1) West Papuan leader killed in Indonesian attack
2) KNPB activists being killed and injured3) Indonesian Military No Longer Pariah in US Eyes
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/radio/program/pacific-beat/west-papuan-leader-killed-in-indonesian-attack/1042132
1) West Papuan leader killed in Indonesian attack
Updated 6 November 2012, 18:20 AEST
Victor Yeimo says Paul Horis was killed at the weekend, in an attack Mr Yeimo has blamed on Indonesian special forces; he says another KNPB member was seriously wounded as well.
It's the latest in a significantly stepped-up campaign against the separatist movement by the Indonesian military.
For a look at the significance of Mr Horis's death, Corinne Podger spoke to Dr Camellia Webb-Gannon, co-ordinator of the West Papua Project at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney.
Presenter: Corinne Podger
Speaker: Dr Camellia Webb-Gannon, West Papua Project Coordinator, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney
WEBB-GANNON: I'm going off reports from Victor Yeimo who is the Chairperson for the KNPB, which is the Indonesian acronym for the West Papua National Committee, that he has been killed. I suppose that's confirmation that we can rely on at the moment. I think the political significance of Paul Horis's death is that it continues a concerted pattern, which is evident from October last year, the Indonesian security forces are taking an increasingly hardline and violent approach to the conflict in West Papua. And this is despite contradictory statements from top political leadership in Indonesia that the government, or a dialogue approach will be taken. So it's quite ironic that President Yudhyono who was in London several days ago to receive an honorary knighthood from the Queen for his alleged efforts to advance democracy in Indonesia, he's actually stated that he's open to dialogue in Papua, and that he wants to work on a more development and a Papuan-friendly approach to resolving the issues there. But yet we haven't really seen any actions to this end, and he's recently appointed Tito Karnavian, who is a former head of the Australian trained and funded anti-terrorism police squad in Indonesia.So Tito Karnavian was appointed to Police Chief in Papua. So that's another example of the hardline security approach that's been taken in Papua. I think the death of Paul Horis just goes to show that violence is increasing from security forces against Papuan activists, not decreasing. This basically shows that the trend isn't towards trying to work on a development friendly approach, it's much more get rid of the opposition in any way possible.
PODGER: The Indonesian military has accused other members of the KNPB of making and storing bombs. Now I know you have a personal view on this, you are coming to this from an advocacy background. But is there any evidence that KNPB members are engaged in violent activity that might give credence to those accusations?
WEBB-GANNON: The KNPB activists in the Highlands in Papua, don't really have access to the types of explosives and to the types of materials that were necessary for making those.
PODGER: The Indonesian military has said though that it has found bombs in the possession of KNPB members. Your response to that?
WEBB-GANNON: Is that, it's not the first time that the Indonesian military has planted weapons on independence activists to try and make them look violent, to try and make them look militant, so that it advances their own position in West Papua. And I can see that this could easily be another example of that.
PODGER: That would be a speculative view on your part?
WEBB-GANNON: It's all speculative but.
JOURNO: I mean there is violence on both sides in the West Papua conflict, and so I ask the question again, are you aware of any evidence that KNPB members are engaged in that?
WEBB-GANNON: I'm not, I know that KNPB is committed to a philosophy and action of non-violent resistance. The KNPB members are also aware that violence in the face of the incredibly powerful Indonesian forces would be a waste of effort and this is what they've stated time and time again, and they've also said that they know that the international community is going to be much more likely to support them in their efforts to achieve independence and to achieve a referendum if they are committed to non-violence. So this is their professed position. I have yet to hear of any credible evidence that KNPB is involved in any violent action, but of course there have been allegations from the Indonesian military and police side that they have.
PODGER: The death of Mr Horis is against the backdrop of an increased campaign by Indonesian special forces against the KNPB, significantly in recent months, what is driving this escalation do you think?
WEBB-GANNON: I would say that they're worried about how powerful KNPB actually is. So the KNPB was formed in late-2008 to support the international parliamentarians for West Papua and the international lawyers for West Papua. So these were international groups of concerned politicians and lawyers who wanted to figure out different ways of supporting West Papuans in achieving either peaceful justice or independence. And some Papuan students got together and decided we're going to form a bit of a solidarity group in West Papua. Now this group has become increasingly popular, it's got widespread popular support, it's got grassroots, not just elite participation, and they've also got incredibly sophisticated and powerful opponents on their side. So famous lawyers, famous politicians, just great international networks. So I think this is causing increasing concern amongst Indonesian politicians and Indonesian security forces that the KNPB is a powerful force, and is bringing the international spotlight onto the movement, which is the last thing that Indonesia wants.
PODGER: As it stands Camellia, under international law though it is very difficult for the situation to change substantively, to look ahead to a time when it might be different. What's your view on that?
WEBB-GANNON: I think international law does provide certain opportunities but it's also for the situation to change. If you look at the situation of Kosovo and East Timor, you can see precedents under which territories that were speculated would never become independent did become independent. I think that there's a possibility that West Papua if the conflict becomes increasingly bloody might have the international backing that it needs in order to perhaps change international on their favour and possibly introduce a referendum. But this would need to happen in the next couple of years. I mean it would really need to happen while SBY is still in power because he is definitely the more democratic of the future choices for leadership in Indonesia and also the rate that the population is changing in West Papua is not in favour of indigenous Papuans. And so if there was a referendum the transmigrational rate of other areas, with Indonesians coming from other areas of Indonesia to settle in Papua, if a referendum was held this probably would not go in favour of West Papuans who want an independent West Papuan state.
----------------------------------------------------------
2) KNPB avtivists being killed and injured
A report received from West Papua on 5 November reveals that activists and leaders of KNPB, the National Committee of West Papua, continue to be killed.
This report refers to the killing of a KNPB leader in the district of Sorong. The body of Paulus Horik was found lying in a street which runs alongside the Pak-Pak river. His body was discovered in the middle of the night. Another KNPB activist, Klisman Woi was in a critical condition in hospital in Pak-Pak. The victims are believed to have been attacked by specially trained Indonesian troops.
A member of the executive of KNPB sent the following account of the attacks. The two activists had hired a motorcycle and were later found by a member of the traffic police who realised that the two men were both in a critical condition. They were lying on the road in terrible shape but the motorcycle they had been riding on was not damaged, there were no scratches or signs of damage of any kind.
The families of the two men knew nothing about what had happened to the men until they found them in hospital in Pak-Pak. According to a doctor at the hospital, Paulus Horik had been killed. There was a large hole in the top of his skull, his neck was broken and his face was severely damaged. His friend, Klimas Woi had been seriously injured with wounds on his face, both his eyes were swollen, his forehead was injured on the left and the right, while his lymph gland was hanging out.
According to Arnold Kocu, a KNPB activist in Pak-Pak, the families of the two men are trying to discover what happened to the two men.
Activists from the KNPB said that they were mourning the death of a colleague and the serious condition of his colleague and would do whatever they could to press the local police to get to the bottom of these crimes.
Horik was a member of the KNPB commissariat while his colleague was an activist of the organisation. As members of the KNPB, they have recently been pursued by special forces of the Indonesian army.
Before these attacks, the secretary of the PRD(?) in Merauke was very badly beaten up.
Translated by TAPOL
This report refers to the killing of a KNPB leader in the district of Sorong. The body of Paulus Horik was found lying in a street which runs alongside the Pak-Pak river. His body was discovered in the middle of the night. Another KNPB activist, Klisman Woi was in a critical condition in hospital in Pak-Pak. The victims are believed to have been attacked by specially trained Indonesian troops.
A member of the executive of KNPB sent the following account of the attacks. The two activists had hired a motorcycle and were later found by a member of the traffic police who realised that the two men were both in a critical condition. They were lying on the road in terrible shape but the motorcycle they had been riding on was not damaged, there were no scratches or signs of damage of any kind.
The families of the two men knew nothing about what had happened to the men until they found them in hospital in Pak-Pak. According to a doctor at the hospital, Paulus Horik had been killed. There was a large hole in the top of his skull, his neck was broken and his face was severely damaged. His friend, Klimas Woi had been seriously injured with wounds on his face, both his eyes were swollen, his forehead was injured on the left and the right, while his lymph gland was hanging out.
According to Arnold Kocu, a KNPB activist in Pak-Pak, the families of the two men are trying to discover what happened to the two men.
Activists from the KNPB said that they were mourning the death of a colleague and the serious condition of his colleague and would do whatever they could to press the local police to get to the bottom of these crimes.
Horik was a member of the KNPB commissariat while his colleague was an activist of the organisation. As members of the KNPB, they have recently been pursued by special forces of the Indonesian army.
Before these attacks, the secretary of the PRD(?) in Merauke was very badly beaten up.
Translated by TAPOL
---------------------------------------------------------
3) Indonesian Military No Longer Pariah in US Eyes
John McBeth - Straits Times | November 06, 2012
John McBeth - Straits Times | November 06, 2012
The evolving military relationship between the US and Indonesia is there for all to see in the decision by US Congress to allow the sale of at least eight heavily armed AH-64D Apache attack helicopters to an army Washington once saw as a regional pariah.
But while the 50-day notification period for the US$700 million deal expired without formal objection, there was still strong resistance behind the scenes from two implacable foes — the State Department's Human Rights Bureau and seven-term Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy.
Some officials didn't want the issue to go to the Senate Armed Services Committee at all, and Leahy aide Tim Reiser raised amused eyebrows by asking during an otherwise tough questioning session whether the two-man gunship could ferry troops into Papua.
Still, with a full Senate resolution required to forestall the proposed sale, and a presidential election looming large, few senators would have been willing to prevent the sale of US-made hardware and be accused of risking jobs.
Not long ago, supplying the Indonesian military with such lethal weaponry would never have happened. Now it joins an exclusive club of 11 Apache-armed nations, most of which are either treaty allies or provide facilities for American forces.
It was only in 2009, four years after the Republican administration lifted a 14-year arms ban imposed after the 1991 East Timor churchyard massacre, that the Senate Appropriations Bill did not contain any specific restrictions on military aid to Jakarta.
But Leahy kept up the pressure, sending a letter to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that same year demanding an accounting of military human rights abuses committed in East Timor, Aceh and Papua. The retired general never responded.
The senator and Reiser, a paid staff member who at times has taken a harder line than Leahy himself, almost single-handedly stood in the way of removing the ban — even though neither had ever been to Indonesia.
President Barack Obama's election changed the dynamics to some degree, marked earlier this year by the uncontested decision to gift Jakarta with 24 mothballed F-16 fighters. Indonesia will pay US$600 million to upgrade the jets, giving the air force the biggest front-line punch it has had in decades.
Bigger and uglier, the Apache is different. But for those Americans who think about such things, the main argument for selling it to Indonesia may well have been its perceived role in ensuring the free flow of shipping through the Malacca Strait.
If it can overcome its funding squeeze, Indonesia will be only the second Asean country after Singapore to receive the Apache, providing what the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency calls "interoperability" with American forces in the region.
That's a Pentagon buzz word which has rarely been applied to the Indonesians, but it comes at a time when the United States is building Guam into a strategic hub, rotating littoral combat ships through Singapore and preparing to train 2,500 Marines in northern Australia.
Packing 140 AGM-114R3 Hellfire missiles, a 30mm chain gun and state-of-the- art avionics and fire-control systems, the Apaches will join eight Russian-built Mi-35 Hind gunships which first entered service with the army in 2003.
The only objection to the deal in Jakarta has been from parliamentary foreign affairs commission chairman Mahfudz Siddiq, who prefers buying the twin-rotor Ch-47 Chinook instead.
He and other legislators have argued that disaster-prone Indonesia has a greater need for the heavy-lift Chinooks, which carry 13,000 kg of cargo or double that of the 16 rugged Russian-built Mi-17s delivered to the army over the past two years.
The only other military helicopters with significant cargo capacity are six newly acquired Eurocopter-725s, capable of lifting 5,700kg, nine EC-332 Super Pumas and 11 aging AS-330 Pumas that are basically troop carriers.
For all the media focus on corruption in the procurement process, Indonesian defense officials have made it clear to the Americans they want to eliminate middlemen and acquire the gunships under a government-to-government arrangement.
But now it is down to working out a final Letter of Authorization and Acceptance, the Indonesians appear to be wrestling with a funding gap in their effort to modernize an army inventory whose origins in one case go back to the Battle of Stalingrad.
Some of the problem stems from confusion over the Apache price tag, with Boeing initially understating the cost and the State Department basing its jaw-dropping US$1.4 billion estimate on the supposition that Jakarta will be ordering more than the eight helicopters.
Indonesia has already scrapped the planned purchase of the precision-guided M-42 Himars multiple-rocket system, settling instead for Brazil's less-expensive Astros II. But it is believed to be going ahead with a request to buy US anti-tank missiles.
Reprinted courtesy of The Straits Times
But while the 50-day notification period for the US$700 million deal expired without formal objection, there was still strong resistance behind the scenes from two implacable foes — the State Department's Human Rights Bureau and seven-term Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy.
Some officials didn't want the issue to go to the Senate Armed Services Committee at all, and Leahy aide Tim Reiser raised amused eyebrows by asking during an otherwise tough questioning session whether the two-man gunship could ferry troops into Papua.
Still, with a full Senate resolution required to forestall the proposed sale, and a presidential election looming large, few senators would have been willing to prevent the sale of US-made hardware and be accused of risking jobs.
Not long ago, supplying the Indonesian military with such lethal weaponry would never have happened. Now it joins an exclusive club of 11 Apache-armed nations, most of which are either treaty allies or provide facilities for American forces.
It was only in 2009, four years after the Republican administration lifted a 14-year arms ban imposed after the 1991 East Timor churchyard massacre, that the Senate Appropriations Bill did not contain any specific restrictions on military aid to Jakarta.
But Leahy kept up the pressure, sending a letter to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that same year demanding an accounting of military human rights abuses committed in East Timor, Aceh and Papua. The retired general never responded.
The senator and Reiser, a paid staff member who at times has taken a harder line than Leahy himself, almost single-handedly stood in the way of removing the ban — even though neither had ever been to Indonesia.
President Barack Obama's election changed the dynamics to some degree, marked earlier this year by the uncontested decision to gift Jakarta with 24 mothballed F-16 fighters. Indonesia will pay US$600 million to upgrade the jets, giving the air force the biggest front-line punch it has had in decades.
Bigger and uglier, the Apache is different. But for those Americans who think about such things, the main argument for selling it to Indonesia may well have been its perceived role in ensuring the free flow of shipping through the Malacca Strait.
If it can overcome its funding squeeze, Indonesia will be only the second Asean country after Singapore to receive the Apache, providing what the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency calls "interoperability" with American forces in the region.
That's a Pentagon buzz word which has rarely been applied to the Indonesians, but it comes at a time when the United States is building Guam into a strategic hub, rotating littoral combat ships through Singapore and preparing to train 2,500 Marines in northern Australia.
Packing 140 AGM-114R3 Hellfire missiles, a 30mm chain gun and state-of-the- art avionics and fire-control systems, the Apaches will join eight Russian-built Mi-35 Hind gunships which first entered service with the army in 2003.
The only objection to the deal in Jakarta has been from parliamentary foreign affairs commission chairman Mahfudz Siddiq, who prefers buying the twin-rotor Ch-47 Chinook instead.
He and other legislators have argued that disaster-prone Indonesia has a greater need for the heavy-lift Chinooks, which carry 13,000 kg of cargo or double that of the 16 rugged Russian-built Mi-17s delivered to the army over the past two years.
The only other military helicopters with significant cargo capacity are six newly acquired Eurocopter-725s, capable of lifting 5,700kg, nine EC-332 Super Pumas and 11 aging AS-330 Pumas that are basically troop carriers.
For all the media focus on corruption in the procurement process, Indonesian defense officials have made it clear to the Americans they want to eliminate middlemen and acquire the gunships under a government-to-government arrangement.
But now it is down to working out a final Letter of Authorization and Acceptance, the Indonesians appear to be wrestling with a funding gap in their effort to modernize an army inventory whose origins in one case go back to the Battle of Stalingrad.
Some of the problem stems from confusion over the Apache price tag, with Boeing initially understating the cost and the State Department basing its jaw-dropping US$1.4 billion estimate on the supposition that Jakarta will be ordering more than the eight helicopters.
Indonesia has already scrapped the planned purchase of the precision-guided M-42 Himars multiple-rocket system, settling instead for Brazil's less-expensive Astros II. But it is believed to be going ahead with a request to buy US anti-tank missiles.
Reprinted courtesy of The Straits Times
-------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.