Biak massacre verified
Lindsay Murdoch
Sydney Morning Herald Tuesday, July 13, 1999
An independent investigation
has confirmed a Herald report that Indonesian soldiers
massacred Irian Jaya demonstrators and dumped others
at sea on the island of Biak last year.
The investigation team found at least eight people
were shot and 37 others hurt when troops opened
fire on unarmed people after they had raised the
West Papua independence flag and that 32 bodies
recovered at sea were also victims of military atrocities.
The Herald reported in November that witnesses saw
Irianese, many of them women and children, taken
out to sea in a Indonesian Navy ship and dumped
overboard.
But the Indonesian armed forces strongly denied
the claims, saying the bodies were those of victims
of the tsunami that struck the Papua New Guinea
coast 900 kilometres away.
The investigation team, appointed by three churches
and the Institute for Human Rights Studies and Advocacy,
called for an official investigation of human rights
violations in Irian Jaya.
The institute's executive director, Mr Yohanes Bonay,
said the military's explanation for the washed up
bodies was nonsense.
"We all know that the tsunami occurred on July 17,
1998, eight days after the bodies were found," he
said. "Besides, do Papua New Guineans wear Golkar
or Indonesian group T-shirts?"
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