Aldi Bimantara, Jayapura – A protest action in which Morning Star independence flags were flown by a group of students on the Jayapura Science and Technology University (USTJ) campus in Abepura has ended with seven students being arrested by police.
Speaking by telephone with Tribune Papua on Thursday November 10, action coordinator Kaitanus Ikinia confirmed the rally and subsequent arrests.
"The demonstration earlier on the USTJ campus involved seven students and the agenda was still the same, rejecting the dialoged between Jakarta and Papua initiated by the Komnas HAM [National Human Rights Commission]", he said.
In his explanation, Ikinia said that the seven students who held the action and were then arrested were Ernesto Matuan, Devio B Tekege, Ambrosius Elopere, Eko Ukago, Nobertus Dogopia, Matius Mabel and Andy You.
In addition to this, Ikinia said that the action was part of the commemoration of 22 years since the death of Papua independence figure Theys Hiyo Eluay.
"The protesters were giving speeches on campus conveying their aspirations and the police entered the USTJ campus grounds where the demonstration was and without any coordination, straight away forcibly broke it up", he explained.
Ikinia admitted that it was indeed true that there were students who brought two Morning Star flags to the demonstration.
"The students who took part in the demonstration at the USTJ campus were more than seven people, but as soon as the police arrived the others ran out because they were chased, until there was a sound of teargas being fired", he explained.
Ikinia added that as a result of the arrests it has increased tension on the USTJ campus.
Meanwhile during the peaceful demonstration the students made five demands which had to be implemented and followed up on.
First, they asked for an acknowledgment from all parties to commemorate November 10 as a national Papuan hero's day.
Second, they oppose the state forcing the Papuan people to accept new autonomous regions (DOB) and the creation of three new provinces in Papua which were claimed unilaterally and only supported by certain rogue Papuan figures.
Third, they explicitly reject efforts by the state through Komnas HAM to conduct a dialogue because it is truly impossible for perpetrators to try perpetrators.
Specifically in the third point, they said that it is impossible for the dialogue to be fair because Papua is not a national but an international issue, so a resolution must be implemented through international mechanisms.
Fourth, they explicitly reject the involvement of rogue Papuan figures in the Indonesian initiated dialogue through Komnas HAM.
Fifth, they called on the state and the United Nations to officially acknowledge the right of self-determination for West Papua.
As of this article being published, Ikinia said that the arrested students were still being questioned at the Abepura sectoral police offices. (*)
Notes
West Papuan pro-independence leader Theys Hiyo Eluay was found dead in his car in November 2001 after attending a party thrown by the Indonesian Army's Special Forces (Kopassus). Seven Kopassus soldiers were subsequently tried and found guilty of his murder and sentenced to short prison terms.
Recent efforts by the government's National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) to hold a dialogue with the Free Papua Movement (OPM) have been criticised for allegedly involving Papuan rebel groups cultivated by the TNI (Indonesian military). The effort has also been seen by many as a cynical attempt to counter mounting international criticism over ongoing rights abuses in Papua.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Polisi Amankan Mahasiswa Kibarkan Bendera Bintang Kejora saat Demo di Kampus USTJ Jayapura".]
https://johnmenadue.com/how-did-dag-hammarskjold-die-the-cia-and-indonesian-connection/
More than six decades after his plane crashed it remains the great Cold War mystery: Was UN secretary-general (1953-61) Dag Hammarskjöld killed by sabotage, a technical fault, pilot error or air attack? If he was assassinated who was the mastermind?
Dr Greg Poulgrain, who teaches Indonesian history at the University of the Sunshine Coast, suggests the Swedish peacemaker was killed under directions from the US Central Intelligence Agency’s hard-right director Allen Dulles (1893-1969).
The Australian academic’s theory has been given weight by the little-noted release in August of a UN investigation into the death of Hammarskjöld and the 15 passengers and crew on 18 September 1961.
The chartered Douglas DC-6 started from Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) where it had been parked unattended.
It was heading to cease-fire negotiations in Ndola between UN forces and local militia when it smashed into a forest in Zambia (then Rhodesia) during the landing approach.
The 100-page UN report recommends further disclosures from governments, including the US and UK which allegedly hold unreleased air traffic records. Poulgrain suggests the altimeter records be re-checked and technicians traced.
The UN investigation led by former Tanzania Chief Justice Mohamed Chande Othman, was initiated by new info about the tragedy.
A 2019 Danish documentary Cold Case Hammarskjöld suggested the DC-6 was harassed by a small fighter plane during descent, though it seems no bullet holes were found in the wreckage.
Researchers on the film told Othman of documents from the South African Institute for Maritime Research. Despite the benign title, it claimed this was a pro-apartheid clandestine militia linked to a foreign intelligence agency,
This information surfaced apparently by chance during South Africa’s 1998 Truth and Reconciliation Commission hearings. Chairman Archbishop Desmond Tutu released a folder from the National Intelligence Agency.
Inside were letters referring to a plan to assassinate Hammarskjöld and involving Dulles. It was called Operation Celeste (heavenly, as in celestial).
Othman never saw the originals so they haven’t been authenticated. This is despite several requests to SA authorities.
The UN inquiry’s other source is Poulgrain’s 2020 book JFK vs. Allen Dulles: Battleground Indonesia.
The author interviewed two UN officials, the Irish intellectual and politician Conor Cruise O’Brien, and Australian diplomat George Ivan Smith, ‘Hammarskjöld’s right-hand man’.
They claimed the Secretary-General had been intentionally killed. Smith asserted there were two CIA planes on the Ndola tarmac waiting for Hammarskjöld’s flight, one full of communications gear, though it’s unclear what this implies.
Poulgrain also cited 14 inquiries on US intelligence activities led by US Democrat Senator Frank Church (1924-84). Some referred to Operation Celeste and this extract:
‘UNO is becoming troublesome and it is felt that Hammarskjöld should be removed. Allen Dulles agrees and has promised full cooperation from his people.’
Most theories about the plane crash involve hostility to Hammarskjöld’s mediation efforts during the Congo civil war (1960-65) following the new nation’s liberation from Belgium.
Poulgrain links the alleged assassination to Indonesia. He says Smith revealed that before heading to the Congo, Hammarskjöld had been focused on the sovereignty of West New Guinea.
The Indonesian Republic under first President Soekarno wanted to seize the resource-rich western half of the island of New Guinea, then Dutch territory.
The dispute was eventually resolved in 1969 through a referendum (‘An Act of Free Choice’). The Indonesian military selected 1,025 village chiefs who voted to join the Republic.
Poulgrain suggests that Dulles as head of the CIA wanted Hammarskjöld removed because he favoured ‘the independence of the Papuan people.’
His policy was supported by President John Kennedy but opposed by Dulles who was also involved with a company that had discovered massive gold deposits in West Papua, now the Grasberg mine.
Dulles was a heavy-duty anti-Communist Republican who specialized in forceful regime changes. Under his rule, the CIA engineered coups in Iran and Guatemala and failed assassination attempts against Cuba’s Fidel Castro.
A US Senate investigation found Dulles responsible for the death of Congo PM Patrice Lumumba in the same year Hammarskjöld died.
The disastrous 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by CIA-funded Cuban exiles led to Dulles forced resignation.
Hammarskjöld was the opposite, a poet and philosopher as well as a diplomat. He was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
London University researcher Dr Susan Williams, author of Who killed Hammarskjöld? called him ‘a courageous and complex idealist, who sought to shield the newly-independent nations of the world from the predatory instincts of the Great Powers’.
After the Swede’s death Kennedy commented: ‘I realise now that in comparison to him, I am a small man. He was the greatest statesman of our century.’
Former Democrat President Harry Truman told a journalist Hammarskjöld ‘was on the point of getting something done when they killed him. Notice that I said ‘when they killed him’.’ He would not elaborate.
A clearly frustrated Othman thinks the truth has still to be found. His report urges the UN to continue pushing its members to release info he sought:
‘The passage of time has not reduced the significance of this matter to the families of the victims of flight SE-BDY, who died serving the noble aims of the UN.
‘Nor has it become less important for the organisation itself that a true accounting of history be made.
‘My assessment remains that it is of the highest probability that specific and important information exists, but that it has not been disclosed by a small number of member states.’
The Danish doco Cold Case Hammarskjöld starts with the statement: ‘This could be the world’s biggest murder mystery – or the world’s most idiotic conspiracy theory’.
That was written before Donald Trump claimed his 2020 election loss was a fraud. Either way the case stays open.
Three acting governors officially took their oaths of office to commence their works at the new provinces during an inauguration ceremony taking place at the Home Ministry building in Central Jakarta.
"Congratulation to the best Papuan figures who are, today, sworn in as the acting governor of Papua Pegunungan Province, Papua Tengah Province, and Papua Selatan Province," Mahfud MD tweeted on his Twitter account.
The coordinating minister for political, legal, and security affairs tweeted his congratulatory messages to Apolo Safanpo, acting Papua Selatan governor; Nikolaus Kondomo, acting Papua Pegunungan governor; and Ribka Haluk, acting Papua Tengah governor, on the sidelines of his participation in the ASEAN Leaders Summit in Cambodia on Friday.
Home Minister Muhammad Tito Karnavian inaugurated the three acting governors on behalf of President Joko Widodo with the hopes that they would make utmost efforts to work well.
The inauguration of the three new autonomous provinces has increased the count of Indonesian provinces on the Island of New Guinea to five.
Two other Indonesian provinces -- Papua and West Papua -- have existed earlier on the western part of the island. Those Indonesian provinces share land and sea borders with Papua New Guinea.
The inauguration ceremony, which took place at the Home Ministry building in Central Jakarta, was marked by the beats of Tifa drums beaten by Karnavian and his deputy, John Wempi Wetipo, and two government officials.
"This Friday, November 11, 2022, on behalf of the Indonesian president, I, as the home minister, inaugurate South Papua Province based on Law No.14 of 2022, Central Papua Province based on Law No.15 of 2022, and Papua Pegunungan Province based on Law No.16 of 2022," Karnavian remarked.
Following the House of Representatives' (DPR's) enactment of the three laws on June 30, 2022, President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) validated those three new autonomous provinces on July 25, 2022.
The laws stipulate that President Jokowi must appoint acting governors within six months after the enactment of the laws. They will be in power until regional elections are held to elect the definitive pairs of governor and deputy governor.
Soon after their inauguration, the acting governors would commence their administrative works. The laws also mandate them to facilitate the formation of the Papuan People's Assembly (MRP) and Papua People's Representatives' Council (DPRP).
The laws also mandate them to facilitate the convening of regional elections for electing the definitive pairs of governor and deputy governor as well as to manage their respective provinces' budgets.
Home Minister Tito Karnavian said the three new provinces in Papua would further bring positive impacts on the lives of people as shown by the earlier experience of regional division to create West Papua Province.
West Papua has clocked swift development in terms of bureaucracy, issuance of permits, public services, and the handling of other administrative matters, he added.
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