2) Terrorist tag in West Papua could worsen racism: rights group
3) West Papua police confiscate locally assembled firearm in raid
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1) TNI Commander, Police Chief to Monitor Security in Papua
Translator: Dewi Elvia Muthiariny
Editor: Laila Afifa
7 May 2021 09:52 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesian Military (TNI) Commander Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto and the National Police Chief General Listyo Sigit Prabowo planned to visit Papua to directly observe the security in the country’s easternmost province.
The plan was confirmed by Hadi during a working meeting on Thursday, May 6, with the House of Representatives (DPR) Commission I in Nusantara Building III, Parliament Complex, Jakarta.
“We’d like to report also that this afternoon, the Police Chief and I will depart for Papua. We receive reports on the situation every time but we really need to directly communicate and hold discussions with commanders in the field,” said Hadi.
However, he stopped short of detailing the agenda of his visit in the hearing.
Concerns for the security issues in Papua reached the peak after the Regional Intelligence Agency Head Major General I Gusti Putu Danny Karya Nugraha died during a shootout with an armed criminal group (KKB) in Beoga District, Puncak Regency, last month.
The TNI Commander, however, did not mention whether his visit to Papua was related to the rising activity of the KKB or other separatists such as the Free Papua Organization (OPM) which had been labeled by the government as terrorists.
Read: Police, TNI Personnel Deployed to Papua to Hunt Down Criminal Armed Group
ANTARA
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2) Terrorist tag in West Papua could worsen racism: rights group
12:04 pm today
Human Rights Watch is urging the Indonesian government to rethink its classification of rebels in West Papua as terrorists.
Indonesia has formally designated Papuan independence fighters as "terrorists", in a move expected to expand the military's role in civillian policing in Papua.
But the NGO has warned that the new designation under counter-terrorism law could worsen racism and human rights abuses in West Papua while expanding the role of Indonesia's military in civillian policing in the Melanesian region.
Audio
The designation was approved last week as military operations intensified in Papua region after an Indonesian intelligence chief was killed in an ambush by West Papua Liberation Army guerilla fighters.
In announcing the official's death at a news conference in Jakarta last week, Indonesian president Joko Widodo vowed a military crackdown in Papua and declared the Liberation Army a terrorist organisation. Formerly, Indonesian authorities referred to the Liberation Army as an "armed criminal group".
A researcher with Human Rights Watch's Indonesia office, Andreas Harsono, said the killing shocked and angered the public, the latest in a series of violent episodes in Papua that escalated since the Liberation Army killed 17 civillian road construction workers in late 2018 in Nduga regency.
Harsono said the designation of the terrorist categorisation to Papuan rebels was clearly a response to the cycle of deadly violence in Papua region.
But he was concerned that the broad classification under counter-terrorism legislation gave security forces the power to detain suspects for longer periods without charge, as well as hundreds of days before even going to trial, increasing the risk for suspects to be abused and tortured.
It also opens the floodgates of who could be branded as a terrorist in a region where pro-independence aspirations run deep among the indigenous population.
"This provision could be used to authorise massive disproportionate surveillance that violates privacy rights in Papua," Harsono warned.
He said that extending military deployment in a civillian policing context carried serious risks in Papua, in part because Indonesian soldiers typically weren't trained in law enforcement.
According to him, the military justice system has a bad track record in investigating and prosecuting human rights abuses by Indonesian soldiers.
"The underlying problem in Papua is racism: racism against the dark skinned and curly haired people, and of course those that do most of the human rights abuses against ethnic Papuans, these dark-skinned, curly-haired people who are predominantly also Christian in Muslim-majority Indonesia are Indonesian soldiers and police officers."
The designation was unhelpful in terms of efforts to resolve long-running problems in Papua, Harsono explained.
"The Indonesian government should recognise that violating human rights in the name of counter-terrorism merely benefits armed extremists over the long term."
Harsono said that threat posed by the Liberation Army needed to be put in perspective.
"According to Indonesian military estimate, they only have (around) 200 weapons. It is tiny, it is insignificant.
"Of course they are criminal, they kill people. Of course the police should act against them. But branding them as a terrorist organisation, these people who live in the forest who try to defend their forest, their cultgure, and their own people, mostly using bows and arrows, this is going to be ridiculous."
"This is going to affect these indigenous people so much. This is something the Indonesian government should review as soon as possible and if they don't, the future generations will regret what the current government is doing."
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https://en.antaranews.com/news/174090/west-papua-police-confiscate-locally-assembled-firearm-in-raid
3) West Papua police confiscate locally assembled firearm in raid
12 hours ago
Manokwari, W Papua (ANTARA) - The West Papua Provincial Police seized a locally assembled revolver during a raid in Maruni, Manokwari District, West Papua Province, on April 30, 2021
Chief of the West Papua Provincial Police Inspector General Tornagogo Sihombing stated in Manokwari on Thursday that the police had arrested two people, identified by their initials as CA and EM, on charges of possessing the illegal firearm.
Sihombing noted that the two suspects were under interrogation, pending further legal proceedings.
The firearm was intended as an item of dowry, he revealed
The practice is contrary to the local culture. If domestic conflict were to ever erupt in future, then the suspect would misuse the firearm.
Hence, Sihombing appealed to the West Papua community members, who still keep firearms as an item of dowry, to surrender them over to the police or military office to prevent any misuse.
During the raid, the police also seized an airsoft gun from an individual, identified by his initials as HP, and a rifle from an individual, identified by his initials as AR.
The two-week-long raid ended on May 5, 2021.
Related news: Several armed Papuans end resistance: Papua police chief
Related news: Jokowi embarks on working visit to East Java
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Chief of the West Papua Provincial Police Inspector General Tornagogo Sihombing stated in Manokwari on Thursday that the police had arrested two people, identified by their initials as CA and EM, on charges of possessing the illegal firearm.
Sihombing noted that the two suspects were under interrogation, pending further legal proceedings.
The firearm was intended as an item of dowry, he revealed
The practice is contrary to the local culture. If domestic conflict were to ever erupt in future, then the suspect would misuse the firearm.
Hence, Sihombing appealed to the West Papua community members, who still keep firearms as an item of dowry, to surrender them over to the police or military office to prevent any misuse.
During the raid, the police also seized an airsoft gun from an individual, identified by his initials as HP, and a rifle from an individual, identified by his initials as AR.
The two-week-long raid ended on May 5, 2021.
Related news: Several armed Papuans end resistance: Papua police chief
Related news: Jokowi embarks on working visit to East Java
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