Comprehending West Papua

Comprehending West Papua Edited by Peter King, Jim Elmslie & Camellia Webb-Gannon Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney Comprehending West Papua Peter King, Jim Elmslie & Camellia Webb-Gannon Editors The West Papua Project November 2011 Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies ii Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies A West Papua Project book ISBN: 978-0-9808286-7-2 Published by the West Papua Project at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, The University of Sydney. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the permission of the authors. Cover image: courtesy of West Papua Media This edition © 2011 Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney iii Contents Background 1- Editors’ introduction ... 2 2- The pro- and anti-plebiscite campaigns in West Papua: Before and after 1969, Pieter Drooglever ... 11 Section one: New media activism and resistance 3- Free the people? Free the media! Broadcasting Papua’s songs of freedom, Nick Chesterfield ... 29 4- Internet advocacy and the MIFEE project, Paul Barber and Rosa Moiwend ... 37 5- Pathways to dialogue for Papua, Jason MacLeod ... 50 6- Culture as strategy: West Papuan diaspora aspirations for justice, Camellia Webb-Gannon ... 81 Section two: Papua/Jakarta politics 7- Policy failure and political impasse: Papua and Jakarta a decade after the ‘Papuan Spring’, Richard Chauvel ... 105 8- Injustice and historical falsehood: Integration of the territory of Papua into Indonesia in 1969, Socratez Sofyan Yoman ... 116 9- Jakarta-Papua dialogue and community participaton, Neles Tebay ... 129 Section three: Recent international context of the sovereignty debate 10- Self-determination and Papua: The Indonesian dimension, Peter King ... 148 11- New Zealand as a potential West Papuan peace broker: Learning from Bougainville, Maire Leadbeater ... 159 12- West Papua and the changing nature of self-determination, Akihisa Matsuno ... 177 iv 13- Reflections on the New York Agreement, the Act of Free Choice and developments since, John Saltford ... 191 Section four: Short term and long term goals and diplomatic strategies 14- A self-governing Papua within Indonesia versus the archaic notion of an independent nation-state: Choice between reality and a dream, Franzalbert Joku ... 202 15- The case and the cause for returning West Papua to the United Nations General Assembly, Rex Rumakiek ... 209 16- The resistance struggle of the West Papuan people organisationally requires Trias Politica, Herman Wainggai ... 221 17- Papuan perspectives on peace in West Papua, John Ondawame ... 235 18- West Papuan independence policies: Tension in the transition, Jacob Rumbiak ... 251 19- Reclaiming the messianic promise, S. Eben Kirksey ... 278 Section five: Obstacles to peace in Papua 20- Comprehending Papua: Breaking Papua’s political-security deadlock – costs and benefits of the various options, Bilveer Singh ... 295 21- Large corporations and obstacles to peace in Papua, Kylie McKenna and John Braithwaite ... 318 22- Torture in West Papua (Indonesia): A spectacle of dialectics of the sovereign and the abject, Budi Hernawan ... 339 23- Comprehending West Papua: Demographic transition and the 2010 Indonesian census, Jim Elmslie ... 358 24- Comprehending West Papua through culture: Indigenous perspectives on contemporary Sentani Malo painting, Yvonne Carrillo-Huffman ... 369 Notes on Contributors ... 385 Appendix: This is a separate file with images illustrating Chapter 24, as well as photographs documenting the Comprehending West Papua conference. v Background 1 Chapter one: Editors’ Introduction Peter King, Jim Elmslie and Camellia Webb-Gannon Comprehending West Papua derives from a report that the co-editors wrote for the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS) at Sydney University in July 2010 entitled, Get up, stand up; West Papua stands up for its rights.1 The coeditors -- Peter King, Jim Elmslie and Camellia Webb-Gannon -- are coconveners (King and Elmslie) and coordinator (Webb-Gannon) respectively of the West Papua Project at CPACS. The Project was established in 2000 as an intellectual meeting place and research centre focused on the profound conflict that is occurring in West Papua. The Get up, stand up report covered the mass civil society protests by West Papuans against Indonesian rule in mid-2010 and the background to this political insurrection. The report received widespread publicity and positive feedback so we decided to capitalise on this by organising a conference at Sydney University in February 2010. We asked those whom we considered the world’s leading authorities on the political impasse in West Papua and its historical roots to present short papers on the theme, Comprehending West Papua, with a view to helping Papuans, Indonesians and the rest of the world conceive new (or reconceive old) ways out of the impasse. We gave invitees the option of sending their papers for proxy presentation if they were unable to attend. The conference was a resounding success, with participants from West Papua, Indonesia, Vanuatu, New Zealand, The Netherlands, England, the United States, Singapore, Japan and Australia. We believe that it is the most significant academic-level conference that has ever been held on the political situation in West Papua. 1 http://sydney.edu.au/arts/peace_conflict/publications/Get%20Up,%20Stand%20Up%20printed.p df 2 Another aim of the conference was to map and update the global spread of opinion on West Papua. Besides academic assessments, the conference also had important West Papuan speakers and writers representing different diaspora factions pressing for independence or self-determination as well as a few who favour accommodation of the Indonesian government. Unity amongst the West Papuans (long derided) was also examined, set alongside the dramatic demographic transition caused by organised and “spontaneous” in-migration from the rest of Indonesia, which now makes the Melanesians a slight minority in their own homeland. The year 2010 ushered in a new wave of West Papuan independence politics. This momentum-gathering wave is characterised by student and youth leadership with a tougher stance on West Papuan self-determination, the vigourous promotion of the cause through social media and greater international attention to Papuan politics through mechanisms such as WikiLeaks and YouTube, both of which have served to reveal often obscured and sometimes horrific conditions in West Papua. Evidence of this new wave emerged dramatically in June and July 2010, when civil demonstrations, led by a new NGO, FORDEM (Democratic Forum of the United Papuan People), amassed up to 20,000 protesters on the streets of Jayapura. FORDEM comprises the self-proclaimed and widely recognised provisional government set up by the West Papua National Authority (WPNA)-represented in this volume by chapters from Jacob Rumbiak and Herman Wainggai--and various civil society organisations drawn from the churches and the student and women’s movements. These demonstrations were triggered in response to Jakarta’s rejection of an MRP (Majelis Rakyat Papua—the allPapuan upper house of the provincial parliament) decision popularly known as SK14, which ordains that “all candidates for elected office at the sub-provincial 3 level had to be indigenous Papuans.”2 The Home Affairs Ministry rejection of SK14 was considered to blatantly undermine the spirit of the Special Autonomy Law of 2001 which specifies that the provincial governors, vice governors and district (regency) chiefs (bupatis) in West Papua must be indigenous Papuans.3 Thus, as discussed in Jacob Rumbiak’s chapter in this volume, the biggest demonstrations in West Papua’s history were launched against Special Autonomy and for a referendum on West Papua’s political status. (These demands were two of the MRP’s 11 bold “recommendations” to the Papua provincial government). Papuan politics experienced a positive shift in the surrounding Pacific region as well during this time. Vanuatu’s parliament passed the Wantok Blong Yumi Bill which committed the Vanuatu parliament to work towards independence for West Papua through avenues such as the UN General Assembly and Decolonization Committee and the International Court of Justice. Vanuatu’s long term support of West Papuan independence is discussed in this volume in chapters by Rex Rumakiek and John Otto Ondawame, the latter making an impassioned plea for the success of the Papua Road Map. The Road Map constitutes a push for effective dialogue between Papua and Jakarta coming from Muridan Widjojo and the Indonesian Institute of Science in Jakarta and Neles Tebay and the Papua Peace Network in Jayapura. Father Neles has blessed the umbrella group established in Vanuatu in 2008, the West Papuan National Coalition for Liberation (with John Otto as Vice Chairman and Rex as Secretary General), as pivotal for bringing Papuans to the dialogue table.4 2 International Crisis Group. 2010. Indonesia: The Deepening Impasse in Papua, Asia Briefing No 108. Jakarta/Brussels: International Crisis Group. Available from http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-east-asia/indonesia/B108-indonesia-thedeepening-impasse-in-papua.aspx. p1 3 There have been two provinces in West Papua since 2003: Papua (capital Jayapura) and— confusingly--West Papua (capital Manokwari). Since early 2011 there have been two MRPs as well, one for each province. 4 The WPNA is not mentioned, perhaps unwisely. See Neles Tebay, ‘Dialogue Jakarta-Papua: a Perspective from Papua’, Missio (Aachen), No 35, 2009, p32 http://www.international.ucla.edu/cseas/humanrights/pdf/Tebay-Writing-Sample1.pdf 4 Nick Chesterfield’s chapter shows the ways in which technology and social media have also been used to West Papuan political advantage by Papuans (who use Facebook prolifically to publicise their cause) and, inadvertently, by Indonesian troops. For example, the trend of capturing “incidents” on mobile phones has recently backfired on Indonesian military and police torturers in West Papua in a string of high profile cases that elicited deep international concern. In August 2009, West Papuan Yawan Wayeni was disembowelled with a bayonet and taunted by Brimob (Indonesian mobile police) as he lay dying. This was captured on camera by one of the torturers and subsequently leaked online. The public nature of torture in West Papua is discussed in Budi Hernawan’s chapter on this topic. In October 2010 another couple of horrific videos taken by Indonesian troops emerged. The soldiers hogtied, suffocated with a plastic bag and burned the genitals of one West Papuan man; held a knife to another’s neck, and kicked yet others in the head as they sat helpless on the ground. These videos were also leaked via YouTube, causing an international sensation. As political leaders from other countries responded to these videos by pressing the Indonesian government to investigate and punish the offenders, whistleblowers leaking other files, including Kopassus (army special forces) blacklists and diplomatic cables, brought further humiliation upon the Indonesian government for its attitude towards West Papua. In November 2010 US journalist Alan Nairn published a leaked Kopassus list of enemies of the state in Papua, all of whom were civilians. (At the top of the list is the Reverend Socrates Sofyan Yoman, who also contributes a chapter here.) Then, in December 2010, a series of WikiLeaks sourced US embassy cables from Jakarta was published in the Melbourne Age newspaper, revealing the extent to which politicians in Jakarta (and internationally) were and are aware of what has become the military fiefdom of West Papua, and the degree of natural resource exploitation, financial and political corruption and human rights abuse that prevails as a result. That these leaks and others published in The Sydney Morning Herald concerning the alleged corruption of the Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and 5 his family, caused the Indonesian government considerable humiliation is evident from the ensuing Indonesian lawsuit against the Australian newspapers for publishing the cables. All of these events and trends were converging with a momentum that we would have been remiss not to follow up. The West Papua Project decided it was timely to invite a cadre of international experts on West Papua to a conference at the University of Sydney who would try to comprehend, as a group with diverse experiences and perspectives, this new wave in West Papuan politics and its likely future trajectory.5 The conference unfolded at International House, Sydney University, over two days, February 23-24, 2011. It attracted an audience of 80 people to hear 22 papers presented--three of them in absentia and one by virtual presence. Participants were invited to pay or find donors to pay their fares and accommodation, and the conference conveners-cum-editors can recommend this as a simplifying and surprisingly successful ploy for underfunded NGOs, even university-based ones. However the School of Social and Political Sciences and the Arts Faculty at Sydney University must be thanked for their prompt and generous response to last-minute requests for subsidy of conference venue hire, function costs and book publication. Paper presenters included three women, five Papuans (all in exile) and two nonPapuan Indonesians, as well as non-Papuan/non-Indonesian scholars, activists and scholar-activists from Europe, North America, South East Asia and Australasia, as mentioned above. Discussion did focus mainly on how to interpret and react to the new youth-led turn towards mass mobilisation around independence, a referendum on self- 5 For an early appraisal of the conference see http://sydney.edu.au/arts/peace_conflict/docs/Report_%20Comprehending_West_Papua.pdf 6 determination and rejection of Special Autonomy in Papua since mid-2010. Apart from papers already mentioned above, Bilveer Singh’s presentation laid out political options for Papua in fine forensic detail; Jason McLeod, leading expert on non-violent resistance, perceived growing synergy between local and international mobilisation for the Papuans, and editor King chimed in that the deoccupation of Papua could yield large benefits in military reform, corruption reform and democratic reform for Jakarta and Indonesia. Akihisa Matsuno persuaded large numbers of participants that the rising trend of “self determination as conflict resolution” (Kosovo, South Sudan, East Timor) and the “unsustainability” of Indonesian occupation have created a momentous opportunity for Papua, while Richard Chauvel was also persuasive with his distinction between the politics of independence and the politics of pork (elected Papuans’ massive looting of Special Autonomy funding)-- and in dubbing Papua the Achilles heel of a still ostensibly reforming post-Suharto Indonesia. These two speakers led media coverage of the conference. Editor Webb-Gannon, expert on West Papuan diaspora personalities and perspectives, explored the cultural underpinnings, ancient and novel, of the Papuan planetary resistance to conclude that independence was still a viable option. Absentee cultural anthropologist Eben Kirksey meditated on the extraordinary congressional hearing on Crimes against Humanity in Papua which was held in Washington DC during September 2010 (which he did much to organise), and concluded that the “messianic multiple”—a future with multiple messianic political options -- could work even for a Papua “off the radar” in Washington. Absentee editor Jim Elmslie (as presented by co-editor King) continued his alarming and influential investigations into the demographic threat to West Papuan identity and survival from unconstrained Indonesian settler arrivals in 7 Papua and called for an international fact-finding mission on the issue of “slowmotion genocide”. John Saltford, in absentia in London (and spoken for by editor Webb-Gannon), the world’s leading authority on the Act Of Free Choice which sealed Papua’s fate under occupation in 1969, called for negotiations without preconditions between Jakarta and Jayapura, while Paul Barber of TAPOL and Rosa Moiwend, also absent and similarly represented in Sydney, outlined the emerging threat of giant, largely foreign-funded food estates to Papuan forests, subsistence and survival. Like Saltford, Maire Leadbeater, New Zealand’s leading pro-Papuan campaigner, commended the peace process which resolved Papua New Guinea’s Bougainville crisis in 1998, specifically, New Zealand’s mediation which did so much to calm and clarify that other bloody conflict caused by a heedless giant mining company, while Kylie McKenna and John Braithwaite also identified giant resource companies as a threat to peace--in occupied as well as independent Melanesia--but gave a passing grade (so far) to BP’s giant Bintuni Bay LNG mining operation for its contribution to conflict avoidance in Papua. And, finally, Pieter Drooglever, who wrote a 700 page commissioned study of the Papua conflict for the Dutch government (which was rejected by the thengovernment on publication in 2007!), reminded us in his introductory presentation how much was lost in the sorry history of 1962-69. * * * The ambience of the conference was special. Two inter-Papuan conflicts were seen as liable to surface and had caused mild apprehension among the conveners. One was between the partisans of the two leading umbrella organisations of the Papuan resistance as it exists and evolves internally and 8 externally—the Coalition (WPNCL) and the Authority (WPNA). However, photographs on these pages show factional partisans not only chatting amicably, dancing and singing together but hugging each other indeed.6 While personality conflicts may persist, the marginal policy disagreements between the factions were overshadowed by good fellowship and fruitful dialogue on the occasion of the conference. The other conflict that threatened to haunt the conference was between the proJakarta or at least pro-collaboration ex-diaspora faction led by Franzalbert Joku (and including Nic Messet who actually represented the Indonesian government point of view at the congressional hearing of September 2010 mentioned above) and the mainstream of Papuan independentists--Coalition, Authority and Other. However in fact there were revelations at the conference of counter-intuitive collaboration between the apparent enemies. It transpired that Jacob Rumbiak’s semi-clandestine visit to Jakarta in late 2010 (his first since 1999 when he departed Cipinang prison), during which he presented political conditions to be met in the context of a possible dialogue with Jakarta about a peace settlement for Papua, and engaged in talks with ministers up to and including SBY himself, had been arranged and facilitated by none other than Franzalbert Joku. In conference socialising and his own presentations Franzalbert argued that Papua’s way ahead lay in a cooperative division of labour between Papuan independence seekers able to highlight the deficiencies of Special Autonomy and military occupation and Papuan insiders like himself able to not only call for dialogue with Jakarta but actually arrange it. Whether many of the mainstream would really welcome long-term cooperation with business-oriented Papuans widely thought to be agents of BIN, the murderous Indonesian national intelligence agency, remains to be seen, but the value of the conference dialogue across factional boundaries seems to have been indisputable. 6 They could also be seen and heard dancing and singing a la Papouenne together. 9 The editors hope the chapters which follow will yield invaluable insights into the current situation in West Papua, which is well covered in updated chapters by Chauvel and King, since the conflict has important ramifications for many countries in the immediate region, not least Indonesia, Australia and Papua New Guinea. Our authors suggest that the conflict is not receding, but rather intensifying and complexifying, generating opportunities for conflict resolution and peacemaking which need to be urgently acted upon. 10 Chapter two: The pro- and anti-plebiscite campaigns in West Papua: Before and after 1969 Pieter Drooglever For reasons of opportunity and principle, the decolonisation-policies of the Netherlands since 1945 went under the aegis of self-determination.7 At the transfer of sovereignty in 1949 to the newly created Federal Republic of Indonesia, the Dutch refused to hand over the residency of New Guinea as well. According to the Dutch, the Papuan population as a whole was not developed up to the point where it could determine affairs for itself as yet, and there were plenty of indications that the leading layers of Papuan society agreed with this argument. So the operation of self-determination was postponed for an as yet undefined period. The ensuing conflict raged on for years and caused much damage to the relations between The Netherlands and its former colony. It was only terminated on 15 May 1962 with the signing by both parties of the New York Agreement that had been brought about under strong international pressure. The territory was to be handed over to a UN interim administration, to be followed by an Indonesian take over later on. By then full administrative responsibility would be with Indonesia. The only concessions to the Dutch were some UN guarantees for the quality of the administration in the interim period and an Indonesian commitment to organise an opportunity for self determination, called the ‘Act of Free Choice’, at a proper time but not later than 1969, which would enable the Papuans to decide what future they had in mind for their country. 7 This chapter is based on my study on West Papua of 2005, which has been published in English under the title: An Act of Free Choice. Decolonization and the Right to SelfDetermination in West Papua (Oneworld Oxford 2009; see www.oneworld-publications.com ). An Indonesian translation appeared under the title Tindakan Pilihan Bebas. Orang Papua dan Penentuan Nasib Sendiri (Yogyakarta 2010; see www.kanisiusmedia.com ), See also J.F. Saltford, The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua, 1962-1969. The Anatomy of Betrayal (London & New York 2003). 11 At face value the agreement offered a solution acceptable to all concerned. Yet, for Papuans and Dutch alike, it was less than acceptable in reality. It was still unclear to what degree the UN and Indonesia would be able and willing to live up to their promises. The idea of self determination by means of a plebiscite was contrary to all that the Republic of Indonesia had stood for during the conflict. Its leaders had argued that the sovereignty of the whole of the former Netherlands Indies had been theirs since their proclamation of independence on 17 August, 1945. For them, it was understood that the Papuans had decided to integrate with Indonesia on that fateful day already. During the negotiations in New York, the term ‘sovereignty’ had been carefully avoideds by all parties, and for the Indonesians the agreement had been acceptable only because the plebiscite had been weakly worded, giving them every opportunity to have it their way. The word ‘plebiscite’ itself, as laid down in the initial UN proposal, had been replaced by the not well established expression ‘Act of Free Choice ’, while the task of carrying out the operation had been fully entrusted to the Indonesians. Sure, at the time of the operation there had to be a representative of the secretary general of the United Nations in the field, but his limited job description was to ‘advise, assist and participate in arrangements which are the responsibilities of Indonesia for the Act of Free Choice ’. So in the end Indonesia had full leverage to handle the matter according to its own preferences. That being the cases, it was up to the secretary general to report to the General Assembly of the United Nations. That body was asked only to ‘take note’ of the outcome of the Act. That formula still enabled the Assembly to lay down its opinion in a resolution, but it was not explicitly asked to do so. Under the terms of the agreement, there was nothing left for the Dutch but to organise their own phasing out on short notice and pay half of the costs of the UN administration and the envisaged Act of Free Choice. The Papuans had no say at all about the agreement, and had to wait for the future. The prospect of being transferred lock stock and barrel through the intermediary of a United Nations Temporary Administration (UNTEA) to Indonesia came as a shock after 12 a period of happily accepted preparations for self determination under the aegis of the Dutch, which had led them to envisage a future as part of an independent Melanesian commonwealth together with their neighbours from the Territory of Papua and New Guinea (TPNG), then still under Australian administration. It all went up in smoke in a moment in the last weeks of August 1962, which caused widely felt consternation. Papuans’ only solace was the prospect of self determination in due time, and the Dutch encouraged them in that belief. The matter was fiercely discussed within the bosom of the main Papuan representative councils and institutions. There was serious talk about declaring their own independence right away, but it came to nothing because the Dutch were not willing to lend a hand, and their own forces were not sufficient to resist the Indonesians. Then they called together a special meeting of about a hundred prominent Papuans from all parts of the country in the third week of September 1962. It was the National Papua Congress, where they decided to accept the consequences of the New York Agreement and to cooperate fully with the successive interim administrations of the United Nations and Indonesia. However, they also decided to prepare themselves right from the start as best they could for the forthcoming Act of Free Choice. Though even at that time many observers felt that they would have hardly a chance to be allowed to speak out freely when the time came, the Papua leadership firmly stuck to that position for lack of better alternatives. The test came soon enough with the transfer of western New Guinea to the United Nations Temporary Administration on 1 October 1962, soon followed by an influx of Indonesian officials and military. Things went much faster than planned. The contacts with a first, carefully selected batch of Indonesian administrators were not bad at all, and were accompanied with kind promises from President Sukarno and his Minister of Foreign Affairs Subandrio about autonomy and a happy future together in the Indonesian homeland. Yet, as soon as the troops flowed in en masse, the mood rapidly changed. The soldiers 13 entered the territory as conquerors out for loot, and as their number grew the Indonesian officials gladly joined them. That was to get worse in the years to come. The result was that the Papuans were thrown back into a state of misery unknown before. Jobs were taken over, medical care crumbled away, the educational system lost its drive, economic possibilities vanished in the air, representative councils were disbanded, political parties dissolved and the liberty of speech and expression was taken away. The riches of the country were dragged off in shiploads for very little in return. The Papuans just had to obey the rules of the authoritarian Indonesian state, and manifestations of having a national identity of their own were forbidden right away. The first lethal incidents took place in early December, when Papuan leaders wanted to celebrate the first anniversary of the hoisting of their own flag a year before. They not only were confronted with a veto from the United Nations Administration, but also with strong reactions from the Indonesian military. As a result, about 50 students took refuge in TPNG, but they were sent back at once by the Australian administration that was not out for trouble with its new neighbours on the western half of the island. Upon their return to Hollandia they were thrown in jail and tortured. It was the opening shot of a reign of terror that was to deepen in the years to come. Under these conditions the honest Act of Free Choice ‘in accordance with international practice’, as promised in the New York Agreement, was unlikely right from the start. That became clear when a delegation of the National Papua Congress led by Herman Wajoi arrived in Jakarta on 30 September for a first encounter with the new masters. They were welcomed by a number of cabinet members, including General Nasution and Minister Subandrio. The Papuans brought with them a proposal for a plebiscite on self determination to be held in May 1963, when the Dutch would have withdrawn completely. This proposal can be regarded as being in line more or less with the decision of the National Congress the week before. Subandrio flatly refused to discuss it, ‘since it might 14 lower our prestige’. He explained to his guests that the Indonesians had not fought for West Irian – as the country was to be called - because they needed it, but because for them it was a matter of principle. He further elaborated on ‘time bombs, left behind by the Dutch’. Now the Proclamation of 17 August 1945, the sacrosanct cornerstone of the Indonesian state, was prominent on the table again and the delegates from Papua felt in no position to press for further discussion. The remark of Subandrio also made it clear to them that the transfer of Papua to Indonesia had nothing to do with Papuans. During the rest of their stay in Indonesia Wajoi continued to act as the main spokesmen of the group, but his public statements were fully in line with what his hosts might have expected from him. It always came down to the same thing: the United Nations should go home at once, and there was no need for an Act of Free Choice either. It must be noted that after their return to Hollandia (which at this point was known as Sukarnopura, later to become Jayapura) most members of the delegation reported to their Dutch friends that they had been forced by the Indonesians to make such statements. Thus an anti-plebiscite campaign was started up with Herman Wajoi in the leading role. From this time on the Australian embassy in Jakarta came to speak of him as ‘the leading sycophant‘. Back in Hollandia he was joined by a few others. Most prominent among them were Frits Kirihio and Lukas Rumkorem, who now fully sided with Indonesia, a postition which after all reflected the first half of the decisions made by the Papua Congress. The other half, however, seemed easily forgotten. In early January, as the grip of Jakarta strengthened, demonstrations took place in various parts of Papua, calling for cancellation of the plebiscite and an early withdrawal by the UN troops and administration. Available evidence shows that these events took place under great pressure and that no violence was spared on the part of the soldiers. In Jakarta, Sukarno repeatedly lent his voice to the call as well. He was supported from a distance by his long term friend the US ambassador, Howard Jones, who now was on his way back from his post in Jakarta. He did his best to echo these voices from the 15 various places he passed through during his trip home. In New York the Indonesian representative Nico Palar did the same in the United Nations. These efforts had no immediate effect, since the other parties involved in the bringing about of the New York Agreement did not give in formally. Both the US and the Netherlands stuck to the position that Indonesia had to play the game according to the rules set in New York. Yet in the end it was not all in vain, seen from an Indonesian point of view. Their ruthless approach disheartened their former opponents, who now tended to give in on practical matters as much as possible to prevent further troubles. The term of the UN administration was made as short as the agreement allowed for. It thus ended on 1 May 1963, the day that initially was thought to be the first day of a joint UN-Indonesian administration. When it came to that, the Indonesians were present in the field in full force already and were allowed to take over full responsibility at once. Things were a bit different with the follow up of the agreement on the plebiscite. It was not a thing to be decided at once, but neither the Dutch nor the US politicians lent support to Indonesian suggestions that there was no need for it any longer. However, in the meantime the Indonesians had earned themselves a reputation of stubbornness that had to be reckoned with, gaining leverage. In the agreement it was decided that, when the UNTEA had finished its job, a small group of UN officials had to stay behind in Papua to arrange for economic cooperation and to make preparations for the planned Act of Free Choice. Here the Indonesians did not cooperate either, and so no implementation could be claimed as yet. This was accepted without much protest. For the Indonesians, it was a silent message that for them there was always a second chance to get what they wanted. So with the creation of UNTEA on 1 October 1962 the United Nations gradually stumbled into a rather uncomfortable position. Its representatives in the field handled the first big peace keeping operation in the history of the United Nations, 16 and as such it was a test case for the world organisation. Its prestige was at stake. Sure, the agreement had left many things in the dark, but at least it had formulated some standards of good governance, justice and safety of life and goods that were not met during the UN administration. The problems were many. The civil UN staff was small, consisting of a few hundred officials for the huge territory, assisted by 1500 poorly armed security forces that were hardly a threat to the well armed and motivated Indonesian troops. Moreover, UNTEA had only very few Malay speaking persons in the organisation, and with the Dutch in full retreat they were increasingly dependent upon Indonesians for their contact with the Papuans. For Djalal Abdoh, the chief administrator of UNTEA, soon after his arrival it was clear that things were threatening to slip between his fingers. Yet he decided to make the best of it, not to spoil his future career by a complete disaster. Towards his immediate superior in New York, the assistant secretary general José Rolz-Bennett, he was quite frank about these difficulties, but in his broader reports, written for the information of the General Assembly, he took care to play these down as much as possible. That was especially the case in his final report in May 1963. There he stated that UNTEA had been a success, and that it had capably fulfilled its task of softening the transfer between the Dutch and the Indonesian administrations.. That claim was not unjustified, but Abdoh kept silent on the fact that for the Papuans his administration had been a period of loss of safety, welfare and liberty, and of increasing disorientation. UNTEA had not guaranteed the human rights it had signed up for. It is difficult however to see how this could have been otherwise, given the mindset of the new occupational forces. It was to become worse. The retreat of UNTEA in 1 May 1963 inaugurated a period of isolation. Former Netherlands New Guinea now became the special Indonesian province of Irian Barat, with a Papuan governor indeed, but effectively under full Indonesian control. The leading officer of the local military command was the most powerful man in the country, together with the civil representative of the Jakarta administration. They set themselves to the task of training the Papuans 17 for a life within the guided democracy of Sukarno. From now on foreigners were forbidden to enter the territory and information on internal affairs was in the hands of the Indonesian officials and the government press agency Antara. These tried to give a rosy picture of progress with expanding schools, a new university and Indonesian officers working hard for the best for the Papuans. Sometimes they met with success. When the Australian scholars Herbert Feith and M.A. Jaspan visited the country in 1964 they gave a rather positive picture that must have gladdened the heart of their Indonesian readers. For the rest, more sober reports incidentally slipped out written by a few tradesmen, journalists or diplomats. More realistic information also filtered out through Australian intelligence, based upon reports of Papuan fugitives that had crossed the borders. The Papuan leaders from the Dutch period, Nicolaas Jouwe and Marcus Kaisiepo, who had sought refuge in the Netherlands, tapped from the same types of sources. In their summaries they provided at least a more credible picture of what was happening. They asked for attention for the increasing Papuan resistance and the outright revolts in Manokwari in 1965 and following years that were countered with strong violence by Indonesian troops and the airforce. The number of victims now increased steeply and had to be counted by the thousands. However, it did not seriously damage the Indonesian position. The most interested countries, Australia, the US and the Netherlands, free at last from the long-continued conflict on west New Guinea, now completely focused upon Indonesia, and the alarming reports could be set aside easily as constituting a one sided picture. The UN officials closed their eyes too. When the UN assistant secretary general Rolz-Bennett visited the country in 1965, he determinedly evaded all contact with prominent Papuans. He deliberately refused to accept a compilation of information they had prepared for him by the former member of the New Guinea Council, Baldus Mofu, that in the end had to be smuggled to New York through the back door. Upon his return Rolz-Bennett simply told his colleagues that he had not met any problems in the country, and he showed himself rather enthusiastic about the fact that the Indonesian leaders Subandrio and Sukarno had reserved an hour or so for some shop talk with him 18 whilst they were on the point of departing for a visit to China. Not all hope for a future Act of Free Choice had to be given up; this was his conclusion. That however was not what Sukarno had in mind. Shortly afterwards he decided to withdraw from the United Nations, and he did not overlook that the Act of Free Choice could now be removed from the agenda as well. That changed in the last months of 1965 when, in Indonesia, the era of Sukarno came to an end and a new administration took over under the leadership of General Suharto. His rise to power was accompanied with a great show of political violence against small Javanese and Balinese farmers which disquieted the world. Yet, by the leaders of the Western bloc he was regarded as the best safeguard against the rising star of communism in Asia, and they were eager to support him. Suharto needed their help to restore the Indonesian economy which had fallen into disarray during the long years of the Sukarno administration, but it was clear to all concerned that the new government had to show a token of goodwill and respect for the international order if such help was to be forthcoming. Here the impending Act of Free Choice offered a good chance for Suharto to distance himself from the preceding administration. It was in this mood that his foreign minister Adam Malik visited the province of Papua in the middle of 1966, accompanied by a large group of journalists. They were approached from all sides by discontented Papuans who hastened to inform them of the disastrous situation they were living in. Amazingly, Malik took care to listen to them. In his speeches he delivered fierce attacks on the maladministration and plunder of the territory by the Javanese officials and military, that is to say the same people that welcomed him to Papua. The latter were flabbergasted by this approach, unheard of for an Indonesian minister. They had no other option than to accept it for a while, but after his departure not much changed. Some shifts took place in the top echelons, but essentially things remained as they were. Indonesian attitudes hardened again with the coming of the Act of Free Choice. The initial steps were taken in the middle of 1968 with the appointment of the Bolivian diplomat Fernando Ortiz Sanz as representative of 19 the secretary general to monitor the event that had to take place in the following year. Suharto declared himself willing to organise the Act of Free Choice, but at the same time he made perfectly clear that he would accept no other outcome than one in favour of Indonesia. In Papua itself attempts were made by the inhabitants to organise a campaign of their own. Much depended on what support they would get from the United Nations and the world at large in the months to come. The term of service of Ortiz Sanz was in many respects a repetition of the one of Djalal Abdoh. His first task was to get informed about the situation in West Papua by reading the files available at UN headquarters in New York. There he was visited by Nicolaas Jouwe and Marcus Kaisiepo, who provided him with much local information. There is abundant evidence that Ortiz Sanz appreciated this, and it must have dawned on him that his was no easy task. The path he had to travel was full of pitfalls. Moreover he had only a small staff at his disposal of at best a dozen officials because the Indonesians, who had to pay for half of the costs, stressed that they did not have the means to finance a big show. The Dutch, who had to contribute the other half, hardly protested. So it was clear from the outset that the representative of the UN would become dependent upon Indonesia for all practical matters. Yet that did not prevent him from leaving for Jakarta in August 1968 in high spirits, recounting at the State Department that he wanted to be sure that free elections were held. “He would rather resign than be directing a farce”. These statements shocked the US diplomats, who felt that such ideas would give rise to an outright confrontation with the Indonesians. His first meetings with the Indonesian top leadership were rather uneasy indeed, and his relations with his Indonesian counterpart, Sudjarwo Tjondronegoro, were strained right from the start. Sudjarwo, a senior diplomat who had participated in the negotiations preceding the New York Agreement and had been the first Indonesian ambassador in The Hague after the resumption of diplomatic relations with the Netherlands, was a man not to be underestimated. He was fully 20 a master of his trade and in his future contacts with Ortiz Sanz he saw fit to build the traps needed to make his opponent stumble whenever he wished him to. Adam Malik could have made no better choice. Of course this is not the place to enter into the details of the Act of Free Choice, but I will discuss a few essentials at least. For the satisfactory fulfilment of his task it was important for Ortiz Sanz to be able to inform the UN headquarters that the ‘plebiscite’ had been carried out in conformity with the New York Agreement, that is to say, without compulsion and with methods compatible with international practice. Yet, he definitely was not the sole judge of these things. He had to reckon with Sudjarwo, who took every opportunity to remind him of the fact that according to the terms of the agreement the carrying out of the Act of Free Choice was exclusively an Indonesian affair, and that the task of the UN representative was merely to ‘advise, observe and participate’ in the making and carrying out of any arrangements. Seen against the background of this history, Sanz’ was an impossible task, and after his arrival things did not get better. Although by then a revolt in Manokwari was just being brought to an end, there was a good chance that new ones would flare up. The Papuans were in high spirits and craving action. For them, it was now or never, and they were fully aware of that. Yet, the Indonesians were on the alert too. To counter unwanted events fresh troops were brought in, with the result that at the height of the operation some 16,000 troops were at the disposal of the army commander, Sarwo Edhie. This officer was a trusted friend of president Suharto and during earlier operations in Java and in Aceh he had earned himself a reputation of being a ruthless soldier. The police forces too were present in full strength, ready to take action at the first sign of revolt. Taken as a whole, the Indonesian civil and military authorities handled the security side of the Act of Free Choice very effectively in terms of their own interest. Care was taken to spread out the activities over many places to limit the danger of a mass uprising in Jayapura. Nevertheless, such a thing was 21 threatened at the time of the arrival at the airport of Jayapura around 11 April 1969 of the Indonesian top officials who had to manage the forthcoming event. Large groups of Papuans flocked together to demonstrate for free elections on the basis of one man, one vote. This was countered immediately and at least a hundred of the ringleaders were carried off in army trucks. New demonstrations took place a few days later in front of the residency of Ortiz Sanz in Jayapura, which he could not have failed to see. The most amazing thing is that he acted as if he had seen nothing at all and did not report on it to New York. More detailed information had to come from staff members of the delegation. An explanation for this curious behaviour might be that these events took place at a time when the representative of the United Nations had already lost the first battles and that by then, as Abdoh before him, he had opted for a policy of looking away, just so as not to have to relate unsavoury stories in his report at a later stage which might endanger not only the reputation of the United Nations, but that of himself too. This event did not stand alone. During his first tours through New Guinea in the last months of 1968 he was enthusiastically welcomed by many Papuans who felt that their days of sorrow were over at last. From all sides he was approached by individuals and committees who handed over letters in which they explained their miseries in abundant detail and spoke out in favour of a plebiscite on the basis of ‘one man, one vote’, stressing that they wanted to be set free from Indonesia right now. Ortiz Sanz had carefully bundled these and sent them to New York. He also handed them over to Sudjarwo for a reaction. That came soon enough, but it was not the one he might have hoped for. Sudjarwo felt insulted to the highest degree and made no secret of it. From then on he began to denounce his UN colleague as a silly person who had no idea about what kind of a world he was living in. As a check to the impression created the Indonesians now started an anti-plebiscite campaign again. As had happened before in the days of Djalal Abdoh, the UN representative was confronted with pro-Indonesian petitions which emphasized that the Papuans had already chosen Indonesian rule on 17 August 1945 and 22 had no need for an Act of Free Choice at all. These letters were mostly uniformly worded, bearing all the marks of mass production. In the beginning Ortiz Sanz protested and he made clear to New York that this paper flood was obviously the result of Indonesian intervention. From February 1969 onwards he stopped protesting and just reported that he had received letters pro and contra, but that only those of the second category were neatly written. As Sudjarwo had suggested to him before, he emphasized that these letters were written by students and the more educated classes in general, which added to their respectability. So with regard to the main points relevant for interpreting the Papuan mood and the Indonesian law and order policies, Sanz’ reporting was changing in the first months of 1969. He was taking refuge in the tactics applied by Abdoh before. The confrontation with Papuan reality and his contacts with his Indonesian counterparts must have taught him a lesson. More important still was that in January Sudjarwo had informed the top UN officials in New York that their representative was out of touch with reality and had to be instructed better. They picked up the message indeed and returned it to their representative in the field, though in more carefully worded terms. The gist of it was that while according to the terms of the agreement the plebiscite had to be held according to international practice, nevertheless one had to respect local customs too. In Indonesia ‘musyawara’ was the system of consultation and therefore just as good as any other approach. Further correspondence between Ortiz Sanz and his superiors was marked by subtle bickering on the point of who should take the blame for a less than perfect show. In the process, Ortiz Sanz played down his democratic aspirations considerably by conceding that elections might not be possible in all places, but could be carried out at least in the greater cities – as had been done before in the elections under the Dutch for the New Guinea Council. In discussions with his Indonesian partners he advised them to allow for an outcome of 30 % or so against inclusion in Indonesia, which