1) What ye sow ye reap
2) Candlelight vigil held to mark 12 years since Papuan activist Mako Tabuni's murder
3) After 23 years of inaction, Jokowi urged to resolve Wasior tragedy in Papua
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There’s nothing profound about the Biblical quote; variations are embedded in many religions and cultures.
So it needs no prophet, seer or conman to make this prediction: After a war like the current one in Gaza has cooled, the survivors will be bent on revenge.
The ancient tragedy is underway just next door in Papua, bleeding now and for years to come as the hate goes on.
Canberra expresses its horror at the Middle East conflict 14,000 km distant and calls for peace, but looks away from what’s happening in the neighbourhood just 250 km to the north.
Last year the late NZ journalist John McBeth reported that Papua independence leader Egianus Kogoya’s determination to fight for freedom started after his father, Daniel Yudas Kagoya was killed by Indonesian troops.
Many in his group of armed partisans have become guerrillas for the same reasons.
They’re now old enough to confront those they blame for the slaughter of their parents, relatives and friends and the destruction of their homes and livelihoods; so they’ve started killing and are getting killed.
The ore-rich province with the world’s fifth largest gold mine reserves has been a simmering low-level civil war zone since Jakarta took over the western part of New Guinea from the Dutch colonists. That was in 1969 following a staged ‘referendum’ using 1,025 hand-picked voters who unanimously supported integration.
One estimate has half a million indigenous Papuans dying in the past half-century through starvation and resisting Indonesian control.
No one knows if the figure is correct as journalists are banned. Thousands of soldiers from across the archipelago are in Papua. How many is not publicised, though last year it was reported that ‘an additional 2,355 military members’ had been deployed.
The conflict shows no signs of lessening. In 2014 when President Joko ‘Jokowi’ Widodo took office he told the Australian media he intended to give Papua “special attention”.
It was benignly assumed that this meant peace talks because Jokowi was not a gung-ho militarist but a civilian, his wife Iriana had been named after the island’s old title and his visits were regular and friendly.
However his “special attention” was infrastructure, not independence: Roads, health services and education – all necessary, but secondary to the self-rule the rebels demanded. Pacifying the insurgents and listening to their emotional concerns wasn’t on the agenda.
In 2022, Jokowi started carving up the territory confusing locals and outsiders by amplifying bureaucracy and control. The four new provinces are Papua Selatan (South Papua), Papua Tengah (Central Papua), Papua Pegunungan (Mountain Papua) and Papua Barat Daya (South-West Papua).
For this story, we’ll use ‘Papua’ to cover all. The population of 4.4 million is largely Melanesian and Christian. However transmigration programmes bringing in poor farmers from Java who are mainly Muslim, has been diluting the indigenous population for decades.
Jokowi’s predecessor, former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said he’d “take quick and appropriate steps to deal with Papua” after violent clashes. His ‘solution’ was force. More died but little changed.
At the time the SMH reported that “(SBY’s) money and good intentions were squandered by corruption, cronyism and bureaucratic dysfunction.”
After a decade in office, Jokowi’s legacy is “a better armed, better resourced, more coordinated pro-independence insurgency,” according to a Jakarta research group the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict.
“(There are) higher civilian casualties; and the failure after a year to secure the release of a New Zealand pilot held hostage by the guerrillas.”
(Phillip Mehrtens, then 37, was seized on 7 February last year and his Cessna used for ferrying construction workers and owned by an Indonesian company was torched. It’s believed he’s still alive.)
The IPAC report said Jakarta’s approaches can be characterised as: “Get them to like us”, “Hit them without mercy”, “Divide and rule”, “Give them money”, “End their isolation” and very occasionally, “Talk to them”.
It recommends that “(Jokowi’s) successor needs to radically change course.” But that’s Prabowo Subianto a general who served in Papua before being cashiered for insubordination in 1998 and fleeing to exile in Jordan.
In his new leadership role he’s offered to send a peacekeeping force to Gaza if there’s a ceasefire.
The idea is saturated in irony: Indonesia has no relationship with Israel. All remnants of Jewish life during the Dutch era – including cemeteries – have been trashed. Most troops are Muslims, and Prabowo has allegedly committed human rights abuses on the island last century.
Veteran Australian journalist Hamish McDonald, author of Demokrasi: Indonesia in the 21st Century has written that in 1984 Prabowo “led troops from Kopassus, the army’s Special Forces Command, across the border into Papua New Guinea to search for fighters from the Free Papua Movement Organisasi Papua Merdeka – OPM.
“In 1996, he led a Kopassus operation to free World Wildlife Fund hostages taken by the OPM. The mission was controversial because soldiers travelled via a white helicopter previously used by Red Cross negotiators”
Indonesia is still far from winning the hearts and minds of its Papuan citizens or erasing its image as a ruthless neo-colonial power. It’s treating the OPM much as the Dutch handled the Javanese partisans during three centuries of European rule – split, discredit, threaten, arrest, kill.
That didn’t work and Indonesia is now an independent republic, largely because the Western world – including Australia, turned against the colonials and demanded change. Weapons and money were denied to a Netherlands weakened by World War II.
That’s unlikely to happen in Papua in the lifetimes of our readers. The mines are too rich and involve influential international players. Indonesia is the world’s fourth-largest nation with more Muslims than any other country.
Australia speaks strongly about human rights but does little; there’s a deep reluctance to advocate a break in the circle of violence in Papua and infuriate Jakarta.
Much like the situation with Jerusalem and the Gaza war.
Duncan Graham has an MPhil degree, a Walkley Award, two Human Rights Commission awards and other prizes for his radio, TV and print journalism in Australia. He lives in East Java.
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2) Candlelight vigil held to mark 12 years since Papuan activist Mako Tabuni's murder
Suara Papua – June 15, 2024
Jayapura – On June 14 the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) held a candlelight vigil in memory of the shooting and death of KNPB General Chairperson Musa Mako Tabuni at the site of the shooting at the Waena III State Housing Company (Perumnas) in Jayapura city.
Tabuni was shot dead by a Papua regional police special team on June 14, 2012. It has been 12 years since his death.
The shooting was carried out by the Papua regional police special team on the grounds that Tabuni was holding a firearm and was about to resist arrest.
KNPB Central spokesperson Ones Suhuniap said that the candlelit vigil was held in memory of the murder of the Papuan revolutionary leader at the location of the shooting at 8-9 pm.
"Remembering the murder of Mako Tabuni, so justice for the West Papua nation is still zero", said Suhuniap.
According to Suhuniap, Tabuni was shot and killed without consideration of the presumption of innocence and was done based on false accusations and a scenario created by the Papuan police.
"Where there have been a number of shooting incidents that suddenly occurred in the city of Jayapura, the authorities refer to it by the term mysterious shootings (Petrus). The scenario was echoed every week through the media, then suddenly Mako was shot."
"So Mako was a victim of a scenario created to murder and kidnap the KNPB central leadership trio".
Suhuniap also explained that as many as 39 KNPB activists were murdered between 2009 and 2017.
"The state through the military has killed the leadership of the KNPB from the centre to the regions totaling 39 people. This number is counted from 2009-2017, only because they demanded the right of self-determination for the Papuan nation", he said.
Nevertheless, said Suhuniap, even though the state murdered, captured and tortured members of the KNPB leadership, the KNPB did not die along with those who are gone.
"The KNPB with the soul and the spirit of resistance of the 39 people who have been murdered and the soul of Mako Tabuni will remain and will always exist as long as the Papuan people are not given the democratic space to determine their own destiny."
"The KNPB's proposal to re-hold a referendum is the best option for the Indonesian government to end the TPNPB [West Papua National Liberation Army and TNI-Polri [Indonesian military-Indonesian police] conflict in the Land of Papua. The goal is to avoid casualties, both civilians, indigenous Papuans and non-Papuans".
He also emphasised that KNPB will always exist as long as HMNS (the right to self-determination) is not provided for the sake of peace, justice and for the future of the Papuan nation.
"The KNPB is still alive, Mako Tabuni is still alive. Revolutionary greetings. We must end this", said Suhuniap.
[Translated by James Balowski. Slightly abridged due to repetition. The original title of the article was "KNPB Gelar Aksi Pemasangan Lilin Mengenang 12 Tahun Kematian Musa Mako Tabuni".]
Ardito Ramadhan, Jakarta – The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) is urging President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to fully resolve the 2001 gross human rights (HAM) violations case in Wasior, Papua, which have been languishing for 23 years.
Kontras working division coordinator Dimas Bagus Arya said that National Human Rights Commission's (Komnas HAM) pro-judicial investigation dossier was handed over to the Attorney General's Office in 2003.
"However, yet again this process has stalled for the cliche reason, namely it [the investigation dossier] has not yet fulfilled the requirements or the requirements for an incident in order for it to be able to be taken to the criminal investigation stage as a gross human rights violations", said Arya on Thursday June 13.
Kontras is therefore urging President Widodo to order the Attorney General to form an ad hoc investigation team as a follow up to the investigation of the Wasior incident.
And not just Wasior, Kontras is also urging Widodo to resolve various other gross human rights violations that have been reported by Komnas HAM in accordance with the mandate of Article 21 Paragraph (3) of Law Number 26/2000 on Human Rights Courts.
"Secondly, urging the formation of a human rights court in Papua for the sake of the enforcement and protection of human rights for the people of Papua", said Arya.
In addition, Kontras urged Jokowi to evaluate the security approach in Papua as an initial step to building dialogue and resolving the Papua conflict peacefully.
"Finally, guaranteeing the human rights of indigenous Papuans, including the right to life, communal and customary land rights, the right of expression and the right to gather peacefully", he said.
The Wasior tragedy
The Wasior tragedy, which occurred on June 13, 2001, was an assault by the paramilitary Mobile Brigade (Brimob) police corps on civilians in Wondiboi Village, Wasior, Manokwari, Papua.
The incident began after residents complained that the logging company PT VPP had reneged on a agreement with the community. After tolerating the situation for some time the community then expressed its frustration by taking the company's speed boat as collateral .
The company responded to this by bringing in Brimob to put pressure on the community.
The community then complained about the behavior of company and Brimob which elicited a violent response from a West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Movement (TPNPB-OPM) group.
When PT VPP continuing to ignore the community's demands to provide payment when the timber was shipped out, the TPNPB-OPM group attacked and killed five Brimob members and a PT VPP company employee.
OPM also took six weapons belonging to Brimob along with bullets and magazines.
During the police hunt for the OPM and the weapons acts of violence were committed against the Wasior community in the form of torture, murder, forced disappearances and the deprivation of freedom.
Four people were recorded as being killed, one person suffered sexual violence, five people went missing and 39 people were tortured.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Kontras Desak Jokowi Jokowi Tuntaskan Kasus Pelanggaran HAM Berat Wasior Papua yang Mandek 23 Tahun".]
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