2) ACP Summit : West Papua Independence Leader Calls On Africa To End Colonialism In West Papua
3) Pacific Island Nations Call For UN Report On Indonesia’s Papua Abuses
4) Indonesia's tiny glaciers to melt away in a decade: study
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1) Police arrest seven suspected militants in Indonesia's Papua
By NINIEK KARMINI | Associated Press | Published: December 14, 2019
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian police said Saturday that they have arrested seven suspected Islamic militants in the country's easternmost Papua province as authorities beef up security ahead of Christmas and New Year's celebrations.
Papua police's deputy chief, Yakobus Marjuki, said the elite counterterrorism squad arrested a man, identified only as Karwanto, in a raid at a house in Sentani town in Dec. 5 after receiving a tip from intelligence that some members of the militant group have fled to Papua from other Indonesian islands since last year.
His arrest led police to six other suspects who were captured in the past week in Jayapura, the capital of Papua province. Police seized knives, laptops, explosive materials and a bomb from three houses rented by the suspects.
Marjuki declined to say what the suspects had planned in predominantly Christian Papua province. He said those arrested are suspected members of a local affiliate of the Islamic State group known as Jama'ah Anshorut Daulah, or JAD, from Lampung and Medan on Sumatra island.
JAD has been implicated in numerous attacks in Indonesia over the past two years and was designated a terror organization by the U.S. in 2017.
The arrests come as authorities announced Friday the launch of an annual security operation to secure the year-end festivities. For the operation, which will run through Jan. 1, Indonesia's police and military will deploy a total of 190,000 officers across the country. They will be tasked with securing churches, shopping malls, tourist destinations, airports and other places where crowds are expected to gather in large numbers.
Arrests of suspected Islamic militants are rare in Papua, a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea that is ethnically and culturally distinct from much of Indonesia. It was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a U.N.-sponsored ballot that was seen as a sham by many.
Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, has carried out a sustained crackdown on Islamic militants since bombings on the tourist island of Bali in 2002 killed 202 people, mostly foreigners.
The Jemaah Islamiyah military network, which was blamed for the Bali attacks, was neutralized following the arrests of hundreds of its militants and leaders. But new threats have emerged in recent times from Islamic State group-inspired radicals who have targeted security forces and local "infidels" instead of Westerners.
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2) ACP Summit : West Papua Independence Leader Calls On Africa To End Colonialism In West Papua
By News Desk
Global Pan Africanism Network leader met West Papuan Independence Leader, Mr. Benny Wenda, on 8th December in Nairobi, Kenya.
It was a defining moment for Africa -West Papua relations as West Papuan leader attended the 9th African Caribbean and Pacific Group of States summit.
In a meeting with Daniel Mwambonu, the President of United States of Africa project and also the founder of Global Pan Africanism Network, Mr Benny Wenda was the first government official to be interviewed on United States of Africa page regarding the Indonesian propagated genocide against people of African descent in West Papua.
Accompanying him was Vanuatu Ambassador Honorable Mr Adewale, a Vanuatu national of Nigerian descent who upon hearing the meeting was about West Papua , he came to show brotherly support to West Papua.
It was the first-ever state visit for the Independence leader for West Papua in Nairobi and he nostalgically recounted the immense support he received from the government of Senegal.
Kenya was the second African nation to show such kind of solidarity with West Papua but this time support came from an international Pan Africanism organization and United States of Africa project.
Drama At Governors Office
Vanuatu foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu could not make it to the meeting as Daniel Mwambonu's efforts to get the accreditation badge failed as he ended up being frustrated by receptionists at Nairobi governor's office.
Vanuatu foreign minister Ralph Regenvanu could not make it to the meeting as Daniel Mwambonu's efforts to get the accreditation badge failed as he ended up being frustrated by receptionists at Nairobi governor's office.
Mr. Mwambonu had an appointment with the Pacific Leaders at 1 Pm in the KICC but all the efforts to have accreditation badge fell on deaf ears.
In spite of informing them that he had an important appointment with key Pacific Leaders attending the summit, one of them told him it was not possible to get accreditation to make it into Kenyatta International Conference Center (KICC).
The security officers that sent the founder of Global Pan Africanism Network to the City Hall to get the accreditation badge were baffled why he was denied accreditation badge yet many people who flocked there got accredited within a few minutes.
This incident brought to limelight Kenya's cold feet approach towards Pan Africanism.
The Global Pan Africanism Network not being invited for the summit in spite of playing a huge role in the reunification of all people of African descent in Africa, Caribbean and Pacific group of states speaks volumes how Kenya views Pan Africanism.
West Papua Independence leader First Ever Visit to Kenya:
In spite of the hurdles encountered the meeting was held at Nairobi's governor office the same place where Mr Daniel Mwambonu was denied accreditation badge.
His Excellency Mr Benny Wenda narrated how at tender age he was arrested and sentenced for 25 years for raising the morning star flag in West Papua and leading the Struggle against Indonesian colonialism in West Papua.
He managed to escape after he got political asylum in the United Kingdom where he has lived since then.
Racism in West Papua:
Mr Benny Wenda decried about systematic racism and colonialism against Indigenous people in West Papua.
Mr Benny Wenda decried about systematic racism and colonialism against Indigenous people in West Papua.
"I hand over this issue of West Papua to Africans please help us liberate West Papua.
West Papua is an African issue because we are first Africans who left the continent ,thus Indonesians are calling us monkeys from Africa."
