Posted on December 13th, 2006 by Nick. Categories: Uncategorized.
Cry the Morning Star: West Papuan struggle and identity in the face of Annihilation talk by Nick Chesterfield at First Nations Struggles,
2nd Latin American and Asia Pacific Solidarity Gathering
Sunday October 22, 2006 I bring you warm greetings of struggle from the Land of the Bird of Paradise, the first peoples of which have been fighting for 44 years against the brutality of Indonesian militarism and colonialism upon their Sacred Land. As a man of proud Kaurna descent, I acknowledge the generosity of custodianship of the traditional owners of country on which I now stand, the Wurundjeri of the Kulin nations, and especially the welcome to country that has been provided to West Papuan people in this Land.I thank and am humbled also for the opportunity to talk to this inspiring gathering for proud indigenous warriors for peace and justice, and activists from both sides of our Pacific. It is slightly ironic that today we are looking at West Papuan identity and I have to deliver an apology from West Papuan speakers for not being able to speak. However, I, as a man connected through song and ancient blood to West Papuan people, am speaking here in solidarity with West Papua. It is up to us all here to remind the world that we believe in what our ocean describes us as. I hope we can make some effective and lasting connections so we can take on the forces together that make indigenous people’s lives hell right across the Asia Pacific region.I would like to start this with a little story of the Land that reinforced in my understanding the connection of Papuans to land and all in it, and to a strong and shared indigenous identity that defines their struggle for freedom.
Last June I was running through the forests on a harrowing refugee mission across the West Papuan border, when I came to a strong realisation about the timelessness of West Papuan identity.
At the time, we were meeting refugees to take on a final crossing who after weeks literally running for their lives finally rested in a safe(ish) place. The TNI – the Indonesian military – were after the group, and we had just emerged from an area that had seen massive human rights abuses and removal of people from their land and put into concentration camps. Exhausted, all our crew collapsed just inside PNG knowing that for now the TNI would not be shooting at us tonight. Too tired and unsafe still to start a cooking fire, we - West Papuans, PNG people and myself – tried to relax. Into our camp, a blue tongue lizard came and lay between our group as we were lying in the forest avoiding the Indonesian Army patrols across the valley.
As the Maltanuangga (in my language group) came between us, one of the students remarked “that is my brother”. “Mine too” said a old friend from the inside, “our name is nungga” . “Narapela brata bilong mi tu,” from my brother. I looked at them all in delayed but acceptant shock, as that is my skin also, even the same word across thousands of kiolmetres, and wondered at the situation that developed in the middle of the jungle. Same mission, same dreaming, all of us lizard brought together in the same place, connected by storylines far more ancient than any invader has even had a culture, let alone an alien presence in our land.
Re-energised, we all sang our song together, same tune, different languages. We were aware of ceremony having the same form, and very quietly we all danced the same dance. It was a realisation that even after 44 years of genocide on West Papuan people, and over 236 years of genocide on my ancestors, (not to mention 8000 years of water) we still shared the same law and song. It connected me to the identity of struggle and realised as long as West Papuan people survived, they would resist.
West Papuan people are surviving despite attempted genocide, although this will not be the case if left unchallenged. But in the face of annihilation, even survival is a profound act of resistance. It is almost impossible to gain an accurate picture of the extent of genocide, due to, the fact that the Indonesian military ruthlessly forbids outsiders from conducting effective research into human rights abuses. The TNI routinely target both indigenous and Indonesian human rights workers, with many of our colleagues having been killed and arrested. The internationally agreed death toll since the invasion in 1962 directly attributable to violent means is a minimum of 100,000 -200,000 people. However if one considers that since 1962, the populations of PNG and West Papua were neck and neck at 1.2 million people. Today, PNG has a population of 5.7 million, yet West Papua has an indigenous population of 1.7 million people. What has happened to the rest? It is a question those who deny the scale of abuse must answer.
Right across West Papua, people are intensifying and asserting their right to their own identity, from knowing the world is finally beginning to pay attention to their immense suffering. West Papuan people have suffered from a daily marginalisation in their own land that makes apartheid look just, and West Papuans are routinely subjected to harassment, arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, torture, extra judicial killings. There is a systematic pattern of abuse and routine crimes against humanity that constitute clear acts of genocide.
However, most powerful is the force of cultural identity that challenges the very core of the occupation. The TNI are so threatened by West Papuans finding pride in who they are, that they brutally suppress any display or reverence for indigenous culture, including punishing people for speaking their languages.
Things that are uniquely Melanesian are always held up as symbols for freedom in West Papua. Key in the formation of the West Papuan national identity is the unifying story of the morning star. The Morning Star Flag is a potent symbol of resistance that West Papuans regularly are killed and arrested for. Little wonder the Morning Star has became a symbol of freedom, a representation of independence, and of a longing to be at home in one’s own land. There is a powerful creation story of Kumeseri – the Morning Star – in the Biak language. Legend has it that Manarmakeri, a humble village man, caught Kumeseri as the heavenly light descended to earth to drink palm wine. Manarmakeri struck a bargain with the star, receiving the gift of peace and renewal in return for letting Kumeseri go. Refusing to keep the gift for his tribe alone, Manarmakeri left West Papua on a journey to garner support for a new age of freedom, peace, and justice. Simply showing the morning star can bring death by TNI.
The perfect ilustration of this is the case of Filip Karma. Arrested in 2004, he was gaoled for 15 years with Yusak Pakage for treason. He suffered extreme beatings, torture and a rigged trial. His Crime? Peacefully raising the Morning Star Flag in Abepura on Decemeber 1st, 2004.
One of the most dearly loved figures in West Papuan resistance was the renowned musician and anthropologist, Arnold Ap. Ap was disturbed at the gradual erosion of Papuan identity through ethnic cleansing occurring, especially with the genocidal transmigration policy filling up Papua at the time with Javanese Islamic immigrants.
Ap formed the cultural group “Mambesak”, meaning Bird of Paradise in the Biak language – the symbol of the island of Papua itself - to proudly sing and dance traditional songs in language and in traditional clothing. He had been arrested and threatened repeatedly by the military for daring to give pride to something they wanted wiped out, and he knew that that his days were coming to a close. Just before he was murdered, he recorded in his prison cell his last song, ‘The Mystery of Life’. ‘The only thing I desire and am waiting for’, Ap sung in the closing words of the song, ‘is nothing else but freedom’. Like his music and life, the words came from the heart and gave voice to a desire that was at once personal and political, particular to his situation, but shared by all West Papuans. When Arnold Ap first began his work, however, many failed to understand his true purpose. ‘Maybe you think what I am doing is stupid’, he once said, ‘but it is what I think I should do for my people before I die’. Yet Arnold Ap knew something of the animating spirit of Papua that shaped and inspired his people. Mambesak’s simple underlying truth was that ‘we are Melanesians and this is our land’;
(Paragraph With thanks to Alex Rayfield, “Singing for Life”, Inside Indonesia 78 http://insideindonesia.org/edit78/p07-8_rayfield.html)
“We must Sing for Life. Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow.”
Like singing for life, the carefully planned operation that resulted in the arrival on Cape York of the outrigger canoe with 43 West Papuan asylum seekers – one for each year of occupation - in January was also formulated as a cultural action, as well as a international non-violent action. The boat, made from one tree selected 18 months before the voyage, was made to the same design, and even made in the same shipyard, as the boats that the Polynesians peopled the Pacific with. The boat was intended to inspire people across the Pacific, and by using indigenous knowledge we all managed to outsmart every foil put in the way. During the search and rescue I was asked by the Navy at a 2 am coordination phone hook up how I was so confident they would find their way across. I just replied, “the Morning Star guides them, as it has for tens of thousands of years. They have only been doing that crossing for 8000 years, they are just returning to their old place. You mob have only had 200 years, and you still don’t know the currents. Remember whose land this is.” They could not argue with that. And they found them sitting happily under a tree. The outrigger certainly did the trick, and caused the necessary attention to show what is happening in West Papua.
In May, I was sent inside to locate and assist 600 students – the entire West Papuan student population - to get to safety across to PNG, but we only successfully made contact with 125 of these. The rest were either imprisoned, or unaccounted for, with up to 200 still feared dead. The stories I heard were ones of sheer terror and harrowing survival, even for a man who has heard and seen too much. Young indigenous People who were targeted for no other reason than their identity as Papuan people and that maybe some of them had been involved in peacefully demonstrating their opposition to the destruction of their country by the giant Freeport copper and gold mine, the largest mine on Earth.
