In the aftermath of Palestinian group Hamas’ terror attack inside Israel on October 7 and the Israeli state’s even more terrifying attacks on Palestinian urban neighbourhoods in Gaza, the media across many parts of Asia tend to take a more neutral stand in comparison with their Western counterparts.

A lot of sympathy is expressed for the plight of the Palestinians who have been under frequent attacks by Israeli forces for decades and have faced ever trauma since the Nakba in 1948 when Zionist militia forced some 750,000 refugees to leave their homeland.

Even India, which has been getting closer to Israel in recent years, and one of Israel’s closest Asian allies, Singapore, have taken a cautious attitude to the latest chapter in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Soon after the Hamas attacks in Israel, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was “deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks”.

He added: “We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour.” But, soon after, his Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) sought to strike a balance.

Addressing a media briefing on October 12, MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi reiterated New Delhi’s “long-standing and consistent” position on the issue, telling reporters that “India has always advocated the resumption of direct negotiations towards establishing a sovereign, independent and viable state of Palestine” living in peace with Israel.

Singapore has also reiterated its support for a two-state solution, with Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam telling Today Daily that it was possible to deplore how Palestinians had been treated over the years while still unequivocally condemning the terrorist attacks carried out in Israel by Hamas.

“These atrocities cannot be justified by any rationale whatsoever, whether of fundamental problems or historical grievances,” he said.

“I think it’s fair to say that any response has to be consistent with international law and international rules of war”.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has blamed the rapidly worsening conflict in the Middle East on a lack of justice for the Palestinian people.

Lack of justice for Palestinians
“The crux of the issue lies in the fact that justice has not been done to the Palestinian people,” Beijing’s top diplomat said in a phone call with Brazil’s Celso Amorim, a special adviser to Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, according to Japan’s Nikkei Asia.

The call came just ahead of an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on October 13 to discuss the Israel-Hamas war. Brazil, a non-permanent member, is chairing the council this month.

Indonesian President Jokowi Widodo called for an end to the region’s bloodletting cycle and pro-Palestinian protests have been held in Jakarta.

“Indonesia calls for the war and violence to be stopped immediately to avoid further human casualties and destruction of property because the escalation of the conflict can cause greater humanitarian impact,” he said.

“The root cause of the conflict, which is the occupation of Palestinian land by Israel, must be resolved immediately in accordance with the parameters that have been agreed upon by the UN.”

Indonesia, which is home to the world’s largest Muslim population, has supported Palestinian self-determination for a long time and does not have diplomatic relations with Israel.

But, Indonesia’s foreign ministry said 275 Indonesians were working in Israel and were making plans to evacuate them.

Sympathy for the Palestinians
Meanwhile, Thailand said that 18 of their citizens have been killed by the terror attacks and 11 abducted.

In the Philippines, Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said on October 10 that the safety of thousands of Filipinos living and working in Israel remained a priority for the government.

There are approximately 40,000 Filipinos in Israel, but only 25,000 are legally documented, according to labour and migrant groups, says Benar News, a US-funded Asian news portal.

According to India’s MEA spokesperson Bagchi, there are 18,000 Indians in Israel and about a dozen in the Palestinian territories. India is trying to bring them home, and a first flight evacuating 230 Indians was expected to take place at the weekend, according to the Hindu newspaper.

It is unclear what such large numbers of Asians are doing in Israel. Yet, from media reports in the region, there is deep concern about the plight of civilians caught up in the clashes.

Benar News reported that Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has spoken with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan about resolving the Palestine-Israel conflict according to UN-agreed parameters.

Also this week, the Malaysian government announced it would allocate 1 million ringgit (US$211,423) in humanitarian aid for Palestinians.

Western view questioned
Sympathy for the Palestinian cause is reflected widely in the Asian media, both in Muslim-majority and non-Muslim countries. The Western unequivocal support for Israel, particularly by Anglo-American media, has been questioned across Asia.

Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post’s regular columnist Alex Lo challenged Hamas’ “unprovoked” terror attack in Israel, a narrative commonly used in Western media reporting of the latest flare-up.

