Indonesia has protested to the Fiji government after Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka met with a Papuan independence leader in a morale boost for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, reports Benar News.

Prime Minister Rabuka, who was elected in December, also said he would support Papuan membership in the UN-recognised organisation Melanesian Spearhead Group.

Fiji’s previous government for 16 years and Papua’s neighbour, Papua New Guinea, have blocked such a membership in a bid to maintain good relations with Indonesia.

The meeting between Rabuka and exiled Benny Wenda, president of the London-based ULMWP that seeks independence from Indonesia, took place at a Pacific Islands Forum “unity” summit in the Fijian town of Nadi last week.

On Tuesday, Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Teuku Faizasyah said Indonesia had sent a diplomatic note to Fiji.

“Indonesia expressed deep disappointment over the Fiji PM’s meeting with someone who unilaterally claimed to represent the Papuan people in Indonesia,” he said.

The United States and Australia are seeking closer security ties with Indonesia to counter China’s influence in the region, says Benar News.

Morning Star flag
Rabuka’s social media accounts posted a photo of him smiling while meeting Wenda and wearing a noken — a traditional string bag emblazoned with the Morning Star flag, the symbol of the Papua independence movement that is banned in Indonesia.

Rabuka’s Twitter account said he would support the ULMWP gaining full Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) membership “because they are Melanesians” of the Pacific.

Yes, we will support them [United Liberation Movement for West Papua] because they are Melanesians. I am more hopeful [ULMWP gaining full MSG membership]. I am not taking it for granted. The dynamics may have changed slightly but the principles are the same. pic.twitter.com/9J8qpAVhak

— Sitiveni Rabuka (@slrabuka) February 23, 2023

The Papua region is known as West Papua among people in Pacific island countries and also among activists supporting independence.

Documented and alleged killings and abuses by Indonesian military and police, from the 1960s until the present day — along with impunity and the exploitation of the region’s natural resources and widespread poverty — have fuelled local resentment against Indonesian rule, Benar News reports.

“Deploying aid and technical assistance to small island states scattered across the Pacific ocean, Indonesia has in recent years sought to neutralise criticism from some of those nations of its rule in Papua,” said the news service.

While Benar News noted that Jakarta’s assistance was small relative to long-standing donors such as Australia it was still significant, including funding the F$4 million (US$1.9 million) reconstruction of two boarding school dormitories destroyed by a tropical cyclone.

The MSG comprises Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, and the Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS) of the indigenous Kanak independence movement in French-ruled New Caledonia. Indonesia is an associate member and the ULMWP is an observer.

The group’s next meeting in July is in the capital Port Vila of Vanuatu, traditionally a strong supporter of West Papuan independence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A veteran journalist known for covering rights abuses in Indonesia’s militarised Papua region says a bomb exploded outside his home yesterday and a journalists group has called it an act of “intimidation” threatening press freedom.

No one was injured in the blast near his home in the provincial capital Jayapura, said Victor Mambor, editor of Papua’s leading news website Jubi, who visited New Zealand in 2014.

Police said they were investigating the explosion and that no one had yet claimed responsibility.

“Yes, someone threw a bomb,” Papua Police spokesperson Ignatius Benny told Benar News. “The motive and perpetrators are unknown.”

The Jayapura branch of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) condemned the explosion as a “terrorist bombing”.

In Sydney, the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) and Pacific Media Watch in New Zealand protested over the incident and called for a full investigation.

Mambor said he heard the sound of a motorcycle at about 4 am and then an explosion about a minute later.

‘Shook like earthquake’
“It was so loud that my house shook like there was an earthquake,” he told Benar News as reported by Radio Free Asia.

“I also checked the source of the explosion and smelt sulfur coming from the side of the house.”

The explosion left a hole in the road, he said.

The incident was not the first to occur outside Mambor’s home. In April 2021, windows were smashed and paint sprayed on his car in the middle of the night.

Mambor is also an advocate for press freedom in Papua. In that role, he has criticised Jakarta’s restrictions on the media in Papua, as well as its other policies in his troubled home province.

The AJI awarded Mambor its press freedom award in August 2022, saying that through Jubi, “Victor brings more voices from Papua, amid domination of information that is biased, one-sided and discriminatory.”

“AJI in Jayapura strongly condemns the terrorist bombing and considers this an act of intimidation that threatens press freedom in Papua,” it said in a statement.

‘Voice the truth’ call
“AJI Jayapura calls on all journalists in the land of Papua to continue to voice the truth despite obstacles. Justice should be upheld even though the sky is falling,” said AJI chair Lucky Ireeuw.

Amnesty International Indonesia urged the police to find those responsible.

“The police must thoroughly investigate this incident, because this is not the first time … meaning there was an omission that made the perpetrators feel free to do it again, to intimidate and threaten journalists,” Amnesty’s campaign manager in Indonesia, Nurina Savitri, told BenarNews.

The Papua region, located at the eastern end of the Indonesian archipelago, has been the site of a decades-old pro-independence insurgency where both government security forces and rebels have been accused of committing atrocities against civilians.

Foreign journalists have been largely barred from the area, with the government insisting it could not guarantee their safety. Indonesian journalists allege that officials make their work difficult by refusing to provide information.

The armed elements of the independence movement have stepped up lethal attacks on Indonesian security forces, civilians and targets such as construction of a trans-Papua highway that would make the Papuan highlands more accessible.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, has accused Indonesian security forces of intimidation, arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial killings and mass forced displacement in Papua.

Security forces kill 36
Last month, Indonesian activist group KontraS said 36 people were killed by security forces and pro-independence rebels in the Papua and West Papua provinces in 2022, an increase from 28 in 2021.

In Sydney, Joe Collins of the AWPA said in a statement: “These acts of intimidation against local journalists in West Papua  threaten freedom of the press.

“It is the local media in West Papua that first report on human rights abuses and local journalists are crucial in reporting information on what is happening in West Papua”.

Collins said Canberra remained silent on the issue — ‘the Australian government is very selective in who it criticises over their human rights record.”

There was no problem raising concerns about China or Russia over their record, “but Canberra seems to have great difficulty in raising the human rights abuses in West Papua with Jakarta.”

Republished from Free Radio Asia with additional reporting by Pacific Media Watch.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A West Papua rights group claims Indonesian police and soldiers have carried out at least 72 extrajudicial killings over the past year.

The report by the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS) said the police were responsible for 50 of the unlawful killings, with the remainder committed by military personnel.

The latest report situated the unlawful killings in the context of a “narrowing of democratic space” and “massive violations of rights related to the basic principles of democracy” by President Joko Widodo’s administration.

“The widespread practice of extrajudicial killings throughout 2022 by security personnel shows that they are like wolves in sheep’s clothing who are ready to pounce when there’s an opportunity,” KontraS researcher Rozy Brilian told reporters, according to a report by Benar News.

The article quoted Rozy as saying that most of those allegedly killed by police were under criminal investigation and at least 12 of the cases involved torture.

While six Indonesian soldiers were arrested recently for their involvement in the deaths of four Papuans in Mimika regency in the unsettled Papua region, the report claims the security forces still enjoy a high degree of impunity for illegal behavior.

“This is a reminder of the considerable degree of continuity between Suharto’s military-backed New Order, in which the security forces enjoyed political prominence and vast power, and the democratic system that was established after the regime’s fall in 1998,” the authors said.

KontraS said far from investigating or prosecuting those responsible for past rights outrages, the Indonesian government has often promoted them to key positions in government.

In particular, KontraS pointed to the appointment of Major-General Untung Budiharto, the alleged perpetrator of enforced disappearances during the terminal crisis of the Suharto government in 1997 and 1998, as commander of the Greater Jakarta Command Area.

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

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Victor Mambor in Jayapura

Calm has yet to return to Nduga regency in Indonesia’s Papua province where pro-independence rebels killed 19 construction workers in December, forcing residents to flee to escape clashes between the insurgents and government security forces.

Soldiers and police launched an operation code-named “Operasi Nemangkawi” to capture those allegedly responsible in the killings of workers who were building the Trans-Papua Highway.

Regional military spokesman Colonel Muhamad Aidi said no arrests have been made so far.

READ MORE: UN experts condemns human rights abuses, impunity and racism in West Papua

“We have been focusing on restoring security, protecting citizens and displaced people,” Aidi said.

Meanwhile, fears abound that more violence could erupt.

-Partners-

“We are afraid to return to our village because there are still soldiers and police,” Usman Lokbere, an Nduga resident who fled to Wamena, the main town in Jayawijaya regency, said.

In addition to efforts to capture the suspected killers, the military sent 600 soldiers to Nduga last week to resume the construction of bridges as part of the highway that stretches more than 4300 km from Sorong, the largest city in West Papua province, to Merauke regency, and is scheduled to be completed in 2019.

Provide security
“The TNI (Indonesian Armed Forces) personnel are currently on their way to Timika, then to Nduga,” said Osman Marbun, head of the Jayapura National Road Development Center (BBPJN).

The soldiers, based in the capital of South Sulawesi province, will provide security while working on the construction project, according to a military official.

“The 600 TNI personnel will be deployed around the Trans-Papua road, between Wamena and Mumugu,” regional military chief Major-General Yosua Pandit Sembiring said.

The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), armed wing of the Free Papua Movement (OPM), claimed responsibility for the killings, alleging that the people they killed were soldiers from the military’s engineering detachment, and not civilian workers.

Construction on parts of the highway has been stalled for months, but President Joko Widodo has vowed to finish the project as part of his promise to develop the resource-rich area.

Military criticised
Papuan House of Representatives member Laurens Kadepa criticised the military’s move, saying sending reinforcements was not a solution and would only add to the climate of fear.

“Indonesia is being watched closely by the international community, global church councils and even the United Nations due to the ongoing violence in Papua, but the central government still maintains the practice of violence,” he said.

“The spotlight (on Indonesia) should have prompted the government to reform security measures in Papua,” he said.

Human rights activist Peneas Lokbere said sending hundreds of soldiers contradicted claims by authorities that security had been restored in Nduga and that residents had returned to their villages.

“If indeed the situation in Nduga is peaceful, why is the TNI sending reinforcements? That will only prolong people’s trauma,” he said.

Nduga resident Raga Kogoya called the decision to send more troops unfair.

“We are only a few, why must we continue to be subjected to security operations,” Raga Kogoya said.

Providing food
Daniel Kogoya, spokesman for the Nduga Regency Regional Secretariat, said the local government remains focused on providing food and health care to residents who were uprooted from their homes by the violence.

“Many people are still displaced. They have little food to eat and their health is deteriorating,” Daniel Kogoya said. “Displaced children have been unable to attend classes while exams are approaching.”

Papua is one of the archipelago’s poorest regions despite its rich natural resources. It declared independence from Dutch colonial rule on December 1, 1961, but that was rejected by the Netherlands and later by Indonesia.

In 1963, Indonesian forces invaded the region and annexed it, and six years later held a controversial referendum in which, according to human rights groups, security forces selected slightly more than 1000 people to agree to the region’s formal absorption into the archipelagic nation.

By Victor Mambor is editor of Tabloid Jubi and this report by him for Benar News is republished by the Pacific Media Centre with permission.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz