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1) "Accepting Indonesia into MSG was a mistake", says Mr. Natuman
Former Vanuatu Prime Minister (PM) Joe Natuman says allowing Indonesia (by former Prime Minister Mr. Sato Kilman) into the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) was a mistake.
“We (Melanesians) have a moral obligation to support West Papua’s struggle in line with our forefathers’ call including first former Prime Minister, Father Walter Lini, Chief Bongmatur, and others,” he said.
“Vanuatu has cut its canoe over 40 years ago and successfully sailed into the Ocean of Independence and in the same spirit, we must help our brothers and sisters in the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP), to cut their canoe, raise the sail and also help them sail into the same future for the Promised Land.”
The former PM graced the West Papua Lobby Team on its appointment with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jotham Napat, this week when he agreed to an interview to confirm his support for the West Papua Struggle as above and admitted the mistake.
During their discussions with the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Natuman thanked the Minister and Minister for Climate Change Mr. Ralph Regenvanu and Prime Minister Ishmael Kalsakau, for their united stand for ULMWP to achieve full membership into the Melanesian Spearhead Group.
“When we created MSG, it was a political organisation before economic and other interests were added,” he said.
“After our Independence on July 30 of 1980, heads of different political parties in New Caledonia started visiting Port Vila to learn how to stand up strong to challenge France for their freedom.
“I joined the Team this week because I was involved under then Prime Minister Father Walter Lini, we advised the Political Leaders of New Caledonia at the time to form one political umbrella organisation to argue their case, and they formed FLNKS.
“We created ULMWP in 2014 here in Port Vila, to become your political umbrella organisation. After the child that we helped to create, we must continue to work with it to develop it towards its destiny.”
Like the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Natuman challenged both the Government and the Lobby Team to continue to lobby for ULMWP victory when all MSG Leaders unanimously vote West Papua in as the latest full member of MSG.
“But now that Indonesia is inside, it is not interested in the ULMWP issue but its own interests. So we must be careful here. We have passed resolutions regarding Human Rights and the United Nations have agreed for the UN Human Rights Commissioner to visit West Papua to report on the situation on the ground and Jakarta has blocked the visit,” he said.
Mr. Natuman challenged the Government whether or not to allow Indonesia to continue to behave towards MSG by ignoring the ULMWP demands.
Meanwhile, then Prime Minister Kilman had the same reasoning for allowing Indonesia into the MSG believing that the occupier would sit on the same table to be allowed to discuss the West Papua dilemma. However, it did not work out.
In the latest development, Mr. Natuman thinks new Fiji PM Sitiveni Rabuka is not going to govern in the same manner as former PM Bainimarama, now that he has already ordered the revival of Fiji’s Great Council of Chiefs which his predecessor had revoked.
“I also think PM Manasseh Sogavare (of the Solomons) still stands in support of ULMWP. I think the Foreign Affairs Minister of Papua New Guinea has to talk to PM James Marape,” he added.
In his opinion, based on the Mr. Napat’s briefing to the Lobby Team this week, the MSG Secretariat suddenly seems to follow every line to the book regarding the ULMWP Application for full membership of MSG.
“There is no need for the Committee of Officials to control the processes towards a positive outcome to the ULMWP Application. I suggest that you recommend to the PM to revisit the processes,” Mr. Natuman suggested.
“At the Leaders’ Summit, it is the (MSG) Leaders who decide what to talk about in their Meeting and do not allow ‘smol-smol man’ to dictate to you what or how you should talk about in your meeting.”
In addition, he said he was a member of an Eminent Group made up of Ambassador Kaliopate Tavola of Fiji, Roch Wamytan of FLNKS of News Caledonia and Solomons’ Prime Minister Sogavare who produced an MSG Report.
“In the Report we suggested that it was good that Indonesia came in and I personally recommended a Melanesian Nakamal Concept which in Polynesia and Fiji, it is called Talanoa (Process),” Mr. Natuman continued.
“This would allow Indonesia to sit down within a Melanesian umbrella to discuss their issues. Such a session should be chaired by an independent person such as a church leader or chief.
“The Report is there and it should allow Indonesia to talk about their human right issues. Indonesia could use the avenue to hear ULMWP’s view on their proposed Autonomy in West Papua.”
Indonesia could also bring in their other supporters to place their issues on the table for discussion.
Foreign Affairs Minister Napat recommended his “top to the bottom” approach instead of from a bottom up approach, allowing the ‘smol-smol man’ to dictate to the leaders how to make their decisions.
Last month, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo formally acknowledged 12 episodes of historical human rights violations by government agencies between 1965 and 2003.
Chief among the atrocities acknowledged were the 1965-66 anti-communist purges, when around 500,000 suspected communists were killed by government forces and auxiliary militias, with the support of the British and U.S. governments. Others included the 1997-8 disappearances of pro-democracy activists, and the anti-Chinese violence that took place in May 1998, during the tumult accompanying the fall of President Suharto.
Stopping short of an apology, Jokowi stated that his government was “making every effort to ensure that gross human rights abuses will not occur again in Indonesia in the future.”
The speech marks the culmination of a presidential campaign promise that Jokowi made in 2014 to investigate past abuses, and follows the conclusion of a formal, but non-judicial, investigation initiated last year.
The admission was a welcome surprise in a region of the world where rights violations are rarely reflected upon publicly. Jokowi is only the second Indonesian president to acknowledge the anti-communist massacres of 1965-66, after Abdurrahman Wahid in 2000, and the first to formally acknowledge the other incidents, marking a significant moment for a nation recently emerged from the authoritarian rule of Suharto’s New Order.
While much of Indonesian civil society welcomed the acknowledgment as a step toward greater accountability, and applauded the government’s inclusion of human rights activists in the team that conducted the investigation, some are skeptical about the government’s true motives, given that its process does not envision bringing any perpetrators to justice.
“It’s not justice, but a pragmatic approach to provide some kind of so-called reconciliation with the victims, because Jokowi feels the judicial mechanism is not adequate,” said Andreas Harsono of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch Indonesia.
He said that the omission of many prominent rights abuses from the president’s acknowledgement, such as those committed during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor, the 1967 anti-Chinese massacres in Kalimantan, and the countless unresolved rights violations in Papua, suggests that it was a political maneuver rather than a signal of a genuine commitment to reform and justice.
As evidence of continued military impunity, Harsono pointed to the acquittal in December 2022 of Isak Sattu, an Indonesian soldier who allegedly took part in the Bloody Paniai massacre in Papua on December 8, 2014. Four Papuans were killed and 17 injured when soldiers from Nabire 753 Arpita Military Battalion opened fire on civilians protesting the torture of 14-year-old Yulianus Yeimo and three friends by soldiers the previous night. Yeimo died due to complications from his injuries in 2018.
Yones Douw, a prominent West Papuan human rights defender, denied any sincerity on the part of the government, telling The Diplomat that the state was “protecting the perpetrators.”
“Jokowi’s words hide the fact that gross human rights violations are still happening, and they are not just one or two cases, but hundreds, still unresolved by the government,” he said.
The 12 human rights issues acknowledged by Jokowi did include two incidents from Papua: the 2001 Wasior incident, when 27 Papuans were extrajudicially executed and 140 people detained, tortured, or abused by the Indonesian Mobile Police Brigade, and the 2003 Wasior incident, when around 50 civilians were killed, and thousands displaced in sweeping operations by military and police following an armory raid by independence fighters.
But for Douw and others, countless other Papuan rights abuses have been glossed over, and the current government policy toward Papua contradicts Jokowi’s recent message of redress and contrition. Since 2021, increased Indonesian military operations in Papua, a response to growing separatist attacks, have displaced more than 60,000 civilians, while Papuan representatives calling for self-determination, like Victor Yeimo, have been arrested and detained indeterminately, often in poor conditions.
Benny Wenda, interim Papuan president in exile in the U.K. and leader of the Free West Papua Campaign, told The Diplomat that “in Indonesia, business and military are deeply connected. Their military operations are not about ‘sovereignty,’ but business.” He referenced the recent discovery of the Wabu Block gold deposits in the central highlands of Papua as an example of the financial interests that have shaped Jakarta’s current Papuan policy.
