or any
interference that would slow down the

development of Papua province.   The statements of the President parallel
those of the military

commanders in West Papua and will likely increase the human rights abuses
occurring in West Papua.”

Spokesperson for the Institute for Papuan Advocacy & Human Rights, Matthew
Jamieson said, "The

information coming to us signals that the human rights situation in West
Papua is deteriorating fast.   In

the past two months there has been increased threats to human rights
defenders, reports of militia being

formed in regional centers, torture of Papuan activists at the hands of
security forces, a report of the

killing by Police of three public servants in the Star Mountains region,
and shootings of Papuans by

military personnel in Jayapura and the case of the server torture of a man
by military near Tanah

Merah."

Church workers investigating the murders of the two Papuan men in Nabire
believe that these killings

were examples of ‘mysterious killings’ and were committed by the
Indonesian security forces.   The

mutilated bodies of both men were dumped on a street in Nabire.

The dead men were Matius Bunai (29 years old), a youth leader of the
Maranatha Kingmi Church and

civil servant with the Police department, and Ones Keiya (31 years old), a
farmer.  Both men were

residents of Siriwini neighbourhood in Nabire, were from the Mee tribal
group and were members of the

Kingmi church.

Church sources report that Matius Bunai was killed sometime after midnight
on the 6th August after

returning home from a church worship service. His beaten and lacerated
body was dumped on the street

and found at 7am on the 7th of August by a primary school student walking
to school. Ones Keiya was

found bleeding and close to death by the side of a road at 7pm on the 23rd
of July by a motorcycle

courier. He died hours later in the Nabire hospital.  There were no
witnesses to both attacks.

The bodies of both men showed similar signs of injuries: smashed forehead,
deep cuts on the head,

lacerations on the feet and hands, and cuts by a knife.

A Church worker in Nabire accused the police of refusing to investigate
the killings of the two men.  “The

Police treat us as if we were animals.  If non-Papuans are killed the
police are very busy looking for the

culprit, but if Papuans are killed the police do nothing. This behaviour
makes Papuans feel as if the police

want to wipe us out in our own land. As long as the Indonesian military is
in our land we feel these

mysterious killings will continue” said the Church worker from Nabire, who
asked not to be named.


For further information contact

Matthew Jamieson, Institute for Papuan Ad vocacy & Human Rights  Tel  +62
418291998


Paula Makabory, Institute for Papuan Advocacy & Human Rights & Els- Ham
West Papua  Tel +62

402547517


Matthew Jamieson
Institute for Papuan Advocacy & Human Rights
PO box 1805, Byron bay NSW 2481 Australia
matthew at hr.minihub.org
tel +61(0) 418291998
1
---

From: Anne Noonan and Joe Collins <bunyip at bigpond.net.au>

Australian Coalition of West Papua Support Groups
The 4th National Gathering of the Australian Coalition of West Papua
Support Groups met in Sydney over

the weekend of the 11-12 August to discuss and formulate campaigns to
highlight the ongoing human

rights abuses occurring in West Papua. The gathering also affirmed their
support for the peaceful

struggle of the West Papuan people to achieve their right to
self-determination. (Article 1. The United

Nations International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural  Rights).

Delegates at the gathering expressed great concern about the deteriorating
situation in West Papua and

at the systematic campaign by the military and police to intimidate any
individual or organisation whom

they (the military and police) deem to be separatists.

The gathering also called for the removal and suspension from active duty
of Col. Burhanuddin Siagian

who is commander of the Jayapura sub-regional military command (Korem 172)
in Papua,

Col. Siagian has been indicted twice for crimes against humanity in East
Timor and according to a report

in the Cenderawasih Post on 12 May 2007, Col Siagian threatened to destroy
anyone who betrays

Indonesia: “If I meet anyone who has enjoyed the facilities that belong to
the state, but who still betrays

the nation, I honestly will destroy him”. Since Col. Siagian made his
statements there  has been a marked

increase in intimidation throughout West Papua and  Indonesia and  an
increase in the number of civilian

 killings by security forces. There has also being an increase in (and
reappearance of) civilian  militias

and an escalation  in the  intimidation of human rights defenders and 
church workers.

Lombok treaty,
In relation to the Lombok treaty, the gathering  also condemned  the ties
with the Indonesian military to

which  this treaty commits us . The military are the core of the problem
in West Papua  and it is in the

interest of the military to provoke and prolong conflict in in order to
prove that they are needed to

maintain law and order and control so called separatists groups. As the
Indonesian military receive

approximately only 45% of their budget from the government, they must
raise the rest themselves. Much

of this is done through illegal means such as illegal logging, mining,
prostitution and  offering to provide

so called security to international companies such as the Freeport copper
and gold mine.

However, the gathering has noted that the treaties committee  has
recommended that there be  “an

increase in transparency in defence cooperation agreements to provide
assurance that Australian

resources do not directly or indirectly support human rights abuses in
Indonesia”   and  “The Committee

recommends that the Australian Government encourage the Indonesian
Government to allow greater

access for the media and  human rights monitors in Papua.

However, unless these recommendations are actually incorporated into the
treaty it will just be paying lip

service to these concerns.

We note that no mention was made of exchange of health information in the
treaty  e.g.  in case of bird

flu  or similar epidemics nor of medical support .

Health
Health in West Papua continues to be a matter of major regional and
international concern. West Papua

has half  of all the diagnosed cases  of HIV AIDS  in Indonesia (at 20
times the rate of the rest of

Indonesia) Malaria remains endemic , and tuberculosis, including new drug
resistant strains is

increasing. Infant mortality rates are over 100 per thousand live births
and  are amongst the highest in

the world. (Half of the infant deaths are due to Malaria). Maternal
mortality rates is rising in many areas,

due to malnutrition and  increasing HIV AIDS infections. The WHO states
that female literacy is the

greatest protector against maternal  mortality . However Papua has the
seventh highest rate of illiteracy in

Indonesia, with 200,000 people aged 12 to 45 years unable to read. In
addition, more than 350,000

people over the age of 45 and living in rural areas in Papua cannot read
and write.

TNI has not reformed
Numerous reports including the US State Department's 2005  Human Rights
report has stated that

“Security forces continued to commit unlawful killings of rebels,
suspected rebels, and civilians in areas

of separatist activity, where most politically motivated extrajudicial
killings also occurred”, and  an article

in the Jakarta Post “military  remains above the law, says rights
watchdog” dated 27 December 2006,

also reports that the military have made no progress in reforming itself.
There have been a number of

military operations in the highland regions of West Papua  in the past
year  and particularly in the

Puncak Jaya region. These operations caused thousands to flee to the bush
for their safety  and

seriously disrupted the livelihood of the local people.

Militia groups
The increase in activity of militia groups in West Papua and Indonesia is
of particular concern.

At the beginning of July West Papuan students held  protests in the
Central Java city of Yogyakarta

rejecting special autonomy and protesting the Indonesian  government's
decision to ban Congressman

Faleomavega from visiting West Papua.  In response to these demonstrations
the Indonesian police,

military and local government in Yogyakarta  teamed up with Islamic
militias and hardline nationalist

groups to intimidate West Papuan activists. According to local West Papuan
activists,  statements issued

by  the  Front Pembela Islam (Islamic Defenders Front) and Front 
Anti-Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian

Anti-Communist Front)  have been made threatening West Papuan students.

These acts of  intimidation of West Papuan students and NGO organisations
by the security forces  is

causing increasing tension and instability in West Papua. It signifies a
systematic campaign to target

what appears to be separatists groups by the security forces and a return
to the hardline policy of the

Suharto years.

Other militia groups operating in West Papua including the Laskar Jihad
group. Although it was reported

that they disbanded after the Bali bombings members of the group have
remained in West Papua. Other

groups include the Satgas Merah-Putih (Red and White Task Force) and the
Front Pembela Merah Putih

(Red and White Defenders Front). None of these groups could operate with
out the knowledge and

consent of the military.  They military have also created a false OPM
(Free Papua Movement) to instigate

incidents so the military can use such incidents to crack down on so
called separatists groups.

Being aware of the Indonesian military's appalling human rights abuses and
their  involvement in illegal

resource extraction, the National Gathering of the Australian Coalition of
West Papua Support Groups

calls on the Australian government to urge the Indonesian government to
control its military who are one

of the major causes of  conflict in West Papua and order them to return to
barracks where in a true

democracy, they belong.

Further info
Neil Sullivan (08 ) 9328 1970 ?
Joe Collins 04077 85797

Groups in attendance
Australia West Papua Association- Newcastle
Australia West Papua Association -South Australia
Australia West Papua Association- Sydney
Australia West Papua Association- WA
Institute for Papuan Advocacy & Human Rights
Indonesia Human Rights Committee-New Zealand
West Papua People's Representative Office-Vanuatu

Not in attendance" but supporting statement
Australians for a Free West Papua-NT
Australia West Papua Association - SW Victoria

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