We continue to reflect on Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy with history professor Brad Simpson. Despite presiding over an administration that stood out for its successful championing of human rights elsewhere in the world, “in Southeast Asia, Carter really continued the policies of the Nixon and Ford administration,” particularly in Indonesia, which was at the time occupying and carrying out a…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
Indonesia is the world’s number one producer of nickel, by a large margin. Nickel is an important mineral needed for renewable energy technologies like batteries and solar panels.
In the past decade, the Indonesian government has embarked upon an ambitious industrialization program. Through careful state planning and industrial policy, Jakarta banned the export of raw minerals and, with strategic investments from Chinese state-owned enterprises and favorable loans from Chinese state-owned banks, Indonesia has moved up the value chain, processing nickel at home, instead of simply exporting the ore.
The post BRICS Grows, Adding Indonesia As Member appeared first on PopularResistance.Org.
This post was originally published on PopularResistance.Org.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Paul Gregoire
United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) provisional government interim president Benny Wenda has warned that since Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto took office in October, he has been proven right in having remarked, after the politician’s last February election, that his coming marks the return of “the ghost of Suharto” — the brutal dictator who ruled over the nation for three decades.
Wenda, an exiled West Papuan leader, outlined in a December 16 statement that at that moment the Indonesian forces were carrying out ethnic cleansing in multiple regencies, as thousands of West Papuans were being forced out of their villages and into the bush by soldiers.
The entire regency of Oksop had been emptied, with more than 1200 West Papuans displaced since an escalation began in Nduga regency in 2018.
Prabowo coming to top office has a particular foreboding for the West Papuans, who have been occupied by Indonesia since 1963, as over his military career — which spanned from 1970 to 1998 and saw rise him to the position of general, as well as mainly serve in Kopassus (special forces) — the current president perpetrated multiple alleged atrocities across East Timor and West Papua.
According to Wenda, the incumbent Indonesian president can “never clean the blood from his hands for his crimes as a general in West Papua and East Timor”. He further makes clear that Prabowo’s acts since taking office reveal that he is set on “creating a new regime of brutality” in the country of his birth.
Enhancing the occupation
“Foreign governments should not be fooled by Prabowo’s PR campaign,” Wenda made certain in mid-December.
“He is desperately seeking international legitimacy through his international tour, empty environmental pledges and the amnesty offered to various prisoners, including 18 West Papuans and the remaining imprisoned members of the Bali Nine.”
Former Indonesian President Suharto ruled over the Southeast Asian nation with an iron fist from 1967 until 1998.
In the years prior to his officially taking office, General Suharto oversaw the mass murder of up to 1 million local Communists, he further rigged the 1969 referendum on self-determination for West Papua, so that it failed and he invaded East Timor in 1975.
Wenda maintains that the proof Prabowo is something of an apparition of Suharto is that he has set about forging “mass displacement, increased militarisation” and “increased deforestation” in the Melanesian region of West Papua.
And he has further restarted the transmigration programme of the Suharto days, which involves Indonesians being moved to West Papua to populate the region.
As Wenda advised in 2015, the initial transmigration programme resulted in West Papuans, who made up 96 percent of the population in 1971, only comprising 49 percent of those living in their own homelands at that current time.
Wenda considers the “occupation was entering a new phase”, when former Indonesian president Joko Widodo split the region of West Papua into five provinces in mid-2022.
And the West Papuan leader advises that Prabowo is set to establish separate military commands in each province, which will provide “a new, more thorough and far-reaching system of occupation”.
West Papua was previously split into two regions, which the West Papuan people did not recognise, as these and the current five provinces are actually Indonesian administrative zones.
“By establishing new administrative divisions, Indonesia creates the pretext for new military posts and checkpoints,” Wenda underscores.
“The result is the deployment of thousands more soldiers, curfews, arbitrary arrests and human rights abuses. West Papua is under martial law.”
Ecocide on a formidable scale
Prabowo paid his first official visit to West Papua as President in November, visiting the Merauke district in South Papua province, which is the site of the world’s largest deforestation project, with clearing beginning in mid-2024, and it will eventually comprise of 2 million deforested hectares turned into giant sugarcane plantations, via the destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands.
Five consortiums, including Indonesian and foreign companies, are involved in the project, with the first seedlings having been planted in July. And despite promises that the megaproject would not harm existing forests, these areas are being torn down regardless.
And part of this deforestation includes the razing of forest that had previously been declared protected by the government.
A similar programme was established in Merauke district in 2011, by Widodo’s predecessor President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who established rice and sugarcane plantations in the region, aiming to turn it into a “future breadbasket for Indonesia”.
However, the plan was a failure, and the project was rather used as a cover to establish hazardous palm oil and pulpwood plantations.
“It is not a coincidence Prabowo has announced a new transmigration programme at the same time as their ecocidal deforestation regime intensifies,” Wenda said in a November 2024 statement. “These twin agendas represent the two sides of Indonesian colonialism in West Papua: exploitation and settlement.”
Wenda added that Jakarta is only interested in West Papuan land and resources, and in exchange, Indonesia has killed at least half a million West Papuans since 1963.
And while the occupying nation is funding other projects via the profits it has been making on West Papuan palm oil, gold and natural gas, the West Papuan provinces are the poorest in the Southeast Asian nation.
Independence is still key
The 1962 New York Agreement involved the Netherlands, West Papua’s former colonial rulers, signing over the region to Indonesia. A brief United Nations administrative period was to be followed by Jakarta assuming control of the region on 1 May 1963.
And part of the agreement was that West Papuans undertake the Act of Free Choice, or a 1969 referendum on self-determination.
So, if the West Papuans did not vote to become an autonomous nation, then Indonesian administration would continue.
However, the UN brokered referendum is now referred to as the Act of “No Choice”, as it only involved 1026 West Papuans, handpicked by Indonesia. And under threat of violence, all of these men voted to stick with their colonial oppressors.
Wenda presented The People’s Petition to the UN Human Rights High Commissioner in January 2019, which calls for a new internationally supervised vote on self-determination for the people of West Papua, and it included the signatures of 1.8 million West Papuans, or 70 percent of the Indigenous population.
The exiled West Papuan leader further announced the formation of the West Papua provisional government on 1 December 2020, which involved the establishment of entire departments of government with heads of staff appointed on the ground in the Melanesian province, and Wenda was also named the president of the body.
Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto has recommenced transmigration into West Papua, while embarking on the world’s largest deforestation project. #sydneycriminallawyers #indonesian #westpapuahttps://t.co/gTXg19eT2R
— SydneyCriminalLawyer (@sydcrimlawyers) January 4, 2025
But with the coming of Prabowo and the recent developments in West Papua, it appears the West Papuan struggle is about to intensify at the same time as the movement for independence becomes increasingly more prominent on the global stage.
“Every element of West Papua is being systematically destroyed: our land, our people, our Melanesian culture identity,” Wenda said in November, in response to the recommencement of Indonesia’s transmigration programme and the massive environment devastation in Merauke.
“This is why it is not enough to speak about the Act of No Choice in 1969: the violation of our self-determination is continuous, renewed with every new settlement programme, police crackdown, or ecocidal development.”
Paul Gregoire is a Sydney-based journalist and writer. He is the winner of the 2021 NSW Council for Civil Liberties Award For Excellence In Civil Liberties Journalism. Prior to Sydney Criminal Lawyers®, Paul wrote for VICE and was news editor at Sydney’s City Hub.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
COMMENTARY: By David Robie, editor of Asia Pacific Report
With the door now shut on 2024, many will heave a sigh of relief and hope for better things this year.
Decolonisation issues involving the future of Kanaky New Caledonia and West Papua – and also in the Middle East with controversial United Nations votes by some Pacific nations in the middle of a livestreamed genocide — figured high on the agenda in the past year along with the global climate crisis and inadequate funding rescue packages.
Asia Pacific Report looks at some of the issues and developments during the year that were regarded by critics as betrayals:
1. Fiji and PNG ‘betrayal’ UN votes over Palestine
Just two weeks before Christmas, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to demand an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip under attack from Israel — but three of the isolated nine countries that voted against were Pacific island states, including Papua New Guinea.
The assembly passed a resolution on December 11 demanding an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which was adopted with 158 votes in favour from the 193-member assembly and nine votes against with 13 abstentions.
Of the nine countries voting against, the three Pacific nations that sided with Israel and its relentless backer United States were Nauru, Papua New Guinea and Tonga.
The other countries that voted against were Argentina, Czech Republic, Hungary and Paraguay.
Thirteen abstentions included Fiji, which had previously controversially voted with Israel, Micronesia, and Palau. Supporters of the resolution in the Pacific region included Australia, New Zealand, and Timor-Leste.
Ironically, it was announced a day before the UNGA vote that the United States will spend more than US$864 million (3.5 billion kina) on infrastructure and military training in Papua New Guinea over 10 years under a defence deal signed between the two nations in 2023, according to PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko.
Any connection? Your guess is as good as mine. Certainly it is very revealing how realpolitik is playing out in the region with an “Indo-Pacific buffer” against China.
However, the deal actually originated almost two years earlier, in May 2023, with the size of the package reflecting a growing US security engagement with Pacific island nations as it seeks to counter China’s inroads in the vast ocean region.
Noted BenarNews, a US soft power news service in the region, the planned investment is part of a defence cooperation agreement granting the US military “unimpeded access” to develop and deploy forces from six ports and airports, including Lombrum Naval Base.
Two months before PNG’s vote, the UNGA overwhelmingly passed a resolution demanding that the Israeli government end its occupation of Palestinian territories within 12 months — but half of the 14 countries that voted against were from the Pacific.
Affirming an International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion requested by the UN that deemed the decades-long occupation unlawful, the opposition from seven Pacific nations further marginalised the island region from world opinion against Israel.
Several UN experts and officials warned against Israel becoming a global “pariah” state over its 15 month genocidal war on Gaza.
The final vote tally was 124 member states in favour and 14 against, with 43 nations abstaining. The Pacific countries that voted with Israel and its main ally and arms-supplier United States against the Palestinian resolution were Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Palau, Tonga and Tuvalu.
In February, Fiji faced widespread condemnation after it joined the US as one of the only two countries — branded as the “outliers” — to support Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory in an UNGA vote over an International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion over Israel’s policies in the occupied territories.
Condemning the US and Fiji, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki declared: “Ending Israel’s impunity is a moral, political and legal imperative.”
Fiji’s envoy at the UN, retired Colonel Filipo Tarakinikini, defended the country’s stance, saying the court “fails to take account of the complexity of this dispute, and misrepresents the legal, historical, and political context”.
However, Fiji NGOs condemned the Fiji vote as supporting “settler colonialism” and long-standing Fijian diplomats such as Kaliopate Tavola and Robin Nair said Fiji had crossed the line by breaking with its established foreign policy of “friends-to-all-and-enemies-to-none”.
2. West Papuan self-determination left in limbo
For the past decade, Pacific Island Forum countries have been trying to get a fact-finding human mission deployed to West Papua. But they have encountered zero progress with continuous roadblocks being placed by Jakarta.
This year was no different in spite of the appointment of Fiji and Papua New Guinea’s prime ministers to negotiate such a visit.
Pacific leaders have asked for the UN’s involvement over reported abuses as the Indonesian military continues its battles with West Papuan independence fighters.
A highly critical UN Human Right Committee report on Indonesia released in May highlighted “systematic reports about the use of torture” and “extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of Indigenous Papuan people”.
But the situation is worse now since President Prabowo Subianto, the former general who has a cloud of human rights violations hanging over his head, took office in October.
Fiji’s Sitiveni Rabuka and Papua New Guinea’s James Marape were appointed by the Melanesian Spearhead Group in 2023 as special envoys to push for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights’ visit directly with Indonesia’s president.
Prabowo taking up the top job in Jakarta has filled West Papuan advocates and activists with dread as this is seen as marking a return of “the ghost of Suharto” because of his history of alleged atrocities in West Papua, and also in Timor-Leste before independence.
Already Prabowo’s acts since becoming president with restoring the controversial transmigration policies, reinforcing and intensifying the military occupation, fuelling an aggressive “anti-environment” development strategy, have heralded a new “regime of brutality”.
And Marape and Rabuka, who pledged to exiled indigenous leader Benny Wenda in Suva in February 2023 that he would support the Papuans “because they are Melanesians”, have been accused of failing the West Papuan cause.
3. France rolls back almost four decades of decolonisation progress
When pro-independence protests erupted into violent rioting in Kanaky New Caledonia on May 13, creating havoc and destruction in the capital of Nouméa and across the French Pacific territory with 14 people dead, intransigent French policies were blamed for having betrayed Kanak aspirations for independence.
I was quoted at the time by The New Zealand Herald and RNZ Pacific of blaming France for having “lost the plot” since 2020.
While acknowledging the goodwill and progress that had been made since the 1988 Matignon accords and the Nouméa pact a decade later following the bloody 1980s insurrection, the French government lost the self-determination trajectory after two narrowly defeated independence referendums and a third vote boycotted by Kanaks because of the covid pandemic.
This third vote with less than half the electorate taking part had no credibility, but Paris insisted on bulldozing constitutional electoral changes that would have severely disenfranchised the indigenous vote. More than 36 years of constructive progress had been wiped out.
“It’s really three decades of hard work by a lot of people to build, sort of like a future for Kanaky New Caledonia, which is part of the Pacific rather than part of France,” I was quoted as saying.
France had had three prime ministers since 2020 and none of them seemed to have any “real affinity” for indigenous issues, particularly in the South Pacific, in contrast to some previous leaders.
In the wake of a snap general election in mainland France, when President Emmanuel Macron lost his centrist mandate and is now squeezed between the polarised far right National Rally and the left coalition New Popular Front, the controversial electoral reform was quietly scrapped.
New French Overseas Minister Manual Valls has heralded a new era of negotiation over self-determination. In November, he criticised Macron’s “stubbornness’ in an interview with the French national daily Le Parisien, blaming him for “ruining 36 years of dialogue, of progress”.
But New Caledonia is not the only headache for France while pushing for its own version of an “Indo-Pacific” strategy. Pro-independence French Polynesian President Moetai Brotherson and civil society leaders have called on the UN to bring Paris to negotiations over a timetable for decolonisation.
Kanaks and the Pacific’s pro-decolonisation activists had hoped that an intervention by the Pacific Islands Forum in support of the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) would enhance their self-determination stocks.
However, they were disappointed. And their own internal political divisions have not made things any easier.
On the eve of the three-day fact-finding delegation to the territory in October, Fiji’s Rabuka was already warning the local government (led by pro-independence Louis Mapou to “be reasonable” in its demands from Paris.
In other words, back off on the independence demands. Rabuka was quoted by RNZ Pacific reporter Lydia Lewis as saying, “look, don’t slap the hand that has fed you”.
Rabuka and Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown and then Tongan counterpart Hu’akavameiliku Siaosi Sovaleni visited the French territory not to “interfere” but to “lower the temperature”.
But an Australian proposal for a peacekeeping force under the Australian-backed Pacific Policing Initiative (PPI) fell flat, and the mission was generally considered a failure for Kanak indigenous aspirations.
5. Climate crisis — the real issue and geopolitics
In spite of the geopolitical pressures from countries, such as the US, Australia and France, in the region in the face of growing Chinese influence, the real issue for the Pacific remains climate crisis and what to do about it.
Controversy marked an A$140 million aid pact signed between Australia and Nauru last month in what was being touted as a key example of the geopolitical tightrope being forced on vulnerable Pacific countries.
This agreement offers Nauru direct budgetary support, banking services and assistance with policing and security. The strings attached? Australia has been granted the right to veto any agreement with a third country such as China.
Critics have compared this power of veto to another agreement signed between Australia and Tuvalu in 2023 which provided Australian residency opportunities and support for climate mitigation. However, in return Australia was handed guarantees over security.
The previous month, November, was another disappointment for the Pacific when it was “once again ignored” at the UN COP29 climate summit in the capital Baku of oil and natural gas-rich Azerbaijan.
The Suva-based Pacific Islands Climate Action Network (PICAN) condemned the outcomes as another betrayal, saying that the “richest nations turned their backs on their legal and moral obligations” at what had been billed as the “finance COP”.
The new climate finance pledge of a US$300 billion annual target by 2035 for the global fight against climate change was well short of the requested US$1 trillion in aid.
Climate campaigners and activist groups branded it as a “shameful failure of leadership” that forced Pacific nations to accept the “token pledge” to prevent the negotiations from collapsing.
Much depends on a climate justice breakthrough with Vanuatu’s landmark case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) arguing that those harming the climate are breaking international law.
The case seeks an advisory opinion from the court on the legal responsibilities of countries over the climate crisis, and many nations in support of Vanuatu made oral submissions last month and are now awaiting adjudication.
Given the primacy of climate crisis and vital need for funding for adaptation, mitigation and loss and damage faced by vulnerable Pacific countries, former Pacific Islands Forum Secretary-General Meg Taylor delivered a warning:
“Pacific leaders are being side-lined in major geopolitical decisions affecting their region and they need to start raising their voices for the sake of their citizens.”
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Governor Powes Parkop of Papua New Guinea’s capital Port Moresby has appealed to West Papuans living in his country to carry on the self-determination struggle for future generations and to not lose hope.
Parkop, a staunch supporter of the West Papua cause, reminded Papuans at their Independence Day last Sunday of the struggles of their ancestors, reports Inside PNG.
“PNG will celebrate 50 years of Independence next year but this is only so for half of the island — the other half is still missing, we are losing our land, we are losing our resources.
“If we are not careful, we are going to lose our future too.”
The National Capital District governor was guest speaker for the celebration among Port Moresby residents of West Papuan descent with the theme “Celebrating and preserving our culture through food and the arts”.
About 12,000 West Papuan refugees and exiles live in PNG and Parkop has West Papuan ancestry through his grandparents.
The Independence Day celebration began with everyone participating in the national anthem — “Hai Tanaku Papua” (“My Land, Papua”).
Song and dance
Other activities included song and dance, and a dialogue with the young and older generations to share ideas on a way forward.
Some stalls were also set up selling West Papuan cuisine, arts and crafts.
Governor Parkop said: “We must be proud of our identity, our culture, our land, our heritage and most importantly we have to challenge ourselves, redefine our journey and our future.
“That’s the most important responsibility we have.”’
West Papua was a Dutch colony in the 9th century and by the 1950s the Netherlands began to prepare for withdrawal.
On 1 December 1961, West Papuans held a congress to discuss independence.
The national flag, the Morning Star, was raised for the first time on that day.
Encouraged to keep culture
Governor Parkop described the West Papua cause as “a tragedy”.
This is due to the fact that following the declaration of Independence in 1961, Indonesia laid claim over the island a year later in 1962.
This led to the United Nations-sponsored treaty known as the New York Agreement.
Indonesia was appointed temporary administrator without consultation or the consent of West Papuans.
In 1969 the so-called Act of Free Choice enabled West Papuans to decide their destiny but again only 1026 West Papuans had to make that choice under the barrel of the gun.
To this day, Melanesian West Papua remains under Indonesian rule.
Governor Parkop encouraged the West Papuan people to preserve their culture and heritage and to breakaway from the colonial mindset, colonial laws and ideas that hindered progress to freedom for West Papua.
Republished with permission from Inside PNG.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
An exiled West Papuan leader has called for unity among his people in the face of a renewed “colonial grip” of Indonesia’s new president.
President Prabowo Subianto, who took office last month, “is a deep concern for all West Papuans”, said Benny Wenda of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP).
Speaking at the Oxford Green Fair yesterday — Morning Star flag-raising day — ULMWP’s interim president said Prabowo had already “sent thousands of additional troops to West Papua” and restarted the illegal settlement programme that had marginalised Papuans and made them a minority in their own land.
“He is continuing to destroy our land to create the biggest deforestation project in the history of the world. This network of sugarcane and rice plantations is as big as Wales.
“But we cannot panic. The threat from [President] Prabowo shows that unity and direction is more important than ever.
Indonesia doesn’t fear a divided movement. They do fear the ULMWP, because they know we are the most serious and direct challenge to their colonial grip.”
Here is the text of the speech that Wenda gave while opening the Oxford Green Fair at Oxford Town Hall:
Wenda’s speech
December 1st is the day the West Papuan nation was born.
On this day 63 years ago, the New Guinea Council raised the Morning Star across West Papua for the first time.
We sang our national anthem and announced our Parliament, in a ceremony recognised by Australia, the UK, France, and the Netherlands, our former coloniser. But our new state was quickly stolen from us by Indonesian colonialism.
This day is important to all West Papuans. While we remember all those we have lost in the struggle, we also celebrate our continued resistance to Indonesian colonialism.
On this day in 2020, we announced the formation of the Provisional Government of West Papua. Since then, we have built up our strength on the ground. We now have a constitution, a cabinet, a Green State Vision, and seven executives representing the seven customary regions of West Papua.
Most importantly, we have a people’s mandate. The 2023 ULMWP Congress was first ever democratic election in the history. Over 5000 West Papuans gathered in Jayapura to choose their leaders and take ownership of their movement. This was a huge sacrifice for those on the ground. But it was necessary to show that we are implementing democracy before we have achieved independence.
The outcome of this historic event was the clarification and confirmation of our roadmap by the people. Our three agendas have been endorsed by Congress: full membership of the MSG [Melanesian Spearhead Group], a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visit to West Papua, and a resolution at the UN General Assembly. Through our Congress, we place the West Papuan struggle directly in the hands of the people. Whenever our moment comes, the ULMWP will be ready to seize it.
Differing views
I want to remind the world that internal division is an inevitable part of any revolution. No national struggle has avoided it. In any democratic country or movement, there will be differing views and approaches.
But the ULMWP and our constitution is the only way to achieve our goal of liberation. We are demonstrating to Indonesia that we are not separatists, bending this way and that way: we are a government-in-waiting representing the unified will of our people. Through the provisional government we are reclaiming our sovereignty. And as a government, we are ready to engage with the world. We are ready to engage with Indonesia as full members of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, and we believe we will achieve this crucial goal in 2024.
The importance of unity is also reflected in the ULMWP’s approach to West Papuan history. As enshrined in our constitution, the ULMWP recognises all previous declarations as legitimate and historic moments in our struggle. This does not just include 1961, but also the OPM Independence Declaration 1971, the 14-star declaration of West Melanesia in 1988, the Papuan People’s Congress in 2000, and the Third West Papuan Congress in 2011.
All these announcements represent an absolute rejection of Indonesian colonialism. The spirit of Merdeka is in all of them.
The new Indonesian President, Prabowo Subianto, is a deep concern for all West Papuans. He has already sent thousands of additional troops to West Papua and restarted the illegal settlement programme that has marginalised us and made us a minority in our own land. He is continuing to destroy our land to create the biggest deforestation project in the history of the world. This network of sugarcane and rice plantations is as big as Wales.
But we cannot panic. The threat from Prabowo shows that unity and direction is more important than ever. Indonesia doesn’t fear a divided movement. They do fear the ULMWP, because they know we are the most serious and direct challenge to their colonial grip.
I therefore call on all West Papuans, whether in the cities, the bush, the refugee camps or in exile, to unite behind the ULMWP Provisional Government. We work towards this agenda at every opportunity. We continue to pressure on United Nations and the international community to review the fraudulent ‘Act of No Choice’, and to uphold my people’s legal and moral right to choose our own destiny.
I also call on all our solidarity groups to respect our Congress and our people’s mandate. The democratic right of the people of West Papua needs to be acknowledged.
What does amnesty mean?
Prabowo has also mentioned an amnesty for West Papuan political prisoners. What does this amnesty mean? Does amnesty mean I can return to West Papua and lead the struggle from inside? All West Papuans support independence; all West Papuans want to raise the Morning Star; all West Papuans want to be free from colonial rule.
But pro-independence actions of any kind are illegal in West Papua. If we raise our flag or talk about self-determination, we are beaten, arrested or jailed. The whole world saw what happened to Defianus Kogoya in April. He was tortured, stabbed, and kicked in a barrel full of bloody water. If the offer of amnesty is real, it must involve releasing all West Papuan political prisoners. It must involve allowing us to peacefully struggle for our freedom without the threat of imprisonment.
Despite Prabowo’s election, this has been a year of progress for our struggle. The Pacific Islands Forum reaffirmed their call for a UN Human Rights Visit to West Papua. This is not just our demand – more than 100 nations have now insisted on this important visit. We have built vital new links across the world, including through our ULMWP delegation at the UN General Assembly.
Through the creation of the West Papua People’s Liberation Front (GR-PWP), our struggle on the ground has reached new heights. Thank you and congratulations to the GR-PWP Administration for your work.
Thank you also to the KNPB and the Alliance of Papuan Students, you are vital elements in our fight for self-determination and are acknowledged in our Congress resolutions. You carry the spirit of Merdeka with you.
I invite all solidarity organisations, including Indonesian solidarity, around the world to preserve our unity by respecting our constitution and Congress. To Indonesian settlers living in our ancestral land, please respect our struggle for self-determination. I also ask that all our military wings unite under the constitution and respect the democratic Congress resolutions.
I invite all West Papuans – living in the bush, in exile, in refugee camps, in the cities or villages – to unite behind your constitution. We are stronger together.
Thank you to Vanuatu
A special thank you to Vanuatu government and people, who are our most consistent and strongest supporters. Thank you to Fiji, Kanaky, PNG, Solomon Islands, and to Pacific Islands Forum and MSG for reaffirming your support for a UN visit. Thank you to the International Lawyers for West Papua and the International Parliamentarians for West Papua.
I hope you will continue to support the West Papuan struggle for self-determination. This is a moral obligation for all Pacific people. Thank you to all religious leaders, and particularly the Pacific Council of Churches and the West Papua Council of Churches, for your consistent support and prayers.
Thank you to all the solidarity groups in the Pacific who are tirelessly supporting the campaign, and in Europe, Australia, Africa, and the Caribbean.
I also give thanks to the West Papua Legislative Council, Buchtar Tabuni and Bazoka Logo, to the Judicative Council and to Prime Minister Edison Waromi. Your work to build our capacity on the ground is incredible and essential to all our achievements. You have pushed forwards all our recent milestones, our Congress, our constitution, government, cabinet, and vision.
Together, we are proving to the world and to Indonesia that we are ready to govern our own affairs.
To the people of West Papua, stay strong and determined. Independence is coming. One day soon we will walk our mountains and rivers without fear of Indonesian soldiers. The Morning Star will fly freely alongside other independent countries of the Pacific.
Until then, stay focused and have courage. The struggle is long but we will win. Your ancestors are with you.
Twenty five Pacific civil society organisations and solidarity movements have called on Pacific leaders of their “longstanding responsibility” to West Papua, and to urgently address the “ongoing gross human rights abuses” by Indonesia.
The organisations — including the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC), Fiji Council of Social Services (FCOSS). Pacific Network on Globalisation (PANG), Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) and Vanuatu Human Rights Coalition — issued a statement marking 1 December 2024.
This date commemorates 63 years since the Morning Star flag was first
raised in West Papua to signify the territory’s sovereignty.
The organisations condemned the “false narrative Indonesia has peddled of itself as a morally upright, peace-loving, and benevolent friend of the Melanesian people and of the Pacific”.
Jakarta had “infiltrated our governments and institutional perceptions”.
The statement also said:
Yet Indonesia’s annexation of the territory, military occupation, and violent oppression, gross human rights violations on West Papuans continue to be ignored internationally and unfortunately by most Pacific leaders.
The deepening relations between Pacific states and Jakarta reflect how far the false
narrative Indonesia has peddled of itself as a morally upright, peace-loving, and benevolent
friend of the Melanesian people and of the Pacific, has infiltrated our governments and
institutional perceptions.
The corresponding dilution of our leaders’ voice, individually and collectively, is indicative of political and economic complicity, staining the Pacific’s anti-colonial legacy, and is an attack
on the core values of our regional solidarity.
The Pacific has a legacy of holding colonial powers in our region to account. The Pacific
Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders communiques in 2015, 2017, and 2019 are reflective of this,
deploring the violence and human rights violations in West Papua, calling on Indonesia to
allow independent human rights assessment in the territory, and to address the root causes of conflict through peaceful means.
In 2023, PIF Leaders appointed Fiji and Papua New Guinea (PNG) Prime Ministers, [Sitiveni] Rabuka and [James] Marape respectively to facilitate such constructive engagement with Indonesia.
As PIF envoys, both Prime Ministers visited Indonesia in 2023 on separate occasions, yet
they have failed to address these concerns. Is this to be interpreted as regional political
expediency or economic self-interest?
Today, torture, discrimination, extrajudicial killings, unlawful arrests, and detention of West
Papuans continue to be rife. Approximately 70,000 Papuans remain displaced due to military operations.
Between January and September this year, human rights violations resulted in a total of over 1300 victims across various categories. The most significant violations were arbitrary detention, with 331 victims in 20 cases, and freedom of assembly, which affected at least 388 victims in 21 cases. Other violations included ill-treatment (98 victims), torture (23
victims), and killings (15 victims), along with freedom of expression violations impacting 31
victims.
Additionally, cultural rights violations affected dozens of individuals, while intimidation cases resulted in 15 victims. Disappearances accounted for 2 victims, and right
to health violations impacted dozens.
This surge in human rights abuses highlights a concerning trend, with arbitrary detention and freedom of assembly violations standing out as the most widespread and devastating.
The commemoration of the Morning Star flag-raising this 1st of December is a solemn
reminder of the region’s unfinished duty of care to the West Papuan people and their
struggle for human rights, including the right to self-determination.
Clearly, Pacific leaders, including the Special Envoys, must fulfill their responsibility to a
region of genuine peace and solidarity, and thereby rectify their unconscionable response
thus far.
They must do justice to the 63 years of resilient resistance by the West Papuan
people under violent, even deadly repression.
We call on leaders, especially the Prime Ministers of Fiji and PNG, not to succumb to Indonesia’s chequebook diplomacy and other soft-power overtures now evident in education, the arts, culture, food and agriculture, security, and even health sectors.
We remind our Pacific leaders of their responsibility to 63 years of injustice by Indonesia, and the resilience of the West Papuan people against this oppression to this day.
In solidarity with the people of West Papua, we demand that our leaders:
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
On Papuan Independence Day, the focus is on discussing protests against Indonesia’s transmigration programme, environmental destruction, militarisation, and the struggle for self-determination. Te Aniwaniwa Paterson reports.
By Te Aniwaniwa Paterson of Te Ao Māori News
On 1 December 1961, West Papua’s national flag, known as the Morning Star, was raised for the first time as a declaration of West Papua’s independence from the Netherlands.
Sixty-three years later, West Papua is claimed by and occupied by Indonesia, which has banned the flag, which still carries aspirations for self-determination and liberation.
The flag continues to be raised globally on December 1 each year on what is still called “Papuan Independence Day”.
Region-wide protests
Protests have been building in West Papua since the new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto announced the revival of the Transmigration Programme to West Papua.
This was declared a day after he came to power on October 21 and confirmed fears from West Papuans about Prabowo’s rise to power.
This is because Prabowo is a former general known for a trail of allegations of war crimes and human rights abuses in West Papua and East Timor to his name.
Transmigration’s role
The transmigration programme began before Indonesia gained independence from the Dutch colonial government, intended to reduce “overcrowding” in Java and to provide a workforce for plantations in Sumatra.
After independence ended and under Indonesian rule, the programme expanded and in 1969 transmigration to West Papua was started.
This was also the year of the controversial “Act of Free Choice” where a small group of Papuans were coerced by Indonesia into a unanimous vote against their independence.
In 2001 the state-backed transmigration programme ended but, by then, over three-quarters of a million Indonesians had been relocated to West Papua. Although the official transmigration stopped, migration of Indonesians continued via agriculture and development projects.
Indonesia has also said transmigration helps with cultural exchange to unite the West Papuans so they are one nation — “Indonesian”.
West Papuan human rights activist Rosa Moiwend said in the 1980s that Indonesians used the language of “humanising West Papuans” through erasing their indigenous identity.
“It’s a racist kind of thing because they think West Papuans were not fully human,” Moiwend said.
