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Indonesian military border raids in PNG demonstrate an established pattern

Posted on July 19th, 2008 by Nick.
Categories: Uncategorized.

July 19, 2008

Over the last week in PNG, several platoons of Indonesian Military have crossed into Papua New Guinea and conducted highly provocative and violent actions in many places along the border. Our local networks fear that this part of a campaign of destabilisation and intimidation that is preceding a TNI backed economic control action.
The Indonesian military’s offical explanation is that these are the actions of young ill disciplined soldiers, and rogue elements. However, the release of the East Timor report elarier this week finding (and accepted by Indonesia) that the TNI bears institutional responsibility for the violence in East TImor, this argument no longer washes with anyone.
In the latest incident on Tuesday 15 July, over 100 villagers in were displaced and homeless after Indonesian soldiers allegedly raided their village and burnt houses, in the village of Kwara near the border in according to the Western Province Police Commander.

The raid was staged by a platoon-sized group of Indonesian soldiers, and police described it as an act of unprovoked aggression on PNG citizens living in Kwara village close to the PNG-Indonesian border last Tuesday. The full article is at http://www.thenational.com.pg/071808/nation1.php

The developing situation has been acknowledged in the debate that is occurring in PNG about border security. There are many within the defence community within PNG and Australia that believe the Indonesian military threat to PNG is real, and immediate. Particularly relevant is that the new MP for Sandaun and Forest Minister, Belden Namah, called for an urgent repositioning of PNGDF assets to reflect its defence role, and for both Royal Pacific Islands Regiments bases to be “moved to Vanimo’s hinterlands to watch the border on a 24-hour basis to monitor illegal activities and security threats”. However, the PNGDF‟s position is that this all comes down to a matter of funding, and this will not happen while the charade persists that there are no human or military security threats in the border zone[1].

Bolstering these claims also is the recent action by members of TNI 408 Battalion in harassment and intimidation across into PNG. Our networks informed of five incursions by Indonesian soldiers between May 30 and July 13 to Wutung from Skouw (West Papua). According to “The National” (PNG):

INDONESIAN soldiers have defied diplomatic and military protocols and continue to violate international border agreements with Papua New Guinea. Government Ministers Belden Namah (Forest) and his Housing and acting Internal Security colleague, Andrew Kumbakor, were told by villagers and PNG Defence Force personnel at Wutung in Vanimo, Sandaun province, that there had been numerous border incursions allegedly made by the Indonesians at the end of May, June and this month, with the latest being last Saturday and yesterday evening.

In one such incident, army personnel said the Indonesians defaced a cement PNG border monument at Wutung by spray-painting it with their 408 battalion symbol.”

Angry PNG police and soldiers could not retaliate as there were no specific rules of engagement in place. Instead, all they could do was face the Indonesians and order them to leave PNG soil.

The ministers and Sandaun Governor Simon Solo were in Vanimo yesterday to get a first-hand briefing from provincial government officials, police and PNG Defence Force personnel on the ground on these alleged illegal crossings.

The parliamentarians were taken to Wutung to talk to the villagers and shown the locations where fully-armed Indonesian soldiers had crossed over into PNG territory.

Reports said on June 28, seven PNGDF soldiers led by Sgt Francis Kure met [members of} an armed Indonesian battalion and their commander and senior officers about 600 metres inside PNG territory and 100m from Wutung village and ordered them to retreat.

“They also defaced the PNG border monument by spray-painting their battalion’s 408 sign on it,” Sgt Kure said. Villager and retired police sergeant Patrick Ante and his family, who have just built their home along the border, were allegedly harassed by the Indonesians last Saturday.

Mr Ante recalled: “Six armed soldiers with a major came at around 11.30am (on Saturday) and intimated me for about two hours, telling me to remove my house, take my family and get out of this place.

“They said that I was on Indonesian soil,” Mr Ante said.

“I told them that this is my land and Wutung land goes another 6km all the way to River Tami in the Indonesian side of the border.

