2) Task force spokesman reports 134 COVID-19 recoveries in Papua
3) Civilian shot dead by armed group in Indonesia's Papua
4)Papuan farmer dies after alleged police assault at palm oil company
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1) GUEST BLOG: Maire Leadbeater – Political prisoners and Covid May 19
For millions around the world COVID 19 is one more terrible threat to an existence already precarious because of poverty and conflict. Others are at high risk because they are in detention at the behest of repressive governments. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called for global solidarity in the fight against the virus and for an immediate global ceasefire. His colleague Michelle Bachelet the Human Rights Commissioner has urged all governments to release political prisoners and those detained for critical dissenting views.
UN member states, such as New Zealand need to do their bit to support the global body. New Zealand has a big advantage here if only it would use it.
We have earned a lot of respect in the last couple of years. First because of the way our Prime Minister Ardern faced up to the Christchurch Mosque killings, supporting and caring for the victims and ensuring prompt changes to our gun laws. Right now our handling of the COVID 19 crisis is seen to have been up among the best. It has been a ‘lives first – economy second’ approach and it has worked. Jacinda Ardern’s leadership was seen to be firm but evidence-based and transparent.
So what could we do with this earned capital? For one thing we could look close to home and speak out for the people of Indonesian-controlled West Papua, most urgently for its political prisoners. Indonesia released over 30,000 prisoners in the wake of the COVID crisis; prisoners who were close to serving their time or detained for less serious crimes. However when it came to political prisoners, including those detained for taking part in anti-racism demonstrations, it was nothing doing.
To put this in context, when Covid struck West Papua the people were dealing with the aftermath of a major uprising that began last August. The protests were triggered by a prolonged racist attack on Papuan students studying in Surabaya, East Java. The students were imprisoned in their dormitory overnight while racist mobs chanted ‘get rid of the Papuans’ and ‘monkeys, get out’. Then armed security police threw in tear gas and arrested the students.
Then it was as if the damn had burst as Papuans took to the streets in protest, not only across West Papua, but also in Jakarta and several other Indonesian cities. Indonesian rule of West Papua has been bitterly contested ever since the territory was taken over in 1963, so it is not surprising that that the calls for independence were amplified. The banned national flag the ‘Morning Star’ was everywhere.
Indonesia does not tolerate any kind of dissent that challenges its right to rule, so the protests led to an inundation into the territory of thousands of additional troops. Some protests turned violent, and some 59 people, both Papuan and migrant, lost their lives. An internet block was imposed and maintained in some areas for three weeks or more. Outside journalists were already banned, but ingenious West Papuans managed to get some video footage out to the world. We could see images from the humiliating arrests where Papuan were forced to lie face down on open ground .
Veronica Koman is an Indonesian human rights lawyer, currently forced to live in exile because of her committed advocacy for the West Papuan rights. Veronica teamed up with a fellow international human rights lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, and human rights group TAPOL to take a case to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to seek their support for the release of 63 political prisoners who posed no threat to society whatsoever because all have been involved in peaceful protest actions. All of them are in grave danger of contracting COVID 19 in Indonesia’s crowded and unsanitary prisons. The great majority (57) were arrested during the 2019 uprising and the charges against them related to their support for self-determination or to displaying the banned flag. These peaceful activities are protected under international law.
For example in Manokwari a young woman activist, Sayang Mandabayang, is on trial on treason charges. She was apprehended at the local airport last September and discovered to have some 1,500 miniature West Papuan flags in her bag ‘made of paper and stick’. She is also said to have made a speech at an anti-racism rally. A photo of this young woman nursing her baby behind bars went viral.
The’ Jakarta Six’ were convicted on treason charges on 24 April and were sentenced to between eight and nine months in prison. Their ‘crime’? They took part in a rally on August 28, 2019, outside the State Palace in Jakarta, during which they unfurled the West Papuan Morning Star flag. One of them is Surya Anta Ginteng, spokesperson for the Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua, the first non-Papuan Indonesian to be charged with treason in relation to the West Papuan self-determination movement. One has already been released, but there is great concern for the others especially for Ariana Elopere, the one woman in the group. She is detained at Pondok Bambu Detention Center where 24 prisoners have tested positive for Covid 19.
Foreign Minister Winston Peters seems set against any humanitarian advocacy. The master of the sidestep, he writes to West Papua Action Auckland that ‘all States should consider the guidance’ of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. However, in the time of Covid, we should remember that the United Nations relies on the strength of all its member nations and the saying ‘we are all in this together’ means we should be speaking out for the powerless and vulnerable.
Maire Leadbeater is a human rights advocate and expert on West Papua.
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https://en.antaranews.com/news/149130/task-force-spokesman-reports-134-covid-19-recoveries-in-papua
2) Task force spokesman reports 134 COVID-19 recoveries in Papua
12 hours ago
Jayapura, Papua (ANTARA) - Some 134 out of the total 538 people testing positive for COVID-19 in the easternmost Indonesian province of Papua have recovered from the disease as of Thursday, according to a spokesman.
"We are upbeat about an increase in the number of patients recovering from the disease," spokesman for the Papua Province Task Force for the Handling of COVID-19 Dr Silwanus Sumule noted in a statement through live streaming on Thursday night.
Of the total recoveries, 49 were from Mimika District, 34 from the Jayapura Municipality, 23 from Jayapura District, 11 from Merauke District, four each from the districts of Keerom and Jayawijaya, three from Sarmi, two each from the districts of Biak and Central Mamberamo, and one each from the districts of Nabire and Digul.
Sumule revealed that 394 COVID-19 patients are receiving medical treatment at several referral hospitals.
"Papua has 16 referral hospitals for COVID-19,” he stated.
Related news: Ministry affirms 808 Indonesian Jamaah Tabligh members stranded abroad
Related news: Indonesia must produce domestic viral genome-based COVID-19 vaccine
EDITED BY INE
"We are upbeat about an increase in the number of patients recovering from the disease," spokesman for the Papua Province Task Force for the Handling of COVID-19 Dr Silwanus Sumule noted in a statement through live streaming on Thursday night.
Of the total recoveries, 49 were from Mimika District, 34 from the Jayapura Municipality, 23 from Jayapura District, 11 from Merauke District, four each from the districts of Keerom and Jayawijaya, three from Sarmi, two each from the districts of Biak and Central Mamberamo, and one each from the districts of Nabire and Digul.
Sumule revealed that 394 COVID-19 patients are receiving medical treatment at several referral hospitals.
"Papua has 16 referral hospitals for COVID-19,” he stated.
Related news: Ministry affirms 808 Indonesian Jamaah Tabligh members stranded abroad
Related news: Indonesia must produce domestic viral genome-based COVID-19 vaccine
EDITED BY INE
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3) Civilian shot dead by armed group in Indonesia's Papua
Source: Xinhua| 2020-05-22 19:09:34|Editor: huaxia
JAKARTA, May 22 (Xinhua) -- A 35-year old civilian identified as Sakeus was shot by an armed group and found dead on Thursday in Timika, Indonesia's easternmost province of Papua, the provincial police's spokesman Ahmad Kamal
said on Friday. The victim with wounds on his belly and neck was found around a mining area of mining company
PT Freeport Indonesia in Papua's sub district of Tembagapura, Kamal was quoted by Indonesia's Antara news agency
as saying. The incident was reported by a joint police-military force's personnel who heard the burst of gunfire,
he said, adding that following the report police personnel went to the location of the incident and rushed the victim to Tembagapura hospital. The victim does not belong to PT Freeport Indonesia or a mining company consortium,
said Kamal. Enditem
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4) Papuan farmer dies after alleged police assault at palm oil company
by Hans Nicholas Jong on 22 May 2020
- An indigenous Papuan farmer, Marius Betera, has died after allegedly being assaulted by a police officer when complaining about a palm oil company bulldozing his banana plot.
- Police at the district level have arrested the officer, but police at the provincial level deny he did anything wrong, claiming that Marius died of a heart attack and that an autopsy showed no signs of bruising.
- Activists have demanded an independent investigation into the case, noting that the alleged assailant, Melkianus Yowei, was last year transferred from his post after assaulting an elderly indigenous woman.
- The palm oil company, PT Tunas Sawa Erma (TSE), is a subsidiary of the Korindo Group, which has a track record of violating traditional and human rights in the Indonesian provinces of Papua and North Maluku.
JAKARTA — Activists in the Indonesian province of Papua are demanding an investigation into the death of an indigenous man who was reportedly assaulted by a police officer after complaining about his farm being cleared by a major palm oil company.
Marius Betera died on the way to a clinic in Boven Digoel district to seek medical aid on May 16, hours after the alleged assault at a field office of PT Tunas Sawa Erma (TSE), a subsidiary of palm oil and logging giant Korindo Group. He was buried on May 18.
“The perpetrator being a police [officer] who helped PT TSE has violated his duties and functions as a police,” a group of NGOs said in a statement.
“The act of violence … leading to the death of the victim is a criminal offense that must be held accountable before the court,” they added.
The incident stemmed from the morning of May 16, when Marius, a former security guard at PT TSE’s plantation, arrived at his banana plot on the company’s land and found it had been bulldozed. The company allocates land for its workers to plant their own crops that they can sell for extra income, and while Marius had resigned from PT TSE in August 2019, the company had allowed him to continue staying on site.
Marius went to the company’s field office to complain about his farm being cleared, saying the company should have notified him that it planned to do so. Because he’d gone there straight from his plot, he was carrying farming and hunting implements, including a machete and bow and arrows.
As he was leaving the company office, he was accosted by Melkianus Yowei, a police officer who was previously assigned to provide security at the plantation and continued to frequent the site because his wife works there. Eyewitness accounts describe the two men tussling over the implements. Melkianus managed to gain control of them and struck Marius repeatedly in the face with the bow. He then punched him several times in the head and neck, and kicked him in the stomach. According to some witnesses, Marius was left bleeding from the ear.
Marius then left for a nearby police post to file a complaint, but was told that the officer on duty was on a break. From there, he headed to the PT TSE clinic for treatment, but collapsed just outside the clinic, and was pronounced dead soon after.
NGOs have demanded that both the Boven Digoel district police and the Papua provincial police “undertake immediate action to catch the perpetrator and enforce the legal process through a trial of police ethics and a general court process, as well as passing a justifiable sentence.”
The groups and local media both noted that Melkianus had a history of violence against civilians, having been transferred away from the plantation in 2019 after assaulting an elderly indigenous woman.
The police have issued conflicting statements on the case. The Boven Digoel police chief, Syamsurijal, said his office had detained Melkianus and encouraged Marius’s family to press charges. The Papua police, however, denied any wrongdoing by Melkianus and said Marius died of natural causes.
“From the autopsy result, there was no bruising on the victim’s body,” Ahmad Mustofa Kamal, a spokesman for the provincial police, said as quoted by Kompas. “He died of a heart attack.”
Ahmad said Marius had arrived alive at the clinic but refused to get medical treatment.
“That’s deception,” said Okto Betera, Marius’s younger brother. “This is murder.”
Papuan indigenous rights organization SKP KAMe, which advocates for some of the communities affected by Korindo’s operations and is among the NGOs calling for justice in Marius’s death, said police were too quick to downplay the incident. Anselmus Amo, a pastor and director of SKP KAMe, said it was unethical for the police to clear Melkianus without an independent investigation.
“The police have the rights to respond, but don’t be so quick in determining the cause of death, going so far as declaring that it’s a hoax,” Amo told Mongabay.
“There should be an independent body that investigates [the case]. If not, then we will just trade opinions and arguments with each other.”
SKP KAMe and the other NGOs said PT TSE and other companies operating in the region should stop using the military and police in their disputes with locals.
“We view the company … has used a repressive approach to resolve problems that occurred and were carried out by means of violence, rather than deliberating to find the best solution for victims who felt aggrieved,” they said.
The company’s director, Vinoba Chandra, denied that PT TSE had called in the police when Marius arrived to complain. He also said the company had notified Marius to vacate the land in February, and that Marius didn’t hold any customary rights to the land, having come from outside the region.
Korindo Group said it would launch its own investigation into the incident and work with the local community and authorities. It said it would also immediately open a grievance channel for the case on its website and disclose the progress and results of the investigation.
U.S.-based campaign group Mighty Earth said Korindo’s response to the incident shouldn’t stop there, adding the company has a long track record of disregard for and exploitation of Papuan rainforests and indigenous peoples.
A two-year investigation of Korindo’s deforestation practices by the Forest Stewardship Council, prompted by a complaint filed by Mighty Earth, found that, among other violations, Korindo had violated traditional and human rights in Papua and North Maluku, Indonesia.
“Yet Korindo has largely dismissed these concerns, or, when it could no longer avoid accountability, merely paid lip service to agreements to improve its practices,” Mighty Earth senior campaign director Deborah Lapidus said. “One such agreement, as stated on the Korindo website, is to ‘resolve grievances promptly, responsibly, responsively, and proactively;’ yet [Marius] Betera’s grievance resulted in his death.”
Lapidus called on the FSC, which certifies its member companies’ adherence to environmental and human rights standards, to immediately open its own investigation into the case, especially in light of Korindo’s earlier agreement with the FSC to “comply with the principle of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) and remediate its negative impacts on communities.”
Korindo has disputed the findings in the report.
Banner image: One of Korindo’s oil palm estates in Papua. Photo courtesy of Mighty Earth.
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