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Oil palm companies in Nabire using Brimob to terrorise local villagers
West Papua Media - August 25, 2015
Citizens in this area have been falsely and maliciously stigmatised by the companies as being suspected OPM (Free Papua Movement) members or activists, with the result that they are constantly made frightened and anxious by security forces.
On 4 January 2015, paramilitary BRIMOB police forces arrested a villager who is the traditional landowner of the location, by the name of Otis Waropen (aged 34 years). He was arrested at the PT New Nabire oil palm company plantation in the village of Wami in Yaur District, Nabire.
In a direct telephone interview on 22 August 2015, Waropen revealed that he was arrested by BRIMOB police on "suspicion resulting from stigmatisation of being an OPM member," and "on suspicion of making a movement of troublemakers in the vicinity of the PT New Nabire Oil Palm plantation."
"It is not only (Waropen) who has experienced such stigmatisation from BRIMOB who are acting as the protectors of that oil palm company," Gunawan Inggeruhi told me.
"Many citizens who claim their traditional customary land rights, asking for the company to be closed and its license to operate be revoked, have been accused of being OPM members and 'part of a movement of troublemakers'. When in fact the reality is that those who make trouble and terrify the village community in Wami and Sima are the Papuan BRIMOB forces."
Inggeruhi explained, "Citizens previously lived in this area in a peaceful and calm atmosphere. These people are not OPM and they are not making some sort of opposition or troublemaker movement against the oil palm companies (PT New Nabire or PT SAD Perkasa)."
He described how most observers perceive that the actions of the Police and the Companies "are themselves making anarchy and intentionally killing the freedom of the people," and creating fear amongst the people, even arresting and imprisoning them.
Inggeruhi went on to say that "All entrances into the plantation are guarded strictly and protected by Papuan BRIMOB Police. There's around 50 BRIMOB armed forces there and they are assisted by intelligence personnel, all the way along the road from Wanggar until the village of Sima."
"If we go to that location BRIMOB chase us and spy on us all the way along that road." Inggeruhi said that even himself had been chased and spied on in that area.
The community feels most oppressed by the presence of PT Nabire Baru and PT SAD Perkasa in the area with BRIMOB forces supporting them. He added that "the local government is indifferent over the closure of the space experienced by local residents and their inability to move freely around in their own local area."
He is urging the Papuan Police to immediately withdraw their BRIMOB forces from the area of the oil palm companies, and called that the oil palm plantations of PT Nabire Baru in Wami, and PT SAD Perkasa in Sima in the Yaur District of Nabire should cease immediately.
[The Writer is a pastoral worker in the diocese of Timika, Papua.]
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