Pathway to environmental destruction
Papuans believe this was to dilute the Indigenous Melanesian population, and to secure the control of their natural resources, to conduct mining, oil and gas extraction and deforestation.
This is because in the past the transmigration programme was tied to agricultural settlements where, following the deforestation of conservation forests, Indonesian migrants worked on agricultural projects such as rice fields and palm oil plantations.
Octo Mote is the vice-president of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP). Earlier this year Te Ao Māori News interviewed Mote on the “ecocide and genocide” and the history of how Indonesia gained power over West Papua.
The ecology in West Papua was being damaged by mining, deforestation, and oil and gas extraction, he said. Mote said Indonesia wanted to “wipe them from the land and control their natural resources”.
He emphasised that defending West Papua meant defending the world, because New Guinea had the third-largest rainforest after the Amazon and Congo and was crucial for climate change mitigation as they sequester and store carbon.
Concerns grow over militarisation
Moiwend said the other concern right now was the National Strategic Project which developed projects to focus on Indonesian self-sufficiency in food and energy.
Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) started in 2011, so isn’t a new project, but it has failed to deliver many times and was described by Global Atlas of Environmental Justice as a “textbook land grab”.
The mega-project includes the deforestation of a million hectares for rice fields and an additional 600,000 hectares for sugar cane plantations that will be used to make bioethanol.
The project is managed by the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Agriculture, and the private company, Jhonlin Group, owned by Haji Andi Syamsuddin Arsyad. Ironically, given the project has been promoted to address climate issues, Arsyad is a coal magnate, a primary industry responsible for man-made climate change.
Recently, the Indonesian government announced the deployment of five military battalions to the project site.
Conservation news website Mongabay reported that the villages in the project site had a population of 3000 people whereas a battalion consisted of usually 1000 soldiers, which meant there would be more soldiers than locals and the villagers said it felt as if their home would be turned into a “war zone”.
Merauke is where Moiwend’s village is and many of her cousins and family are protesting and, although there haven’t been any incidents yet, with increased militarisation she feared for the lives of her family as the Indonesian military had killed civilians in the past.
Destruction of spiritual ancestors
The destruction of the environment was also the killing of their dema (spiritual ancestors), she said.
The dema represented and protected different components of nature, with a dema for fish, the sago palm, and the coconut tree.
Traditionally when planting taro, kumara or yam, they chanted and sang for the dema of those plants to ensure an abundant harvest.
Moiwend said they connected to their identity through calling on the name of the dema that was their totem.
She said her totem was the coconut and when she needed healing she would find a coconut tree, drink coconut water, and call to the dema for help.
There were places where the dema lived that humans were not meant to enter but many sacred forests had been deforested.
She said the Indonesians had destroyed their food sources, their connection to their spirituality as well destroying their humanity.
“Anim Ha means the great human being,” she said, “to become a great human being you have to have a certain quality of life, and one quality of life is the connection to your dema, your spiritual realm.”
Te Aniwaniwa Paterson is a digital producer for Te Ao Māori News. Republished with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
A large raucous protest put criticism of Canada’s most damaging international accord back on the public radar.
In response to the opening of North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 70th anniversary Parliamentary Assembly in Montreal 1,500 protested Friday to “Block NATO”. The main banner at the front of the night march stated: “Block NATO: Reject Militarism, Imperialism & Colonialism”. For weeks my neighbourhood was plastered with posters saying “Bloquons L’OTAN”. The Convergence des Luttes anti-capitaliste (CLAC) also produced a sticker with that message and a 16-page anti-NATO paper.
The image at the centre of their material was a boot stepping on NATO. That image, CLAC’s militant history, starting the march at night and a large student strike led to a raucous march. Some protesters probably intended to break windows at the convention centre hosting the NATO meeting. The police initially blamed protesters for setting fires in two cars but it appears tear gas canisters fired by the police were responsible. They must have fired many canisters as I tasted tear gas two blocks away from where the conflict escalated. Beyond the chemical irritants ingested by protesters and passersby, the police injured a handful of protesters.
While I’ve generally been opposed or ambivalent towards property destruction at demonstrations, Friday’s window breaking drew significant attention to a message rarely heard in recent years. A Radio Canada headline after the night march read “Une manifestation pour le retrait du Canada de l’OTAN dégénère à Montréal” (A demonstration calling for Canada’s withdrawal from NATO degenerates in Montreal) while La Presse noted, “Une manifestation contre l’OTAN dérape au centre-ville de Montréal” (Anti-NATO demonstration goes off the rails in downtown Montreal). The Associated Press, Reuters, Aljazeera and other international media reported on the protests.
The Mouvement québécois pour la paix’s march planned for the next day received significant coverage. About 150 marched against the NATO Parliamentary Assembly on Saturday with a L’actualité headline noting “Une autre manifestation contre l’OTAN a eu lieu samedi” (Another demonstration against NATO took place on Saturday) and Global News stating, “Anti-NATO protesters in Montreal demand Canada withdraws from alliance”. The Globe and Mail, New York Post and many other outlets published stories about the NATO Assembly with photographs of banners or placards criticizing NATO.
On Sunday multiple media showed up to the counter summit organized by the Canada Wide Peace and Justice Network. Radio Canada’s flagship Téléjournal covered it with their blurb stating, “Demonstrations in opposition to NATO were numerous this weekend on the sidelines of its annual summit in Montreal. Several groups believe the Atlantic Alliance harms global security instead of strengthening it and urge Canada to leave NATO.”
The media attention is important. Despite the alliance being mentioned regularly, there’s almost no hint of criticism of NATO in the dominant media.
The scale and militancy of the protests was due to the fact they coincided with a major student strike for Palestine. Over 40 associations representing 85,000 students across Quebec voted to strike on Thursday and Friday to call on their institutions to end all relations with Israel. Many condemned NATO assistance for Israel and an Israeli delegation led by genocidal Likud Knesset member Boaz Bismuth at the Parliamentary Assembly. Israel has a longstanding partnership with the alliance.
Student strikers targeting NATO is an indication that the popular uprising against Israel’s genocide may be broadening its outlook towards challenging Canadian foreign policy and imperialism. Canada’s support for Israeli violence makes a mockery of Ottawa’s claims to advance human rights or international law. Is it believable that genocide Justin and Joe truly care about Ukrainian sovereignty or people?
One needn’t support Russian militarism to be troubled by NATO’s escalation. Providing logistical and intelligence support for Ukraine to fire NATO missiles deep into Russia is dangerous brinkmanship.
NATO is a belligerent alliance pushing Canada to increase its military spending. This weekend’s protests may not have “blocked NATO” but they definitely thrust opposition to the alliance into the spotlight.
The post Media Finally Reports that Many Canadians Oppose NATO first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Introduction The Asia-Pacific region presents some of the world’s most diverse and challenging terrains—from Indonesia’s sprawling archipelagos and Southeast Asia’s dense jungles to the Himalayas’ rugged peaks and Australia’s arid deserts. Maintaining reliable and secure communications across such remote landscapes has always been a formidable challenge. Spectra Group’s SlingShot™, a groundbreaking satellite radio communications system, […]
The post Empowering Communications Across Asia-Pacific’s Challenging Landscapes appeared first on Asian Military Review.
This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.
Two uncontacted Hongana Manyawa men warn bulldozer operators to stay off their territory. Multiple similar videos prove unequivocally the presence of uncontacted Hongana Manyawa people in and around the nickel mining areas. ©Anon
A new report by Survival International has revealed that demand for electric vehicles is destroying uncontacted people’s lives and lands in Indonesia.
The report, published today, reveals:
Following intense lobbying from Survival International, German chemical giant BASF pulled out in June from a $2.6 billion dollar project with Eramet to process nickel from Halmahera.
In recent months, as the miners pushed ever-deeper into Hongana Manyawa territory, a series of videos went viral, showing uncontacted Hongana Manyawa people resisting bulldozers operating on their territory, or being forced out of the forest into mining camps.
Uncontacted Hongana Manyawa appear at a Weda Bay Nickel mining camp. The uncontacted Hongana Manyawa are becoming effectively forced to beg for food from the same companies destroying their rainforest home. ©Survival
Survival International’s Director Caroline Pearce said today: “It’s obscene that a nickel rush to fuel supposedly sustainable consumption is in fact on the verge of wiping out the uncontacted Indigenous Hongana Manyawa, who truly live sustainably.
“Survival International is calling for the urgent, immediate recognition and demarcation of their territory, an end to mining on their land and the establishment of a ‘no-go zone’ – the only way to ensure the survival of the uncontacted Hongana Manyawa people.
“It’s also vital that electric vehicle manufacturers publicly commit to ensuring that their supply chains are entirely free of materials stolen from the territories of uncontacted Indigenous peoples, or from companies operating on (or sourcing from) the territories of uncontacted peoples, including the Hongana Manyawa.”
The post Demand for EVs Drives Destruction of Uncontacted People first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Indonesia has officially asked Russia if it could buy more of its weapons, Russian media reported, signaling what an analyst said was an aim to diversify its sources of arms while retaining its non-aligned status.
Vladimir Bulavin, head of the Russian Federation Council Committee on Defense and Security, who is also a senator, was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying that Indonesia’s request for weapons and military equipment from Russia over the 2025-2030 period was “under review.”
The official did not disclose details of the request but Indonesian security analyst Khairul Fahmi said Jakarta “is likely to focus on less politically sensitive purchases, such as armored vehicles and short-range defense systems, while deferring high-profile acquisitions like fighter jets or advanced missile systems to minimize geopolitical fallout.”
Indonesia began receiving arms and military equipment from the Soviet Union in the late 1950s but relations between the two countries cooled during the Cold War.
According to Bulavin, Indonesia’s arms acquisition resumed in the 2000s, marked by significant contracts, including the delivery of Su-27 and Su-30 fighters and BMP-3F armored vehicles.
The first arms delivery from Moscow to Jakarta was in 1958, of 100 GAZ-69 military cross-country vehicles.
From 1992 to 2018, Russia delivered weapons worth more than US$2.5 billion to Indonesia. They included BTR-80A armored personnel carriers and BMP-3F infantry fighting vehicles, 100th series Kalashnikov assault rifles, Su-27SK and Su-27SKM, Su-30MK and Su-30MK2 planes, Mi-35 and Mi-17 helicopters, and other weapon systems and military hardware, according to Alexander Mikheyev, CEO of the state arms exporter Rosoboronexport.
Indonesia reportedly wanted to buy 10 Su-35 multirole fighters to replace outdated U.S. F-5 Tiger aircraft that had been in operation with its air force since 1980 but it is unclear whether there has been any progress on the purchase.
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‘Cost-effective solution’
Fahmi, co-founder of the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies, told BenarNews, an affiliate of Radio Free Asia, that Indonesia’s decision to procure military equipment from Russia reflected a strategic effort to diversify its defense procurement while maintaining a non-aligned foreign policy.
Fahmi pointed to practical and strategic factors driving the purchase, noting that Russia’s military technology was known for its reliability and affordability compared with Western alternatives.
“Russia offers a cost-effective solution that allows Indonesia to maximize its defense budget. Additionally, their flexible payment terms, including commodity barter deals involving palm oil and rubber, make these acquisitions more feasible,” he said.
The analyst dismissed suggestions that deepening defense ties with Russia signal a shift in Indonesia’s foreign policy.
“Indonesia’s non-aligned stance remains firm. Partnerships with Russia or any other nation are driven purely by strategic needs and are not indicative of bloc alignment,” he said.
Indonesia’s military modernization priorities include fighter jets, submarines, air defense systems, and attack helicopters but it is believed to be seeking other suppliers for big-ticket items.
Yet the Russia-Indonesia military ties seem likely to grow, especially in the maritime domain. This month, the two countries conducted their first joint naval exercises, titled “Orruda-2024,” in Surabaya.
Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this report.
Edited by Mike Firn.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by RFA and BenarNews Staff.
This post was originally published on Radio Free.
By Duncan Graham
An alleged plot involving firearms and threatening the life of New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens when held hostage in Papua this year is being investigated by the Australian Federal Police.
The case involves “advancing a political cause by the separation of West Papua from Indonesia . . . with the intention of coercing by intimidation the governments of New Zealand and Indonesia”.
Named in the AFP search warrant seen by MWM is research scholar Julian King, 63, who has studied and written extensively about West Papuan affairs.
He has told others his home in Coffs Harbour, Queensland, was raided violently earlier this month by police using a stun grenade and smashing a door.
During the search, the police seized phones, computers and documents about alleged contacts with the West Papua rebel group Organisasi Papua Merdeka, OPM (Free Papua Organisation) and a bid to seek weapons and ammunition.
However, no arrests are understood to have been made or charges laid.
King, a former geologist and now a PhD student at Wollongong University, has been studying Papuan reaction to the Indonesian takeover since 1963. He has written in a research paper titled “A soul divided: The UN’s misconduct over West Papua” that West Papuans:
‘live under a military dictatorship described by legal scholars and human rights advocates as systemic terror and alleged genocide.’
Also named in the warrant alongside King is Amatus Dounemee Douw, confirmed by MWM contacts to be Australian citizen Akouboo Amatus Douw, who chairs the West Papua Diplomatic and Foreign Affairs Council, an NGO that states it seeks to settle disputes peacefully.
Risk to Australia-Indonesia relations
The allegations threaten to fragment relations between Indonesia and Australia.
It is widely believed that human rights activists and church organisations are helping Papuan dissidents despite Canberra’s regular insistence that it officially backs Jakarta.
Earlier this year, Deputy PM Richard Marles publicly stressed: “We, Australia, fully recognise Indonesia’s territorial sovereignty. We do not endorse any independence movement.”
In August, Douw alleged Indonesian troops shot Kiwi Glen Conning on August 5 in Central Papua. The government version claims that the pilot was killed by “an armed criminal group” after landing his helicopter, ferrying local people who fled unharmed.
When seized by armed OPM pro-independence fighters in February last year, Mehrtens was flying a light plane for an Indonesian transport company.
He was released unharmed in September after being held for 593 days by the West Papua National Liberation Army (Tentara Pembebasan Nasional Papua Barat – TPNPB), the military wing of the OPM.
AFP is investigating alleged firearms plot which threatened the life of New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens when held hostage in West Papua this year #auspol https://t.co/8ZXFIB1fre
—
Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) November 18, 2024
Designated ‘terrorist’ group, journalists banned
OPM is designated as a terrorist organisation in Indonesia but isn’t on the Australian list of proscribed groups. Jakarta bans foreign journalists from Papua, so little impartial information is reported.
After Mehrtens was freed, TPNPB spokesman Sebby Sambom alleged that a local politician had paid a bribe, a charge denied by the NZ government.
However, West Papua Action Aotearoa spokesperson Catherine Delahunty told Radio NZ the bribe was “an internal political situation that has nothing to do with our government’s negotiations.”
Sambom, who has spent time in Indonesian jails for taking part in demonstrations, now operates out of adjacent Papua New Guinea — a separate independent country.
Australia was largely absent from the talks to free Mehrtens that were handled by NZ diplomats and the Indonesian military. The AFP’s current involvement raises the worry that information garnered under the search warrants will show the Indonesian government where the Kiwi was hidden so that locations can be attacked from the air.
At one stage during his captivity, Mehrtens appealed to the Indonesian military not to bomb villages.
It is believed Mehrtens was held in Nduga, a district with the lowest development index in the Republic, a measure of how citizens can access education, health, and income. Yet Papua is the richest province in the archipelago — the Grasberg mine is the world’s biggest deposit of gold and copper.
OPM was founded in December 1963 as a spiritual movement rejecting development while blending traditional and Christian beliefs. It then started working with international human rights agencies for support.
Indigenous Papuans are mainly Christian, while almost 90 percent of Indonesians follow Islam.
Chief independence lobbyist Benny Wenda lives in exile in Oxford. In 2003 he was given political asylum by the UK government after fleeing from an Indonesian jail. He has addressed the UN and European and British Parliaments, but Jakarta has so far resisted international pressure to allow any form of self-determination.
Questions for new President Prabowo
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto is in the UK this week, where Papuans have been drumming up opposition to the official visit. In a statement, Wenda said:
‘Prabowo has also restarted the transmigration settlement programme that has made us a minority in our own land.’
“For West Papuans, the ghost of (second president) Suharto has returned — (his) New Order regime still exists, it has just changed its clothes.”
Pleas for recognition of Papuan’s concerns get minimal backing in Indonesia; fears of balkanisation and Western nations taking over a splintered country are well entrenched in the 17,000-island archipelago of 1300 ethnic groups where “unity” is considered the Republic’s foundation stone.
Duncan Graham has a Walkley Award, two Human Rights Commission awards and other prizes for his radio, TV and print journalism in Australia. He now lives in Indonesia. He has been an occasional contributor to Asia Pacific Report and this article was first published by Michael West Media.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Stephen Wright for Radio Free Asia
Indonesia’s plan to convert over 2 million ha of conservation and indigenous lands into agriculture will cause long-term damage to the environment, create conflict and add to greenhouse gas emissions, according to a feasibility study document for the Papua region mega-project.
The 96-page presentation reviewed by Radio Free Asia was drawn up by Sucofindo, the Indonesian government’s inspection and land surveying company.
Dated July 4, it analyses the risks and benefits of the sugar cane and rice estate in Merauke regency on Indonesia’s border with Papua New Guinea and outlines a feasibility study that was to have been completed by mid-August.
Though replete with warnings that “comprehensive” environmental impact assessments should take place before any land is cleared, the feasibility process appears to have been a box-ticking exercise. Sucofindo did not respond to questions from RFA, a news service affiliated with BenarNews, about the document.
Even before the study was completed, then-President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo participated in a ceremony in Merauke on July 23 that marked the first sugar cane planting on land cleared of forest for the food estate, the government said in a statement.
Jokowi’s decade-long presidency ended last month.
Excavators destroy villages
In late July, dozens of excavators shipped by boat were unloaded in the Ilyawab district of Merauke where they destroyed villages and cleared forests and wetlands for rice fields, according to a report by civil society organisation Pusaka
Hipolitus Wangge, an Indonesian politics researcher at Australian National University, told RFA the feasibility study document does not provide new information about the agricultural plans.
But it makes it clear, he said, that in government there is “no specific response on how the state deals with indigenous concerns” and their consequences.
The plan to convert as much as 2.3 million ha of forest, wetland and savannah into rice farms, sugarcane plantations and related infrastructure in the conflict-prone Papua region is part of the government’s ambitions to achieve food and energy self-sufficiency.
Previous efforts in the nation of 270 million people have fallen short of expectations.
Echoing government and military statements, Sucofindo said increasingly extreme climate change and the risk of international conflict are reasons why Indonesia should reduce reliance on food imports.
Taken together, the sugarcane and rice projects represent at least a fifth of a 10,000 square km lowland area known as the TransFly that spans Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and which conservationists say is an already under-threat conservation treasure.
Military leading role
Indonesia’s military has a leading role in the 1.9 million ha rice plan while the government has courted investors for the sugar cane and related bioethanol projects.
The likelihood of conflict with indigenous Papuans or of significant and long-term environmental damage applies in about 80 percent of the area targeted for development, according to Sucofindo’s analysis.
The project’s “issues and challenges,” Sucofindo said, include “deforestation and biodiversity loss, destruction of flora and fauna habitats and loss of species”.
It warns of long-term land degradation and erosion as well as water pollution and reduced water availability during the dry season caused by deforestation.
Sucofindo said indigenous communities in Merauke rely on forests for livelihoods and land conversion will threaten their cultural survival. It repeatedly warns of the risk of conflict, which it says could stem from evictions and relocation.
“Evictions have the potential to destabilize social and economic conditions,” Sucofindo said in its presentation.
If the entire area planned for development is cleared, it would add about 392 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere in net terms, according to Sucofindo.
That is about equal to half of the additional carbon emitted by Indonesia’s fire catastrophe in 2015 when hundreds of thousands of acres of peatlands drained for pulpwood and oil palm plantations burned for months.
Indonesia’s contribution to emissions that raise the average global temperature is significantly worsened by a combination of peatland fires and deforestation. Carbon stored in its globally important tropical forests is released when cut down for palm oil, pulpwood and other plantations.
In a speech last week to the annual United Nations climate conference COP29, Indonesia’s climate envoy, a brother of recently inaugurated president Prabowo Subianto, said the new administration has a long-term goal to restore forests to 31.3 million acres severely degraded by fires in 2015 and earlier massive burnings in the 1980s and 1990s.
Indonesia’s government has made the same promise in previous years including in its official progress report on its national contribution to achieving the Paris Agreement goal of keeping the rise in average global temperature to below 2 degrees Celsius.
“President Prabowo has approved in principle a program of massive reforestation to these 12.7 million hectares in a biodiverse manner,” envoy Hashim Djojohadikusumo said during the livestreamed speech from Baku, Azerbaijan.
“We will soon embark on this programme.”
Prabowo’s government has announced plans to encourage outsiders to migrate to Merauke and other parts of Indonesia’s easternmost region, state media reported this month.
Critics said such large-scale movements of people would further marginalise indigenous Papuans in their own lands and exacerbate conflict that has simmered since Indonesia took control of the region in the late 1960s.
Republished from BenarNews with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
A West Papuan advocacy group for self-determination for the colonised Melanesians has appealed to the United Kingdom government to cancel its planned reception for new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.
“Prabowo is a blood-stained war criminal who is complicit in genocide in East Timor and West Papua,” claimed an exiled leader of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), Benny Wenda.
He said he hoped the government would stand up for human rights and a “habitable planet” by cancelling its reception for Prabowo.
Prabowo, who was inaugurated last month, is on a 12-day trip to China, the United States, Peru, Brazil, and the United Kingdom.
He is due in the UK on Monday, November 19.
The trip comes as Indonesian security forces brutally suppressed a protest against Indonesia’s new transmigration strategy in the Papuan region.
Wenda, an interim president of ULMWP, said Indonesia was sending thousands of industrial excavators to destroy 5 million hectares of Papuan forest along wiith thousands of troops to violently suppress any resistance.
“Prabowo has also restarted the transmigration settlement programme that has made us a minority in our own land. He wants to destroy West Papua,” the UK-based Wenda said in a statement.
‘Ghost of Suharto’ returns
“For West Papuans, the ghost of Suharto has returned — the New Order regime still exists, it has just changed its clothes.
“It is gravely disappointing that the UK government has signed a ‘critical minerals’ deal with Indonesia, which will likely cover West Papua’s nickel reserves in Tabi and Raja Ampat.
“The UK must understand that there can be no real ‘green deal’ with Indonesia while they are destroying the third largest rainforest on earth.”
Wenda said he was glad to see five members of the House of Lords — Lords Harries, Purvis, Gold, Lexden, and Baroness Bennett — hold the government to account on the issues of self-determination, ecocide, and a long-delayed UN fact-finding visit.
“We need this kind of scrutiny from our parliamentary supporters more than ever now,” he said.
Prabowo is due to visit Oxford Library as part of his diplomatic visit.
“Why Oxford? The answer is clearly because the peaceful Free West Papua Campaign is based here; because the Town Hall flies our national flag every December 1st; and because I have been given Freedom of the City, along with other independence leaders like Nelson Mandela,” Wenda said.
This visit was not an isolated incident, he said. A recent cultural promotion had been held in Oxford Town Centre, addressed by the Indonesian ambassador in an Oxford United scarf.
The people of West Papua have spoken.
Just today (15/11/24), rallies against Indonesia’s settler-colonial Transmigration plan were held in:
Jayapura, Nabire, Sorong, Manokwari, Yahukimo, Yalimo, Timika, Makassar. pic.twitter.com/u0ucw8RfUW
— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) November 15, 2024
Takeover of Oxford United
“There was the takeover of Oxford United by Anindya Bakrie, one of Indonesia’s richest men, and Erick Thohir, an Indonesian government minister.
“This is not about business — it is a targeted campaign to undermine West Papua’s international connections. The Indonesian Embassy has sponsored the Cowley Road Carnival and attempted to ban displays of the Morning Star, our national flag.
“They have called a bomb threat in on our office and lobbied to have my Freedom of the City award revoked. Indonesia is using every dirty trick they have in order to destroy my connection with this city.”
Wenda said Indonesia was a poor country, and he blamed the fact that West Papua was its poorest province on six decades of colonialism.
“There are giant slums in Jakarta, with homeless people sleeping under bridges. So why are they pouring money into Oxford, one of the wealthiest cities in Europe?” Wenda said.
“The UK has been my home ever since I escaped an Indonesian prison in the early 2000s. My family and I have been welcomed here, and it will continue to be our home until my country is free and we can return to West Papua.”
15/11/24 Jayapura, West Papua
Another angle showing that the rally against Transmigration was peaceful, but the police forcibly dispersed it.
This violates domestic and international laws. pic.twitter.com/Tm5f4d0VrU
— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) November 15, 2024
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
An exiled West Papuan leader has called on supporters globally to show their support by raising the Morning Star flag — banned by Indonesia — on December 1.
“Whether in your house, your workplace, the beach, the mountains or anywhere else, please raise our flag and send us a picture,” said United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) interim president Benny Wenda.
“By doing so, you give West Papuans strength and courage and show us we are not alone.”
The plea came in response to a dramatic step-up in military reinforcements for the Melanesian region by new President Prabowo Subianto, who was inaugurated last month, in an apparent signal for a new crackdown on colonised Papuans.
January 1 almost 63 years ago was when the Morning Star flag of independence was flown for the first time in the former Dutch colony. However, Indonesia took over in a so-called “Act of Free Choice” that has been widely condemned as a sham.
“The situation in occupied West Papua is on a knife edge,” said the UK-based Wenda in a statement on the ULMWP website.
He added that President Prabowo had announced the return of a “genocidal transmigration settlement policy”.
Indigenous people a minority
“From the 1970s, transmigration brought hundreds of thousands of Javanese settlers into West Papua, ultimately making the Indigenous people a minority in our own land,” Wenda said.
“At the same time, Prabowo [is sending] thousands of soldiers to Merauke to safeguard the destruction of our ancestral forest for a set of gigantic ecocidal developments.
“Five million hectares of Papuan forest are set to be ripped down for sugarcane and rice plantations.
“West Papuans are resisting Prabowo’s plan to wipe us out, but we need all our supporters to stand beside us as we battle this terrifying new threat.”
The Morning Star is illegal in West Papua and frequently protesters who have breached this law have faced heavy jail sentences.
“If we raise [the flag], paint it on our faces, draw it on a banner, or even wear its colours on a bracelet, we can face up to 15 or 20 years in prison.
“This is why we need people to fly the flag for us. As ever, we will be proudly flying the Morning Star above Oxford Town Hall. But we want to see our supporters hold flag raisings everywhere — on every continent.
‘Inhabiting our struggle’
“Whenever you raise the flag, you are inhabiting the spirit of our struggle.”
Wenda appealed to everyone in West Papua — “whether you are in the cities, the villages, or living as a refugee or fighter in the bush” — to make December 1 a day of prayer and reflection on the struggle.
“We remember our ancestors and those who have been killed by the Indonesian coloniser, and strengthen our resolve to carry on fighting for Merdeka — our independence.”
Wenda said the peaceful struggle was making “great strides forward” with a constitution, a cabinet operating on the ground, and a provisional government with a people’s mandate.
“We know that one day soon the Morning Star will fly freely in our West Papuan homeland,” he said.
“But for now, West Papuans risk arrest and imprisonment if we wave our national flag. We need our supporters around the world to fly it for us, as we look forward to a Free West Papua.”
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Indonesia’s regional elections, scheduled for 27 November, bear all the signs of a worsening democratic backsliding at the hands of “toxic alliances”. These alliances—an unnatural coalition between opposing political forces—have become a defining feature of Indonesia’s recent political landscape at the expense of genuine democratic representation.
A key example is Jakarta’s gubernatorial race, a contest that reflects a new power structure: a quasi-opposition PDI-P ticket led by Pramono Anung and Rano Karno, versus a dominant coalition ticket of Ridwan Kamil and Suswono backed by 12 pro-government parties—effectively representing the Prabowo administration’s interests—and independent candidates Dharma Pongrekun and Kun Wardana.
The outcome of the nomination process demonstrates how the party alliance President Prabowo Subianto has inherited from Jokowi, successfully sidelined former governor and presidential candidate Anies Baswedan, who had been widely seen as the most popular would-be candidate in Jakarta’s gubernatorial contest. Now, here we are: the current slate of candidates reflects the victory of a dominant alliance over potential opposition figures, with the race now dominated by elements either aligned with (or, in PDI-P’s case, not openly antagonistic to) the ruling coalition.
The political mood at the national level is favourable for toxic alliances. Not long after officially took office, Prabowo Subianto’s presidency reflects the further entrenchment of problematic “unity”: the formation of Indonesia’s largest-ever cabinet, comprising 48 ministers and 136 total officials, demonstrates how the problematic unity has manifested in concrete institutional arrangements. Further, the retention of 17 ministers from Jokowi’s administration also reflected Prabowo’s practical commitment to rhetoric of “continuity”—in reality, a continuity of a bloated coalition.
In the case of Jakarta, we can clearly see how quickly the toxic alliance in place at the national level mobilised to prevent potential opposition figures from gaining strategic regional positions. After he challenged Jokowi’s preferred ticket of Prabowo Subianto and Gibran Rakabuming Raka in the February 2024 presidential election, and maintaining a critical stance towards government policies and Jokowi’s dynasticism, Anies emerged as the frontrunner in the Jakarta race. But despite his high electability, no party—including PDI-P, which had run outside the government camp in the February presidential polls—nominated him for either Jakarta or West Java. The extent of this interference was suggested when PDI-P’s West Java chairman publicly attributed Anies’s failed nomination to sabotage by “Mulyono and the gang” —a reference to Jokowi’s birth name.
While Nasdem and PKB, both members of former president Jokowi’s government, joined with the opposition PKS to back Anies’ 2024 presidential bid, these allegiances proved remarkably fragile in the face of opportunistic alliance-building after Anies’ defeat by Prabowo. The first sign of this deterioration came when Anies’ own running mate, PKB chairman Muhaimin Iskandar, publicly embraced Prabowo immediately after the February voting—a dramatic reversal following their heated public debates.
Media reports have detailed how continuous lobbying between the Widodo–Prabowo regime and the parties, which included both inducements and pressure, aimed at making them join the majority alliance under the president. One by one PKS, and Nasdem retracted their support for Anies’ Jakarta candidacy, and turned to endorse Ridwan Kamil as proposed by the Widodo–Prabowo coalition. PKB, which never have officially declared their intention to nominate Anies, also eventually joined to support Ridwan.
The Anies saga also revealed another significant development on the opposition side: how PDI-P as the only remaining potential opposition party has been systematically weakened by the pressures of toxic alliance-building. Reports from Tempo revealed the internal dynamics of PDI-P: its officials mostly wanted to nominate Anies, but were also afraid of the threat of legal cases against party figures as well as legislative revisions that would undermine PDI-P’s position in future parliament in the case of its nomination of Anies in Jakarta.
But even with all of these opportunistic moves played by all parties, the Jakarta gubernatorial race will be a test of whether the toxic alliance model that proved so successful in Prabowo’s presidential victory can maintain its effectiveness at the regional level. While Ridwan Kamil, backed by the 12-party pro-government coalition, appears to be the frontrunner, the contest against PDI-P’s candidate Pramono Anung—a former party secretary-general whom PDI-P nominated in lieu of Anies—may not follow the same decisive pattern seen in the February presidential election.
Unlike the national contest, where the alliance successfully marginalised opposition through systematic pressure and the mobilisation of state largesse (including the alleged deployment of state resources and village head networks), Jakarta’s more concentrated urban electorate and PDI-P’s traditional strength in the capital could prove more resistant to such mechanisms. The race thus serves as a crucial measure of whether the national level alliance, exhibiting as it does Dan Slater’s concept of “promiscuous powersharing”, can translate its national-level dominance into regional victory when faced with a strong challenger from PDI-P—a party that exists somewhat ambiguously both within and outside the governing coalition’s orbit. The outcome may reveal whether the toxic alliance requires adjustment for success at the regional level, where voter dynamics and political machinery operate on a more localised scale.
