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.”
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 #auspolhttps://t.co/8ZXFIB1fre
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.
By Victor Mambor in Jayapura and Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta
Indonesian human rights groups have called for an independent investigation into the death of a New Zealand helicopter pilot in a remote part of Papua province earlier this week.
The pilot, identified as Glen Malcolm Conning, was reportedly killed by an armed group shortly after landing in Alama district in Mimika regency on Monday.
Amnesty International Indonesia’s executive director, Usman Hamid, described the killing as a serious violation of humanitarian law and called for an independent probe into the death.
“We urge the Indonesian authorities to immediately investigate this crime to bring the perpetrators to justice, including starting with a forensic examination and autopsy of the victim’s body,” he said.
“The protection of civilians is a fundamental principle that must always be upheld, and the deliberate targeting and killing of civilians is unacceptable,” Usman told BenarNews in a statement.
The Papuan independence fighters and security forces are blaming each other for the attack and have provided conflicting accounts of what happened on the airstrip.
A photograph of New Zealand helicopter pilot Glen Malcolm Conning, who worked for PT Intan Angkasa Air Services, in front of his coffin at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, Indonesia, on August 7. Image: Antara Foto/Muhammad Iqbal
The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) — the military wing of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) — has denied it was responsible.
Suspicions of ‘orchestrated murder’
In a statement, a spokesman, Sebby Sambom said: “We suspect that the murder of the New Zealand helicopter pilot was orchestrated by the Indonesian military and police themselves.”
He alleged that the killing was intended to undermine efforts to negotiate the release of another New Zealand pilot, Phillip Mehrtens, who has been held by the rebel group since February last year.
He said photos showing the pilot’s body and the helicopter without apparent signs of burns contradicted the police’s claims that they were burned.
The photos, which Sambom sent to BenarNews, appear to depict Conning’s body collapsed in his helicopter’s seat, with his left arm bearing a deep gash.
Four passengers who Indonesian authorities said were indigenous Papuans, including a child and baby, were unharmed.
Police said the attackers ambushed the helicopter, forcibly removed the occupants, and subsequently executed Conning. They said in a statement that the pilot’s body was burned along with the helicopter.
Responding to the rebel group’s accusations, Bayu Suseno, spokesperson for a counter-insurgency task force in Papua comprising police and soldiers, insisted that the resistance fighters were responsible for the pilot’s death.
“The armed criminal group often justify their crimes, including killing civilians, migrants, and indigenous Papuans working as healthcare workers, teachers, motorcycle taxi drivers, and the New Zealand pilot, by accusing them of being spies,” he told BenarNews.
No response over contradictions
He did not respond to a question about the photos that appear to contradict his earlier claim that Conning’s body was burned with the helicopter.
Sambom said on Monday that if Conning was killed by independence fighters, it was because he should not have been in a conflict zone.
“Anyone who ignores this does so at their own risk. What was the New Zealander doing there? We consider him a spy,” he said.
Bayu said another New Zealand pilot, Geoffrey Foster, witnessed the aftermath of the attack.
Foster approached Conning’s helicopter and saw scattered bags and the pilot slumped in his seat covered in blood, prompting him to take off again without landing, Bayu said.
Executive director of the Papua Justice and Human Integrity Foundation Theo Hesegem expressed concern and condolences for the shooting of the pilot and supported efforts for an independent investigation into the incident.
“There must be an independent investigation team and it must be an integrated team from Indonesia and New Zealand,” he told BenarNews .
Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission, Komnas HAM, condemned the attack and said such acts undermined efforts to bring peace to Papua.
‘Ensure civilian safety’
“Komnas HAM asks the government and security forces to ensure the safety of civilians in Papua,” said the commission’s chairperson Atnike Nova Sigiro in a statement on Wednesday.
The perpetrators of the attack must be brought to justice, Komnas HAM said.
The attack is the latest by an armed group on aviation personnel in the province where Papuan independence fighters have waged a low-level struggle against Indonesian rule since the 1960s.
Another New Zealand pilot, Phillip Mehrtens, was abducted by insurgents from the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) 18 months ago and remains in captivity.
Mehrtens was seized by the fighters on February 7 in the central highlands of Papua. The rebels burned the small Susi Air plane he was piloting and released the Papuan passengers.
While his captors have released videos showing him alive, negotiations to free him have stalled. The group’s demands include independence for the Melanesian region they refer to as West Papua.
The West Papuan resistance movement OPM has blamed the tragic death of a New Zealand helicopter pilot in a remote part of the troubled Melanesian region on Indonesia’s security forces and “every nation supporting barbarity”.
In a statement today, the OPM (Free Papua Organisation) chairman-commander Jeffrey Bomanak claimed his movement had undertaken a “thorough investigation” and unilaterally rejected any implication of responsibility for the death of pilot Glen Conning.
He also expressed sincere apologies to the pilot’s family.
Bomanak said the OPM “respects civilians from Sorong to Merauke” and also from “other parts of the world”.
Commander Bayu Suseno holds a photo of the NZ pilot Glen Conning . . . describes the recovery operation. Image: AJ screenshot APR
The Jakarta Post reports that Glen Malcolm Conning, 50, a pilot for PT Intan Angkasa Air Service, was killed yesterday after landing in a remote part of Central Papua province with two Indonesian health workers and two children, all of whom survived.
The Cartenz Peace Taskforce, assembled to deal with Papuan independence fighters, retrieved his body from the remote area and transported it to Timika near the Freeport copper and gold mine, reported the newspaper citing a military statement.
“The body of the pilot has been evacuated from the Alama district to Timika and arrived at 12:50 pm local time. The body is currently at the Mimika General Hospital for an autopsy,” Cartenz spokesman Adjutant Senior Commander Bayu Suseno said.
Mimika police head Adjutant Senior Commander I Komang Budiartha told reporters yesterday that three helicopters had been dispatched for the search effort, according to The Post.
‘Heart-broken’ for loss RNZ Pacific reports that a statement by Natasha Conning on behalf of his family said he was truly loved by his family and friends, who he had cherished spending time with when he was not flying or being in the outdoors.
“Our hearts are broken from this devastating loss,” she said.
The OPM statement today from chairman-commander Jeffrey P. Bomanak. Image: APR
In the OPM statement today, Commander Bomanak said: “From the beginning of the brutal invasion and illegal annexation, our war of liberation is the very defence of our homeland, just as it would be for you, and as it was during WWII.”
The “barbarity” of the Indonesian military and police was well known and “illegally supported by a tyranny of vested interests — geopolitical and trade from every nation with armament exports and a resource industry that steals our natural resources”, Bomanak said.
He said the death of the New Zealand pilot was “another tragic chapter in six decades of international support for Indonesia’s crimes against humanity”.
Bomanak also criticised the New Zealand government for allowing citizens to be employed by the “rogue state”.
NZ hostage pilot
In February 2023, pro-independence fighters took another New Zealand pilot hostage. Phillip Mehrtens, 37, who was captured shortly after landing his plane in the remote mountainous area of Nduga to drop off passengers.
He has been held hostage ever since and has featured in several videos and photographs circulated by his captors.
A spokesperson for the West Papua Action Aotearoa (WPAA) group, former Green MP Catherine Delahunty, said in a statement that the killing of Conning was an “utter tragedy for his family and friends”, adding that her movement was concerned over the killing of any civilians in West Papua.
She also noted that the area of the tragedy was a “conflict zone” and that the Indonesian military had a responsibility for the safety of pilots flying there.
Delahunty said the New Zealand government needed to respond to the dangerous situation “affecting our pilots” by calling on Indonesia to allow the UN Human Rights Commissioner and foreign media into West Papua.
She said the government should stop “sitting on their hands and start negotiating with Indonesia for peace, human rights and self-determination in West Papua”.
A West Papuan resistance leader has condemned the United Nations role in allowing Indonesia to “integrate” the Melanesian Pacific region in what is claimed to be an “egregious act of inhumanity” on 1 May 1963.
In an open letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, Organisasi Papua Merdeka-OPM (Free Papua Organisation) leader Jeffrey P Bomanak has also claimed that this was the “beginning of genocide” that could only have happened through the failure of the global body to “legally uphold its decolonisation responsibilities in accordance with the UN Charter”.
Bomanak says in the letter dated yesterday that the UN failed to confront the “relentless barbarity of the Indonesian invasion force and expose the lie of the fraudulent 1969 gun-barrel ‘Act of No Choice’”.
The open letter follows one released on the eve of Anzac Day last month which strongly criticised the role of Australia and the United States, accusing both countries of “betrayal” in Papuan aspirations for independence.
According to RNZ News today, an Australian statement in response to the earlier OPM letter said the federal government “unreservedly recognises Indonesia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over the Papua provinces”.
The White House has not responded.
The OPM says it has compiled a “prima facie pictorial ‘integration’ history” of Indonesia’s actions in integrating the Pacific region into an Asian nation. It plans to present this evidence of “six decades of crimes against humanity” to Secretary-General Guterres and new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.
I am addressing you in an open letter which I will be releasing to media and governments because I have previously brought to your attention the history of the illegal annexation of West Papua on May 1st, 1963, and the role of your office in the fraudulent UN referendum in 1969, called an Act of Free Choice and I have never received a reply.
Part of the opening page of the five-page OPM open letter to the United Nations. Image” Screenshot APR
After six decades of OPM letters and Papuan appeals to the UN Secretariat, I am providing the transparency and accountability of an “open letter”, so that historians of the future can investigate the moral and ethical credibility of the UN Secretariat.
May 1st is a day of mourning for Papuans. A day of grief over the illegal annexation of our ancestral Melanesian homeland by a violent occupation force from Southeast Asia.
An invasion and an illegal annexation not unlike Nazi Germany’s annexation in 1938 of its neighbouring country, Austria. The difference for Papuans is that the UN and the USA were co-conspirators in preventing our right to determine a future that was our right to have under the UN decolonisation process: independence and nation-state sovereignty.
A very chilling contradiction — the Allies we fought alongside, nursed back to life, and died with during WWII had joined forces with a mass-murderer not unlike Hitler — the Indonesian president Suharto (see Photo collage #2: Axis of Evil).
Some scholars have called the May 1, 1963 annexation “Indonesia’s Anschluss”. Suharto and the conspirators goal of colonial invasion and conquest had been achieved through the illegal annexation of my people’s ancestral homeland, my homeland.
General and president-in-waiting Suharto signed a contract in 1967 with American mining giant Freeport, another company associated with David Rockefeller, two years before we were to determine our future through the aforementioned gun-barrel UN referendum project-managed by a brutal occupation force. Our future had already been determined by Suharto, David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, and Suharto’s friend, UN secretary-General U Thant. U Thant had succeeded Dag Hammarskjöld who had been assassinated for his controversial view that human rights and freedom were absolutely universal and should not be subjected to the criminal whims of either tyrants like Suharto or a resource industry with views on human rights and freedom that resembled Suharto’s.
I do not need to give you a blow-by-blow history for your edification — you already know the entire history and the victim tally — 350,000 adults and 150,000 children and babies. And rising. You are, after all, a man of some principle — Portugal’s former prime minister of Portugal from 1995 to 2002, as well as a member of the Portuguese Socialist Party. And presiding as Portuguese prime minster during the final years of Fretilin’s war of liberation in East Timor, a former Portuguese colony invaded by Indonesia in 1975 with anywhere up to 250,000 victims of genocide. Please explain to me the difference between the Indonesia’s invasion and “integration” of East Timor and Indonesia’s invasion and “integration” of my homeland, Western New Guinea (West Papua).
Apart from the oil in the Timor Gap and the gold and copper all over my homeland — the wealth of someone else’s resources promoting the “integration” policies pictured over these pages.
As a member of a socialist party, you might be attending May Day ceremonies today. I will be counselling victims and the families of loved ones who have been “integrated” today. Yes, the freedom-loving Papuans are holding rallies to protest the annexation of our homeland . . . to protest the failure — your failure — to apply justice and to end this nightmare.
The cost of the UN-approved annexation to Papuans in pain and suffering: massacres, torture, systemic rape by TNI and Polri, mutilation and dismemberment as a signature of your barbarity. Relentless barbarity causing six decades of physical and cultural genocide, ethnocide, infanticide, and wave after wave of ethnic cleansing.
The cost to Papuans in the theft and plunder of our natural resources: genocide by starvation and famine.
The cost to Papuans from the foreign resource industry plundering our natural resources: the devastation of pristine environments, whole ecosystems poisoned by the resource industry’s chemical toxicity, called tailings, released into rivers thereby destroying whole riverine catchments along with food sources from fishing and farming — catchment rivers and nearby farming lands contaminated by Freeport, and other’s. A failure to apply any international standards for risk management to prevent the associated birth defects in villages now living in contaminated catchments.
That we would choose to become part of any nation so brutal defies credibility. That the UN approved integration should have been impossible based on the evidence of the ever-increasing numbers of defence and security forces landing in West Papua and undertaking military campaigns that include ever-increasing victims and internally displaced Papuans, the bombing of central highland villages a current example? Such courage! Why are foreign media not allowed into my people’s homeland?
Secretary-General Guterres, future historians will judge the efficacy of the United Nations. The integrity. West Papua will feature as a part the UN Secretariat’s legacy. To this endeavour, as the leader of Organisasi Papua Merdeka, I ask, and demand that you comply with your obligations under article 85 part 2 and sundry articles of your Charter of United Nations which requires that you inform the Trusteeship Council about your General Assembly resolution 1752, with which you are subjugating our people and homelands of West New Guinea which we call West Papua.
The agreement which your resolution 1752 is authorising, begins with the words “The Republic of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands, having in mind the interests and welfare of the people of the territory of West New Guinea (West Irian)”
Your agreement is clearly a trusteeship agreement written according to your rules of Chapter XII of your Charter of the United Nations.
The West Papuan people have always opposed your use of United Nations military to make our people’s human rights subject to the whim of your two administrators, UNTEA and from 1st May 1963 the Republic of Indonesia that is your current administrator.
We refer to your organisation’s last official record about West Papua which still suffers your ongoing unjust administration managed by UNTEA and Indonesia:
Because you also used article 81 and Chapter XII of your Charter to seize control of our homelands when you created your General Assembly resolution 1752, the Netherlands was excused by article 73(e), “to transmit regularly to the Secretary-General for information purposes, subject to such limitation as security and constitutional considerations may require, statistical and other information of a technical nature relating to economic, social, and educational conditions in the territories for which they are respectively responsible other than those territories to which Chapters XII and XIII apply”, from transmitting further reports about our people and the extrajudicial killings that your new administrators began using to silence our demands for our liberty and independence.
We therefore demand your Trusteeship Council begin its unfinished duty of preparing your United Nations reports as articles 85 part 2, 87 and 88 of your Charter requires.
West Papua is entitled to independence, and article 76 requires you assist. It is illegal for Indonesia to invade us and to impede our independence, and to subsequently subject us to six decades of every classification for crimes against humanity listed by the International Criminal Court.
We know this trusteeship agreement was first proposed by the American lawyer John Henderson in 1959, and was discussed with Indonesian officials in 1961 six months before the death of your Dag Hammarskjöld. We think it is shameful that you then elected Indonesia’s friend U Thant as Secretary-General, and we demand that you permit the Secretariat to perform its proper duty of revealing your current annexation of West Papua (Resolution 1752) to your Trusteeship Council.
I look forward to your reply.
Yours sincerely,
Jeffrey P Bomanak Chairman-Commander OPM Markas Victoria, May 1, 2024
The West Papuan resistance OPM leader has condemned Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and US President Joe Biden, accusing their countries of “six decades of treachery” over Papuan independence.
The open letter was released today by OPM chairman Jeffrey P Bomanak on the eve of ANZAC Day 2024.
Praising the courage and determination of Papuans against the Japanese Imperial Forces in World War Two, Bomanak said: “There were no colonial borders in this war — we served Allied Pacific Theatre campaigns across the entire island of New Guinea.
Bomanak’s open letter, addressed to Prime Minister Albanese and President Biden, declared:
“If you cannot stand by those who stood by you, then your idea of ‘loyalty’ and ‘remembrance’ being something special is a myth, a fairy tale.
“There is nothing special in treachery. Six decades of treachery following the Republic of Indonesia’s invasion and fraudulent annexation, always knowing that we were being massacred, tortured, and raped. Our resources, your intention all along.
“When the Japanese Imperial Forces came to our island, you chose our homes to be your defensive line. We fed and nursed you. We formed the Papuan Infantry Brigade. We became your Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels.
“We even fought alongside you and shared the pain and suffering of hardship and loss.
“There were no colonial borders in this war — we served Allied Pacific Theatre campaigns across the entire island of New Guinea. Our island! From Sorong to Samurai!
OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak . . . his open letter condemns Australia and the US leadership for preventing decolonisation of West Papua. Image: OPM
“Your war became our war. Your graves, our graves. The photos [in the open letter] are from the Australian War Memorial. The part of the legend always ringing true — my people — Papuans! – with your WWII defence forces.
“My message is to you, not ANZAC veterans. We salute the ANZACs. Your unprincipled greed divided our island. Exploitation, no matter what the cost.
“West Papua is filled with Indonesia’s barbarity and the blood and guts of 500,000 Papuans — men, women, and children. Torture, slaughter, and rape of my people in our ancestral homes led by your betrayal.
“In 1969, to help prevent our decolonisation, you placed two of our leaders on Manus Island instead of allowing them to reach the United Nations in New York — an act of shameless appeasement as a criminal accomplice to a mass-murderer (Suharto) that would have made Hideki Tojo proud.
“RAAF Hercules transported 600 TNI [Indonesian military] to slaughter us on Biak Island in 1998. Australian and US subsidies, weapons and munitions to RI, provide logistics for slaughter and bombing of our highland villages. Still happening!
“You were silent about the 1998 roll of film depicting victims of the Biak Island massacre, and you destroyed this roll of film in March 2014 after the revelations from the Biak Massacre Citizens Tribunal were aired on the ABC’s 7:30 Report. (Grateful for the integrity of Edmund McWilliams, Political Counselor at the US Embassy in Jakarta, for his testimony.)
“Every single act and action of your betrayal contravenes Commonwealth and US Criminal Codes and violates the UN Charter, the Genocide Act, and the Torture Convention. The price of this cowardly servitude to assassins, rapists, torturers, and war criminals — from war criminal Suharto to war criminal Prabowo [current President of Indonesia] — complicity and collusion in genocide, ethnocide, infanticide, and wave after wave of ethnic cleansing.
“Friends, we will not forget you? You threw us into the gutter! As Australian and American leaders, your remembrance day is a commemoration of a tradition of loyalty and sacrifice that you have failed to honour.”
The OPM chairman and commander Bomanak concluded his open letter with the independence slogan “Papua Merdeka!” — Papua freedom.