Genocide In West Papua
Mr Benny Wenda said Indonesia has killed over 500,000 Papuans since 1963 and many more continue to perish in West Papua.
Mr Benny Wenda said Indonesia has killed over 500,000 Papuans since 1963 and many more continue to perish in West Papua.
The situation is getting worse every day and Indonesia does not respect human rights of the Indigenous people in West Papua.
He called upon Pan Africanists and African nations to support decolonisation of West Papua.
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3) Pacific Island Nations Call For UN Report On Indonesia’s Papua Abuses
December 14, 2019 Staff Writer
West Papuan protesters scuffle with the police during a rally calling for the remote region’s independence, in Jakarta, Indonesia. (Source: AP Photo/File)
Seven Pacific island nations have called for a UN investigation into allegations of human rights abuses in Indonesia’s West Papua and Papua provinces, where a separatist movement has simmered for decades. A statement to a session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, read on behalf of the seven states by Vanuatu’s Justice Minister Ronald Warsal, accused Indonesia of serious human rights violations of indigenous Papuans including extrajudicial executions of activists and beatings and fatal shootings of peaceful protesters.
The statement called on the council to request a comprehensive report from the high commissioner for human rights and Indonesia’s cooperation in providing unfettered access to the two provinces, which independence supporters refer to collectively as West Papua. Pacific island leaders angered Indonesia last year when they used their speeches to the UN General Assembly to criticize Indonesia’s rule in West Papua. Jakarta accused them of interfering in Indonesia’s sovereignty and supporting groups that carry out armed attacks.
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Warsal, who spoke on behalf of Vanuatu, Tonga, Palau, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, Nauru and the Solomon Islands, said they also wanted to highlight the Indonesian policy of encouraging the migration of Javanese and other ethnic groups, which has led to the dramatic outnumbering of indigenous Papuans in their own land. The Indonesian government “has not been able to curtail or halt these various and widespread violations,” he said. “Neither has that government been able to deliver justice for the victims.”
Indonesia maintains a tight grip on West Papua and restricts journalists from reporting there. However, the independence movement appears to be increasingly well organized, with different groups now united under an umbrella organization. The Dutch colonizers of the Indonesian archipelago held onto West Papua when Indonesia became independent after World War II. It became part of Indonesia following a UN-supervised referendum in 1969 that involved only a tiny proportion of the population and was criticized as a sham. Independence supporters want a second referendum.
The indigenous people of the two Papua provinces, which make up the western half of the island of New Guinea, are ethnically Melanesian and culturally distinct from the rest of Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation. West Papua is home to the world’s largest gold mine by reserves, one of the world’s biggest copper mines and vast areas of virgin forest. The government insists it is an indivisible part of the Indonesian state and is unlikely to make any concessions to separatists out of fear that could re-energize other dormant independence movements.
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4) Indonesia's tiny glaciers to melt away in a decade: study
Dessy Sagita and Peter Brieger Agence France-Presse
Jakarta / Fri, December 13, 2019 / 01:19 pm
Indonesia's little-known glaciers are melting so fast they could disappear in a decade, a new study says, underscoring the imminent threat posed by climate change to ice sheets in tropical countries.
As the COP 25 summit wraps up in Madrid, nations are struggling to finalize rules for the 2015 landmark Paris climate accord, which aims to limit global temperature rises.
Thousands of kilometers away, glaciers on a mountain range in Indonesia's Papua region – and a handful of others in Africa and the Peruvian Andes – are an early warning of what could be in store if they fail.
"Because of the relatively low elevation of the [Papua] glaciers... these will be the first to go," said Lonnie Thompson, one of the authors of the study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.
"They are the 'canaries in the coal mine'".
This summer, Iceland mourned the passing of Okjokull, its first glacier lost to climate change, amid warnings that some 400 others on the subarctic island risk the same fate.
Meanwhile, a team of researchers in Switzerland warned that unchecked greenhouse gas emissions could see more than 90-percent of glaciers in the Alps disappear by the end of the century.
Accelerating melt-off from glaciers and especially ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica are driving sea level rises, threatening coastal megacities and small island nations. Glaciers are also a key water source for tens of millions of people.
While they're usually associated with colder-weather countries, the glaciers in Papua, an Indonesian region on the western half of New Guinea island, are a key marker of the impact of rising global temperatures, researchers said.
"Tropical glaciers are mostly smaller and so their response time to variations in climate change is faster compared to larger glaciers and ice sheets," said Indonesia-based glaciologist Donaldi Permana, also an author on the study.
Earlier estimates suggested that Papua's glaciers have shrunk by some 85 percent in the past few decades.
Earlier estimates suggested that Papua's glaciers have shrunk by some 85 percent in the past few decades.
This week's study said glaciers that once covered some 20 square kilometers have shrunk to less than half of one square kilometre. There has also been a more than five-fold increase in the rate of ice thinning over the past few years.
"The situation has reached worrying levels because ice formation is no longer happening – only glacier recession," Permana said.
"The glaciers are in danger of disappearing within a decade or less," he added.
The melting has been exacerbated by the El Nino phenomenon, which causes warmer temperatures and reduced rainfall.
"Reducing greenhouse gas emissions and planting more trees can probably slow down the ice recession in Papua," Permana said.
"However, we believe it'll be extremely difficult to keep them" from melting.
Aside from any environmental impact, their disappearance would also be a cultural loss for some indigenous Papuans who consider them sacred.
"The mountains and valleys are the arms and legs of their god and the glaciers are the head," said Thompson, a professor at Ohio State University.
"The head of their god will soon disappear."
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