“It must be pointed out that what Hamas has done is terrorism pure and simple,” notes Lo.

“But such horrors and atrocities are not being committed by Palestinian militants without a background and a context. They did not come out of nowhere as unadulterated and uncaused evil”.

Thus Lo argues, that to claim that the latest terror attacks were “unprovoked” is to whitewash the background and context that constitute the very history of this unending conflict in Palestine.

US media’s ‘morally reprehensible propaganda’
“It’s morally reprehensible propaganda of the worst kind that the mainstream Anglo-American media culture has been guilty of for decades,” he says.

“But the real problem with that is not only with morality but also with the very practical politics of searching for a viable peace settlement”.

He is concerned that “with their unconditional and uncritical support of Israel, the West and the United States in particular have essentially made such a peace impossible”.

Writing in India’s Hindu newspaper, Denmark-based Indian professor of literature Dr Tabish Khair points out that historically, Palestinians have had to indulge in drastic and violent acts to draw attention to their plight and the oppressive policies of Israel.

“The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), under Yasser Arafat’s leadership, used such ‘terrorist’ acts to focus world attention on the Palestinian problem, and without such actions, the West would have looked the other way while the Palestinians were slowly airbrushed out of history,” he argues.

While the PLO fought a secular Palestinian battle for nationhood, which was largely ignored by Western powers, this lead to political Islam’s development in the later part of the 1970s, and Hamas is a product of that.

“Today, we live in a world where political Islam is associated almost entirely with Islam — and almost all Muslims,” he notes.

Palestinian cause still resonates
But, the Palestinian cause still resonates beyond the Muslim communities, as the reactions in Asia reflect.

Indian historian and journalist Vijay Prashad, writing in Bangladesh’s Daily Star, notes the savagery of the impending war against the Palestinian people will be noted by the global community.

He points out that Hamas was never allowed to function as a voice for the Palestinian people, even after they won a landslide democratic election in Gaza in January 2006.

“The victory of Hamas was condemned by the Israelis and the West, who decided to use armed force to overthrow the election result,” he points out.

“Gaza was never allowed a political process, in fact never allowed to shape any kind of political authority to speak for the people”.

Prashad points out that when the Palestinians conducted a non-violent march in 2019 for their rights to nationhood, they were met with Israeli bombs that killed 200 people.

“When non-violent protest is met with force, it becomes difficult to convince people to remain on that path and not take up arms,” he argues.

Prashad disputes the Western media’s argument that Israel has a “right to defend itself” because the Palestinians are people under occupation. Under the Geneva Convention, Israel has an obligation to protect them.

Under the Geneva Convention, Prashad argues that the Israeli government’s “collective punishment” strategy is a war crime.

“The International Criminal Court opened an investigation into Israeli war crimes in 2021 but it was not able to move forward even to collect information”.

Kalinga Seneviratne is a correspondent for IDN-InDepthNews, the flagship agency of the non-profit International Press Syndicate (IPS). Republished under a Creative Commons licence.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A number of national figures in Indonesia have criticised the project to move the state capital (IKN) from Jakarta to East Kalimantan as envisaged by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, reports CNN Indonesia.

Among the figures who have loudly criticised the project are economist Dr Faisal Basri and former Vice-President Jusuf Kalla.

Dr Basri has questioned Widodo’s dream of building a “green capital” city. In reality, said Dr Basri, the new capital city Nusantara would be surrounded by coal mines, oil refineries and palm oil plantations.

“This is unique, they (the government) want to build a green city, a smart city, but what surrounds it is totally different,” the economist said.

“So it will be a heaven surrounded by hell. In time this heaven could also become hot,” said Dr Basri during a virtual discussion at the Mulawarman University.

Dr Basri said that it was not a matter of not being allowed to move the capital, but he warned that the current economic conditions were not supportive of such a mega-project.

He also warned of the economic transformation which would stall and the issue of half of the population currently being categorised as extremely poor, poor, almost poor and vulnerable to falling into poverty.

Many problems
Speaking separately, former Vice-President Kalla predicted that moving the capital city would encounter many problems. He is pushing the government to fully resolve the problems which would emerge in the future.

“It is these complex issues which must be addressed together because later there will be problems, there will definitely be problems, budgetary problems, location problems, and the like”, said Kalla during a Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) national working meeting in Jakarta.

Kalla said that moving the capital city would not be easy. He added, however, that this was no longer the time to debate the issue because the decision had already been taken by the government and the House of Representatives (DPR).

Sharp criticism has also come from former Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Chair Busyro Muqoddas who said that the process of deliberating and enacting the law on the state capital city by the DPR was “reckless”.

“And this is an irony which has profoundly injured the dignity of the ordinary people. The people have been positioned like the oligarchy’s cash cows in an election cycle, an election of regional heads,” said Muqoddas during the virtual discussion.

“This also in fact represents layers of disloyalty. In Arabic, durhaka murokab against the people,” he said.

New law to move capital
Earlier, the government and the DPR agreed to move the capital city from Jakarta to the new location in East Kalimantan.

The two parties embodied this agreement in the Law on the State Capital City (UU IKN).

The process of moving the state capital will not be done immediately following the enactment of the UU IKN.

Jakarta will continue to carry the status of the capital city until the president issues a presidential decree on moving the capital.

Translated by James Balowski for IndoLeft News. The original title of the article was “Tokoh Kritik Keras IKN: Dikelilingi Neraka, Rakyat Jadi Sapi Perah”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

ANALYSIS: By Dr Socratez Yoman

The Indonesian coloniser has become an ignorant ruler with deaf ears and with evil intention in fighting for the addition of new Papuan provinces without the population numbers to justify this.

Provincial division is a serious problem because the population of Papua and West Papua does not meet the requirements to establish new provinces.

The planned provinces will cause division and destruction of the cultural values of kinship and togetherness as Melanesian people.

After Indonesia failed with a plan to move 2 million indigenous Papuans to Manado, the new strategy devised by the Jakarta authorities is to separate indigenous Papuans according to ethnic groups. This is a crime against humanity and is a gross human rights violation carried out by the state.

The author followed the presentation from the Minister of Home Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, Tito Karnavian, to the Working Meeting of Commission I DPD RI in Jakarta on 27 January 2021 regarding the government’s version of the Provincial Expansion scenario which was not rational or realistic.

The Minister of Home Affairs is not paying attention to the standards and requirements for the development of a new administrative area, such as area size, population, human resources and financial and natural resources.

The criteria for a new government have been largely ignored, but political interests and remilitarisation have become the main mission. To be honest, the people and nation of West Papua do not need lots of division of districts and provinces.

Military purpose for new provinces
These new provinces are only for political and military purposes and to move excess population from Java.

The proposal in summary

1. Papua Province
(the original province)
Capital: Jayapura
a. Jayapura Town
b. Jayapura Regency
c. Keerom Regency
d. Sarmi Regency
e. Maberamo Raya Regency
f. Waropen Regency
g. Kep. Yapen Regency
h. Biak Numfor Regency
i. Supiori Regency

2. South Papua Province
(new province)
Capital: Merauke
a. Merauke Regency
b. Boven Digoel Regency
c. Mappi Regency
d. Asmat Regeny
e. Peg Bintang Regency

3. Central Eastern Papua Province
(new province)
Capital: Wamena
a. Jayawijaya Regency
b. Lani Jaya Regency
c. Tolikora Regency
d. Nduga Regency
e. Maberamo Tengah Regency
f. Yalimo Regency
g. Yahukimo Regency
h. Puncak Jaya Regency
i. Puncak Regency

4. Western Central Papua Province
(still under debate)
Capital: Mimika
a. Mimika Regency
b. Paniai Regency
c. Deiyai Regency
d. Dogiay Regency
e. Nabire Regency
f. Intan Jaya Regency

5. West Papua Daya Province
(previously mostly West Papua Province)
Capital: Sorong
a. Town of Sorong
b. Sorong Regency
c. Sorong Selatan Regency
d. Maybrat Regency
e. Tambrauw Regency
f. Raja Ampat Regency

With these additions Papua would have five provinces. The mechanism for provincial expansion is in accordance with Article 76 of the Special Autonomy Law with additional authority changes from the central government when there is a deadlock in the region.

The total population of West Papua includes two provinces respectively: Papua Province 3,322,526 people and West Papua 1,069,498 inhabitants. The total is 4,392,024 inhabitants.

Evenly dividing up population
If the population is divided evenly from the total population of 4,392,024 the population for the five provinces are as follows:

1. Papua Province will be inhabited by a population of 878,404 people.

2. West Papua Province will be inhabited by a population of 878,404 people.

3. The Province of Puppet I will be inhabited by a population of 878,404 people.

4. The Province of Puppet II will be inhabited by a population of 878,404 people.

5. The Province of Puppet III will be inhabited by a population of 878,404 people.

The question is whether a province with a total population of 878,404 people is worthy and eligible to become a province?

It is very important to compare with the population of the provinces of West Java, Central Java and East Java.

1. Total population of West Java: 46,497,175 people.

2. Total population of Central Java: 35,557,248 people.

3. Total Population of East Java: 38,828,061 people.

The question is why does the government of the Republic of Indonesia not carry out splitting the provinces of West Java, Central Java and East Java, which have the largest population sizes?

‘Transfer of excess population’
As a consequence of a population shortage in this province, the Indonesian authorities will transfer the excess population of Malay Indonesians to these puppet provinces.

The creation of these five provinces also have as their main objective to build 5 military area commands, 5 police area command bases, tens of military district commands and dozens of police district headquarters and various other units. The land of Melanesia will be used as the home of the military, police and Indonesian Malay people.

The consequences will be that the indigenous Papuans from Sorong to Merauke will lose their land because the land will be robbed and looted to build office buildings, military headquarters, police headquarters, army district bases, and police district bases.

Humans will be removed, made impoverished, without land and without a future, even slaughtered and destroyed like animals in a natural or unnatural way as we have experienced and witnessed until the present.

There is evidence that a genocide process has been carried out by the modern colonial rulers of Indonesia in this era of civilisation. The crimes of the Indonesian colonial rulers continue to be exposed in public.

In 1969, when the West Papuan people were integrated into Indonesia, the indigenous population was around 809,337 people. Meanwhile, the neighbouring independent state of Papua New Guinea has around 2,783,121 people.

Since then, the indigenous population of PNG has reached 8,947,024 million, while the number of Indigenous Papuans is still only 1.8 million.

Modern colonial ruler
This fact shows that the Indonesian government is a modern colonial ruler which has occupied and colonised the people and nation of West Papua.

Dr Veronika Kusumaryati, a daughter of Indonesia’s young generation in her dissertation entitled: Ethnography of the Colonial Present: History, Experience, And Political Consciousness in West Papua, revealed:

“For Papuans, current colonialism is marked by the experience and militariSation of daily life. This colonialism can also be felt through acts of violence that are disproportionately shown to Papuans, as well in the narrative of their lives.

“When Indonesia arrived, thousands of people were detained, tortured and killed. Offices were looted and houses burned. … these stories did not appear in historical books, not in Indonesia, nor in the Netherlands. This violence did not stop in the 1960s.”

(Kusumaryati, V. (2018). Ethnography of the Colonial Present: History, Experience, And Political Consciousness in West Papua, p. 25).

The Indonesian government repeats the experience of the colonial rulers of apartheid in South Africa. In 1978, Peter W. Botha became Prime Minister and he carried out a politics of divide and conquer by dividing the unity of the people of South Africa through establishing puppet states: 1. The Transkei Puppet State. 2. The Bophutha Tswana Puppet State. 3. Venda Puppet State. 4. The Ciskei Puppet State. (Source: 16 Most Influential Heroes of Peace: Sutrisno Eddy, 2002, p. 14).

There is a serious threat and displacement of indigenous Papuans from their ancestral lands proven by the fact that in the regencies they have been robbed by the Malays and have been deprived of their basic rights for Indigenous Papuans in the political field. See the evidence and examples as follows:

1. Sarmi Regency 20 seats: 13 migrants and 7 indigenous Papuans (OAP).

2. Boven Digul Regency 20 seats: 16 migrants and 6 Indigenous Papuans

3. Asmat Regency 25 seats: 11 migrants and 14 Indigenous Papuans

4. Mimika Regency 35 seats: 17 migrants and OAP 18 Indigenous Papuans

5. 20 seats in Fakfak District: 12 migrants and 8 Indigenous Papuans.

6. Raja Ampat Regency, 20 seats: 11 migrants and 9 Indigenous Papuans.

7. Sorong Regency 25 seats: 19 migrants and 7 Indigenous Papuans.

8. Teluk Wondama Regency 25 seats: 14 migrants and 11 Indigenous Papuans.

9. Merauke Regency 30 seats: 27 migrants and only 3 Indigenous Papuans.

10. South Sorong Regency 20 seats. 17 migrants and 3 indigenous Papuans.

11. Kota Jayapura 40 seats: Migrants 27 people and 13 indigenous Papuans.

12. Kab. Keerom 23 seats. Migrants 13 people and 7 indigenous Papuans.

13. Kab. Jayapura 25 seats. Migrants 18 people and 7 indigenous Papuans.

Meanwhile, the members of the Representative Council of Papua and West Papua Provinces are as follows:

1.  Papua Province out of 55 members, 44 Papuans and 11 Malays/Newcomers.;
2. West Papua Province, out of 45 members, 28 Malays/Newcomers and only 17 Indigenous Papuans.

Reverend Socratez Sofyan Yoman is a Baptist priest, author and human rights defender from Papua. He filed this article for Asia Pacific Report.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

It is clear and proper that New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade is closely monitoring a concerning situation of deteriorating violence in West Papua.

It is also apparent that groups who have long monitored the security situation in West Papua have contacted the New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, urging her to speak up against the violence and human rights abuses in the Indonesian-controlled state. I believe the Prime Minister should. Here’s why.

When considering the history of West Papua – the increasing violence; the enduring wish of its peoples for self-determination; the arrests on treason charges of those who seek a pathway toward independence; the intensifying concerns of its immediate neighbours Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and the states that make up the Melanesian Spearhead Group – it would be a brave but significant step should New Zealand also add its considerable weight behind a call for a multilateral-led resolution to the West Papua conflict.

New Zealand’s reputation as an honest-broker on global human rights issues, and the Prime Minister’s significant reputation for being able to identify common-ground, and, map out a way forward for parties with disparate interests, would provide significant leverage and resolution to a conflict that is at risk of becoming a human catastrophe.

Also, New Zealand is right, smack, in the middle of the Asia Pacific region. Despite Australia’s historical interests in Melanesia, this is New Zealand’s patch as well. Human rights abuses, conflicts, disorder within our region will impact on New Zealand in the future as they have in the past.

Take the Solomon Islands conflict in the early 2000s. The Melanesian state was descending into civil war. In 2003, I was in Townsville, at an Australian airforce base when the leaders of Melanesian and Polynesian states (including New Zealand’s Helen Clark and Australia’s John Howard) signed a non-aggression pact and sent armed forces to the Solomon Islands to help reestablish peace and progress.

The operation became known as RAMSI (Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands).

Under RAMSI, once order was restored in the Solomon Islands, the countries of this region helped the once chaotic state to establish good governance and government operations, and helped to establish a thriving civil society.

The merits of RAMSI can be seen today in how the Solomon Islands now functions as a progressing state and valuable member of the Pacific Islands Forum.

Regarding West Papua, New Zealand, and indeed the other nations of the region, ought not to permit a repeat of the violence that took hold of East Timor in 1999.

For years those advocating self-determination in East Timor were persecuted and killed by forces and militia loyal to Indonesia’s interests. In 1999 the crisis descended into massacre. In the end, it was estimated over 100,000 people were butchered in an unnecessary and preventable street-conflict.

At the time in 1999, New Zealand was hosting APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Co-Operation) leader’s summit. It was the end of the National Party’s run of government and Jenny Shipley was the prime minister. The government was determined to keep East Timor and its troubles off the APEC agenda. It refused to allow the massacre to be discussed at formal APEC meetings, that is, until the United States’ then president Bill Clinton and Japan’s then prime minister Keizō Obuchi demanded that a special meeting to discuss a multilateral response to the East Timor crisis be held.

While thousands of people were being massacred on the streets of East Timor’s capital, Dili, the leaders of APEC’s nations forged a consensus that became a pathway to peace.

Obuchi’s message to his Indonesian counterpart Habibie was as follows: “East Timor remains in a very difficult situation. But Japan has a good relationship with Indonesia. And Japan will continue to encourage Indonesia to take measures to bring East Timor back to a state of peace.”

He went further with diplo-speak akin to: ‘We are your friend Habibie, you know we are your friend. Afterall we provide you with $2 billion US in humanitarian aid [60 percent of the annual total]. We do not want to take that away from you, to do so will cause hardship throughout Asia, and only bring retaliatory consequences to all. So allow the international peacekeepers in to help you bring about peace. To do so is not an embarrassment. It is recognising the gesture of a friend. And to do so will prevent Japan from having to withdraw its aid to the people of Indonesia.” (ref. Scoop, Selwyn Manning, 1999)

The gesture was significant and began a process that led to East Timor becoming the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste – a self-determining independent state.

I argue here, that there is no need for Asia Pacific’s leaders to sit back and dispassionately observe a disturbing escalation of violence in West Papua.

Timor-Leste’s experience, as does RAMSI – the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands – provide examples of how leaders of a region, who have the willpower, can and do bring warring parties back from the brink of atrocity.

Jacinda Ardern has, for good reasons, obvious diplomatic credentials. She is seen as an honest broker on the world stage. A new generation leader. She is reacquainting New Zealand to a foreign policy that we were once proud of, that is as an independent Pacific Island state. The realignment is something to celebrate. With regard to West Papua, there is an opportunity to use it, and to do good for the people there, who are experiencing persecution and death for their ethnicity and for their political views.

It need not be so.

By Astari Pinasthika Sarosa in Jakarta

The Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior is sailing throughout Indonesia – including West Papua – as a vehicle for environmental campaigns.

Rainbow Warrior has often sailed to remote areas to directly see the environmental issues in the region and immediately act against its destruction.

Recently in the Philippines, this is the first visit to Indonesia since 2013. The Rainbow Warrior will be sailing in the archipelago from this week until next month.

The visit themed Jelajah Harmoni Nusantara will be the longest tour of the Rainbow Warrior.

Its first destination is Papua to witness the natural beauty of Papuan rainforest. The ship’s crew will also see the underwater life of Raja Ampat.

After leaving Papua, the Rainbow Warrior will head to Bali, sampling a rich culture which holds local wisdom, and its beliefs that the best source of energy comes from nature.

The last destination is Jakarta. As the capital city of Indonesia, Jakarta has many issues including pollution and waste.

‘Eco-friendly’ city goal
The Rainbow Warrior aims to help Jakarta to be a more comfortable and eco-friendly city.

“The main point of this tour is to create harmony in protecting the Indonesian environment,” Greenpeace said in a press release.

The name Rainbow Warrior was based on the prophecy of a native American tribe Cree in saying, “When the earth becomes sick and dying, there will come a day when people from all over the world will rise up as the Rainbow Warrior.”

The Rainbow Warrior is the third-generation version of the campaign ship.

The first generation vessel was destroyed by limpet mines. On 10 July 1985, French secret agents planted two bombs and sank the Rainbow Warrior, killing photojournalist Fernando Pereira.

After the bombing, the original Rainbow Warrior ship was towed to Matauri Bay, in New Zealand’s Cavalli Islands, and was submerged as an “alive reef” attracted marine life and recreational divers.

The second Rainbow Warrior sailed for 22 years until 2011 when she was replaced with the third generation Rainbow Warrior.

Like its predecessor, this ship carries out green and peaceful campaigns for the future of the planet.

• Rainbow Warrior – 30 years on … a multimedia microsite
• More Indonesian stories

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz