West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT): Statement on International Crisis Group report - and its coverage
Contact: Ed McWilliams, edmcw@msn.com
March 16, 2010 --The International Crisis Group published a report on
March 11, "Indonesia:
Radicalization and Dialogue in Papua," which purports to depict the
growing radicalization of some Papuan groups and consequent increases in
violence there. The report usefully calls for dialogue between the
Indonesian Government and Papuans and for an end to restrictions on access
to Papua by journalists and researchers. However, the report fundamentally
misrepresents the reality in Papua (West Papua) insofar as it ascribes
growing violence there to Papuan "radicals." The principal impetus toward
violence continues to be the persistent and accelerating deterioration of
conditions affecting Papuans.
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The report usefully calls for dialogue between the
Indonesian Government and Papuans and for an end to restrictions on access
to Papua by journalists and researchers. However, the report fundamentally
misrepresents the reality in Papua (West Papua) insofar as it ascribes
growing violence there to Papuan "radicals."
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The report ignores continued violation of Papuan human rights and the
unaccountability of their security force persecutors; the marginalization of
Papuans who face resumption of ethnic cleansing under the rubric of
"transmigration; as well as the devastation of Papua's natural resources
under the guise of development. Specifically, although the report condemns
the use of the label "separatist' to "taint" Papuan activists, no where does
the lengthy report describe or acknowledge the daily consequences of
policies which entail legal and extra-legal intimidation, harassment and
worse for Papuans who assert their rights.
The report similarly ignores the fear among nearly all Papuans that
government subsidized "migration" to Papua by non-Melanesian Indonesians
will within this generation make Papuans a minority in their own homeland.
While the report focuses heavily on Papuan animosity toward the
Freeport-McMoran gold and copper mining enterprise, there is no attention to
the vast environmental devastation
wrought by those mining activities. Similarly, new "development" schemes
promoted by Jakarta which stand to expropriate vast tracks of privately
owned Papuan land for palm oil and food-for-export plantations to be farmed
by non-Papuans are nowhere discussed.
Analysis of the report also reveals methodological problems. The report
relies on sources who are in some cases no longer active. In other
instances, the report fails to acknowledge the possibility that sources are
advancing a particular agenda. Such self or group promotion is particularly
a concern by the report's heavy reliance on press statements and third party
interviews. The report curiously cites few NGO sources. It also surprisingly
failed to interview numerous Papuan academics, church leaders or respected
civil society leaders. Father Neles Tebay, who authored a dialogue proposal
that the report describes (and commends) in great detail, was never
interviewed for the report. Among problems arising from this inadequate
sourcing is the implication advanced in the report's analysis that Papuan
activists are divided along regional and tribal lines. While Papuans differ
on specific tactics, there is remarkable unity among Papuan activists,
particularly with regard to the key concerns prompting their efforts. The
report also wrongly describes the
International
Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP) as having "encouraged violence."
In reality, the IPWP and the vast majority of Papuan civil society groups
have consistently sought to end through peaceful means the state
violence meted out against Papuans.
The report's conclusion receiving the widest international attention
relates to its assessment that recent violence associated with the
Freeport-McMoran mine is most likely attributable to Papuan rebels. That
assessment contends:
"It is not clear who is responsible or whether one or multiple
parties have been involved. There are four possibilities, however: Kelly
Kwalik’s OPM forces (Kelly himself was killed in a police raid on 16
December 2009); men acting on the orders of someone who once worked with
Kelly Kwalik; the local Indonesian military; or a combination of the
above. It is a reflection of the complexity of the political and
economic dynamics around the mine that more than six months after the
shootings began, and with some good investigators on the scene, there
are no conclusive answers".
This assessment is questionable on many grounds. Among these, the ICG
report fails to make any reference to
a 2002 shooting that is in many ways appear to be
an analog for the 2009-2010 shootings
which independent reporting has persuasively indicated to have involved the
Indonesian military. It also fails to note that despite deployment of many
hundreds of Indonesian secuirty forces to the area, the attacks have
continued for over six months.
Of much greater concern is the misrepresentation of even this cautious
analysis in initial media coverage. A
March 11 Reuters report assessed led with the following in its coverage:
"Separatists in Indonesia's politically sensitive Papua province were
behind deadly attacks in 2009 on workers near a mine run by a unit of
Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc, a report released on Thursday said.
A secessionist movement has smouldered for decades in Papua in the far
east of the Indonesian archipelago. In recent months, unidentified
gunmen launched a series of attacks on vehicles travelling to Freeport's
Grasberg copper and gold mine near Timika, wounding more than 20 people
and killing two."
Further complicating this misleading press coverage of the report, the
ICG's Southeast Asia Director, Jim Della-Giacoma has himself misrepresented
the report's conclusion. The Voice of America reports as follows on March
13:
Some reports have indicated the mine shootings were carried out by
rival factions of police and the military, competing for lucrative
security contracts. But Della Giacoma says interviews with separatist
leaders indicate the motivation was political.
"Whereas a number of those shooting incidents and attacks have
actually been admitted to, acknowledged by those from the Free Papua
Movement, and their supporters see it as a very, sort of, making a lot
of sense tactically," he said. "Because they see that they can raise the
profile of their issue by attacking and closing the mine."
This conclusion and an analysis is beyond what appears in the actual
report.
WPAT regrets this ICG report badly misrepresents conditions on the ground
in Papua and calls on the ICG to correct the record, especially insofar as
press coverage and statements by ICG officials have drawn conclusions and
offered analysis that go well beyond that contained in the report