In the lead up to the inauguration of President Prabowo Subianto last Sunday, Indonesia established five “Vulnerable Area Buffer Infantry Battalions” in key regions across West Papua — a move described by Indonesian Army Chief-of-Staff Maruli Simanjuntak as a “strategic initiative” by the new leader.

The battalions are based in the Keerom, Sarmi, Boven Digoel, Merauke and Sorong regencies, and their aim is to “enhance security” in Papua, and also to strengthen Indonesia’s military presence in response to long-standing unrest and conflict, partly related to independence movements and local resistance.

According to Armed Forces chief General Agus Subiyanto, “the main goal of the new battalions is to assist the government in accelerating development and improving the prosperity of the Papuan people”.

However, this raises concerns about further militarisation and repression of a region already plagued by long-running violence and human rights abuses in the context of the movement for a free and independent West Papua.

Thousands of Indonesian soldiers have been stationed in areas impacted by violence, including Star Mountain, Nduga, Yahukimo, Maybrat, Intan Jaya, Puncak and Puncak Jaya.

As a result, the situation in West Papua is becoming increasingly difficult for indigenous people.

Extrajudicial killings in Papua go unreported or are only vaguely known about internationally. Those who are aware of these either disregard them or accept them as an “unavoidable consequence” of civil unrest in what Indonesia refers to as its most eastern provinces — the “troubled regions”.

Why do the United Nations, Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) and the international community stay silent?

While the Indonesian government frames this move as a strategy to enhance security and promote development, it risks exacerbating long-standing tensions in a region with deep-seated conflicts over autonomy and independence and the impacts of extractive industries and agribusiness on West Papuan people and their environment.

Exploitative land theft
The Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice, in collaboration with various international and Indonesian human and environmental rights organisations, presented testimony at the public hearings of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) at Queen Mary University of London, in June.

The tribunal heard testimonies relating to a range of violations by Indonesia. A key issue, highlighted was the theft of indigenous Papuan land by the Indonesian government and foreign corporations in connection to extractive industries such as mining, logging and palm oil plantations.

The appropriation of traditional lands without the consent of the Papuan people violates their right to land and self-determination, leading to environmental degradation, loss of livelihood, and displacement of Indigenous communities.

The tribunal’s judgment underscores how the influx of non-Papuan settlers and the Indonesian government’s policies have led to the marginalisation of Papuan culture and identity. The demographic shift due to transmigration programmes has significantly reduced the proportion of Indigenous Papuans in their own land.

Moreover, a rise in militarisation in West Papua has often led to heightened repression, with potential human rights violations, forced displacement and further marginalisation of the indigenous communities.

The decision to station additional military forces in West Papua, especially in conflict-prone areas like Nduga, Yahukimo and Intan Jaya, reflects a continuation of Indonesia’s militarised approach to governance in the region.

Security pact
The Indonesia-Papua New Guinea Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) was signed by the two countries in 2010 but only came into effect this year after the PNG Parliament ratified it in late February.

Indonesia ratified the pact in 2012.

As reported by Asia Pacific Report, PNG’s Foreign Minister Justin Tkatchenko and Indonesia’s ambassador to PNG, Andriana Supandy, said the DCA enabled an enhancement of military operations between the two countries, with a specific focus on strengthening patrols along the PNG-West Papua border.

This will have a significant impact on civilian communities in the areas of conflict and along the border. Indigenous people in particular, are facing the threat of military takeovers of their lands and traditional border lines.

Under the DCA, the joint militaries plan to employ technology, including military drones, to monitor and manage local residents’ every move along the border.

Human rights
Prabowo, Defence Minister prior to being elected President, has a controversial track record on human rights — especially in the 1990s, during Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor.

His involvement in military operations in West Papua adds to fears that the new battalions may be used for oppressive measures, including crackdowns on dissent and pro-independence movements.

As indigenous communities continue to be marginalised, their calls for self-determination and independence may grow louder, risking further conflict in the region.

Without substantial changes in the Indonesian government’s approach to West Papua, including addressing human rights abuses and engaging in meaningful dialogue with indigenous leaders, the future of West Papuans remains uncertain and fraught with challenges.

With ongoing military operations often accused of targeting indigenous populations, the likelihood of further human rights violations, such as extrajudicial killings, arbitrary detentions, and forced displacement, remains high.

Displacement
Military operations in West Papua frequently result in the displacement of indigenous Papuans, as they flee conflict zones.

The presence of more battalions could drive more communities from their homes, deepening the humanitarian crisis in the region. Indigenous peoples, who rely on their land for survival, face disruption of their traditional livelihoods and rising poverty.

The Indonesian government launched the Damai Cartenz military operation on April 5, 2018, and it is still in place in the conflict zones of Yahukimo, Pegunungan Bintang, Nduga and Intan Jaya.

Since then, according to a September 24 Human Rights Monitor update, more than 79,867 West Papuans remain internally displaced.

The displacement, killings, shootings, abuses, tortures and deaths are merely the tip of the iceberg of what truly occurs within the tightly-controlled military operational zones across West Papua, according to Benny Wenda, a UK-based leader of the United Liberation Movement of West Papua (ULMWP).

The international community, particularly the United Nations and the Pacific Islands Forum have been criticised for remaining largely silent on the matter. Responding to the August 31 PIF communique reaffirming its 2019 call for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visit to West Papua, Wenda said:

“[N]ow is the time for Indonesia to finally let the world see what is happening in our land. They cannot hide their dirty secret any longer.”

Increased global attention and intervention is crucial in addressing the humanitarian crisis, preventing further escalations and supporting the rights and well-being of the West Papuans.

Without meaningful dialogue, the long-term consequences for the indigenous population may be severe, risking further violence and unrest in the region.

As Prabowo was sworn in, Wenda restated the ULMWP’s demand for an internationally-mediated referendum on independence, saying: “The continued violation of our self-determination is the root cause of the West Papua conflict.”

Ali Mirin is a West Papuan academic from the Kimyal tribe of the highlands bordering the Star Mountain region of Papua New Guinea. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and Green Left in Australia.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By David Whyte and Samira Homerang Saunders

Many in the international community are finally coming to accept that the earth’s ecosystem can no longer bear the weight of military occupation.

Most have reached this inevitable conclusion, clearly articulated in the environmental movement’s latest slogan “No Climate Justice on Occupied Land”, in light of the horrors we have witnessed in Gaza since October 7.

While the correlation between military occupation and climate sustainability may be a recent discovery for those living their lives in relative peace and security, people living under occupation, and thus constant threat of military violence, have always known any guided missile strike or aerial bombardment campaign by an occupying military is not only an attack on those being targeted but also their land’s ability to sustain life.

A recent hearing on “State and Environmental Violence in West Papua” under the jurisdiction of the Rome-based Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT), for example, heard that Indonesia’s military occupation, spanning more than seven decades, has facilitated a “slow genocide” of the Papuan people through not only political repression and violence, but also the gradual decimation of the forest area — one of the largest and most biodiverse on the planet — that sustains them.

West Papua hosts one of the largest copper and gold mines in the world, is the site of a major BP liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility, and is the fastest-expanding area of palm oil and biofuel plantation in Indonesia.

All of these industries leave ecological dead zones in their wake, and every single one of them is secured by military occupation.

At the PPT hearing, prominent Papuan lawyer Yan Christian Warinussy spoke of the connection between human suffering in West Papua and the exploitation of the region’s natural resources.

Shot and wounded
Just one week later, he was shot and wounded by an unknown assailant. The PPT Secretariat noted that the attack came after the lawyer depicted “the past and current violence committed against the defenceless civil population and the environment in the region”.

What happened to Warinussy reinforced yet again the indivisibility of military occupation and environmental violence.

I’m stand in solidarity with West Papuans rising up against colonialism, racism, state violence, sexual violence, and environmental destruction.

West Papua’s “special autonomy” is another euphemism for control and exploitation ✊🏿🔥 pic.twitter.com/cvP7fp2Ml0

— K.Diallo ☭ (@nyeusi_waasi) May 19, 2021

In total, militaries around the world account for almost 5.5 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions annually — more than the aviation and shipping industries combined.

Our colleagues at Queen Mary University of London recently concluded that emissions from the first 120 days of this latest round of slaughter in Gaza alone were greater than the annual emissions of 26 individual countries; emissions from rebuilding Gaza will be higher than the annual emissions of more than 135 countries, equating them to those of Sweden and Portugal.

But even these shocking statistics fail to shed sufficient light on the deep connection between military violence and environmental violence. War and occupation’s impact on the climate is not merely a side effect or unfortunate consequence.

We must not reduce our analysis of what is going on in Gaza, for example, to a dualism of consequences: the killing of people on one side and the effect on “the environment” on the other.

Inseparable from impact on nature
In reality, the impact on the people is inseparable from the impact on nature. The genocide in Gaza is also an ecocide — as is almost always the case with military campaigns.

In the Vietnam War, the use of toxic chemicals, including Agent Orange, was part of a deliberate strategy to eliminate any capacity for agricultural production, and thus force the people off their land and into “strategic hamlets”.

Forests, used by the Vietcong as cover, were also cut by the US military to reduce the population’s capacity for resistance. The anti-war activist and international lawyer Richard Falk coined the phrase “ecocide” to describe this.

In different ways, this is what all military operations do: they tactically reduce or completely eliminate the capacity of the “enemy” population to live sustainably and to retain autonomy over its own water and food supplies.

Since 2014, the bulldozing of Palestinian homes and other essential infrastructure by the Israeli occupation forces has been complemented by chemical warfare, with herbicides aerially sprayed by the Israeli military destroying entire swaths of arable land in Gaza.

In other words, Gaza has been subjected to an “ecocide” strategy almost identical to the one used in Vietnam since long before October 7.

The occupying military force has been working to reduce, and eventually completely eliminate, the Palestinian population’s capacity to live sustainably in Gaza for many years. Since October 7, it has been waging a war to make Gaza completely unliveable.

50% of Gaza farms wiped out
As researchers at Forensic Architecture have concluded, at least 50 percent of farmland and orchards in Gaza are now completely wiped out. Many ancient olive groves have also been destroyed. Fields of crops have been uprooted using tanks, tractors and other vehicles.

Widespread aerial bombardment reduced the Gaza Strip’s greenhouse production facilities to rubble. All this was done not by mistake, but in a deliberate effort to leave the land unable to sustain life.

The wholesale destruction of the water supply and sanitation facilities and the ongoing threat of starvation across the Gaza Strip are also not unwanted consequences, but deliberate tactics of war. The Israeli military has weaponised food and water access in its unrelenting assault on the population of Gaza.

Of course, none of this is new to Palestinians there, or indeed in the West Bank. Israel has been using these same tactics to sustain its occupation, pressure Palestinians into leaving their lands, and expand its illegal settlement enterprise for many years.

Since October 7, it has merely intensified its efforts. It is now working with unprecedented urgency to eradicate the little capacity the occupied Palestinian territory has left in it to sustain Palestinian life.

Just as is the case with the occupation of Papua, environmental destruction is not an unintended side effect but a primary objective of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The immediate damage military occupation inflicts on the affected population is never separate from the long-term damage it inflicts on the planet.

For this reason, it would be a mistake to try and separate the genocide from the ecocide in Gaza, or anywhere else for that matter.

Anyone interested in putting an end to human suffering now, and preventing climate catastrophe in the future, should oppose all wars of occupation, and all forms of militarism that help fuel them.

David Whyte is professor of climate justice at Queen Mary University of London and director of the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice. Samira Homerang Saunders is research officer at the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice, Queen Mary University.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz