INDONESIA NEEDS THE MILITARY CO-OPERATION of Papua New Guinea, Australia and New Zealand to preserve peace, stability and security in the region. This is an enduring message that was stressed again last week at a function hosted by Indonesian Ambassador to PNG, Bom Soejanto. The function was organised to celebrate the 63rd anniversary of the Indonesian armed forces. Dignitaries from diplomatic corps and senior members of the PNG disciplinary forces were amongst the attendees who gathered at the Ambassador’s residence in Korobosea (Port Moresby). The news article from The National (20/10/08) privileges the relationship between Indonesia and PNG. Ambassador Soejanto reports that Indonesia and PNG enjoy a mutual policy of military co-operation.
Each party has its own defence attache stationed in each other’s capital city. There have been exchange visits by high ranking officers on both sides. There have been bilateral seminars and information sharing though subject matter and expert change. There are also opportunities for PNGDF members to either study or train in Indonesia. The two countries are also co-operating in joint exercises and patrols and joint exercies and patrols and joint border operations due to a defence cooperations agreement drafted three years ago and the draft plan will be finalised soon
Security and internal stability within the region is of paramount importance and it becomes increasingly so when threats from Islamic fundamentalism abound along with the reports of human trafficking and illegal immigration across international borders. However, Indonesia has a particular vested interest in talking about the military co-operation with Papua New Guinea. It is not a mistaken assumption that Indonesia requires the co-operation of PNG in order to maintain its control over West Papua. No doubt part of the co-operation would mean that PNG continues to acknowledge that West Papua is an integral part of Indonesia.
So long as PNG keeps quiet and ignores what Indonesia is doing to West Papua and its indigenous people, that would be seen as part of the deal to co-operate with Indonesia. What Indonesia imposes and executes upon West Papuans is already legitimised under the terms of the agreement and there is no way PNG could speak on behalf of its Melanesian brothers and sisters. In fact it is always a very sad thing to acknowledge that the PNG Government has never showed any moral concern about the plight and struggles of West Papuans. West Papuan resistance to Indonesia’s presence is seen and taken as a threat to the territorial integrity of Indoensia. Under the terms of such mutual co-operation, PNG must support what Indonesia is doing to West Papua and the Melanesians of West Papua.
I wonder what was going on in the hearts and minds of the PNG security personnel who gathered at the Ambassador’s residence to celebrate 63 years of Indonesia’s military anniversary? Apart from the cocktails and finger-foods, I wonder what was going in the hearts and minds of those PNG State Officials who attended the ceremony? I wonder whether if the important PNG State Officials would be thinking about what the Indonesian military has done to countless number of West Papuans who have been killed, murdered, raped and disappeared mysteriously in the last 40 years of Indonesia’s military presence in West Papua? But its not only West Papuans by the way. This celebration is happening only a few months after we heard of Indonesia’s military incursions into PNG and their abuse against Papua New Guineans who live in border villages.
So are we celebrating and therefore participate by complicity in what Indonesian military has done to the Melanesians of West Papua in the last 40 years? I read the message from the Indonesian Ambassador with a pint of salt. It appears as a political strategy to neutralise any kind of moral sensitivity towards the campaign for a FREE and INDEPENDENT West Papua. By emphasising mutual regard and co-operation, the message causes Papua New Guinea and other countries in the region to disregard what the Indonesian military has done and continues to do to West Papuans. Indonesian military has inflicted the most brutal and unconceivable atrocities against the Melanesians of West Papua. Except for diplomacy and State morality, there is no reason to celebrate 63 years of Indonesia military hostility because 40 of those years has been spent on a cruel policy of decimating and obliterating the Melanesian peoples of West Papua.
THE INDONESIAN AMBASSADOR TO PAPUA NEW GUINEA, Mr Bom Soerjanto, has praised the Papua New Guinea Government for the part it has played in blocking the issue of a free and independent West Papua to be raised in the recent meetings of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) and the Pacific Islands Forum. Mr Soerjanto made these remarks recently at a reception held as part of Indonesia’s celebration of its 63 years of independence.
“Mr Soerjanto said the relations [between PNG and Indonesia] had been buoyed by mutually acceptable bilateral arrangements including the basic agreement on border arrangements, the treaty of mutual respect, friendship and co-operation and the recently established joint ministerial commision which serve as major pillars of the existing cooperative relations”.
I do not know what to make of this particular statement. This Ambassador is simply placating the ears of Papua New Guinean and Australian officials who gathered during that reception. The message came out the same time as the reports of Indonesian military planes invading Papua New Guinea’s airspace came out in the press. Indonesian military changed its tactics of intimidation over night shifting from terrestrial to aerial incursions. A few weeks earlier in just this month we read about how Indonesian military have made unwarranted incursions into PNG and have been harassing Papua New Guineans who live in and around the border villages. Despite all these things, the Ambassador could still talk about border arrangements, mutual respect and friendship.
Shifting the attention away from the incursions and hostility waged against Papua New Guineans, the Ambassador praises PNG for supporting the way Indonesia is treating issues of West Papua away from the notice of the Melanesian Spearhead Group and the Pacific Island Forum. This is not the first time PNG has given its back to its Melanesian brothers and sisters who live on the other side of the border. In some fundamental way, the future of the West Papuan people and their campaign for a free and independent West Papua depends on PNG and Australia raising their hands to support this issue. The West Papuans are innocent victims of an international conspiracy, ideological war and corporate capitalism. By listening to Indonesia, PNG has participated in the killings, rapes and the violent exploitation of our Melanesian brothers and sisters through complicity.
The people and government of Vanuatu have made a persistent effort to raise the issue of a free West Papua. In the last two MSG meetings (held in Goroka in PNG and Port Villa in Vanuatu), Vanuatu has pushed the agenda for West Papua to be granted an ”observer status” in the MSG meetings. These attempts were blocked by the PNG Government. In Vanuatu recently, a group of high ranking chiefs have condemned the decision of the MSG to not grant West Papua an observer status in the MSG meetings. These Vanuatu chiefs say that the decision to keep out West Papua in the MSG does not reflect the wishes and aspirations of the Melanesian peoples to see that West Papua is free from Indonesian occupation.
“Human Rights violations against West Papuans continue to happen everyday. How much longer are we going to tolerate these atrocities? When will we have leaders who can take charge adn do what many of us expect of them?”
INDONESIAN MILITARY PERSONNEL have been giving themselves an undeserved freedom and authority to walk through the border between PNG and West Papua over the last several months. Papua New Guinea villagers who live in the border areas have reported that there have been frequent incursions undertaken by Indonesian military personnel. This has gone on without any regard for the border between the two nations. In one of the many such incursions, the soldiers burnt down houses and physically abused Papua New Guinean citizens in the Papua New Guinea side of the border. These actions by the Indonesian military are in complete disregard for the territorial integrity of Papua New Guinea and much more for the human rights of its citizens. For their part, PNG soldiers and policemen have exhibited a remarkable and commendable restraint to not engage Indonesian soldiers when they encountered them in PNGs territory.
The recent incursion brought to light the fact that the Papua New Guinea Government has neglected the border and its people’s rights for some years now. In its management, the border issue has been postponed to the status of an afterthought which attracts government attention only if it appears as a disaster. The PNG Government should do more to step up the security and ability of the soldiers and policemen to keep up a vigilance over the border. Although it demanded an explanation and an apology from Indonesia, no apology has been forthcoming from Jakarta as yet. Instead what we are given is a pathetic reason that the incursions were perpetrated by recently trained soldiers who were ignorant of the border relations between Papua New Guineans and West Papuans who inhabit the border areas.
Reports of Indonesian military infiltration into PNG has been in circulation for atleast some two years now. I am beginning to wonder if the recent incursions is much more than a mistake by some ignorant Indonesian soldiers. Could it be that the soldiers are testing the waters, could it be that the incursions are more deliberate, based on a colonialist design then we are led to believe? Mightn’t it be that the incursions portend a more subtle yet gradual an expansionist agenda that Indonesia is pursuing in the region?
IT IS NOW MORE THAN 20 YEARS since the Papua New Guinea Government aceded to the UN Convention relating to the status of refugees. Since then it has yet to enact a domestic legislation that would provide the framework to enforce and administer the rights of refugees who are seeking shelter and freedom in PNG. This was revealed yet once again when the Minister for Foreign Affairs & Trade, Sam Abal, reveal that government doesnt have a clear policy on how to deal with the West Papuan people who have been living as refugees in the country. Mr Abal was responding to a question put to him by the Governor of National Capital District, Powes Pakop, a long time advocate and campaigner of a Free West Papua!
Whilst PNG aceded to that UN Convention in 1986, it did so with reservations over issues concerning employment, housing, education, freedom of movment and the associated issues of expulsion and naturalisation. In 1996, it endorsed a policy on “limited integration” that allowed West Papuan refugees to be granted to the status of permissive residency. The status gave West Papuans conditional freedom of movement, the right to engage in business and the right of access to health and education facilities. They are, however, not allowed to become members of political associations and to vote in the country’s elections. When the issue of refugees emerged in 2002 with the arrival of Iraqi asylum seekers, PNG received support from organisations such as the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to develop its own national legislation on refugee and asylum-seekers but the Government decided to adopt a simpler model of law proposed by the Pacific Immigration Director’s Conference. However, none of this has translated into a domestic law on refugee and asylum-seekers as yet and neither do we have a fully fledged constitutionally established human rights organisation.
Since their eviction of the West Papuan refugees from the 8mile settlement in Port Moresby, the quest for a resettlement in a different country away from PNG has been an unceasing request. The refugees first gathered outside the UNHCR office in downtown Port Moresby. Complications developed following the death of a prominent magistrate who was attacked within the camp when he drove in there after a night of intoxication. The case has been solved and the people who attacked the magistrate were not West Papuan youths. In fear of their lives the West Papuans took refugee outside the police station in Boroko. From the Boroko station, they have been moved away to the Apex oval and presently attempts are being made to move them to the premises of PNG Trusts in Gerehu.
WEST PAPUA REFUGEES APPEAL FOR RESETTLEMENT IN THIRD COUNTRY
On this day the 1st day of July 2008, the representatives of the West Papua Refugees camped at Apex Park – Boroko, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea – wish to raise the following concerns regarding the continued displacement of their families in Port Moresby.
1. Our status as refugees in PNG:
(i) While the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), the Papua New Guinean Government, and others concerned with the plight of all West Papua Refugees in PNG, continue to deny us refugee status and therefore those rights accorded to refuges under international conventions and treaties, we reassert our claim to refugee status and all it’s implications and meanings. In other words, in the absence of a piece of paper to confirm or attest to our refugee status, our mere existence and treatment since arriving on PNG soil is blinding proof of our right to claim refugee status.
(ii) On this day 37 years ago a West Papua Government in exile was established to lead an independent State of West Papua. This remains the single most important event in West Papuan history that brought on the systematic onslaught by Indonesia to annihilate the aspirations of West Papuan peoples right to Self Determination. We the West Papua Refugees at Apex Park in Port Moresby are a direct consequence of this event 37 years ago and we will never forget or let our children forget, the relentless efforts of Indonesia to render us Stateless, Landless, voiceless and powerless. This (Indonesian) response reverberates across the border and continues to affect our existence and attempts to bring us to our knees, in Papua New Guinea.
We are refugees in every meaning of the word.
Continue reading ‘West Papuan refugees appealing for resettlement’
A HISTORICAL EVENT committed to a free and independent West Papua took place in the Committee Room 13 Main Building of the UK Houses of Parliament last Wednesday 15th of October. The event was the launch of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua. This assocation of international parliamentarians was launched by Hon. Andrew Smith who is the MP for Oxford East in the United Kingdom. Mr Smith along with Lord Richard Harries, Bishop of Oxford, were instrumental in establishing the All Party Parliamentary Group within the UK Houses of Parliament. Several Members of Parliament attended the launching of the “International Parliamentarians for West Papua” including Moanna Carcasses Kalosil (Vanuatu), Lembit Opik (UK), Andrew Smith (UK); Lord Harries (UK). A long time human rights activist and MP in Papua New Guinea, Powes Pakop, was expected but didnot attend the event.
This association of international parliamentarians will strive to address the general cause for self-determination in West Papua by bringing this issue to the attention of international governments and organisations such as the United Nations. A similar organisation involving international parliamentarians played a vital role in the East Timor campaign for independence from Indonesia. We hope and pray that this group of parliamentarians can do the same for West Papua. Further details about this event can be found at http://www.freewestpapua.org.
Often when news of international support gets into the mountains, valleys, rivers and villages of West Papua, people there often rise up to express their anguish about how much they are tormented and repressed by Indonesian military and colonial presence. This has provoked a predictable pattern of violence inflicted by the Indonesian military because Indonesia sees any kind of Papuan resistance as a threat to its internal security. Indonesian security personnel are often deployed immediately to contain this swelling tide of resistance.
Last Thursday (16/10/08) about 2000 West Papuans gathered in Jayapura calling out for FREEDOM and INDEPENDENCE from Indonesia. The Indonesian Government reacted by sending in truck loads of security forces to quell the uprising. Some details about this protest march is provided by REUTERS. As the committee of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua was being launched in London, the Indonesian Embassy in Papua New Guinea organised a function in Port Moresby to call for closer military co-operation with Papua New Guinea on matters relating to the border and other security issues in the region.
A news article in the Post Courier indicated that there is an ongoing unrest in Jayapura and Papua New Guineans are warned against traveling into Jayapura because they would be easily mistaken for being West Papuans. No doubt the unrest that is going on in various parts of Jayapura, Abepura and Sentani are related directly to last week’s march for independence in Jayapura. Anecdotal accounts report that 3 West Papuans in the Waena area have been shot dead by Indonesian military as a result of these protests. The Indonesian military has beefed up its strength by increasing the number of soldiers in stations near the border. Papua New Guinea’s capacity to monitor the border has been lagging for a considerable number of years now.
THE VANUATU COUNCIL OF CHIEFS have opened their arms again to embrace a group of West Papuans who are seeking refuge in another country. This group of West Papuans, numbering 148 persons who come from 25 families have been forced out by the sanction of an eviction order served on them to vacate the land on which they have made their homes for the last 30 or so years in the 8 Mile settlement located outside Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea. Since their original eviction last year, these West Papuan families have been moving around various parts of Port Moresby seeking a more permanent home as they await the hope of a free and independent West Papua.
As it can be seen in a recent article in the National newspaper (07/10/08), the message from the Mal Vatu Mauri National Council of Chiefs is far from being a warm and sympathetic embrace. This group of West Papuans in PNG are entangled in a complex multiple-bind that would defer their hopes for a permanent settlement. While UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) granted them the status as refugees and the PNG Government gave them the status of permissive residency in 1980, both the UNHCR and the PNG Government now want these West Papuans to return home to West Papua.
The West Papuans do not want to return home as yet in fear of their lives. They explain that while the ”UNHCR wanted us to go back to West Papua but the sad fact is that we will be dead when we go back. UNHCR arranged for some of our Melanesian brothers to back to East Awin in 2001 and none of those who got repatriated are alive today; they are all dead”.
The question is if the UNHCR and the PNG Government want to see these West Papuans return home, what guarantee can they provide for their saftey and well-being when they return? Is this a means by which we can easily turn a blind eye to the situation in West Papua and pretend as if all is well and good while we sit back and in complicity, participate with the Indonesian soldiers to continue to kill and murder our fellow Melanesian brothers and sisters in order to suffocate their quest for a free and independent West Papua?
While Vanuatu has expressed its desire and willingess to accomodate this group of destituted West Papuans, international regulations on refugees would not allow this possibility to eventuate. A spokesman of this West Papuan group, Freddy Waromi, mentioned that while the “Vanuatu Council of Chiefs has indiciated to adopt us as Melanesian brothers and sisters, the only problem is that Vanuatu is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Charter”.
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