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Briefing for Pacific Islands Forum Leaders on the situation in West Papua
TAPOL - October 2005
36th Pacific Islands Forum, Papua New Guinea, 25-27 October 2005
This briefing is provided jointly by TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights Campaign, an independent NGO based in the UK, which has campaigned for human rights in Indonesia and West Papua for more than 30 years, Free West Papua Campaign, Oxford, UK, and Benny Wenda, Head of DeMMaK, the Koteka Tribal Assembly and international lobbyist for West Papua (the UK Coalition for West Papua - 'the Coalition').
The Coalition welcomes Forum Leaders' previous expressions of concern about the situation in West Papua, but regrets that, in the communique issued following the 35th meeting in Apia, the Forum made no mention of West Papua, a Melanesian Pacific territory, despite addressing the question of the Sudan in Africa.
While the Sudan is rightly an issue of international concern, it is remote from the Pacific. By contrast, the situation in West Papua impacts directly on the peace and security of the Pacific region. In their elucidation of a 'A Pacific Vision' in 2004, Forum Leaders made a laudable commitment to a region 'respected for the full observance of democratic values, and for its defence and promotion of human rights'. The apparent absence of West Papua from the agenda of the 36th Forum meeting seriously undermines this worthy objective.
Observer status
The Coalition welcomes the Forum Leaders' decision, following their Retreat in Auckland in April 2004, to: 'Encourage closer contacts with non-sovereign Pacific territories, through progressively granting them observer status at Leaders' meetings and associated meetings of the Forum Officials' Committee'.
West Papua is currently a non-sovereign Pacific territory. Forum Leaders will recall that the Netherlands, as the administering power of West Papua, was a founder member of the South Pacific Commission (SPC) in 1947 and that Papuan representatives attended SPC meetings until the Dutch ceded their authority over West Papua to the UN Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) in 1962.
The Papuan people were deprived of their participation in Pacific regional bodies and affairs in the 1960s by a process which has been widely discredited as a sham. It remains an affront to the democratic values of West Papua's neighbours in the Pacific region. The 1962 'New York Agreement', which led to authority over West Papua being passed to UNTEA in 1962 and then Indonesia in 1963, was made by the Netherlands and Indonesia without the consent of the Papuan people. The subsequent 'Act of Free Choice' in 1969 involved an unrepresentative group of 1,022 Papuans, handpicked by Indonesia, voting under duress to become part of Indonesia.
The Coalition urges Forum Leaders to address the historical and contemporary injustices suffered by Papuan people by developing contacts with their representatives and, in accordance with the above commitment made at the Auckland Retreat, granting West Papua observer status at the earliest opportunity so that it can resume its rightful role in Pacific affairs. As Indonesia is a Forum Dialogue partner, this could facilitate discussions between representatives of Indonesia and West Papua and thereby further the cause of peace in the territory.
Special autonomy
In the communique issued following the 34th meeting in Auckland, Forum Leaders reiterated their support for special autonomy for West Papua and urged Indonesia to take the steps necessary to give effect to it. That has not happened. Instead, deep dissatisfaction with the central government has intensified in West Papua as a result of Jakarta's attempt to split the territory into three or more separate provinces (in violation of Indonesia's own law governing special autonomy) and its failure to implement special autonomy and improve the lives of the Papuans. There are persistent reports that special autonomy funds have been dissipated by corruption and used to fund military operations. In August 2005, the respected Papuan Tribal Council (Dewan Adat Papua [DAP]), supported by thousands of demonstrators, rejected the law and called for it to be returned to Jakarta. The DAP called for national and international dialogue aimed at realising the rights of the indigenous Papuans.
The Coalition urges Forum Leaders to seek ways of encouraging Indonesia to enter into all-inclusive dialogue with Papuan representatives, to offer the Forum's own good offices to mediate between the parties, and to raise this issue in the post-Forum dialogue with Indonesia.
Human rights
The human rights situation in West Papua continues to give cause for grave concern. That concern is exacerbated by severe restrictions on access to the territory, which mean that human rights organisations, humanitarian agencies, and journalists are unable to carry out their work properly and effectively, if at all. Local human rights defenders and political activists are regularly threatened with violence or their lives. In the past year, numerous reports have emerged of military operations in the central highlands, which have displaced thousands and claimed an unknown number of lives through extra-judicial killings and the starvation and exposure of villagers forced to flee their homes.
In August 2005, the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney issued a report, 'Genocide in West Papua?', detailing a series of concerns which, if not acted upon, may pose serious threats to the survival of the Papuan people. They included increased military deployments and operations, an HIV/Aids explosion, and persistent under-development in the face of a large influx of migrants from Java and other parts of Indonesia.
The Papuan people are ill-served by the Indonesian justice system which perpetuates impunity for security forces personnel accused of human rights violations and imposes lengthy prison sentences on Papuans involved in peaceful protests and non-violent political activities. Most recently, two senior police officers were controversially acquitted of involvement in the killing of three Papuan students and the torture of dozens more in December 2000. A few months earlier, two activists were jailed for 15 and 10 years simply for organising peaceful celebrations of West Papua's national day, 1 December, and raising the national 'Morning Star' flag.
The Coalition urges Forum Leaders to lobby Indonesia to allow a Forum fact-finding mission to visit West Papua to investigate the human rights situation and to press Indonesia to:
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