“They then went to the side of the cliff and erected two ladders to climb down to the beach. They then returned to their barracks across the border.”

Police officer Snr Const Joshua Umio, attached to the border post, said they encountered 10 armed soldiers on May 30 and June 16 inside PNG soil and told them to go back.

Defence Minister Bob Dadae could not travel to Vanimo yesterday due to electoral matters in his Kabwum electorate, Morobe province. Deputy provincial administrator Tobias Welik said intelligence reports from the province had been send to all concerned authorities but seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. “The information sent by the provincial intelligence committee to the national security advisory council is collecting dust at Waigani. “Nobody seems to care,” Mr Welik said.

A proposed joint border meeting has been deferred for two years.

Of the 59 PNGDF soldiers in Vanimo, a platoon of 25 personnel goes on a rotation basis for two weeks to be based at Wutung.

Upon arrival at the Jacksons Airport in Port Moresby at 8.15pm from Vanimo yesterday, Mr Namah and Mr Kumbakor were told that an Indonesian military aircraft had allegedly flown over Vanimo at about 7pm.

Mr Namah had vowed to table a report about these events in Parliament.

Of course the Indonesian response is typical, playing down any deliberate actions.“They were been deployed there around May 2008 and did not receive technical briefing of the boundary and had mistakenly crossed into the PNG side of the border. Most of them are young and must have been carried away by the beautiful scenery and did not realize what they had done,” Hakim said. “They will briefed soon from their officers on the boundary’s location.” PNG Defence Force commander Commodore Peter Ilau said yesterday that he had received a letter on Monday from Indonesian military hierarchy in Jakarta expressing regrets about these incidents. “We must understand that Indonesia has an army that is hundred times bigger than ours and sometimes commanders have difficulties in controlling their younger soldiers,” he said.

However the obvious question raised is if many, many villages are reporting similar incidents and the same modus operandi, is this not an indication that regular and provocative border incursions are occurring and that this displays a pattern of systematic violations that generally and historically are known to precede armed operations and even invasion.

In previous project areas, members of the network personally intercepted Indonesian military posing as logging workers from the company Border International (a company in a complex relationship with Rimbunan Hijau, sharing equipment and personnel with RH sites throughout both sides of Papua, despite denials). This was in areas over 20 km inland from the border zone, on logging roads pushed through illegally from the Arso district. Basic satellite surveillance, even on Google Earth, will confirm the existence of the logging roads. There are no PNG border monitoring posts in this area (on the PNG side), although there are TNI posts every 3 kilometres, and 6 kilometres in more difficult terrain. Each post has minimum strength of a platoon. While there is zero monitoring whatsoever of an open border there is no limit to the amount of military incursion that have and do happen, and no one can verify this situation. Our monitoring project hopes to reverse this situation, for the benefit of the local population, PNG as a whole, and the wider Melanesian region.

Additionally, the border security situation is not helped by the overkill buildup of hostile combat military forces in all border regions by the TNI. The Army Chief of Staff Gen. Djoko Santoso has called for the addition of a third Kostrad (Strategic Reserve Command) Division for the border region, adding to the regular Territorial battalions and Kopassus[2].

Urgent questions must be answered on why the TNI is continuing with a massive troop buildup on the border. Is it to launch military action across the border into PNG for “limited” security reasons? Is it for border defence against the perception of a foreign invasion? Or is it the far more likely dual scenario of preventing refugees from leaving, and to protect its lucrative illegal cross border smuggling regime?

These are questions that only a thorough, on-the-ground human security monitoring programme can assess properly.
The Australian Government must acknowledge the truth that the Indonesian military is a Rogue Element in itself, and start confronting the reality that the TNI is a mafia with economic control aims. And now they are into large scale Oil Palm……. Doing things now prevent crises developing.

[1] PNG defence chief says relocating border bases comes down to funding” PNG Post-Courier, 11 October, 2007

[2] More troops eyed for Papua by 2014 Jakarta Post 13 Sep 07 www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20070913.H01

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