[Kabar-Irian] News: Nov 21 - Dec 12 2007
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Tue Dec 11 21:55:47 MST 2007
KABAR IRIAN NEWS
Nov 8-Nov 21
TOPICS
* Dutch parliamentary paper concerning arrest Sabar Olif Iwanggin
* In solidarity with the people of West Papua,
* Forest protection: Local and global
* U.S. congressman in Papua to assess condition
* US congressman Eni Faleomavaega
* 25 Papuans questioned over independence flag
* Indonesian police fatally shoot villager on remote Papua province
* West Papua Report (Dec)
* Indonesia Allows U.S. Congressman To Visit Autonomous Provinces
* Slow year for human rights, say activists
* Four new airstrips in remote Papua
* REDD, redemption or real action?
* Indonesia's Papua scarred by vanishing forests
* Malaria Climbs Into Warmer Highlands
* Police free 14 in Papua after independence event
* Indonesia 'exploiting Papua prejudices'
* Aceh, Papua, Amazonas governors sign carbon-for-forests pact
* Papua moves to ban all log exports
* Police shoot dead 2 protesters in Indonesia's Papua
* Indonesia's Papua to protect forests, seeks cash
* Delegates Weaken Deforestation Proposal as U.S. Balks (Update1)
* PNG police say situation dire for Papuan refugees in Port Moresby
* TNI in Papua
* Papuans Urged Not To Turn HIV/AIDS Problem Into "Political Commodity"
* Arrests in Indonesian province of Papua after raising of independence flag
* Clarity needed on Indonesian military’s role in Papua, says academic
* Papua governor told he needs to route international efforts to save
forests through Jakarta
* Academic questions whether Papua plan to stop log exports will work
* Tangguh Project should proceed without a military role
* Special Rapporteur on Torture Concludes visit to Indonesia
* Women smash through glass ceiling in Triple-7 trucks
* Nemangkawi Mining Institute: Planning for the future
* From security guard to House member
* More information needed to counter HIV/Aids in Indonesian province of Papua
* Govt told to review troops in Papua
* Logging damage revealed by secret filming
* THE UNTOLD STORY: FOOTAGE FROM THE PAPUAN RAINFOREST
* Security situation in areas berdering PNG under control
* 25 Papuans grilled over hoisting of `Morning Star` flag
* Indonesia ratifies Aussie security pact
* Arms and the prince
* HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS AT GRAVE RISK IN WEST PAPUA
* Independence issue not discussed in meeting between US congressman
* Confirming a report from Rev Socratez Sofyan Yoman
* Report from Yan Christian Warinussy, executive director of LP3BH
* MSG can push issue of West Papuan self-determination, says Sogavare
* The Bali conference is crucial for the Korowais’
* Here are the NAMES of 5 of the West Papuans...
* West Papua documentary - never screened outside UK
* Guardian of Papua's Forests -TEMPO
----
Dutch parliamentary paper concerning arrest Sabar Olif Iwanggin
http://www.minbuza.nl/nl/actueel/brievenparlement,2007/11/Beantwoording-vragen-leden-Van-Gennip-
en-Ferrier-o.html
Reply to questions from members of parliament Van Gennip and Ferrier
about the human rights
situation in Papua and concerning the arrest of Sabar Olif Iwanggin
Translation: Pro Papua, the Netherlands propapua at gmail.com
22/11/2007 Parliamentary paper: Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Gladly I offer you, also on behalf of the Minister for Development
Cooperation, the answers to the
written questions posed by members of parliament Van Gennip and Ferrier
about the human rights
situation in Papua. These questions were sent in on November 8th 2007.
Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Drs. M.J.M. Verhagen
Answers of Mr. Verhagen, Minister of Foreign Affairs, also on behalf of
Mr. Koenders, Minister for
Development Cooperation, to questions from members Van Gennip and Ferrier
(Christian Democratic
Appeal, CDA) about the human rights situation in Papua.
Question 1
Are you aware of the 'urgent appeal' of TAPOL, a human rights NGO from
Indonesia, concerning the
arrest of human rights activist Iwanggin Sabar Olif in Jayapura, Papua on
October 18th 2007?[1]
Answer
I am aware of this report
Question 2
Is it correct that he has been arrested on account of sending an
SMS-message? Do you consider it
likely/plausible that he has been arrested on arbitrary grounds and that
the Indonesian authorities
monitor communication of Indonesian civilians? Is the arrest an incident
or does it fit within a broader
campaign of intimidation of human rights activists in Papua?
If it does, are you planning to take political action? If it does, will
you raise the matter bilaterally as well
as in the context of the EU, and will you appeal to the Indonesian
authorities for a good judicial process
for this human rights activist?
Answer
According to the information that is available to me the arrest of human
rights activist Iwanggin Sabar
Olif is connected to a wave of sms-messages that caused a lot of commotion
in Indonesia. As you know,
the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the UN on the
situation of human rights
defenders, Hina Jilani, paid a visit to Indonesia and Papua last June. In
her report she wrote, among
other things, about the human rights situation in this Indonesian
province. Following her visit, news
reports that circulated about supposed threats of human rights defenders
who are being intimidated by
means of sms-messages. The matter of the human rights situation in Papua,
including the position of
human rights defenders, is raised regularly with the Indonesian
authorities, bilaterally as well as in the
context of the EU. Recently a demarche (representation) of the EU took
place in Jakarta, in which the
Indonesian government was informed about the active policy of the EU in
support of human rights
defenders. Besides that, during the Third Commission of the General
Assembly of the UN, the EU has
expressed concern about the situation of human rights defenders in, among
other countries, Indonesia.
At the moment, the EU is working at an intensification of the
implementation of the 'EU Guidelines for the
protection of human rights defenders' in Indonesia.
Question 3
In which concrete way can you assist this human rights activist in order
to fulfill the ambition of the
Dutch human rights strategy?[2]
Answer
The countries of the European Union closely follow the developments with
regard to human rights and
(individual) human rights defenders, including the issue of Mr. Olif. The
EU regularly executes
demarches with the Indonesian authorities. The Portuguese Chairmanship has
recently, on behalf of the
member states and the European Commission, expressed concern to the
Indonesian government about
the position of human rights defenders. You can be assured that full
attention is paid to this issue in
bilateral contacts with my Indonesian colleague.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] www.tapol.org
[2] Parliamentary paper 31 263, no.1
----
Australia West Papua Association (Sydney)
Email: bunyip at bigpond.net.au
Info. Joe Collins Mob. 04077 857 97
-------------------------------------------------
In solidarity with the people of West Papua, the Australia West Papua
Association in Sydney raised the
Morning Star Flag on Leichhardt's Town Hall today, 29 November.
AWPA would like to thank the Leichhardt Council for their support in
allowing the Flag to be flown on the
Town Hall for 3 Days.
Photos attached.
-------------------------------------------------------------
West Papuan National Flag Day. 1st December
The 1st of December is West Papuan National Day or National flag day .
Forty six years ago on the 1st
of December 1961, in the then Dutch colony of West New Guinea, The West
Papuan flag, called the
Morning Star was flown for the first time officially beside the Dutch
Tricolor. At that ceremony, as the
Morning Star flag was raised, Dutch and Papuan military and police saluted
and accompanied by a
marine band playing the national anthem, “My Land Papua”. The Dutch were
finally about to give the
West Papuan people their freedom. However it is one of the great tragedies
that at their moment of
freedom it was cruelly crushed and West Papua was basically handed over to
Indonesia in 1963. After 6
years administration of the province, Indonesia held a sham referendum
called the “Act of Free Choice”
under UN supervision. Only 1022 handpicked voters, one representative for
approximately every 700
West Papuans were allowed vote, and under coercion, voted to "remain with
Indonesia. The Papuans
call this the “act of no choice”.
Australian involvement
As to Australia’s involvement - originally we supported the Dutch in
trying to hold onto West New Guinea,
as we preferred another colonial power to act as a buffer zone between
Australia and any potential
invader from the north. However, once the US decided to back Indonesia,
Australia followed suite. In
fact, Australia actively supported the Indonesian takeover. At a request
from Indonesia two West
Papuan leaders, Clemens Runawery and Willem Zonggonao were removed by
Australian officials from a
plane just weeks before the UN supervised vote (in Australia’s then colony
of PNG). They were on their
way to the UN in New York carrying testimonies from many West Papuan
leaders calling for
independence. Because of Australia’s involvement, they never had a chance
to plead their case.
We all want to have good relations with our neighbours but good relations
with Jakarta should not be at
the expense of the West Papuan people who are struggling for their right
to self-determination. The
majority of the Australian people also believe in the same right. A news
poll commissioned by
businessman Ian Melrose, showed that 77% of Australians believe that the
West Papuan people have a
right to self -determination. Hopefully the new government will take the
issue of West Papua seriously
instead of just hoping it will disappear.
Australian governments of all persuasions have believed that a stabilized
region to our north is our best
defence. Kevin Rudd gave a talk in July to the Lowy Institute on the very
subject “Fresh Ideas for Future
Challenges: A New Approach to Australia's Arc of Instability” . In
discussing Australian Indonesian
relations however, there was no mention of West Papua. Yet it is the
Indonesian military that are one of
the main destabilising factors in West Papua. The activities of the
military, their involvement in human
rights abuses and resource exploitation will lead to the very instability
the government is trying to avoid.
If ever an issue needed “fresh ideas” it’s West Papua. A good start for
the Rudd government would be
not only to raise the issue of the abuses being committed by the TNI in
West Papua with Jakarta, but to
also urge the Indonesian government to dialogue with the West Papuan
leadership. This is all the West
Papuans are asking for. Dialogue to try and solve the many issues of
concern in the territory.
We know from history that dialogue is the beginning of the political
resolution of such conflicts. To
quote from Nelson Mandela "One of our strongest weapons is dialogue."
---
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/sci/tech/7109375.stm: #
Monday, 26 November 2007, 20:13 GMT
Forest protection: Local and global
VIEWPOINT
Frederick Sagisolo
Local communities living in the world's dwindling tropical forests bear
the
brunt of the insatiable demand for cheap timber, argues Frederick
Sagisolo.
In the Green Room, he recounts his experience of illegal logging, and
explains why community forest management is the way forward.
" Children in Sisir village (Image: EIA/Telapak) For the Knasaimos
people,
living in the Indonesian province of Papua, we do not see nature as
something to be destroyed.
The forests here provide for our needs. For building houses we take
rattan,
bamboo and other woods, for lighting fires we take damar, and for food
we
process sago taken from the forest in the traditional method.
The forests give us wood for fishing boats, gaharu trees for trade, and
many
fruits which we can sell.
The relationship between our people and their nature is important, and
it's
become our pride and part of our traditional wisdom. That's why we
manage
the land in a simple way.
The way we manage our land, however, has been disturbed by outsiders
coming
here to log trees.
Location map (Image: BBC)
It started in 1999 with meranti wood being taken, and once that was
finished
in 2002 they started to cut merbau trees.
This created problems for our community. Before, there was a sense of
working together, a feeling of togetherness.
Then, when some people are attracted to the wood company they refuse to
work
on the sago any more. They think that because the company promises
money,
they don't want to do the traditional work in the forest any more.
New values appear, like wanting to have more than your neighbour and
putting
a price on everything, instead of valuing what we already have.
Rich wood
The merbau logging was carried out by one company, supported by foreign
investors.
"Companies from outside only think about money and leave us with tears"
Logging (Image: EIA/Telapak)
We never invited this company here and it did not have proper permission
to
log.
I am the head of the tribal council, but the company never talked to me.
Instead it did an illegal deal with one individual from our community,
and
this created many problems for us.
But the company was backed by a local military officer, so what could we
do?
Soon after it first arrived the company was cutting our trees in four
areas,
destroying the land with heavy equipment. Yet when people here see the
military person involved, then cannot sit down together and discuss
things.
Impossible.
I was really worried by this company. Our land is not that large, and
with
the logging after a few years we would have had no trees left, only
grass.
This would mean disaster for us. It is our mission to treat the land as
something entrusted to us for our grandchildren and so we must not
destroy
it.
Self-determination
If we are left alone we manage the forest well as it is part of our
life.
But companies from outside only think about money and leave us with
tears.
While the company was here there was no improvement for local people -
just
problems.
" We plan to develop a system where we, the Knasaimos, as the guardians
of
this land, manage it ourselves and gain benefits to help the lives of
our
people"
We know our rights, but got no help from the local government. They just
came here with a map we had never seen before - some kind of imaginary
map.
Under this some of our sacred places would be destroyed. We asked "why
did
you do this?" and the company said it was allowed because of the map.
We know that this map was illegal and it is clear that money talked. We
asked the government to stop this company, but nothing happened.
Then finally, in 2005, Papua was the target for a big action by the
government against illegal logging. The military officer left, and the
company operations stopped.
We felt we were once more in control of our lands and set about healing
the
wounds created by the company.
Community awareness
In early 2007 I was contacted by people from two environment groups,
Telapak
and the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).
Knasaimos delegation in Brussels (Image: EIA/Telapak)
These groups had come to Seremuk in 2003 and filmed our way of life and
the
problems we were having with the logging company.
These people explained to me that they were organising a meeting in
Belgium
to tell European Union officials about the bad impacts of illegal
logging
and wanted me to speak. I agreed, believing this could benefit our
community.
I came across so many interesting stories on the trip.
I found out how timber stolen from Seremuk and other "remote" areas
eventually goes to places like Europe and is worth a lot of money. It
seemed
strange to me that the people who live in the forests are still poor,
while
the timber taken from them is worth so much when it is sold in Europe.
On the trip, I saw how in Europe NGOs work together with their
governments,
while in Indonesia they are seen as the enemy of the government.
This made us realise how the Knasaimos people have to develop strong
institutions to press the government to have a more open mind, and allow
us
to manage our land free of interference.
(Courtesy of Handcrafted Films and the UK's Department for International
Development)
Frederick Sagisolo (Image: Handcrafted Films)
Now, in Seremuk, I'm working to use the lessons of the trip to help
improve
the situation for the Knasaimos.
At a recent big gathering of our people it was agreed that no member of
our
community would sell trees to outsiders.
Instead we plan to develop a system where we, the Knasaimos, as the
guardians of this land, manage it ourselves and gain benefits to help
the
lives of our people through better education and health.
We have suffered from illegal logging and now we want to build a
co-operative to carry out small-scale community logging.
This is our vision as to how we can live together with nature and
improve
the lives of our people.
"
Frederick Sagisolo is traditional chief of the Knasaimos people living
in
the western region of Papua, Indonesia
---
http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=72395084530576&mkt=en-US&lang=en-
US&w=b13921f6&FORM=CVRE4
U.S. congressman in Papua to assess condition
Abdul Khalik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
U.S. Congressman Eni Faleomavaega has been in Papua since Monday to
directly assess the latest
condition of two provinces after he was granted permission by the
Indonesian government.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Kristiarto Soeryo Legowo said Tuesday the
Indonesian government allowed
the congressman to visit the provinces to enable him to see the results of
development in the area.
"We allowed him to see the provinces because we want to give him the
opportunity to assess the results
of the special autonomy both provinces have been granted," he said.
Citing security concerns as a reason, the Indonesian government barred
Faleomavaega from entering
Papua earlier this year. The congressman could only meet with important
Papuan figures in Jakarta at
the time.
However, Faleomavaega's visit was heavily guarded by the police and
journalists were not allowed to
approach him for interviews.
The Democrat congressman, who represents Samoa, arrived in Timika, the
capital of Mimika, Papua, on
Monday afternoon by special Air East aircraft, owned by PT Freeport
Indonesia.
Mimika police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Godhelp Mansnembra said the foreign
ministry, who organized the
visit, wanted to guard the congressman from journalists.
Kristiarto said after Timika the congressman would visit Biak and
Manokwari, the capital of West Papua
province.
"He will go directly to Bali for the climate meeting after visiting
Papua," he said.
International groups have often accused Indonesia of human rights
violations in Papua. Jakarta has
repeatedly denied the accusations.
In an effort to manage foreign involvement in Papua, the government limits
the number of foreigners
entering the province.
Faleomavaega, a staunch supporter of Papuan independence, in 2005
sponsored a bill asking the U.S.
government to review its recognition of Papua as part of Indonesia.
However, Faleomavaega's stance appeared to have softened when he said
Indonesia's sovereignty over
the province depended not so much on international recognition, but on how
the Indonesian government
treated the territory, improved the capacity of local governments and
empowered Papuan people.
---
http://www.nowpublic.com/politics/us-congressman-eni-faleomavaega-visits-timika-papua
Politics News
US congressman Eni Faleomavaega visits Timika, Papua
by uusjio | November 27, 2007 at 05:51 am | 71 views | add comment
US congressman Eni Faleomavaega
by uusjio
The US congressman was tightly guarded by local security personnel and
journalists were not allowed
to enter the Sheraton Hotel where the congressman checked in.
Mimika Police Chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner Godhelp Mansnembra said
the Indonesian foreign
affairs ministry was coordinating US Congressman`s visit.
Faleomavaega left for Biak and later for Manokwari on Tuesday to hold a
meeting with West Papua
Province Governor Abraham Octavianus Atururi.
On Tuesday afternoon, the foreign affairs ministry would coordinate a
press conference in Timika.
After the press conference, Faleomavaega was scheduled to have a close
look at PT Freeport
Indonesia`s mining area in Tembagapura.
---
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailgeneral.asp?fileid=20071202165042&irec=1
25 Papuans questioned over independence flag
TIMIKA, Papua (Antara): The Mimika Police have questioned 25 people for
their alleged involvement in
hoisting the "Morning Star" Papuan independence flag in Kwaki Baru village.
Director of the Investigation and Crime Unit of the Papuan Police, Sr.
Comr. Paulus Waterpauw,
confirmed that the flag had been hoisted at a prayer house in the village.
"Police will process the case based on the law," he said by telephone.
The situation in Timika, the capital of Mimiki regency, remains calm,
however. Police and military
personnel are standing by in some areas, including in the Timika Indah
Field, Eme Neme Yauware
House, Mimika Legislative Assembly building, Mulia Mini Mall and some main
streets of the town.
The Morning Star flag is commonly used by the West Papuan population,
including the separatist Free
Papua Movement (OPM) supporters, to express their aspirations for
self-determination.(***)
---
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailgeneral.asp?fileid=20071201101854&irec=13
Indonesian police fatally shoot villager on remote Papua province
JAKARTA (AP): Police officers opened fire on a crowd attacking their post
on Indonesia's remote
Papua province Friday, killing one villager and wounding another, a local
police chief said.
The violence followed a police order to clear land disputed by two
opposing tribes, police Maj. Gen. Max
Aer said.
"It was normal procedures to fire warning shots because the assailants
threatened" the lives of the police
officers, he said.
The confrontation was in the village of Banti, about 100 kilometers from a
major mine operated by
Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. Police said they were increasing
security at the site to prevent
violence from spreading.
Tribes in the area - 3,200 kilometers northeast of Jakarta - have a
history of bad relations. Feuds can
last for several weeks and normally only end when the number of victims
from either side is equal.
Papua, a vast and impoverished rural farming region, is also home to a
small separatist army that is
seeking independence for its people who are ethnically and religiously
distinct from the main Indonesian
population. (**)
---
West Papua Report
December 2007
This is the 43rd 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 by the East
Timor and Indonesian Action Network (ETAN). Back issues are posted
online at http://etan.org/issues/wpapua/default.htm Questions
regarding this report can be addressed to Edmund McWilliams at
edmcw at msn.com.
Summary
* US Congressman Eni Faleomavega visited West Papua but encountered
tight security which prevented common most Papuans from greeting
him.
* The Indonesia military's infamous special forces are threatening
Papuan social workers in an effort to locate Papuan Priest Father
Djonga, a human rights defender.
* A prominent Papuan academic and religious leader who wrote an
op-ed in a national newspaper calling for a demilitarization of West
Papua has been attacked and implicitly threatened in a written
response by a senior TNI officer.
* A UN envoy has described extensive use of torture and abuse of
children in Indonesia prisons, singling out several, including one
in West Papua, as among the worst.
* UN Envoy Finds Torture Widespread in West Papua and Rest of
Indonesia Prisons
* The Indonesian forestry minister has announced a resumption of the
widely criticized "transmigration" policy which has led to civil
conflict in many parts of Indonesia and the marginalization of
indigenous people such as the Papuans.
* An Indonesian journalist has written a candid article decrying the
rape of Papuan resources offering several recommendations including
a moratorium on migration to West Papua.
* An Indonesian HIV-AIDS official has acknowledged the failure of
the central government to provide the basic health infrastructure to
address the explosion of HIV-AIDS in West Papua.
US Member of Congress Eni Faleomavaega Visits West Papua
US Congressman Eni Faleomavaega visited West Papua November 26-27.
His visit was the first by a US member of Congress. Earlier this
year the Indonesian Government prevented him from visiting the area
(see July 2007 West Papua Report). This visit included brief stops
in Timika, Biak and Manokwari for meetings with senior officials.
Indonesian security prevented hundreds of Papuans from meeting with
him, detaining some of those who sought to greet him. Rep.
Faleomavega, long the leading proponent in Washington of Papuan
rights and welfare, is well-known and widely respected in West Papua
Congressman Faleomavaega traveled with the US Ambassador and a
member of his staff, Lisa Williams.
Indonesian Special Forces Threaten Papuan Social Workers
The Asian Human Rights Commission on November 21 issued an "urgent
action update" regarding reports that Indonesian Army Special Forces
(Kopassus) were threatening social workers in an effort to learn the
whereabouts of a Papuan Church official, Catholic Priest Johanes
Djonga, who, has been targeted by the Indonesian military
AHRC reports that Father Djonga went into hiding following numerous
threats against his life since August 2007. The Indonesian military
then began pressuring his colleagues and friends in an effort to
ascertain his whereabouts.
Lieutenant Agus, Military Commander of Waris District, has
personally verbally threatened, among others, a religious student
close to Djonga, Gaspar May, Chief of the Banda Tribe, and Theodorus
Meho, a colleague of Djonga's. Specifically, the senior military
figure threatened to "disappear" the latter two.
AHRC notes that people in the Waris District are becoming
increasingly frightened in the face of continuing threats by
Kopassus troops who demand information about the whereabouts of
Father Djonga. The continuing threats to Father Djonga are strongly
believed to be as a result of his involvement in human rights work
in addition to the meeting with the UN Human Rights representative.
Several months ago, Djonga submitted a report to the governor of
Papua and the military commander in the city of Jayapura which
criticized the military action in the borders of Waris and Papua New
Guinea.
Papuan Perspective on Removal of Abusive Indonesian Military from
West Papua
An Op-Ed appearing in the November 6 Jakarta Post offered a Papuan
view on why Papuans call for the withdrawal of Indonesian military
forces from West Papua. The writer, Father Neles Tebay is a lecturer
at the Fajar Timur School of Theology and Philosophy in Abepura.
Excerpts from the article follow. (Also, immediately following this
item see a public rebuttal by a senior TNI official that contains
implicit threats to Father Tebay):
In the wake of civil society's efforts to transform Papua into a
land of peace, the Indonesian Military (TNI) has been growing both
in strength and numbers in the province, as reported by the
International Crisis Group in September last year
Army Chief of Staff Gen. Djoko Santoso has already revealed a plan
to base the third infantry division of the Army's Strategic Reserves
Command (Kostrad) and more cavalry as well as engineering battalions
in Papua to protect the country's border and conflict-prone areas
(The Jakarta Post, Sept. 13, 2007).
Indigenous Papuans have repeatedly expressed their opposition to
the deployment of thousands of reinforcement troops to their
homeland.
The latest was voiced loudly on Oct. 19, when local people in Arso
(the capital of Keerom regency, some 75 kilometers northeast of the
provincial capital of Jayapura) blockaded the road connecting Keerom
and Jayapura to vent their anger with military troops after a
soldier assaulted a district chief.
Why do Papuans reject the sending of military reinforcements to
the province?
Some cases below might be helpful in understanding the reasons
behind Papuans' aversion to the military.
On Oct. 18, the head of Arso district, Charles Tafor, was beaten
by a member of the Army's Special Forces (Kopassus), who was on duty
at the border with Papua New Guinea. Responding to the incident,
Papuans blockaded the main road in Arso and demanded the withdrawal
of all Kopassus troops posted in Keerom regency. The military
eventually removed the soldier.
Church leaders are among those on the front line in the fight
against human rights violations in Papua, and as a result have been
publicly linked to the separatist movement.
Papuans are afraid of moving around, going to their land or
village because the presence of the Kopassus troops intimidates
them. They live in fear.
More than eight years ago, in July 1999, four Catholic bishops
from Papua highlighted, in their report to then president
Abdurrahman Wahid, the heavy presence of troops in Papua. The
religious leaders blamed the military's arrogance as one of the
causes of anxiety among the Papuans.
The bitter experiences of the Arso district head and the parish
priest confirm the situation has not improved.
The arrival of thousands of troops has failed to create peace or
tranquility in Papua because the soldiers, including the Kopassus
troops, serve as the central government's way of dealing with
indigenous Papuans.
For the sake of peace, Papuans have called on the government and
the TNI commander to pull out all Kopassus personnel from Keerom
regency.
