West Papua Report October 2013
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West Papua Report October 2013 This is the 114th in a series of monthly reports that focus on developments affecting Papuans. This series is produced by the non-profit West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) drawing on media accounts, other NGO assessments, and analysis and reporting from sources within West Papua. This report is co-published by the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN). Back issues are posted online at http://www.etan.org/issues/wpapua/default.htm Questions regarding this report can be addressed to Edmund McWilliams at [email protected]. If you wish to receive the report directly via e-mail, send a note to [email protected]. Link to this issue: http://etan.org/issues/wpapua/2013/1310wpap.htm The Report leads with "Perspective," an opinion piece; followed by "Update," a summary of some developments during the covered period; and then "Chronicle" which includes analyses, statements, new resources, appeals and action alerts related to West Papua. Anyone interested in contributing a "Perspective" or responding to one should write to [email protected]. The opinions expressed in Perspectives are the author's and not necessarily those of WPAT or ETAN. For additional news on West Papua see the reg.westpapua listserv archive or on Twitter. CONTENTS In this month's PERSPECTIVE, David Webster, Associate Professor of History at Bishops University, Quebec and WPAT member describes the competing historical narratives that shape the perceptions of the Indonesian government and West Papuans. The Indonesian side views Papuan lands as historically part of the Indonesia while Papuans maintain that West Papua was annexed by Indonesia absent a genuine act of self-determination. These competing narratives have thus far frustrated efforts to pursue meaningful dialogue. UPDATE notes the mission of a "freedom flotilla" which focused international attention on the plight of Papuans. The peaceful initiative prompted a massive security response by Indonesia that included arrests of Papuans seeking to celebrate and welcome the mission and an Australian refusal to grant asylum to Papuans fleeing the crackdown. Security forces continue sweep operations in Paniai. The Indonesian Human Rights Commission has admitted its inability to pursue cases of security force violations of human rights, notably in West Papua. An expansion of TNI authority to address purported "terrorist" challenges could exacerbate military pressure on Papuan civilians. The Prime Minister of Vanuatu in an address to the United Nations urged that body to investigate the human rights and political status of West Papua. In its CHRONICLE section, the report notes that reviewed mounting criticism of the complex and non-transparent programs through which the U.S. government funnels security assistance.a press release by the Australian West Papua Association (Sydney) regarding a ban on peaceful Papuan efforts to celebrate the UN's "International Day of Democracy" and a critical examination of U.S. Security Assistance policy. A regional observer notes warming ties between Indonesia and Melanesian states would be undercut by further Indonesian security force violations of Papuan human rights. Two reports examine fundamental services in West Papua: One looks at Papuan human rights. Two reports examine fundamental services in West Papua: One looks at the failure of education in the Papuan highlands and the other notes that the rates of death for mothers and children are the highest Indonesia. PERSPECTIVE Competing Historical Narratives Impede Indonesian-Papuan Dialogue From the interior of Asia's largest remaining rainforest, lightly-armed guerillas fight back against the army of the world's fourth-largest country, with thousands killed in a long-running insurgency. This conflict pits West Papuan nationalist forces against an Indonesian army that sees itself as the guardian of a near-sacred national unity. Today the conflict has mostly shifted to the political arena, but smaller-scale violence still flares suddenly -- a clash between Papuan "tribal" people and Indonesian "newcomers"; an army helicopter reportedly sent plummeting to earth; an independence leader killed by soldiers. The conflict has endured for five decades. One of the major issues in the conflict has been that the two sides understand the history very differently. The clashing views are actually a cause of conflict themselves: Papuans often see themselves denied their right to self-determination, while Indonesian nationalists (especially in the army) see any Papuan dissent as an attack on their own country. Peace is a tough target to get to if each side sees what happened in the past as a live issue. Historical dialogue is needed as part of conflict resolution. The Indonesian nationalist narrative about West Papua is a story of dispossession, Dutch While Sukarno's Indonesia was colonialism and the ultimate victory of Indonesian building a nationalism oriented anti-colonial struggle. The territory entered the to a glorious future global role, Indonesian nationalist imagination as "the martyr it also looked back to a place of the struggle for independence," in the glorious past. words of Sukarno, Indonesia's first president.[1] The reason was the Tanah Merah (Digul) prison camp, so remote and inhospitable that it required no walls to contain its prisoners: The landscape of Papua itself was the prison. The Dutch decision to cling to "Netherlands New Guinea" rather than allow it to become part of Indonesia in 1949 was seen by all stripes of Indonesian nationalism as a betrayal. One government publication called West Papua "a pistol pointing at Indonesia's chest."[2] While Sukarno's Indonesia was building a nationalism oriented to a glorious future global role, it also looked back to a glorious past. In one version, inspired by the work of nationalist historian Mohammad Yamin, many nationalists read Indonesia back in time to equate with the territories of the 14th century Majapahit empire as laid out in one poem, with these territories said (dubiously) to include West Papua. The Indonesian campaign to "regain" control of West Papua served as a mobilizing focus to unite the new Indonesian state in the 1950s and early 1960s. Government and non-government groups produced a vast array of books and pamphlets to back the campaign to regain the last bit of Dutch colonial debris. These themes developed in the 1950s and 60s echoed in Indonesian government rhetoric on Papua thereafter. Centralizing nationalist histories left little space for local tellings: "The history classroom functioned to suppress knowledge of difference," as historian Jean Taylor has written. The key problem, in the words of historian Asvi Warman Adam, is that Taylor has written. The key problem, in the words of historian Asvi Warman Adam, is that "Indonesian history was written uniformly by men in uniform."[3] So the 1969 "act of free choice" was less referendum -- a word never used -- than a display of respect for legal norms, designed for international consumption. The only reason that the act was being held, officials said, was to show that Indonesia kept its treaty promises. General Suharto, who had by this point replaced Sukarno as president, announced that the act "in no way mean[s] that we shall sacrifice that population [or that] we shall abandon the fruits of our struggle for the liberation of West Irian."[4] The Indonesian struggle to add West Papua to "the fold of the motherland" erased Papuans from their own story. The land and the struggle were what mattered. Papuan's History The Papuan nationalist version of history, by contrast, argues that justice has been denied and holds that self-determination can only be exercised by the Papuan people. Instead of being decolonized, the narrative sees West Papua as being recolonized by Indonesia. Indonesian images abound showing the New Guinea border as if there was nothing to the east of it -- as if it were the edge of the world, almost. Papuan nationalist images use the map to ignore Indonesia and locate their country in a Pacific geographical and a Melanesian ethnic context, rather than in Asia. The formative period of this narrative was the time when West Papua had a separate existence The Papuan nationalist version from Indonesia, as a separate Dutch colony of history, by contrast, argues between 1949 and 1962. A key text is Voice of that justice has been denied the Negroids of the Pacific to the Negroids and holds that self- Throughout the World, a document produced determination can only be by Papuan nationalist leaders in 1961. This short exercised by the Papuan publication, as its title makes clear, aimed at a people. global pan-African audience and made a bid to be placed among the African colonies gaining their independence around this time. It declared: "Many, many times you have heard about us from the Dutch and the Indonesians. Now we will take the floor ourselves. We are living in the Pacific, our people are called Papuans, our ethnic origin is the Negroid Race". We do not want to be slaves any more."[5] The Papuan nationalist narrative stresses dates like December 1, 1961, when the Papuan flag was inaugurated. In 1999, the new Papuan National Congress issued a declaration saying: "The Papuan people have been sovereign as a people and as a state since December 1, 1961."[6] In this version, Indonesian rule is invalid because it did not take into account the views of the people in Papua itself. The 1969 "act of free choice" becomes, not a joyful embrace of Indonesian unity, but proof that Papuans were forced at gunpoint to accept a new colonial ruler. There is a widespread perception that Papuans were robbed of their right to self-determination. In the words of one human rights worker: "There is the problem of the annexation of Papua. The people believe it was not fair. That is the source of the problems between the people and the Indonesian government, why conflict continues to happen." This theme of self-determination denied persists, and continues to be one of the issues at the root of conflict.