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Defusing a West Papua time bomb
Australian Financial Review - November 1, 2014
These are flagrant human rights abuses in the territory known as West Papua – immediately to our north – and which, due to media restrictions, are reported at best, sketchily.
International media organisations have campaigned for Dandois and Bourrat's release more effectively it might be said, than efforts to secure the freedom of Australian journalist Peter Greste, but the case of the French TV reporters has resonated in Australia for reasons that bear examination.
On October 1, Greens senator Richard Di Natale tabled a successful motion in which he called on the Australian government to lobby for their release.
There was nothing remarkable about Di Natale's motion, but what was unusual was support given by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. The question is why? Why would an Australian foreign minister support a Greens senator's motion that implied criticism of Indonesia's treatment of the media? And why now?
Bishop's office insists there was "nothing unusual" about her support, but it certainly took Di Natale by surprise.
In her explicit backing for the Di Natale's motion, the minister suggested modifications to lessen offence to Indonesia.
Argument resonates
In brief remarks on his motion Di Natale said the following: "We have recently seen the issue of the Australian journalist Peter Greste incarcerated in Egypt after a show trial, but we cannot stay silent on the issue of the arbitrary detention of journalists in West Papua, like the two French journalists who were doing nothing other than reporting the truth."
This is the argument that appears to have resonated with Bishop who has demonstrated a heightened sensitivity on the Greste matter in terse exchanges with this correspondent.
Australia's "quiet diplomacy" has been so muted that it has failed to dislodge Greste from the miserable conditions in which he finds himself as the end of the first year of his incarceration approaches.
Di Natale has a point when he says that "if you're going to advocate for press freedom we need to be consistent – we can't be hypocritical about it".
This appears to have dawned on representatives of a government that is not getting high marks for its commitment to free speech these days. Australia ranks 28th on the Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index. Indonesia stands at 132 out of 182 countries.
The Abbott government can't have it both ways, proclaiming a commitment to media freedom while in opposition, and turning a wall eye in government. Bishop appears to have taken this on board.
But there is clearly a wider and more important reason for Australia's desire to be seen to be encouraging greater media scrutiny of what is going on in West Papua, as a means of encouraging Indonesia to be more accommodating to local aspirations.
In our interests to help reduce tensions
As Richard Chauvel of Victoria University in Melbourne and the country's leading academic on West Papua puts it: "Australia has more interest than any other of Indonesia's neighbours in a lessening of tensions in West Papua."
Bishop's timing is almost certainly connected with the election of a new Indonesian president, who has been making the right noises about what needs to be done in West Papua.
"I think the most important thing is education, yes, and then health care, and then infrastructure," President Joko Widodo told the Sydney Morning Herald.
From an Australian national interest perspective, what is required is an opening of West Papua to the outside world, reasonable press scrutiny and avoidance of an event like the cold-blooded Santa Cruz massacre in East Timor on November 12, 1991, involving the deaths of at least 250 Timorese at the hands of Indonesia's security forces.
If such an event happened today in West Papua, it would be captured on YouTube with disastrous consequences for Australia-Indonesia relations.
We should also not forget Indonesia was responsible for the deaths of six Australian journalists in East Timor. Australian officials may well have been complicit in a cover-up.
Reasonable media access to West Papua, sanctioned by the Indonesian authorities, would go some way towards ensuring we don't wake up one day and find ourselves in a similar situation.
The alternative is the near certainty of further bloodshed and unrest, and risks to the fabric of Australia's relations with its most important neighbour. Dandois and Bourrat have done us a favour by enabling the Abbott government to reinforce a message to Indonesia without being confrontational.
[Tony Walker is The Australian Financial Review's international editor.]
Source: http://www.afr.com/p/opinion/defusing_west_papua_time_bomb_wNwvREqRJ2H77K8wuRS0FP.
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