They know their request will be unheeded, as has happened since
1963, but at least they have the courage to speak up
TNI Rebuts and Implicitly Threatens Father Tebay
Father Neles Tebay's plea for respect for Papuan rights and
demilitarization of West Papua provoked an official response from
the TNI that implicitly threatened the priest.
Writing in the December 1 issue of the Jakarta Post, Vice Marshall
Sagom Tamboen, head of the "TNI Information Center," said Tebay's
op-ed "harmed the institution of the TNI and negated Indonesian
integrity." The TNI spokesperson implied that Tebay was himself
associated with the armed opposition, alleging that the Tebay
article "serves as a juicy issue turned to the advantage of those
wishing to see Indonesia's disintegration."
UN Envoy Finds Torture Widespread in West Papua and Rest of
Indonesia Prisons
The Financial Times, November 26, published comments by UN envoy
Manfred Nowak regarding the "widespread" use of torture in
Indonesian prisons. The official described his observations to a
press conference in which he reported on his two-week visit to a
number of prisons in Indonesia, including in West Papua. He singled
out abusive treatment in Wamena, West Papua as among the worst among
various prisons, noting that prisoners there were too fearful to
speak to the investigators but that they bore scars indicating
abuse. He noted that in various prisons, shooting prisoners in the
leg to extract confessions was common. He also called attention to
the practice of locking up children as young as ten who were
frequently abused. Additional excerpts of the Times report follow:
"In some cases, while we were inspecting the facilities, torture
was ongoing. People who were being interrogated had been severely
beaten. This is a sign of how systematic torture is," Nowak, told a
press conference.
High death rates of young prisoners in Jakarta's overcrowded
Cipinang prison were also highly suspicious, said Mr. Nowak. He said
the team was unable to verify whether any of the 100 or so annual
inmate deaths were due to abuse because prison authorities are not
required to carry out autopsies...
The rapporteur called on Jakarta to outlaw torture, to limit
police custody to 48 hours prior to an arrest, and to establish an
independent national body which could investigate allegations of
torture by police and officials in detention centres.
Transmigration to Resume in West Papua
Indonesian Forestry Minister Malam Sambat Kaban on November 27
announced that his ministry and the Ministry of Manpower and
Transmigration were set to resume transmigration, a widely
criticized population engineering scheme that has been in abeyance
for 15 years. The Minister said that plans called for moving 150,000
families to Kalimantan, Sumatra and West Papua annually. In the
past, government resettlement plans have often targeted people who
were on land scheduled for development by powerful economic players
in Jakarta Conflict between "transmigrants" and the indigenous
inhabitants has been common leading to the death of thousands. In
West Papua transmigration and more recent "spontaneous migration"
supported by the central government has been a key factor in the
marginalization of the Papuan People. Although "Special Autonomy"
promised to Papuans by the Indonesian central government included
assurances that Papuans would have authority over migration to West
Papua, there is no indication that Papuan officials have been
consulted regarding this new Jakarta scheme.
Indonesian Journalist Notes Rich Resources Do Not Benefit Papuan
People
In a revealingly candid assessment by Indonesian journalist Arief
Oka, a November 21 Sinar Harapan article (translated by TAPOL)
describes the "curse" of Papua's great natural resource wealth. The
article, "Papua and The Curse of Its Natural Resources," is
excerpted below:
If it is true that countries with abundant natural resources are
cursed, then Papua is the place in Indonesia which has suffered by
far the most because of this curse. By rights, per capita income of
the roughly two million Papuan natives and the 700,000 migrants
should be the highest in Indonesia from their rich natural
resources. Are the inhabitants enjoying the benefits from these
natural resources which are being exploited in the land where they
live? Clearly they are not.
The primary beneficiaries of Papua's riches are the Indonesian
government in Jakarta, the foreign multinationals who have been
granted concessions to exploit copper (Freeport) and oil (BP), and
non Papuan inhabitants who are illegally exporting timber and
various other natural resources.
Unless there is a radical change in policy, it is not difficult to
predict what future awaits the Papuans. The rape of Papuan resources
will proceed at an intensified rate, as a result of which, one of
the richest biological and cultural territories in the world will be
totally destroyed in less than a century.
The native Papuans will become nothing more than a footnote in
history. Javanese, Buginese, Chinese and other 'foreigners' who have
colonised Papua will start killing each other to gain control of the
100,000 hectares of remaining forest to transform them into palm oil
plantations.
Four measures needed
First, to declare a 50-year moratorium which could be renewed with
regard to new explorations to exploit natural resources on a major
scale.
Second, to halt the influx of new migrants. There are already
enough people in Papua to protect the natural resources and sell
other natural resources on a continuing basis. This would also
include halting missionaries from whatever sect and allowing the
Papuans and non Papuans to adhere to whatever beliefs they like
without external interference.
Third, to set up a Trust Fund which would receive 100 percent of
the taxes, royalties and other revenues from the existing
concessionaires. The trustees should be tasked with raising funds
and investing the funds wisely with various international asset
boards which have been globally successful. The trustees would also
be charged with supporting social and cultural developments of the
Papuan people, starting with a voluntary scheme of free education
for all up to tertiary level. The Trust Fund would also be charged
with funding security forces to protect Papua from intrusions for
unlicensed natural resource exploitation
Fourth, to get rid of the two provincial structures which are at
present competing with each other to exploit the natural resources
in their regions, and replace this with a single government
structure for Papua and West Papua.
This is not just about the fate of the Papuan people, who are
cursed with living among abundant natural resources. This is a crime
being perpetrated by man against man that is happening before our
very eyes
The Indonesian Government's Failure to Address HIV/AIDS in West
Papua
The secretary of Indonesia's National AIDS Prevention Commission
(KPA), Nafsiah Mboi, has lectured Papuans regarding the explosion of
HIV/AIDS infection in West Papua, insisting that they not make the
problem a "political commodity." A report of her comments by the
government news agency Antara (November 22) does not elaborate her
meaning. But experts who have examined the HIV/AIDS crisis in West
Papua in the past have noted that the central government's four
decades of neglect in developing health and educational services,
and the role of the security forces in introducing and promotion of
prostitution in West Papua as significantly responsible for the
crisis. Mboi seemed intent on blunting criticism of Jakarta.
Mboi indirectly acknowledged the Government's responsibility for the
failure to develop a health service infrastructure. She noted that
the high rate of HIV infection in West Papua was due to shortage of
information about the disease or the fact that information had not
reached the people. "The Papuan people have no access to information
on what HIV/AIDS really is and how to prevent or fight it. This
condition is especially to be found in mountainous regions or areas
that are hard to reach," she said. She further acknowledged that
many Papuans lacked even the most fundamental knowledge regarding
prophylactic measures, admitting that many Papuans did not know that
using condoms could minimize the risk of being infected with the
lethal virus.
Nationally, Papua is a province with the third highest incidence of
HIV/AIDS infection in the country after Jakarta and West Java
According to data collected by KPA in Papua, as per September 30,
2007, the total number of HIV/AIDS cases reached 3,434 -- 1,382
cases in Mimika, 934 in Merauke, 342 in Biak, 307 in Nabire and 205
in Jayapura.
Mboi implicitly identified the decades of central government neglect
of Papuans in her call for what was needed in West Papua, i.e., "the
continuous dissemination of information on HIV/AIDS," (and adding)
"all the districts/cities must have health service centers that
provide blood test services and counseling to infected persons."
Failure of the central government to establish such centers years
into the crisis constitutes a indictment of Jakarta's neglect of
West Papua.
etanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetanetan
ETAN welcomes your financial support. For more info:
http://etan.org/etan/donate.htm
---
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7009303738
November 29, 2007 6:42 a.m. EST
Indonesia Allows U.S. Congressman To Visit Autonomous Provinces
Windsor Genova - AHN News Writer
Jakarta, Indonesia (AHN) - The Indonesian government has allowed a U.S.
congressman to visit and see
the development in two eastern provinces of the archipelago that had been
granted autonomy.
Democrat Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, who represents the South Pacific
U.S. territory of
American Samoa, was not allowed to visit Papua and West Papua early this
year for security reasons.
He was only allowed to talk to Papuan leaders in Jakarta.
The legislator was a vocal supporter of the provinces' pro-independence
movements, but reportedly
softened his stance after Jakarta granted autonomy to Papua and West Papua.
Faleomavaega wanted to visit the provinces before attending the climate
conference in Bali. An aircraft
from a state-owned airline flew the congressman to Timika, the capital of
Mimika, Papua, on Monday.
Foreign ministry officials and local police are closely guarding him to
prevent media interviews.
The American congressman will also be taken to Biak and Manokwari, the
capital of West Papua
province.
The Jakarta Post quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Kristiarto Soeryo
Legowo as saying on Tuesday
that the visit was allowed for Faleomavaega "to assess the results of the
special autonomy both provinces
have been granted."
---
http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20071211.@01
Slow year for human rights, say activists
National News - December 11, 2007
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Human rights activists say there has been no significant improvement in
human rights protection in the
country this year.
"Many people have been said to have disappeared without a trace, but ipso
iure (by operation of the
law) we can not find the kidnappers. (Human rights activist) Munir died,
but ipso iure we can not find his
murderers.
"Many lives were taken in East Timor, but the courts can not find any
proof that human rights abuses
happened there," human rights activist Soetandyo Wignjosoebroto said here
Monday.
Soetandyo, who chaired the selection team for the recruitment of the
current membership of the National
Commission on Human Rights (Komnas Ham) attributed the problems to the
elites' "lack of guts" to face
the politics risks that could result from law enforcement efforts.
"We can still see a lot of impunities; there's no significant improvement
in human rights protection in the
country," Soetandyo told the audience at an event to commemorate
International Human Rights Day on
Dec. 10 at the office of Komnas Ham in Central Jakarta.
However, commission chairman Ifdhal Kasim said the year 2007 was a
milestone in the progress of
human rights protection in Indonesia, with the government starting to
implement the 1966 International
Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the 1966
International Covenant on Civic and
Political Rights, which were ratified in 2005.
But he also said that the government had yet to seriously implement the
principles and provisions of the
two covenants by not reforming existing regulations and annulling those
against the covenants.
"This can be seen as the government's unwillingness or disregard for doing
something (to improve
human rights protection)," said Ifdhal.
He said Indonesia still was not conducive to a good human rights
situation, with a number of atrocities
left unsolved.
These cases include the May 1998 riots, the Trisakti shootings, the
Semanggi I shooting incidents in
1998, the Semanggi II shooting incidents in 1999, and the Wasior
(2001-2002) and Wamena (2003)
rights cases in Papua, whose initial investigations had long been
completed but were never followed up.
Ifdhal added that many officials refused to cooperate with human rights
investigators.
He said some of the prominent human rights violations that occurred this
year included the suffering of
the Lapindo mudflow victims, domestic violence and human trafficking.
"Domestic violence contributed 20 percent of the cases reported to us,
while human trafficking is getting
more common. The government's efforts to curb both cases are still very
poor," Ifdhal told reporters after
the event.
He said the commission also recorded "disturbances" to freedom of religion
in 2007, while observing
what had happened to followers of the Ahmadiyah and Al Qiyadah sects.
Regarding past human rights abuses, he said the government needed to
reestablish the truth and
reconciliation commission, which was dismissed by the Constitutional Court
in December last year.
"We recommend the immediate re-establishment of the commission because
there were too many
human rights atrocities cases in the past that we can't settle through
just the human rights courts.
"We need to settle the past cases so we can move forward with the new
ones," said Ifdhal. (wda)
---
http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20071206.G04
Four new airstrips in remote Papua
- December 06, 2007
Markus Makur, The Jakarta Post, Timika
The Mimika regency administration in Papua is building four new airstrips
to help resolve transportation
problems in isolated inland regions, an official said Wednesday.
Acting Mimika Regent Atanasius Allo Rafra said the four new airstrips,
financed by the 2007 regency
budget, would be located in the districts of Potowayburu, Jila, Jita and
Agimuga.
He said the regency was building the airstrips to ease the movement of
people and goods in Mimika.
Isolated inland areas in Mimika regency are accessible only by air and boat.
Rafra said in addition to the airstrips, the regency administration was
also building a central market, bus
terminal and deep-sea port.
Other projects include the construction of the Mimika general hospital and
the widening of the road
network liking agricultural production centers and downtown Timika, the
capital of Mimika.
"The priority is the construction of the road network in order to help
facilitate the distribution of
agricultural products grown by local people and transmigrants," he said.
Commenting on teacher shortages in the regency, Rafra said the
administration planned to build
boardinghouses for teachers in inland areas.
Many teachers have abandoned their jobs due to lack of facilities provided
by the administration.
The regency will also renovate damaged schools in the districts of jita,
Jila, Potowyburu and Agimuga,
Rafra said, adding the administration also planned to build boarding
schools in Atuka, the easternmost
district in Mimika.
"The construction of the boardinghouses is expected to enable local
children to continue their studies
before they move to institutes of higher education in Timika," Rafra said.
"The government will earmark part of its budget to finance the operation
of the boardinghouses, where
students will receive life training."
Rafra said the government would stop subsidizing various activities that
provided few benefits to
students, including sports. The money saved will be used for the
construction of facilities that will benefit
more people.
"Local youths have been sent to take part in a number of sports
competition, but most of them fail to win
anything because they lack training," he said.
Touching on a separate topic, Rafra promised to get tough with civil
servants found to be intoxicated.
He made the remark in response to several incidents of intoxicated civil
servants becoming involved in
brawls in Timika.
---
http://www.thejakartapost.com/climate/index.php?menu=stories&detail=101
Saturday, December 8, 2007 02:55:34 PM
REDD, redemption or real action?
BOGOR, West Java (JP): REDD is the latest acronym in climate change town.
It stands for reducing
emissions from deforestation and forest degradation and is also now the
hottest show leading up to the
next UN climate meeting.
One of the strongest advocates is the UN climate meeting host, Indonesia,
as deforestation and forest
degradation is believed to contribute 20 percent of global greenhouse gas
emission.
Under the proposed REDD scheme, Indonesia has said that it would select
four forests from across the
country to pilot the project. The four forest projects would be located in
South Kalimantan, South
Sulawesi, North Sumatra and Southeast Sulawesi (The Jakarta Post, Oct. 26,
2007). It is not yet clear,
however, how exactly four pilot projects will help reduce overall
emissions in Indonesia instead of just
push more deforestation elsewhere.
On the other hand, the provincial governments of Aceh, West Papua, and
Papua, supported by
international NGOs and courted by carbon brokers, have been actively
seeking ways to implement
REDD in their respective territories.
A Forest Watch Indonesia report shows Papua and West Papua have the
biggest intact forest
landscape in Indonesia, totaling 17,9 million hectares (Greenpeace/FWI,
2006).
Being as environmentally aware and close to mother earth as they are, the
Papuan people and
governments have repeatedly shown their commitment to sustainable
development, recognition of
indigenous peoples and their tenure rights, and community logging, which
means community-based and
sustainable timber and non-timber products and environmental services
forestry.
Some weeks ago the governors of both provinces stated their commitment to
shipping only processed
timber instead of the logs and sawn timber of today. For this, Time
Magazine has named Papua
Governor Barnabas Suebu, along with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore,
German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, and Prince Charles, a Hero of the Environment.
Aceh is also pushing forward with policies for a logging moratorium, which
will lead to redesigning
forestry in the province. The province is taking initial steps towards
producing a pilot project under the
REDD mechanism. This pilot project in the Ulu Masen ecosystem in North
Aceh, is currently being
audited for compliance with the Climate, Community and Biodiversity
Standards.
However, while much focus has been placed on avoiding deforestation in
Aceh and Papua, the ongoing
disasters are occurring mostly in Kalimantan and Sumatra. Indonesia's
carbon emissions come from
forest fires, conversion of forest into other uses, unsustainable
industrial logging, and other destructive
activities that affect forests.
Of these, the destruction of peat swamp forests is thought to be the most
significant as a hectare of 1
meter deep peat swamp forest holds 600 tons of carbon, compared to
approximately 200 tons of carbon
in one hectare of tropical forest. The peat layer in these forests is
usually 10 to 20 meters deep. This
carbon stock is be released during peat land fires, or when canals are
built and peat swamp forests are
dried and turned into paddy fields or palm oil plantations. A case of the
latter is the one million hectare
peat land project in Kalimantan, initiated under the Soeharto regime, and
efforts to revive them are still
alive today.
Dried peat swamp forests risk fires, again releasing more greenhouse
gasses to the atmosphere. So,
logically, if Indonesia wants to cut its emissions, and if the world is
really serious about climate change,
deforestation and forest degradation, and more importantly forest fires
and peat swamp forests’
destruction must be addressed.
Daily we see the most active proponents of trade in order to reduce
emissions from deforestation, forest
degradation, and land use changes, are international organizations and
consultants. Indonesia has been
lagging behind in terms of actually developing projects on the ground.
If Indonesia wants to significantly contribute to reducing emissions for
the world, it needs to address the
more difficult challenge of rehabilitating and restoring forests in
heavily deforested Kalimantan and
Sumatra, and prevent forest fires. And, unless overall policy and
practices are changed, this will also
mean that the government needs to drop the huge palm oil and industrial
timber plantation expansion
plans significantly. Indeed, this mammoth challenge has come with higher
economic costs, keeping
carbon brokers and potential carbon buyers away from the islands.
The Ministry of Forestry has spent Rp 8,7 trillion (approximately US$934
million) since 2003 for forest
and land rehabilitation. In a sense Indonesia does not need to rely (too
much or at all?) on the carbon
market to finance rehabilitating forests and prevent forest fires in
Kalimantan and Sumatra.
Instead, the government should rely more on the local communities,
recognizing their rights of tenure,
and facilitate them to implement community-based and sustainable forestry
in a community logging
scheme – it is in supporting these activities that deforestation rates
have been reduced, for example in
Konaweha Selatan in Southeast Sulawesi, or Gunung Kidul in Yogyakarta and
Wonogiri in Central Java.
Setting up carbon forests, national parks and protected areas, or
developing legality standards for timber
and timber trading, will be just dealing with the symptoms of
deforestation. In contrast, working on
inequalities in land tenure, discrimination against indigenous peoples and
farmers, participatory
democracy, corruption and military involvement in resource economics and
politics, over-consumption
in high-income countries and uncontrolled industrialization, will mean
addressing the underlying causes
of deforestation.
REDD trading proposals should then be critically analyzed and put into the
wider context of deforestation
and not reduced to the focus of emissions from deforestation. The basic
concept should be expanded
from just rewarding the good to remain good, to also rewarding the bad to
become good. Even if this
means creating new acronyms such as Redemption (reducing emission from
deforestation and
degradation but more importantly from preventing forest fire and peat
swamp forests’ destruction), or
perhaps even Real Action (reducing emission by addressing the underlying
causes of deforestation). -
-A. Ruwindrijarto
The writer is President of Telapak (www.telapak.org), a forestry
non-governmental organization based in
Bogor, West Java.
---
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gNymsizfKgAYVlni_MF7uE0X9dng
Indonesia's Papua scarred by vanishing forests
Dec 1, 2007
JAKARTA (AFP) — Twenty-five years ago, Papuan tribal leader Ananias Muit
was sent from his jungle
home to Indonesia's Sumatra island by the local government to learn about
lucrative palm oil, and bring it
back.
A new short film, "Defenders of the Tribal Boundaries", tells how the
arrival of a state-owned plantation
company soon afterwards devastated Muit's community in the Arfak mountains
of Papua's Bird's Head
region.
"'Give us the land and we will give the money to plant,' they said. 'We
will bring a palm oil plantation,'"
Muit says, repeating the government's promise.
Instead, the forests were cleared, but factory effluent polluted the local
river, making the water supply
unusable.
"The promise was sweet, but now it is bitter," he laments.
"We were not compensated for our land or even thanked. Now we are really
suffering, and we regret it."
The film, one of four locally-made shorts that highlight the shocking
impact of deforestation in remote
Papua, will be featured at a UN climate change conference on the
Indonesian resort island of Bali,
which begins next week.
The 10-minute clips, shot by aid workers using handheld digital cameras
over the past three months,
demonstrate the impact expanding palm oil plantations and other
destructive logging is having on local
communities.
Indonesia is losing its forests at the world's fastest rate, with some two
million hectares (4.9 million
acres) disappearing each year, according to environmental watchdog
Greenpeace.
Up to 80 percent of logging in Indonesia is estimated to be illegal -- due
to a lack of political will to crack
down as well as negligible law enforcement -- but the films demonstrate
that even legal logging has far-
reaching and negative consequences.
In "Tears of Mother Mooi", the people of Sorong issue an impassioned call
to the government to revoke
the licenses of two palm oil companies operating on their ancestral land.
Startling images of the devastated remnants of formerly forested areas,
clear-cut for plantations,
hammer home their plea.
Ronny Dimara, a resident in the community and director of Triton, a local
non-governmental
organisation that produced the film, said most of the footage had to be
recorded secretly.
Much of Papua is closely monitored by Indonesia's military, who stand
accused by activists of human
rights abuses. Journalists require special permission from the Jakarta
government to visit the region.
"We played the film in front of about 20 tribal leaders and they said the
problem (of the two companies)
needed to be addressed soon," Dimara told a press briefing in Jakarta
after the films were screened.
"Early next year we will meet again in a bigger group to decide whether we
still want the companies in
our area."
The third film, "Gaharu: Disaster or Blessing?", shows how the profitable
agarwood industry -- known
locally as gaharu -- has brought a myriad of social problems to one Papuan
district.
Father Dicky Ogi, who leads an organisation working to offer locals better
education, said that along with
higher incomes came gambling, prostitution and the spread of HIV/AIDS.
"Education is key, so the people can judge the benefits of selling their
land," he told reporters.
The final piece, "Destiny... My Land", explores how external investors
exploited the forests of a local
community that had previously lived off the land for generations.
"These films may be local stories but they are very relevant to the
national and the international level, so
we urge people to watch these films," said Jago Wadley from the
Environmental Investigation Agency
(EIA), an independent campaigning organisation that helped the local
groups produce the films.
---
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Dec08/0,4670,ClimateQuietScourge,00.html
Malaria Climbs Into Warmer Highlands
Saturday, December 08, 2007
By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — In one New Guinea hilltop village the
message was rooted
deep in lore: If you hunt in the valley below and sleep there overnight,
evil spirits will possess you, you'll
become sick, and you'll die.
It was a homespun kind of malaria control in the highlands of this western
Pacific island, long free of the
disease-bearing mosquitoes that plague the hot and humid nights of its
lowlands, said Dr. Ivo Mueller, a
lead scientist at the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research.
As the Earth warms, however, "malaria epidemics in the highlands are now
basically happening every
year," Mueller said.
The threat of collapsing ice sheets and super-hurricanes dominates many
discussions at the annual
U.N. climate conference now under way in Bali, Indonesia. On the litany of
ills linked to climate change,
the slow spread of warm-weather diseases is more a quiet scourge, one
whose ultimate cost remains
incalculable.
"What is going to be the burden on the health care infrastructure of poor,
developing countries?" asked
Hannah Reid, of London's International Institute for Environment and
Development, opening a panel
session Wednesday in Bali on the health impacts of climate change.
Forecasting those impacts can be controversial, both politically and
scientifically.
In Washington this October, for example, The Associated Press reported
that the Bush administration,
which opposes mandatory international action to rein in warming,
expurgated pages discussing such
negative health effects from a U.S. official's congressional testimony.
At the technical level, researchers in poorer nations like Papua New
Guinea often cannot find the
reliable health statistics _ or, sometimes, historical temperature
readings _ they need to reach scientific
conclusions.
"Not having quality health data that spans many decades makes the
long-term assessment of climate
change impact on health rather difficult," Dr. Jonathan Patz, an
international expert on health and
climate, said in a telephone interview from his office at the University
of Wisconsin.
Mueller's team, based in the highlands town of Goroka, faces that problem.
"Whether this is already climate change _ it's difficult to say because we
don't have time-series data,"
Mueller said. "There's no reliable malaria data from the late 1970s to
2000. But we do know that in the
last 20 years temperatures have risen 1 degree in the highlands."
And they know they're seeing more malaria at higher altitudes. One
statistical glimpse: In 2005 the
World Health Organization said reported malaria cases in Papua New
Guinea's Western Highlands
province rose to 4,986 in 2003 from 638 in 2000 _ considered minimum
figures in view of reporting
deficiencies.
Two out of five Papua New Guineans live in the lush, densely populated
highlands of the equatorial
country, most between the altitudes of 5,000 and 6,700 feet, "where
there's no malaria or low epidemic
outbreaks," Mueller said.
"There's talk of a 2- or 3-degree temperature rise (3 to 5 degrees
Fahrenheit) in the future," he said. If
so, "perhaps 2 million people would go from a low- or no-risk area to
considerable risk."
International health authorities say more than 1 million people, mostly
African children, die each year of
malaria, caused by a parasite transmitted by the bite of the female
anopheles mosquito. Tens of millions
more suffer chronically from the debilitating disease.
The parasite needs temperatures above 64 degrees Fahrenheit to develop. As
for the "vector," the
mosquito, scientists have found that even small temperature increases can
produce disproportionately
large increases in mosquito populations.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a U.N. network of climate
scientists, has long projected
that mosquito-borne tropical diseases would spread to new areas that grew
warmer. But in its latest
reports, issued this year, the IPCC panel was cautious about more specific
projections.
"Despite the known causal links between climate and malaria transmission
dynamics, there is still much
uncertainty about the potential impact of climate change on malaria at
local and global scales," it
concluded. Malaria's range may even contract in such areas as the Amazon,
which is expected to grow
drier as the world warms, scientists say.
As Mueller noted, factors beyond temperature and humidity can influence
malaria's spread: population
movements, deforestation, preventive health measures and failing health
systems, among other
elements.
But the malaria researcher said the bottom line is clear.
"There's no question," he said. "If you put climate change into the
equation and the climate becomes
more favorable, the mosquitoes' numbers go up and you're going to have
more and more transmission."
The evidence lies not only in New Guinea. Similar highlands epidemics have
been reported in previously
malaria-free areas of east Africa, Madagascar and West Papua, on the
western Indonesian half of this
island.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
---
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iKwWvNB2CQzDiark620uDalC2HPQ
Police free 14 in Papua after independence event
Dec 1, 2007
JAKARTA (AFP) — Police released 14 people they arrested after a ceremony
to mark the anniversary
of West Papua's declaration of independence from Indonesia, a report said
Sunday.
Another six people detained as the group raised its outlawed "Morning
Star" separatist flag on Saturday
remained in police custody, the Detikcom online news portal reported.
Head of the Papua police, Max Donald, said three of those still in custody
were activists from the Free
Papua Organisation (OPM) and they were arrested for raising the flag.
The other three were detained for carrying weapons, Donald told Detikcom.
The flag-raising ceremony was held at Kwamki Baru village in Mimika district.
Every December 1, Papuan activists try to raise the flag to commemorate
the independence of Papua.
Indonesia won sovereignty over Papua, formerly a Dutch colony, in 1969
after a referendum widely
seen as a sham.
Papuans have long accused Indonesia's military of violating human rights
in the province and complain
that the bulk of earnings from its rich natural resources flow to Jakarta.
Also on Saturday, about 500 Papuan students held a rally in Indonesia's
second largest city of
Surabaya in East Java in support of Papuan independence.
---
http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Indonesia-exploiting-Papua-
prejudices/2007/12/03/1196530575684.html
Indonesia 'exploiting Papua prejudices'
December 3, 2007 - 9:14PM
Advertisement
Indonesia's military is exploiting prejudices against indigenous Papuans
so it can remain in the
impoverished region, an Australian researcher said.
Victorian University researcher Richard Chauvel said the Indonesian army
(TNI) retained a stronger
presence in Papua's troubled Central Highlands than did the local
government, with no signs of
decreasing.
He called for the role of the security forces in Papua to be clarified.
"Military presence is a legacy there," Chauvel told the Australia
Indonesia Governance Research
Partnership (AIGRP) forum in Jakarta on Monday.
"That's the impression we got ... that the military has influence and
'meddled in' ... (people) describing
the political situations in the region."
He said people living in the region were suspicious and very guarded in
expressing their views.
"The atmosphere is people were really always looking over their shoulder,"
he said.
Troop numbers in Papua have increased in recent years, with the
International Crisis Group estimating
there are 12,000 Indonesian troops in Papua, and 2,000 to 2,500
paramilitary police.
The Free Papua Movement has been fighting for an independent Papua since
the 1960s.
In July, Human Rights Watch said that the security forces still killed,
tortured and raped civilians to curb
separatism.
An Indonesian researcher from the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), Vidhyandika
Perkasa, said he was followed when he conducted research in the province.
"They followed me everywhere, and shut the electricity off, even took my
picture with their mobile
phone," Perkasa said.
"Maybe (the military intelligence) are scared we are giving influence (to
the people)."
People were generally more pressured in towns such as Wamena, rather than
the capital Jayapura.
Chauvel said the reason the military was trying so hard to keep the area
closed to outsiders and
foreigners was they wanted to keep Wamena and the rest of Central
Highlands as their stronghold.
"I think that's the interest of the military institutions," he said.
"I don't know which one because they have many units, the special forces
of the Army, (of) the Special
Forces (themselves), ... and they all have deployment there."
He added the military and some government officials stigmatised the people
of the Central Highlands as
separatists, exploiting this to remain in the region.
"By underlining this perception that it is a volatile area, it bears
conflict, separatists, it is like vindicating
the existence of the security forces."
A Papuan government source said the military deployment in Papua received
direct orders from
Jakarta, but its activities often clashed with central government policies.
"Some people from the Foreign ministry believed they should open Papua
more, but the military
refused," the source said.
The Indonesian government had tried to empower the Papuans, providing them
with education and new
infrastructure, but the problems are complex.
The region has been dogged by a series of bloody incidents in the past
decade, including killings and
kidnappings, but solid numbers are sketchy as the area is largely closed
to outsiders.
© 2007 AAP
---
Aceh, Papua, Amazonas governors sign carbon-for-forests pact
mongabay.com
December 8, 2007
Three governors have signed the Forests Now Declaration to protect
tropical forests for their carbon
value.
The Governors, Irwandi Yusuf (Aceh, Indonesia), Barnabas Suebu (Papua,
Indonesia), and Eduardo
Braga (Amazonas, Brazil), agreed to the declaration's action plan which
calls for compensation for
reduced greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation and protection of
standing forests. Deforestation
and forest degradation account for roughly 20 percent of human-caused
greenhouse gas emissions, but
steps to reduce forest loss will help mitigate climate change. The UK
government's 2005 Stern Review
said that forest protection could be one of the most cost-effective ways
to address climate change.
The announcement was made Saturday as part of 'Forest Day' at the UN
climate change conference in
Bali and follows a proclamation Friday to impose a moratorium on all
logging in their provinces until
forests are assessed for their carbon value.
"The world needs more forests to store carbon," said Irwandi Yusuf,
governor of the Indonesian
province Aceh on the island of Sumatra. "Aceh can give you these forests."
Gabon
"In the Amazon we've proven that we can reduce the carbon emissions from
deforestation when the
political will and the right incentives for people who live in the forests
are there. If applied around the
world, models like this can have significant and immediate impact on
climate change," said Eduardo
Braga, governor of the Brazilian state of Amazonas which houses about 10
percent of the world's
remaining rainforest.
The Forests Now Declaration, launched by the Global Canopy Program in
September 2007, has been
signed by over 200 NGOs, business leaders, scientists, politicians, and
conservationists. In October,
Nobel Peace Laureate and Goodwill Ambassador for the Congo Basin Forest
Ecosystem, Wangari
Maathai, endorsed the Declaration, while just prior to the Bali conference
Costa Rica's President and
Nobel Prize winner, Oscar Arias Sanchez, along with the Prime Minister of
Papua New Guinea, Sir
Michael Somare, signed the Declaration.
"This is a declaration of hope" said Andrew Mitchell, Director of the
Global Canopy Program, which
sponsors the Declaration. "Halting deforestation is an opportunity to
score a big win against climate
change. These forests support the livelihoods of 1.4 billion of the
world's poorest people, and offer
services critical to humanity's survival, such as rainfall generation and
maintaining half of all life on Earth
- benefits we all need but do not yet pay for."
The declaration calls on governments to: ensure that carbon credits for
reduced emissions from
deforestation and the protection of standing forests are included in all
national and international carbon
markets; simplify and expand carbon market rules, including the Clean
Development Mechanism, to
encourage reforestation, afforestation and sustainable forest management;
include tropical forest and
land use carbon credits in the European Union Trading Scheme, while
maintaining strong incentives to
reduce industrial emissions; encourage early action and new market
mechanisms that recognize the
value of carbon stocks and forest ecosystem services, and support
appropriate voluntary carbon market
standards; provide assistance for developing nations to build capacity to
fully participate in the carbon
markets, and to evaluate the ecosystem services their forests provide; and
incentivize the sustainable
use of degraded land and ecosystems, and remove incentives that encourage
forest destruction.
Forests Now Declaration
Related articles
Rainforest logging moratorium established in Indonesian provinces,
Amazonas state
(12/07/2007) Governors from the Brazilian state of Amazonas and the
Indonesian provinces of Aceh,
Papua and West Papua signed a historic agreement to protect threatened
rainforests. The pact, which
imposes a logging moratorium in their states and provinces, was signed in
Bali, Indonesia, where more
than 10,000 policymakers and scientists are meeting to discuss measures to
reign in greenhouse gas
emissions responsible for global warming.
U.S. to cut funding for rainforest conservation during Bali climate talks
(12/06/2007) While delegates meet in Bali to discuss a post-Kyoto
framework on climate change, it
appears likely that the U.S. Treasury Department will cut funding for the
Tropical Forest Conservation
Act (TFCA), the largest pool of U.S. government money exclusively for
helping developing countries
conserve threatened tropical forests, according to the Tropical Forest
Group, a forest policy group
based in Santa Barbara.
Merrill Lynch announces carbon credits-for-forest conservation partnership
(12/06/2007) Merrill Lynch is working with Carbon Conservation, an
ecosystem services firms, to
explore opportunities in avoided deforestation and integrated sustainable
land management. The
partnership was announced Thursday in Bali, Indonesia, where more than
10,000 policymakers,
scientists, and activists are meeting to discuss a post-Kyoto framework on
limiting climate change.
---
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/papua-moves-to-ban-all-log-
exports/2007/12/05/1196812829442.html
Papua moves to ban all log exports
Mark Forbes
December 6, 2007
PAPUA will ban all log exports from next month, in a radical move to
preserve one of the world's largest
remaining tracts of untouched forests.
Governor of the Indonesian province, Barnabas Suebu, told The Age that the
Bali climate change
conference should endorse funding the anti-logging moves, due to its
impact on reducing global
warming.
Mr Suebu said he had already imposed a moratorium on issuing new logging
licences and would
present legislation next month withdrawing all licences, as loggers had
been destroying Papua's forests
illegally. Licences would only be reissued under strict conditions, he said.
All forest concession holders would have to develop wood processing
facilities in Papua, as the ban on
raw log exports would remain in place. They must also agree to plant five
trees for every one they cut.
The "Chinese mafia", operating out of Malaysia and mainland China were
responsible for rampant illegal
logging in Papua, Mr Suebu said. "I think the mafia of illegal logging is
well organised."
At least 7.2 million cubic metres of timber was being cut in Papua a year,
rapidly shrinking its 42 million
hectares of forests, which has the highest level of biodiversity in the
world. Papua was receiving almost
no income from the logging, he said.
Mr Suebu revealed a new decree for forest preservation, which he had just
signed along with the
Governor of the neighbouring province of West Papua.
The proposals had also been submitted to the Indonesian Government, but Mr
Suebu stated he had the
authority to implement them under new regional autonomy laws.
"From January 2008, we will stop all logs going out of this island," Mr
Suebu said. "We will not export
timber from Papua."
The total prohibition on log exports was justified as local communities
received only $US10 ($A11.50) for
a high-quality log, he said. Once the log was smuggled to China and
processed, it was worth $US1500.
Small-scale timber processing industries would be established in Papua so
local people could benefit
from logging, he said, despite the reduction in tree felling.
About 65% of Papua's forest cover would be totally protected, including at
least 15% of the forests
earmarked for logging. The world, through the Bali conference initiatives,
should compensate Papua for
the move, he said.
"I am the governor for all creatures in Papua, for the ants, for the
birds, for the trees and I have to
protect them. Without them there will be no life for all of us."
Mr Suebu said he was expecting vocal protests from timber interests, but
the moves would have a
dramatic impact and would work, he predicted.
Papua's ports would be patrolled and 1500 rangers were being trained to
enforce the laws.
The Forest Minister in Jakarta was opposing the moves to withdraw logging
licences, said Mr Suebu.
Once Papua ensured the laws would stand up to legal challenge, they would
be passed.
"In the end, we have to save our forests and manage it in a sustainable
way and make money to
eradicate poverty, that is the goal of this policy," he said.
---
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSJAK48524
Police shoot dead 2 protesters in Indonesia's Papua
Wed Dec 5, 2007 7:27am EST
TIMIKA, Indonesia, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Police shot dead two people and
seriously injured another after
opening fire during a protest against tribal violence in Indonesia's Papua
province, a local police chief
said on Wednesday.
The group of protesters, who were mostly women, had marched in front of a
police station on Tuesday
in the town of Tembagapura, demanding authorities tackle a series of
tribal clashes that have been going
on since October.
"I am very sorry for what my subordinates did, shooting the protesters,"
said Godhelp Cornelis
Mansnembra, the police chief in the nearest main town of Mimika.
He declined to give further comment. Both the dead were women.
The protest happened near housing for workers at the gold and copper mine
operated by U.S. firm
Freeport-McMoran's.
In October, six people were killed in a clash between rival tribes using
bows and poisonous arrows near
Freeport's mine over jobs and housing.
Mindo Pangaribuan, spokesman for Freeport Indonesia, said the latest
incident had no impact on the
company's activities.
Freeport mine -- believed to have the world's third largest copper
reserves and one of the biggest gold
deposits -- has been a frequent source of controversy over its
environmental impact and the share of
revenue going to Papuans.
(Reporting by John Pakage and Mita Valina Liem in Jakarta; editing by Ed
Davies)
---
http://www.guardian.co.uk/feedarticle?id=7130988
Indonesia's Papua to protect forests, seeks cash
* Reuters
* Thursday December 6 2007
By Adhityani Arga
NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Dec 6 (Reuters) - Indonesia's Papua wants to preserve
part of its rainforest in
exchange for cash to help the world slow global warming, the governor said
at U.N. climate talks.
"We have decided to set aside a large part of our conversion forests to
save the planet," Governor
Barnabas Suebu told Reuters during U.N. climate talks in Bali. Conversion
forests are earmarked for
clearance for palm oil or pulp plantations.
Deforestation accounts for about 20 percent of all man-made carbon
emissions blamed for global
warming -- trees soak up carbon when they grow and release it when they
rot or burn.
Stopping or curbing the destruction is widely regarded as a crucial part
of any new climate pact to
succeed the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol beyond 2012.
Suebu said that the remote forest-rich province on the Indonesian half of
Guinea island was offering to
preserve 7 million hectares (17.30 million acres) -- an area almost the
size of the Mediterranean island
of Cyprus.
In return, Papua hopes to earn millions of dollars through carbon trading
by getting credit for leaving the
forests intact.
Delegatas at the U.N. climate talks on the resort island of Bali are
aiming to launch talks to work out a
new pact by 2009 to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, which runs to 2012.
The United Nations hopes the two-week conference will agree to study
schemes to curb emissions by
slowing deforestation and bind it into an emissions trading scheme.
Suebu said his scheme could help boost development in the area, where more
than 80 percent of about
500,000 households live in poverty. But he said the world needs to create
ways to ensure money goes to
the forest-dependent people of Papua.
"The Papuan people own the forests. The money should go to them," he said.
HEADSTART
With 42 millon hectares of tropical forests and some of the richest
biodiversity in the world, Papua is
considered the country's last rainforest frontier. But it is under threat
from increased cutting and
clearing for palm oil plantations as well as rampant illegal logging.
Suebu vowed to get tough on illegal logging, by stepping up law
enforcement and introducing a ban on
log exports by January. The governor also plans to restrict logging licenses.
Papua took a headstart by signing agreements with several carbon
investment companies, including
Carbon Pool of Australia to help finance ways to preserve forests. But the
central government in Jakarta
is wary.
Forestry Minister Malam Sambet Kaban recently dubbed Papua's decision to
go ahead with carbon
trading outside the national framework as a move to "sell our forests at a
discount."
The minister warned of "vultures" who lure governors into making decisions
that would have long-term
effort on Indonesia's plan to push for a fair and equitable
pay-and-preserve plan under the new climate
deal.
But Suebu brushed aside the criticism. "The central government is busy
counting money. As Papuans
say: we're busy fighting over the fish before it's even caught."
(Editing by Alister Doyle)
---
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=a.sM4mthx55g&refer=canada
Delegates Weaken Deforestation Proposal as U.S. Balks (Update1)
By Kim Chipman and Alex Morales
Enlarge Image/Details
Dec. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Climate-change treaty negotiators weakened a draft
proposal to reward
developing nations for preserving forests with potentially tradable
emissions credits as the U.S. and
Brazil balked at such measures.
An initial plan from Papua New Guinea called for tropical rainforest
countries to get credit for emission
reductions made from 2008 to 2012, according to documents handed to
delegates at United Nations-
sponsored talks in Indonesia.
The cuts would be linked to future global climate accords, possibly giving
the nations greater access to a
carbon emissions trading now valued at more than $30 billion. The market
doesn't yet reward countries
that avoid cutting down trees. The Bush administration argues that all
options should be on the table.
``If one country wants to use emissions trading as one tool for helping
with the deforestation issue, that's
perfectly fine with us,'' James Connaughton, President George W. Bush's
top environmental adviser,
said in an interview today. ``We just don't think it should be universally
mandated and question whether
it's necessarily the right tool for some countries.''
Deforestation, a key focus at UN climate-treaty talks taking place on the
Indonesian island of Bali this
week, accounts for 20 percent of the world's global-warming pollution.
``It's a big part of the climate-change problem so it has to be part of
the solution if we are going to have
any success at all in fighting global warming,'' said Doug Boucher, who
oversees tropical forests and
climate initiatives at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit
environmental group based in
Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Cap, Trade System
A later UN draft -- aimed at guiding senior-level negotiations starting
tomorrow in Bali -- removed
language suggesting that protecting forests from 2008 to 2012 could be
swapped later for tradable
credits. Bush has long opposed a so- called cap-and-trade system, which
allows for the buying and
selling of credits to permit carbon-dioxide emissions, a main contributor
to global warming.
``There is this discussion of: Are there credits available to go into a
cap-and-trade system? Well, if you
talk about our position generally, we aren't advocating a cap-and-trade
system,'' Claudia McMurray, U.S.
State Department assistant secretary for Oceans, Environment and Science,
said in an interview.
Environmentalists say that the U.S. stance may hold back progress in
getting meaningful deforestation-
related measures in a road map for senior negotiators to begin debating
tomorrow.
Carbon Markets
``It's a shame that the U.S., which uses markets for almost everything
else, is opposed to using carbon
markets for compensating developing countries for doing their part to
reduce greenhouse gases,'' said
Gustavo Silva-Chavez, climate-change policy analyst at Environmental
Defense, a New York-based
advocacy group.
Brazil -- the largest rainforest nation and the world's fourth biggest
emitter of greenhouse-gas pollution --
also doesn't support using markets as an incentive for reducing emissions
from deforestation. The South
American country argues that such a move would flood the trading market
with credits, reducing their
worth.
``The price will go to zero,'' Brazil Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said
in an interview. ``My problem is
really believing that the market mechanism will do everything.''
Instead, Brazil has proposed receiving financial incentives for protecting
its forests.
Actions to reduce emissions from deforestation weren't included in the
emissions-limiting Kyoto Protocol
agreed to 10 years ago today. The UN says it is crucial that deforestation
is addressed in a new treaty,
which it hopes to complete in 2009. The Kyoto accord expires in 2012.
Earlier this year a group of countries representing 80 percent of the
world's tropical forests formed a
coalition calling for incentives for protecting their trees. They don't
all agree on the type of rewards they
should receive. The countries include Brazil, Indonesia, Costa Rica, Papua
New Guinea and Cameroon.
To contact the reporters on this story: Kim Chipman in Nusa Dua,
Indonesia, at
kchipman at bloomberg.net ; Alex Morales in Nusa Dua, Indonesia, at
amorales2 at bloomberg.net .
Last Updated: December 11, 2007 10:55 EST
---
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=37004
Radio New Zealand International
The Voice of New Zealand, Broadcasting to the Pacific
Te Reo Irirangi O Aotearoa, O Te Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa
My RNZI
PNG police say situation dire for Papuan refugees in Port Moresby
Posted at 01:21 on 12 December, 2007 UTC
Police in Papua New Guinea say the situation for Papuan refugees
sheltering at the capital’s police
station is dire.
The Papuan refugees, who are said to number about 200, have been seeking
refuge at the Boroko
police station since the end of October after four of their countrymen
were accused of murder.
Chief inspector, Andy Bawa, says the refugees refuse to return to their
camp in front of the United
Nations Refugee office in Port Moresby and demand a third country accept
them.
Chief inspector Bawa says police are concerned about their wellbeing.
“The situation is very unhygienic, especially with pregnant mothers,
and little kids and old men and
women, the situation is not very good for them in terms of their health
and hygiene. They need to be
evacuated and moved to a better place where they can be looked after
properly. We [also] didn’t have
enough food to feed them [at times]. We require the relevant authorities
to address the issue.”
Police Chief Inspector, Andy Bawa, in Port Moresby.
---
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20071201.F06&irec=5
December 01, 2007
TNI in Papua
The article entitled Papua peace lovers want troops to leave
published in The Jakarta Post, Nov. 6, is a murky picture presented
to Indonesians who love their country ... on the other hand it serves
as a juicy issue turned to the advantage of those wishing to see
Indonesia's disintegration.
Only on account of two cases involving Indonesian Military (TNI)
members, Neles Tebay, the story writer, concludes that TNI troops
have to leave Papua to create peace on the eastern-most island of Indonesia.
In fact, Papua is an integral part of Indonesia and the posting of
TNI troops anywhere in this republic is legitimate, in order to
maintain state sovereignty and protect the entire nation, including Papua.
In connection with the assault against Arso district head (Charles
Tafor) and the unpleasant treatment of Father Jhon Djonga by TNI
members, as described by Neles, the involved soldiers have been
subjected to measure, according to the military organization.
But 99 percent of Papua's population, who love Indonesia, should be
informed about those who have advocated separatist movements there.
Those people are often involved in conflict in the region, including
... with the TNI.
As the Neles' article has harmed the institution of the TNI and
negated the Indonesian integrity, the TNI as part of the Indonesian
nation, herewith refutes the conclusion of Neles Tebay in the
aforesaid article.
VICE MARSHAL SAGOM TAMBOEN
Head of TNI MisInformation Center
Jakarta
---
Papuans Urged Not To Turn HIV/AIDS Problem Into "Political Commodity"
Jayapura, Nov 22 (Antara) - The secretary of the National AIDS
Prevention Commission (KPA), Nafsiah Mboi, has called on all
parties in Papua not to make the HIV/AIDS problem in the province
a "political commodity."
Nafsiah made the call here Wednesday at a journalist training
course on health and legal affairs which was held in cooperation
with the Indonesia-Australia Specialized Training Project (IASTP).
Nafsiah said she was sad about the fact that many anti-HIV/AIDS
campaign volunteers in Papua were "rejected" socially since the
problem had been turned into a political commodity whereas it
was actually a universal humanitarian problem which should be
tackled by all parties without any political motivation or purpose.
"If we turn the disease into a political commodity, it will indeed
be we ourselves who are killing the people. We have to save the
Papua people soon and don't blame others as we are all responsible
for the problem," she said.
A survey had shown that the high rate of HIV infection in Papua
was due to shortage of information about the disease or the fact
that information had not reached the people. "The Papuan people
have no access to information on what HIV/AIDS really is and
how to prevent or fight it. This condition is especially to be
found in mountainous regions or areas that are hard to reach,"
she said.
She further said many Papuan people did not know that using condoms
could minimize the risk of being infected with the lethal virus.
According to data collected by KPA in Papua, as per September
30, 2007, the total number of HIV/AIDS cases reached 3,434 --
1,382 cases in Mimika, 934 in Merauke, 342 in Biak, 307 in Nabire
and 205 in Jayapura.
Nationally, Papua is a province with the third highest incidence
of HIV/AIDS infection in the country after Jakarta and West Java.
The government was paying serious attention to HIV/AIDS cases
in Papua as the number of its people represents one percent or
2.5 million of Indonesia's population. "This has become our concern.
If the spread of the disease in Papua is not countered, the region's
people will be decimated. All people are responsible for efforts
to fight HIV/AIDS by strengthening their faith and maintaining
the family resilience," Nafsiah said.
Meanwhile, those belonging to the high risk group should feel
obliged to use condoms in sexual intercourse, she said.
Nafsiah supported the commitment of the government and the local
representative council to drawing up a bylaw on efforts to curb
the incidence of HIV/AIDS. She expressed hope that the bylaw
would be implemented seriously as there were provinces which
already had such a bylaw but had failed to implement it. In such
a condition, a bylaw could not guarantee that the HIV/AIDS cases
would drop.
What is needed by Papua was the continuous dissemination of information
on HIV/AIDS, she said, adding that all the districts/cities must
have health service centers that provide blood test services
and counseling to infected persons.
---
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=36773
Radio New Zealand International
The Voice of New Zealand, Broadcasting to the Pacific
Te Reo Irirangi O Aotearoa, O Te Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa
Arrests in Indonesian province of Papua after raising of independence flag
Posted at 22:41 on 02 December, 2007 UTC
Police in the Indonesian province of Papua have released 14 people they
arrested after the
independence flag was raised.
The detentions came at a ceremony to mark the anniversary of West Papua’s
declaration of
independence from Indonesia.
The Detikcom new site says another six people detained as the group raised
the illegal "Morning Star"
separatist flag remain in police custody.
The Head of the Papua police, Max Donald, said three of those still in
custody were activists from the
Free Papua Organisation.
Mr Donald says the other three were detained for carrying weapons.
Every December 1, Papuan activists try to raise the flag to commemorate
the independence of Papua.
Indonesia won sovereignty over Papua, formerly a Dutch colony, in 1969
after a referendum widely
seen as a sham.
---
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=36819
Radio New Zealand International
The Voice of New Zealand, Broadcasting to the Pacific
Te Reo Irirangi O Aotearoa, O Te Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa
Clarity needed on Indonesian military’s role in Papua, says academic
Posted at 08:11 on 04 December, 2007 UTC
An Australia-based academic has called for the role of Indonesia’s
security forces in Papua to be
clarified.
The Age newspaper reports Victoria University researcher Richard Chauvel
as saying the Indonesian
army, or TNI, is exploiting prejudices against indigenous Papuans so it
can remain in the impoverished
region.
Mr Chauvel told this week’s Australia Indonesia Governance Research
Partnership forum in Jakarta that
the TNI retains a stronger presence in Papua’s troubled Central Highlands
than the local government
does.
Troop numbers in Papua have increased in recent years, with the
International Crisis Group estimating
there are 12,000 Indonesian troops in Papua, and 2,000 to 2,500
paramilitary police.
The Free Papua Movement has been fighting for an independent Papua since
the 1960s.
In July, Human Rights Watch said that the security forces still killed,
tortured and raped civilians to curb
separatism.
Richard Chauvel said the military is determined to keep the region closed
to outsiders, keeping Central
Highlands as their stronghold.
A Papuan government source says the military in Papua receive direct
orders from Jakarta, but its
activities often clash with central government policies.
---
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=36878
Radio New Zealand International
The Voice of New Zealand, Broadcasting to the Pacific
Te Reo Irirangi O Aotearoa, O Te Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa
Papua governor told he needs to route international efforts to save
forests through Jakarta
Posted at 03:39 on 06 December, 2007 UTC
Indonesia’s Environment Minister says the governor of Papua province
should go through Jakarta in his
representations to foreign entities over a bid to preserve his region’s
native forests.
Governor Barnabas Suebu says he will ban all log exports from next month.
He says that the Bali climate change conference should endorse funding the
anti-logging moves, due to
its impact on reducing global warming.
The proposals under the Governor’s decree have been submitted to the
Indonesian Government,
however Mr Suebu insists he has the authority to implement them under
regional autonomy laws.
The minister, Rachmat Witolur, says the Governor is right to protect
Papua’s forests but that any
international element to the bid should be made by central government.
“The Governor tries to deal directly with foreign entities but as
Governor he should go through the
central government because this is a united Indonesia not a federal state
and there’s (already) a state
decree that we are not exporting logging and he has agreed to that and
that’s fine.”
Environment Minister, Rachmat Witolur.
---
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=36886
Radio New Zealand International
The Voice of New Zealand, Broadcasting to the Pacific
Te Reo Irirangi O Aotearoa, O Te Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa
Academic questions whether Papua plan to stop log exports will work
Posted at 07:14 on 06 December, 2007 UTC
An Australian based academic has questioned whether a log export ban in
Indonesia’s Papua region will
be effective.
Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu says he will ban all log exports from next
month, and all forest
concession holders would have to develop wood processing facilities in Papua.
He says that the Bali climate change conference should endorse funding the
anti-logging moves, due to
its impact on reducing global warming.
But Arief Anshory Yusuf, a research fellow at the Australian National
University, says previous bans on
Indonesia’s log exports didn’t reduce deforestation.
He says the current ban could have the same effect in Papua, with the
development of the domestic
wood processing industry likely to drive deforestation rates up.
Mr Yusuf says the the negative impact of the ban would not just be
environmental but developmental too:
“The development argument said that it would create employment but in
fact the loss of empoyment
frmo the logging sector is a lot more compared to the employment created
by the wood processing
industry, so the net effect is still negative.”
Arief Anshory Yusuf
---
From: Tapol <tapol at gn.apc.org>
Received from our contact in Papua:
The following front-page news item is from a Papuan newspaper, 'Media
Papua' on 16 November 2007.
Tangguh Project should proceed without a military role
"Bearing in mind that the Tangguh LNG project is regarded as a national
asset, this means that it will automatically be guarded by the security
forces. It is to be hoped that this massive project will not involve the
military,' said Yan C. Warinussy SH, Director of LP3BH (a Manokwari-based
human rights organisation).
'We very much hope that the BP Tangguh LNG project will not add to the
cases of human rights violations in the land of Papua, which means that the
role of the TNI and Polri (police force) should be kept to an absolute
minimum,' he said.
These remarks were made during a discussion on the human rights situation
in Papua with TIAP (Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel), which is chaired
by George Mitchell. The other members are Lord Hannay, Sabam Siagian and
the Rev. Herman Saud. The TIAP meeting took place at Swiss Bell Hotel,
Manokwari.
The question of human rights is a very basic problem in Papua and therefore
it is hoped that the presence of the Tangguh LNG Project will not result in
human rights problems because human rights cases like Wasior, Bloody Biak
and Mariedy continue to be ignored although they led to the loss of
hundreds of Papuan lives."
The person who sent this newspaper clipping to us, Stevanus added that he
had come to the venue in the hope that he would be able to meet the members
of TIAP but he was prevented from approaching the area by BP security, as a
result of which, he was unable to meet them. 'I was very much wanting to
meet them,' he said.
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
---
From: Peace Movement Aotearoa <peacemovt at clear.net.nz>
Below is the opening section of the statement of the Special
Rapporteur on Torture on the conclusion of his visit to Indonesia,
the full statement is available at
http://www.unog.ch/unog/website/news_media.nsf/
(httpNewsByYear_en)/55DE1F85867F5C81C125739C0036D87E?OpenDocument
Special Rapporteur on Torture Concludes visit to Indonesia
23 November 2007
The Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment or punishment, Manfred Nowak, issued the
following statement today:
The Special Rapporteur was invited by the Government of Indonesia to
undertake a visit to the country from 10 November 2007; he expresses
his appreciation to the Government for this invitation. He further
expresses his gratitude to the United Nations country team for the
excellent assistance prior to and throughout the mission.
In addition to his governmental and non-governmental meetings in
Jakarta, the Special Rapporteur visited correctional institutions,
pre-trial detention houses, police and military detention facilities
as well as a social rehabilitation centre in Jakarta, Papua, South
Sulawesi, Bali, Yogyakarta and Central Java. A full list of meetings
held and locations visited is appended to this statement.
The purpose of the visit was twofold: to assess the situation of
torture and ill-treatment in the country, and to offer assistance to
the Government in its efforts to improve the administration of
justice, including the police and prison sector. No country in the
world is immune to the crimes of torture and ill-treatment: in the
opinion of the Special Rapporteur, the key element in effectively
combating this problem is for each and every State to recognize this
reality and confront the problem head on.
As all acknowledge, Indonesia has come a long way in overcoming the
legacy of the Suharto era. Indonesia aspires to playing a leading
role in promoting human rights in Southeast Asia and more broadly as
a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council. It was made
clear that it is in this spirit that the Special Rapporteur was
invited to undertake a country visit. He interpreted this invitation
as a sign that Indonesia is willing to open itself up to independent
and objective scrutiny of the situation of torture and ill-treatment
in the country.
As with any anti-torture monitoring mechanism, the Special
Rapporteur's fact-finding is fully effective only if he enjoys
unrestricted freedom of inquiry including by conducting visits to
places of detention without prior announcement and interviewing
detainees in private. In this context, the Special Rapporteur regrets
that in a number of instances, his unimpeded access to places of
detention was compromised including his ability to carry out private
interviews with detainees, in contravention of his Terms of
Reference. While overall access was by and large granted, such
interferences carry the risk of distorting an objective assessment of
the day to day practices in places of detention.
With these caveats in mind, and on the basis of an analysis of the
legal system, his visits to detention facilities, interviews with
detainees, the support of forensic medical evidence, and interviews
with Government officials, lawyers and representatives of NGOs, the
Special Rapporteur concludes that given the lack of legal and
institutional safeguards and the prevailing structural impunity,
persons deprived of their liberty are extremely vulnerable to torture
and ill-treatment. In his opinion, the absence of torture or
ill-treatment in a given context is more the incidental consequence
of the personal disposition of the management of a given detention
place than the result of effective prevention mechanisms. This stands
in contrast to the relatively good conditions that the Special
Rapporteur found in prisons he visited outside of Jakarta.
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
Peace Movement Aotearoa (PMA)
the national networking peace organisation
PO Box 9314, Wellington 6141, Aotearoa New Zealand
Tel +64 4 382 8129, fax 382 8173 email pma at xtra.co.nz
PMA website - http://www.converge.org.nz/pma
Not in Our Name - http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/nionnz.htm
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
>> war on terrorism? war is terrorism <<
<> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <> <>
---
The Jakarta Post
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Women smash through glass ceiling in Triple-7 trucks
Trisha Sertori , Contributor, Timika, Papua
Weighing in at a mere 45 kilograms and standing just 150
centimeters tall, Maria Waukateyau is an unlikely candidate for
an apprentice driver of heavy equipment; very heavy equipment,
indeed.
Maria drives a "Triple-7" truck that weighs a couple of hundred
tons. The wheels of this beast are almost twice her height --
think factory on wheels and you get the picture. The Triple-7 is
the baby of trucks and used in training; the trucks go right up
to 300 tons at PT Freeport Indonesia's Grasberg mine in the
Papuan highlands.
A member of the Kamoro tribe, Maria is one of the hundreds of
apprentices at Institut Pertambangan Nemangkawi (Nemangkawi
Mining Institute), which is opening doors to training, education
and careers for Papuans affected by Freeport Indonesia's copper
and gold mine.
The institute, fully funded by Freeport, offers training and
apprenticeships to Indonesians.
Forty-five percent of enrollment at the institute is set aside
for members of the seven sukus , or local tribes, whose
ancestral lands have been affected by the mine; a further 45
percent is set aside for all other Papuans, with the remaining
10 percent dedicated to other Indonesian nationals.
For Kamoro tribe member Maria Waukateyau, the chance to train
with the institute -- and take on a role that typically has been
the exclusive province of males -- is the perfect opportunity to
prove equality of the sexes.
"This is really good -- at first I did not believe I could drive
a Triple-7 truck, but I can. Normally the height of drivers
needs to be more than 155 centimeters, but I said to the
recruiting officers, 'Just try me'," says this feisty
20-year-old, who lets nothing stand in her way.
The response from her community and family has been supportive,
and even her male friends are awed at her ability.
"My family is really happy because it is so strange that I can
drive a Triple-7. The boys ask me how I can do this -- they are
really impressed and a lot of them want to be my boyfriend. But
I am focused on my career. I don't need a boyfriend," said
Maria, whose two younger sisters are keen to follow in her
mega-truck driving shoes.
A further 30 women are, like Maria, currently in training.
Maria follows the lead of 20 other groundbreaking Papuan women
who have already made the move from the Nemangkawi institute's
heavy equipment training grounds, located outside Timika, to the
real thing at the remote Grasberg mine site in the highlands.
This site is in an area believed to have some of the most
difficult driving conditions in the world.
Elisabeth Wanimbo, one of the first group of 20 women trainees
and a continuing apprentice, says she loves her work.
"It is really scary the first time you drive up on the mountain,
but after that first drive it is fantastic. I have already
driven down to the center -- that's the toughest drive of all --
and I can do it," she said.
Nemangkawi institute instructor Firdaus Effendy said women were
proving to be excellent heavy equipment operators, with high
safety records and greater care in their work -- or an absence
of machismo.
"Maria is fantastic. I think she will be one of the best," he
said
One of the prime movers drawing women into jobs normally set
aside for the boys is Antonio Martinez, who has worked in mines
for the past 34 years and is now a leading training and
development officer with Freeport Indonesia.
"I first had women take on these roles in Utah (in the U.S.)
many years ago. That move met a lot of resistance from the men,
but the women proved themselves to have more patience and care
in their work, to be more precise. I have always said women can
do anything men can do," said Martinez, who is proud to be
spearheading the women miner's movement in Papua.
"I remember one guy in Utah who said women could not do this
(drive heavy equipment). I said to him I could teach my
15-year-old daughter to drive these (Triple-7s) in two weeks.
The guy said it was impossible -- he'd been learning for the
past 25 years. I didn't suggest (that) maybe he had not been
listening," quipped Martinez, a father of two girls and a boy.
His eldest daughter is a district attorney and his younger
daughter, a journalist. He and wife Judy are keen to see their
eldest daughter become a Supreme Court judge.
"Why not? There is nothing a woman cannot do," he said.
The writer was in Papua as a guest of PT Freeport Indonesia for
the 2007 Asmat Festival in Agats, Papua.
---
The Jakarta Post Sunday, November 25, 2007
Nemangkawi Mining Institute: Planning for the future
The Institut Pertambangan Nemangkawi (Nemangkawi Mining
Institute), worth more than US $11 million, was established in
2003.
"The goal of the institute is to provide pre-apprentice,
apprenticeship and advanced career opportunities, primarily for
Papuans," reads the institute's student brochure titled From
Will to Skill .
PT Freeport Indonesia granted the building and operating funds
to develop the world-class mining institute, which is located
outside Timika. Its annual operating costs are between $7
million and $10 million, according to the institute's
Papuan-born superintendent -- and another woman in a leading
role -- Vivi Ayorbaba.
Vivi said the institute was built by Freeport Indonesia
apprentices; further development is ongoing, including
additional wings and underground training simulation tunnels.
The project is part of Freeport's 2007 commitment of $8.6
million for underground equipment and the expansion of the
Underground Training School in the highlands and the Nemangkawi
institute.
"Having the apprentices build this takes a lot longer, but all
the trades -- such as electrical, mechanical and building --
possess the hands-on experience of creating this. There is great
pride in this achievement," she said.
Ensuring the highest possible rate of participation by seven
Papuan sukus , the institute offers pre-apprenticeship training
that addresses literacy and numeric skills. This opportunity
enables individuals -- who may otherwise have fallen through the
education net -- to gain the needed skills to take their place
in full employment.
Rather than using traditional tests, the institute uses the
Q-test ability testing format.
To maintain its standing as one of the best mining institutes in
the world, the Nemangkawi Mining Institute has a strict 100
percent achievement score. To date, 2,000 students have passed
through its doors; 90 percent of graduates and ongoing
apprentices are Papuans, said Vivi.
The Nemangkawi institute offers free apprenticeship training
over three years combining on-the-job training with Freeport
Indonesia's Grasberg mine and classroom training sessions.
At the end of their apprenticeships, however, students are not
indentured to the company that funded their education and paid a
monthly stipend of at least Rp 1.5 million.
"They have the choice of working with PT Freeport or choosing to
work for other mining companies across the country or overseas.
These apprentices hold world-class tickets in their fields,"
said Vivi.
The apprentices' skills are already being noticed by companies
in Australia, which are wooing potential employees from among
the institute's graduates.
"All the apprentices are trained under best practice models.
This includes not only manual work such as heavy equipment and
electrical trades, but also Master of Business Administration
(degrees) in association with the Bandung Institute of
Technology and ... the Business Administration Program at the
Semarang State Polytechnic," Vivi explained.
Through the Nemangkawi institute and other affirmative action
programs, PT Freeport Indonesia has expanded the number of its
Papuan employees from 600 in 1996 to more than 4,000 this year.
-- Trisha Sertori
---
The Jakarta Post Sunday, November 25, 2007
>From security guard to House member
House of Representatives member Alpius Edoway is living proof
that opportunity, married with initiative, can take a boy from
the isolated mountain jungles of Papua all the way to
Indonesia's central government.
"All my life I wanted to go to university, but that was out of
my financial reach," Alpius said on a flight from Timika to the
nation's capital. "Back in 1994, I applied for a job at the new
Sheraton Hotel in Timika, built by PT Freeport (Indonesia)."
"I wrote my application in the best English I could and they
said come on and train. I moved through the ranks pretty quick
into Human Resources. Then I got into politics and am now a
House member," said Alpius, who was headed to Jakarta to ensure
Papua's voice in the nation's future.
-- Trisha Sertori
---
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=36626
Radio New Zealand International
The Voice of New Zealand, Broadcasting to the Pacific
Te Reo Irirangi O Aotearoa, O Te Moana-Nui-A-Kiwa
More information needed to counter HIV/Aids in Indonesian province of Papua
Posted at 17:22 on 25 November, 2007 UTC
The secretary of the National AIDS Prevention Commission in Papua, Nafsiah
Mboi, has called on all
parties in the Indonesian Province to not make the HIV/AIDS problem there
a political commodity.
She made the call at a journalist training course on health and legal
affairs which was held in
cooperation with the Indonesia-Australia Specialized Training Project.
A survey had shown that the high rate of HIV infection in Papua was due to
shortage of information
about the disease or the fact that information had not reached the people.
Nafsiah Mboi says Papuan people have no access to information on what
HIV/AIDS really is and how to
prevent or fight it.
She says what is needed by Papua was the continuous dissemination of
information on HIV/AIDS.
---
The Jakarta Post
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Govt told to review troops in Papua
Alfian, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government and the House of Representatives have to evaluate
the performance of security personnel in Papua, especially the
concentration of military forces, their roles and the clarity of
their purpose in Papua, activists said Monday.
Director of external relations at the Indonesian Human Rights
Monitor, Poengky Indarti, said in the past year there had been a
massive deployment of troops in Papua, especially from the Army.
"They established a number of security posts in the middle of
communal land," she told a media conference.
She said the total number of additional troops in Papua was
unknown but the increase was easily discernible.
"For example, in Waris, a district near Papua New Guinea, there
are seven security posts and three of them are manned by
soldiers from the Army's Special Forces Command, with six
members in each post," said Poengky.
She said the seven posts belonged to the 521st infantry
battalion from East Java.
"The excessive numbers of security personnel in Papua do not
guarantee security in Papua," said Poengky.
She said the safety and human rights conditions in Papua still
faced serious problems.
"In the past year we found eight cases of human rights
violations in Papua," she said.
"Four of the cases involved Indonesia Military and another two
involved the National Police," she added.
The violations included assassination, violence and
intimidation. Conflicts between troops from different units and
between troops and local people also occurred.
Such security and human rights problems in Papua, said Poengky,
was rooted in the way security authorities inaccurately
perceived security threats.
"Individual or groups' critical activities are always perceived
as threats. As a result, repressive and intimidating actions are
seen as the only solution when sociopolitical problems appear in
Papua," she said.
Yusman Conoras, a representative of the Papua NGOs Cooperation
Forum, said the problems were also caused by the lack of the
troops' professionalism as well as their failure to understand
local culture.
"When a Papua man has with him a machete or bow and arrows,
troops automatically perceive him as a member of the separatist
Free Papua Organization," he said Yusman.
Both Poengky and Yusman urged the government, legislators and
security authorities to change their thinking in Papua.
"Various security agencies should also maximize coordination to
minimize conflicts," said Yusman.
Activists said the security approach to Papua should not only
address national security but also human security improvement.
"Problems in Papua were caused by poverty, lack of employment
opportunities and access to health and education, and other
social problems," said Poengky.
---
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/28/eaindo128.xml
Logging damage revealed by secret filming
By Paul Eccleston
Last Updated: 5:01pm GMT 28/11/2007
Secret filming by villagers has revealed the damage being caused to the
Indonesian rainforests by
uncontrolled logging and palm oil plantations.
# In pictures: Papua natives learn to use the equipment
# Watch interviews with tribes: Tears of Mother Mooi | Defenders of the
Tribal Boundaries
The ancient way of life of natives in Papua is being threatened by the
wholesale destruction of their
forests.
Evidence of logging taken by local people (top) and learning to use the
equipment
Evidence of logging taken by local people (top) and learning to use the
equipment
The Indonesian province is inaccessible to outsiders and closed to
journalists so it was left to the
villagers to expose the activities of the logging companies.
They were given digital camera equipment and taught how to use it by the
London-based Environmental
Investigation Agency (EIA), which investigates and exposes environmental
and wildlife crime, working
with the Jakarta-based NGO Telapak.
The two conservation groups have been working with tribal communities in
Papua to help them protect
their forests from unsustainable exploitation and illegal logging.
A series of films released simultaneously in London and Jakarta, show the
scale of destruction being
caused to the forests which the villagers rely on almost entirely for food
and shelter.
One was shot by the Mooi people who live in the Sorong regency of West
Papua. It shows the
relationship between the Mooi and their dependence on the forest lands and
features undercover filming
of logging.
Once a stretch of forest has been stripped bare it is replaced with palm
oil plantations but in the process
much of the wildlife - pigs, deer and birds which the villagers rely on
for food - is driven out.
advertisement
The film questions whether the logging began even before a licence was
granted for 32,000 hectares of
Mooi land to be turned over for plantation in 2006.
The film shows workers clearing the ancient forests with chain saws before
bulldozers move in to level it
for palm trees to be planted.
Mooi women in the film say the destruction of vast swathes of their forest
make it more difficult for them
to continue with their traditional weaving crafts making household items
and sleeping mats from tree
bark.
And tribal hunters say they now have to travel great distances to find
game where previously it was
abundant in their forests.
Another film shot in the Prafi plain, in the Arfak region of Manokwari
regency in West Papua Province
tells of the consequences of state-sponsored palm oil plantations.
Senior community figures were sent by the government to Medan in Sumatra
in 1982 to bring oil palm
back to their area. The film shows the consequences to local people who
lose their rights to the land and
see it destroyed.
Promises that palm oil would sustain them for generations fail to
materialise and the plantations fall into
neglect as they become unprofitable.
Native Papuans are shown how to make films
Native Papuans are shown how to make films
Villagers tell in the film how their rivers have been polluted by
discharges of undiluted palm oil from a
factory and how they develop rashes when they wash in it.
Ananias Muid, one of the villagers sent to learn about palm oil admits he
now regrets the communities'
involvement with it.
Paul Redman, who has worked on projects for EIA in Indonesia for five
years, said: "These are the
voices of local people, the voices of the forest - explaining the issues
that directly affect them and their
lives.
"They are films made by Papuans, about Papua - they are the real thing.
They were researched, written
and filmed by them."
Some of the film-makers' identities have been kept secret because of
security concerns. "These people
have worked extremely hard to bring these films together, sometimes at
great personal risk.
"For example, one film-maker waited for four days in the forest to get
footage of illegal loggers. Logging
is a multi-million pound industry which impacts upon where they live.
"For them, the forest is their supermarket - when it is gone they have
nothing and no access to any
income either.
"They want these stories to be told and these stories have to be told -
without their land, they have no
hope."
---
http://www.eia-international.org/cgi/news/news.cgi?t=template&a=428
Press Release: 28 November 2007
THE UNTOLD STORY: FOOTAGE FROM THE PAPUAN RAINFOREST
UNIQUE films are launched today showing the impact of forest exploitation
upon the people of Papua,
Indonesia.
The set of films made entirely by Papuan NGOs in collaboration with
villagers, tell how their communities
have been adversely affected by destructive logging and oil palm plantations.
The four short films, launched under the collective banner: “Save the
People and Forests of Papua” give
an insight into a country which is currently off-limits to journalists.
Click to watch:
Tears of Mother Mooi
Click to watch:
Defenders of the Tribal Boundaries
Training of the NGOs in research, filming and editing skills has been
carried out by EIA and Indonesian
NGO partners Telapak over several years as part of their capacity-building
programmes.
The films, from Sorong, Arfak, Bintuni and Mappi, showcase previously
unseen stories of timber, oil
palm and agarwood companies causing conflict, environmental damage, and
the loss of traditional land
rights and livelihoods. In some cases these problems lead to intimidation
and deception.
"A voice"
Ronny Dimara, head of Triton Sorong, said: “The Mooi people of Sorong want
the government to stop
logging and plantation companies exploiting and destroying their lands. We
made this film with the
support of our partners to give them a voice.”
Sena Aji Bagus, of Mnukwar Production, which produced two films, said:
“The cases in Arfak and
Bintuni show how industrial forestry and state run oil palm plantations
have generated serious social,
financial and environmental problems.”
The release of the compilation comes as Indonesia prepares to host next
month’s crucial meeting on
climate, where the issue of avoiding deforestation will be high on the
agenda.
The relevance of the films could not be clearer – local communities have
suffered the worst impacts of
forest destruction in Papua, and they can play a vital role in avoiding
further loss.
Paul Redman, who has worked on such projects for EIA in Indonesia for five
years, said: “These people
have worked extremely hard to bring these films together, sometimes at
great personal risk. For example,
one film-maker waited for four days in the forest to get footage of
illegal loggers.
“Logging is a multi-million pound industry which impacts upon where they
live. For them, the forest is
their supermarket – when it is gone they have nothing and no access to any
income either. They want
these stories to be told and these stories have to be told – without their
land, they have no hope."
"By teaching local people the very same film and research skills and
methods we use for documenting
our investigations, we aim to empower communities to protect their
environments and effect change.”
ENDS
For more information, please contact:
• Timer Manurung, Telapak, Tel: +62 811 125 006 / Fax: +62 (0) 21 8310570
e-mail: