See below for extracts from report on human rights violations in West Papua by Gemima Harvey for The Diplomat.
See here for full article.
The people of West Papua have been calling for self-determination for half a century – a struggle for liberation from an Indonesian military occupation that has seen as many as 500,000 Papuans killed. A recent development in this long campaign is the suspicious death of a commander of the rebel Free Papua Movement (OPM), Danny Kogoya, on December 15. The cause of death, as described in the medical report, was liver failure, bought on by the presence of “unusual chemicals in his body,” raising concern that he was poisoned.
At the time of his death, Kogoya was at Vanimo hospital, in Papua New Guinea (PNG), receiving treatment for his leg. His leg was amputated in 2012 – without his consent – at a police hospital in Jayapura, West Papua, after Indonesian security forces shot him during an arrest. According to the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC), a doctor at Vanimo hospital alleged that the chemicals were administered while Kogoya was at the police hospital in Jayapura and that he had been slowly poisoned to death by the Indonesian state authorities.
Whether foul play is proven in the death of Kogoya or not, the incident is another in a long line in the liberation movement in West Papua, which has seen civilians with suspected links to separatists tortured, political activists murdered and perpetrators act with impunity.
Over the next several years, before the vote, it’s estimated that 30,000 West Papuans were killed by Indonesian military, in a brutal silencing of dissent and suppression of liberationist ideals. In 1969, the vote – ironically called “The Act Of Free Choice” was fraudulent, the outcome controlled. Just one percent of the population was selected to vote, and those chosen were intimidated by security forces, resulting in a unanimous vote for West Papua to be ruled by Indonesia. A man claiming to be part of the one percent who voted describes the scenario in a documentary, his face obscured, saying that a gun was held to his head, as he was given the ultimatum – vote for Indonesia or be killed.
Since then, mass atrocities have been carried out by Indonesian security forces and human rights abuses continue to this day. West Papua is the most heavily militarized region of Indonesia, with an estimated 45,000 troops presently deployed, and an extra 650 soldiers to patrol near the PNG border from February.
The liberation movement comprises both violent and non-violent groups.
Militant group OPM, (which Kogoya was involved in), leads a low-level insurgency, and have attacked military, police and occasionally civilian targets over the years. A 2002 Amnesty International report found that counterinsurgency operations by Indonesian security forces have resulted in: “gross human rights violations, including extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances, torture and arbitrary detentions.”
Given the omnipresent suspicion that all West Papuans are separatists, or support separatist movements, the response of Indonesian troops has often been the same whether groups use peaceful tools, like demonstrations, or guerilla tactics. In other words, West Papuans need not be armed fighters to be persecuted, arrested, tortured or executed.
The shocking prevalence of torture by Indonesian security forces was revealed by a recent study, which found on average, one incident of torture has taken place every six weeks for the past half century. Of the 431 documented cases reviewed, just 0.05 percent of those tortured were proven to be members of militias – the vast majority of victims were civilians, most commonly farmers and students.
Foreign journalists and international non-government organizations are barred from accessing West Papua. In recent years, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been expelled and Peace Brigades International forced to close its offices, when restrictions made carrying out work impossible. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are also routinely denied visas. Fortunately, the spread of mobile phones is making it harder for human rights abuses to go unnoticed.
WikiLeaks released cables in 2010, revealing that U.S. diplomats blame the Indonesian Government for “chronic underdevelopment” in West Papua, and believe that human rights abuses and rampant corruption are fuelling unrest. Still, military ties between the two countries were renewed.
The cables also confirmed that U.S.-based mining company Freeport-McMoRan, which owns the word’s largest gold-copper mining venture – called Grasberg – in Papua province, has paid millions of dollars to members of the Indonesian security forces to help “protect” its operations.
Concessions for this company were granted by Indonesia in 1967, two years before the dubious independence vote. Declassified U.S. policy documents divulge its support for Indonesian rule – this arrangement meant the U.S. could carry out its plans to carve up Papua’s rich natural resources. The then-national security adviser, Henry Kissinger wrote to President Richard Nixon just prior to the vote, that a referendum on independence “would be meaningless among the Stone Age cultures of New Guinea.” Kissinger later became a board member of Freeport. He is described in a 1997 CorpWatch article as being the “company’s main lobbyist for dealings with Indonesia.”
Years of Indonesia’s transmigration policies have resulted in non-ethnic Papuans forming 50 percent of West Papua’s population. With development and urban influences comes a change to the traditional way of life, the influx of workers and security personnel, for example, resulting in the emergence of karaoke bars and prostitution. In 2011, the Papua AIDS Prevention Commission revealed that the area with the highest increase of cases and overall infection rate was Mimika district, which is home to the Grasberg mine.
The West Papuan struggle for self-determination is unwavering despite half a century of Indonesian security forces brutally muzzling independence sentiments.
ETAN, a group which advocated for the independence of East Timor from Indonesian rule, astutely wrote that by branding all Papuans as enemies of the state every time they try to exercise their right to freedom of expression, and by continuing to commit gross human rights abuses, the resolve of the Papuan people to be liberated will grow stronger – Indonesia’s fears will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
This month, the Free West Papua Campaign (FWPC) opened an office in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, where the Mayor raised the Morning Star Flag alongside the PNG national flag in a show of solidarity. FWPC wrote on social media: ‘‘Indonesia can draw as many lines on the map as it likes, but it can never separate the spirit of the people of New Guinea. We are one people, one soul, one Kumul [bird of paradise] Island.’’