This is the 35th in a series of monthly reports that focus 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
Update on Puncak Jaya Crisis
Reliable current information about the plight of Papuans who
were displaced by the December 2006 and January 2007 military
operations in the Mulia - Yamo area of the Punjak Jaya in West
Papua indicates the following:
Several thousand IDPs from Yamo subdistrict village remain in
life-threatening circumstances. The IDPs have not returned to
their homes because of fears for their security posed by both
security forces and the armed opposition.
Their urgent need for food and medicine continues to be
insufficiently addressed. The population suffers from malaria,
yellow fever and other related diseases as well as a lack of
food and adequate shelter Malnutrition is exacerbating the
spread and severity of disease. Health problems are extensive
and deaths among the IDPs arising from their conditions of
living continue to mount. Local officials deny that there are
outstanding unaddressed needs. Those seeking to monitor the
plight of the IDPs or provide assistance continue to face
threats and intimidation.
Possible Breakthrough For
Papuan Political Rights
For the first time Papuans may be able to field their own
candidates for local and national office without vetting them
through Jakarta-controlled national party offices. The Cultural
Institute of the Papua People's Council (MRP) has given its
support for the formation of Papua's first local political
party, the Papua People's Awakening Party (PKRP). While there
are already indigenous Papuans in the national parliament, as
well as provincial and district legislative councils for the
2004-2009 session, their numbers are very small.
MRP Vice Chair Hanna said that the opportunity for Papuans to
select Papuan candidates represented a major advance for Papuan
political rights. She noted: "So far, there are various groups
or people in legislatures who claim to represent the indigenous
Papua community but they in reality are unable to voice the
aspirations of indigenous Papuans or are just motivated by
personal interests so that indigenous Papuans' political rights
remain neglected."
While the MRP support for the new party was key to its
formation, it is still necessary that the provincial
administration issue a special regulation on the political
rights of indigenous Papuans so that the PKRP and possibly other
local political parties would have a clear, detailed legal
standing.
State Department Human Rights Report
Inadequately Reflects Context of Human Rights Abuse In West
Papua
The U.S. State Department's annual report on human rights
observance in Indonesia offered relatively comprehensive
coverage of the human rights environment in Indonesia but,
relative to its report in 2006, was less candid in its summary
descriptions of specific abuses, and unaccountability,
particularly with regard to the performance of the Indonesian
military (TNI) and police.
The report acknowledged that the military and police remain
largely unaccountable for their human rights abuse and other
crimes, although the wording appeared to suggest that impunity
was more a historical rather than a current concern. The report
contended: "The government, in the past, rarely investigated
such killings and largely failed to hold soldiers and police
accountable for killings and other serious human rights abuses
that occurred in past years."
The report itemizes most of the specific instances of human
rights abuses in 2006 but fails to address the context in which
these abuses occur. Specifically, there is no acknowledgment
that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono failed to follow-through
on his National Day (August 2006) pledge to give full attention
to the problems in West Papua. As in the past, there is no
mention of the impact on Papuan human rights, health and the
Papuan environment of the massive U.S.-owned Freeport McMoran
copper-and gold mine in West Papua. The mine's damage to the
welfare of Papuans prompted major demonstrations in March 2006
which led to violent student-security force confrontations. The
issues prompting the demonstrations are not acknowledged or
described in the State Department report.
The State Department report also fails to note fully the
consequences of the Indonesian government's failure to implement
the 2001 "Law on Special Autonomy for Papua." This law not only
has not been implemented, worse still, specific provisions of
the law governing the formation of separate provinces in West
Papua have been violated. Mandatory consultations with Papuan
institutions pursuant to the carving up of West Papua to form
new provinces never took place.
Furthermore, the report ignores the ongoing military buildup
in West Papua which runs counter to a broad Papuan campaign to
demilitarize the area, and which also proceeds independent of
any security justification.
It similarly gives inadequate attention to a fundamental
Papuan complaint that the government-engineered "transmigration"
has left Papuans severely marginalized in the land they have
occupied for thousands of years. The report fails to note that
the government has yet to provide compensation for Papuans who
were forced off their lands to make way for the new settlers. It
also fails to acknowledge that while the Indonesian government
claims that the movement of non-Papuans into West Papua is no
longer government-sponsored, in fact, government assistance to
new "migrants" continues to disadvantage Papuans. The rare
outsider who is able to visit West Papua invariably encounters
migrants operating government-built market stalls while Papuans
are left to sell their wares on blankets spread near the margins
of these central markets. Government services are provided
largely in urban areas where migrants tend to settle, but are
scant or entirely absent in more rural areas where Papuans
predominate.
In addition, the feport fails to address the continued
detention of 18 Papuans whom Human Rights Watch [HRW] and
Amnesty International have identified as "political prisoners."
The detention, which the HRW observed in a February 21, 2007
alert [http://www.hrw.org/reports/2007/papua0207/],
violated international law, documented how the Indonesian
government continues to employ criminal law to punish peaceful
protest and non-violent activities such as the raising of the
morning star flag which is specifically provided for in the 2001
law on Special Autonomy. The HRW report also contended that in
prosecuting cases of lawful protest the Indonesian government is
using the courts "as a tool of political repression".
Unexplained "Security Problems" and Confusion Impede
District Voting in West Papua
The Jakarta Post reported on March 23 that the March 22
regency elections in Punjak Jaya's Fawi District in West Papua
were marred by unexplained "security problems" that prevented at
least 27 of 181 polling places from opening. Violent incidents
among voters were also reported. In Sorong regency some voters
protested after discovering they were not registered to vote.
Parts of Puncak Jaya have been in chaos following military
sweep operations in December 2006 and January 2007 that forced
thousands of civilians from their homes. March reports available
to the West Papua Advocacy Team indicate the military buildup in
the region continues and civilians forced from their villages
are in increasingly dire straits due to inadequate food
provisions and medical care (see lead article above).
Unrest in Freeport Mine Area Over
Employment Discrimination
A Jakarta Post report on March 21 noted that hundreds of
Papuans from the Amungme and Kamoro tribes, the largest in the
Timika area, staged a rally in front of the Memangkawai Mining
Institute office in Timika, the Mimika regency capital, on March
21 to demand that they be given priority for employment in local
projects. At least 400 Aumngme and Kamoro jobseekers traveled
for the protest from the Mimika capital of Timika to the
job-training institutes's office, which acts as a recruitment
agency for U.S. copper-gold mining company, Freeport-McMoRan.
The demonstrators cited West Papua's 2001 Special Autonomy law
which requires that indigenous people be given priority in
recruitment.
Leaders of the demonstration said that Freeport-McMoRan have
never paid attention to the indigenous people, thereby
contributing to unemployment in the region. Another leader of
the demonstrator's solidarity group questioned the achievements
of the Mimika Manpower and Resettlement Office, which, he said,
has disregarded the needs of the Papuan indigenous people. He
added, "we want to be involved in development in Mimika regency
rather than simply being made development objects."
Nothwithstanding pledges to hire locals, Freeport-McMoRan for
decades has encouraged the in-migration of non-Papuans to its
mine operations leading to the growth of a very large population
of non-Papuan, single males in the Timika area. Indonesian
security forces have overseen the development of a lucrative,
illegal prostitution industry in the Timika area to cater to
these "geographic bachelors." That industry in turn has become a
principal vector for HIV-AIDS which has seen an explosive spread
in West Papua in recent years.
Papuan Government Representatives Demand
Revisions in Freeport Contract
The Papuan daily, the Cendrawasiih Post, reported on March 28
that the Papuan Legislative Assembly (DPRP) has joined the
Papuan People's Council (MRP) in calling for the revision of the
Contract of Work between the Indonesian government and the
U.S.-owned Freeport McMoRan copper and gold mine with a view
toward making its terms more beneficial to the Papuan people.
They also underscored that given the internationally-recognized
human rights concerns posed by Freeport operations, and the
damage done to the environment by those operations, the Freeport
matter transcends national concerns and rightfully warrants
international concern.
The Cendrawasih Post article reported that at a meeting
between Pansus Freeport DPRP (Special Committee on Freeport of
the DPRP) with experts last December it was agreed that the
provincial government should establish a team composed of people
from the provincial government, the DPRP and the MRP. Pansus
Freeport member Waynang Watori, who described this agreement,
elaborated that by setting up a joint team, it would help
mobilize forces to press the central government to pursue the
revision of the contract. Watori added in April the DPRP
Freeport Pansus team contacted U.S. lawyers to seek advice on
how to proceed towards the contract's revision.
