Armed conflict in West Papua continues to claim lives, displace tens of thousands of people and cause resentment at Indonesian rule.

But despite ongoing calls for help, neighbouring countries in the Pacific Islands region remain largely silent and ineffectual in their response.

This year, Indonesia’s military has increased operations to hunt down and respond to attacks by pro-independence fighters with West Papua National Liberation Army (WPNLA) which considers Indonesia an occupying force in its homeland.

Since late 2018, several regencies in the Indonesian-ruled Papuan provinces have become mired in conflict, notably Nduga, Yahukimo, Intan Jaya, Puncak Jaya, Maybrat as well as Pegunungan Bintang regency on the international border with Papua New Guinea.

The ongoing cycle of violence has created a steady trickle of deaths on both sides, and also among the many villages caught in the middle.

Identifying the death toll is difficult, especially because Indonesian authorities restrict outside access to Papua.

However, research by the West Papua Council of Churches points to at least 400 deaths due to the conflict in the aforementioned regencies since December 2018, including people who have fled their villages to escape military operations and then died due to the unavailability of food and medicine.

‘Some cross into PNG’
“We have received reports that at least 60,000 Papuan people from our congregations have currently evacuated to the surrounding districts, including some who have crossed into Papua New Guinea,” says Reverend Socratez Sofyan Yoman, president of the Fellowship of Baptist Churches of West Papua.

The humanitarian crisis which Yoman described has spilled over into Papua New Guinea, bringing its own security and pandemic threats to PNG border communities like Tumolbil village in remote Telefomin district.

Reverend Yoman and others within the West Papua Council of Churches have made repeated calls for the government to pull back its forces.

They seek a circuit-breaker to end to the conflict in Papua which remains based on unresolved grievances over the way Indonesia took control in the 1960s, and the denial of a legitimate self-determination for West Papuans.

But it is not simply the war between Indonesia’s military and the Liberation Army or OPM fighters that has created ongoing upheavals for Papuans.

This year has seen:

• more arbitrary arrests and detention of Papuans for peaceful political expression;
• treason charges for the same;
• harassment of prominent human rights defenders;
• more oil palm, mining and environmental degradation that threatens Papuans’ access to their land and forest;
• a move by Indonesian lawmakers to extend an unpopular Special Autonomy Law roundly rejected by Papuans; and
• a terror plot by alleged Muslim extremists in Merauke Regency in Papua’s south-east corner.

Not only the churches, but also Papuan customary representatives, civil society and the pro-independence movement have been calling for international help for many years, particularly for an intermediary to facilitate dialogue with Indonesia towards some sort of peaceful settlement.

Groups frustrated with Jakarta
The groups have expressed frustration about the way that Jakarta’s defensiveness over West Papua’s sovereignty leaves little room for solutions to end conflict in the New Guinea territory.

On the other hand, Indonesian government officials point towards various major infrastructure projects in Papua as a sign that President Joko Widodo’s economic development campaign is creating improvements for local communities.

Despite the risks of exacerbating the spread of covid-19 in Papua, Indonesia recently held the National Games in Jayapura, with President Widodo presiding over the opening and closing of the event, presenting it as a showcase of unity and development in the eastern region.

“The president and vice-president of Indonesia while in Papua did not discuss the resolution of the protracted Papua conflict. They turned a blind eye and heart to the Papua confict,” says Reverend Yoman.

Beyond the gloss of the Games, Papuans were still being taken in by authorities as treason suspects if they bore the colours of the banned Papuan Morning Star flag.

Regional response
At their last in-person summit before the pandemic, in 2019, Pacific Islands Forum leaders agreed to press Indonesia to allow the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights into Papua region in order for it to present them with an independent assessment of the rights situation in West Papua.

Advocating for the UN visit, as a group in the Forum, appears to be as far out on a limb that regional countries — including Australia and New Zealand — are prepared to go on West Papua.

However even before 2019, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights office had already been trying for years to send a team to Papua, and found it difficult securing Indonesia’s approval.

That the visit has still not happened since the Forum push indicates that West Papua remains off limits to the international community as far as Jakarta is concerned, no matter how much it points to the pandemic as being an obstacle.

The question of how the Pacific can address the problem of West Papua is also re-emerging at the sub-regional level within the Melanesian Spearhead Group whose full members are PNG, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia’s Kanaks.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) is looking to unlock the voice of its people at the regional level by applying again for full membership in the MSG, after its previous application had “disappeared”.

The ULMWP’s representative in Vanuatu, Freddy Waromi, this month submitted the application at the MSG headquarters in Port Vila.

No voice at the table
The organisation already has observer status in the MSG, but as Waromi said, as observers they do not have a voice at the table.

“When we are with observer status, we always just observe in the MSG meeting, we cannot voice our voice out.

“But with the hope that we become a full member we can have a voice in MSG and even in Pacific Islands Forum and even other important international organisations.”

Indonesia, which is an associate member of the MSG, opposes the ULMWP’s claim to represent West Papuans.

“They’re still encouraging them (the MSG) not to accept us,” Waromi said of Jakarta.

He said the conflict had not abated since he fled from his homeland into PNG in 1979, but only worsened.

“Fighting is escalating now in the highlands region of West Papua – in Nduga, in Intan Jaya, in Wamena, in Paniai – all those places, fighting between Indonesian military and the National Liberation Army of West Papua has been escalating, it’s very bad now.”

Vanuatu consistently strong
Vanuatu is the only country in the Pacific Islands region whose government has consistently voiced strong support for the basic rights of West Papuans over the years. Other Melanesian countries have at times raised their voice, but the key neighbouring country of PNG has been largely silent.

The governor of PNG’s National Capital District, Powes Parkop, this month in Parliament lambasted successive PNG governments for failing to develop a strong policy on West Papua.

He claimed that PNG’s long silence on the conflict had been based on fear, and a “total capitulation to Indonesian aggression and illegal occupation”.

“We have adopted a policy that is shameful and unethical,” he said of PNG’s “friends to all, enemies to none” stance.

“How do we sleep at night when the people on the other side are subject to so much violence, racism, deaths and destruction?

“When are we going to summon the courage to talk and speak? Why are we afraid of Indonesia?”

Parkop’s questions also apply to the Pacific region, where Indonesia’s diplomatic influence has grown in recent years, effectively quelling some of the support that the West Papua independence movement had enjoyed.

Time is running out for West Papuans who may soon be a minority in their own land if Indonesian transmigration is left unchecked.

Yet that doesn’t mean the conflict will fade. Until core grievances are adequately addressed, conflict can be expected to deepen in West Papua.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Pressure is mounting on Indonesia to back off its brutal and unsuccessful military strategy in trying to crush West Papuan resistance to its flawed rule in “the land of Papua”.

Critics have intensified their condemnation of the intransigent “no negotiations” stance of authorities as West Papuans mark their national day today on 1 December 1961 when the banned Morning Star flag of independence was raised for the first time.

The TNI (Indonesian military), the Polri (Indonesian police) and the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) have been locked in a conflict since Jakarta ordered a crackdown in May following a declaration of resistance groups as “terrorists”.

Many groups have raised their criticism of Jakarta’s flawed handling of its two colonised Melanesian provinces, Papua and West Papua. Recent developments include:

‘Path of violence’
Pastor Benny Giay, a member of the Papua Council of Churches, says the Indonesian government is still choosing the path of violence in dealing with the armed conflict.

The council has come to this conclusion based on its experience of how conflicts in Papua have been handled in the past and the recent situation, involving six regencies in Papua — Intan Jaya, the Bintang Mountains, Nduga, Yahukimo, Maybrat and Puncak Papua.

“Based on past experience and the most recent facts, we concluded that the Indonesian government is still choosing the path of violence in dealing with the Papua conflict,” said Pastor Giay, according to CNN Indonesia.

Giay said that as a consequence of many years of armed conflict, at least 60,000 Papuans had fled into the forests or neighbouring regencies.

He and three other pastors view this as part of what could not be separated from the politics of “systematic racism”.

They suspect that “buzzers” — fake internet account operators — are being used by Indonesian intelligence and pro-government groups.

These buzzers, said Pastor Giay, continued to spread hoaxes and news containing anti-Papuan views based on racism against the Papuan people.

‘Prolonged suffering’
The Papua Council of Churches is calling for the United Nations Human Rights Council (Dewan HAM PBB) to visit Papua to see the humanitarian crisis directly – “the prolonged suffering of Papuans for the last 58 years.”

The council also wants the Indonesian government to put an end to its racist policies.

Pastor Giay and his fellow pastors have demanded that President Widodo be consistent about a statement he made on September 30, 2019, agreeing to dialogue with the ULMWP.

“Mediated by a third party [in a similar way] as took place between the Indonesian government and the GAM (Free Aceh Movement) on August 15, 2005,” said Pastor Giay.

Deputy Presidential Chief of Staff Jaleswari Pramodhawardani has reportedly said that the government was managing the security situation in Papua and West Papua provinces in “accordance with the law”.

This was conveyed in response to a UN report in intimidation and violence against human rights activists in Papua, says CNN Indonesia.

Open letter of protest
On November 15, ELSHAM Papua sent an open letter to President Widodo protesting about the presence of non-organic troops in Papua and West Papua provinces. It says this has resulted in the deaths of many civilian victims as well as members of the TNI, Polri and the TPNPB, according to Suara Papua.

Each time an armed conflict happened, the first casualties were mothers and children — along with the elderly — who were forced to seek shelter and were suffering, ELSHAM said.

“What is happening at the moment, once again shows that the state has been negligent in protecting its citizens,” it said.

“It should be the responsibility of the state to protect its citizens as mandated by the preamble to the 1945 Constitution — that the state is obliged to protect everyone regardless of their birthplace in Indonesia.”

The open letter asked the government to withdraw all non-organic troops from Papua, for the TNI, Polri and TPNPB troops to restrain themselves, and for both warring parties to prioritise respect for human rights.

The letter also declared that security forces should not become the “accomplices of business interests and companies” in Indonesia — and instead be the protectors of ordinary people and “good” law enforcement officials.

The open letter was supported by 24 civil society organisations which work in human rights, justice and the environment.

Catholic leaders protest
On November 11, some 194 Catholic leaders in Papua called for an end to Indonesian military operations.

Speaking on behalf of the priests, Father Alberto John Bunai said the government had been ecstatic over the success of the recent 20th National Games in Papua, but the people were “deeply saddened by the suffering of God’s communities” in Nduga, Intan Jaya, Puncak, Kiwirok and Maybrat.

“To solve the root of the problem, what is needed is dialogue and reconciliation in a dignified manner,” Father Bunai said at a “moral call” media conference in Waena, Jayapura.

It was the church’s duty to articulate the “cries of God’s communities” who had no voice, Father Bunai said.

“The government must halt the ongoing military operations which have resulted in the killing of civilians, violence and people being displaced in several parts of Papua.”

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The reality is that we now live under an Indonesian ruler who is anti-democratic, anti-justice, anti-freedom, anti-peace, anti-equality and anti-humanity. This is the real reflection of the face of the colonial rulers of Indonesia.

The Indonesian rulers have lost their conscience, common sense, and have no creativity or innovation because it is has now been proven that the approach of using violence through the state apparatus is their way to solve the problems of injustice and crimes against humanity in Papua.

The state itself has created a stalemate and is now creating new problems that are increasingly complicated and spiralling out of control.

The incident which took place on August 16, 2021, when Rev Dr Benny Giay, chair of the Kingmi Synod in Papua and also moderator of the West Papua Council of Churches (WPCC) was refused entry to the Papuan People’s Representative building is a very embarrassing incident for the Indonesian police.

Is this the face of the Indonesian police — they blockaded a church leader who wanted to pray at the office of the Papuan People’s Representatives and also the blockaded a peaceful demonstration of the Papuan people?

The breaking up of the West Papuan National Committee (KNPB) demonstration to demand the release of Victor Yeimo in Jayapura and in Yahukimo on August 16, 2021, which reportedly killed one person, shows that the police are not only unprofessional and uneducated, but that they are also violent and criminal.

This kind of cruelty and violence by the security forces has led to an increase in the Papuan people’s distrust of Indonesia.

I strongly condemn the security forces in Yahukimo who killed one person in Yahukimo and wounded the chairman of KNPB, Agus Kossay, and several KNPB members in Jayapura.

Ita Wakhu Purom, Monday, August 16, 2021. Reverend Dr Socratez S.Yoman, MA, is president of the Alliance of West Papuan Baptist Churches.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

The West Papua Council of Churches wants an end to what it says is the re-militarisation of the region.

It wrote to Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo and also asked him to follow through on his commitment to meet with Papuan pro-referendum groups.

The churches said they were writing because of the escalation in violence in recent weeks, including the repressive response to peaceful protests rejecting any extension of Special Autonomy, and the killing of a Papuan pastor, Reverend Yeremia Zanambani, two weeks ago in Intan Jaya regency.

The death of the pastor has been blamed by churches on the Indonesian military, although the military initially denied it.

However, according to the churches, the remilitarisation that has occurred in the region over the past year is aimed at turning Papua into a military operations area, with the military taking control of the natural resources on a large scale.

The churches documented how Indonesia strove in the 1960s to destroy Papuan culture and said an apartheid ideology was applied to Papuans with the people subjugated.

They said the President, as Indonesia’s supreme military commander, along with the member countries of the UN’s Human Rights Council, needed to resolve the issue of Papua peacefully through negotiations.

This article is republished by the Pacific Media Centre under a partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz