NB: For daily updates, on the web or in your inbox, also digests, click on:
West Papua News

*** To receive email notice of events in Ireland, email wpaction@iol.ie with Subscribe Enews in the subject heading. ***

See also Newsletter

 

On This Page:

Papuan church leader rejects report from ICG that no genocide in province

Riot police blamed for killings

Riot case Papuans 'beaten by police'

Papua yet to benefit from special autonomy, say analysts

 

Papuan church leader rejects report from ICG that no genocide in province

A church leader in Indonesia ’s Papua province has dismissed a report from the International Crisis Group which said allegations genocide was occurring in the troubled province are wrong.

The ICG report said that Papua is not a happy place, but neither is it a killing field.
It said there’s low-level abuse and a past pattern of grave human rights violations but allegations of genocide by security forces are not well-founded. But the Reverend Socratez Sofyan Yoman, who heads the Communion of Baptist churches in Papua, says the ICG has not visited Papua, let alone interviewed the indigenous people and the local NGOs. He claims the ICG continually receives misinformation from the Indonesian military.

Reverend Yoman says there is strong evidence regarding human rights abuses and that genocide has been happening in Papua for over 45 years.

Riot police blamed for killings

Courier Mail ( Australia ) - September 6, 2006

Marianne Kearney, Jakarta -- Papuans claim that Indonesian riot police have used an ongoing tribal warfare in eastern Papua to kill at least three Papuan villagers.

Two tribes armed with spears, bows and arrows and traditional machetes have been warring since last Thursday in Kwambi Lama, a village close to the giant
Freeport copper mine.However, a resident of Kwambi Lama claims that the more than 600 riot police and military sent to end the conflict have been shooting indiscriminately into fighting tribesmen.

The villager claims that police shot Eric Murib on Monday, and an evangelical priest, August Wetapo, over the weekend. "They were killed in Kwambi Lama by
police," Albert Yikwa said.He said the police killings were in revenge for a weekend shooting incident at the Freeport mine where anonymous gunmen damaged a Freeport vehicle.

Police deny the accusations, saying the two, plus a third man, were victims of the tribal conflict. "That's a lie. They died because there is a tribal war," a police spokesman said.He said that about 50 people injured in the fighting were being treated at the nearby Mitra Masyarakat Hospital.

Riot case Papuans 'beaten by police'

Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jayapura, Papua
The Australian September 21, 2006

INDONESIAN police have been driven by revenge and their own personal
interests in a series of show trials over the deaths of four police and an
air force sergeant in May riots, a new report claims.

The investigation, soon to be made public after months of documentation by a
coalition of Papuan and national church and human rights groups, will allege
that none of 23 men accused over the killings was directly involved in the
deaths.All but two of the accused have been sentenced to up to 15 years' jail, with
the final pair of men appearing yesterday in Abepura District Court, near
the Papuan capital, Jayapura.

The killings, at the peak of two days of demonstrations at Cendrawasih
University over the giant Freeport McMoRan gold and copper mine in Timika,
shocked Indonesians for their brutality.The police victims were beaten with rocks and sticks after a crowd of students and other still-unidentified groups broke through a police line on March16. Forensic investigations found that the air force sergeant, who was not in uniform, was killed in a separate knife attack on the university campus, Papua's largest.

However, as the final two of the 23 accused appeared yesterday in court,
lawyers, church groups and supporters - as well as the men themselves -
insisted their confessions were forced after beatings with rifle butts, pistols and fists, as well as electric shocks.Mechanic Steven Wandik, accused of murdering air force sergeant Agung Prihadi Wijaya by smashing in his head with a large stone, said he was repeatedly beaten by police over a period of weeks before he offered a false confession to the crime. He said he was taken from his home without warning in the middle of the night on May 12 - almost two months after the riots - and forced into a police vehicle after being hit in the head with a rifle butt.
He said he was too frightened to offer resistance, and that for several
weeks police offered no explanation for his arrest. Wandik says his name was given to police by a cousin, Sam Wandik - the other man on trial in Abepura District Court yesterday.

Sam Wandik told the court he provided his cousin's name as someone involved
in the killings only after repeated beatings and electric shocks. Asked after his appearance yesterday why he was now recanting on his allegation, Sam Wandik said: "Because I'm being held in the jail now, not in the police cells, and the police can't hurt me there."Aloy Renuarin, the Papua head of Indonesian human rights group ELSHAM, later described the 23 men as "victims of police revenge" and said the convictions had so far been based on "incredibly weak evidence". "This is a matter of politics, of a legal mafia and of the courts and government discriminating against Papuans," Mr Renuarin said.

Appeals were lodged yesterday in five of the cases.Evidence given in Steven Wandik's prosecution has included photographs of the accused participating in a police reconstruction of the crime.

Papua yet to benefit from special autonomy, say analysts

Ridwan Max Sijabat, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Four years on, the special autonomy that costs more than Rp 5 trillion (about US$555 million) annually, has brought about little progress in Indonesia 's eastern-most territory, analysts say.

They assert that the special autonomy status granted in 2001 has failed as an instrument to accelerate development in the 420,540-square-kilometer territory which is three times the size of Java and has a population of only about 4.5 million. Ferdinando Ibo Ikin, a member of the Regional Representatives Council (DPD) from Papua, says that most of the Papuans still live below the poverty line.
"The fund should be audited. Jakarta and the provincial administration implementing the special autonomy should be held accountable," he said in a discussion here Tuesday. This year, Papua received Rp 5.6 trillion, he said, but the only progress it has made is the local direct elections while the people have been largely deprived of public services, such as health and welfare, transportation and education. Ferdinando warned that this condition could sow the seeds of hatred among the people against the government and encourage the support of anti-government movements. "We should not blame Australia or other countries if they accept Papuan asylum seekers but we must introspect as to why they do not feel at home or why they sympathize with secessionists," he said. The Indonesian government has been dealing with smoldering, low-intensity, disorganized armed separatist rebellions spearheaded by the Free Papua Organization (OPM) since the 1960s. Ferdinando admitted he was ashamed by what he saw as Papuan politicians' inability to fight for Papuans' well-being, leaving them in backwardness and poverty. "I often feel as if I am crying out in the desert when speaking out about my home province," he said.

Agus Sumule, a political analyst from Cendrawasih University in the Papua capital of Jayapura, blamed the corrupt local elite for the failure of the special autonomy.
The bigger chunk of the autonomy funds have been spent to finance the costly bureaucracy and embezzled by the corrupt local political elite, he said. "The top-down autonomy system has made the two governors (of Papua and West Irian Jaya), provincial legislatures and the Papuan People's Council (MR) quite powerful and the distribution of the autonomy funds depend on them, making regents and mayors like beggars," he said. "Regents and mayors propose big budgets to finance their development programs but governors will not grant them because the bigger chunk of the fund is used to finance their corrupt administration." He called on the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) to audit the government and legislatures at all levels to let the people know where the huge funds have been going to.

Director General of Regional Development Affairs at the Home Ministry, Syamsul Arief Rivai, acknowledged that the uneven distribution of population in the vast territory combined with the fact that the autonomy is focused on the provincial level have made the special autonomy ineffective. "The two provincial governments and regency and municipal administrations have different visions and programs in carrying out development programs," he said. Administration at all levels should have the same vision and programs to improve the province's human development index and they should identify common fundamental problems that have made the province lag behind other provinces. To improve public services, he said, the provincial governments should give priority to the development of road networks connecting urban centers and rural areas. "The development of roads, irrigation systems, school buildings and hospitals are vital in providing public services and improving the people's well-being," he said, adding that the development program should focus on the indigenous people living in remote areas.

Return to Top>>>

**********