Paper by Maire Leadbeater given
at the Dynamics of Civil Engagement Conference, 27 February, 2012
Southern Cross University, Queensland.
Pulling together:
Solidarity Work and western aid to the Indonesian police and
military
Not long ago video of a talk given by American
investigative journalist, Allan Nairn had me transfixed in front
of my computer screen. Allan was one of the journalists who was
present at the time of the Santa Cruz massacre in Dili, East Timor
in 1991. The Indonesian military beat Allan severely on that day,
which seems to have left him with an undying commitment to expose
the crimes of the Indonesian Special Services (Kopassus) and to
ferret out crucial information about American support for the
Indonesian military.
I think it is worthwhile to summarise some of Allan’s analysis about
East Timor’s liberation, the fall of Suharto and the power of the
United States in world affairs. He sees the Santa Cruz events as
pivotal. First to remind you of what was happening in East Timor
just over 20 years ago: the Timorese resistance was trying to come
to terms with a bitter let-down –they had been anticipating a
parliamentary delegation from Portugal, and were gearing up to use
this chance to tell their story and ask for international support.
But the delegation was cancelled. Then on 28 October a young student
Sebastiao Gomes was killed by armed militia after he sought shelter
in the Motael Church.
Two weeks later on 12 November 1991 following Sebastiao’s memorial
mass, a funeral procession proceeded to the cemetery. As their
numbers swelled, the emboldened participants began to unfurl
pro-independence banners, and to shout ‘Viva Timor-Leste’. They knew
that what they were doing was incredibly dangerous but they
proceeded anyway under the eyes of the military, and because they
chose to keep going, Nairn says, history was changed.
Part 1 - Allan's Talk, 1 hr, 2 minutes
Part 2 - Q and A, 59 minutes
Special thanks to Joe Friendly for the video.
When they reached the cemetery the military simply blocked their
escape route, raised their rifles and opened live fire on the
demonstrators. Soldiers chased down those who tried to escape and
shot them in the back. A list of 271 victims was compiled but the
full number of the dead is almost certainly higher as many
‘disappeared’.
What made this event different to all the other massacres that took
place was that on this occasion the word got out and the world did
take notice. New Zealand lost one of its own – a wonderful young man
called Kamal Bamadhaj, an Indonesian speaker who was there to help
his fellow activists as they met with members of the clandestine
resistance.
The Santa Cruz massacre and the death of Kamal jolted the New
Zealand solidarity movement and it exposed the moral bankruptcy of
the New Zealand Government’s East Timor policy – in a nutshell
Government sought to appear outraged at the loss of its citizen
while at the same time pursuing careful diplomacy aimed at
preserving good relations with Indonesia.
ETAN set about lobbying the U.S. Congress about
U.S. military funding
and within a year they had succeeded in bringing to an end the
military aid under the International Military Education and Training
programme (IMET). It took a few years longer before the solidarity
network was able to expose other defence funding under JCET Joint
Combined Exchange and Training, but this training was also suspended
in 1998, not long before Suharto’s fall from power.
In 1998 the students led mass demonstrations calling on Suharto to
step down. The military did not gun them down. Why was this? Nairn
is convinced based on his interviews with such figures as Admiral
Sudono, Suharto’s Security Minister, that the Indonesian soldiers
did not open fire on the students on the streets of Jakarta because
they feared ‘another Dili’. Jakarta had established that the U.S. had
a limit on its tolerance for violence. Of course it was forced to
learn the lesson again a year later when its military laid siege to
East Timor after it had voted for independence.
The Indonesian soldiers did not open fire on the
students on the streets of Jakarta because they feared ‘another Dili’.
Jakarta had established that the U.S. had a limit on its tolerance for
violence.
Obviously the solidarity movement can only claim a small part of the
credit for East Timor’s liberation. The political and economic
upheaval in Indonesia, the growing sympathy of democratic-minded
Indonesians and of course the steadfastness of the Timorese
resistance must all be factored in. But if solidarity activists had
not exposed western hypocrisy in training and supplying the
Indonesian military with weapons, there might have been a different
outcome.
Interviewed in September 1999 at the height of the crisis in East
Timor, Noam Chomsky said: ‘The U.S. government will do something
positive – more accurately it will stop doing something horribly
negative – with regard to East Timor only if public pressure makes
it essential to do so by raising the social costs of continuing to
abet the massacre.”
Globally there were massive demonstrations, tens of thousands
demonstrated across Australia, human chains encircled the embassies
of the UN Security Council members. In Portugal people wore mourning
white, and hundreds of Timorese and Portuguese traveled to Spain to
demonstrate at the nearest Indonesian Embassy. On 9 September
traffic stopped in Lisbon, as thousands got out of their cars to
stand in the road to observe a nationwide 3 minute silence.
Then President Clinton delivered his eleventh hour ultimatum to
Indonesia: end the violence or invite the international community
‘to help’.
Nairn also pointed out for an American audience, that in the United
States in the twenty-first century demonstrators do not get shot.
The United States uses its guns, drones and troops against other
countries to preserve its interests but at home a civil liberties
framework usually prevails. Demonstrators may face tear gas or even
arrest but they won’t be killed. The deaths happen elsewhere at the
business end of the guns supplied by the United States.
In this part of the world I believe we also have power. If we want
to understand how important our region and our governments are to
the United States, the official cables released by Wikileaks are
very helpful. We know that the ANZUS Treaty is defunct, and New
Zealand will not be reversing its no nuclear warships ban, but that
hasn’t really stopped ongoing defence and military cooperation
between our three nations.
Instead of ANZUS meetings Australia and the U.S. now hold AUSMIN
meetings. When Kevin Rudd hosted that meeting last year he said it
marked the 60th anniversary of the ANZUS Treaty and
described the meeting as ‘the premier forum for advancing
Australia-U.S. cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region and globally.’.
From the Wikileaks cables you can trace New Zealand’s secretive
restoration of defence and intelligence ties over 2008 and 2009 and
also how U.S. officials upped the pressure as they prepared for an AUSMIN meeting.
So we are definitely part of the same club, even if New Zealand’s
actual military and intelligence contribution to the U.S. led may seem
small in comparison with Australia. We are part of the Five Eyes or UKUSA intelligence community and we have our own satellite spy base
at Waihopai, an integral part of the global intelligence network
feeding intelligence to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).
Indonesia has had an important place in U.S. strategic plans since
Suharto took power in 1965. From that time Indonesia opened up its
economy to western investment. U.S. spokespeople talk about the
importance of the constructive partnership with the country which
has the world’s largest Muslim population, holding it up as an
example of moderate Islam and a supporter in combating terrorism and
extremism. Indonesia a leading member of the ASEAN group of
pro-western nations, and key to U.S. plans to extend its presence in
the Asia-Pacific. Now that the cold war is over ASEAN is no longer a
bulwark against communist expansion, but it is still held up a
political, economic and security counterbalance to the influence of
China.
It isn’t easy to persuade our Governments to put at
risk these kinds of perceived or real advantages, but as Allan Nairn pointed
out it can be done.
It is of course also true that Indonesia offers New Zealand and
Australia important trade and investment opportunities. Indonesia
ranks as New Zealand’s eighth largest export market, mainly for our
meat and dairy products. We have signed an agreement with Indonesia
called a Trade and Investment Framework and we import products such
as crude oil and timber from Indonesia The balance of trade is in
our favour. New Zealand’s Super Fund and some other Crown Financial
Institutes invest in Freeport McMoran and in Rio Tinto, Freeport’s
joint venture partner.
It isn’t easy to persuade our Governments to put at risk these kinds
of perceived or real advantages, but as Allan Nairn pointed out it
can be done. The fact that we are closely allied with the United
States imposes constraints on our Governments, but they don’t always
dance to America’s tune. The most obvious and important New Zealand
example being our 1985 refusal to accept port visits from nuclear
capable warships.
If Australia or New Zealand did take a stand – whether supporting a
referendum, a mediated dialogue process or suspending their defence
ties, it would have a significant impact.
When I read letters from the New Zealand or Australian Foreign
Minister it is clear that they are following a similar script. These
are the phrases that appear in the letters received by our
respective solidarity groups:
‘The Australian Government has long supported Indonesia's
territorial integrity, including its sovereignty over the Papua
provinces.’ ‘The New Zealand Government is committed to the peaceful
development of Papua as part of Indonesia, where the human rights of
all citizens are respected and upheld.’ And there is usually a
reference to support for ‘the full implementation of the 2001
Special Autonomy Law’.
New Zealand ‘upholds human rights’ by ‘quiet diplomacy’ and
‘constructive engagement’ through aid. In bilateral meetings behind
closed doors New Zealand Ministers raise human rights concerns with
their Indonesian counterparts. These exchanges can be pointed, but
frequently they are amount to little more than ritual expressions
that require minimal response from the Indonesian side. At its worst
this ‘quiet diplomacy’ is a blatant exercise in collusion
This hasn’t gone unnoticed in West Papua.
Forkorus Yaboisembut, was appointed President of the ‘Republic of
West Papua’ at the October 19 Congress and now he and four
colleagues are on trial for makar or treason. He is scathing of this
refusal of the countries like Australia and New Zealand to confront
the issue of self-determination, suggesting that a focus on human
rights alone is to define the Papuan people as ‘merely the colonial
possession of a foreign power’.
The Indonesian authorities impose tight restrictions on media visits
to West Papua, but a new kind of citizen journalism is now asserting
itself and the real state of affairs is becoming better known. ‘You
tube’ videos circulate after atrocities to tell the story as no
words can. Shocking videos circulated after the events on October 19
when the Jayapura Congress was forcibly dispersed by the security
forces. A visiting West Papuan leader showed footage to some of our
parliamentarians recently – I thought they would be appalled by the
sight of heavily armed police opening fire from aloft their armoured
vehicles, but they were also shaken at the sight of civilians being
rounded up and forced into crouching postures as they were herded
into the middle of the soccer field.
A visiting West Papuan leader showed footage to
parliamentarians recently – I thought they would be appalled by the sight of
heavily armed police opening fire from aloft their armoured vehicles, but
they were also shaken at the sight of civilians being rounded up and forced
into crouching postures
Those events were closely followed by an 8000 strong strike at the
Freeport McMoran mine, during which two of the striking workers were
killed by the security forces. The news of the strike spread round
the world through union and occupy movement circles. In New Zealand
a popular glossy magazine, Metro, devoted a long features article to
the story of the mine, the strike and New Zealand’s investment in
it. In August last year Australian academics and media exposed
leaked Kopassus documents detailing the network of spies and
informers that support Indonesia’s iron control.
Gradually Indonesia’s giant agribusiness proposal for the Merauke
district is also becoming known. The Indonesian President has grand
ambitions for the up to 1.6 million hectares project which he hopes
will feed Indonesia, and then feed the world. The proposed crops
such as corn sugar, rice and palm oil will destroy the fragile
ecology, displace the local people and bring vast numbers of new
migrant. Indigenous West Papuans are already believed to be a
minority in their own land, so it is hardly surprising if a sense of
now or never desperation is driving this latest wave of activism.
Are we managing to lever any change?
It is hard to believe that the officials in the Foreign Affairs and
Defence Ministries of Australia and New Zealand have not given some
thought to the possibility that a West Papua is at boiling point and
that their uncritical support for Indonesia may blow up in their
faces. After all they were caught wrong-footed by the firestorm in
East Timor in 1999.
I have witnessed a few tiny cracks in the last year:
When the Pacific Island Forum met in Auckland New Zealand activists
were joined by West Papuan leaders and supportive MPs from the Mana
and Green Parties. We ensured that the West Papua issue was under
the noses of the Forum Heads of Government. The UN Secretary-General
Ban Ki Moon was a guest at the Forum and addressed a public meeting
during his time in Auckland. Subsequently a journalist questioned
him about our very visible West Papua lobby. He came dangerously
close to talking about self-determination: ‘whether you are an
independent state or a non-self-governing territory or whatever, the
human rights is inalienable and a fundamental principle of the
United Nations’. He subsequently clarified that he did not state
that West Papua should be placed on the agenda of the Decolonisation
Committee, any such call would not be his to make as that was a
matter for Member States.
The New Zealand Foreign Minister Murray McCully is being forced to
confront the West Papua issue more often. In August 2010 a very
graphic video depiction of the torture of two Papuan farmers was
circulating just as Mr McCully was scheduled to meet in Jakarta with
his counterpart Marty Natalegawa, so questions were asked. At the
time of the Forum, Mr McCully did not make time to meet West Papuan
representatives personally but he did instruct his officials to meet
with John Ondawame and Rex Rumakiek, and I understand a similar
meeting with West Papuan representatives also took place in New
York.
I am hoping that this might be an echo of the small shift to
acceptance of dialogue or constructive communication on the part of
the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. The President’s
meetings with outspoken Church leaders in recent months seems a
potentially hopeful sign, and will have been noted by western
governments.
Over the past twelve years that IHRC has been working on West Papua
we have tried hard to find the points of leverage that might prompt
our Government take effective West Papua action. Obviously we have
not made any amazing breakthroughs, and disappointingly there have
steps backward such as the Government’s restoration of military
training ties in early 2007. But I think there is some evidence at
the very least that officials and politicians are worried., and
perhaps we can again draw some lessons from our history of activism
on East Timor.
When I probed back through declassified government documents
relating to East Timor I found that the officials had been weighing
up what we activists were doing and saying. I was surprised to find
that we had had more influence than we knew at the time.
When I probed back through declassified government documents
relating to East Timor I found that the officials had been weighing
up what we activists were doing and saying. I was surprised to find
that we had had more influence than we knew at the time.
To give one example, in March 1995 a military training visit of five
Indonesian officers was postponed as the NZ Defence Attache
explained:
‘The reason for the postponement is due to increasing interest among
the New Zealand public over recent matters in East Timor. In
addition to general public interest in all regional and
international affairs there is in New Zealand a small but
sophisticated and well co-ordinated lobby, sympathetic to the claims
of East Timorese exiles, who seek any opportunity to generate
anti-Indonesian feeling. It was therefore thought unwise to risk
exposing the visitors to the possibility of becoming the focus of
media campaigns, demonstrations, petitions etc. at this time.’
Deputy Secretary of Foreign Affairs Neil Walter held a damage
control meeting with the Indonesian Ambassador and wrote:
On military contacts/exchanges/exercises, I said this was a matter
on which both sides needed to work closely together…It wouldn't do
the relationship any good to present the anti-Indonesian school of
thought with large tailor-made pegs on which to hang further
protests. Careful management was needed.
So I want to focus finally on New Zealand’s direct relationship with
the Indonesian security forces.: the training support we offer to
the Indonesian military and a Pilot training programme to the police
in West Papua.
New Zealand’s military training for Indonesia largely consists of
bilateral officer exchanges: each year an Indonesian officer attends
the NZDF Command and Staff College to participate in the Senior
Staff Course while New Zealand Defence Force officers attend courses
in Indonesia. Recently there has been mention of New Zealand
increasing its defence ties with Indonesia by extending the training
currently offered to Indonesian officers and hosting higher level
visits of Indonesian personnel. Our Government defends this
programme on the grounds that engagement with the Indonesian
military will promote positive reform, but there is no evidence to
support this claim. On the other hand the record shows that New
Zealand officials and the New Zealand Minister of Defence at the
time (Phil Goff) took the initiative to get the defence relationship
resumed, because they considered that this would be in New Zealand’s
interests.
A New Zealand Defence Attache commented before defence ties were
reestablished: ‘at the moment the New Zealand Indonesia relationship
resembled a ‘three-legged stool’ with one leg (ie the defence
aspect) missing. In spite of the many reforms that had taken place
in recent years, the TNI was still a major force in Indonesian life;
without engagement with TNI we could not hope to build a full
relationship.’
As far as I know the New Zealand’s police training does not involve
improving the lethal or the punitive skills of the officers
involved. In fact the community policing model is all about conflict
avoidance and working with communities, a positive model of police
work. The problem with this training is that we are talking about
engaging with the forces of repression. While I believe many of
those involved in providing the training sincerely hope their
efforts will benefit the West Papuan people and Indonesian
civilians, there is limited objective evidence to support this
outcome. The risk is always that the New Zealand aid will be
co-opted to support Indonesia’s anti-self-determination agenda.
After studying the documentation, including reports released under
the Official Information Act I believe that this is happening..
The West Papua project: ‘Community Policing: Conflict Resolution in
Papua and West Papua provinces’ had ambitious aims: ‘ The project’s
purpose was described as enhancing adherence to human rights
standards by the INP in the two Papua provinces. ‘ The primary
objective of the Project was to contribute to changing the military
mind-set of the INP. Anticipated outcomes of the Project were
described as ( i) improving human rights (ii) improving security;
and (iii) reducing poverty.’
The project began following a request from the Police Area Commander
General Tommy Yacobus, in Jayapura in 2006, . Early in 2007 thirty
two West Papuan police (only 10 of them indigenous Papuans) attended
a workshop in Jayapura at which participants were told how New
Zealand police try to build community relations and anticipate and
prevent conflict.
The Ministry memos reveal that Jayapura Police Chief had
instructions from the National Police Chief to ‘get back the
confidence of the community’ following the March 2006 riots. The
Police Chief, told the Second Secretary that he wanted to increase
the percentage of indigenous Papuans within POLDA Papua which was currently at
4%.
In late 2010, New Zealand Embassy officials were advised (the name
of the Indonesian official they met has been blacked out) that some
1500 Papuan police were recruited in 2009. This would help, the New
Zealanders were told, ‘in increasing the effectiveness of policing
because of the importance of good information and an understanding
of adapt (customary) law and traditions. Police also had a network
of informants in every village which allowed for reports of trouble
to flow through to Wamena, despite the isolation of many
communities, poor roads and absence of communications infrastructure
in many areas.’
It is not surprising that West Papuans don’t always welcome the
recruitment of indigenous police officers. I am told that the Police
have a rigorous interrogation process for potential recruits which
ensures that anyone joining up must deny or hide any connection
however remote to those who support independence.
The records show, that the Community Policing Initiative had an
impact on the Wellington-Jakarta relationship. By September 2008
when New Zealand Embassy representatives visited West Papua they
found that Community Policing Initiative had ‘emerged as the
centerpiece of New Zealand’s engagement in Papua and West Papua.’
“In the past Embassy visits to the two provinces have been
confined to information gathering. This time it was very different –
we had something concrete to offer. That was reflected in the warm
reception accorded to us. The NZAID-funded, NZ Police Community
Policing (CP) project is now the centerpiece of New Zealand’s
constructive engagement approach with Indonesia on the Papua issue.
It demonstrates New Zealand is serious in its desire to make a real
difference on the ground in the two provinces.”
In fact the Indonesian officials were so pleased with the New
Zealanders that an article about the visit appeared in the Papua Pos
headed Selandia Baru Menentang OPM or New Zealand opposes
OPM. New Zealand officials reassured their hosts that they did
not support separatism, but the write up took things a step further.
The diplomats wryly recorded later that the article misrepresented
the discussions, and their ‘alleged commendation of TNI’.
In 2010 the New Zealand Police commissioned an independent review of
its Community Policing programme. When I combed through the lengthy
report, I had a growing sense of unease. The first criteria
evaluated was ‘strategic relevance’ and the project matched up well,
since ‘it is supporting the decentralization efforts of central
government through autonomy laws (Otsus).’
‘The Project has strengthened the relationship between the
Indonesian and New Zealand police: NZ Police is the only foreign
agency that has been permitted to deliver CP training in Papua and
West Papua provinces, and NZ Police is the only foreign agency
permitted to use serving NZ Police Officers for Project activities
in these provinces.’ But who benefits from this close relationship?
The evaluation team struggled with assessing the effectiveness of
the project, partly for reasons to do with the lack of before and
after data. But they cite a few ‘solid examples’:
“an INP officer said he had employed the skills and approach taught
by NZ Police during the training to resolve political unrest in his
area, where Papuan nationalists were planning to raise the morning
star (the applicable sentence for doing so is 25 years
imprisonment). The fact that the training provided a practical tool
to assist the INP officer to successfully resolve this issue is a
highly effective result for the Project.’
There is nothing to suggest that the NZ Police discussed the right
to free expression, let alone any suggestion that they even
considered that ‘nationalists’ might have a legitimate claim to
genuine self-determination.
The report also looked at risk management and addressed the
possibility of personal security risk for the NZ trainers ‘given
political stirrings on the ground in Indonesian Papua’ and the ‘risk
that NGOs might criticise the Project if training were followed by
INP-perpetrated human rights abuses.’ The report says that these
risks did not materialise.
This is a bit disappointing since the Indonesia Human Rights
Committee has been raising concerns about the police training
project since 2008. Our statements have become stronger as we have
learnt more about the project. We tie our criticism to human rights
reports and other evidence of ongoing police brutality in West
Papua, but we concede that we don’t have any evidence that an
officer who has participated in New Zealand training has been
implicated in a documented instance of abuse.
More recently, Green MP Catherine Delahunty has also voiced her
concerns: ‘the road to hell can be paved with good intentions. These
policemen appeared to have no context for operating in West Päpua,
their focus was on crimes like robbery and alcohol and they made no
comment on the lack of democratic freedoms or the need for the West
Papuan police to stop colluding with the military in the human
rights abuses’
When I visited West Papua in late 2010 I made a point of talking
about the police programme, and especially among younger activists,
the response to the training was decidedly negative. New Zealand
Embassy representatives were in West Papua around the same time, and
they also met with civil society representatives, as well as the
Governor of Papua, politicians and UN officials. They highlighted
the ‘community policing project as a flagship in the province.’ It
seems the diplomats did hear some negative feedback about the
actions of the police in West Papua and New Zealand engagement, but
they rated the overall response to the project as positive.
At the moment, despite the earlier hype, and talk of a second phase,
the Community Policing Project has been on pause for two years. From
my point of view this is good news. I am just hoping it is because
of concerns about violence in West Papua and not because the New
Zealand aid budget is being pared down.
I should emphasise that I support New Zealand expenditure on
humanitarian aid in West Papua, in fact one of my objections to the
military and police training is that it probably edges out
constructive programmes. New Zealand offers post-graduate
scholarships to up to 50 Indonesian applicants each year. The scheme
prioritises students from Eastern Indonesia including West Papua.
But a response to a parliamentary question reveals that only two
indigenous Papuans were granted post-graduate scholarships in the
2007-2010 period.
I want to emulate Allan Nairn by finishing on a positive note. I
believe he is right, solidarity actions can be effective even if we
don’t know in advance which actions will be effective.
I want to emulate Allan Nairn by finishing on a positive note. I
believe he is right, solidarity actions can be effective even if we
don’t know in advance which actions will be effective. There is a
strong case for solidarity work focused on ending military ties and
I believe we should widen that to include the police training programmes.
At the elite level Australia, New Zealand, the United States,
Britain and Indonesia are tied together in a range of intelligence
and defence networks. I believe we could all increase our efficiency
and our effectiveness if we did more to work on joint campaigns, and
if we shared more research information with each other
Over the years many Papuan leaders have raised the possibility that
New Zealand could help to facilitate a peace dialogue for West Papua
– drawing on the successful process mediated by New Zealand which
helped to resolve the crisis in Bougainville. We weren’t really a
neutral party with respect to that conflict either, but we were able
to be effective and that also gives me some hope.
Not long ago 
