West Papua Report
August 2006
This is the 30th in a series of monthly reports that focuses
on developments affecting Papuans. This reporting series is produced
by the West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) drawing on media accounts,
other NGO assessments and analysis and reporting from sources within
West Papua. The West Papua Advocacy Team is a non-profit
organization.
SUMMARY/CONTENTS
Infamous Indonesian General Appointed
Commander for West Papua
In early August, the Indonesian military announced that Brigadier
General Zamroni has been appointed military chief (Pangdam) for West
Papua (and the disputed "West Irian Jaya Province"). Zamroni has
deep connections to the Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus). He
rose to prominence in Kopassus under General Prabowo whom he served
as commander of Kopassus's elite "anti-terror" unit. Following
Prabowo's dismissal from the Indonesian military, Zamroni became
deputy commander of Kopassus. He was widely accused by reputable
human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, for "the
brutality of his forces in Aceh in 2001."
“The Bulletin," a New Zealand publication, notes also that
Zamroni was "instrumental in quashing student democracy protests of
the mid- and late- 1990s. It was this campaign of torture, kidnap
and murder that ultimately led to the downfall of General Prabowo.”
Mistreatment of Papuan Detainees
Continues
Church sources in West Papua report that on August 28, Nelson
Rumbiak, a prisoner who was allegedly involved in the March 16
demonstrations in Abepura, was beaten by members of the local police after
his testimony at the Jayapura State Court. He and two other
witnesses testified during the August 28 court session that their
confessions related to the March 16 demonstrations were made under
physical duress by the police.
This report parallels earlier reports of police mistreatment of
those detained in connection with this case. To date, neither the
Court nor the prosecution has intervened to address the reports of
police mistreatment of these detainees.
Australian Government Plan to Block Papuan
Refugee Seekers Fails
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has withdrawn a bill
proposing changes to immigration laws, acknowledging that it faced
certain defeat in parliament. That defeat has emerged in the form of
significant resistance to the plan from within Howard’s own party.
The legislation was passed by the lower house in early August but
was headed for certain defeat in the senate.
The plan, dubbed the "Pacific Solution," would have required
asylum-seekers arriving in Australia to be sent to Nauru for
"offshore processing." Those asylum-seekers determined to be
refugees, would be designated for resettlement in a third country.
Despite the plan's defeat, Howard claimed that the Australian
government would continue to send asylum seekers to Nauru,
explaining that "people who arrive on excised islands (not on the
Australian mainland) will still, in appropriate circumstances, be
processed in Nauru."
The initiative for the proposed legislation was prompted by the
arrival of 43 Papuans from West Papua in January 2006. The new
arrivals claimed that they faced severe repression and genocide in the
hands of the Indonesian military. Australia's decision to grant
asylum caused consternation within the Indonesian government.
Indonesian Military Cross Border
Operations in Papua New Guinea
The Indonesian military's cross border operations into Papua New
Guinea (PNG) pose risks of an international conflict that could
involve Australia, according to an August 23 report by Paul Daley
of the New Zealand University School of Communications Studies, which
was published in "The Bulletin (Australia)."
In his detailed report, entitled "Caught in The Crossfire," Daley
contends that a large number of Indonesian military and intelligence
officers are currently inside Papua New Guinea where they pose as
fisherman and loggers. The report contends that Indonesian forces,
especially from the Special Forces (Kopassus), and the Indonesian
State Intelligence Agency (BIN), operate covertly in search of West
Papuans who have fled to PNG. These Indonesian personnel reportedly
exploit understaffed PNG border security forces. “Intelligence
operations are routinely being conducted inside the PNG border by
the Indonesian military’s special forces and, it is understood, with
a blind-eye approach being taken by Port Moresby,” according to a
security source quoted by Daley. At worst, PNG is cooperating, at
best it is doing nothing because the PNGDF [Papua New Guinea Defense
Forces] is run down and the government is afraid of Jakarta’s
military.” Collusion between Indonesian military and senior level
PNG officials is evidenced in phone communications intercepted by
Australia's Defense Signals Directorate, according to intelligence
sources cited by Daley.
Daley also reports that West Papuan timber is regularly
transported across the border to PNG from where it is exported as
PNG timber. Indonesian law prohibits export of raw timber. Drug
trading and prostitution have grown up around the large-scale
illegal logging operation according to security sources cited by
Daley. (See report later in this issue for related information.)
Suspicion Grows of Foiled Indonesian
Incursion
Hard evidence for reports of Indonesian military incursions into
PNG may have surfaced in an August 8 incident in which PNG security
personnel fired on an Indonesian boat in PNG territorial waters near
the villages of Wutung and Mushu, an area believed to have been the
target of clandestine Indonesian incursions. One Indonesian was
killed and two were seriously injured when PNG security personnel
fired on a mysterious craft operating in PNG waters. Seven
Indonesians were arrested in the incident.
The governments of PNG
and Indonesia both insist that the Indonesians were fishermen.
Appearing to corroborate reporting cited in the preceding item, an
August 25 Papua New Guinea Post-Courier report replayed by the BBC
notes that despite PNG denials the August 8 shooting incident near
Wutung and Mushu involved Indonesian "spies." Local sources confirm
a clandestine Indonesian operation.
Intelligence sources told the
Post-Courier that the PNG government was in fact attempting to
"cover-up for alleged TNI (Indonesian armed forces) soldiers on a
clandestine operation in PNG's Sandaun Province. They (the
Indonesians) are Kopassus members. The eight that were shot at
outside Vanimo were made up of five professionals (soldiers)
including a medic, a radioman, a commander, signaler and rifleman
while the other three were Kopassus," said an ex-PNGDF soldier who
worked with the army intelligence unit between 1989-1999, and now
resides in a PNG border town. The former official, according to the
Post-Courier, added that when he was in the military, he and his
comrades were under standing orders to deny reports of incursions by
the Indonesian military.
Papuan Christians Establish West
Papuan Synod
For much of the more than four decades of Jakarta's rule in West
Papua, it has been the Papuan clergy, particularly the Christian
clergy (which represents the majority faith in West Papua), that has
led the struggle for Papuan rights. The Christian clergy, in unison
with Islamic clergy, for example, have led efforts to win
recognition of West Papua as a "land of peace", free of Indonesian
military abuse and repression. Observers, therefore, note the recent
emergence of a Papua-led Synod in West Papua which has potentially
broad significance for West Papua's on-going spiritual, social,
cultural, economic, and political development.
The Synod of the Alliance Church in West Papua was formed
following the meeting of 44 superintendents on July 26-29, 2006, in
Nabire. This new synod formally disengaged from the Jakarta-based
GKII (Evangelical Tabernacle Church of Indonesia) organization, but
will remain part of the Christian and Missionary Alliance
denomination. It will be administered henceforth directly from Papua
in order to focus more directly on the social, economic, and
cultural concerns of Papuans. For many years the Jakarta-based GKII
precluded development of a Papua-based approach to the multifaceted
challenges confronting the people of Papua. A majority of the
districts elected to join the new Synod.
Chinese Plan for Timber Operation in
Papua Opposed
Papuans are resisting plans to establish a timber processing
facility in West Papua. The government is conducting a feasibility
study of the US$1 billion dollar plan by a firm named "China Light"
which would reportedly supply lumber for construction of facilities
for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. In May, Forestry Minister Kaban
stated publicly that the wood was intended for the construction of
Olympic facilities in Beijing.
Opposition to the proposal has been registered by both local
business and environment advocates who are concerned that the plan
would diminish Papua's remaining pristine forests. The absence of
effective monitoring of timber cutting, processing and export
generally in Indonesia, and especially in West Papua, underscores
the concern that no effective plan to control the timber cutting and
processing is possible. Illegal logging, now rampant in West Papua,
often in collusion with military and police, could emerge as sources
of timber for the proposed Chinese-owned facility. Moreover, by
establishing a processing facility in West Papua, China would be
able to evade the Indonesian ban on the export of raw logs. China
has also expressed interest in developing pulp and paper processing
facilities in West Papua.
The Bogor-based environmental NGO Telapak recently produced a
widely-quoted study which demonstrated that approximately 300,000
cubic meters of merbau (intsia) were smuggled monthly from Papua to
China. The investigation, conducted jointly with the London-based
Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), found that the wood was
manufactured into flooring in China and sold through scores of home
improvement chain stores in Europe and the United States.
The issue is another example cited by Papuans of the failure of
the autonomy law to permit Papuans to control their own natural
resources.
Addressing Illegal Land Seizures in West
Papua and Elsewhere in the Indonesian Archipelago
A principal, historic grievance held by Papuans and other
indigenous peoples in the Indonesian archipelago is the illegal
seizure of their traditional lands in a corrupt bargain involving
local and foreign firms and the Indonesian central government, with
the Indonesian military and police acting as enforcers. The practice
has led to the destruction of vast tracts of forest and other lands
and the forced removal of thousands of indigenous peoples. An Op-Ed
written by an American academic and published in the August 7
edition of the Jakarta Post reviews the problem and proposes
possible legal and legislative solutions to this fundamental abuse
of human rights. Excerpts of that OP-Ed, "The Right to Possess Land,
by Stephanie Park," follow:
With the motto "Unity in Diversity," Indonesia tackled the
formidable challenge of advancing the interests of a country that
consists of almost 18,000 islands with over 700 languages and ethnic
groups. In pursuing the interests of the country, however, it
disregarded the interests of certain indigenous peoples on
resource-rich lands, facilitating the extinction of their way of
life.
During the New Order, untitled forest was classified as
state-owned, and it was never reclassified to reflect indigenous
ownership when the regime ended. Under the auspices of national
development, the government has taken advantage of this loophole and
confiscated large portions of this "state-owned" land. The land was
then granted to privately-owned mining and logging multi-national
corporations, which have, in general, reinvested embarrassingly
minuscule shares of their profits in the community. Such land
transfers have the double impact of undermining indigenous ownership
and contributing to the destruction of the environment.
The only recourse currently available to groups deprived of their
land is the court system, which has proved either incapable of
protecting such property interests or unwilling to try.
As a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
Indonesia pledged to uphold Article 17, which promises that
"Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in
conjunction with others" and that "No one shall be arbitrarily
deprived of his property." Moreover, Indonesia is now a party of and
therefore has to comply with the International Covenant on Economic,
Social, and Cultural Rights, which also puts weight on right to
property i.e. land as a human right. The government should be chary
of implementing major change without input from representatives from
geographically-diverse indigenous groups lest it infringe upon the
right to self-determination. It can start, however, with providing a
viable process for the restoration of seized land. If courts were to
offer injunctions to parties whose cases are pending trial, they
could return the property in its original state rather than seek an
appropriate substitute as redress.
The People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) could also add to the
law to provide for adverse possession, a legal doctrine allowing a
court to transfer actual title of property to a party whose use has
gone unchallenged for a certain period of time, usually seven years
or longer.
This is not a complete solution because it undermines the
original right of ownership held by indigenous peoples, but adverse
possession could be temporarily employed to stop divestiture of
ownership for economic development.
For long-term change, Indonesia must provide formal recognition
of the land rights of its indigenous peoples. One priority should be
a revision or a binding interpretation of Article 18, which in the
same breath recognizes the autonomy of traditional communities and
subjugates them to the majority interest.
Similarly, Article 33 of the Constitution, which puts the "land,
waters and the natural resources... under the powers of the State"
should be understood to exclude land subject to the indigenous
people who occupy it.
These and other measures are merely the roots of a more
comprehensive program to recognize indigenous rights. However, they
are a necessary start to fulfilling Indonesia's duty to preserve the
cultural treasures that still live within its borders.
(The writer is a postgraduate student of Harvard University
School of Law and currently an intern at Jakarta-based Institute for
Policy Research and Advocacy (Elsam). Reachable by email at spark@law.harvard.edu.)
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