There are conservative estimates that tens of thousands of people have been killed by the TNI security forces since the 1970s in the Freeport project area, funded at over US$50 million per year by Freeport McMoRan. The environmental devastation wreaked by the company is unparalleled, with poisoned tailings washed into the Ajikwa river, poisoning all animal and plant life in its path and wider, and destroying medicine and food sources for the Kamoro and Amungme peoples. The tailings mess is even visible from space. West Papua was invaded by Indonesia for this gold mine which provides 49% of Indonesian revenue, not including the bribes paid to the military.
On March 16 of this year, students and indigenous people from right across West Papua took dramatic action highlight the plunder of their Land by the Rio Tinto owned Freeport mine. According to the students interviewed in the border area, they took action to demand the Indonesian government and Freeport stop operations in Timika. It turned violent, with 5 agents provocateur killed by the crowd in a defensive action. The military, incensed at this challenge to their 43 years of impunity, responded in its usual brutality by issuing orders to take out the movement and attacked all the students, hunting down every last student in West Papua. It was a blatant attempt to massacre an entire generation of indigenous people defending their Land.
Most international commentators fail to grasp the importance of land to Papuan people. Careful custodianship and respect for Land is absolutely central to Melanesian identity, and those who seek to damage it for the future and considered akin to those who would rob and beat their grandmother. Land is Life in Melanesia, it is that simple. All this compounds the tragedy that is happening right across West Papua, not just with mining, but with 27 of the world’s most lucrative natural resources in large quantities present, what hope is there for those who seek to protect their Land? The corporations plundering there we all know well: Freeport /Rio Tinto, BP, Bechtel, Halliburton, BHP Billiton, the usual suspects. Even urban West Papuans are deeply hurt by the destruction of their land. One West Papuan told me that the reason the outsider is so brutal to Papuans is simply because they are in the way. In the way of a Mountain of Gold sitting on an Ocean of Oil.
We uncovered evidence within the northern border regions of systematic campaign of forest peoples being “cleared” from the forest during military run illegal logging operations, with many being killed. It is ironic that this is the same terminology they used on my ancestors. The military then takes them to central concentration camps which are inaccessible unless you have a pass, and the local people are not allowed out, with no access to health care or even basic sanitation. There is a word for forcible removal of populations on the basis of race, and I think we all know what this is. All of this is to fulfil the order for 800 million cubic metres of merbau timber, for the Chinese Olympic stadium. Destruction of people and planet for two weeks of drugged up sport.
It takes indigenous people to show that if you disrupt the balance of what is, you put the very existence of all life on earth at threat. Case in point is with the Indonesian military controlled illegal logging of the largest area of ancient rainforest on Earth. Not only are the military backed loggers committing crimes against humanity, but crimes against the planet and all our future. Being the natural generator the Asia Pacific monsoonal cycle, it does not take a rocket scientist to understand what happens if we lose any more forest in Papua. No Monsoon, no rain in China or Australia. No crops, no food. No food, no economy. No China buying our resources, no food to feed Australia. No water. With 2 billion hungry people in China – and we think we have global security issues now! Simply the naked self interest of our own human survival compels us to take action in defence of what West Papuans are trying to defend.
However, there are those in Australian public life, very closely linked not just the Indonesian military but with big business interests like Rio Tinto, who seek to cloud the facts of what is happening on the ground. It is in their interests to deny the scale of suffering so they can rip the natural resources out of Papua away from international concern. It is a powerful force, loosely termed the Jakarta Lobby. Recently, West Papua supporters have been made out by the Jakarta Lobby to be muddle headed idealists with no understanding of the strategic realities of the region. The Lowy institute report “Pitfalls of Papua”, written by a Jakarta Lobby academic, Rodd McGibbon, says that the pro-Jakarta forces have lost the battle of public opinion with the “West Papua Constituency”, with a national news poll finding that 76.7 % of Australians supported self-determination for West Papua. It urges the government to engage in the battle of ideas to counter our “Undue influence in the operations of Government in the Asia Pacific region”. If only they realised that full time West Papua activists in this country can really be counted on two hands. Myself and other comrades are heavily attacked with slander and innuendo, yet nowhere is there anything concrete apart from character assasination. However, nowhere in Pitfalls does McGibbon actually deny the scale of corruption and human rights abuses by the security forces and Indonesian government. It is interesting that after McGibbon completed his report, he was made Deputy Director of the Office of National Assessments, the highest spy agency in the country. We should be flattered really.
There seems to be no actual consideration whatsoever to the views of and the impact upon individual Papuan lives. The implied tone of this report is one of a return to white colonialist policy, as once again, never are the interests of West Papuan people even canvassed, let alone taken into account. It is all about the interests of the Dutch, the Americans, Australia, and the invaders, Indonesia. Someone is missing from the picture of determining the future of West Papua. But who could those people be?
Ah, that is right. West Papuans. It is only their country that they have been custodians of for over 20,000 years. Damn pesky black people, always getting in the way of resource theft, empires and white men. As a long term activist for indigenous peoples, and a man of Kaurna heritage, I have to say “Bloody whitefella: You take a country over and kill a people, and then tell everyone else, well we did it, so you can too.” Well some of us don’t believe that any more, whitefellas too.
It is vital that people in Australia and across the Pacific take action to stand with West Papua. After all, we are suffering from the same corporations, the same shared history of white man (and their Javanese proxy) greed, the same threat to the survival of life on Earth itself.
But finally I will close with the word of two inspirational figures in The Struggle for freedom in West Papua, John and Jacob Rumbiak.
“This is not the struggle of West Papuans alone, but for all those who believe in respect for other human beings and their cultures and in respect and reverence for this beautiful planet on which we all depend for life.”
“We win today, because we start today”
Free West Papua! Papua Merdeka!
Hunted for Being Students: West Papua
– Nick Chesterfield July 2006
While the situation facing students in Australia is grim because of the actions of the Howard government, please spare a thought for your sisters and brothers, the students of West Papua. They have not been able to attend university or any educational institution in West Papua since March 16 this year, not because of lack of funding, but because they are all being hunted down and exterminated by the Indonesian military (TNI) for the crime of being Papuan and students.
I have just returned from a gruelling and harrowing mission to the West Papuan border to locate the entire university student body of West Papua, reportedly in hiding somewhere in the jungle to escape the brutality of the TNI. The results are not so good, with over 200 feared murdered, 23 in prison and 202 missing. We only accounted for 150 of these young leaders.
These students are just like you and me. They are students of law, health care, engineering, urban planning, arts, media, teaching and seminarians. They are young women and men who decided that they couldn’t stand to see the destruction of their country and the genocide of their people any longer, and took action.
Throughout the beginning of March this year, the West Papuan community organised protest against the giant US- and Rio Tinto owned Freeport Mine, the world’s largest mine. According to student leader from Timika: “Freeport mine is and had been the cause of human rights abuse, destruction of environment and is part of the problem; and the first place, we are the landowners and were not involved in the start of the Agreement. The Indonesians and America signed the Agreement without consulting the landowners,. That is why we students support the landowners to come to negotiations.”
Tens of thousands of people have been killed by the TNI security forces in the Freeport project area, funded at over US$50 million per year by Freeport McMoRan. The environmental devastation wreaked by the company is unparalleled, with poisoned tailings washed into the Aikwa river, poisoning all animal and plant life in its path and wider, and destroying medicine and food sources for the Kamoro and Amungme peoples. One can even see the tailings mess from space.
In this context, students from the main university, UNCEN Cenderawasih (Bird of Paradise) in Abepura, just outside of Jayapura, took to the streets to defend their wantoks. Students, including Indonesian supporters, had also just been involved in the occupations of the PT Freeport HQ in Jakarta, which resulted in most of that building getting destroyed in the process. The military were incensed at this challenge to their 43 years of impunity and so issued orders to take out this movement.
“We started protesting on the 15th, by blocking the roads to UNCEN. We continued on the 16th when we made the main demand to close the Freeport mine. The authorities didn’t respond to the demand, and the Brimob {special forces police) and POLRI started to divide us into two groups: 1 from {on} Jayapura side and 1 from {on} Sentani side; and {they} tried to break the roadblock {set up by the students}. Also at the time, there were negotiations undergoing with the police and military, and an airforce intelligence officer was in the protest. He threw the first stones at police to provoke violence. That is when the clash started. Polri and Brimob attacked with tear gas and bullets and were firing into the crowd, and then the students responded with stones and sticks, which is when the police and intelligence were killed. As I was one of the organisers of the demonstration, I know I would be a target, and will be killed. This is why we fled to PNG.”
This was captured on film by Father Peter Woods, who played it to the world when he got back to Australia a few days later. Immediately after the demonstration, students fled to the jungle behind the university where 16 bodies were later found at the most heavily guarded rubbish dump in the region. The TNI launched Operasi Wanyambe to hunt down and eliminate every West Papuan student at UNCEN, and in the words of Ali Murtopo, one of the founders of Kopassus, the creator of Jemaah Islamiyah in 1978, and the man who infamously said “vote for Indonesia or we will cut out your tongues” in the 1969 “Act of Free Choice”: “to kill a snake we have to kill all its babies”.
Students fanned out across West Papua, some hiding for a week, some heading east, and some trying to return to their houses only to find them burnt down and their families missing. The TNI were close behind them, and shot at sight. One group I met with described to me the helicopters chasing them and shooting randomly when they got to an area they had information the students were hiding in. One group tried to flee by boat, but the navy chased them down, rammed the boat and stabbed to death one student first in the water, then in the boat. They picked up three others and they are all in prison, being tortured daily.
Add to this, is a massive buildup of heavy combat military hardware to find the students, and to launch an invasion across the border to PNG. This is imminent. At each border crossing there are four tanks, and in an area where the students were suspected there are now 2500 soldiers hunt ing them down. From the north coast to Sengi, there are 14,500 troops, and 13,500 to the south coast. On the PNG side, there are, well, 5 (five) soldiers.
The TNI are building camps with the militia in the Arso Wembi district amongst many others, and Laskar Jihad and Jemaah Islamiyah (the hard drinking “Muslim” fundamentalists) have started death squads. Since late February, over 40 people have been brutally murdered at night around Wembi, usually by their throats being slashed and then disemboweled.
One particular incident that occurred was when a young Papuan couple were coming back from the markets in Jayapura. On the evening of March 13, after dark, ninja militias stopped this young couple on the road just east of Arso, late because of breakdown, and killed them with swords. They disemboweled both of them, and allegedly then while still alive slashed their throat. They dumped them in a ditch, covered them with banana leaves, dumped their motorbike on top of them and covered that too with banana leaves. The next morning, our interviewee found them because of the amount of blood on the road, and after alerting their family, ran to PNG.
There is no connection between any of the victims apart from the fact that they are all Papuans and from the same region. The killings are completely terroristic, and completely random. This is clear evidence of a deliberate campaign of extermination of West Papuan people. These are acts that fit the legally accepted definitions of of genocide. The international community must act now. How many acts of Genocide does is take to make the world see that Genocide is happening?
When you think of your struggle with VSU, in West Papua even belonging to the student union is a death sentence for you and your family. One student had his mother captured by Kopassus, severely beaten for three days, burnt with cigarettes and sexually assaulted, and the whole family is under threat. Most students have a litany of losing family members to the military and all students have close relatives tortured at the hands of John Howard’s best friend. This is happening every day - Is it any wonder people will try to get out as quickly as possible to a safe place?
Currently 23 students are in prison for this without trial.
We can make a difference here in Australia and it is our support that will help end this genocide. The actions of our government in appeasing Indonesia are so shameful that even Johnny’s own party are splitting like the mountains around Freeport. The change of our Immigration law is the same as the Swiss border guards turning back the Jews to the Nazis. Will you stand by and let our nearest neighbor suffer the genocide that has been going on for 43 years, or will you do something about it. We – ordinary people - did it with East Timor, and we can do it again. We need every university in Australia to have activities around West Papua and to organise in solidarity with their sibling students on our doorstep. We need people to activate to bring these students to safety, or to make the conditions safe in their homeland. We have already managed to make a very spectacular intervention at the Rio Tinto AGM in Melbourne earlier this year, and get the issue staying on the front page of the corporate media. Let us together hear the cry of freedom of West Papua, raise the Morning Star Flag and Cry Merdeka!
Nick Chesterfield is a long time human rights activist and a coordinator with the Free West Papua Campaign Pacifica based in Melbourne. He can be contacted 0409 268 978
talk at
Militarism in the Asia Pacific
SoS 2006, UQ, BrisVegas, July 11, 2006
Story Body:
I was going to talk to you about the War on our own doorstep, and how the Indonesian military or TNI, have, as a client of Western capital, run roughshod over the rights of people in our region, and in West Papua in particular….
However this reality is certainly not that simple, and certainly the fault does lie exclusively with Australia the US and UK, and to think that we are at fault exclusively would be shortsighted at the least, and dangerous to boot. Rather it is an understanding that we are facing a beast with an ancient history of more than 3000 year old culture of impunity. This talk will obviously be just skimming the surface of something the Australian people must pay more attention to. In fact, this could easily be a book or a 13 part series (if anyone feels like making one, please see me after this!).
The key to instability in our region is the fact that the largest immediate threat is not a regular military force or this great phantom of Al Qaeda. It is also not the US, believe it or not. It is the TNI, an International Mafia of Terror. This military comes from the ancient Javanese caste of ksatria, or the warriors. If you are born a boy, and your father and grandfather are ksatria, then “destiny” will claim you. This is just the way it has been for a very long time, and the ksatria together with a brahmin caste, have forced the Javanese forced to adhere to this strange mix of Hinduism and Islam (the only form of Islam where the elite kept the caste system contraty to the Qu’ran). Observance of Human rights has never been a strong point, and many whole cities have been put to the sword over the last few thousand years.
Indonesia itself is as mythological as the great Garuda. It is a community of communities held together, as always over the last several thousand years, by the glue of violent force, blind obedience and suppression by the Javanese empire. The fathers of Indonesia, were of course the puppet governors of the brutal Japanese occupation, and the history of Indonesia, both pre and post Suharto, has had a strong discrimination against non-Javanese. The only distinct commonality was the shared experience of brutal Dutch colonialism.
Indonesia itself was founded on a germ on an idea, that Land belonged to the people and not to a far distant metropolitan power, and no-one should have power over another. Many thousands upon thousands of brave patriots fought and died for the concept of self-determination and Merdeka! - which is a deep spiritual concept so much more than just independence and freedom. Merdeka is the clearest demonstration that there is nothing more powerful than when a people decide they will be free. However, this was not to last……
So what happened to the ideal?
It would be simplistic to just blame the West, although the pressures of the cold war certainly played a part, the CIA’s role in overthrowing Sukarno certainly contributed to this. Western support and silence - fear at upsetting the angry tiger – certainly initially armed the TNI to massacre over 5 million people (and growing) since 1965, and to militarily occupy East Timor, Aceh, the Malukus and of course West Papua. In 1953-57, all Dutch business was nationalised, and the Indonesian army were appointed (in particular the Speical forces), to manage the economy. They became the new capitalist class, and their interests were no longer serving the people (as was their revolutionary aim), but to serve themselves. Dynasties, most famously the Liem/Suharto dynasty, but also the Simbolens and the Prabowos, and the formation of the Darul Islamist movement which became Jemaah Islamiyah.
The history of the TNI shows one distinct pattern. Wherever their influence is to be felt, or there is money to be made, there is terror, dispossession, and bombings. To quote the International Crisis Group in its report “Recycling Militants in Indonesia: Darul Islam and the Australian Embassy Bombing”:
“The links of some of the West Java DI leaders with the army were reinforced in 1965-1966 when they were offered weapons in exchange for help in attacking suspected communists (PKI) in West Java, Aceh, and North Sumatra. Danu Muhamad Hassan reportedly even believed that a soon-to-be-notorious officer, Ali Moertopo, saved the DI leadership from annihilation in 1966 by intervening with Soeharto when he thought the latter intended to use the cover of the mass killings that year to wipe out other political enemies, including Darul Islam.6”
Jemaah Islamiyah was formed in 1978 by one of the Kopassus founders General Ali Murtopo to create terror to drive people away from supporting moderate Islam, as this wwas a threat to Suharto. The pesantaren or schools were formed and funded by the Yayasans or youth foundations run by the TNI, as they are to this day. Every act of terror is connected to the TNI, including (or especially) the Bali bombings.
According to Umar Abduh, convicted terrorist and former JI member : “So there is not a single Islamic group, either in the movement or the political groups that is not controlled by Intel. Everyone does what they say.”
That’s right, John Howard’s trusted friends in the region are the very ones who killed 88 Australians too. And his partner in the “War on Terror”, President Yudyohono (an indicted war criminal former commander of East Timor) is also a part of this. Why do you think they just released Abu Bakr Basyir?
The US economic machine is critical in both providing the cause and effect of the military occupation and domination of West Papua. To date, credible but very conservative estimates are of over 400,000 people killed in West Papua by the TNI, with Kopassus in control. There is one catalyst: the world largest mine, the Huge Freeport gold and copper mine.
Freeport mine is and had been the cause of human rights abuse, destruction of environment, institutional violence against women, and is part of the problem. Tens of thousands of people have been killed by the TNI security forces in the Freeport project area, funded at over US$50 million per year by Freeport McMoRan. The environmental devastation wreaked by the company is unparalleled, with poisoned tailings washed into the Aikwa river, poisoning all animal and plant life in its path and wider, and destroying medicine and food sources for the Kamoro and Amungme peoples. One can even see the tailings mess from space.
Freeport is the case in point. Freeport McMoRan, and their parent Rio Tinto, face a critical dilemma. Because they have fed the beast so greedily, it had grown accustomed to largess.
And herein lies the nub: just 20% of the TNIs funding comes from the state. The rest they have to grab through business activities and protection rackets. This business include, to name but a fraction: illegal logging with Rimbunan Hijau (see Terror-razing the Forest), oil palm plantations, illegal mining, methamphetamine production, export of designer drugs and steroid and other drug running (a large proportion of ecstasy in Australia still comes from the military in Indonesia, a drug that was and is infamously used to give to militias before they go on a orgy of killing – it ain’t a love drug!). Also all prostitution, most nightclubs and illegal breweries are controlled by the TNI (although to be on the safe side, they also run the Islamic Defenders Front that burn these places down.) They also own massive construction firms to rebuild the buildings burnt. It is, as the London Mafia say, “all a nice little earner”.
Suharto’s little brother, Liem Siew Liong (closely connected with the Malay Tiong family of Rimbunan Hijau infamy), was the creator of much of this. Liem Siew Liong was put in charge of Strategic Economic Planning. Suharto’s eldest son, Sigit, then married Liem Siew Liong’s daughter. After 300,000 people in Bali were turned into blood, Liem Siew Liong ran the majority of business in Bali. After the marriage, Liong divided the “Balinese” business empire between the Sigit “brand” (hotels, beer, nightclubs, drugs, tourism, prostitution and gambling, including the infamous “Tommy’s Laundry” Casino on Christmas Island, site of the new detention centre); Bambang “brand” (mega construction and sport); Tutut “brand” (mega bridge, road, infrastructure construction and military supplies and arms); Tommy brand (automotive and aerospace import and manufacturing). Suharto’s granddaughter, Shanti, was made to be the co-ordinator for all logging, forestry, pulp, paper and plywood and forest products manufacturing activity.
There is a such a historical connection with the founders of Kopassus, so we should be in little doubt that any economic operation in West Papua will always be a front for Kopassus and its penchant and plans for domination, subversion, terrorism and security disturbances.
Given this, whenever there is any threat to the TNIs control, it will crack down on the people hard. It is in this context that the West Papuan people, led by students just like you, took to the streets on March 15 and 16 to defend their wantoks against the human rights abuses and oppression generated by the Freeport mine and occupation of West Papua. Students from the main university, UNCEN Cenderawasih (Bird of Paradise) in Abepura, just outside of Jayapura, took to the streets to defend their wantoks. Students, including Indonesian supporters, had also just been involved in the occupations of the PT Freeport HQ in Jakarta, which resulted in most of that building getting destroyed in the process. The military were incensed at this challenge to their 43 years of impunity and so issued orders to take out this movement.
The events of March 16 were captured on film by Father Peter Woods, who played it to the world when he got back to Australia a few days later. Immediately after the demonstration, students fled to the jungle behind the university where 16 bodies were later found at the most heavily guarded rubbish dump in the region.
I have just returned from a gruelling and harrowing mission to the West Papuan border to attempt to locate the entire university student body of West Papua, reportedly in hiding somewhere in the jungle to escape the brutality of the TNI. The results are not so good, with over 200 feared murdered, 23 in prison and 202 missing. We only accounted for 150 of these young leaders.
Students fanned out across West Papua, some hiding for a week, some heading east, and some trying to return to their houses only to find them burnt down and their families missing. The TNI were close behind them, and shot at sight. One group I met with described to me the helicopters chasing them and shooting randomly when they got to an area they had information the students were hiding in. One group tried to flee by boat, but the navy chased them down, rammed the boat and stabbed to death one student first in the water, then in the boat. They picked up three others and they are all in prison, being tortured daily.
A key student leader described in harrowing detail the situation with his mother. “After the March 16 clash at UNCEN, and at the18th (Saturday), Intel (POLRI) arrested my mother, then took her from the house to the university. They wanted to kill her in front of the university but she was struggling and shouting hard, and so they took her to POLDA and tortured her, burned her with cigarettes and beat her up for three days at the gaol. After three days, KOMNAS HAM and MRP came to the Police station and took her out from the station in an unconscious condition. Right now, she reported all these facts to KOMNAS HAM, and the police are harassing her daily to find me. Her life is in danger. After this they sent the Intel and are still doing so, to find out where I am.”
It has been confirmed through various sources that this is the case, although we are trying to get through to KOMNAS HAM for access to their documents to expand on the circumstances and status.
The TNI are currently massing on the border, preparing for an invasion of PNG. There is a massive buildup of heavy combat military hardware to find the students, and to launch an invasion across the border to PNG.
This invasion is imminent, and this will draw us into a conflict. At each border crossing there are four tanks, and in an area where the students were suspected there are now 2500 soldiers hunting them down. From the north coast to Sengi, there are 14,500 troops, and 13,500 to the south coast. On the PNG side, there are, well, 5 (five) soldiers.
Kopassus has always been the angkatan anjing penjagga (army guard dog) for Suharto and has always had its eyes on the resource of Papua New Guinea, ever since Suharto commanded Operasi Mandala, the invasion of West Papua. We must stand up against it. Even people in the ADF have asked people in Australia to get behind West Papua, as we do owe them our freedom. Tens of thousands of Papuans died defending us in World War Two, we owe them our very existence. Isn’t it time we fought for them?
Australian people must take action now, and be prepared. Kopassus wants war, and maybe some wars do need to be fought, albeit with different means, that are sustainable and non-violent, future building, not future destroying. The alternative is the total genocide of a people, again. We have true power in the countries that buy the goods from Indonesia, and it is time to take some strategic economic action by targeting their money makers. The Free West Papua campaign has come a long way in six months, and we need more people to take up the call and join with us.
We can make a difference here in Australia and it is our support that will help end this genocide. The actions of our government in appeasing Indonesia are so shameful that even Johnny’s own party are splitting like the mountains around Freeport. The change of our Immigration law is the same as the Swiss border guards turning back the Jews to the Nazis. Will you stand by and let our nearest neighbor suffer the genocide that has been going on for 43 years, or will you do something about it. We – ordinary people - did it with East Timor, and we can do it again. We need every university in Australia to have activities around West Papua and to organise in solidarity with their sibling students on our doorstep. We have already managed to make a very spectacular intervention at the Rio Tinto AGM in Melbourne earlier this year, and get the issue staying on the front page of the corporate media. We need volunteers and head inside. Let us together hear the cry of freedom of West Papua, raise the Morning Star Flag and Cry Merdeka!
Papua Merdeka!!!
Leave a comment
Comments can contain some xhtml. Names and emails are required (emails aren't displayed), url's are optional.
(c) Nick Chesterfield 2006
manukoreri[at]riseup.net
+61 (0) 409 268 978
ABN: 29 622 332 084
The material on this website is copyright unless otherwise indicated as
Copyleft with attribution.
You may download, display, print and
reproduce material on this site in unaltered form only for your
personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation.
Apart from
any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are
reserved.
BlogMarks
Furl
Newsvine
Rojo
Email
If you like this then please subscribe to the