The Australia West Papua Association has condemned an Indonesian crackdown on a peaceful Papua self-determination rally in Bali at the weekend after a militant nationalist group targeted the Papuan students.

The Papuan Student Alliance (AMP) in Bali City held the rally on Saturday calling on the Indonesian government to hold a referendum for self-determination for the Papuan people.

The theme of the rally was “Democracy and human rights die, Papuan people suffocate” but security forces broke up protest when militants clashed with the students.

“Yet again a simple peaceful rally by West Papuans was forced to be disbanded by police because of the attack on the demonstrators by an Indonesian nationalist group,” said Joe Collins of the AWPA.

“And Jakarta wonders why West Papuans want their freedom.”

A spokesperson for the student group AMP said there was a lack of freedom of expression in West Papua and the human rights situation was getting worse.

As the rally started, it was blocked by members of the Indonesian nationalist group Patriot Garuda Nusantara (PGN).

Intelligence officers
The AMP action coordinator, Herry Meaga, said in a statement that a number of intelligence officers had also been monitoring the clashes.

Meaga said the students had tried to negotiate with a number of the PGN coordinators but the situation deteriorated.

Clashes broke out between the two groups when the PGN crowd started to push the AMP group, and tried to seize their banners.

The PGN threw stones and bottles. There were injuries on both sides as the groups clashed.

According to an article in the Bali Express, about six people from the nationalist PGN were injured and more than a dozen from the student AMP.

Police on standby near the location broke up the demonstration.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A flurry of peaceful rallies and protests erupted in West Papua and Indonesia on Friday, June 3.

Papuan People’s Petition (PRP), the National Committee for West Papua (Komite Nasional Papua Barat-KNPB) and civil society groups and youth from West Papua marched in protest of Jakarta’s plan to create more provinces.

Thousands of protesters marched through the major cities and towns in each of West Papua’s seven regions, including Jayapura, Wamena, Paniai, Sorong, Timika/Mimika, Yahukimo, Lanny Jaya, Nabire, and Merauke.

As part of the massive demonstration, protests were organised in Indonesia’s major cities of West Java, Central Jakarta, Jogjakarta, Bandung, Semarang, Surabaya, and Bali.

Demonstrators said Papuans wanted an independence referendum, not new provinces or special autonomy.

3/6/22 Wamena, West Papua

“Papua: freedom!”
“Referendum: yes!”

Thousands of protestors are rejecting Jakarta’s arbitrary plan to create new provinces and Special Autonomy status. They are demanding an independence referendum. pic.twitter.com/QnxBu8egHp

— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) June 3, 2022

According to Markus Haluk, one of the key coordinators of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), almost all Papuans took to the streets to show Jakarta and those who want to wipe out the Papuan people that they do not need special autonomy or new provinces.

[CW: blood]

This student protestor is the embodiment of West Papuan spirit. Indonesian forces beat him bloody but he will not be silenced.

Jayapura, 3/6/22 pic.twitter.com/knWxevAPvJ

— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) June 3, 2022

Above is a text image that captures the spirit of the demonstrators. A young man is shown being beaten on the head and blood running down his face during a demonstration in Jayapura city of Papua on Friday.

The text urges Indonesia’s president Jokowi to be tagged on social media networks and calls for solidarity action.

Numerous protesters were arrested and beaten by Indonesian police during the demonstration.

Security forces brutalised demonstrators in the cities of Sorong, Jayapura, Yahukimo, Merauke, and elsewhere where demonstrations were held.

Hi Prof. Dr. MAHFUD….. where you get 82% people of West Papua supporting your government’s DOB and Otsus Jilid Il?
Even in these pictures can tell you the real fact that 99, 99% of indigenous West Papuans REJECTED your DOB and the Otonomi Jilid Il. pic.twitter.com/e9SS1QTi71

— WestPapua_SUN (@WestPapua_SUN) June 3, 2022

An elderly mother is seen been beaten on the head during the demonstration in Sorong. Tweet: West Papua Sun

People who are beaten and arrested are treated inhumanely and are not followed up with proper care, nor justice, in one of Asia-Pacific’s most heavily militarised areas.

Among those injured in Sorong, these people have been named Aves Susim (25), Sriyani Wanene (30), Mama Rita Tenau (50), Betty Kosamah (22), Agus Edoway (25), Kamat (27), Subi Taplo (23), Amanda Yumte (23), Jack Asmuru (20), and Sonya Korain (22).

Root of the protests in the 1960s
The protests and rallies are not merely random riots, or protests against government corruption or even pay raises. The campaign is part of decades-old protests that have been carried out against what the Papuans consider to be an Indonesian invasion since the 1960s.

The Indonesian government claims West Papua’s fate was sealed with Indonesia after a United Nations-organised 1969 referendum, known as the Pepera or Act of Free Choice, something Papuans consider a sham and an Act of No Choice.

In spite of Indonesia’s claim, the Indonesian invasion of West Papua began in 1963, long before the so-called Act of Free Choice in 1969.

It was well documented that the 1025 Papuan elders who voted for Indonesian occupancy in 1969 were handpicked at gunpoint.

In the six years between 1963 and 1969, Indonesian security forces tortured and beat these elders into submission before the vote in 1969 began.

Friday’s protesters were not merely protesting against Jakarta’s draconian policy of drawing yet another arbitrary line through Papuan ancestral territory, but also against Indonesia’s illegal occupation.

The Papuans accuse Jakarta of imposing laws, policies, and programmes that affect Papuans living in West Papua, while it is illegally occupying the territory.

Papuans will protest indefinitely until the root cause is addressed. On the other hand, the Indonesian government seems to care little about what the Papuans actually want or think.

Markus Haluk said Indonesia did not view Papuans as human beings equal to that of Indonesians, and this mades them believe that what Papuans want and think, or how Jakarta’s policy may affect Papuans, had no value.

Jakarta, he continued, will do whatever it wants, however, it wishes, and whenever it wishes in regard to West Papua.
In light of this sharp perceptual contrast, the relationship between Papuans and the Indonesian government has almost reached a dead end.

Fatal disconnect
The Lowy Institute, Australia’s leading think-tank, published an article entitled What is at stake with new provinces in West Papua? on 28 April 2022 that identifies some of the most critical terminology regarding this dead-end protracted conflict — one of which is “fatal disconnect”.

The conclusion of the article stated, “On a general level, this means that there is a fatal disconnect between how the Indonesian government view their treatment of the region, and how the people actually affected by such treatment see the arrangement.”

It is this fatal disconnect that has brought these two states — Papua and Indonesia — to a point of no return. Two states are engaged in a relationship that has been disconnected since the very beginning, which has led to so many fatalities.

The author of the article, Eduard Lazarus, a Jakarta-based journalist and editor covering media and social movements, wrote:

That so many indigenous West Papuans expressed their disdain against renewing the Special Autonomy status … is a sign that something has gone horribly wrong.

The tragedy of this irreconcilable relationship is that Jakarta does not reflect on its actions and is willfully ignorant of how its rhetoric and behaviour in dealing with West Papua has caused such human tragedy and devastation spanning generations.

The way that Jakarta’s leaders talk about their “rescue” plans for West Papua displays this fatal disconnect.

Indonesian Vice-President’s plans for West Papua

KOMPAS.com reported on June 2 that Vice-President Ma’ruf Amin had asked Indonesian security forces to use a “humanist approach” in Papua rather than violence.

Ma’ruf expressed this view also in a virtual speech made at the Declaration of Papua Peace event organised by the Papuan Indigenous Peoples Institute on June 6.

In a press release, Ma’ruf said he had instructed the combined military and police officials to use a humanist approach, prioritise dialogical efforts, and refrain from violence.

Ma’ruf believes that conducive security conditions are essential to Papua’s development, and that the government aims to promote peace and unity in Papua through various policies and regulations.

The Papua Special Autonomy Law, he continued, regulates the transfer of power from provinces to regencies and cities, as well as increasing the percentage of Papua Special Autonomy Funds transferred to 2.25 percent of the National General Allocation Fund.

Additionally, according to the Vice-President, the government is drafting a presidential regulation regarding a Papuan Development Acceleration Master Plan (RIPPP) and establishing the Papuan Special Autonomy Development Acceleration Steering Agency (BP3OKP) directly headed by Ma’ruf himself.

He also underscored the importance of a collaboration between all parties, including indigenous Papuans. Ma’ruf believes that Papua’s development will speed up soon since the traditional leaders and all members of the Indigenous Papuan Council are willing to work together and actively participate in building the Land of Papua.

Indonesia’s new military commander

Recently, Indonesia’s newly appointed Commander of Armed Forces, General Andika Perkasa, proposed a novel, humanistic approach to handling political conflict in West Papua.

Instead of removing armed combatants with gunfire, he has vowed to use “territorial development operations” to resolve the conflict. In these operations, personnel will conduct medical, educational, and infrastructure-building missions to establish a rapport with Papuan communities in an effort to steer them away from the independence movement.

In order to accomplish Perkasa’s plans, the military will have to station a large number of troops in West Papua in addition to the troops currently present.

When listening to these two countries’ top leaders, they appear full of optimism in the words and new plans they describe.

But the reality behind these words is something else entirely. There is, as concluded by Eduard Lazarus, a fatal disconnect between West Papuan and Jakarta’s policymakers, but Jakarta is unable to recognise it.

Jakarta seems to suffer from cognitive dissonance or cognitive disconnect when dealing with West Papua — a lack of harmony between its heart, words, and actions.

Cognitive dissonance is, by definition, a behavioural dysfunction with inconsistency in which the personal beliefs held, what has been said, and what has been done contradict each other.

This contradiction, according to Yunus Wonda, deputy chair of the Papuan People’s Representative Council, occurs when the government changes the law and modifies and amends it as they see fit.

What is written, what is practised, and what is in the heart do not match. Papuans suffer greatly because of this, according to Yunus Wonda.

Mismanagement of a fatalistic nature
Jakarta continues to mismanage West Papua with fatalistic inconsistent policies, which, according to the article, “might already have soured” to an irreparable degree.

The humanist approach now appears to be another code in Indonesia’s gift package, delivered to the Papuans as a Trojan horse.

The words of Indonesia’s Vice-President and the head of its Armed Forces are like a band aid with a different colour trying to cover an old wound that has barely healed.

According to Wonda, the creation of new provinces is like trying to put the smoke out while the fire is still burning.

Jakarta had already tried to bandage those old wounds with the so-called “Special Autonomy” 20 years ago. The Autonomy gift was granted not out of goodwill, but out of fear of Papuan demands for independence.

However, Jakarta ended up making a big mess of it.

The same rhetoric is also seen here in the statement of the Vice-President. Even though the semantic choices and construction themselves seem so appealing, this language does not translate into reality in the field.

This is the problem — something has gone very wrong, and Jakarta isn’t willing to find out what it is. Instead, it keeps imposing its will on West Papua.

Jakarta keeps preaching the gospel of development, prosperity, peace, and security but does not ask what Papuans want.

The 2001 Special Autonomy Law was supposed to allow Papuans to have greater power over their fate, which included 79 articles designed to protect their land and culture.

Furthermore, under this law, one important institution, the Papuan People’s Assembly (Majelis Rakyat Papua-MRP), together with provincial governments and the Papuan People’s Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Papua-DPRP), was given the authority to deal with matters that are most important to them, such as land, population control, cultural identity, and symbols.

Section B of the introduction part of the Special Autonomy law contains the following significant provisions:

That the Papua community is God’s creation and is a part of a civilised people, who hold high human rights, religious values, democracy, law and cultural values in the adat (customary) law community and who have the right to fairly enjoy the results of development.

Three weeks after these words were written into law, popular independence leader Theys H. Eluay was killed by Indonesian special forces (Kopassus). Ryamizard Ryacudu, then-army chief-of-staff, who in 2014 became Jokowi’s first Defence Minister, later called the killers “heroes” (Tempo.co, August 19, 2003).

In 2003, the Megawati Soekarnoputri government divided the province into two, violating a provision of the Special Autonomy Law, which was based on the idea that Papua remains a single territory. As prescribed by law, any division would need to be approved by the Papuan provincial legislature and MRP.

Over the 20 years since the Autonomy gift was granted, Jakarta has violated and undermined any legal and political framework it agreed to or established to engage with Papuans.

Papuan Indigenous leaders reject Jakarta’s band aid
On May 27, Governor Lukas Enembe of the settler province of Papua, told Reuters there were not enough resources to run new provinces and that Papuans were not properly consulted.

As the governor, direct representative of the central government, Enembe was not even consulted about the creation of new provinces.

Yunus Wonda and Timotius Murid, two Indigenous Papuan leaders entrusted to safeguard the Papuan people and their culture and customary land under two important institutions — the Papuan People’s Assembly (Majelis Rakyat Papua-MRP) and People’s Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Papua-DPRP) — were not consulted about the plans.

Making matters worse, Jakarta stripped them of any powers they had under the previous autonomous status, which set the precedent for Jakarta to amend the previous autonomous status law in 2021.

This amendment enables Jakarta to create new provinces.

The aspirations and wishes of the Papuan people were supposed to be channelled through these two institutions and the provincial government, but Jakarta promptly shut down all avenues that would enable Papuans to have their voices heard.

Governor Enembe faces constant threats, terrorism
Governor Enembe has also been terrorised and intimidated by unknown parties over the past couple of years. He said, “I am an elected governor of Indonesia, but I am facing these constant threats and terror. What about my people? They are not safe.”

This is an existential war between the state of Papua and the state of Indonesia. We need to ask not only what is at stake with the new provinces in West Papua, but also, what is at stake in West Papua under Indonesia’s settler-colonial rule?

Four critical existential issues facing West Papua
There are four main components of Papuan culture at stake in West Papua under Indonesia’s settler-colonial rule:

1. Papuan humans
2. Papuan languages
3. Papuan oral cultural knowledge system
4. Papuan ancestral land and ecology

Papua’s identity was supposed to be protected by the Special Autonomy Law 2001.

However, Jakarta has shown no interest or intention in protecting these four existential components. Indonesia continues to amend, create, and pass laws to create more settler-colonial provincial spaces that threaten Papuans.

The end goal isn’t to provide welfare to Papuans or protect them, but to create settlers’ colonial areas so that new settlers — whether it be soldiers, criminal thugs, opportunists, poor improvised Indonesian immigrants, or colonial administrators — can fill those new spaces.

Jakarta is, unfortunately, turning these newly created spaces into new battlegrounds between clans, tribes, highlanders, coastal people, Papua province, West Papua province, families, and friends, as well as between Papuans and immigrants.

Media outlets in Indonesia are manipulating public opinion by portraying one leader as a proponent of Jakarta’s plan and the other as its opponent, further fuelling tension between leaders in Papua.

Yamin Kogoya is a West Papuan academic who has a Master of Applied Anthropology and Participatory Development from the Australian National University and who contributes to Asia Pacific Report. From the Lani tribe in the Papuan Highlands, he is currently living in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Evan Wasuka on ABC Pacific Beat

It may be more than a month since Indonesians went to the polls, but the country is still being shaken by violence related to the election, including in the Papua region.

At least six people died in clashes in the capital Jakarta, during protests against the election outcome that saw President Joko Widodo declared the winner over Prabowo Subianto.

There are also reports in the Jakarta Post that post-election violence erupted in the troubled Papua region with investigations taking place into the deaths of four protesters allegedly killed by Indonesian soldiers.

READ MORE: Four shot dead in postelection violence in Papua

LISTEN: ABC Pacific Beat podcast

It comes as President Widodo’s re-elected government has promised greater infrastructure development in Papua province.

But West Papuan activists pushing for independence from Indonesia have declared their election boycott was a success, saying that a majority of West Papuans did not vote.

Benny Wenda, the exiled leader of the United Liberation Movement, called for the peaceful boycott to show that West Papuans were not interested in electing Indonesia’s president.

After the preliminary count came in he claimed that 60 percent of West Papuans had not taken part in the election.

However, the official results from the electoral commission show that 88 per cent of West Papuans did vote.

ULMWP spokesman Ronny Kareni said that while West Papuan activists were glad that Joko Widodo remained in power, they did not think anything would change citing that Joko Widodo had not addressed any of the human rights cases in Papua that he said he would in his first term.

“The trust that has always been there, that gap is widening,” he said.

“The general feeling is that nothing will change, even though Jokowi is back serving for the second time”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

By Benny Wenda, chairman of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua

As chairman of The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), I have presented the West Papuan People’s Petition for self-determination to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet.

With the official support from the government of Vanuatu, on behalf of the people of West Papua, I presented this petition, signed by more than 1.8 million West Papuan people to the United Nations.

To our many friends working in solidarity with the West Papuan struggle all over the world, we thank you for standing with us. Your assistance is vital in our long road to freedom.

And to the people of West Papua, thank you. Today is a proud moment to represent your voices – thank you for never giving up and for courageously coming to the streets and flying the Morning Star flag, despite the brutality you face.

Thank you for your patience, your strength and your spirit. Thank you to so many of you for having the courage to sign the historic People’s Petition – your voice is now in the hands of the United Nations.

We are making progress, together, in unity.

-Partners-

It is my life mission and purpose to do all I can to ensure West Papuans are given an Internationally-Supervised Vote, a referendum. This is what the ULMWP, and all of you, work towards each day. Today is a great moment for us all.

Your humble friend,

Benny Wenda
Chairman of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

A protest action by the Papuan Student Alliance (AMP) in Indonesia’s East Java provincial capital of Surabaya yesterday demanding self-determination for West Papua has been attacked by a group of ormas (social or mass organisations).

Police later raided Papuan student dormitories in the evening and detained 233 students in a day of human rights violations as Indonesian authorities cracked down on demonstrations marking December 1 – “independence day”, according to protesters.

The group, who came from a number of different ormas, including the Community Forum for Sons and Daughters of the Police and Armed Forces (FKPPI), the Association of Sons and Daughters of Army Families (Hipakad) and the Pancasila Youth (PP), were calling for the Papuan student demonstration to be forcibly broken up.

READ MORE: Surabaya counterprotest, 300 arrested in West Papua flag demonstrations

“This city is a city of [national] heroes. Please leave, the [state ideology of] Pancasila is non-negotiable, the NKRI [Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia] is non-negotiable”, shouted one of the speakers from the PP.

At 8.33am, a number of PP members on the eastern side of Jl. Pemuda began attacking the AMP by throwing rocks and beating them with clubs. Police quickly moved in to block the PP members then dragged them back.

The AMP protesters had began gathering at the Submarine Monument at 6am before moving off to the Grahadi building where the East Java governor’s office is located.

However they were only able to get as far as the Surabaya Radio Republic Indonesia (RRI) building before they were intercepted by police from the Surabaya metropolitan district police (Polrestabes) and the East Java district police (Polda).

‘Independence’ day
The AMP demonstration was held to mark December 1, 1961, as the day West Papua became “independent” from the Dutch. For the Papuan people, December 1 is an important date on the calendar in the Papuan struggle which is commemorated every year.

The historical moment in 1961 was when, for the first time, the West Papuan parliament, under the administration of the Dutch, flew the Morning Star (Bintang Kejora) flag, symbolising the establishment of the state of West Papua.

Since then the Bintang Kejora was flown alongside the Dutch flag throughout West Papua until the Dutch handed administrative authority of West Papua over to the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) on October 1, 1962, then to the Indonesian government on May 1, 1963.

The UNTEA was an international mechanism involving the UN to prepare a referendum on whether or not the Papuan people wanted to separate or integrate with Indonesia.

The referendum, referred to as the Act of Free Choice (Pepera), resulted in the Papuan people choosing to be integrated into Indonesia.

Since then, the administration of West Papua has been controlled by the Indonesian government and the flying of the Bintang Kejora illegal – as it is deemed an act of subversion (maker) – and have responded to protests with violence and arrests.

A video of the arrests in Ternate, North Maluku. Video: Arnold Belau/Suara Papua

Police arrest 99 Papuan activists at pro-independence rally in Ternate
Arnold Belau of Suara Papua reports from Jayapura that at least 96 activists from the Indonesian People’s Front for West Papua (FRI-WP) were arrested by police in Ternate, North Maluku, after they forcibly broke up a rally in front of the Barito Market.

A Suara Papua source from Ternate said that the FRI-WP action was closed down by police and intel (intelligence) officers and the demonstrators forced into trucks as they were about to begin protesting in front of the Barito Market.

The source said that several activists were dragged and assaulted as they were forced into the truck.

“Several comrades who were at the action were dragged and forced to get into a truck by police and intel in Ternate,” they said.

The source said that as many as 99 people were arrested, 12 of them from West Papua and the rest activists from FRI-WP. One of the protesters had to be rushed home because because of breathing difficulties.

“One of the people had difficulty breathing and was rushed home. Twelve people were from Papua and the rest from Ternate. Currently they are being taken to Polres [district police station]”, they said.

Ternate district police Tactical Police Unit head (kasat sabhara) Aninab was quoted by semarak.news.com as saying that the protesters would be taken to the Ternate district police station.

‘Given guidance’
“We will take them to Polres, question them. If in the process of delving into the matter it is discovered that they committed a violation then they will be charged, but we will bear in mind that are still young and [they should be] given guidance,” he said.

Earlier, the protesters sent a written notification of the action to the Ternate district police but it was rejected with police saying that the planned action was subversive (maker).

Upon arriving at the Ternate district police station they will be registered and those who originate from Papua will be separated from those from North Maluku.

FRI-WP is demanding that the Indonesian government must resolve human rights violations in Papua and that the Papuan people be given the freedom to hold a referendum to determine their own future.

Background
Although it is widely held that West Papua declared independence from Indonesia on December 1, 1961, this actually marks the date when the Morning Star (Bintang Kejora) flag was first raised alongside the Dutch flag in an officially sanctioned ceremony in Jayapura, then called Hollandia.

The first declaration of independence actually took place on July 1, 1971 at the Victoria Headquarters in Waris Village, Jayapura.

Known as the “Act of Free Choice”, in 1969 a referendum was held to decide whether West Papua, a former Dutch colony annexed by Indonesia in 1963, would be become independent or join Indonesia. The UN sanction plebiscite, in which 1,025 handpicked tribal leaders allegedly expressed their desire for integration, has been widely dismissed as a sham.

Critics claim that that the selected voters were coerced, threatened and closely scrutinised by the military to unanimously vote for integration.

Both of these articles were translated by James Balowski for the Indoleft News Service. The original title of the Surabaya article was “Peringatan 1 Desember Papua, Demo AMP Surabaya Diadang PP & FKPPI” and the Jayapura one “Peringati Hari Lahirnya Embrio Negara Papua Barat, Polisi Tangkap 99 Orang di Ternate”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz