1) Australia
'neglecting UN obligations' by deporting West Papuan asylum seekers
2) Report says
helicopters were deployed in 1970s operations that killed more than 4, 000
Papuans amid horrific atrocities
3)
Budi Hernawan – Breaking the silence on Papua
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/australia-neglecting-responsibilities-west-papuans
1) Australia 'neglecting UN obligations' by deporting West Papuan asylum seekers
Legal experts say by sending the group to PNG the government has ignored its duty to ensure they are safe from persecution
The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, said the seven West Papuans had been deported under a 2003 memorandum of understanding designed to prevent PNG being used as a transit country for asylum seekers. Photograph: Dan Himbrechts/AAP
Experts in refugee law have warned that Australia cannot pass off to Papua New Guinea its responsibility to process the claims of seven West Papuan asylum seekers.
The seven West Papuans told Australian immigration officials when they landed by boat in the Torres Strait last month that they feared for their lives after taking part in a protest against Indonesian human rights abuses in West Papua.
But instead of processing their claims Australia deported them to PNG, where they are now in a remote refugee camp close to the Indonesian border.
"We can't just ignore [their claim for asylum]," the director of the clinical legal program at Murdoch University, Anna Copeland, told Guardian Australia. "Because we're signatories to the UN refugee convention the whole obligation is that we don't just ignore it.
"We are supposed to implement [the convention] in good faith with the intention that it was set out, so this kind of manoeuvring to be able to refuse is a breach of our international obligations," she said.
The immigration minister, Scott Morrison, told the media that the seven were deported under a 2003 memorandum of understanding designed to prevent PNG being used as a transit country for asylum seekers hoping to make it to Australia.
Under the agreement, Australia is only able to return asylum seekers to PNG if they have spent more than seven days in that country prior to their arrival.
The West Papuans say they repeatedly told Australian immigration officials that they had only spent two days in PNG on their way to Australia. When questioned on this, Morrison said there had been "a concession agreed between the two governments".
Use of the memorandum does not merely allow Australia to wash its hands of them, according to legal analysis of the 2003 agreement by Dr Savitri Taylor, director of research in the school of law at La Trobe University. Australia still has ongoing obligations under international law to ensure the group has a meaningful chance to have their asylum cases considered and that they are safe from persecution in the interim.
The group said both of these conditions had been breached.
When Guardian Australia spoke to one of the seven, Yacob Mechrian Mandabayan, via phone from the remote border camp on Monday night, he said they were in fear for their lives because the camp was close to the porous Indonesian border.
"We do not feel safe here because this place is not guarded by police or security guards," he said.
Mandabayan also said there was no immediate prospect of their asylum claims being processed. After the group's initial refusal to seek asylum in PNG – where they say they face the persecution – they now believe they have been dumped at the camp "to just stay until we die in here".
Mandabayan said the group lodged an application with Port Moresby Court on Friday 11 October to request a stay on their relocation to the camp. It was to be heard the next Monday. But on the Saturday, before this could happen, PNG immigration officials arrived at their hotel with "police officers with M16 guns" to take them by force to the airport.
He also described an incident last week in which an "Indonesian-looking" man arrived at the house in which they were staying and tried to take their photos.
"We don't want to seek asylum in PNG; we only want to seek asylum in Australia," Mandabayan told Guardian Australia. "In Australia we feel safe because it's far away from the Indonesian authorities."
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/indonesia-accused-australian-helicopters-west-papua-genocide
Indonesia accused of using Australian helicopters in West Papua 'genocide'
2) Report says helicopters were deployed in 1970s operations that killed more than 4,000 Papuans amid horrific atrocities
Helicopters supplied by Australia were used by Indonesia in a “genocidal” crackdown on civilians in West Papua in the 1970s, a new report has claimed.
The report, conducted by the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission, says two Iroquois helicopters from Australia were among the aircraft deployed by the Indonesian military in the central highlands of Papua in 1977 and 1978.
The commission said the military operations resulted in the death of more than 4,000 indigenous Papuans, often from aerial assaults by helicopters and OV-10 Bronco planes, supplied by the US.
The report accuses Indonesian soldiers of “brutal and inhumane” treatment of civilians, with survivors telling the AHRC that officers forced elderly Papuans to eat their own excrement, while those arrested by the military were lined up and indiscriminately shot.
The report paints a disturbing picture of sexual violence against Papuan women, with accounts of rape and sexual abuse “common”. Some women had their breasts cut, while others were buried, burnt and boiled alive.
In one incident, villagers were bombed with napalm as they awaited planes they were told would deliver aid from Australia.
The military campaign intended to quash support for the separatist Free Papua Movement, which was popular in the region.
The AHRC said accounts of the killings, which took three years of research, amounted to genocide under UN conventions, with high-ranking Indonesian military officials, including former president Suharto, implicated.
Basil Fernando, AHRC director for policy and programme development, said: "The long period of authoritarianism under Suharto has profoundly silenced the Indonesians from discussing its dark history related to Papua.
"Without any recognition from the government and the public at large in Indonesia on the state-sponsored wrongdoings in Papua, the ongoing conflicts in the area will only continue."
"There should be genuine efforts from the government to provide justice for the Papuans, one of which is by fulfilling their right to truth."
The report calls for a truth and reconciliation commission to be established, the lifting of “unreasonable and disproportionate” restrictions on freedom of expression on West Papua and the encouragement of an “open discourse” on the violence in the region.
Jennifer Robinson of International Lawyers for West Papua said: "AHRC's work in documenting the mounting evidence of the genocide committed by Indonesia in West Papua is invaluable.
“For too long the UN and the international community have neglected the suffering of West Papuans as a result of Indonesia's crimes. Without recognition and justice, there will be no peace in Papua."
The Australian government says it is studying the report.
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http://liveencounters.net/?page_id=5023
3) Budi Hernawan – Breaking the silence on Papua
Article in PDF (Download)
Last week the UN fora in Geneva and New York broke the silence on Papua. During the 24th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the International Coalition for Papua (ICP) marked the session by revealing systematic efforts endorsed by the Indonesian government to isolate Papua from international scrutiny. As an attempt to break the silence surrounding this issue, the ICP released its third annual report highlighting the worsening conditions of human rights in Papua.
In a similar vein, the Vanuatu Prime Minister Moana Carcasses Kalosil spoke up during the 68th session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, raising the issue of the neglected Papua with the Assembly. In light of the Syrian humanitarian crisis, he requested that the UNGA appoint a Special Representative to investigate the situation of human rights in Papua. Vanuatu is no stranger to the Papuan cause. On the contrary, it is the driving force of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG)’s sympathy towards Papua.
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Dr Budi Hernawan ofm is a part-time researcher at Franciscans International, an international NGO accredited with the United Nations. He is based in Jayapura, Geneva and New York. This article solely expresses his personal opinion.
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