2) Australia’s evolving guarantee to the South Pacific
3) Beoga villagers' daughters harassed by armed Papuan criminals: priest
4) Statement From Provisional Government of West Papua On Political Refugee Beny Wenda
----------------------------
1) Papuan armed group, TPNPB, admits to three fatal shootings in Puncak
News Desk April 19, 2021 12:43 pm
Nabire, Jubi – An ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver named Udin was shot dead in Eromaga Village, Omikia District, Puncak Regency on Wednesday, April 14, 2021. The shooting is one of at least three fatal shootings against civilians claimed by the National Liberation Army of West Papua (TPNPB) this month.
Numbuk Telenggen, a TPNPB member under the lead of Lekagak Telenggen and Militer Murib, admitted he did the shooting. He claimed that the victim was a security personnel member disguised as an ojek driver. Telenggen, however, did not elaborate whether the alleged scout was a part of the Indonesian Military (TNI) or the National Police.
“We just shot a security forces who went under cover as an ojek driver at 1.10 p.m. local time in Eromaga village,” Telenggen told Jubi in a phone call on Wednesday.
The shooting allegedly happened after Udin dropped off a passenger. Udin died with a gunshot wound to the right chest and left cheek.
Telenggen said that the shooting of Udin was an operation order from the TPNPB. “Yes, it’s true that we, the subordinates of Operation Commander Lekagak Telenggen and Militer Murib, shot the ojek driver dead,” he said.
He further claimed that his party had the names of a number of security forces who disguised as motorcycle taxi drivers in Ilaga and Beoga Districts in Puncak Regency, Hitadipa District in Intan Jaya Regency, Puncak Jaya Regency, and Lany Jaya Regency.
“If the military or the police came up with any reason, that is not true. We know exactly the drivers in the areas I mentioned,” said Telenggen.
Papua Police Chief Insp. Gen. Mathius Fakhiri confirmed the shooting of ojek driver Udin in Eromaga Village, news agency Antara reported. According to Mathius, the shooting was reported by the civilians and the police immediately evacuated the body. He added that both the TNI and police were anticipating follow up attacks by the liberation army.
Earlier on April 8, TPNPB shot a teacher in Beoga, Puncak Regency. The teacher, Oktovianus Rayo, was dead. TPNPB accused him of being a spy for Indonesia’s security personnel. Rayo’s neighbors, however, denied the accusation, saying that he was suspected because he sometimes carried a gun.
On April 15, TPNPB in Puncak shot a high school student, Ali Mom. They also accused the student of being a spy for Indonesian security personnel.
Reporter: Hengky Yeimo
-----------------
2) Australia’s evolving guarantee to the South Pacific
19 Apr 2021|Graeme Dobell
It’s hard to believe these days, but Australia used to be shy about proclaiming a defence or security guarantee to Papua New Guinea and the South Pacific.
In the 1970s and 1980s, a gap opened between secret defence guidance about Australia’s determination to fight for the island arc and what Canberra said to the new nations of the arc.
Well into the 1990s, Australia promised to do its bit so South Pacific states could ‘look after their own strategic interests’; in a crisis, the focus of the Oz military would be ‘evacuation of Australian citizens’.
The mindset was crammed into one phrase by Ashton Calvert (secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade from 1998 to 2005), who remarked to me that Australia’s policy in the South Pacific was ‘to intelligently manage trouble’. Australia would stand ready but stand back, keeping its hands off.
The mindset has changed remarkably. Canberra’s ambitions have grown, as has the need.
The depth and geographic reach of Australia’s guarantee expanded, evolving outwards from PNG to cover the whole of the South Pacific and Timor-Leste. That growth matched the development of international relations thinking beyond state security.
Australia’s pledge to the islands today is as much about internal security—human, economic, political and environmental—as defence against external threats.
Because Canberra’s South Pacific view is always framed by PNG, the gap between Oz secret strategy and public statements in the 1970s and 1980s had a PNG foundation.
No longer the colonial master, Australia was discovering how to deal with an independent neighbour, just as it had to build understandings with other newly independent island states. A Canberra element was to shift the secretive habits of Australia’s Defence Department: some core interests are so important they need to be publicly stated.
To see how this once operated, come to a meeting in 1985 between Indonesia’s defence minister, General Benny Murdani, and Australia’s defence minister, Kim Beazley. Murdani asked the extent of Australia’s military commitment to PNG. Beazley replied: ‘First, you need to understand that we would fight for PNG to the last Australian soldier. We have done it before. Second, we would never be as emphatic in our expression of that to the PNG government in case they decided to test it.’
Beazley was telling Murdani that Australia would go to war to defend PNG’s border against Indonesian incursion. That danger was real because the rebel Free Papua Movement was using bases in PNG to operate in Irian Jaya.
Angered at Port Moresby’s ‘connivance’, Jakarta made military plans to cross the PNG border in force to destroy rebel camps. The secret version of the 1986 Review of Australia’s defence capabilities feared Indonesian troops would stay in PNG permanently to ‘occupy the border region to some depth’.
Knowing it’d fight for PNG, Australia decided to stop worrying about PNG testing a guarantee. Don’t ask, don’t tell was too dangerous a policy. Stop worrying about ‘moral hazard’ (PNG could take risks because Australia would carry the cost if things went badly) and just focus on the hazard. Time to give formal expression to Australia’s willingness to defend PNG.
Beazley later said the Indonesia border issue was one reason Australia needed to formalisethe PNG defence relationship within a broad 1987 treaty: ‘The purpose in part was to discourage Indonesia from doing anything in PNG and in part for us to get a handle on what the PNG government was doing.’
The 1987 joint declaration of principles on Australia–PNG relations pointed to ‘unique historical links and shared strategic interests’. It stated: ‘In the event of external armed attack threatening the national sovereignty of either country, such consultation would be conducted for the purpose of each Government deciding what measures should be taken, jointly or separately, in relation to that attack.’
Australia’s pledge to fight for PNG didn’t have any ANZUS-style reservations (‘acting in accordance with its constitutional principles’). The guarantee had to be part of a general declaration of principles because Canberra and Port Moresby couldn’t agree on the terms of a separate defence treaty. A certain principled vagueness was retained, but the fog was clearing.
A decade later, in 1997, the Howard government’s strategic policy described Australia’s ‘compelling’ interests in PNG and readiness ‘to commit forces to resist external aggression’. For the first time, the unclassified document expanded the PNG guarantee to make it a Melanesian pledge, with the ‘same considerations that apply to PNG’ also covering Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
Having given a PNG-level promise to Melanesia, the 1997 statement then embraced the whole of the Pacific Islands Forum, recognising that ‘any attack on them—or penetration by a potentially hostile power—would be serious for our security and that, as with PNG, we would very likely provide substantial support in the unlikely event that any of them faced aggression from outside the region’.
What Australia could hardly say officially to PNG in the 1980s it was now affirming to the whole of the South Pacific. Timor-Leste was soon added.
In 1999, Australia led the UN into East Timor to protect the independence vote. For the Australian cabinet, the new reality was that ‘our long-term interests in East Timor’s security and territorial integrity’ amounted to another security IOU.
In learning by doing, Canberra has come to understand that its guarantees have economic and political meanings as well as military.
We’ve worked out you can’t have an exit strategy from your own region: as Solomon Islands teetered towards disaster in 2000, Canberra rejected a request for 50 Australian police (no exit strategy!) and sent a navy ship to evacuate Australians from Honiara, a moment of panicked exit not policy commitment.
The region—not just Australia—draws much from the peace process in Bougainville and the 14-year Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands.
Australia’s Pacific pivot is an external defence guarantee and an internal promise to the South Pacific and Timor-Leste: offering economic and security ‘integration’ to uphold the region by holding it closer.
China’s challenge is the pivot headline, yet many previous Australian steps lead to the Pacific step-up.
Canberra’s worry these days isn’t the moral hazard of its pledge. It’s more that the South Pacific takes the guarantee for granted—as a mere statement of Australian interests—and that it doesn’t carry enough weight in island policy choices.
Graeme Dobell is ASPI’s journalist fellow. Image: Department of Defence.
--------------------
3) Beoga villagers' daughters harassed by armed Papuan criminals: priest
4 hours ago
Jayapura, Papua (ANTARA) - Armed Papuan criminals in Beoga Sub-district, Puncak District, Papua Province, continue their acts of terror by not only killing teachers and burning houses and schools but also by harassing the villagers' daughters, a priest stated.
"The armed criminals not only ruined our schools but they also did 'ruin' our daughters and houses," Priest Jupinus Wama was quoted as saying in a Nemangkawi Task Force's press statement that ANTARA quoted here, Monday.
Consequently, several villagers are fearful of a recurrence of those notorious armed Papuan criminals' acts of terror in future, Wama was quoted as saying.
Hence, the presence of Indonesia's army and police personnel in Beoga has offered them a sense of security, Priest Wama remarked, adding that he would call his family members, who had escaped to the forest over security concerns, to return home.
After gunning down two teachers in Julukoma Village, Beoga Sub-district, on April 8-9, the notorious armed criminals continued their acts of terror on April 17 by setting ablaze houses and a school building in the Dambek area.
Beoga Police Chief 2nd Inspector Ali Akbar remarked that no fatalities were reported in this latest attack, and the villagers were able to extinguish the fire that ravaged the school building.
"Only the school's door caught fire, but the fire could immediately be put out," Akbar stated.
Papua Province has borne witness to a string of violent attacks by notorious armed Papuan criminals targeting civilians and security personnel in the past two years.
On April 8, 2021, several armed Papuan criminals opened fire at a kiosk in Julukoma Village, Beoga Sub-district, at about 9:30 a.m. local time.
The shooting incident resulted in the death of a Beoga public elementary school teacher, Oktovianus Rayo.
After killing Rayo, the armed attackers continued their acts of terror by torching three classrooms of the Beoga public senior high school.
On Friday (April 9), the armed Papuan criminals again assaulted another teacher, Yonatan Randen. This junior high school teacher was shot on his chest.
Several villagers attempted to save Randen's life by moving him to the Beoga public health center, but he died.
On Sunday evening (April 11), the armed criminals set ablaze nine classrooms of the Beoga public junior high school.
Papua Police Chief Insp. Gen. Mathius D. Fakhiri has vowed to trace and crack down on the killers of these two teachers.
"The TNI (Indonesian military) and police personnel will never retreat even a single step in enforcing the law against the killers," Fakhiri stated in Timika on Tuesday.
Related news: Papua deputy governor seeks resumption in public services in Beoga
Related news: Armed criminals torch homes of Papua tribal chief and teachers
Close
EDITED BY INE
"The armed criminals not only ruined our schools but they also did 'ruin' our daughters and houses," Priest Jupinus Wama was quoted as saying in a Nemangkawi Task Force's press statement that ANTARA quoted here, Monday.
Consequently, several villagers are fearful of a recurrence of those notorious armed Papuan criminals' acts of terror in future, Wama was quoted as saying.
Hence, the presence of Indonesia's army and police personnel in Beoga has offered them a sense of security, Priest Wama remarked, adding that he would call his family members, who had escaped to the forest over security concerns, to return home.
After gunning down two teachers in Julukoma Village, Beoga Sub-district, on April 8-9, the notorious armed criminals continued their acts of terror on April 17 by setting ablaze houses and a school building in the Dambek area.
Beoga Police Chief 2nd Inspector Ali Akbar remarked that no fatalities were reported in this latest attack, and the villagers were able to extinguish the fire that ravaged the school building.
"Only the school's door caught fire, but the fire could immediately be put out," Akbar stated.
Papua Province has borne witness to a string of violent attacks by notorious armed Papuan criminals targeting civilians and security personnel in the past two years.
On April 8, 2021, several armed Papuan criminals opened fire at a kiosk in Julukoma Village, Beoga Sub-district, at about 9:30 a.m. local time.
The shooting incident resulted in the death of a Beoga public elementary school teacher, Oktovianus Rayo.
After killing Rayo, the armed attackers continued their acts of terror by torching three classrooms of the Beoga public senior high school.
On Friday (April 9), the armed Papuan criminals again assaulted another teacher, Yonatan Randen. This junior high school teacher was shot on his chest.
Several villagers attempted to save Randen's life by moving him to the Beoga public health center, but he died.
On Sunday evening (April 11), the armed criminals set ablaze nine classrooms of the Beoga public junior high school.
Papua Police Chief Insp. Gen. Mathius D. Fakhiri has vowed to trace and crack down on the killers of these two teachers.
"The TNI (Indonesian military) and police personnel will never retreat even a single step in enforcing the law against the killers," Fakhiri stated in Timika on Tuesday.
Related news: Papua deputy governor seeks resumption in public services in Beoga
Related news: Armed criminals torch homes of Papua tribal chief and teachers
Close
EDITED BY INE
----------------------------
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO2104/S00199/statement-from-provisional-government-of-west-papua-on-political-refugee-beny-wenda.htm
This a statement from Yoab Syatfle, the Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of the Federal Republic of West Papua.This is our response to the statement from Beny Wenda political refugee who has obtained asylum in the United Kingdom which he submitted to the paper online the Australian and Australia West Papua Association base in Sydney and was subsequently published on Monday April 12,2021 and which the following “We will welcome’s China help with opens arms: West Papua rebel leader “. Officials of the Provisional Government of the Federal Republic of West Papua fundamentally reject this statement from Beny Wenda who is not a Leader of West Papua not instead merely an activist. This is just expression of Beny Wenda’s private interest and not in the least advancing the interest of West Papua and struggle for its people for independence.The Provisional Government of the Federal Republic of West Papua keeps all member countries of the United Nations including China being member of the UN Security Council, in high esteem and appreciates all these efforts in the protection and survivability of the indigenous people all over the world.We are seeking international political and humanitarian by pursuing diplomatic efforts and maintaining an open communication with all member countries of the United Nations. We are not in any way creating political conspiracy nor an impasse, but are strictly following the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, the UN Charter and the Rules and Procedures of the General Assembly.© Scoop Media
-------------
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.