The toxic alliances developed post-2019 between Jokowi and Prabowo has incited an entirely new landscape of Indonesian politics with extremely minimal opposition. Prabowo, who rivalled Jokowi in 2014 and 2019 election, joined the government and secured incumbent’s blessing towards his manoeuvre to pair hand-in-hand with Jokowi’s eldest son Gibran.
An article published in the Journal of Democracy by Duncan McCargo and I highlighted toxic alliances as the trending phenomenon in Southeast Asia, featuring unnatural unity to create a win–win scenario. These alliances involve political elites who seem to have opposing values and brands, secretly making deals that either precede or follow elections. In some cases, these alliances are announced before elections, leading to a coalition that dominates the polls. In other cases, voters are deceived into believing they are choosing between genuine alternatives, only to discover afterward that the election was effectively rigged by behind-the-scenes agreements. The latter is what we saw on the surface in the toxic unity between the “improbable bedfellows”, Jokowi and Prabowo, in 2019, when Prabowo’s authoritarian brand joined with the democratic Jokowi. But the former is what is happening now, with the majority of political parties committed to joining under a big-tent coalition. Their exclusionary agenda aims to bypass the major party (PDI-P) while also alienating voters who are frustrated due to the extremely limited selection of representative figures available to vote for.
And with Anies’ case, does the systematic effort to block such an influential opposition figure demonstrate both the reach and the limitations of how toxic alliances work? As I confidently recall, this is the very first time since the fall of the authoritarian New Order that the regime is totally concerned and fears one single person, acting against him with constant attacks and sabotage. This may be rooted in Anies’s victory over Jokowi’s endorsed candidate in the 2017 Jakarta gubernatorial election, backed by conservative Islamic forces operating under the banner of the 212 movement, which left Jokowi facing a severe, if momentary, political crisis.
Following this, Anies publicly opposed much of Jokowi’s national agenda, even speculating about some initiatives being discontinued if Anies won the presidential election, potentially threatening Jokowi’s legacy and his family’s political future. Anies, like Jokowi, represents an “outsider” figure relatively free from party ties, raising concerns that he could grow to wield extensive influence “above” parties and contest whichever future leader was endorsed by Jokowi.
Despite representing the political opposition in nowadays situation, Anies is, all in all, a politician. He has made compromises and even miscalculated, when he abandoned his promise to Demokrat party to run with him as vice president and instead chose PKB in presidential election in a move Demokrat perceived as treacherous.
Prabowo’s win was made possible by his enduring strongman appeal and a playing field tipped in his favour by Jokowi.
Despite his own history of opportunistic political manoeuvres, Anies’s political journey reveals a crucial insight about challenging toxic alliances in Indonesian politics. His ability to maintain significant grassroots support, particularly among youth, and to continue generating organic mass appeal demonstrates how influential figures with genuine popular backing can pose meaningful challenges to the established power structure, even in the face of systematic exclusion. The intensity of efforts to block his political path—from his 2024 presidential candidacy to the upcoming regional elections—underscores this threat. Nevertheless, Anies’s eventual political isolation, followed by PDI-P’s recent declaration of support for the Prabowo–Gibran administration, leaves Southeast Asia’s largest democracy in an awkward position—without any significant opposition force.
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On the other hand, the Jakarta gubernatorial race ultimately stands as a microcosm of Indonesia’s new political reality under toxic alliances. The race between PDI-P’s candidates and the pro-government coalition’s ticket, with independent candidates on the periphery, represents an artificially constrained competition where the primary goal—the exclusion of Anies—has already been achieved through coordinated governing-party manoeuvres.
The fact that diverse political forces could unite in their determination to prevent Anies’s candidacy, despite his high electability and strong youth support, reveals how deeply entrenched these unnatural coalitions have become in Indonesian politics. Jakarta’s election thus becomes not just another regional contest, but a testament to how thoroughly toxic alliances can transform democratic competition into a carefully choreographed exercise where the real battle, the exclusion of genuine opposition, happens long before voters reach the polls.
The post Against Indonesia’s toxic alliances appeared first on New Mandala.
This post was originally published on New Mandala.
In the days following his inauguration on 20 October, President Prabowo Subianto moved quickly to appoint a total of 136 coordinating ministers, ministers and their deputies, agency chiefs and their deputies, and special envoy/advisor posts. With 48 of these being ministerial or ministerial-equivalent positions, no New Order or post-reformasi cabinet has had more members than what Prabowo has dubbed his “Red and White” cabinet.
What also stands out is that the cabinet also includes the largest-ever number of individuals with military and police backgrounds. These retirees, called purnawirawan in Bahasa Indonesia, now fill a number of strategic positions in Prabowo’s cabinet. A dataset of cabinet appointments we have compiled turns up at least 23 purnawirawan and one active military officer — many of them with army backgrounds (see Figure 1).
Figure 1: Red and White Cabinet Members with Military / Police Background
Dataset compiled by authors from various news sources
In particular Prabowo has appointed die-hard loyalists with backgrounds in the army’s special forces unit, Kopassus (Komando Pasukan Khusus). A number of key appointments went to ex-Kopassus troops with close links to the new president. Prabowo has established a new development-related agency called Development Oversight and Special Investigation (Badan Pengendalian Pembangunan dan Investigasi Khusus or BPPIK). As its name suggests, this ministerial-level agency aims to monitor and evaluate the implementation of development programs and to ensure transparency as well accountability for use of state budget fund. Prabowo appointed Aries Marsudiyanto, a former Kopassus officer and the leader of Prabowo’s presidential campaign team in West Java, to head BBPIK.
The new foreign minister Sugiono has meanwhile long been known as a protege of Prabowo. Though he managed to join Kopassus, Sugiono’s military career was relatively short as he resigned with the rank of first lieutenant. Minister of Defence Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin is another case in point: he has been a close friend of Prabowo since both of them served as Kopassus officers. Sjafrie was once the military adjutant of Suharto and held a prestigious post as the commander of Jakarta’s military area command (Kodam Jaya) during the tumultuous times in 1997–1998. In 2010–2014, Sjafrie was deputy minister of defence, and during Prabowo’s tenure as defence minister (2019–2024) he served on Prabowo’s ministerial special staff with responsibility for defence management. The newly appointed head of the National Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Negara or BIN) Muhammad Herindra is also an ex-Kopassus officer, having an extensive professional experience in the intelligence services and as a former deputy minister of defence.
This is not the first time that ex-Kopassus personnel have held strategic posts in the executive: during the presidencies of Joko Widodo and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, ex-Kopassus officers were appointed to various ministerial positions. Nevertheless, we would argue that the fact that the bulk of ex-army appointments in Prabowo’s cabinet — 9 out of 16 — have Kopassus backgrounds, many with personal links to the president, signifies Prabowo’s prioritisation of political stability and power consolidation.
How will Prabowo make use of this corps of ex-military figures in his government? One possible way to answer the question is to look at how the Indonesian military perceives its role beyond defence affairs. Despite the mandate to “return to the barracks” following as part of the post-1998 democratising reforms, in reality we still see the creeping expansion of a military role beyond defence affairs.
Former president Joko Widodo infamously signed a dozen memoranda of understanding with TNI to boost the progress of his various economic and infrastructure projects, and it appears likely that there will be a similar convergence of Prabowo’s pursuit of his ambitious projects and the military’s interests in expanding its role as an agent of developmentalism.
During his 2024 presidential campaign, Prabowo outlined his intention to provide free lunch for Indonesian children in what experts said was an ambitious program that could consume much of the state budget. Furthermore, the free lunch programme — now branded as “free nutritious food for children” — is not the only mega project in Prabowo’s list of priorities, which also include “food resilience (ketahanan pangan)”, achieved through food self-sufficiency (swasembada pangan).
The National Nutrition Agency (Badan Gizi Nasional) has highlighted the need for the involvement of various parts of the government, including the military, to implement the free meal and food resilience programmes. The government will reportedly mobilise the military’s extensive territorial command structure to organise and distribute the food packages to schools: the military’s role will not stop at the implementation level, but also in policy decisions through the inclusion of retired military officers in the structural organisation of the National Nutrition Agency. Those purnawirawan are said to have experience and leadership to undertake such difficult tasks, implying that military operations and health services are two sides of the same coin.
The inclusion of so many purnawirawan in Prabowo’s cabinet and the key role military-linked figures are set to play in delivering his key programs speaks to the persistence of the kekaryaan (service) concept. An element of the broader doctrine of military dwifungsi (dual function)which during the New Order recognised the Indonesian military as both a defence tool and a crucial part of the nation’s socio-economic development, kekaryaan underpinned the practice of secondment of serving military officers to civilian institutions.
The reality that kekaryaan has never completely faded from the military’s thinking dovetails with the more practical political ambitions that are driving officers’ engagement with politics. As our previous studies on the political activities retired military officers in Indonesia have shown, protection of personal interests and attempt to extend their skills are key drivers for them to join politics.
The outgoing president transformed the relationship between government and civil society in his decade in power
For Prabowo, the inclusion of retired military officers into his cabinet also has practical political benefits. Prabowo’s giving out numerous key positions to ex-military loyalists is likely a hedge against the preponderance of the political parties’ leaders and elites that he has to accommodate in the cabinet. Despite his Gerindra party officials’ promises that the president would set up a “zaken cabinet” of experts, more than half of the cabinet is made up of figures linked to the 12 political parties supporting Prabowo’s administration. Under Prabowo the military looks set to be a powerful ally of the president — and a counterbalance to the influence of political parties, as was seen under Jokowi, who sought military support when he faced political turmoil throughout his presidency.
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But while the incorporation of retired military officers can be a quick win strategy for Prabowo, both in terms of governance results and political stability, overreliance on the military is also a hazard. The co-optation of the military into Prabowo’s developmentalist agenda could weaken civilian capability in the long term and increase the politicisation of the military which may jeopardise the defence capability of the armed forces.
As former high ranking officers’ influence over military or police institutions rarely wane following their retirement, there is a likelihood of further mobilisation of TNI (as well as police) structures and resources to support the government’s ambitious development programs, which are beyond the security institutions’ expertise and operational scope. Thus, this situation might distract the core focus of the military and police and put a question on their readiness to do their “real” jobs.
The post A most militarised cabinet appeared first on New Mandala.
This post was originally published on New Mandala.
On 12 November 1994, a group of 29 young Timorese men gathered to protest outside the US embassy in Jakarta. They were there to make sure the world did not forget what happened at the Santa Cruz cemetery in Dili on the same day three years earlier: a massacre of more than 250 Timorese civilians by Indonesian troops.
As the Indonesian police arrived on the scene, the protestors jumped the fence seeking sanctuary from their batons. This act turned a fleeting protest into 12-day long occupation of the embassy’s parking lot. While world leaders, including US president Bill Clinton, were set to meet for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Bogor, these members of the clandestine Timorese resistance pulled off a diplomatic coup by focusing international attention not just on the Indonesian economic miracle but also on the unfinished business of its illegal occupation of East Timor.
On 12 November last year I was in Dili, where at night residents lit the footpaths and streets with candles remembering the people killed in the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre. It is a day of symbolism and reverence in Timor-Leste: a day of tragedy, but also arguably a turning point in the resistance and the international struggle for recognition and independence. My first reporting on the country as a young journalist started after the massacre, which is now memorialised as a pivotal event in the narrative of Timor-Leste at the Timorese Resistance and Archive Museum. On the day I visited the museum its halls were mostly quiet. I was the only visitor, giving the place feel of a shrine. In the exhibit on Santa Cruz, the eerie soundtrack of wailing sirens from Max Stahl’s footage, which immortalised the day of the massacre, the only sound.
The museum also has a larger-than-life art installation remembering the “storming” of the US embassy in Jakarta, which creatively immortalises in the moment the protestors broke into the embassy to bring the world’s attention to the violence of Indonesian occupation in the wake of Santa Cruz. It gives the individual act of each of the fence jumpers significance in the broader arc of the resistance. One super-sized man hurdles the fence. “East Timorese youth storm the US embassy in Jakarta and demand the release of Timorese prisoners,” reads the caption.
But why is this the only text in the exhibit on what was one of many embassy invasions, protests, and asylum bids over many years? Entering embassies in Jakarta was a tool and tactic of the clandestine movement used frequently, involving hundreds of people. But in the museum, this is the sole mention. Each single jump was a personal and political act, responding to and often escaping from the repression Indonesian rule, which between 1976 and 1999 administered Timor Timur—East Timor—as its 27th province. Foreign correspondents called them “break-ins” as they were illegal acts and unlawful entries onto protected diplomatic premises. But they served different purposes as protests, escape routes, and ways to raise voices of Timorese in international negotiations over the region’s future.
As an accredited foreign correspondent in Jakarta between 1994 and 1998, I saw and reported on many of these break-ins. So many, in fact, the French ambassador once accused me of being part of the clandestine movement. My personal archive from those days holds many of these reports but not records of all these incidents. Over the years, I have been adding documents on my cloud drives. I have told stories over Portuguese wine that never made the wire. It was while recounting these tales last year in Dili that a Timorese friend urged me to write more of them down before we all forgot them. By doing so, I hope to distinguish art from history and fact from recollection and add to what is publicly known about this part of Timor-Leste’s struggle for independence.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
In November 1994 I was new to the beat, and late to the US embassy protest. Less than six weeks on the job as an Agence France Presse (AFP) correspondent, I did not have good sources. While reporting the news from East Timor was a central part of my job, the clandestine movement were not in my contact book, and none of its operatives knew my name. I was only there at all because on the day Timorese activists had decided that our rival Reuters should not have an exclusive. More publicity was good for the cause.
On this Saturday morning, leaders from RENETIL, the Timor-Leste Students’ National Resistance, delegated one of their number to anonymously tip off AFP and the BBC, co-located in a bungalow on Jalan Indramayu. The embassy was 10 minutes away in a three-wheeled orange Bajaj taxi. I arrived without a photographer or camera as the police moved in. Thinking on their feet, initially the 28 protestors scrambled over the fence to evade arrest. “It was not our intention to enter the embassy grounds at all,” RENETIL leader Domingos Alves said in an interview with TAPOL Bulletin.
However, after the police intercepted a large group of Timorese traveling from other parts of Java by train, Alves, who was the group’s spokesman, told TAPOL the protestors lost their element of surprise. Many of them were on their first trip to Jakarta and had no idea the train trip would end with a flight to Portugal. Research by Edie Bowles, who is writing a history of the Timorese resistance, has found only Alves and one other RENETIL leader discussed jumping the fence and seeking asylum ahead of time, and only as a response to rapid police action. The protestors arrived at the embassy with journalists and the police waiting for them. Suddenly, the RENETIL leaders put their Plan B into action.
Once in the embassy, with APEC to start within days, the protestors had the spotlight, a platform, and a captive audience of international journalists in town for Suharto’s party. For ten days they held court, with Alves briefing us three times a day with demands to meet President Clinton and free East Timor. The occupation of the US embassy was a mentioned in every news story as the “leader of the free world” came and went.
Source: Tapol Bulletin No. 130 August 1995
But once APEC passed, so did the world’s attention. The Timorese initially told us they did not want asylum, but after embarrassing Suharto it was a safer choice than being handed over to the police. Delegates from International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) in Jakarta negotiated safe passage for the original 28, and one more protestor who had audaciously jumped in later. I watched and filed on my Nokia brick phone as the ICRC bussed them to Jakarta’s airport and onwards to “repatriation” to Portugal, a country none of them had visited, but which regarded all Timorese born before 1983 as being its citizens.
In its lengthy history of the conflict, the Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation (CAVR), Chega!, has two paragraphs on the embassy break-ins, writing that Timorese students turned many foreign embassies in Jakarta into fortresses as they jumped fences to seek asylum. The protest at the US embassy was a “stunning public relations success organized by RENETIL.” The Chega! findings are based testimony of RENETIL members, including Virgilio Gutteres, Avelino Coelho, Naldo Rei, and Mariano Sabino Lopes, the current deputy prime minister. It said the break-ins were a well-coordinated strategy that the student group executed in in coordination with Xanana Gusmão, with whom they had direct and regular access during his detention at Jakarta’s Cipinang prison. The report only mentions three actual incidents: the US embassy break-in, a November 1995 asylum claim at the French embassy, and December 1995 protests at the Russian and Dutch embassies. The CAVR did not tally the numbers of those who entered the embassies either seeking asylum or to protest.
It is an understated reference to a movement that involved hundreds of people over more than a decade. From TAPOL Bulletins archived online by Victoria University and my own reporting, I know asylum bids were unsuccessfully made at least four occasions before events at the US embassy. The first bid I found was from October 1986 when four students, released from detention, sought asylum in the Netherlands embassy, which in those days represented Portugal’s diplomatic interests in Indonesia. TAPOL reported that the asylum bid was unsuccessful, writing the Timorese were “tricked” into leaving after being promised Portuguese passports later. In June 1989, TAPOL recorded another attempt by six Timorese students on the run to seek refuge in the Japanese, Swedish, and Vatican embassies was “callously” rebuffed. The first successful asylum bid was when on 23 June 1993 four Timorese entered the Finnish and three the Swedish embassy. The ICRC quietly arranged travel documents for the seven to travel to Portugal on 29 December that year after on “humanitarian grounds.”
After the November 1994 US embassy sit-in, the next known incident was on 25 September 1995, when five men identified as having survived the Santa Cruz massacre entered the British embassy in Central Jakarta. After five days, the ICRC flew them to Portugal. In quick succession, on 7 November eight entered the Netherlands embassy, then on 14 November, as APEC leaders were meeting in Japan, 21 jumped the Japanese embassy fence on Jalan Thamrin. Five others from this group, jumped the French embassy fence across the road on 16 November. With practice, it became a well-oiled machine: a pre-dawn break-in could lead to an evening KLM flight.
A new archival find suggests that Japanese occupation was more devastating than previously thought
Days later, on 7 December 1995—the 20th anniversary of Indonesian invasion of East Timor—arge groups of Timorese and Indonesian activists jumped into the embassies of Russia and the Netherlands as a protest and not an asylum bid. Shouting “Free Xanana Gusmão”, 58 activists entered the Dutch embassy in Kuningan; on Jalan Thamrin, 47 jumped the low fence at the old Russian embassy, next to the Japanese and across the road from the French missions. I reported that police blocked 19 protestors who had tried to enter the French embassy at the same time.
With their point made and reported, police escorted the protestors off the premises of the Dutch and Russian embassies within two or three days, interrogated and then released them. Once again, RENETIL activists armed only with banners and their own quick wits and collaborating with Indonesian counterparts, including from the People’s Democratic Party (PRD), were reminding the world of the Suharto regime’s repression, and the ongoing occupation of East Timor.
In 1996, asylum bids continued. On 12 January, five young men entered the New Zealand embassy, and two women entered the Australian embassy seeking asylum. The ICRC quickly organised their passage to Portugal with three days. On 18 March, as Timorese leaders gathered to meet for an UN-sponsored dialogue in Austria, two young men sought refuge in each of the Polish and French embassies. Around this time, I recall that still others went into the Spanish embassy on Jalan Wahid Hasyim behind the Sarinah department store—I recently met one of those men in a Dili restaurant, but cannot find records of ever having reported this 1996 incident.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
The waves of asylum bids and the ease with which Timorese could enter embassies was a growing concern of the Jakarta diplomatic community. They began by hardening their buildings, extending fences, adding razor wire, and allowing local security guards to be more aggressive in their responses. On 16 April 1996, local guards beat and expelled ten Timorese asylum seekers who entered the German embassy in front of a Reuters TV crew. After the ICRC intervened, the young men went to Portugal.
On 16 October 1996 I got an early morning pager message from my clandestine contact “Ran”, who I now know as Timorese journalist Naldo Rei. Either using this way, or a message on my answering machine, he would alert me a break-in was imminent hours before it was set to take place. By this time, we had a routine: Naldo would tell me where and when an asylum bid would take place, and I would show up and report it.
On this day, I remember walking from my apartment on Jalan Kebon Sirih to the French embassy on Jalan Thamrin. We all knew the drill. Using my point and shoot Nikon that I always carried on my hip, I photographed the three men with their banner and their ID cards (KTPs) to prove the bona fides as Timorese. Tape recorder in hand, I asked them why they were there. “We are seeking political asylum in Portugal. We feel that our homeland has been taken over by the Indonesian military,” one of the men, who identified himself as Sabino D’Arujo, 26, told me. “In East Timor we are always chased by the troops of the Suharto regime,” said a second man, named as Alberto Da Silva, 23. I reported the third man as Anatolio Francesco Arujo, 21.
After recording their words, I walked back to the Reuters bureau on Jalan Merdeka Selatan. It was early, so I filed the story to the London desk and before going for a morning swim at a nearby hotel. I arrived at the bureau for the regular day around 8am to the news from the Hong Kong desk that our rivals at AFP were reporting that the French embassy had ejected three “Javanese thieves”. We quickly developed the film from that morning’s break-in and put on the wire pictures of three “thieves” holding a Free East Timor flag. It was embarrassing for my former AFP colleagues, who had accepted the embassy’s “official” version of events. The ICRC head of delegation was livid and publicly chastised the French. I understood that days later these three men were all on their way to Portugal through other embassies with the ICRC’s help.
Reuters regarded each break-in as an international diplomatic incident worth reporting. Under directions from my bureau chief Ian Mackenzie, I was to cover them all. I would get up in the dark to confirm the break-in with my own eyes and put it on the wire. Years later Naldo would explain our source–reporter relationship in this way: “you cared, you kept on showing up, so we kept on calling you.” While we did not always report it, if we could speak with asylum seekers, we did take down the names and photograph their ID cards. When contacted, we shared them with human rights groups tracking these incidents.
The French ambassador was suspicious of how I was always there and told a meeting of his EU colleagues that I was a member of the clandestine movement organising the break-ins. After the UK embassy told us about this, my boss complained, and the French envoy withdrew his claim. I was under orders: report every one of them. For my stories on East Timor, senior officials in the Indonesian information and foreign ministries twice threatened me with expulsion. Once again, when called by my boss, they explained away the threat as a “misunderstanding.” As a partner of the national news agency Antara, Reuters’ business news service was a cash cow for the State Secretariat that they were reluctant to upset, and this gave us some protection to report uncomfortable truths about Indonesia under Suharto.
If we did not receive tips, and embassies did not talk, we could not report a break-in. This means it was hard to understand how many bids were unsuccessful. I have breadcrumbs in my reporting of references to Timorese asylum seekers being ejected from the Hungarian, Dutch, and Swiss embassies by security guards throughout October 1996, but no separate reports. The Timorese were a nuisance, and embassies did not want to show sympathy or solidarity for their cause. I do not have access to Reuters database and cannot find all my stories, including the one of the expulsions of Timorese by the head of the Palestine Liberation Organization from his Menteng office and residence. However, I still remember his words: “I told them if they try again, I will shoot them.” It was no idle threat, as we knew he was armed. “I thought they were Mossad agents,” I recall him saying.
On 25 March 1997, 33 Timorese students broke into the Austrian embassy while UN envoy Jamsheed Marker was in Jakarta to talk to the government about East Timor. The students demanded to meet Marker, and after a small delegation were able to deliver a petition, they all left. The last asylum bid I have records of took place on 19 September 1997. After Timorese bomb makers in Central Java had an accident, they blew the cover on the Black Brigade, a small unit engaged in buying ammunition and other supplies for the resistance lead by Avelino Coelho da Silva. Together with his wife and three children, Coelho and Nuno Saldanha evaded capture and made it to Jakarta and to sanctuary in the Austrian embassy. This was Coelho’s second attempt at asylum, as he had been in the unsuccessful June 1986 group. The modus operandi that had worked so well with ICRC was over. This time Indonesian authorities stood firm as the security forces wanted these “terrorists.” Authorities refused to allow them to leave for Portugal. This underground railway had come to the end of the line.
My reporting is incomplete and TAPOL, which based in London and relied on our stories, has few other reports on asylum bids in 1996 and 1997. Around this time, my contact Naldo left to study in Australia and the tips abruptly stopped coming. The political and economic plates in Indonesia were shifting after the New Order apparatchiks orchestrated an internal party coup to destabilise Megawati Sukarnoputri and her opposition PDI. The regime used the PRD as scapegoats for the Jakarta riots of July 1996. They underlined the fragility of Suharto’s rule, even after Golkar easily won the May 1997 elections, setting up another term in office for the former general. In August 1997, Bank Indonesia floated the rupiah, and krismon—the Asian Financial Crisis—was underway. The story was now the how and when of Suharto’s demise, which came in May 1998 after widespread rioting. Amid the chaos and news overload, the Timorese in the Austrian embassy quietly left, probably with the ICRC’s help, when we were not paying attention.
The ICRC was always modest and diplomatic about their role in helping Timorese asylum seekers. They played a much bigger role than I knew at the time. As research for this piece, I reviewed two decades of ICRC annual reports and the organisation’s data is neither consistent nor complete. A January 1994 press release, for example, records the six asylum seekers they facilitated leaving in December 1993 after almost six months in the Swedish and Finnish embassies, but it is not mentioned in the 1993 annual report.
The ICRC’s 1994 Annual Report notes the role its Jakarta delegation played in resolving the US embassy incident by facilitating the departure of the 29 protestors to Portugal and how it had an ongoing role in following the cases of Timorese in Jakarta, “including those who had been prevented from joining the group in the United States embassy compound.” In 1995, after “the Timorese sought asylum in the embassies of France, Japan, the Netherlands and Russia. They were all subsequently transferred to Portugal under ICRC auspices”, but it does not say how many left. The following year the delegation “organized the transfer to Portugal of 189 East Timorese (former civil servants in the Portuguese colonial administration and hardship cases) who had sought asylum in foreign embassies” but does not say from which missions they came. In 1997, the ICRC said it “organized the transfer to Portugal of 38 East Timorese” followed by another 34 in in 1998.
By 1999, the asylum bids had stopped as ICRC’s delegations in Jakarta focused the mediating the violence ahead of the August independence referendum in East Timor and delivering humanitarian aid after the crisis it triggered and during the transition to UN administration. While I was aware of 122 Timorese they helped to leave Jakarta embassies, their stated figures of 296 repatriations to Portugal are more almost two and a half times of what I knew of as a reporter.
• • • • • • • • • • • •
30 years later, not all of them came back. But when in Dili I still bump into those who jumped the Jakarta embassy fences and the clandestine members who organised it. I never heard again of the three “Javanese thieves” in the French Embassy. I hope they are middle aged men with families now, as I am. When I worked in the office of the UN Transitional Administrator, I would sit across from Coelho, a member of the National Consultative Council and head of the Timorese Socialist Party (PST). Whenever I visited his office, he always had a copy of Das Kapital within reach.
Once, at a US embassy reception, I ran into the RENETIL leader and US embassy sit-in spokesman Alves, when he was then a foreign affairs advisor to the Timor-Leste president. In a historic irony, in 2014 Alves was appointed as Dili’s ambassador to Washington, D.C. Arsenio Bano, who was also in the US embassy in November 1994, became a FRETILIN minister for social solidarity, and I worked within him as he led Timor-Leste NGO Forum, an umbrella organisation for civil society. Last year I had coffee with him on his last day as the President of the Special Administrative Region of Oé-Cusse Ambeno (RAEOA).
When Rei and I were recently going to eat in Dili, we ran into one asylum seeker who was then an ambassador to ASEAN country. Gutteres, the tipster who told me of the US embassy protest, is the Ombudsman for Human Rights and Justice. Gil outed himself to me years ago, but when I last saw him in Dili, we had time for a coffee, a chat, and even a Zoom call with my wife. It was not just the few hurried words over the phone in Jakarta on the morning of 12 November 1994.
The post Break-ins and breaking news: the Timorese fence-jumpers of Jakarta appeared first on New Mandala.
This post was originally published on New Mandala.
By Victor Mambor in Jayapura
Just one day after President Prabowo Subianto’s inauguration, a minister announced plans to resume the transmigration programme in eastern Indonesia, particularly in Papua, saying it was needed for enhancing unity and providing locals with welfare.
Transmigration is the process of moving people from densely populated regions to less densely populated ones in Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s most populous country with 285 million people.
The ministry intends to revitalise 10 zones in Papua, potentially using local relocation rather than bringing in outsiders.
The programme will resume after it was officially paused in Papua 23 years ago.
“We want Papua to be fully united as part of Indonesia in terms of welfare, national unity and beyond,” Muhammad Iftitah Sulaiman Suryanagara, the Minister of Transmigration, said during a handover ceremony on October 21.
Iftitah promised strict evaluations focusing on community welfare rather than on relocation numbers. Despite the minister’s promises, the plan drew an outcry from indigenous Papuans who cited social and economic concerns.
Papua, a remote and resource-rich region, has long been a flashpoint for conflict, with its people enduring decades of military abuse and human rights violations under Indonesian rule.
Human rights abuses
Prabowo, a former army general, was accused of human rights abuses in his military career, including in East Timor (Timor-Leste) during a pro-independence insurgency against Jakarta rule.
Simon Balagaize, a young Papuan leader from Merauke, highlighted the negative impacts of transmigration efforts in Papua under dictator Suharto’s New Order during the 1960s.
“Customary land was taken, forests were cut down, and the indigenous Malind people now speak Javanese better than their native language,” he told BenarNews.
The Papuan Church Council stressed that locals desperately needed services, but could do without more transmigration.
“Papuans need education, health services and welfare – not transmigration that only further marginalises landowners,” Reverend Dorman Wandikbo, a member of the council, told BenarNews.
Transmigration into Papua has sparked protests over concerns about reduced job opportunities for indigenous people, along with broader political and economic impacts.
Apei Tarami, who joined a recent demonstration in South Sorong, Southwest Papua province, warned of consequences, stating that “this policy affects both political and economic aspects of Papua.”
We firmly reject Indonesia’s new transmigration policy to relocate Indonesians to West Papua, along with the world’s biggest deforestation project in Merauke, as it threatens the survival of West Papuans.
ULMWP International Spokesperson, Raki Ap.
Full: https://t.co/rM08vQu32C pic.twitter.com/5EVSgzbnpq
— Free West Papua Campaign (Nederland) (@FreeWestPapuaNL) November 4, 2024
Human rights ignored
Meanwhile, human rights advocate Theo Hasegem criticised the government’s plans, arguing that human rights issues are ignored and non-Papuans could be endangered because pro-independence groups often target newcomers.
“Do the president and vice-president guarantee the safety of those relocated from Java,” Hasegem told BenarNews.
The programme, which dates to 1905, has continued through various administrations under the guise of promoting development and unity.
Indonesia’s policy resumed post-independence on December 12, 1950, under President Sukarno, who sought to foster prosperity and equitable development.
It also aimed to promote social unity by relocating citizens across regions.
Transmigration involving 78,000 families occurred in Papua from 1964 to 1999, according to statistics from the Papua provincial government. That would equal between 312,000 and 390,000 people settling in Papua from other parts of the country, assuming the average Indonesian family has 4 to 5 people.
The programme paused in 2001 after a Special Autonomy Law required regional regulations to be followed.
Legality questioned
Papuan legislator John N.R. Gobay questioned the role of Papua’s six new autonomous regional governments in the transmigration process. He cited Article 61 of the law, which mandates that transmigration proceed only with gubernatorial consent and regulatory backing.
Without these clear regional regulations, he warned, transmigration lacks a strong legal foundation and could conflict with special autonomy rules.
He also pointed to a 2008 Papuan regulation stating that transmigration should proceed only after the Indigenous Papuan population reaches 20 million. In 2023, the population across six provinces of Papua was about 6.25 million, according to Indonesia’s Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS).
Gobay suggested prioritising local transmigration to better support indigenous development in their own region.
‘Entrenched inequality’
British MP Alex Sobel, chair of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua, expressed concern over the programme, noting its role in drastic demographic shifts and structural discrimination in education, land rights and employment.
“Transmigration has entrenched inequality rather than promoting prosperity,” Sobel told BenarNews, adding that it had contributed to Papua remaining Indonesia’s poorest regions.
Pramono Suharjono, a resident of Arso II in Keerom, Papua, welcomed the idea of restarting the programme, viewing it as positive for the region’s growth.
“This supports national development, not colonisation,” he told BenarNews.
A former transmigrant who has served as a local representative, Pramono said transmigration had increased local knowledge in agriculture, craftsmanship and trade.
However, research has shown that longstanding social issues, including tensions from cultural differences, have marginalised indigenous Papuans and fostered resentment toward non-locals, said La Pona, a lecturer at Cenderawasih University.
Papua also faces a humanitarian crisis because of conflicts between Indonesian forces and pro-independence groups. United Nations data shows between 60,000 and 100,000 Papuans were displaced between and 2022.
As of September 2024, human rights advocates estimate 79,000 Papuans remain displaced even as Indonesia denies UN officials access to the region.
Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this report. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Andreas Harsono in Jakarta
In December 2008, I visited the Abepura prison in Jayapura, West Papua, to verify a report sent to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture alleging abuses inside the jailhouse, as well as shortages of food and water.
After prison guards checked my bag, I passed through a metal detector into the prison hall, joining the Sunday service with about 30 prisoners. A man sat near me. He had a thick beard and wore a small Morning Star flag on his chest.
The flag, a symbol of independence for West Papua, is banned by the Indonesian authorities, so I was a little surprised to see it worn inside the prison.
He politely introduced himself, “Filep Karma.”
I immediately recognised him. Karma was arrested in 2004 after giving a speech on West Papua nationalism, and had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for “treason”.
When I asked him about torture victims in the prison, he introduced me to some other prisoners, so I could verify the allegations.
It was the beginning of my many interviews with Karma. And I began to understand what made him such a courageous leader.
Born in 1959 in Jayapura, Karma was raised in an elite, educated family.
Student-led protests
In 1998, when Karma returned after studying from the Asian Institute of Management in Manila, he found Indonesia engulfed in student-led protests against the authoritarian rule of President Suharto.
On 2 July 1998, he led a ceremony to peacefully raise the Morning Star flag on Biak Island. It prompted a deadly attack by the Indonesian military that the authorities said killed at least eight Papuans, but Papuans recovered 32 bodies. Karma was arrested and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
Karma gradually emerged as a leader who campaigned peacefully but tirelessly on behalf of the rights of Indigenous Papuans. He also worked as a civil servant, training new government employees.
He was invariably straightforward and precise. He provided detailed data, including names, dates, and actions about torture and other mistreatment at Abepura prison.
Human Rights Watch published these investigations in June 2009. It had quite an impact, prompting media pressure that forced the Ministry of Law and Human Rights to investigate the allegations.
In August 2009, Karma became seriously ill and was hospitalised at the Dok Dua hospital. The doctors examined him several times, and finally, in October, recommended that he be sent for surgery that could only be done in Jakarta.
But bureaucracy, either deliberately or through incompetence, kept delaying his treatment. “I used to be a bureaucrat myself,” Karma said. “But I have never experienced such [use of] red tape on a sick man.”
Health crowdfunding
His health problems, however, drew public attention. Papuan activists started collecting money to pay for the airfare and surgery in Jakarta. I helped write a crowdfunding proposal. People deposited the donations directly into his bank account.
I was surprised when I found out that the total donation, including from some churches, had almost reached IDR1 billion (US$700,000). It was enough to also pay for his mother, Eklefina Noriwari, an uncle, a cousin and an assistant to travel with him. They rented a guest house near the hospital.
Some wondered why he travelled with such a large entourage. The answer is that Indigenous Papuans distrust the Indonesian government. Many of their political leaders had mysteriously died while receiving medical treatment in Jakarta. They wanted to ensure that Filep Karma was safe.
When he was admitted to Cikini hospital, the ward had a small security cordon. I saw many Indonesian security people, including four prison guards, guarding his room, but also church delegates, visiting him.
Papuan students, mostly waiting in the inner yard, said they wanted to make sure, “Our leader is okay.”
After a two-hour surgery, Karma recovered quickly, inviting me and my wife to visit him. His mother and his two daughters, Audryn and Andrefina, also visited my Jakarta apartment. In July 2011, after 11 days in the hospital, he was considered fit enough to return to prison.
In May 2011, the Washington-based Freedom Now filed a petition with the UN Working Group on arbitrary detention on Karma’s behalf. Six months later, the Working Group determined that his detention violated international standards, saying that Indonesia’s courts “disproportionately” used the laws against treason, and called for his immediate release.
President refused to act
But President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono refused to act, prompting criticism at the UN forum on the discrimination and abuses against Papuans.
I often visited Karma in prison. He took a correspondence course at Universitas Terbuka, studying police science. He read voraciously.
He studied Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King on non-violent movements and moral courage. He also drew, using pencil and charcoal. He surprised me with my portrait that he drew on a Jacob’s biscuit box.
His name began to appear globally. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei drew political prisoners, including Karma, in an exhibition at Alcatraz prison near San Francisco. Amnesty International produced a video about Karma.
Interestingly, he also read my 2011 book on journalism, “Agama” Saya Adalah Jurnalisme (My “Religion” Is Journalism), apparently inspiring him to write his own book. He used an audio recorder to express his thoughts, asking his friends to type and to print outside, which he then edited.
His 137-page book was published in November 2014, entitled, Seakan Kitorang Setengah Binatang: Rasialisme Indonesia di Tanah Papua (As If We’re Half Animals: Indonesian Racism in West Papua). It became a very important book on racism against Indigenous Papuans in Indonesia.
The Indonesian government, under new President Joko Widodo, finally released Karma in November 2015, and after that gradually released more than 110 political prisoners from West Papua and the Maluku Islands.
Release from jail celebration
Hundreds of Papuan activists welcomed Karma, bringing him from the prison to a field to celebrate with dancing and singing. He called me that night, saying that he had that “strange feeling” of missing the Abepura prison, his many inmate friends, his vegetable garden, as well as the boxing club, which he managed. He had spent 11 years inside the Abepura prison.
“It’s nice to be back home though,” he said laughing.
He slowly rebuilt his activism, traveling to many university campuses throughout Indonesia, also overseas, and talking about human rights abuses, the environmental destruction in West Papua, as well as his advocacy for an independent West Papua.
Students often invited him to talk about his book.
In Jakarta, he rented a studio near my apartment as his stopping point. We met socially, and also attended public meetings together. I organised his birthday party in August 2018. He bought new gear for his scuba diving. My wife, Sapariah, herself a diving enthusiast, noted that Karma was an excellent diver: “He swims like a fish.”
The resistance of Papuans in Indonesia to discrimination took on a new phase following a 17 August 2019 attack by security forces on a Papuan student dormitory in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, in which the students were subjected to racial insults.
The attack renewed discussions on anti-Papuan racial discrimination and sovereignty for West Papua. Papuan students and others acting through a social media movement called Papuan Lives Matter, inspired by Black Lives Matter in the United States, took part in a wave of protests that broke out in many parts of Indonesia.
Everyone reading Karma’s book
Everyone was reading Filep Karma’s book. Karma protested when these young activists, many of whom he personally knew, such as Sayang Mandabayan, Surya Anta Ginting and Victor Yeimo, were arrested and charged with treason.
“Protesting racism should not be considered treason,” he said.
The Indonesian government responded by detaining hundreds. Papuans Behind Bars, a nongovernmental organisation that monitors politically motivated arrests in West Papua, recorded 418 new cases from October 2020 to September 2021. At least 245 of them were charged, found guilty, and imprisoned for joining the protests, with 109 convicted of “treason”.
However, while in the past, Papuans charged with political offences typically were sentenced to years — in Karma’s case, 15 years — in the recent cases, perhaps because of international and domestic attention, the Indonesian courts handed down much shorter sentences, often time already served.
The coronavirus pandemic halted his activism in 2020-2022. He had plenty of time for scuba diving and spearfishing. Once he posted on Facebook that when a shark tried to steal his fish, he smacked it on the snout.
On 1 November 2022, my good friend Filep Karma was found dead on a Jayapura beach. He had apparently gone diving alone. He was wearing his scuba diving suit.
His mother, Eklefina Noriwari, called me that morning, telling me that her son had died. “I know you’re his close friend,” she told me. “Please don’t be sad. He died doing what he liked best . . . the sea, the swimming, the diving.”
West Papua was in shock. More than 30,000 people attended his funeral, flying the Morning Star flag, as their last act of respect for a courageous man. Mourners heard the speakers celebrating Filep Karma’s life, and then quietly went home.
It was peaceful. And this is exactly what Filep Karma’s message is about.
Andreas Harsono is the Indonesia researcher at Human Rights Watch and the author of its new report, “If It’s Not Racism, What Is It?”: Discrimination and Other Abuses Against Papuans in Indonesia. This article was first published by RNZ Pacific.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Asia Pacific Report
An exiled West Papuan leader has praised Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape for his “brave ambush” in questioning new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto over West Papua.
Prabowo offered an “amnesty” for West Papuan pro-independence activists during Marape’s revent meeting with Prabowo on the fringes of the inauguration, the PNG leader revealed.
The offer was reported by Asia Pacific Report last week.
Wenda, a London-based officer of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), said in a statement that he wanted to thank Marape on behalf of the people of West Papua for directly raising the issue of West Papua in his meeting with President Prabowo.
“This was a brave move on behalf of his brothers and sisters in West Papua,” Wenda said.
“The offer of amnesty for West Papuans by Prabowo is a direct result of him being ambushed by PM Marape on West Papua.
“But what does amnesty mean? All West Papuans support Merdeka, independence; all West Papuans want to raise the [banned flag] Morning Star; all West Papuans want to be free from colonial rule.”
Wenda said pro-independence actions of any kind were illegal in West Papua.
‘Beaten, arrested or jailed’
“If we raise our flag or call for self-determination, we are beaten, arrested or jailed. If the offer of amnesty is real, it must involve releasing all West Papuan political prisoners.
“It must involve allowing us to peacefully struggle for our freedom without the threat of imprisonment.”
Wenda said that in the history of the occupation, it was very rare for Melanesian leaders to openly confront the Indonesian President about West Papua.
“Marape can become like Moses for West Papua, going to Pharoah and demanding ‘let my people go!’.
“West Papua and Papua New Guinea are the same people, divided only by an arbitrary colonial line. One day the border between us will fall like the Berlin Wall and we will finally be able celebrate the full liberation of New Guinea together, from Sorong to Samarai.
“By raising West Papua at Prabowo’s inauguration, Marape is inhabiting the spirit of Melanesian brotherhood and solidarity,” Wenda said.
Vanuatu Prime Minister and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) chair Charlot Salwai and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele were also there as a Melanesian delegation.
“To Prabowo, I say this: A true amnesty means giving West Papua our land back by withdrawing your military, and allowing the self-determination referendum we have been denied since the 1960s.”
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka has “cleared the air” with the Fijian diaspora in Samoa over Fiji’s vote against the United Nations resolution on the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and People.
He denied that Fiji — the only country to vote against the resolution — had “pressed the wrong button”.
And he described last week’s vote as an “ambush resolution”, claiming it was not the one they had agreed on during the voting of the UN Special Committee of Decolonisation, reports The Fiji Times.
However, a prominent Fiji civil society and human rights advocate condemned his statement and also Fiji’s UN voting.
Fiji Women’s Crisis Centre (FWCC) coordinator Shamima Ali said she was “ashamed” of Fiji’s stance over genocide in Palestine, its vote against ceasefire and “not wanting decolonisation”.
In Apia, Rabuka, who leaves for Kanaky New Caledonia on Sunday to take part in the Pacific Islands Forum’s “Troika Plus” talks on the French Pacific’s territory amid indigenous demands for independence, told The Fiji Times:
“We will not tell them we pressed the wrong button. We will tell them that the resolution was an ambush resolution, it is not something that we have been talking about.”
‘Serious student of colonisation’
The Prime Minister said he had been a “serious student of colonisation and decolonisation”.
“They started with the C-12, but now it’s C-24 members of the [UN] committee that talks about decolonisation.
“I was wondering if anyone would complain about my going [to Kanaky New Caledonia] next week because C-24 met last week and there was a vote on decolonisation.”
According to an RNZ Pacific interview, Rabuka had told the Kanak independence movement:”Don’t slap the hand that has fed you.”
Fiji was the only country that voted against the UN resolution while 99 voted for the resolution and 61 countries, including colonisers such as France, United Kingdom and the United States, abstained.
Another coloniser, Indonesia (West Papua), voted for it.
“I thought the [indigenous] people of the Kanaky of New Caledonia would object to my coming, so far we have not heard anything from them.
“So, I am hoping that no one will bring that up, but if they do bring it up, we have a perfect answer.”
Human rights advocate Shamima Ali said in a statement on social media it was “unbelievable” that Prime Minister Rabuka claimed to be “a serious student of colonisation and decolonisation” while leading a government that had been “blatantly complicit in the genocide of innocent Palestinians”.
“No amount of public statements and explanations will save this Coalition government from the mess it has created on the international stage, especially at the United Nations.
“We are ashamed of having a government that supports an occupation, votes against a ceasefire and does not want decolonisation in the world.
“Trust between the Fijian people and their government is being eroded, especially on matters of global significance that reflect on the entire nation.”
According to the government, Fiji is one of two Pacific countries which are members of the Special Committee on Decolonisation or C-24 and have been a consistent voice in addressing the issue of decolonisation.
Through the C-24 and the Fourth Committee, Fiji aligns with the positions undertaken by the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), in its support for the annual resolution on decolonisation entitled “Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples”.
Government reiterated its support of the regional position of the Forum, and the MSG on decolonisation and self-determination, as enshrined in the UN Charter.
The Fiji Permanent Mission in New York, led by Filipo Tarakinikini, is working with the Forum Secretariat to clarify the matter within its process.
Rabuka is currently in Samoa for the 2024 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), which is being held in the Pacific for the first time.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
Indonesian state-owned company PT Pindad – a key member of the DefendID defence industry consortium – has partnered with Türkiye military vehicles specialist FNSS to collaborate on the development and production of a new tracked armoured personnel carrier (APC) for the Indonesian Army (TNI-AD). The proposed new 30 tonne vehicle is named the Kaplan APC […]
The post Indonesian-Turkish collaboration pursues next-generation APC development appeared first on Asian Military Review.
This post was originally published on Asian Military Review.
ANALYSIS: By Ali Mirin
In the lead up to the inauguration of President Prabowo Subianto last Sunday, Indonesia established five “Vulnerable Area Buffer Infantry Battalions” in key regions across West Papua — a move described by Indonesian Army Chief-of-Staff Maruli Simanjuntak as a “strategic initiative” by the new leader.
The battalions are based in the Keerom, Sarmi, Boven Digoel, Merauke and Sorong regencies, and their aim is to “enhance security” in Papua, and also to strengthen Indonesia’s military presence in response to long-standing unrest and conflict, partly related to independence movements and local resistance.
According to Armed Forces chief General Agus Subiyanto, “the main goal of the new battalions is to assist the government in accelerating development and improving the prosperity of the Papuan people”.
However, this raises concerns about further militarisation and repression of a region already plagued by long-running violence and human rights abuses in the context of the movement for a free and independent West Papua.
Thousands of Indonesian soldiers have been stationed in areas impacted by violence, including Star Mountain, Nduga, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Intan Jaya, Puncak and Puncak Jaya.
As a result, the situation in West Papua is becoming increasingly difficult for indigenous people.
Extrajudicial killings in Papua go unreported or are only vaguely known about internationally. Those who are aware of these either disregard them or accept them as an “unavoidable consequence” of civil unrest in what Indonesia refers to as its most eastern provinces — the “troubled regions”.
Why do the United Nations, Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the international community stay silent?
While the Indonesian government frames this move as a strategy to enhance security and promote development, it risks exacerbating long-standing tensions in a region with deep-seated conflicts over autonomy and independence and the impacts of extractive industries and agribusiness on West Papuan people and their environment.
Exploitative land theft
The Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice, in collaboration with various international and Indonesian human and environmental rights organisations, presented testimony at the public hearings of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) at Queen Mary University of London, in June.
The tribunal heard testimonies relating to a range of violations by Indonesia. A key issue, highlighted was the theft of indigenous Papuan land by the Indonesian government and foreign corporations in connection to extractive industries such as mining, logging and palm oil plantations.
The appropriation of traditional lands without the consent of the Papuan people violates their right to land and self-determination, leading to environmental degradation, loss of livelihood, and displacement of Indigenous communities.
The tribunal’s judgment underscores how the influx of non-Papuan settlers and the Indonesian government’s policies have led to the marginalisation of Papuan culture and identity. The demographic shift due to transmigration programmes has significantly reduced the proportion of Indigenous Papuans in their own land.
Moreover, a rise in militarisation in West Papua has often led to heightened repression, with potential human rights violations, forced displacement and further marginalisation of the indigenous communities.
The decision to station additional military forces in West Papua, especially in conflict-prone areas like Nduga, Yahukimo and Intan Jaya, reflects a continuation of Indonesia’s militarised approach to governance in the region.
Security pact
The Indonesia-Papua New Guinea Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) was signed by the two countries in 2010 but only came into effect this year after the PNG Parliament ratified it in late February.
Indonesia ratified the pact in 2012.
As reported by Asia Pacific Report, PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko and Indonesia’s ambassador to PNG, Andriana Supandy, said the DCA enabled an enhancement of military operations between the two countries, with a specific focus on strengthening patrols along the PNG-West Papua border.
This will have a significant impact on civilian communities in the areas of conflict and along the border. Indigenous people in particular, are facing the threat of military takeovers of their lands and traditional border lines.
Under the DCA, the joint militaries plan to employ technology, including military drones, to monitor and manage local residents’ every move along the border.
Human rights
Prabowo, Defence Minister prior to being elected President, has a controversial track record on human rights — especially in the 1990s, during Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor.
His involvement in military operations in West Papua adds to fears that the new battalions may be used for oppressive measures, including crackdowns on dissent and pro-independence movements.
As indigenous communities continue to be marginalised, their calls for self-determination and independence may grow louder, risking further conflict in the region.
Without substantial changes in the Indonesian government’s approach to West Papua, including addressing human rights abuses and engaging in meaningful dialogue with indigenous leaders, the future of West Papuans remains uncertain and fraught with challenges.
With ongoing military operations often accused of targeting indigenous populations, the likelihood of further human rights violations, such as extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, and forced displacement, remains high.
Displacement
Military operations in West Papua frequently result in the displacement of indigenous Papuans, as they flee conflict zones.
The presence of more battalions could drive more communities from their homes, deepening the humanitarian crisis in the region. Indigenous peoples, who rely on their land for survival, face disruption of their traditional livelihoods and rising poverty.
The Indonesian government launched the Damai Cartenz military operation on April 5, 2018, and it is still in place in the conflict zones of Yahukimo, Pegunungan Bintang, Nduga and Intan Jaya.
Since then, according to a September 24 Human Rights Monitor update, more than 79,867 West Papuans remain internally displaced.
The displacement, killings, shootings, abuses, tortures and deaths are merely the tip of the iceberg of what truly occurs within the tightly-controlled military operational zones across West Papua, according to Benny Wenda, a UK-based leader of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP).
The international community, particularly the United Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum have been criticised for remaining largely silent on the matter. Responding to the August 31 PIF communique reaffirming its 2019 call for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visit to West Papua, Wenda said:
“[N]ow is the time for Indonesia to finally let the world see what is happening in our land. They cannot hide their dirty secret any longer.”
Increased global attention and intervention is crucial in addressing the humanitarian crisis, preventing further escalations and supporting the rights and well-being of the West Papuans.
Without meaningful dialogue, the long-term consequences for the indigenous population may be severe, risking further violence and unrest in the region.
As Prabowo was sworn in, Wenda restated the ULMWP’s demand for an internationally-mediated referendum on independence, saying: “The continued violation of our self-determination is the root cause of the West Papua conflict.”
Ali Mirin is a West Papuan academic from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands bordering the Star Mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and Green Left in Australia.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
The National, PNG
Indonesia will offer amnesty to West Papuans who have contested Jakarta’s sovereignty over the Melanesian region resulting in conflicts and clashes with law enforcement agencies, says Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister James Marape.
He arrived in Port Moresby on Monday night from Indonesia where he attended the inauguration of President Prabowo Subianto last Sunday.
During his bilateral discussions with the Indonesian President, Marape said Prabowo was “quite frank and open” about the West Papua independence issue.
“This is the first time for me to see openness on West Papua and while it is an Indonesian sovereignty matter, my advice was to give respect to land and their [West Papuans] cultural heritage.
“I commend the offer on amnesty and Papua New Guinea will continue to respect Indonesia’s sovereignty,” Marape said.
“The President also offered a pledge for higher autonomy and a commitment to keep on working on the need for more economic activities and development that the former president [Joko Widodo] has started for West Papua.”
While emphasising that Papua New Guinea had no right to debate Indonesia’s internal sovereignty issues, Marape welcomed that country’s recognition of the West Papuan people, their culture and heritage.
Expanding trade, investment
Marape also reaffirmed his intention to work with Prabowo in expanding trade and investment, especially in business-to-business and people-to-people relations with Indonesia.
The exponential growth of Indonesia’s economy currently sits at nearly US$1.5 trillion (about K5 trillion), with the country aggressively pushing toward First World nation status by 2045.
Papua New Guinea was among nations allocated time for a bilateral meeting with President Subianto after the inauguration.
Republished from The National with permission.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
By Victor Mambor in Jayapura
With Prabowo Subianto, a controversial former general installed as Indonesia’s new president, residents in the disputed Papua region were responding to this reality with anxiety and, for some, cautious optimism.
The remote and resource-rich region has long been a flashpoint for conflict, with its people enduring decades of alleged military abuse and human rights violations under Indonesian rule and many demanding independence.
With Prabowo now in charge, many Papuans fear that their future will be marked by further violence and repression.
In Papua — a region known as “West Papua” in the Pacific — views on Prabowo, whose military record is both celebrated by nationalists and condemned by human rights activists, range from apathy to outright alarm.
Many Papuans remain haunted by past abuses, particularly those associated with Indonesia’s counterinsurgency campaigns that began after Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 through a disputed UN-backed referendum.
For people like Maurids Yansip, a private sector employee in Sentani, Prabowo’s rise to the presidency is a cause for serious concern.
“I am worried,” Yansip said. “Prabowo talked about using a military approach to address Papua’s issues during the presidential debates.
‘Military worsened hunman rights’
“We’ve seen how the military presence has worsened the human rights situation in this region. That’s not going to solve anything — it will only lead to more violations.”
In Jayapura, the region’s capital, Musa Heselo, a mechanic at a local garage, expressed indifference toward the political changes unfolding in Jakarta.
“I didn’t vote in the last election—whether for the president or the legislature,” Heselo said.
“Whoever becomes president is not important to me, as long as Papua remains safe so we can make a living. I don’t know much about Prabowo’s background.”
But such nonchalance is rare in a region where memories of military crackdowns run deep.
Prabowo, a former son-in-law of Indonesia’s late dictator Suharto, has long been a polarising figure. His career, marked by accusations of human rights abuses, particularly during Indonesia’s occupation of Timor-Leste, continues to evoke strong reactions.
In 1996, during his tenure with the elite Indonesian Army special forces unit, Kopassus, Prabowo commanded a high-stakes rescue of 11 hostages from a scientific research team held by Free Papua Movement (OPM) fighters.
Deadly operation
The operation was deadly, resulting in the deaths of two hostages and eight pro-independence fighters.
Markus Haluk, executive secretary of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), described Prabowo’s presidency as a grim continuation of what he calls a “slow-motion genocide” of the Papuan people.
“Prabowo’s leadership will extend Indonesia’s occupation of Papua,” Haluk said, his tone resolute.
“The genocide, ethnocide, and ecocide will continue. We remember our painful history — this won’t be forgotten. We could see military operations return. This will make things worse.”
Although he has never been convicted and denies any involvement in abuses in East Timor or Papua, these allegations continue to cast a shadow over his political rise.
He ran for president in 2014 and again in 2019, both times unsuccessfully. His most recent victory, which finally propels him to Indonesia’s highest office, has raised questions about the future of Papua.
Despite these concerns, some see Prabowo’s presidency as a potential turning point — albeit a fraught one. Elvira Rumkabu, a lecturer at Cendrawasih University in Jayapura, is among those who view his military background as a possible double-edged sword.
Prabowo’s military experience ‘may help’
“Prabowo’s military experience and strategic thinking could help control the military in Papua and perhaps even manage the ultranationalist forces in Jakarta that oppose peace,” Rumkabu told BenarNews.
“But I also worry that he might delegate important issues, like the peace agenda in Papua, to his vice-president.”
Under outgoing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, Papua’s development was often portrayed as a priority, but the reality on the ground told a different story. While Jokowi made high-profile visits to the region, his administration’s reliance on military operations to suppress pro-independence movements continued.
“This was a pattern we saw under Jokowi, where Papua’s problems were relegated to lower levels, diminishing their urgency,” Rumkabu said.
In recent years, clashes between Indonesian security forces and the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) have escalated, with civilians frequently caught in the crossfire.
Yohanes Mambrasar, a human rights activist based in Sorong, expressed grave concerns about the future under Prabowo.
“Prabowo’s stance on strengthening the military in Papua was clear during his campaign,” Mambrasar said.
Called for ‘more troops, weapons’
“He called for more troops and more weapons. This signals a continuation of militarized policies, and with it, the risk of more land grabs and violence against indigenous Papuans.”
Earlier this month, Indonesian military chief Gen. Agus Subiyanto inaugurated five new infantry battalions in Papua, stating that their mandate was to support both security operations and regional development initiatives.
Indeed, the memory of past military abuses looms large for many in Papua, where calls for independence have never abated.
During a presidential debate, Prabowo vowed to strengthen security forces in Papua.
“If elected, my priority will be to uphold the rule of law and reinforce our security presence,” he said, framing his approach as essential to safeguarding the local population.
Yet, amid the fears, some see opportunities for positive change.
Yohanes Kedang from the Archdiocese of Merauke said that improving the socio-economic conditions of indigenous Papuans must be a priority for Prabowo.
Education, health care ‘left behind’
“Education, healthcare, and the economy — these are areas where Papuans are still far behind,” he said.
“This will be Prabowo’s real challenge. He needs to create policies that bring real improvements to the lives of indigenous Papuans, especially in the southern regions like Merauke, which has immense potential.”
Theo Hesegem, executive director of the Papua Justice and Human Integrity Foundation, believes that dialogue is key to resolving the region’s long-standing issues.
“Prabowo has the power to address the human rights violations in Papua,” Hesegem said.
“But he needs to listen. He should come to Papua and sit down with the people here — not just with officials, but with civil society, with the people on the ground,” he added.
“Jokowi failed to do that. If Prabowo wants to lead, he must listen to their voices.”
Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to the report. Copyright © 2015-2024, BenarNews. Republished with the permission of BenarNews.
This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.
China’s defence exports have been growing, but quality and political goals conflict potential customers. China’s defence industry has seen significant growth and development over the past few decades. It has rapidly transformed from being heavily reliant on foreign technology and imports to becoming a major player in the global arms market and a central pillar […]
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One of the legacies Joko Widodo leaves Indonesia is a dramatically changed relationship between government and civil society. For the first decade and a half of the post-Suharto period, pro-democracy civil society groups and government constituted a rough-and-ready “Reformasi coalition” in which a constant push-and-pull between these two sides—sometimes cooperative, often conflictual—slowly moved forward a process of democratic reform and safeguarded reform achievements from counter-reformist elites.
Jokowi’s presidency has seen the breakdown of that relationship. Civil society organisations (CSOs) have lost contact with interlocutors within government, and have few policy achievements to point to (and many losses) in the past decade. Mass protests haven’t ended, and there has been no wide-ranging crackdown on civil society per se. But as Jokowi prepares to hand over power to a successor who is viewed with great wariness by pro-democratic civil society, the progressive components of the erstwhile Reformasi coalition are more politically marginal than at any time since the regime change of 1998.
How and why did a president whose early political career benefited much from the support of civil society oversee a precipitous decline in its political influence and role in policymaking?
This question framed our exploration of the state of civil society, protest and social movements contained in a paper we presented at the ANU Indonesia Update in September, and which will appear in a forthcoming edited volume featuring papers from the conference. Beyond detailing the chilling effects of repression and harassment on Indonesians’ ability to engage in contentious politics, we explore the deeper causes of the Widodo government’s neglect and intimidation of civil society, which we believe are rooted in both Jokowi’s leadership style and in broader changes to the makeup of Indonesia’s political elite and the economic bases of CSO activity.
A critical factor in undermining civil society’s influence has been the changing character of political leadership that Jokowi brought to the presidential palace in 2014. Former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s experiences as a leading political figure during the fall of the New Order had led him to internalise a wariness of the potential impact of contentious politics, and as president he often pre-empted demands for reform by civil society-led protest movements.
Jokowi, by contrast, was a political nobody in 1998, busy running his business in Central Java, and had little reason to either respect or fear mass mobilisation. He instead had a populist political outlook in which opinion polls were the principal indicator of which (and whose) views mattered. Polls generally vindicated his single-minded focus on the economic issues that affected ordinary voters: as one senior member of his government told us in an interview, he was “not at all worried about middle-class critics”. Safe in the knowledge that he continued to enjoy broad support among the mass of the population, Jokowi felt he could ignore civil society’s opposition to his government’s erosion of the key reforms won by the old Reformasi coalition.
This populist leadership style arrived in the presidential palace amid broader structural changes in how power was contested and wielded in Indonesia. The entrenchment of grassroots money politics has meant that the political elite is increasingly made up of wealthy individuals who see their political futures being more closely linked to the (often illegal) accumulation of patronage resources than to the delivery of policy outputs. Most elected officials have few incentives to cooperate with civil society actors on policy—especially when it comes to matters of good governance and transparency.
The narrowing field of political contestation in Indonesia is not just being driven by presidential machinations and ruling-coalition infighting—but also the inescapable contradictions of Indonesia’s middle income status
Long-term structural changes within civil society itself have also played their part. Indonesia’s broad pro-democracy movement had in the past been scaffolded by a network of NGOs who drew upon support from foreign donors. Over the last decade or so, partly preceding but also coinciding with the Jokowi period, this support declined significantly, as Indonesia’s economic improvement saw it deprioritised in Western aid programs, and as donors, many of whom embraced the “success story” narrative of Indonesian democratisation, moved away from funding watchdog and democratic governance programs and towards offering technical support guided by the Indonesian government’s own policy priorities—and, lately, its sensitivity to foreign support for advocacy on “sensitive” issues.
Related
Reversing reformasi
Under Jokowi, the management of foreign funding flows to Indonesian NGOs has arguably become even more restrictive than that practiced during the New Order period. Under the provisions of the 2013 Mass Organisations Law, many local NGO grantees of foreign donors present their planned activities to a Monitoring Team for Foreign Organisations (Tim Pengawasan Organisasi Asing, or TPOA) that includes representatives of relevant ministries and intelligence agencies. The latter, according to several people who have participated in TPOA meetings, typically single out organisations and individuals they accuse of being too “critical” of the government, and we understand that the government has vetoed funding for at least several organisations.
Unable to draw upon a large domestic donor base, and bound by strict rules on how domestic private donations can be used, many NGOs have increasingly turned to government funding sources, especially in the regions. As a result they often end up “just working to carry out government programs”, resembling “tukang” (craftspeople, technicians) for the government, as one Jakarta-based NGO told us. The often polarised ideological climate of the Widodo years aided this trend of increasing civil society alignment with the state, with some elements of national civil society essentially being coopted into the Jokowi administration’s political agenda as they came to see Islamism as a more urgent threat to Indonesia than corruption or state repression.
The obsolescence of the Reformasi coalition doesn’t bode well for the ability of civil society to fight further democratic backsliding under Prabowo. But despite the deep concerns expressed by many of the activists we interviewed, they were trying to remain optimistic. The mass protests of 2019–2020 and 2024 against the Widodo government demonstrate that an oppositional culture continues to infuse pockets, if not broad swathes, of Indonesian society. Many civil society actors carry with them a view of Prabowo as an historic enemy of their movement, and of human rights in general—and with that, a feeling that resistance will be a duty.
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