The Free Papua Organisation (Organisasi Papua Merdeka-OPM) has sent an open letter to the United Nations leadership demanding that “decolonisation” of the former Dutch colony of West New Guinea, the Indonesian-administered region known across the Pacific as West Papua, be initiated under the direction of the UN Trusteeship Council.
The letter accuses the UN of being a “criminal accessory to the plundering of the ancestral lands” of the Papuans, a Melanesian people with affinity and close ties to many Pacific nations.
According to the OPM leader, chairman-commander Jeffrey Bomanak, West Papuans had been living with the expectation for six decades that the UN would “fulfill the obligations regarding the legal decolonisation of West Papua”.
OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak . . . an open letter to the UN calling for the UN annexation of West Papua in 1962 to be reversed. Image: OPM
Alternatively, wrote Bomanak, there had been an expectation that there would be an explanation “to the International Commission of Jurists if there are any legal reasons why these obligations to West Papua cannot be fulfilled”.
The open letter was addressed to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, General Assembly President Csaba Kőrösi and Trusteeship Council President Nathalie Estival-Broadhurst.
‘Guilty’ over annexation
“The United Nations is guilty of annexing West New Guinea on Sept 21, 1962, as a trust territory which had been concealed by the UN Secretariat from the Trusteeship Council.”
Indonesia has consistently rejected West Papuan demands for self-determination and independence, claiming that its right to sovereignty over the region stems from the so-called Act of Free Choice in 1969.
But many West Papuans groups and critics across the Pacific and internationally reject the legitimacy of this controversial vote when 1025 elders selected by the Indonesian military were coerced into voting “unanimously” in favour of Indonesian rule.
A sporadic armed struggle by the armed wing of OPM and peaceful lobbying for self-determination and independence by other groups, such as the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), have continued since then with persistent allegations of human rights violations with the conflict escalating in recent months.
“The UN is a criminal accessory to the plundering of our ancestral lands and to the armament exports from member nations to our murderers and assassins — the Indonesian government,” claimed Bomanak in his letter.
“West Papua is not a simple humanitarian dilemma. The real dilemma is the perpetual denial of West Papua’s right to freedom and sovereignty.”
Bomanak alleges that the six-decade struggle for independence has cost more than 500,000 lives.
West Papua case ‘unique’
In a supporting media release by Australian author and human rights advocate Jim Aubrey, he said that the open letter should be read “by anyone who supports international laws and governance and justice that are applied fairly to all people”.
“West Papua’s case for the UN to honour the process of decolonisation is a unique one,” he said.
“Former Secretary General U Thant concealed West Papua’s rights as a UN trust territory for political reasons that benefited the Republic of Indonesia and the American mining company Freeport-McMoRan.
“West Papua was invaded and recolonised by Indonesia. The mining giant Freeport-McMoRan signed their contract to build the Mt Grasberg mine with the mass murderer Suharto in 1967.
“The vote of self-determination in 1969 was, for Suharto and his commercial allies, already a foregone conclusion in 1967.”
Aubrey said that West Papuans were still being “jailed, tortured, raped, assassinated [and] bombed in one of the longest ongoing acts of genocide since the end of the Second World War”.
Western countries accused
He accused Australia, European Union, UK, USA as well as the UN of being “accessories to Indonesia’s illegal invasion and landgrab”.
About Australia’s alleged role, Aubrey said he had called for a Royal Commission to investigate but had not received a reply from Governor-General David Hurley or from Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus.
PRESS RELEASE
OFFICIAL OPM Press Release 14 September 2023
OPM LEADER ACCUSES UN OF GIFTING WEST PAPUA TO INDONESIA & US MINER FREEPORT-MCMORAN – DEMANDS DECOLONIZATION
Jeffrey P Bomanak accuses United Nations Secretary General António Guterres, General Assembly President Csaba… pic.twitter.com/gggZl3wLyc
A West Papuan leader has condemned the Melanesian Spearhead Group for abandoning the West Papuan cause in favour of a “corrupt alliance” with Indonesia.
Jeffrey P Bomanak, chairman of the Free Papua Organisation (OPM), declared last week’s MSG Leaders’ Summit ruling on West Papua a “betrayal” of the Papuan people and called for the regional group to be dissolved.
His response was among mounting criticism of the MSG’s denial of full membership for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) alongside the Melanesian sovereign states of Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, and the Kanak and Socialist and National Liberation Front (FLNKS) that is seeking independence for Kanaky New Caledonia from France.
The upgrade from observer status to full members had been widely expected. Indonesia is an associate member of the MSG even though it is an Asian sovereign state.
“The act of deferring any decision on justice, sovereignty, and freedom for West Papua is because the MSG Secretariat and various MSG leaders have placed more importance on receiving Jakarta’s blood money than on the victims of Jakarta’s barbarity,” Bomanak declared in a statement today.
“For West Papuans, Melanesia is a symbol of genuine solidarity, where the value of brotherhood and sisterhood is not some abstract sentiment, but an ideal of kinship that is the pillar of our existence.
“Until last week, this ideal was still able to be expressed with hope.”
‘Chalice of betrayal’
The MSG had “quenched its thirst” for an unprincipled economic progress from the “chalice of betrayal”, Bomanak said.
“In doing so has fatally speared the heart of Melanesian kinship. Melanesia as our divine ideal in a unique ancestral affinity is dead.”
The OPM leader said that 25 August 2023 would be recorded by history as the day kinship was abandoned by the Melanesian Spearhead Group.
“It will be remembered as a day of infamy where our family nations joined the international abandonment of West Papua’s right to freedom, nation-state sovereignty, and to an end of the Holocaust Indonesia has brought into our island nation.”
The MSG was now a “fully-fledged member of the moral and ethical cancer” in international diplomacy where nations had no dilemma over the hundreds of thousands of West Papuan victims that was the cost of doing business with Indonesia.
“The military occupation of our ancestral lands by Indonesia, and the barbarity that we have been subjected to for six decades, leaves no room for ambiguity.
“Indonesia is our enemy, and our war of liberation will never stop until Indonesia has left our ancestral lands.
‘Freedom right intact’
“Our right to freedom remains intact even after every drop of our blood is spilled, after every village and family home is destroyed, after our Melanesian kin have acted in spiritual servitude to Indonesia’s batik diplomacy — selling their ancestral souls for generosity in blood money while we remain enslaved and refugees in our own land.”
Bomanak appealed to the remaining leaders of MSG nations which honoured “the true value of our kinship” to withdraw from the MSG.
Critics of the MSG stance claim that the Indonesian right to govern the West Papua region is contestable, even illegal.
West Papua and the Right to Self Determination under International Law – Melinda Janki
The Act of Free Choice 1969 which handed control of West Papua to Indonesia was a violation of international law. West Papua has never exercised its legal right to self https://t.co/mY4cmvm2e9… pic.twitter.com/QSZSykxiYY
— Lewis Prai : West Papuan Diplomat (@PapuaWeb) March 13, 2023
A 2010 paper researched by one of the founders of International Lawyers for West Papua, Melinda Janki, called for a “proper act of self-determination” in accordance with international law.
Mass arrests and intimidation were widespread in the lead up to the “Act of Free Choice” vote in 1969. Image: APR file
In 1969, West Papua, then a former Dutch colony, was classified as an Indonesian province following a so-called “Act of Free Choice” carried out under Indonesian administration, but with only 1022 Papuan tribal representatives taking part in a referendum under duress.
Janki’s paper examined the process and concluded that it was a violation of the right of self-determination held by the West Papuan people under international law.
It studied Indonesia’s territorial claims and argued that these claims did not justify Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua.
The paper concluded that Indonesia’s presence in West Papua was illegal and
that this illegality is the basis for continuing conflict in West Papua.
This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.
The leader of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) has called for the establishment of a “United Indigenous Nations” for global justice and an end to Indonesia’s ‘malignant’ colonisation of West Papua.
OPM chairman and commander Jeffrey Bomanak said such a new global indigenous body would “not repeat the failure of the United Nations in denying any people their freedom”.
OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak . . . “The integrity of indigenous peoples is not for sale”. Image: OPM
“The integrity of indigenous peoples is not for sale,” he said in a stinging statement to mark the international day.
He offered an “independent” West Papua as host for the proposed United Indigenous Nations to lead international governance with an international forum representing — for the first time — the principled values and ideals of indigenous and First Nations peoples who were the “true guardians of our ancestral motherlands”.
He criticised the UN’s lack of action over decolonisation for indigenous peoples, blaming the body for allowing the “predatory destruction of the world caused by the economic multinational imperialists and their unsustainable greed”.
“Centuries-old marginalisation and other varying vulnerabilities are some of the reasons why indigenous peoples do not have the same possibilities of access to education, health system, or digital communications.”
And also:
“Violations of the rights of the world’s indigenous peoples have become a persistent problem, sometimes because of a historical burden from their colonisation backgrounds and others because of the contrast with a constantly changing society.”
Bomanak said that while these two quotes read well, they were “misrepresentative of the truth that has been West Papua’s tragic experience with the United Nations”.
‘Disingenuous manipulation’
“The facts are that the UN has prevented West Papua’s right to decolonisation through a disingenuous manipulation of the Cold War events of the 1960s,” he said.
“Indonesia’s invasion and illegal annexation of West Papua remains a malignancy in principle and diplomacy only matched by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But with different diplomatic outcomes applied by the UN Secretariat.
“The UN Secretariat acts with incredulous diplomatic effrontery to allegations of collusion and complicity with a host of other predatory nations, all eager to plunder West Papua’s natural resources — the world’s greatest El Dorado.”
He singled out Australia, China, France, Germany, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States for criticism.
Indigenous people knew the story of West Papua from their own experience with the same predatory nations and the “same prejudicial and corrupt geopolitics” that characterised the UN, Bomanak said.
“G20 conquerors and colonisers have never put down their swords and guns. They have never stopped conquering and colonising, either by military invasion or economic imperialism.
“They will never understand the indigenous perception of ancestral custodianship of our lands.
“The defence forces and militia groups of G20 nations still murder us in our beds and our beds are burning.”
Conflict of interest
The UN could not stop “global melting” because it was a conflict of interest with the “G20
business-as-usual paradigm of economic exploitation” fueling expansion economies.
“They will not stop until all our ancestral lands are one infertile wasteland. The UN is unable to resolve this self-defeating dynamic,” Bomanak said.
“The UN should be a democratic, progressive and 100 percent accountable institution. This is not West Papua’s experience.
“Six decades ago, the UN should have fulfilled the decolonisation of West Papua for the commencement of our nation-state sovereignty. Instead, we were sold to the highest bidders — Indonesia and the American mining company Freeport McMoRan.”
The problem with international diplomacy was that the UN was “beholden to the G20’s vested interests” and its formal meeting place in New York, Bomanak claimed.
“Why remain inside the belly of the beast?” he asked other indigenous peoples.
“Upon liberation of our ancestral motherland, and upon the agreement of the new government of West Papua, I would like to offer all colonised tribes and nations of the conquering empires — all indigenous peoples — the opportunity to manage our international affairs with absolute justice and accountability.
“International relations with indigenous governance for indigenous people. We will build the United Indigenous Nations in West Papua.”
According to Damanik, who was chair 2017-2022, this is because the current Komnas HAM leadership has taken a position tending to follow the government line and “doesn’t have the courage” to resolve humanitarian problems in Papua.
Damanik cites as an example the “humanitarian pause” agreement that was unilaterally cancelled by Komnas HAM, which triggered an escalation of violence in Papua, including the seizing of the Susi Air pilot by rebels demanding Papuan independence.
The humanitarian pause in Papua was an agreement reached by the Komnas HAM leadership for the 2017-2022 period to temporarily halt armed contact between the conflicting groups in Papua.
“Since they unilaterally cancelled the humanitarian pause without any good reason, as well as the lack of communication between parties, especially with our Papuan friends, it is difficult to expect them to play a role in Papua,” Damanik said in a text message on Friday.
“The one-side cancellation caused anger among those who were pushing for a humanitarian pause in Papua.
“With such a position, it is difficult to expect a strategic role for Komnas HAM. Their position tends to just follow what is being done by the government,” he added.
Communications deadlock
Yet, according to Damanik, by maintaining the independence of its authority, the Komnas HAM could break the communication deadlock between the demands of the hostage takers, — the West Papua National Liberation Army armed wing of the Free Papua Organization (TPNPB–OPM) — and the government.
Hostage NZ pilot Philip Mehrtens as he appeared in a recent low resolution video . . . “There is no need [for Indonesia’s bombs], it is dangerous for me and everybody here.” Image: TPNPB screenshot APR
Moreover, there has been an offer by the TPNPB group led by Egianus Kogoya for the Papua Komnas HAM Representative Office to act as negotiator in the hostage case.
“Including the [Philip Mehrtens] hostage negotiations, the Egianus group asked for the involvement of the Papua representative [office] head’s help. My hope is that the Komnas HAM national is welcomed in Papua, so it is better to provide full support to the Komnas HAM Papua representative office,” Damanik added.
Damanik also hopes that Komnas HAM, which is now headed up by Atnike Nova Sigiro, could be critical of central government policies that are wrong.
“Communicating criticism like this is what we used to do [when I served at Komnas HAM] and there is no need to worry about tension in the relationship [with the government]. That’s normal in relationships between institutions,” said Damanik.
Earlier, Sigiro said that the commission had entrusted all matters related to dealing with the New Zealand pilot’s hostage case to the government, saying they hoped that the case could be resolved peacefully.
Authority ‘with government’
“Authority for dealing with the hostage case is in the government’s hands,” said Sigiro earlier this month.
Mehrtens was taken hostage by the TPNPB on February 7 when his plane was set on fire after landing at the Paro airstrip in Nduga regency, Papua Highlands.
At the time, the plane was transporting five indigenous Papuan passengers. Mehrtens and the five passengers reportedly fled in different directions.
The five Papuans returned to their respective homes while Mehrtens was taken hostage by the pro-independence militants.
An Australian human rights author and poet has accused successive federal governments of “deliberately aiding and abetting” the 1969 annexation of West Papua by Indonesia and enabling the “stifling” of the Melanesian people’s right to self-determination.
In reaffirming his appeal last May for a royal commission into Australia’s policies over West Papua, author and activist Jim Aubrey alleged Canberra had been a party to “criminal actions” over the Papuan right to UN decolonisation.
In a damning letter to Governor-General David Hurley, Aubrey — author-editor of the 1998 book Free East Timor: Australia’s culpability in East Timor’s genocide, also about Indonesian colonialism — has appealed for the establishment of a royal commission to examine the Australian federal government’s “role as a criminal accessory to Indonesia’s illegal annexation of West Papua and as an accomplice” to more than six decades of “crimes against humanity” in the region.
Author and activist Jim Aubrey . . . “Indonesian thugs and terrorists wanted the Australian government’s collusion … and the Australian government provided it.” Image: Jim Aubrey
The killings were – like many others in West Papua – were carried out with impunity. Papuan human rights groups claim the Biak death toll was actually 150.
In his document, Aubrey has also accused the Australian government of “maliciously destroying” in 2014 prima facie photographic evidence of the 1998 Biak massacre.
“At the request of the Indonesian government in 1969, the Australian government prevented West Papuan political leaders from travelling to the United Nations in New York City to appeal for assistance to the members of the General Assembly,” Aubrey claimed.
“They wanted to tell the honourable members of the UN General Assembly that the Indonesian military occupation force was murdering West Papuan men.
‘Crimes against humanity’
“They wanted to tell the honourable members of the UN General Assembly that the Indonesian military occupation force was raping West Papuan women.
“These crimes against humanity were being committed to stifle West Papua’s cry for
freedom as a universal right of the UN decolonisation process.
“Indonesian thugs and terrorists wanted the Australian government’s
collusion … and the Australian government provided it.”
The 68-page open letter to Australian Governor-General David Hurley appealing for a royal commission into Canberra’s conduct . . . an indictment of Indonesian atrocities in West Papua. Image: Screenshot APR
Aubrey has long been a critic of the Australian government over its handling of the West Papua issue and has spoken out in support of the West Papua Movement – OPM.
In a separate statement today about the Biak massacre, OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak called on Papua New Guinean Prime Minister James Marape to “remember his Melanesian heritage and his Papuan brothers and sisters’ war of liberation against Indonesia’s illegal invasion and occupation of half of the island of New Guinea”.
Mehrtens has been held captive by West Papuan pro-independence rebels in the Papuan highlands rainforests since February 7. The rebels demand negotiations on independence .
‘150 massacred’
“On July 6, 1998, over 600 Indonesian defence and security forces tortured, mutilated and massacred 150 West Papuan people for raising the West Papuan flag and peacefully protesting for independence,” said Bomanak in his statement.
About the Australian government’s alleged concealment in 1998 — and destruction in 2014 — of a roll of film depicting the victims of the Biak island massacre, Bomanak declared: “We are your closest neighbour, the Papuan race across Melanesia.
“We did not desert you in your war against the Imperial Japanese Empire on our ancestral island, and many of your wounded lived because of our care and dedication.”
In Aubrey’s statement accusing Canberra of “collusion” with Jakarta, he said that at the Indonesian government’s request, the Australian government had prevented West Papuan leaders William Zonggonao and Clemens Runaweri from providing testimony of Indonesian crimes against humanity to the United Nations in 1969.
“If this is not treacherous enough, another Australian government remained silent about the 1998 Biak island massacre even though that federal government was in possession of the roll of film depicting the massacre’s crimes.
“The federal government in office in 2014 is responsible for the destruction of this roll
of film and photographs printed from the film,” claimed Aubrey.
Aubrey’s 68-page open letter to Governor-General Hurley is a damning indictment of Indonesian atrocities during its colonial rule of West Papua.
General Seth Rumkorem and Jacob Prai declared it, defended it, and received official recognition. Dakar, Senegal, was among them, the first international diplomatic office opened by OPM shortly after the declaration.
As Papuans resisted the invasion, they sought refuge in the Netherlands, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Sweden, Australia, and Greece. All joined, at least in spirit, under the name OPM.
Its spirit of revolution that bonded West Papua and Vanuatu with those across Europe, Oceania, and Africa. This was a time of decolonisation, revolution, and a Cold War.
The decolonisation movement back then was more conscious in heart and mind of humanity than now.
Rex Rumakiek’s ‘sacred connection’
Rex Rumakiek (now aged 78), a long time OPM fighter alongside others, established this sacred connection in 1978.
In Papua New Guinea, Rumakiek met with students from Vanuatu studying at the University of Papua New Guinea and shared the OPM’s revolutionary victory, tragedy, and solution.
These students later took prominent roles in the formation of the independent state of Vanuatu — became part of the solution — laid a foundation of hope.
A common spirit emerged between the OPM’s resistance to Indonesian colonisation and Vanuatu’s struggle for freedom from long-term European (French and English) confederation rule.
A brutal system of dual rule known as Condominium — critics called it “Pandemonium” (chaos and disorder).
West Papua, a land known as “little heaven” is indeed like a Garden of Eden in Milton’s epic Paradise Lost poem.
To restore freedom and justice to that betrayed, lost paradise was the foundation of Vanuatu and West Papua’s relationship. For more than 40 years Vanuatu has been a beacon of hope.
Deep connections
Both shared deep religious metaphysical, cultural, and political connections.
On a metaphysical level, Vanuatu became a place of hope and redemption. Apart from supporting the West Papua freedom fighters, Vanuatu played a critical role in the reconciliation of Papuans who split off in various directions due to internal conflicts over numerous issues, including ideologies and strategies.
A tragedy of internal disputes and conflicts that placed a long-lasting strain on their collective war against Indonesian occupation.
This can be seen from Vanuatu’s decades-long effort to invite two key leaders of the West Papuan Provisional Parliament — General Seth Rumkorem and Jacob Prai.
In 1985, Vanuatu brought the two conflicting leaders of OPM, Mr. Jacob Prai and Gen. Seth Rumkorem, to Vanuatu and ended their differences so that they could work together (p. 217).
In 2000, Vanuatu invited the OPM leaders and Papua’s Presidium Council (PDP) to sign a memorandum of understanding. The year 2008 was also a year of reconciliation, which led to the formation of the West Papua Nation Coalition of Liberation (WPNCL).
In 2014, there was another big reconciliation summit in Port Vila, which led to the formation of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP).
Melanesian identity
Culturally, Vanuatu and West Papua share a deep sense of Melanesian identity — a common bond from shared experiences of colonisation, racism, mistreatment, dehumanisation, and slavery.
This bond, however, is strengthened far beyond these European and Indonesian atrocities as Barak Sope, one of Melanesia’s key thinkers and prominent supporters of West Papua put it in 2017, Papuans and Vanuatu and all Melanesians in Oceania have deep ancient roots. There are deep Melanesian links that connect our ancestors. Europeans came and destroyed that connection by rewriting our history because they had the power of written language, and we did not.
Our connections were recorded in myths, legends, songs, dances, and culture. It is our duty now to revive that ancient link (Conversation with Yamin Kogoya in Port Vila, December 2017).
Politically, Vanuatu and West Papua also share a common sense of resistance to both European and Indonesian colonisations.
Father Walter Lini, founder of Vanuatu and MSG, later became Prime Minister. Following its renaming as the Vanua’aku Pati in 1974, Lini’s party pushed hard for independence — the Republic of Vanuatu was formally established in 1980.
The OPM and Black Brothers helped shape this new nation and were part of a force that created a pan-Melanesian identity through music.
“Vanuatu will not be completely free until all Melanesia is free from colonialism” is Walter Lini’s famous saying, which has been used by West Papua and New Caledonian Kanaks in their struggle for liberation against Indonesian and French colonisation.
A just world
During this long journey, a profound bond and sense of connection and a shared cause, and destiny for a just world was born between Vanuatu and West Papua and the greater Oceania. A kind of Messianic hope developed with name Vanuatu that Papuans a hope that deliverance would come from Vanuatu.
Papuans can only express their gratitude in social media through their artistic works and heartfelt thanksgiving messages.
Ahead of the upcoming MSG summit, the Free West Papua Campaign Facebook page has posted the following image showing a Papuan with Morning Star clothing crossing a cliff on the back of a larger and taller figure representing Vanuatu.
In politics, it is all about diplomacy, networks, and cooperation, as the famous PNG politicians’ mantra in their foreign policy, “Friend to all and enemy to none.” This is such an ironic and tragic position to be in when half of PNG’s country men are “going extinct”, and they know how and why?
Sometimes it is necessary to confront such an evil head on when/if innocent lives are at risk. The notion of being friends with everyone and enemies with nobody has no virtue, value, substance, or essence.
In the real-world, humans have friends and enemies. The only question is, we must not only choose between friends and foes but also understand the difference between them.
No human, whether realist, idealist, traditionalist, or transcendentalist, who sincerely believes, can make a neutral virtue less stand — where right and wrong are neither right nor wrong at the same time. Human agents must make choices. Being able to choose and know the difference and reasons why, is what makes us human — this is where value is contested, for and against.
Stand up for something
In the current world climate, someone must stand up for something — for the oppressed, for the marginalised, the abused, the persecuted, the land, for the planet and for humanity.
This tiny island country, Vanuatu has exhibited that warrior spirit for many years. In March, Vanuatu spearheaded a UN resolution on climate change. Nina Lakhani in The Guardian wrote:
“The UN general assembly adopted by consensus the resolution spearheaded by Vanuatu, a tiny Pacific island nation vulnerable to extreme climate effects, and youth activists to secure a legal opinion from the international court of justice (ICJ) to clarify states’ obligations to tackle the climate crisis — and specify any consequences countries should face for inaction.”
More than 60 years ago, when West Papua was kicked around like a football by the imperial West and East, Indonesia, the Netherlands, the United Nations and the illegal UN-sponsored sham referendum of 1969, no one on this planet dared to stand up for West Papua.
West Papua was abandoned by the world.
The Dutch attempted to safeguard that “sacred trust” by enlisting West Papua into the UN Decolonisation list under article 73 of the UN charter. The Dutch did the right thing.
The sacred trust, however, was betrayed when West Papua was transferred to the United Temporary Executive (UNTEA) following the infamous New York Agreement on 15 August 1962.
This sacred trust was to be protected by the UNTEA but it was betrayed when it was handed over to Indonesia in May 1963, resulting in Indonesia’s invasion of West Papua.
This invasion instilled fear throughout West Papua, paving the way for the 1969 referendum to be held under incredible fear and gunpoint of the already intimidated 1025 Papuan elders.
In 1969, instead of protecting the trust, the UN betrayed it by being complicit in the whole tragic events unfolding.
OPM’s answer to the illegal referendum — The Act of Free Choice
OPM’s proclamation on 1 July 1971 was the answer to the (rejection of that illegal and fraudulent) referendum, known as the Penentuan Pendapat Rakyat-Pepera in 1969.
In protest, out of fear, and in resistance to one of the most tragic betrayals and tragedies in human history, an overwhelming number of Papuans left West Papua during this period. Several countries opened their arms to West Papua, including Vanuatu.
A major split occurred in OPM camps due to internal conflict and disagreement between the two key founding members. The legacy of this tragedy has been disastrous for future Papuan resistance fighters.
Papuans are partly responsible for betraying that sacred trust as well. This realisation is critical for Papuan-self redemption. That is the secret, redemption, and genuine reconciliation.
Every time a high-profile figure from Vanuatu or any Melanesian country engages internationally, Papuans feel extremely anxious. Amid the historical betrayals, Papuans wonder, “Will they betray us or rescue us?”
This tiny doubt eats at the soul of humankind. It is always toxic, a seed that contaminates and derails human trust.
In such difficult times, it is crucial for Papuans to reflect sincerely and ask, “where are we?” Are we doing, okay? What’s going on? Are we making the right decisions, are our collective defence systems secure?
Vanuatu historic visit to Jakarta
Jotham Napat, the Foreign Minister of Vanuatu, visited Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi on 16 June 2023. The main topic of discussion was bilateral relations between the two countries.
It is the first visit by a Vanuatu foreign minister to Indonesia in more than a decade. This marks an important milestone.
According to Retno, “I am delighted to hear about Vanuatu’s plan to open an embassy in Indonesia, and I welcome the idea of holding annual consultations between the two countries,” in her statement.
At Monday’s meeting, Napat expressed urgency to build a sound partnership between Vanuatu and Indonesia and expressed his eagerness to recover trust. The minister also expressed his country’s eagerness to create a technical cooperation agreement between the two countries and to establish sister city and sister province partnerships, which he said could begin with Papua.
Welcoming DPM/FM Jotham Napat of Vanuatu on his 1st official visit to Indonesia – the 1st visit of FM in more than a decade
An important milestone in our bilateral relations, based on respect to sovereignty, territorial integrity & principles of mutual interests & benefits pic.twitter.com/Y8GkpwxvQC
— Menteri Luar Negeri Republik Indonesia (@Menlu_RI) June 16, 2023
During a joint press conference with Indonesian Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin, Napat expressed his commitment to the “Melanesian way”.
Vanuatu’s Napat meets Indonesian Vice-President
In response to Minister Napat’s visit to West Papua, Benny Wenda of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP) said he welcomed the minister’s remarks on the “Melanesian Way”. Though it isn’t really clear what the Melanesian way is all about?
“Melanesian Way” is a complicated term. Although intuitively, everyone in the Melanesian context assumes to know it. Bernard Narakobi, the person who coined the term refused to define it. It has been described by Narakobi as being comparable to Moses asking God to explain who God was to him.
“God did not reveal himself by a definition, but by a statement that I am who I am,” wrote Narakobi.
Because God is the archetypical ultimate, infallible, eternal, omnipresent, alpha and omega. Narakobi’s statement about the God and Moses analogy is true that God cannot be defined by any point of reference; God is the point of reference.
For Melanesians, however, we are not God. We are mortal, unpredictable, flawed, with aspects of both malevolence and goodness. Therefore, to state that “we are who we are” could mean anything.
Continuing his search for a path for Melanesia, Narakobi wrote:
“Melanesian voice is meant to be a force for truth. It is meant to give witness to the truth. Whereas the final or the ultimate truth is the divine source, the syllogistically or the logical truth is dependent on the basic premises one adopts. The Melanesian voice is meant to be a forum of Melanesian wisdom and values, based on Melanesian experience.”
It seems that these truths and virtues as outlined by this great Melanesian philosopher do not have a common shared value system that binds the states of the MSG together.
‘Bought for 30 pieces of silver’
Following the rejection of ULMWP’s membership bid in Honiara in 2016, Vanuatu’s then Deputy Prime Minister, Joe Natuman, stated,
“Our Prime Minister was the only one talking in support of full membership for West Papua in the MSG, the Solomon Islands Prime Minister couldn’t say very much because he is the chairman.
“Prime Minister Charlot Salwai was the only one defending Melanesians and the history of Melanesian people in the recent MSG meeting in Honiara.
“The MSG, I must repeat, the MSG, which I was a pioneer in setting up, was established for the protection of the identity of the Melanesian people, the promotion of their culture and defending their rights. Right to self-determination, right to land and right to their resources.
“Now it appears other people are trying to use the MSG to drive their own agendas and I am sorry, but I will insist that MSG is being bought by others.
“It is just like Jesus Christ who was bought for 30 pieces of silver. This is what is happening in the MSG. I am very upset about this, and we need to correct this issue.
“Because if our friends in Fiji and Papua New Guinea have a different agenda, we need to sit down and talk very seriously about what is happening within the organisation.”
Principles or a facade?
Whatever agenda Minister Napat had in mind when he travelled to Jakarta on June 16 — in a capital of rulers whose policies have resulted in fatalistic and genocidal outcomes for West Papuans for 60 years — these wisdoms from Melanesian elders will either be his guiding principle, or he will use the term “Melanesian Way” as a facade to conceal different intents not in agreement with these Melanesian values.
These are the types of questions that are at stake for West Papua, Vanuatu, and Melanesians, particularly in a world which is rapidly changing, including ourselves and our values.
In an interview with Island Business published on 3 February 2023, Minister Napat stated his priority for the 100-day work plan.
“Vanuatu has, like other Pacific countries, too often in the past been seen in the international limelight as a subservient associate to others’ interests and agendas, this must change if Vanuatu is to take its rightful place as an equal partner in the international arena.
“The creation and implementation of a new National Foreign Policy must take into account current global geopolitical trends”.
Minister Napat continued:
“The global geopolitical environment has and will continue to change. Our government must implement foreign policy directions which will have as its first priority, the best interests of the nation and people of Vanuatu.
“Since the original foreign policy directions after independence, Vanuatu’s foreign policy approaches in the last 30 years have been at times unclear, ad hoc, and reactive to circumstances and influences. It is time we set our own course and become proactive at all times”.
Vanuatu only support
The minister did not rule out West Papua as one of the countries that influences Vanuatu’s engagement with the world. As anyone familiar with West Papua’s plight knows, Vanuatu is the only sovereign UN member country that has publicly supported West Papua.
There is no indication as to whether those “other interests” and “agendas” pertain to West Papua, Indonesia, MSG, the USA, China, or Australia.
If the minister’s trip to Jakarta was demonstrative of his pragmatic words and West Papua is one of the external interferences the Minister has implied, then Papuans can only hope for the best, that new developing relationships between Jakarta and Port Vila will not be another major betrayal for Papuans.
Minister Napa’s pragmatic approach to adapting to an unpredictable changing world is crucial for the country. Especially since Oceania is becoming increasingly similar to the New Middle East as China and the United States continue to compete, contest, revive or renew their engagement with island nations.
There is also another major player in the region, Indonesia, which has its own interests.
The government and the people of Vanuatu have a duty and responsibility to ensure they must be ready to face these vulgar threats, they pose as stated by the Minister. For persecuted Papuans, their only wish is: Please don’t betray us — the Sacred Trust.
West Papua will always remain a lingering issue — a unresolved murder mystery that has been swept under the rug. For a long time, the Vanuatu government and its people have decided to resolve this issue.
Vanuatu’s Wantok Blong Yumi Bill – Sacred Trust
On 19 June 2010, this sacred trust was protected when the notion regarding West Papua was passed by Vanuatu’s Parliament. The purpose of the “Wantok blong yumi” Bill was to allow the government of Vanuatu to develop specific policies regarding the support of West Papua’s independence struggle.
Then, both the government under the late Prime Minister Edward Natape and his opposition leader, Maxime Carlot Korman, united and sponsored the motion to be drafted by one of the young proponents of West Papua’s cause, Ralph Regevanu, on behalf of the people of Vanuatu and West Papua.
In fact, this was a historic and extraordinary event. It was called a “Parliament extraordinary session” — a sacred session. This Act is an analogy to the declaration of war by tiny young ancient Jews against the giant Goliath and his fearsome army. With a slingshot, David defeated Goliath, not with a giant weapon, bomb, or money, but with courage, bravery and faith.
The Wantok Bill was Vanuatu’s slingshot to fight against and defeat the might of pandemonium warlords and Goliath armies that tortured Papuans everyday while scavenging the richness of this paradise land that has been continuously betrayed.
After the success of the motion, the prime minister promised to sponsor the issue of West Papua at the MSG and PIF meetings.
This promise was partially fulfilled when West Papua was granted observer status in the MSG in 2015. Tragically, this courageous figure passed away on 28 July 2015 (aged 61) just a few days after West Papua was granted observer status by the MSG on June 26.
Furthermore, West Papua has seen some positive developments at an international level. In September 2016, seven Pacific Island countries raised the plight and struggle of the West Papuan people at the UN General Assembly.
A resolution was passed by the PIF in 2019 regarding West Papua.
During the ninth ACP summit of heads of state and government, Ralph Regevanu and Benny Wenda succeeded in convincing the group to pass a resolution calling for urgent attention to be paid to the rights situation in Indonesia-ruled Papua.
Vanuatu also made it possible for Pacific leaders to request that the UN Human Rights Commissioner visit West Papua in 2019. Ralph Regevanu, then Vanuatu’s Foreign Minister, drafted the wording of the PIF’s Communique.
Edward Natape also said his government would apply to the UN Decolonisation Committee for West Papua to be relisted so the territory could undergo the due process of decolonisation.
West Papuans still wait for the UN’s promised decolonisation A long time OPM representative from West Papua, Dr John Otto Ondawame, and Andy Ayamiseba, were among those who witnessed and assisted in this victory. Sadly, both of them have since died.
Dr Ondawame died in 2014 and Andy Ayamiseba in 2020.
Both of these figures, as well as others, were long-time residents of Vanuatu since the 1980s. With their Vanuatu, Melanesia, and Oceania Wantoks, they had tirelessly fought for the rights of West Papua.
The people of West Papua continue to look towards Vanuatu and Melanesia and pray, just as the exiled diaspora of persecuted Jews looked towards Jerusalem and prayed. Vanuatu remains a beacon of hope for West Papua
Papuans’ greatest task, challenge and responsibility is to determine where to go from here.
This spirit of revolution was ignited by the OPM elders, and many brave young men, women, and elderly are fighting for it in West Papua today.
On 30 June 2023, the MSG Foreign Ministers Meeting (FMM) concluded successfully with members approving the outcomes of the MSG senior officials meeting (SOM) at the MSG secretariat in Port Vila, Vanuatu. A traditional welcome ceremony was conducted for the delegates.
A progress report by the MSG Director-General was presented to the SOM, along with the secretariat’s annual reports for 2020 and 2021, a calendar of events for 2023, a proposal to establish MSG supporting offices in member countries and a draft of the MSG secretariat’s work programme and budget for 2023.
The same people who were seen in Jakarta dancing, singing and propagated imageries of gestures, symbols, images, and rhetoric are the ones driving this MSG meeting. Indonesia’s delegation with the red and white flag is also seen sitting inside the MSG’s headquarters — the sacred place, sacred building, of the Melanesian people.
The test for Vanuatu is so high at the moment — reaching a climactic decision for West Papua. Hundreds of Free West Papua social media campaigns groups are inundated with so much optimistic images, symbols, cartoon drawing, words, prayers.
Giving this connection and high emancipation with the upcoming MSG summit, Minister Jotham Napat’s visit to Jakarta was indeed a huge shock for Papuans.
For Papuans, this is a stressful time for such a visit. Pressures, anticipation, prayers, and anxiety for MSG is too high.
Adding to this, this year the Chairmanship and Leaders’ Summit of the MSG are being entrusted to Vanuatu and Vanuatu is also the home base of MSG.
One of the moments West Papua have been waiting for
In the upcoming MSG games, Vanuatu had all the best cards at her disposal to achieve something big for Papuans. Vanuatu was one of key founding fathers of MSG, the MSG embeds Vanuatu’s spirit and values.
It would be “THE” long-awaited moment for Papuans to enter into MSG as Papuans have been insisting that their Melanesian family has been left out for decades.
Social media images and small videos of Vanuatu’s delegation, MSG’s leader and Papuans who support the Indonesian occupation of West Papua dancing and singing during the visit was indeed disheartening for Papuans.
The imagery and propaganda of the visit spread through the media. They intended to dim Vanuatu’s dawn Morning Star. A sacred beacon of light where tortured West Papuans look to, every morning, and pray for deliverance.
Vanuatu’s “Messianic hope” for West Papua in a world where almost no nations, empires, kingdoms, and institutions such as the UN offer refuge, to listen to and seeing such propaganda imageries spread through social media is dispiriting.
Whatever the reason for this visit might be, Papuans who simply just want their freedom from Indonesia, seeing such a visit and display of their trusted friend at the headquarters of their tormentors prompts immediate questions: What happened and why?
“Bring West Papua back to the Melanesian family”. Image: West Papua-Melanesia Facebook
‘Liklil Hope Tasol’ (Little Hope At All)
Dan McGarry, former media director of the Vanuatu Daily Post, writes:
“One of the more popular songs Ayamiseba wrote for the Black Brothers is ‘Liklik Hope Tasol’, a ballad written in Tok Pisin whose title translates as ‘Little Hope At All’. Its narrator lies awake in the early morning hours, the victim of despair.
The vision of the Morning Star and a songbird breaking the pre-dawn hush provide the impetus to survive another day. The song, with its clear political imagery and simplistic evocation of strength in adversity, is clearly autobiographical. It is, arguably, the anthem which animated Ayamiseba’s lifelong pursuit of freedom.”
Such an extravagant display of rhetoric and imagery in the capital of the Pandemonium army that has mercilessly been hunting down “Papuans” on “their ancient timeless land”, New Guinea, as PNG philosopher Narakobi described it, or “little heaven” as Papuans referred to it, can only mean two things: either destroy that “little hope” or “rescue it”.
Only God knows the answer to this question as well of the real intent of the visit and what outcome will emerge from it — will it bring disappearance or hope for Papuans.
The late Pastor Allen Nafuki, a key figure in Vanuatu responsible for bringing warring factions of Papuan resistance groups together in Port Vila in 2014, which helped precipitate much of the ULMWP’s international success, left his last message on West Papua before he died: “God will never sleep for West Papua.”
Vanuatu is a sovereign independent country and as a sovereign nation, Vanuatu has every right to choose to whom she wants to be friends with, visit and sign any treaties and agreements with.
However, when the sacred trust of hope for the betrayed, rejected, persecuted nation like West Papuans is entrusted to them either by choice, force, or compassion, then the choice is clear: You either betray that trust, compromise it, or protect it.
The seed of the sacred bond planted by legendary OPM freedom fighters when the nation of Vanuatu was founded, before MSG was founded, will be either dimmed, betrayed, or resurrected.
The 2010 “Wantok Blong Yumi” Bill should be resurrected and protection given for the “Sacred Trust” (The Sovereignty of West Papua) that has been betrayed for more than 60 years.
The United Nations was the place that the Sacred Trust was betrayed and Vanuatu as a new Guardian of this Trust should restore that trust in the same institution. The statement by the former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki Moon, during the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Summit in Auckland stated: “West Papua is an issue; the right place for it to be discussed, is the Decolonisation Committee of UNGA”.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Vanuatu Deputy Prime Minister Jotham Napat and the MSG Director-General while visiting the Gelora Bung Karno Stadium and meeting with representatives of the Indonesian soccer team companied by the Indonesian foreign affairs minister. Image: Jubi/Twitter.
The president of a West Papuan advocacy group has appealed to the militants holding New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens hostage to free him unconditionally and unharmed, describing him as an “innocent pawn”.
United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) president Benny Wenda said he held “deepest concern” for the life of Mehrtens, captured on February 7 by guerillas fighting for the independence of Papua.
Fighters of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), armed wing of the rebel West Papua Organisation (OPM), have demanded third party negotiations for independence and have recently called for Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape as a “mediator”.
West Papuan leader Benny Wenda . . . condemns the “brutal martial law” imposed by Indonesian security forces. Image: ULMWP
“Currently, the priority of all parties involved in this tragic ordeal is to help and assist the pilot to return home safely and rejoin his family and friends,” said Wenda in a statement.
He condemned the impact of the “brutal martial law” imposed by Indonesian security forces in the West Papua region.
“Philip Mehrtens’ condition is being made significantly more precarious by the Indonesian government’s refusal of outside aid and determination to use military means,” he said.
Jakarta’s aggressive stance went hand-in-hand with its increased militarisation of the region.
Mehrtens ‘innocent human being’
“Mehrtens is an innocent human being who has been unwittingly made into a pawn in a decades-old conflict between the colonial power of Indonesia and the indigenous resistance of West Papua.
“Therefore, securing Mehrtens’ safe return must be the top priority for all parties involved, as his life has been thrown into chaos through no fault of his own.”
Wenda said he was aware of a threat made by the TPNPB last week to shoot the pilot.
“It is indeed tragic that the life of the pilot is at risk, and I understand where the Liberation Army is coming from; however, I cannot comprehend why the blood of an innocent family man should be shed on our ancestral land.
“For more than 60 years, the blood of hundreds of thousands of innocent Papuans has been shed on this sacred land as a result of Indonesian military operations.
“We do not need to shed the blood of another innocent.
“As Papuans, we do not take innocent lives; nor do we have a tradition of genocide, killings, massacres, or land theft.
Peaceful resolution
“This is not a teaching handed down from our ancestors. We have dignity and tradition and as our ancestors always taught us, the killing of an innocent person is strictly prohibited.
“We believe in this, and every Papuan knows it.
Wenda said the ULMWP sought a peaceful resolution to “reclaim our stolen sovereignty”.
“This does not imply that we are weak or ineffective, nor does it indicate that the international community has turned a blind eye to the crimes committed by the Indonesian security forces.
“The world is currently watching Indonesia closely due to their inhumane treatment, barbaric behaviours, genocidal policies, ecocide, and acts of terror against our people.
In a message to the TPNPB, he warned the rebels to “reconsider the threat” made against and what the pilot’s death would “mean to his grieving family, as well as to our national liberation cause”.
“All West Papuans know that international law is on our side: Indonesia’s military occupation and initial claim on West Papua being clearly wrong under international law.
“But so too is taking the life of an innocent person who is not involved in the conflict.
Wenda said it should never be forgotten that “truth is on our side and Jakarta knows it”.
“One day we will win. Light will always overcome darkness.”
Mourning for Beanal
Papuan leader Tom Beanal . . . mourned over his death. Image: ULMWP
Meanwhile, West Papuans have mourned the death of Tom Beanal, a freedom fighter, head of the Papua Presidium Council, and leader of the Amungme Tribal Council.
Wenda said that on behalf of the ULMWP and the West Papuan people, he expressed sympathy and condolences to Beanal’s family, friends, and “everyone he inspired to join the struggle”.
Tom Beanal was a member of the Amungme tribe. Along with the Kamoro people, the Amungme have been the primary victims of the struggle over the Grasberg Mine, the world’s largest gold and second largest copper mine. It is opened and operated by the US mining company Freeport McMoran.
“Amungme and Kamoro people are the indigenous landowners – tribes who have tended and protected their forest for thousands of years. But they have been forced to watch as their lands have been destroyed, physically and spiritually, by an alliance of big corporations and the Indonesian government,” Wenda said.
There are parallels between Indonesia’s Aceh where an Australian surfer faced a flogging, and West Papua where a New Zealand pilot may be facing death. Both provinces have fought brutal guerrilla wars for independence. One has been settled through foreign peacekeepers. The other still rages as outsiders fear intervention.
By Duncan Graham in Malang, East Java
There were ten stories in a Google Alert media feed last week for “Indonesia-Australia”.
One covered illegal fishing in the Indo-Pacific claiming economic losses of more than US$6 billion a year — important indeed.
Another was an update on the plight of New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens, held hostage since February 7 by the Tentara Pembebasan Nasional Papua Barat (TPNPB-West Papua National Liberation Army).
There have been unverified reports of bombs dropped from helicopters on jungle camps where the pilot may have been held with uninvolved civilians.
The other eight stories were about Queenslander Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones who had been arrested in April for allegedly going on a nude drunken rampage and bashing a local in Indonesian Aceh.
Stupidities commonplace
Had the 23-year-old surfer been a fool in his home country the yarn would have been a yawn. Such stupidities are commonplace.
But because he chose to be a slob in the strictly Muslim province of Aceh and facing up to five years jail plus a public flogging, his plight opened the issue of cultural differences and tourist arrogance. Small news, but legitimate.
He has now reportedly done a $25,000 deal to buy his way out of charges and pay restitution to his victim. This shows a flexible social and legal system displaying tolerance — which is how Christians are supposed to behave.
All noteworthy, easy to grasp. But more important than the threatened execution of an innocent victim of circumstances caught in a complex dispute that needs detailed explanations to understand?
Mehrtens landed a commercial company’s plane as part of his job for Susi Air flying people and goods into isolated airstrips when he was grabbed by armed men desperate to get Jakarta to pay attention to their grievances.
Ironically, Aceh where Risby-Jones got himself into strife, had also fought for independence and won. Like West Papua, it’s resource-rich so essential for the central government’s economy.
A vicious on-off war between the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, (GAM-Free Aceh Movement) and the Indonesian military started in 1976 and reportedly took up to 30,000 lives across the following three decades.
Tsunami revived peace talks
It only ended when the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami killed 160,000 people and former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was elected president and revived peace talks. Other countries became involved, including the European Union and Finland where the Helsinki Agreement was signed.
Both sides bowed to a compromise. GAM leaders abandoned their demands for independence, settling for “self-government” within the Indonesian state, while soldiers were withdrawn. The bombings have stopped but at the cost of personal freedoms and angering human rights advocates.
Freed from Jakarta’s control, the province passed strict Shariah laws. These include public floggings for homosexual acts, drinking booze and being close to an opposite sex person who is not a relative. Morality Police patrols prowl shady spots, alert to any signs of affection.
Australian academic and former journalist Dr Damien Kingsbury was also instrumental in getting GAM and Jakarta to talk. He was involved with the West Papua standoff earlier this year but New Zealand is now using its own to negotiate.
Dr Kingsbury told the ABC the situation in West Papua is at a stalemate with neither Wellington nor Jakarta willing to make concessions. The Indonesian electorate has no truck for “separatists” so wants a bang-bang fix. NZ urges a softly-slowly approach.
A TPNPB spokesperson told the BBC: “The Indonesian government has to be bold and sit with us at a negotiation table and not [deploy] military and police to search for the pilot.”
The 2005 Aceh resolution means the Papua fighters have a strong model of what is possible when other countries intervene. So far it seems none have dared, fearing the wrath of nationalists who believe Western states, and particularly Australia, are trying to “Balkanise” the “unitary state” and plunder its riches.
Theory given energy
This theory was given energy when Australia supported the 1999 East Timor referendum which led to the province splitting from Indonesia and becoming a separate nation.
Should Australia try to act as a go-between in the Papua conflict, we would be dragged into the upcoming Presidential election campaign with outraged candidates thumping lecterns claiming outside interference. That is something no one wants but sitting on hands won’t help Mehrtens.
In the meantime, Risby-Jones, whose boorish behaviour has confirmed Indonesian prejudices about Australian oafs, is expected to be deported.
Mehrtens will only get to tell his tale if the Indonesian government shows the forbearance displayed by the family of Edi Ron. The Aceh fisherman needed 50 stitches and copped broken bones and an infected foot from his Aussie encounter, but he still shook hands.
If the Kiwi pilot does get out alive, he deserves the media attention lavished on the Australian. This might shift international interest from a zonked twit to the issue of West Papua’s independence and remind diplomats that if Jakarta could bend in the far west of the archipelago, why not in the far east?
Lest Indonesians forget: Around 100,000 revolutionaries died during the four-year war against the returning colonial Dutch after Soekarno proclaimed independence in 1975. The Dutch only retreated after external pressure from the US and Australia.
Duncan Graham has been a journalist for more than 40 years in print, radio and TV. He is the author of People Next Door (UWA Press) and winner of the Walkley Award and Human Rights awards. He is now writing for the English language media in Indonesia from within Indonesia. This article was first published in Pearls & Irritations on 30 May 2023 and is republished with permission.
On the eve of Papua New Guinea’s hosted Pacific meetings, Free Papua Organisation-OPM leader Jeffrey Bomanak has called for an international embargo on Indonesian goods and services in protest over what he calls Jakarta’s “unlawful military occupation” of West Papua.
Bomanak has also challenged US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to meet with him while visiting Port Moresby today to review “six decades of prima facie photographic evidence of Indonesia’s crimes against humanity”.
“My people have been in a war of liberation from Indonesia’s illegal invasion and annexation for six decades,” he said in a statement.
“Six decades of barbarity and callous international abandonment.”
He said the “theft” of West Papua and its natural resources with the alleged complicity of the US and Australian governments had been “well documented in countless books and journals”.
He described the ongoing human rights violations in West Papua as a “travesty of justice”.
“Indonesia will never leave West Papua without being pushed. We are waiting for an act of deliverance,” Bomanak said.
“To all unions and every unionist — help us reach our day of liberation.”
Both agreements for signing Meanwhile, the PNG Post-Courier reports that Prime Minister James Marape confirmed last night that the Ship Rider Agreement and the Defence Cooperation Agreement would both be signed with the United States this afternoon.
PNG’S Prime Minister James Marape . . . plans to sign both agreements with the US today. Image: PNG Post-Courier
US State Secretary Blinken would sign the agreements during his visit to PNG.
Marape said he did not see geopolitics being involved in the defence agreement. He was signing this agreement to protect the territorial borders from “all kinds of emerging threats”.
He said the agreement was only a defence force cooperation pact like it had with Australia and Indonesia.
Marape hosted dinner last night for all the leaders of the Pacific who had arrived earlier yesterday and on Saturday.
He said Pacific leaders would present their challenges to the world leaders — Blinken and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi — who would be coming for separate meetings.
The sudden death of activist Leonie Tanggahma has shaken Papuan communities. Her loss last week has shocked West Papuans who regarded her as one of those who had stood strong for decades advocating independence for the Indonesian-ruled region.
She had lived for decades in the Netherlands among hundreds of exiled Papuans who had left West Papua after Indonesia annexed the territory 60 years ago. She died at the age of 48 on 7 October 2022.
Papuans continue to express messages of condolence and tribute on social media.
“Sister Leonie passed away due to a severe heart attack,” said Yan Ch Warinussy, a Papuan lawyer and human rights activist and director of the Legal Aid, Research, Investigation and Development Institute (LP3BH), reports Suarapapua.com.
A prominent young Papuan independence activist and West Papua diplomat of the Asia-Pacific region Ronny Kareni, wrote on his Facebook page:
“Sincere and heartfelt condolences for the sad loss of West Papua Woman Leader Leonie Tanggahma. Leonie Tanggahma is the daughter of the late Bernard Tanggahma, Minister for Foreign Affairs in the exile of the Republic of West Papua, which was unilaterally proclaimed by the Free Papua Movement (OPM) in the seventies.
“She was a liaison officer for the Papuan-based human rights NGO ELSHAM in Europe, for which she provided among others, the regular representation of the Papuan cause at United Nations forums, such as the working group on Indigenous populations, the Commission on Human Rights (now Human Rights Council) and its sub-commission.
“In July 2011, the Papua Peace Network (JDP) appointed her, along with four other Papuans living in exile, as a negotiator in the event that the Indonesian Government implements its apparent willingness to hold dialogue with Papuans.
“Following the need for a united political front in a regional and international forum in December 2014, she was appointed as the ULMWP executive member, along with four others to spearhead the national movement abroad, which she served diligently for three years.
“On a personal note, in October 2013 sister Leonie reached out upon receiving information of a political asylum mission that brother Airi and I undertook for 13 prominent Papuan activists who had fled across to PNG.
“She fully supported me in terms of advocating behind the scenes to make sure activists were given support and protection, prior to the UN refugee office closure in December of the same year.
“She followed and listened to The Voice of West Papua despite the time difference and often gave feedback on the radio program. She even shared strong support of the cultural and musical work through Rize of the Morning Star and engaged with the Merdeka West Papua Support Network, where she often sat through countless online discussions during the global pandemic.
“A memory that I will share with many Papuan youths is the screenshot [partially reproduced above], taken on the 18th of September 2022. It demonstrates sister Leonie’s commitment to strengthening capacity of the movement and how much she enjoyed listening and being present for ‘Para Para Diskusi’.
“We will miss you in our weekly discussion, sister Leonie. Condolences to family and loved ones. May her soul rest in peace.”
An interview last year with Leonie Tanggahma. Video: Youngsolwara Pacific
A legacy hard to forget
Jeffrey Bomanak, a Papuan figure from Markas Victoria, the historic headquarters of the Free Papua Movement (OPM), wrote:
“On Friday, October 7, 2022, Mrs Leonie Tanggahma had a sudden heart attack and went to the hospital to seek help. She did not have time to seek assistance from a local doctor and was forced to leave her service in the Struggle of the Papuan Nation at exactly 10:00am, Netherlands time.
“Mr Bomanak said, the sacrifice, discipline, and loyalty she showed in Papua’s struggle is a legacy that is hard to forget for OPM TPNPB on this day and all the days to come”.
Octovianus Mote, a US-based Papuan independence figure who worked closely with Tanggahma, paid tribute to her as follows:
“Sister, we are saddened by your sudden passing at such a young age, as was your father. As believers, we believe that all this destruction appeals to you in heaven, and we will be praying there along with other Papuan warriors who have already gone ahead. We accept death as only a means of continuing a new life since life is eternal and only changes its form. Goodbye, Sister Leonie. We did it, my sister. We did it.”
“Hearing of the news of the passing of Mrs Tanggahma is like being struck by lightning, the Papuan nation lost a woman who cared about the struggles and rights of the West Papuan people. Papuans and activists in Papua feel bereaved by this news.”
Born into the heart of West Papuan struggle Veronica Koman, the well-known Indonesian human rights activist and lawyer who advocates for the rights of Indigenous Papuans, wrote on her Facebook:
“Rest In Peace Leonie Tanggahma. “Sister Leonie and I first met in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2017. I was astonished by her demeanour — intelligent, articulate, friendly, assertive, authoritative but not arrogant. She was one of the pioneers of the international human rights movement for West Papua. Sister Leonie is not only one of the greatest Papuan women but one of the greatest Papuans as well. It sometimes occurs to me that if society and movements were not sexist (meaning that men and women have equal value) how far would Kaka Leonie have succeeded? The people of West Papua have lost one of their brightest stars.”
Benny Wenda, the West Papuan independence icon paid tribute with the following words:
“Leonie Tanggahma was born into the heart of the West Papuan struggle. She was the daughter of Bernard Tanggahma, Minister for Foreign Affairs in exile of the Republic of West Papua which was unilaterally proclaimed by the Free Papua Movement (OPM) in the seventies. Leonie carried on her father’s legacy by working for the Papuan human rights body ELSHAM and representing her people’s cause at various United Nations forums. Later, she became an ULMWP executive member. In this role she was a dedicated servant of the West Papuan independence movement, helping to lead the struggle abroad.”
She was a member of a team of five representatives of the Papuan independence struggle (Jacob Rumbiak, Leonie Tanggahma, Octovianus Mote, Benny Wenda and Rex Rumakiek) elected in Jayapura in 2011 to promote a peaceful dialogue aimed at resolving the Indonesian conflict and Papuan independence.
Daughter of first West Papua ambassador to Senegal According to Rex Rumakiek, one of the last surviving OPM leaders from Tanggahma’s father’s generation, who grew up and fought for West Papua’s independence:
Leonie Tanggahma was the second daughter of the late Ben Tanggahma and Sofie Komber. She had an older sister named Mbiko Tanggahma. Nicholas Tanggahma (brother of Leonie’s father) was a member of the New Guinea Council, formed with Dutch help to safeguard the new fledgling state of Papua.
In the early 1960s, Leonie Tanggahma’s father was sent to study in the Netherlands so that he would be trained and equipped to lead a newly emerging nation state. However, Ben Tanggahma did not return to West Papua and settled there and worked at the Post Office in The Hague, Netherlands. Her father finally stopped working in the Post Office and participated in the West Papua struggle with the political figures of that time, including Markus Kaisiepo and Womsiwor.
Rumaiek said Leonie Tanggahma’s father was the first West Papuan diplomat (ambassador level). He was the one who opened the first West Papuan foreign embassy in Senegal, Africa.
The President of Senegal at that time (1980s) was Léopold Sédar Senghor, a Catholic, as was Ben Tanggahma. Having this religious connection enabled both to develop a special relationship, which allowed West Papua to open an international office in Africa and allowed many African countries to support West Papua’s liberation efforts.
Ben Tanggahma was sent to Senegal as an ambassador by the Revolutionary Provisional Government of West Papua New Guinea (RPG), which received official fiscal and material support from African countries and stood behind Senegal. During that time, the government of Senegal provided Ben Tanggahma with a car, a building, and other resources as well as moral support.
These enabled him to lobby African countries for West Papua’s cause of self-determination.
Rumaiek said he got to know Leonie in 2011, when Benny Wenda, Octovianus Mote, Leonie and he were elected to lead peace dialogue teams in an attempt to resolve West Papua’s tragedies. No results were obtained from this effort.
Leonie Tanggahma was, according to Rex Rumakiek, a well-educated young West Papuan woman who carried her father’s legacy and came from a family who played a significant role in the liberation movement of the Papuan people.
Nicholas Tanggahma and West Papua political Manifesto 1961
Nicholas Tanggahma, brother of Leonie’s father (Ben Tanggahma), was a member of the Dutch New Guinea Council (Nieuw-Guinea Raad), which was installed on 5 April 1961 as the first step towards West Papua’s independence. As soon as the council was formed, Nicholas Tanggahma and his colleague realised that things were about to change dramatically against their newly imagined independent state.
After a few weeks, on 19 October 1961, Ben Tanggahma called a meeting at which 17 people were elected to form a national committee. The committee immediately issued the famous West Papua political manifesto, which requested of the Dutch:
“our [Morning Star] flag be hoisted beside the Netherlands flag;
“our national anthem (“Hai Tanahku Papua”) be sung and played alongside the Dutch national anthem;
“our country be referred to as Papua Barat (West Papua); and
“our people be called the Papuan people.”
Two months later, on 1 December 1961, the new state of West Papua was born, which Papuans around the world celebrate as their National Day.
Leonie Tanggahma died in the same month her uncle had first sown the seed for the new nation West Papua 60 years ago. This deep historical root of her family’s involvement in the struggle for a free and independent West Papua shocked people.
The following are excerpts from a lengthy series of interviews Leonie’s father, Ben Tanggahma had in Dakar, Senegal on February 16 1976. Tanggahma is famous for providing the following answer when asked about the connection between Black Oceania and Africa:
“Africa is our motherland. All the Black populations which settled in Asia over the hundreds of thousands of years came undoubtedly from the African continent. In fact, the entire world was populated from Africa. Hence, we the Blacks in Asia and the Pacific today descend from proto-African peoples. We were linked to Africa in the Past. We are linked to Africa in the future. We are what you might call the Black Asian Diaspora.”
Mbiko Tanggahma, older sister of Leonie Tanggahma, wrote on her Facebook:
“It is true that my little sister, Leonie Tanggahma, passed away on the 7th of October 2022. Although her departure was premature and unexpected, it gives us comfort to know that she was not in pain and that she passed away peacefully. Until her last moments, she continued to do what she loved. She continued to be her determined and fierce self. She fought for just causes, surrounded by her family, friends, activists, and loved ones.”
Leonie’s family in The Netherlands has provided this donation link. (Cite “Leoni” and your full name and e-mail or home address).
The US Holocaust Memorial Museum is warning in a new report that mass killings of civilians could occur in Indonesia’s troubled West Papua region in the next year to 18 months if current conditions deteriorate to a worst-case scenario.
The museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide published the 45-page report this week authored by an Indonesian, Made Supriatma, who conducted field research in the region.
“Indonesia ranks 27th on the list of countries with risks of mass atrocities. This report should be considered as an early warning,” Supriatma said.
A combination of factors — increasing rebel attacks, better coordination and organisation of pro-independence civilian groups, and the ease of communication — makes it plausible that the unrest could reach a new level in the next 12-18 months, the report said.
“If political and social unrest persist, and if it were to spread across the region, it is possible that the Indonesian government could determine that the scale or persistence of the protests would justify a more severe response, which could lead to large-scale killing of civilians,” it said.
The risks are rooted in factors such as past mass atrocities in Indonesia, the exclusion of indigenous Papuans from political decision-making, Jakarta’s failure to address their grievances and conflicts over the exploitation of the region’s resources, according to the report.
Human rights abuses
Other factors include Papuans’ resentment over Jakarta’s failure to hold accountable security personnel implicated in human rights abuses and conflict between indigenous Papuans and migrants from other parts of Indonesia over economic, political, religious, and ideological issues, it said.
Under one scenario that the report envisions, pro-Jakarta Papuan militia, backed by the military and police, commit mass atrocities against pro-independence Papuans.
But such a scenario depends on indigenous Papuan groups remaining divided into pro-Jakarta and pro-independence groups, it said. The other scenario involves Indonesian migrants and Indonesian security forces committing atrocities against indigenous Papuans, the study said.
The report recommends that the government improve freedom of information and monitoring atrocity risks, manage conflicts through nonviolent means, and address local grievances and drivers of conflict.
Supriatma said indigenous Papuans he spoke to as part of his research confirmed that real and perceived discrimination had fueled an “us-against-them” mentality between indigenous Papuans and Indonesians.
Papua, on the western side of New Guinea Island, has been the scene of a low-level pro-independence insurgency since the mainly Melanesian region was incorporated into Indonesia in a United Nations-administered ballot in the late 1960s.
In 1963, Indonesian forces invaded Papua — like Indonesia, a former Dutch colony — and annexed the region.
Only 1025 people voted in the UN-sponsored referendum in 1969 that locals and activists said was a sham, but the United Nations accepted the result, essentially endorsing Jakarta’s rule.
‘Not based on facts’ An expert at the Indonesian presidential staff office, Theofransus Litaay, questioned the study’s validity.
“There’s something wrong in the identification of research questions. The author extrapolated events in East Timor to his research,” he said, referring to violence by pro-Jakarta militias before and after East Timor’s vote for independence from Indonesia in 1999.
“It’s not based on the facts on the ground,” he said, without elaborating.
Gabriel Lele, a senior researcher with the Papuan Task Force at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, said the report was based on limited data.
“It is true that there has been an escalation of violence, but the main perpetrators are the OPM [Free Papua Movement] and the victims have been civilians, soldiers and police,” lele said.
He said rebels had also attacked indigenous Papuans who did not support the pro-independence movement.
Violence has intensified in Papua since 2018, when pro-independence rebels attacked workers who were building roads and bridges in Nduga regency, killing 20 people, including an Indonesian soldier.
Suspected rebels killed civilians
In the latest violence, suspected rebels gunned down 10 civilians, mostly non-indigenous Papuans, and wounded two others on July 16.
A local rebel commander from the OPM’s armed wing, Egianus Kogoya, claimed responsibility.
“We suspect they were spies, so we shot them dead on the spot,” the Media Indonesia newspaper quoted him as saying on Monday.
The attack in Nduga regency came a little more than two weeks after legislators voted to create three new provinces in Papua amid opposition from indigenous people and rebel groups.
In March this year, insurgents killed eight workers who were repairing a telecommunications tower in Beoga, a district of Puncak regency.
No desire to address racism Reverend Dr Benny Giay, a member of the Papua Church Council, said Jakarta had not shown a desire to address racism against Papuans, who are ethnically Melanesian, and instead branded pro-independence groups terrorists.
“Authorities allow arms trade between armed groups and members of the TNI [military] and police, which perpetuates the violence and in the end can have fatal consequences for the indigenous people,” Dr Giay said.
The influx of migrants from other parts of Indonesia has created inter-communal tensions and conflicts over regional governance, analysts said.
Indigenous people are concerned that a massive project to build a trans-Papua highway, as part of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s drive to boost infrastructure, could lead to economic domination by outsiders and the presence of more troops, said Cahyo Pamungkas, a researcher from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN).
“The road will mainly benefit non-Papuans, and indigenous people will benefit little economically because they are not ready to be involved in the economic system that the government wants to build,” Cahyo said.
Republished from Benar News. Co-author Victor Mambor is editor-in-chief of the indigenous Papuan newspaper and website Jubi.
The Papua People’s Council (MRP) says that a Coordinating Ministry for Security, Politics and Legal Affairs (Kemenko Polhukam) deputy has told them that the creation of new autonomous regions (DOB) in Papua is to narrow the space for the West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Movement (TNPB-OPM) to move.
MRP Chair Timotius Murib said that the Coordinating Minister for Security, Politics and Legal Affairs Mahfud MD also made the statement during a meeting between the Kemenko Polhukam and the MRP.
Murib said that during the meeting, the MPR had received a great deal of input from the Kemenko Polhukam.
“One of the deputies told the MRP that the MPR should know that the DOB is an activity by the state to narrow the space for the TNPB-OPM or KKBs [armed criminal groups] to move,” said Murib during a virtual press conference on June 30.
Murib said the deputy also said that the government would build large numbers of regional police (Polda) headquarters and regional military commands (Kodam),
Because of this, the MRP believed that the creation of new autonomous regions in Papua was aimed at bringing more military into Papua and encircling the TPNPB.
According to Murib, the government was not prioritising the interests of ordinary people but rather the desire to exploit natural resources in Papua.
“And they want to build [more] Polda, Kodam, in the near future,” said Murib.
Murib revealed that there were many people who had heard the statement by the deputy.
The MRP believes that it is no longer a secret that the government is pursuing natural resources in Papua and ignoring the interests of local people.
According to Murib, the government also wants to exploit natural resources without being disturbed by other parties by bringing in large numbers of military personnel.
“But brought in so that when natural resources [are managed] in Papua no one disrupts this. Because the country’s debt is indeed very big at the moment,” the deputies said.
Earlier on June 30, the House of Representatives (DPR) enacted three laws on the establishment of new provinces in Papua — Central Papua, the Papua Highlands and South Papua.
Note
The original text of the second paragraph in which Murib said that Minister Mahfud MD made the statement, rather than the unnamed deputy, read: “Ketua Majelis Rakyat Papua (MRP), Timotius Murib mengatakan, bawahan Menko Polhukam, Mahfud MD menyampaikan pernyataan itu dalam salah satu pertemuan Kemenko Polhukam dengan MRP”.
The declaration, signed by Seth Rumkoren and Jacob Prai — who sadly passed away last month — was a direct rejection of Indonesian colonialism.
It sent a powerful message to Jakarta: “We, the people of West Papua, are sovereign in our own land, and we do not recognise your illegal occupation or the 1969 ‘Act of No Choice’.”
West Papua’s Benny Wenda (left) with PNG journalist Henry Yamo at the Pacific Media Centre on his visit to New Zealand in 2013. Image: Del Abcede/APR
From that moment on, we have been struggling for the independence of West Papua. Through guerilla warfare, the OPM has helped keep the flame of liberation alive. They are our home guard, defending our land and fighting for the sovereignty that was stolen from us by Jakarta.
This day is an opportunity for all West Papuans to reflect on our struggle and unite with determination to complete our mission. Whether you are exiled abroad, in a refugee camp, a member of the West Papua Army, or internally displaced by colonial forces, we are all united in one spirit and determined to liberate West Papua from Indonesian oppression.
The OPM laid the foundations for the political struggle [that] the Provisional Government is now fighting. As expressed in our constitution, the provisional government recognises all declarations as vital and historic moments in our struggle.
Having declared our provisional government, our cabinet, our military wing, and our seven regional executives, we are ready to take charge of our own affairs.
Two new announcements
I also want to use this moment to make two new announcements about our provisional government.
First, I am announcing the formation of a new government department, the Department of Intelligence Services. As with our existing departments, it will operate on the ground in occupied West Papua, and reinforce our challenge to Indonesian colonialism.
In addition, I am announcing that we have appointed an executive member for each of the seven regional bodies we established in December 2021. With every step forward, we are building our capacity and infrastructure as a provisonal government.
Over 50 years on from the 1971 proklamasi, our people’s mission is the same.
We refuse Indonesian presence in WP, which is illegal under international law. We do not recognise “Special Autonomy”, five new provinces, or any other colonial law; we have our own constitution.
ANALYSIS:By Aprila Wayar and Johnny Blades for The Diplomat
A plan to create three new provinces in the Papua region highlights how Jakarta’s development approach has failed to resolve a long-running conflict.
In April of this year, Indonesia’s Parliament approved a plan to create three new provinces in Papua, the easternmost region of the archipelago.
Government officials have described the creation of the new administrative units as an effort to accelerate the development of the outlying region, which has long lagged behind the other more densely populated islands.
But Papua’s problem isn’t a lack of development — it’s a lack of justice for West Papuans.
In the plan to subdivide Indonesia’s two most sparsely populated provinces — Papua and West Papua — many people sense a kind of “end game” strategy by Indonesia’s government that is expected to worsen the long-running conflict in Papua, something countries in the region can ill afford to ignore.
The province plan comes in the twilight of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s second and final term in office, a term marked by an escalation of violence between fighters of the pro-independence West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) and the Indonesian security forces.
Jokowi has ordered huge military operations in the central regencies of Nduga, Puncak Jaya, Intan Jaya, Maybrat and regions near the border with Papua New Guinea (PNG).
1960s armed wing The TPNPB is the armed wing of the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM), or Free Papua Movement, which was created in the 1960s by so-called West Papuan freedom fighters.
They opposed the Indonesian Army, which had begun occupying parts of West Papua after the Dutch withdrew in 1962, even before the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority had completed its period of mandated administration in 1963.
After Papua officially joined Indonesia in a 1969 UN referendum that many Papuans view as flawed, the OPM grew rapidly in the late 1970s, with fighters joining its ranks across West Papua. Their operations mainly consisted of attacking Indonesian patrols.
In 1984, when a West Papuan insurgent attack sparked large Indonesian military deployments in and around the capital Jayapura, the subsequent brutal sweep operations triggered a mass exodus of around 10,000 Papuan refugees to PNG.
At the time, when questioned in Jakarta about the impacts of military operations in Papua, a leading Indonesian Foreign Ministry official shrugged it off and stated that the government was introducing colour television in Papua and was doing its best to accelerate development there.
Nearly 40 years later, with the Papuan conflict reaching a new pitch of tension, the government’s narrative has barely changed.
Conflict continues at the cost of mass displacement in Papua’s highlands. Human rights bodies have stated that intensified bursts of fighting between TPNPB guerrillas and the Indonesian army since late 2018 have displaced at least 60,000 Papuans.
Figures hard to verify
Exact figures remain difficult to verify because Jakarta still obstructs access to the region for foreign media and human rights workers. Since the Indonesian takeover of Papua in the 1960s, West Papua’s history has been marked by persistent human rights abuses.
In recent years, the UN Human Rights Commissioner has repeatedly pressed for access to the region, without success.
In April, Jokowi’s cabinet, including Home Affairs Minister Tito Karnavian, a former police chief, and fellow hardliner Defence Minister Prabowo Subianto, introduced a draft for a long-anticipated creation of three new provinces — Central Papua, South Papua, and Central Highlands Papua –– in addition to the two existing provinces of Papua and West Papua.
This initiative has met with strong opposition from indigenous Papuans. Well before the recent cabinet decision, Papua’s provincial Governor Lukas Enembe warned against it, fearing new provinces could pave the way for more transmigrants and more problems for Papuans, although in recent days he has reportedly offered qualified support for dividing Papua based on customary territories.
He was not alone in speaking up. On May 10, thousands of Papuans from the Papuan provinces and in major cities in other parts of Indonesia took to the streets to protest Jakarta’s creation of extra provinces.
Protests were met head on by heavy security forces responses including the use of water cannons and detention. Papuans were frustrated because their views had not been incorporated in Jakarta’s decision making.
As Emanuel Gobay, director of the Papua Legal Aid Institute, told The Diplomat, the region’s Special Autonomy Law, passed in 2001, requires the central government to conduct a public survey starting from the village level to the head of districts where the expansion will be carried out.
“The central government has introduced the planned expansion policy on its own initiative, without any aspirations from the grassroots communities,” Gobay explained.
Delineated history For years, the Indonesian government has characterised West Papua as being backward in terms of social and human development, claiming that it needs Indonesian help to advance.
Certainly, poverty has been a problem in Papua, but that’s not unique across the republic. Yet, for decades Papua was effectively isolated by central government, often leaving the public in the dark about what has been going on there.
The social media age has lifted the lid on Papua a little, stirring international attention intermittently. As part of Jakarta’s response, social media bots have been deployed across the internet, spreading state propaganda and targeting human rights workers, journalists, or anyone drawing attention to Papua.
The bots say everything is good in Papua, look at all the development happening, 3G internet, roads. In a sense, it’s true that infrastructure development has increased in recent years.
Compared to neighbouring PNG, Papua and West Papua provinces are well developed in terms of basic services and roads. But it’s not necessarily the sort of development that Papuans themselves want or need.
The lack of a genuine self-determination process in the 1960s remains a core injustice that holds Papua back. Since then, thousands of indigenous Papuans have lost their lives in what is considered one of the most militarised zones in the wider region. Some research puts the death toll as high as 500,000.
One of them was Theys Eluays, a tribal chief who became a figurehead for Papuan independence aspirations and a strong critic of the first plan to divide Papua into two provinces, until he was assassinated by members of the Kopassus special forces unit in 2001.
Military elite have major interests
Indonesia’s political elite and military establishment have extensive interests in Papua’s abundant natural resource wealth. The new provincial divisions would enable more opportunities for the exploitation of these resources, largely for the benefit of people other than Papuans themselves.
The new provinces would be merely the latest in a series of delineations imposed on Papua by others, a process that runs from the marking of the western half of New Guinea as a Dutch colony in the 1880s, to the contentious transferal of control of the territory to Indonesia in the 1960s, to Jakarta’s subsequent reconfigurations of the province, especially after the enactment of the Special Autonomy Law in response to Papuan demands for independence.
The plan for further subdivisions did not emerge overnight. It has been mooted for decades by Indonesia’s powerful Golkar party as a way to cement sovereign control of the restive eastern region. In the 1980s, proposals for dividing Irian Jaya, as it was then known, into as many as six provinces were fleshed out at national seminars on regional development and gained interest from elites in Jakarta.
Even in these early seminar discussions, Papuan representatives warned that provincial splits could have a negative impact on local indigenous communities, whose interests were clearly not represented in provincial subdivision plans.
Although the idea of provincial expansion in Irian Jaya ended up on President Suharto’s desk, it hadn’t got off the ground by the time he stepped down in 1998.
During the subsequent tenure of President B.J. Habibie, Papuan tribal and civil community leaders were among the “Team of 100″ Papuans invited to the presidential palace for a dialogue, during which they asked for independence. Habibie told the Team to go home and rethink its request.
During the term of President Abdurrahman Wahid, the spiritual leader of Nahdlatul Ulama, Indonesia’s largest Islamic organisation, West Papuans were granted the concession of being able to raise the banned Papuan nationalist Morning Star flag, on the condition that it be hoisted two inches beneath the flag of the Indonesian republic.
The administration of the next president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, initiated a law that granted Papua Special Autonomy status and created a second province, West Papua (Papua Barat) — the first splitting of provinces.
Local resentment Since Papua became a part of the Republic of Indonesia, Jakarta has introduced various laws aimed ostensibly at improving the welfare of indigenous Papuans. These have overwhelmingly been met with suspicion and skepticism by the Papuans.
Special Autonomy is widely regarded by Papuans to have failed on the promise to empower them in their own homeland, where they instead continue to be victims of racism and human rights violations, and their indigenous culture is increasingly threatened.
Due to large scale exploitation of Papua’s natural wealth, Papuans have been losing access to the forests, mountains, and rivers which were essential to their people’s way of life for centuries.
International companies such as Freeport McMoRan, Rio Tinto, BP, Shell, and multinational oil palm players operate here in commercialising Papua’s mineral, gas, forestry and other resources. There is little consideration about the sustainability of indigenous customs, which has only added to the long list of Papuan grievances.
Now that Jakarta is drawing more administrative lines through this cradle of native rainforest and immense biodiversity, Gobay expects new provinces to have three major impacts.
“First, it will create an environment for more land grabbing. Either through the granting of mining permits to foreign exploration companies or through the construction of other additional government enterprises on customary land,” he said.
“Secondly, marginalisation of Papuans on their own land would only increase,” he added.
Thirdly, he expected a rise in human rights violations.
The Papuan People’s Assembly (MRP), a cultural protection body born from the Special Autonomy Law, has filed for a judicial review of the provincial subdivision plan with Indonesia’s Constitutional Court, and asked the House of Representatives in Jakarta to postpone the New Autonomous Region Bill for Central Papua, South Papua, and Central Highlands Papua.
The court is expected to hold a hearing in the next month.
Minorities in their own land The provincial split is bound to accelerate the steady reconfiguration of Papua’s demographics.
“If we make a rough estimate, almost 50 percent of the population of West Papua is not indigenous anymore,” said Cahyo Pamungkas of the Jakarta-based National Research and Innovation Agency.
He noted that transmigrants from other parts of Indonesia not only dominated Papua’s local economy but also its regional politics. For instance, there remain only three native Papuan representatives out of 21 legislative members in Merauke district, where some 70 percent of the population are non-Papuans.
Pamungkas also disputed the recent claims of Indonesia’s coordinating minister for legal, political and security affairs, Mahfud MD, that 82 percent of Papuans supported the proposed province splits.
“The survey should have been opened to the public. Who were interviewed and how many respondents participated? What was the survey method?” he asked, adding that such misleading statements are likely to foster additional distrust in the government.
So too can repeated arrests of young Papuans for exercising their democratic voice. Esther Haluk, a democratic rights activist from Papua, was arrested by security forces during the May 10 protests.
“New provinces will pave the way for more new military bases, new facilities for security apparatus. More military, more opposition, more human rights violations. This is like reinstating the Suharto era all over again in Papua,” she said.
Sectarian tensions
Sectarian tensions between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian settlers remain a tinderbox, particularly since major anti-racism protests in 2019. A disturbing factor in the deadly unrest around those protests was the role of pro-Indonesian militias, recalling the violence-soaked last days of Timor-Leste prior to its independence in 2002.
More transmigrants could pave way for more conflict in Papua, and more conflict could potentially justify more military deployment, which adds to the climate of persistent human rights abuses against Papuans.
Haluk said newly arrived migrants are often favored by officials in being able to take up local privileges such as jobs within the public service and government, especially if they have relatives already in Papua. Many have also been able to buy land.
“This is a real form of settler colonialism, a form of colonization that aims to replace the indigenous people of the colonised area with settlers from colonial society,” she said. “In this type of colonialism, indigenous people are not only threatened with losing their territory, but also their way of life and identity that’s been passed down to them from generation to generation.”
Regional implications By exacerbating conflict in West Papua, the provinces plan could also prove problematic for neighbouring countries, none more so than PNG. Through no fault of its own, PNG has long been lumped with spillover problems from the conflict in West Papua, including the movement of arms and military actors across the two regions’ porous 750km border, refugees fleeing from Indonesian authorities, and the displacement of village communities in the border area.
The covid-19 pandemic also showed that when things get bad on the western side of the border, the problem spreads to PNG, beyond the control of either government.
PNG leaders have cordial exchanges with Indonesian counterparts but the Melanesian government is all too aware of the power imbalance when it comes to the elephant in the room, West Papua.
PNG’s Petroleum Minister Kerenga Kua, who has previously travelled to Jakarta as a member of high-level government delegations, attested to the limited options available to PNG for addressing the West Papua crisis.
“PNG has no capacity to raise the issue,” Kua said. “We can express our concern and our grief and disappointment over the manner in which the Indonesian government is administering its responsibilities over the people of West Papua.
“However there’s nothing much else we can do, especially when larger powers in our region like Australia remain tight-lipped over the issue. Of what constructive value would it be for PNG to venture into that landscape without proper support?”
He added: “So we are very guarded about what we say, because there’s no doubt about the concern that we have in this country.”
Refugees there to stay
Kua says many West Papuans who came across the border as refugees are there to stay: “We don’t complain about that. We just feel that this part of the country is theirs as much as the other side of the island is theirs.”
PNG’s policy on West Papua, where it rarely exercises a voice, has left it looking weak on the issue. The most vocal of the leading political players in PNG, the governor of the National Capital District, Powes Parkop, says that for too long, PNG government policy on West Papua has been dictated by fear of Indonesia and assumptions that make it convenient for leaders to not do anything about it.
While PNG hopes the West Papua problem will go away, Indonesia’s government is also burying its head in the sand by portraying West Papua’s problems as a development issue.
“It’s a human rights issue and we should solve it at that level. It’s about the right to self-determination,” Parkop said.
“PNG holds the key to the future peaceful resolution of Papua. If we rise above our fear and be bold and brave by having an open dialogue with the Indonesian government, I’m sure we’ll make progress.”
Following upcoming elections in PNG, a new government will take power in early August. It’s unwise to bet on the result, but former Prime Minister Peter O’Neill is one of the contenders to take office, and he, more than incumbent James Marape, has been able to project PNG’s role as a regional leader among the Pacific Islands.
He is also one of the few to have expressed strong concern about human rights abuses and violence against West Papuans.
‘Hope government will be brave’
“I hope the new government will be brave enough and have a constructive dialogue with Indonesia’s government so we can find a long-lasting solution,” Parkop said.
“As long as Indonesia and PNG continue to pretend it won’t go away, it will only get worse, and it is getting worse.”
Parkop added that because of the huge economic potential of New Guinea, “the future can be brighter for both sides if the problem is confronted with honesty”.
According to Kua, Indonesia’s government made a commitment to empowering Papuans to run their own territory within the structure of the Republic, a pledge which should be honored. Regional support would help encourage Indonesia in this direction.
“Australia, New Zealand, PNG, those of us from the Pacific all have to stand united until some other wholesale answers are found to the plight of the people of West Papua,” he said. “The interim relief is to continue to press for increased delegated powers to (Papua). So they have more and more say about their own destiny.”
The Papuan independence movement has managed to gain a foothold in the regional architecture, most notably with the admission of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) to the Melanesian Spearhead Group regional bloc, whose founding aim is the decolonisation of all Melanesian peoples. But Indonesia’s successful diplomatic efforts in the region have provided a counterweight to regional calls for Papuan independence.
However, 2019 saw a rare moment of regional unity when the Pacific Islands Forum, which is made up of 18 member countries, including French territories New Caledonia and French Polynesia, resolved to push Indonesia to allow the UN Human Rights Commissioner access to Papua to produce an independent report on the situation.
Human rights unity stalled
Then the pandemic came along and the matter stalled.
“Following that, the Pacific Island states who are members of the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific bloc) supported the same resolution at (its) General Assembly in Kenya,” said Vanuatu’s opposition leader Ralph Regenvanu, who was foreign minister at the time of the Forum resolution. Since then, he said, there had been “nothing explicit.”
Papua remains of great concern to Pacific Islanders, Regenvanu explained, noting that Indonesia’s plan for new provinces was set to cause “accelerated destruction of the natural environment and the social fabric, more dissipation of the political will.”
The Papua conflict has fallen largely on deaf ears in both Canberra and Wellington, each of which is hesitant to jeopardise its relations with Indonesia. Australia’s new Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Jakarta soon after coming to power last month, showing that the country’s relationship with Indonesia is a priority.
But as the conflict worsens in neighboring West Papua, Australia’s involvement in training and funding of Indonesian military and police forces who are accused of human rights violations in Papua grows ever more problematic.
Under Albanese, Canberra is unlikely to spring any surprises on Jakarta regarding West Papua, but neither can it ignore the momentum for decolonisation in the Pacific without adding to the sense of betrayal Pacific Island countries feel towards Canberra over the question of climate change.
Major self-determination questions are pressing on its doorstep, both in New Caledonia, where the messy culmination of the Noumea Accord means the territory’s future status is uncertain, and in Bougainville where 98 percent of people voted for independence from PNG in a non-binding referendum in 2019.
Ratifying the referendum
PNG’s next Parliament is due to decide whether to ratify the referendum result, and while political leaders don’t wish to trigger the break-up of PNG, they know that failure to respond to such an emphatic call by Bougainvilleans would spell trouble.
While in Parkop’s view Bougainville and West Papua are not the same, there are lessons to be drawn from the two cases.
“In the past PNG has been looking at (Bougainville) from the development perspective, and we have tried so many things: changed the constitution, gave them autonomy, gave them more money, and so on.
“It did not solve the problem,” he said. “And now in PNG, it’s a reckoning time.”
He added: “So the Indonesians have to come to terms with this. Otherwise if they only see this as a development issue, they will miss the entire story, and it can only get worse, whatever they do.”
Much is riding on the Bougainville and New Caledonia questions, and fears that China could step in to back a new independent nation are part of the reason why Australia would prefer the status quo to remain in place, and probably the same for West Papua and Indonesia.
The 2006 Lombok Treaty between Indonesia and Australia, which prohibits any interference in each nation’s sovereignty, makes it hard for Canberra to speak out. But it could also play into China’s hands if Australia and New Zealand keep ignoring the requests of Pacific Island nations about West Papua.
Opportunities for resolution Means of resolving the Papua conflict exist, but they aren’t development or military-based approaches. And as far as Jakarta is concerned, independence is out of the question.
Professor Bilveer Singh, an international relations specialist from the National Singapore University, told The Diplomat in 2019 that West Papuan independence was a pipe dream. Internal divisions among the Papuan independence movement are identified as a barrier.
The head of the ULMWP, Benny Wenda, sought to address this with decisive leadership by declaring an interim government of West Papua last year, but the move was criticised by some key players in the movement.
While Papua is unlikely to be another Timor-Leste, Singh wrote, an Aceh or Mindanao model with greater autonomy would be more achievable. Furthermore, Jakarta could allow Papuans to hoist their own colors under Indonesian sovereignty.
Declaring tribal areas as conservation regions is an option, too. More significantly, Papua could also become a self-governing state in free association with Indonesia, like the Cook Islands and Niue are with New Zealand, or even follow the model of Chechnya in Russia.
To be able to manage their own security and governance, and allow their culture to thrive, would answer a lot of Papuans’ grievances. A non-binding independence referendum, as PNG has allowed for Bougainville, would be a good starting point.
If Papuans are as content with Indonesian rule as Jakarta claims, a referendum would be instructive.
Meaningful dialogue necessary
At the very least, in a bid to stop the conflict, meaningful dialogue is necessary. Jokowi has reportedly given approval for Indonesia’s national human rights body to host a dialogue with pro-independence factions, including those residing abroad.
Leaders of the TPNPB and ULMWP have indicated they are interested in a dialogue only on condition that it is brokered by a foreign, neutral third party mandated by the UN.
The Papuans aren’t in a position to dictate such terms, unless international pressure weighs into the equation. They are however also highly unlikely to stop resisting Indonesian rule while their sense of injustice remains.
“The Papuan conflict is not about colour television or 3G internet, it’s about indigenous dignity and a stand against militarism,” Haluk said.
As well as drawing new lines on the map, the plan for more provinces in Papua draws a new line in the sand, beyond which the conflict in Indonesia’s easternmost region will become much more intractable.
No amount of development will stop this until Jakarta shifts its thinking on how to address the region’s core problem. The opposite of poverty isn’t wealth, it’s justice.
Co-authors and journalists Aprila Wayar (West Papua) and Johnny Blades (Aotearoa New Zealand) are contributors to The Diplomat. Republished with permission by the authors.
Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) has discussed the plan to hold a peaceful dialogue to resolve the problems in Papua during its visit to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
During the meeting, the Komnas HAM was represented by commission chairperson Taufan Damanik and two commissioners, Beka Ulung Hapsara and Mochamad Choirul Anam. They met with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.
“Komnas HAM conveyed the initiative for a peaceful dialogue on Papua,” said Damanik in a media statement, reports CNN Indonesia.
Damanik said that the peaceful dialogue was initiated by Komnas HAM as an approach to resolve the various human rights problems in Papua. He claimed that the UN has welcomed the plan.
“Michelle Bachelet conveyed her appreciation for the move by Komnas HAM,” he said.
The commission is confident that a peaceful dialogue on Papua can be realised and Damanik hopes that all parties will support the effort.
“[We] hope that more and more parties will lend their support to the initiative that exists so that a Papua which is just, peaceful and prosperous can be quickly achieved,” he said.
Rights violations of concern
Damanik said that they also took the opportunity to explain to the UN about various human rights developments and challenges in Indonesia, including resolving cases of rights violations which are of concern to the public.
“Including within this were changes related to progress in human rights policies and the obstacles which still exist,” he said.
Komnas HAM has visited Papua on several occasions to discuss the planned peace dialogue.
It claims that many different parties have welcomed the peaceful dialogue it has initiated.
The West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Organisation (TPNPB-OPM) however has rejected peace talks with the government if it is only mediated by Komnas HAM.
They have also called on President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to be prepared to sit down together with them at the negotiating table.
Earlier this year TPNPB-OPM spokesperson Sebby Sambom said that they wanted any peace dialogue or negotiations to be mediated by the UN because the armed conflict in Papua was already on an international scale.
“In principle we will agree if the negotiations are in accordance UN mechanisms, but we are not interested in Indonesia’s methods,” said Sambom in a press release on Friday February 23.
The West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Organisation (TPNPB-OPM) has rejected peace talks with the Indonesian government if it is only mediated by the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM).
It is also asking President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to be prepared to sit down with them at the negotiating table.
TPNPB-OPM spokesperson Sebby Sambom said that the OPM wants the peaceful dialogue or negotiations to be mediated by the United Nations because the armed conflict in Papua was already on an international scale.
“In principle we agree [that] if the negotiations are in accordance with UN mechanisms, but we are not interested in Indonesia’s methods,” said Sambom in a written statement.
Sambom said that they also do not want to hold the dialogue in Indonesia but want it to be held in a neutral country in accordance with UN mechanisms.
“The negotiations must be held in a neutral country, in accordance with UN mechanisms”, he said.
Sambom said President Widodo must be aware and must have the courage to sit down at the negotiating table with the TPNPB-OPM’s negotiating team.
He also reminded Widodo that the UN was an international institution which can act as a mediator in resolving armed conflicts.
Peaceful dialogue
“In the statement to Jakarta we are asking that Indonesian President Jokowi be aware and have the courage to sit at the negotiating table with the TPNPB-OPM’s negotiating team together with all the delegates from the organisations which are struggling [for independence],” he said.
Earlier, the Komnas HAM claimed it would initiate peace talks between the government and the OPM.
Komnas HAM had also claimed that the proposal for talks had been agreed to by the government, ranging from President Widodo, Coordinating Minister for Security, Politics and Legal Affairs Mahfud MD to the TNI (Indonesian military) and Polri (Indonesian police).
Komnas HAM, along with the Komnas HAM Papua representative office, began sounding out peaceful dialogue by meeting with a series of groups in Papua on March 16-23.
In the initial stage, Komnas HAM was endeavoring to hear and ask for the views of key parties on the issue, especially the OPM, both those within the country as well as those overseas. The other key people were religious, traditional community and intellectual figures.
The West Papua National Committee (KNPB) has declared that it rejects the violent approach which Indonesia continues to push in the land of Papua.
“We have been consistent in the demand to resolve the political conflict in Papua peacefully. We reject a violent approach which has already claimed many victims since [Papua] was annexed [by Indonesia] in 1962,” said KNPB spokesperson Ones Suhuniap in a media release this week.
“We are aware that weapons will not resolve the Papua problem.”
The KNPB is asking the Free Papua Movement-West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB OPM) and the Indonesian government to halt the armed conflict.
“Immediately open up peaceful democratic space for dialogue and to find a find a peaceful solution,” the group said.
According to Suhuniap, the KNPB is asking Indonesia to stop sending troops to the land of Papua.
“We are asking Jakarta to withdraw the troops which have been dropped [in Papua] in huge numbers because this has impacted on humanitarian crimes since 1962.
‘Don’t sacrifice people’
“Immediately pursue a political solution. Don’t sacrifice people for the sake of the economic and political interests of the oligarchy in Jakarta.
“Members of the TNI [Indonesian military] and Polri [Indonesian police] are also human beings. Likewise, the TPNPB are also human beings,” the group said.
As an organisation, the KNPB rejects the use of arms as a solution.
“All KNPB members adhere to the KNPB’s principles of struggling peacefully without violence. We need to remind all rogue individuals (oknum) and other parties to stop treating the KNPB as criminals.
KNPB’s Ones Suhuniap … “All the Papuan people want is their political right to be respected as a nation.” Image: Suara Papua
“If there are such rogue individuals they must be held accountable for their actions. We will not tolerate it anymore,” said Suhuniap.
Suhuniap believes that the bloody conflict which is continuing in the land of Papua is a consequence of Jakarta’s reluctance to resolve the conflict peacefully.
“All the Papuan people want is their political right to be respected as a nation. So, right from the start the KNPB has demanded a referendum as a peaceful solution for the Papuan people.
intentionally cultivated crimes
“So far this has not happened, because Jakarta has intentionally cultivated and maintained crimes against humanity in the land of Papua,” he explained.
Suhuniap continued: “Papua’s problems are very clear. Indonesia and the world also understands this.
“Our political history and the current reality proves that the Papuan people have, are and will continue to be the victims. All of the scientific research proves this. So as human beings we need a peaceful solution.”
In heading towards the peaceful solution that is yearned for, said Suhuniap, both parties needed to speak at an respectable location.
“And speak honestly and openly, then agree on a solution for the Papuan people.”
Because of this, the KNPB as a media for the Papuan people was continuing to urge Jakarta and all other parties to pursue a peaceful solution.
Papuan lives without hope
Meanwhile, KNPB diplomatic secretary Omikson Balingga said that the lives of the Papuan people in Indonesia had been without hope because of the unfolding threat of violence over the past 60 years.
“The Papuan nation does not have any hope living with a colonial country. Aside from its people, the natural resources of the land of Papua also continue to be exhausted by Indonesia. The only solution is independence as a sovereign country”, he said.
Earlier, KNPB General Chairperson Warpo Sampari Wetipo declared that the KNPB as a media of the West Papuan people has been consistent in its civilian mission in the cities.
“The KNPB will never retreat a single step. The KNPB has been constant in the agenda of self-determination which along with the Papuan people it has continued to struggle for”, said Wetipo.
As long as the Papuan people are still not given the democratic space to determine their own future (self determination), he asserted that the KNPB will continue to exist throughout the land of Papua.
“To this day the struggle of the Papuan nation has been to demand political independence. This is no longer a secret. All of the Papuan people already know and understand our political history and what is best for the future”.
Wetipo stated that Indonesia must understand that it has to stop using colonialist policies and actions against the Papuan people.
“The best solution is to immediately give the democratic right to the Papuan nation to determine their own future”, he asserted.
Pressure is mounting on Indonesia to back off its brutal and unsuccessful military strategy in trying to crush West Papuan resistance to its flawed rule in “the land of Papua”.
Critics have intensified their condemnation of the intransigent “no negotiations” stance of authorities as West Papuans mark their national day today on 1 December 1961 when the banned Morning Star flag of independence was raised for the first time.
The TNI (Indonesian military), the Polri (Indonesian police) and the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) have been locked in a conflict since Jakarta ordered a crackdown in May following a declaration of resistance groups as “terrorists”.
Many groups have raised their criticism of Jakarta’s flawed handling of its two colonised Melanesian provinces, Papua and West Papua. Recent developments include:
The Papua Council of Churches has made a “moral call” condemning the Indonesian government for continuing to choose a “path of violence” in dealing with the armed conflict in Papua being waged by OPM rebels and other pro-independence militia groups.
One hundred and ninety-four Catholic leaders from across Papua have called for an end to military operations, saying dialogue and reconciliation would be the best way to resolve the prolonged conflict.
Coinciding with the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, earlier this month, Wenda and other Papuan leaders had launched a “Green State Vision” pledging to address the climate emergency and impact of natural resource extraction in an “independent” West Papua.
They added that they would make “ecocide” a serious crime in the world’s third largest rainforest after the Amazon and the Congo.
‘Path of violence’
Pastor Benny Giay, a member of the Papua Council of Churches, says the Indonesian government is still choosing the path of violence in dealing with the armed conflict.
The council has come to this conclusion based on its experience of how conflicts in Papua have been handled in the past and the recent situation, involving six regencies in Papua — Intan Jaya, the Bintang Mountains, Nduga, Yahukimo, Maybrat and Puncak Papua.
“Based on past experience and the most recent facts, we concluded that the Indonesian government is still choosing the path of violence in dealing with the Papua conflict,” said Pastor Giay, according to CNN Indonesia.
Giay said that as a consequence of many years of armed conflict, at least 60,000 Papuans had fled into the forests or neighbouring regencies.
He and three other pastors view this as part of what could not be separated from the politics of “systematic racism”.
They suspect that “buzzers” — fake internet account operators — are being used by Indonesian intelligence and pro-government groups.
These buzzers, said Pastor Giay, continued to spread hoaxes and news containing anti-Papuan views based on racism against the Papuan people.
‘Prolonged suffering’
The Papua Council of Churches is calling for the United Nations Human Rights Council (Dewan HAM PBB) to visit Papua to see the humanitarian crisis directly – “the prolonged suffering of Papuans for the last 58 years.”
The council also wants the Indonesian government to put an end to its racist policies.
Pastor Giay and his fellow pastors have demanded that President Widodo be consistent about a statement he made on September 30, 2019, agreeing to dialogue with the ULMWP.
“Mediated by a third party [in a similar way] as took place between the Indonesian government and the GAM (Free Aceh Movement) on August 15, 2005,” said Pastor Giay.
Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff Jaleswari Pramodhawardani has reportedly said that the government was managing the security situation in Papua and West Papua provinces in “accordance with the law”.
This was conveyed in response to a UN report in intimidation and violence against human rights activists in Papua, says CNN Indonesia.
Open letter of protest from ELSHAM Papua. Image: Screenshot APR
Open letter of protest
On November 15, ELSHAM Papua sent an open letter to President Widodo protesting about the presence of non-organic troops in Papua and West Papua provinces. It says this has resulted in the deaths of many civilian victims as well as members of the TNI, Polri and the TPNPB, according to Suara Papua.
Each time an armed conflict happened, the first casualties were mothers and children — along with the elderly — who were forced to seek shelter and were suffering, ELSHAM said.
“What is happening at the moment, once again shows that the state has been negligent in protecting its citizens,” it said.
“It should be the responsibility of the state to protect its citizens as mandated by the preamble to the 1945 Constitution — that the state is obliged to protect everyone regardless of their birthplace in Indonesia.”
The open letter asked the government to withdraw all non-organic troops from Papua, for the TNI, Polri and TPNPB troops to restrain themselves, and for both warring parties to prioritise respect for human rights.
The letter also declared that security forces should not become the “accomplices of business interests and companies” in Indonesia — and instead be the protectors of ordinary people and “good” law enforcement officials.
The open letter was supported by 24 civil society organisations which work in human rights, justice and the environment.
Media conference by Catholic leaders in Jayapura, Papua. Image: Suara Papua
Speaking on behalf of the priests, Father Alberto John Bunai said the government had been ecstatic over the success of the recent 20th National Games in Papua, but the people were “deeply saddened by the suffering of God’s communities” in Nduga, Intan Jaya, Puncak, Kiwirok and Maybrat.
“To solve the root of the problem, what is needed is dialogue and reconciliation in a dignified manner,” Father Bunai said at a “moral call” media conference in Waena, Jayapura.
It was the church’s duty to articulate the “cries of God’s communities” who had no voice, Father Bunai said.
“The government must halt the ongoing military operations which have resulted in the killing of civilians, violence and people being displaced in several parts of Papua.”
Armed conflict in West Papua has caused an exodus of displaced people into one of the most remote parts of neighbouring Papua New Guinea.
The latest flashpoint in the conflict is in the Indonesian-administered Bintang Mountains regency, where state forces are pursuing West Papua Liberation Army fighters who they blame for recent attacks on health workers in Kiwirok district.
Since violence surged in Kiriwok last month, Indonesian security forces have targetted suspected village strongholds of the OPM-Free Papua Movement’s military wing.
At least 2000 people are recorded by local groups to have fled from the conflict either to other parts of Bintang Mountains (Pegunungan Bintang) or crossed illegally into the adjacent region over the international border.
Hundreds of people have fled across to Tumolbil, in Yapsie sub-district of the PNG province of West Sepik, situated right on the border.
A spokesman for the OPM, Jeffrey Bomanak, said that those fleeing were running from Indonesian military operations, including helicopter assaults, which he claimed had caused significant destruction in around 14 villages.
“Our people, they cannot stay with that situation, so they are crossing to the Papua New Guinea side.
“I already contacted my network, our soldiers from OPM, TPN (Liberation Army). They already confirmed 47 families in Tumolbil.”
Evidence of the influx
A teacher in Yapsie, Paul Alp, said he saw evidence of the influx in Tumolbil last week.
“It is easy to get into Papua New Guinea from Indonesia. There are mountains but they know how to get around to climb those mountains into Papua New Guinea.
“There are foot tracks,” he explained, adding that Papua New Guineans sometimes went across to the Indonesian side, usually to access a better level of basic services.
A village destroyed in Pengunungan Bintang regency, Papua province. Image: ULMWP/RNZ
Alp said West Papuans who had come to Tumolbil were not necessarily staying for more than a week or so before returning to the other side.
He and others in the remote district confirmed that illegal border crossings have occurred for years, but that it had increased sharply since last month.
For decades, the PNG government’s policy on refugees from West Papua has been to place them in border camps, the main one being at East Awin in Western Province, with support from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Thousands of displaced Papuan have ended up at East Awin, but many others who come across simply melt into the general populace among various remote villages along the porous border region.
Threadbare security Sergeant Terry Dap is one of a handful of policemen in the entire Telefomin district covering 16,333 sq km and with a population of around 50,000.
He said a lot of people had come across to Tumolbil in recent weeks, including OPM fighters.
“There’s a fight going on, on the other side, between the Indonesians and the West Papuan freedom fighters.
“So there’s a lot of disruption there [in Tumolbil]. So I went there, and I talked to the ward development officer of Yapsie LLG [Local Level Government area], and he said he needed immediate assistance from the authorities in Vanimo [capital of West Sepik].”
“They want military and police, to protect the sovereignty of Papua New Guinea, and to protect properties to make sure the fight doesn’t come into PNG.”
Sergeant Dap said he had emailed the provincial authorities with this request, and was awaiting feedback.
Papua New Guinea police … “There’s a fight going on, on the other side, between the Indonesians and the West Papuan freedom fighters.” Image: Johnny Blades/RNZ
More civilians crossing over According to Bomanak, the impacts of displacement from recent attacks in Kiwirok district are ongoing.
“This problem now is as we have damage in village, more civilians will cross over in Papua New Guinea side.
“Five to six hundred villagers, civillians, mothers and children, they’re still in three locations, out in jungle in Kiwirok, and they’re still on their way to Papua New Guinea,” he warned.
On the PNG side, Sergeant Dap said some of the people coming across from West Papua have traditional or family links to the community of Tulmolbil
But their presence on PNG soil creates risk for locals who are fearful their communities could get caught in the crossfire of Indonesian military pursuing the Papuan fighters.
Dap said he spoke with the OPM fighters who had come to Tumolbil, and encouraged them not to stay long.
“I’ve talked to their commander. They said there’s another group of people coming – about one thousand-plus coming in,” he said.
“I told them, just stay for some days and then you go back, because this is another country, so you don’t need to come in. You go back to your own country and then stay there.”
Clashes in the mountainous Pengunungan Bintang regency, near the border with PNG, in October 2021. Image: RNZ
The policeman has also been involved in efforts by PNG authorities to encourage vaccination against covid-19.
Mistrust of covid vaccines is deep in PNG, where only around 2 or 3 percent of the population has been inoculated, while a delta-fuelled third wave of the pandemic is causing daily casualties.
Sergeant Dap said convincing people to get vaccinated was difficult enough without illegal border crossings adding to the spread of the virus and the sense of fear.
This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.
Papua human rights activist and lawyer Veronica Koman has called for an independent inquiry into the attack on health workers in the Kiwirok district, Star Highlands, Papua, saying there are two versions of how the tragedy happened.
A healthcare worker, 22-year-old Gabriella Maelani, was killed during the attack by the West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Organisation (TPNPB-OPM) resistance movement.
“There is one version which is clearly being shared a lot in the media. And there is a second version circulating among the Papuan people,” Koman told CNN Indonesia.
Koman said that the chronology of events which was being broadcast by most news media depicted the alleged brutality of the TPNPB-OPM during the attack.
In the second version alleged the attack was triggered when a person wearing a doctor’s uniform shot at the TPNPB, causing a shootout inside the healthcare building, Koman said.
She said that in Papua many TNI (Indonesian military) personnel held dual posts as teachers and doctors. She believed this caused a great deal of suspicion in Papua.
Nevertheless, she was saddened by the news that a healthcare worker died, although she said that the truth about the chronology of events must still be investigated.
Death of healthcare worker
Based on information she had received, the death of the healthcare worker was not because they were tortured by the TPNPB as alleged.
“The Papuan people’s version is that it’s not true that there was torture. Gabriella jumped [into a ravine] while escaping, she wasn’t thrown into the ravine by the OPM,” she said.
Koman called for an independent investigation. According to Koman, finding out which chronology was correct would influence several factors, particularly racism against the Papuan people.
“If for example the alleged barbaric actions are not true, it will influence the stigma and racism against the Papuan people. And that is very barbaric,” she said.
“Looking for examples of human rights issues, we can separate it. The ones adversely affected should be the OPM, not the ordinary Papuan people.
“In general with minority groups, including the Chinese, when one person does wrong, everyone is adversely affected. LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] for example, if a gay person does something, the whole community is adversely affected. So it’s important to straighten it out.”
Koman also said care was needed to be taken with the witness testimonies.
Information under duress
She questioned whether or not the witnesses provided information under duress.
“There would have been many soldiers around them … So they could have been pressured,” she said.
Earlier, the TPNPB-OPM admitted responsibility for attacking public facilities such as a community healthcare centre and school building in the Kiwirok district on September 13 and 14.
They claimed that the attack was a form of resistance demanding Papuan independence from Indonesia.
The Presidential Staff Office said that “armed criminal groups” (KKB) — as officials generally describe Papuan armed independence fighters — violated human rights law after the healthcare worker died during the attack on September 13.
Presidential Staff Deputy V Jaleswari Pramodhawardani said that the armed group had violated several laws such as the healthcare law, the nurses law, the hospital law and the healthcare quarantine law.
The United Liberation Movement of West Papua has accused Indonesian “colonial forces” of a new massacre with the killing of three civilians, “adding to the hundreds of thousands of West Papuans killed during six decades of occupation”.
Interim president Benny Wenda of the ULMWP has also claimed that Jakarta has put the entire population of 4.4 million “at risk of being swiped out” by Indonesian security forces by being labelled “terrorist”.
In a statement, Wenda said a husband and wife, Patianus Kogoya, 45, and Paitena Murib, 43, had been killed at Nipuralome village, along with another Papuan man, Erialek Kogoya, 55.
“They were shot dead by joint security services on June 4 in Ilaga, Puncak regency. Three others, including a five year old child, were wounded during the massacre,” he said.
“Local churches have confirmed the incident, even as the colonial Indonesian police have spread hoaxes to hide their murders.”
Wenda said cold blooded murder was becoming the culture for the security forces.
“West Papua is the site of massacre on top of massacre, from Paniai to Nduga to Intan Jaya to Puncak. This is heart-breaking news following the killing of our religious leaders like Pastor Zanambani,” he said.
‘Count more of our dead’
“We now have to count more of our dead. How much longer will this continue?”
“The OPM is all West Papuans who have hopes for freedom and self-determination, all organisations that fight for justice and liberation in West Papua,” he said.
“I am OPM, the ULMWP is OPM. If you label the OPM ‘terrorist’, you are labelling the entire population of West Papua ‘terrorist’.
“The Indonesian state is targeting all West Papuans for elimination – the evidence is there in Ilaga last week, with unarmed civilians being gunned down.
“How do they justify this killing? With the ‘terrorist’ label.”
Wenda claimed these “stigmatising labels” were part of Jakarta’s systematic plan to justify its presence in West Papua and the “deployment of 21,000 troops to our land”.
He said that the ULMWP continued its urgent call for Indonesia to allow the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights into West Papua.
“Intervention is needed now. What is happening in Palestine is happening in West Papua,” he said.
Wenda appealed to solidarity groups in the Pacific and internationally to speak up for “freedom and justice”.
West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Organisation (TPNPB-OPM) spokesperson Sebby Sambom says the armed resistance force is not prepared to hold a dialogue with or pursue diplomacy with the Indonesian government unless it is mediated by the United Nations.
“We, the TPNPB under the leadership of General Goliath Tabuni reject [a bipartite] dialogue with Jakarta,” said Sambom, reports CNN Indonesia.
However, the armed resistance is urging the Indonesian government to hold tripartite negotiations with the TPNPB-OPM Tabuni leadership and all components of the Papuan liberation movement who have been resisting Jakarta rule.
This dialogue, he said, must be mediated by a third party, and the third party must come from the United Nations.
“We don’t have an agenda for a dialogue, but our agenda is tripartite negotiations, namely negotiations mediated by a UN organisational body,” he said.
“So a Jakarta-Papua dialogue will not be realised, if the main actor is not involved,” he explained.
Earlier, the TPNPB-OPM designated Puncak Ilaga, Papua, as a battleground against joint forces from the TNI (Indonesian military) and Polri (Indonesian police). It designated this region because it was far away from civilian settlements and would not endanger Papuan civilians.
Negotiations rather than war
On the other hand, the TNI was not concerned about the designation of Puncak Ilaga as a battleground to fight the OPM.
However, Regional Representatives Council (DPD) member from Papua, Filep Wamafma, is asking that the Indonesian government endeavour to open diplomatic communications with the TPNPB-OPM rather than conducting an open war in Ilaga.
“I hope that there will be political diplomacy between the TNI, Polri and the OPM in order to reach the best solution, to safeguard civilians,” Wamafma told CNN Indonesian.
CNN Indonesia has attempted to contact Join Regional Defence Command III spokesperson Colonel Czi IGN Suriastawa and Coordinating Minister for Security, Politics and Legal Affairs Mahfud MD by text message and telephone about the offer to mediate with the involvement of the UN.
Neither Suriastawa nor Mahfud had responded when this article was published.
General Gatot Nurmantyo, a former commander in the Indonesian National Armed Forces, giving his television interview – in Bahasa Indonesian. Video: TV-One Indonesia
A former Indonesian military commander has condemned the formal labelling of the West Papuan resistance TPN/OPN as “terrorists”, saying that the Papuan problem was complex and could not be solved by armed force alone.
Among other critics of the tagging are the Papua provincial Governor, Lukas Enembe and a Papuan legal researcher.
General Gatot Nurmantyo, former commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI), said during a live interview on TV-One Indonesia that it was wrong to label the TPN/OPM (National Liberation Army/Free Papua Movement) as a terrorist group.
He said that Jakarta had tried to use a military solution since the former Dutch colony of Irian Jaya was “integrated” into Indonesia in 1969 without bringing about any change.
“Papua cannot be solved by military operations,” he said.
General Nurmantyo said military operations would not solve the root cause of the conflict in Papua.
He regretted the decision made by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration on May 5.
“I am saddened to hear that troops are leaving for Papua to fight. It’s a picture that I think makes me sad,” said the general.
Sad for two reasons
He said he felt sad for two reasons:
First, Papua was one of the Indonesian provinces and the youngest province of the Unitary State of the Republic.
Second, based on Government Regulation in Lieu of Acts (PERPU) 59 of 1959, Papua was still under civilian rule. So, the military actions should be mainly territorial, which supported by intelligence and prepared combat operations.
The retired general said that Papuans “are our own people”, so the burden could not be imposed only on the military and police. Executive government and other government agencies should comprehend the real background of the movements and be involved to resolve the prolonged problem in Papua.
“Territorial operations are operations to win the hearts and minds of the people, because what we face is our own people. Do not expect to solve a condition in Papua only with military operations,” said General Nurmantyo.
“I remind you, it will not work, no matter how great it will be. Because the problem is not just that small,” he said.
General Nurmantyo, who has been a former military district commander in Jayapura and Merauke said that Indonesia already had experience in Aceh where the conflict had not been resolved by military operations.
As the PERPU 59 of 1959 was still valid, the governor was the single highest authority. The military was not allowed to carry out operations without coordinating with the local government.
Communication with government
General Nurmantyo said communication with the local government was carried out and measured operations launched.
“Lest the people become victims! How come, in a situation like this we are waging an open war? Seriously!
“Meanwhile, the situation is still very civil. The leader is the governor or local government.
“This is a state regulation. This is different from when Papua would be designated as a military operation,” said General Nurmantyo.
Papua Governor Lukas Enembe … critical of the OPM tagging in a media statement. Image: APR screenshot
According to a media release received by Asia Pacific Report. Papua Governor Lukas Enembe and the provincial government also objected to the terrorist label given to the KKB (“armed criminal group”), as the Indonesian state refers to the TPNPB (West Papua National Liberation Army).
Key points
Two of the seven points made in the media release said:
“Terrorism is a concept that has always been debated in legal and political spheres, thus the designation of the KKB as a terrorist group needs to be reviewed carefully and ensure the objectivity of the state in granting this status, and
“The Papua provincial government pleaded with the central government and the Indonesian Parliament to conduct a re-assessment of the observation of the labeling of KKB as terrorist. We are of the opinion that the assessment must be comprehensive by taking into account the social, economic and legal impacts on Papuans in general.”
A West Papuan legal researcher, who declined to be named, said that the Indonesian government misused the term “terrorism” to undermine the basic human rights of indigenous West Papuans.
So far, the term terrorism had no precise definition and so has no legal definition, said the researcher.
Many of the United Nations member states did not support UN resolution 3034 (XXVII) because it contained a certain degree of disconnection to other international instruments, particularly human rights laws.
Disagreements among the states remained regarding the use of terrorism, especially the exclusion of different categories of terrorism.
Right to self-determination
In particular the exception of the liberation movement groups. Particularly contentious which was the affirmation in 1972 of “the inalienable right to self-determination and independence of all peoples under colonial and racist regimes and other forms of alien domination”.
“The legitimacy of their struggle, in particular, the struggle of national liberation movements by the principles and purposes is represented in the UN charter. Therefore, designating West Papua Liberation Army as a terrorist group by the Indonesian government considered outside the category of the terrorist act,” said the researcher.
“Any definition of terrorism must also, accommodate reasonable claims to political implications, particularly against repressive regimes such as Indonesia towards West Papuans.
“The act of self-determination by Papuans cannot be considered terrorism at all.”
The international community should condemn any regime that is repressive and terrorist acts by colonial, racist and alien regimes in denying peoples their legitimate right to self-determination, independence, and other human rights.
A coherent legal definition of terrorism might help “confine the unilateral misuse” of the term by the national government such as Indonesia against TPNPB/OPM, said the researcher.
The other side of the story was war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, oppression, torture and intimidation by the state.
These elements were present in West Papua and they qualified as the act of terrorists and were therefore universally recognised as crimes against humanity and criminals, the researcher said.
The researcher added: “The West Papua army or TPN/OPM are not terrorist groups. They are the victims of terrorism”
This report and the translations have been compiled by an Asia Pacific Report correspondent.
General Gatot Nurmantyo, a former commander in the Indonesian National Armed Forces, giving his television interview – in Bahasa Indonesian. Video: TV-One Indonesia
A former Indonesian military commander has condemned the formal labelling of the West Papuan resistance TPN/OPN as “terrorists”, saying that the Papuan problem was complex and could not be solved by armed force alone.
Among other critics of the tagging are the Papua provincial Governor, Lukas Enembe and a Papuan legal researcher.
General Gatot Nurmantyo, former commander of the Indonesian National Armed Forces (TNI), said during a live interview on TV-One Indonesia that it was wrong to label the TPN/OPM (National Liberation Army/Free Papua Movement) as a terrorist group.
He said that Jakarta had tried to use a military solution since the former Dutch colony of Irian Jaya was “integrated” into Indonesia in 1969 without bringing about any change.
“Papua cannot be solved by military operations,” he said.
General Nurmantyo said military operations would not solve the root cause of the conflict in Papua.
He regretted the decision made by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s administration on May 5.
“I am saddened to hear that troops are leaving for Papua to fight. It’s a picture that I think makes me sad,” said the general.
Sad for two reasons He said he felt sad for two reasons:
First, Papua was one of the Indonesian provinces and the youngest province of the Unitary State of the Republic.
Second, based on Government Regulation in Lieu of Acts (PERPU) 59 of 1959, Papua was still under civilian rule. So, the military actions should be mainly territorial, which supported by intelligence and prepared combat operations.
The retired general said that Papuans “are our own people”, so the burden could not be imposed only on the military and police. Executive government and other government agencies should comprehend the real background of the movements and be involved to resolve the prolonged problem in Papua.
“Territorial operations are operations to win the hearts and minds of the people, because what we face is our own people. Do not expect to solve a condition in Papua only with military operations,” said General Nurmantyo.
“I remind you, it will not work, no matter how great it will be. Because the problem is not just that small,” he said.
General Nurmantyo, who has been a former military district commander in Jayapura and Merauke said that Indonesia already had experience in Aceh where the conflict had not been resolved by military operations.
As the PERPU 59 of 1959 was still valid, the governor was the single highest authority. The military was not allowed to carry out operations without coordinating with the local government.
Communication with government General Nurmantyo said communication with the local government was carried out and measured operations launched.
“Lest the people become victims! How come, in a situation like this we are waging an open war? Seriously!
“Meanwhile, the situation is still very civil. The leader is the governor or local government.
“This is a state regulation. This is different from when Papua would be designated as a military operation,” said General Nurmantyo.
Papua Governor Lukas Enembe … critical of the OPM tagging in a media statement. Image: APR screenshot
According to a media release received by Asia Pacific Report. Papua Governor Lukas Enembe and the provincial government also objected to the terrorist label given to the KKB (“armed criminal group”), as the Indonesian state refers to the TPNPB (West Papua National Liberation Army).
Key points Two of the seven points made in the media release said:
“Terrorism is a concept that has always been debated in legal and political spheres, thus the designation of the KKB as a terrorist group needs to be reviewed carefully and ensure the objectivity of the state in granting this status, and
“The Papua provincial government pleaded with the central government and the Indonesian Parliament to conduct a re-assessment of the observation of the labeling of KKB as terrorist. We are of the opinion that the assessment must be comprehensive by taking into account the social, economic and legal impacts on Papuans in general.”
A West Papuan legal researcher, who declined to be named, said that the Indonesian government misused the term “terrorism” to undermine the basic human rights of indigenous West Papuans.
So far, the term terrorism had no precise definition and so has no legal definition, said the researcher.
Many of the United Nations member states did not support UN resolution 3034 (XXVII) because it contained a certain degree of disconnection to other international instruments, particularly human rights laws.
Disagreements among the states remained regarding the use of terrorism, especially the exclusion of different categories of terrorism.
Right to self-determination In particular the exception of the liberation movement groups. Particularly contentious which was the affirmation in 1972 of “the inalienable right to self-determination and independence of all peoples under colonial and racist regimes and other forms of alien domination”.
“The legitimacy of their struggle, in particular, the struggle of national liberation movements by the principles and purposes is represented in the UN charter. Therefore, designating West Papua Liberation Army as a terrorist group by the Indonesian government considered outside the category of the terrorist act,” said the researcher.
“Any definition of terrorism must also, accommodate reasonable claims to political implications, particularly against repressive regimes such as Indonesia towards West Papuans.
“The act of self-determination by Papuans cannot be considered terrorism at all.”
The international community should condemn any regime that is repressive and terrorist acts by colonial, racist and alien regimes in denying peoples their legitimate right to self-determination, independence, and other human rights.
A coherent legal definition of terrorism might help “confine the unilateral misuse” of the term by the national government such as Indonesia against TPNPB/OPM, said the researcher.
The other side of the story was war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, oppression, torture and intimidation by the state.
These elements were present in West Papua and they qualified as the act of terrorists and were therefore universally recognised as crimes against humanity and criminals, the researcher said.
The researcher added: “The West Papua army or TPN/OPM are not terrorist groups. They are the victims of terrorism”
This report and the translations have been compiled by an Asia Pacific Report correspondent.
The Indonesian government has officially labelled the OPM (Organisasi Papua Merdeka) Free Papuan Movement and its military wing, the TPNPB (West Papua National Liberation Army) as a terrorist group.
This came about at the height of a string of shootings and killings – which have been taking place in recent months in Papua’s highlands – that led to the killing of a senior Indonesian intelligence officer, General I Gusti Putu Danny Karya Nugraha, last week.
In response, Indonesian President Joko Widodo has ordered a crackdown on the armed resistance group OPM – TPNPB.
A few days later, Mohammad Mahfud MD, the coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs, declared that those in Papua (presumably the OPM – TPNPB) who commit crimes would be classified as “terrorists”.
The People’s Consultative Assembly (MPR) Speaker in Jakarta, Bambang Soesatyo, stressed this issue by saying, “I demand that the government deploy their security forces at full force to exterminate the armed criminal groups (KKP) in Papua which have taken lives.
“Just eradicate them. Let’s talk about human rights later.”
This announcement and such statements have caused a reaction among Indonesian leaders and civil society groups.
Opportunity for resistance Police observer Irjen Pol Purn Sisno Adiwinoto warned that labelling Papuan independence groups as “terrorists” would not solve problems in West Papua.
“If anything, this might just be the opportunity for resistance groups to get the United States involved,” said Adiwinoto.
Philip Situmorang, public relations officer from the Fellowship of Churches in Indonesia (PGI), asked the government to be careful of their decision to label the armed criminal group (KKB) as a terrorist group.
The church groups have warned that Jakarta should choose a different approach to Papua.
Labelling Papua as a terrorist will psychologically impact on the Papuan community, which might instil fear, distrust, and hatred among communities in the land of Papua.
West Papua is a region known for the international media blackout. This makes it challenging to allow independent media or human rights agencies to investigate the killings.
The country’s justice system often fails to provide fair, transparent justice for the alleged perpetrators.
Governor Enembe concerned The governor of Papua province, Lukas Enembe, also expressed his concern about the central government announcement.
The statement released from the governor’s office stated that this labelling would affect the Papuan population, not just OPM – TPNPB. Papuans in West Papua and abroad will be stigmatised through the lens of the word terrorist.
Hence, the governor asked for the central government to review its decision comprehensively.
One of the seven points he made was that he strongly suggested the central government check with the United Nations about the decision.
Benny Wenda, the leader of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, also condemned Jokowi’s announcement.
“My questions to the president of Indonesia are: Who invaded our country in the first place? Who has killed over 500,000 men, women, and children? Who has displaced over 50,000 civilians since December 2018, leading to the deaths of hundreds of more people?
An illegal invasion and occupation is a criminal act. Genocide is a terrorist act. Resistance to these are legitimate and necessary,” Benny Wenda said.
Harmful policy for Papuans These concerns are expressed in recognition that, after 60 years, Jakarta insists on introducing a policy that will harm the Papuan people.
Fifty-eight years ago, in May 1963, was the landing of Indonesian troops after the Western power gave them the green light during the controversial “New York Agreement” – the agreement in which Papuans were not invited.
The real terror in Papua began from that day.
Jakarta invents words and phrases and decides their definitions to control Papuan people.
The Indonesian government has used many names and phrases to legitimise their military operations in the land of Papua.
Between 1964–1966, leading up to the Act of Free Choice in 1969 (which Papuans consider a sham, or an “Act of No Choice”), army general Kartidjo Sastrodinoto led an operation called “Operasi Wisnurmurti III and IV”.
The years between 1977-1982, a general named Imam Munandar led another operation named “Operasi Kikis”, followed by “Operasi Sapu Bersih”.
The “Operasi Penyisiran” was another name given for 2002-2004 operations in Wamena, Papua’s highland town.
Many military operations These are just a few of many, both visible and invisible, military operations in West Papua.
These terminologies carry specific energy and command and manifest different state behaviours that target Papuan lives; they mean something like “wipe-out, clean, straighten, remove, taming the wild forest, restoring order” etc.
They are not the languages of healing and reconciliation but of war and elimination.
Elites in Jakarta have convinced themselves to believe that there is a monster in the land of Papua and that the beast needs to be eliminated. This paranoid way of thinking is akin to saying all non-black immigrants in the land of Papua are scary, so we should label them as demons and kill them or labelling all Muslims as terrorists because they are following the religion of Islam.
The Papua governor and civil society groups are concerned that every Papuan will be stigmatised as a terrorist, regardless of whether they are a member of OPM – TPNPB or not. This labelling is not just to harm OPM – TPNPB but is a direct assault on Papuan history, language, livelihood, and aspirations for a better world, pushed by Papuan resistance groups.
One of the main concerns that have been raised within the resistance movements is that the Indonesian government is labelling West Papua national liberation as a terrorist to criminalise the movement and depict them as radical extremists in the eyes of international communities.
This is an old colonial game, where blaming the victims makes it difficult for them to report the crimes, allowing the perpetrators to avoid being held accountable for their actions.
Metro TV interview In the media interview by Metrotvnews on April 30, Mohammad Mahfud MD stated they must contain the situation in West Papua before controlling the situation outside of Papua, inferring that influencing public opinion in the international community must begin by creating a terrorist of West Papua.
The central government in Jakarta will use the word “terrorist” to convince the international community not to support these activist groups in West Papua. It intends to damage the integrity and reputation of the West Papua liberation movement, which has been gaining a lot of sympathy from international communities and institutions such as ACP (Africa Caribbean Pacific group of states), MSG (Melanesian Spearhead Group), PIF (Pacific Islands Forum) and Human Rights Council in Geneva.
President Jokowi’s welfare approach and his 12 visits to Papua turned out to be a mere trojan horse. He and his government are not delivering welfare to Papuan people at all – they are creating terrorists in West Papua to justify war against the Papuan people.
How will they distinguish and catch this monster, which they have called “terrorist” in Papua? Or are they going to create one that looks like a terrorist?
Is OPM a terrorist group or a legendary saviour in Papuan’s independence imagination?
In the 1980s, when I was growing up in my highland village of Papua from the ages of 8-12, I often heard the name OPM. At the time, the name sounded like it had magical power. I still associate the name OPM with that story.
OPM ‘has secret power’ At that time, I was told that OPM has a secret power that controls weather patterns. My family said that if you see heavy rain or thick clouds covering the mountains, then it is a sign that OPM is near or OPM created the bad weather to confuse their enemies.
This kind of story made me very curious about the name OPM.
I then asked my elders, who were OPM’s enemy and whether OPM were human or forest spirits? They would say to me that OPM were not forest spirits. They were human beings just like us, but they couldn’t divulge their identities to keep their family members safe from interrogation if their true identities were revealed to Indonesian soldiers.
According to the village story, OPM have the power of nature, and they can obscure the sight of the Indonesian soldiers and make them crazy. At the time, I was astonished by these stories.
With these fascinations, I continued to ask if the OPM was something that I should fear.
They would tell me, “child, you should not be afraid of the OPM, because the OPM will protect you, and they will expel the Indonesian soldiers who were roaming around here, killing and raping women”.
I grew up with these types of stories, and I am sure that many Papuans have similar stories to tell about what the name of OPM means to them.
Hope for a better world OPM carries the spirit that keeps the hope of a better world (free from Indonesia) alive. That’s how I understand it. That hope, in Papuans’ imagination, is political independence from Indonesia.
To be OPM is to be a proud Papuan, and to be Papuan is to be proud to be OPM because, in the minds of Papuans, OPM represents hope, freedom, salvation, healing, and reconciliation.
As legend has it in the island of Biak, during the early 1940s, before Indonesia got their Independence from the Dutch, it was the spirit of the Morning Star that healed the legends Manarmakeri and Angganitha.
Papuan people in the Biak island were already dreaming of a new world – a world free from terror, with the spirit of the Morning Star before Indonesia gained its independence in 1945.
OPM stands to manifest that utopian dream of a Papuan free state as sovereign people. This fear of manifesting Papuan statehood drives Jakarta’s reckless policies toward West Papua.
If Papuans were asked, without any intimidation or bribery, which spirit do they trust and believe in, the OPM or Indonesia security forces, I am confident that they would choose the spirit and the legend of OPM because that spirit stands for freedom and salvation.
The word “terrorist” is the deadliest weapon that Indonesia has invented to kill Papuan people
Labelling is dangerous This reckless labelling is dangerous, as already expressed by Governor Lukas and other civil society groups, because all Papuan people will suffer, not just OPM. Papuan people are already suffering in every aspect of their lives, this labelling will add more under the Indonesian rule and western capitalist world order.
It is unfortunate that Indonesia is one of the most religious places, and yet unable to uphold its own religious morals and ethical teachings, as inscribed in their constitutional pillars: Ketuhanan Yang Maha Esa (Belief in the Almighty God) and Kemanusiaan Yang Adil dan Beradab (Just and Civilised Humanity). Do the Indonesian ruling elites still believe in these words?
With all the human and material resources being spent on securing West Papua, the question we need to be asking is, ‘why is Jakarta still unable to catch all the perpetrators and bring them to face justice?’
If the elites in Jakarta believe with sincerity in promoting the slogan “wonderful Indonesia” on the world’s stage, then the way they approach Papua needs to change.
Papua will always be like a pebble in Indonesia’s shoe – it must be resolved in a humane manner if the “wonderful Indonesia dream” is to be fully realised. Turning West Papua into a terrorist and justifying it to wage war against the Papuan people is not the way to achieve peace in the land of Papua.
Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Michael West (@MichaelWestBiz) November 18, 2024
on his 1st official visit to Indonesia
– the 1st visit of FM