“Powerful Indonesian leaders like Luhut Pandjaitan (the coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment) hold interests in the Wabu Block gold mine in Intan Jaya,” Wenda said. “Indonesian military are directly involved and the government are involved. So they cannot bring criminals to justice when they’re all invested in making money from West Papua.”
Following increased conflict over the discovery of the Wabu Block, the government declared armed Papuan rebel groups “terrorists” in April 2021. That unlocked the legal mechanism for the deployment of special forces and increased military operations, such as the Nemangkawi Task Force, who have swept through the highlands, claiming countless civilian lives. Meanwhile, in July of that year, the government extended Papua’s controversial Special Autonomy Status, which has been rejected by many Papuans for its failure to tackle systemic racism and improve living standards for Indigenous communities, prompting large protests across the region.
In June of last year, the government took an additional step, splitting the two Papuan provinces of West Papua and Papua into five new provinces, in a move widely criticized as a plot to further divide Papuan communities and justify the establishment of new military and police bases. Papuan pastor Dr. Socratez Yoman alleged that the “new provinces are only for political and military purposes” and to advance the government’s transmigration program, which has made Indigenous Papuans a minority in many areas of their homeland and kept them almost entirely excluded from the region’s business and politics.
“Jokowi’s acknowledgment and regret only convinced the U.N. and international community that the government has an intention to uphold human rights,” Douw said. “There is zero implementation of this in Papua. What we have is increased troop deployments, military operations, and continued violations against Papuan civilians.”
Others have pointed to Jokowi’s failure to keep an election promise to revoke the 1997 Law on Military Courts, which prevents the civilian judiciary from investigating and prosecuting military personnel. The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS) said in a press release that Jokowi’s admission “omits institutional reforms that have enabled serious violations of human rights” and stated that the president had “not followed through on his promises.”
KontraS expressed concern the admission would “lead to undue attention on non-judicial mechanisms while overlooking bad practices of the human rights court system.”
Not all have dismissed Jokowi’s move as insincere. Baskara Wardaya, director of the Center for History and Political Ethics at Sanata Dharma University in Yogyakarta, who works with victims of the anti-communist massacres of 1965-66, said that the admission, while “not comprehensive,” was nonetheless “ground-breaking.”
He said that discussing rights violations by the military was a “political taboo” but there are “signs that Jokowi wants to make necessary reforms in Indonesian society in general, including the military. But he also knows the military is a very strong entity that cannot be dealt with carelessly. Any miscalculation could create disastrous repercussion.”
There have been four official trials in court for gross human rights violations committed by Indonesian forces – the 1984 Tanjung Priok massacre, the 1999 East Timor atrocities, the 2000 Abepura incident in Papua, and the 2022 Bloody Paniai trial – none of which were mentioned in Jokowi’s announcement. In each case, the defendants were acquitted of all charges. However, last month, Maj. Helmanto Fransiskus Dakhi was sentenced to life in prison by a military court for the mutilation and murder of four civilians in August 2022 in Mimika regency, in the newly created province of Central Papua, a move that has been welcomed as a rare instance of justice for abuses committed in Papua.
Regarding the 1965 massacres, the most serious and large-scale of the 12 cases acknowledged by the president, Jokowi “wants people to be able to address it more openly, at the same time avoid provoking any backlash from the military,” said Baskara.
Indeed, Jokowi must walk a fine line in addressing rights violations by security forces given the strong military presence in government. Several senior politicians are ex-military officers directly implicated in some of the 12 incidents acknowledged by Jokowi.
In the 2014 presidential election, when Jokowi beat his rival Prabowo Subianto – an ex-special forces commander responsible for orchestrating the disappearances of pro-democracy activists in 1997-8 and implicated in the anti-Chinese May 1998 riots – he promised the investigation and an end to military impunity.
However, after once again defeating Prabowo at the 2019 election, Jokowi made the ex-general (and former son-in-law of President Suharto) his defense minister – a profile that allowed Prabowo to travel to the United States despite a previous ban over his history of human rights violations. He also promoted several other controversial ex-military figures, while only initiating the investigation into past military violations in 2022, eight years after his election promises and just one year before he leaves office.
The Indonesian-Chinese human rights lawyer, Veronica Koman, who lived through the anti-Chinese riots of May 1998, took to Twitter to express her disappointment over the “small win,” saying “many of the perpetrators are part of (Jokowi’s) administration” and “still leaders of this country.”
The next election is scheduled for February 2024 and is likely to see Prabowo run for president for the third time, facing off against a number of civilian politicians, including Ganjar Pranowo, governor of Central Java and Jokowi’s preferred successor, and Puan Maharani, the speaker of the House of Representatives.
During his last two presidential campaigns Prabowo promised to use military efficiency to speed up infrastructure and agricultural projects. Among them were the controversial Food Estates Program, which has escalated rights violations in West Papua and Borneo – a contract he awarded in 2020 to PT Agrinas, a company run by members of his own inner circle. According to the latest opinion poll from December, Prabowo enjoys a 10 percent lead as preferred presidential candidate.
Harsono of Human Rights Watch said that if Prabowo won the presidency, it would represent “another landmark for impunity in Indonesia. Another landmark for how human rights is ignored by successive Indonesian governments.”
Singapore/Jakarta: The separatist rebels who took a New Zealand pilot hostage in Indonesia’s Papua region have demanded Indonesia President Joko Widodo hold direct talks with them, warning they are targeting all foreigners.
Independence fighters from the West Papua Liberation Army (TPNPB), the armed wing of the Free Papua Organisation, abducted pilot Philip Mark Mehrtens when they stormed his small commercial plane and set it alight after it landed in a remote airport in Paro, in the mountainous district of Nduga, on Tuesday.
The rebel group said they had released the five passengers who were on the flight, all of whom were indigenous Papuans, but they continued to hold Mehrtens at their headquarters.
They are calling on Widodo, known as Jokowi, to engage in negotiations about the easternmost region in Indonesia, where there has been an escalation of violence in the past year with dozens of separatists, military personnel, police and civilians killed.
“We have conveyed it to the Indonesian government, to Pak Jokowi, to open up for us to sit together at the negotiation table,” TPNPB spokesman Sebby Sambon told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
“The military and police have killed too many Papuans. From our end, we also killed [people]. So it is better that we sit at the negotiation table. But Jokowi is stubborn, [he] doesn’t want to open up. Therefore, we do it our way, namely taking hostages of foreigners or shooting an aeroplane or a helicopter.
“Our new target are all foreigners: the US, EU, Australians and New Zealanders because they supported Indonesia to kill Papuans for 60 years. Colonialism in Papua must be abolished.”
The separatists have previously attacked and shot dead foreigners working for Freeport Indonesia, which operates the Grasberg mine in Mimika, one of the world’s largest gold and copper deposits.
Papua police spokesperson Ignatius Benny Ady Prabowo said soldiers and police were searching for the pilot and passengers.
But he also pointed out that there had been no proof provided that Mehrtens was being held hostage and made clear that he regarded any statement by the rebel group as “non-official”.
“We need to get information from witnesses who saw what happened,” he said. “We are committed to find him as soon as possible and we hope we will him in a good condition.”
Mehrtens was flying for Indonesian aviation company Susi Air, a company he first worked with after finishing flight school, before he returned to New Zealand in 2016, a fellow pilot and former colleague said.
The pilot said Mehrtens grew up in Christchurch and trained at the International Aviation Academy at Christchurch Airport.
Mehrtens then worked overseas for eight years and married in 2012, before moving to Auckland with his wife and son in 2016 to fly for Jetstar Airways.
Three years later, Mehrtens and his family moved to Hong Kong, where he flew for Cathay Dragon, a subsidiary of Cathay Pacific that ceased operations in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mehrtens went back to Susi Air, flying “dangerous pathways” that used short runways on steep hills, his former colleague said.
“It shows how much of a family person he is, putting himself at risk to earn money to support his family,” he said.
“Phil is the nicest guy, he genuinely is – no one ever had anything bad to say about him.”
Speaking at a news conference in Wellington on Wednesday, New Zealand Prime Minister Chris Hipkins said that consular support was being provided but declined to provide further details.
“You’ll be familiar with the fact that in these kinds of cases, we keep our public comments on that to be a minimum. The New Zealand embassy in Jakarta is leading the New Zealand government’s response on this issue,” he said.
The plane was carrying about 450 kilograms of supplies from an airport in Timika, a mining town in neighbouring Mimika district.
Conflicts between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian security forces are common in the impoverished region, a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea that is ethnically and culturally distinct from much of Indonesia.
Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a UN-sponsored ballot that was widely seen as a sham. Since then, a low-level insurgency has simmered in the mineral-rich region, which was divided into two provinces, Papua and West Papua.
The region was last year split further with three new provinces – Central Papua, Highland Papua and South Papua – added to make five in total.
Jayapura, Jubi – As of Tuesday night, February 7, 2023, Indonesian security forces did not know the whereabouts of Philips Max Marthin, a Susi Air pilot who was taken hostage by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB). Marthin, who is a New Zealand citizen, was taken hostage following the burning of a Susi Air plane in Paro District, Nduga Regency, Mountainous Papua Province in the morning.
One of the obstacles in finding Marthin is the lack of telecommunications facilities in Paro District, and there is no Indonesian Military (TNI) or police post in Paro District.
Papua Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Ignatius Benny Ady Prabowo stated that his party continued to track the whereabouts of Philips Max Marthin. According to Benny, the Nduga Police were preparing to go to Paro District.
“Until now, the investigation is still being carried out by the police assisted by the Cartenz Peace Task Force,” Benny said on Tuesday night.
Earlier on Tuesday morning, a Susi Air plane was burned after landing in Paro District. The leader of the TPNPB Ndugama-Derakma, Egianus Kogeya said the plane was burned by his men. Kogeya also stated that his group had captured and held Philips Max Marthin hostage.
Preceded by threats
Benny said that before the burning of the plane, rumors had been circulating since Saturday that the TPNPB had threatened 15 construction workers who were building a health center in Paro District.
Benny said the Nduga Police had received a report from the Nduga Regent who said the construction workers were questioned by TPNPB because they did not have complete identities.
“We got information that 15 people had left Paro District and headed to Mapenduma. But their whereabouts are still being investigated by the Cartenz Peace Task Force,” he explained.
Benny hopes that the public will entrust the handling of the hostage case to the police. “Telecommunication access there is still very limited, so there is very little information. I hope all parties will be patient,” he said. (*)
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Jayapura, Jubi – The leader of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) Ndugama-Derakma, Egianus Kogeya said his group burned down a Susi Air plane with call sign PK-BVY in Paro District, Nduga Regency, Mountainous Papua Province on Tuesday, February 7, 2023. TPNPB also confirmed that they had flagged down the pilot of the plane.
This was stated by Egianus Kogeya through a written statement announced by TPNPB spokesman Sebby Sambom on Tuesday. “TPNPB Ndugama-Derakma burned a Susi Air plane PK-BVY at the Paro District airfield, Nduga, Mountainous Papua,” Kogeya said.
The plane flew at dawn from Timika, the capital of Mimika Regency. The plane landed in Paro District at 06:26 a.m. Papua time.
In the press statement, Kogeya also mentioned the hostage-taking of researchers from the Lorentz 95 Expedition Team that occurred on January 8 to May 9, 1996. Egianus Kogeya said the hostage-taking was carried out by the National Liberation Army led by Kelly Kwalik, Daniel Yudas Kogeya, and Silas Elmin Kogeya.
Egianus Kogeya said the government must close all flight paths to Nduga Regency. He said security forces should not shoot or interrogate Nduga civilians following the burning of the Susi Air plane and the hostage-taking of the pilot as those were not carried out by Nduga civilians.
According to him, TPNPB will only release the pilot, Philips Max Marthin, who is a New Zealand citizen, when Papua is free. Kogeya said that all development activities in Nduga must be stopped, and his group would continue the war until Papua becomes independent. (*)
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