would be enough to ensure an outcome in favour for Indonesia that at the same time would lend 23 some credibility to the suggestion that democratic methods had been upheld. That favour was not given to him. The Indonesians manoeuvered for no less than full control of the outcome. The Act of Free Choice started on 15 July in Merauke and ended on 2 August 1969 with a meeting in Jayapura. The result left no room for surprise. It was 100% in favour of Indonesia. The voting was a decentralized affair, taking place in eight district capitals spread out over the country. The voters had been selected by regional committees and were appointed more often than not without even knowing why. They had been brought together in their voting centres a month before and carefully instructed what to do. It was made perfectly clear to them that no other vote than one in favour of Indonesia would be accepted. Short notes were distributed containing the words that were asked for. Journalists were kept out as much as possible. Along these lines the voting took place under the eyes of Ortiz Sanz and a limited group of foreign diplomats who had accepted the invitation to be present at the operation. Direct contacts between the UN staff and individual Papuan voters were effectively prevented. The visiting party was marched straight in from the airfield to the voting place. Their only task was to wait and see. Actually, then and before, the UN had played no role in the process at all. The Indonesians had proceeded just as they wished, telling Ortiz Sanz that the term ‘to participate’ as laid down in the New York Agreement had no other meaning than ‘to be present’. So in a sense Ortiz Sanz got what he wanted. He was not ‘directing’ a farce or anything else, indeed; his role was much less conspicuous. He was tolerated on the sidelines only. When the voting was nearly done the diplomats returned to Jakarta where they were called together at the embassy of the United States. There they felt free to speak openly between themselves. The most outspoken of the lot was the senior diplomat Phinit Akson, the ambasador of Thailand. His comment was bitter. The military had their nose in everything, he said, and people who might be expected to sound a deviant note were forced to speak under the military’s watchful eye. 24 Any sign of dignity, he said, had been utterly missing. The Dutch ambassador Scheltema tried to touch a lighter string by remarking that in Wamena at least one of the voters had expressed the hope that the government would work with the people for change in the future. However, ‘if he were to be honest’, he could not easily say anything else of a positive nature in his report to the Netherlands parliament. His way out was to limit himself to saying what he had wanted to see himself, leaving out all he knew from different sources. Ortiz Sanz did the same in his report to the United Nations. His report was an avalanche of irrelevant details from which he saw fit to draw the conclusion that in Papua an act of Free Choice had been held, not bothering himself with the question of what it actually meant. The General Assembly of the United Nations did the same. As mentioned before, it only took note of the event, which, after all, was the only thing it had been asked to do. With this sordid Act of Free Choice the future of the Papuans was settled till the present day. For them it was the end of an illusion and the Indonesian administration continued as it had started in 1962. Many of the elements mentioned in this chapter are still relevant for life in Papua today. Even now it is still a territory with a strong military presence, much mismanagement and very limited possibilities for the Papuans to develop and to have their voice heard. The dogma of 17 August still holds. Sure, things have changed somewhat during the last decade. More leeway has been given to them indeed, but not to the point that they can feel like normal human beings, having a real say on their own future. For Papuans, the options they see open to them still seem to waver between direct confrontation with Indonesia - a dangerous course which puts the scant possibilities for progress and even physical survival of the population at risk - and cooperation with Indonesia in one way or another. These certainly are the options that have to be discussed. -0- 25 So these are my thoughts, but I have something else to say. In June 2000, when all was fluid in Indonesia and everything seemed possible, in Jayapura thousands of Papuans came together for a Second National Congress. There they voted for a couple of resolutions that were to embody the leading principles for the times to come. One of these was Menelurusi Sejarah, the putting straight of history. It was a way of saying that history had gone wrong in 1962 and consequently had to be replayed from then on. Apparently it included a reenactement of the Act of Free Choice, but this time as a real plebiscite. One of those present was Viktor Kaisiepo, son of the leader Marcus Kaisiepo, who had been one the outstanding Papua representatives of the Dutch period. They had all lived in exile since 1962. Marcus senior, in the year 2000, was still alive in the city of Delft, and had forbidden his sons to go back to Papua as long as the Indonesians were in power there. Viktor however had come to think otherwise. During the preceding years he had been active in many NGOs and the Russell Tribunal. His work was appreciated by the new Papuan leadership that presented itself in the spring of 2000, and he was invited to participate in their Second National Congress. There he told his audience that Papuans were not the only isolated minorities in a changing world, and that they had much to gain by international cooperation. His presentation made a great impact on his audience, and he was invited to join the presidium as their agent for international affairs. He did so over the following decade with enthusiasm and conviction. His position as a formal representative of the Papuan world added to his authority in the corridors of the United Nations. There his most cherished project was to work for acceptance of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which he regarded as the best thing that could happen to the Papuans. The position of indigenous peoples was recognised by the international community, including the Indonesian state, as one within the jurisdiction of international law. Apart from that, for the Papuans there were still other assets to be utilised. These included the fact that the presidents Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid and Yudhoyono had repeatedly recognised that the problems of Papua had to be taken seriously. It was now the task of the Papuan leadership to keep the Indonesians to these 26 commitments, especially in the case of special autonomy. After all, it was a formal regulation of the Indonesian state, ready at hand not only in internal politics but for international discussion as well. Of course it was clear to Viktor that Indonesia would not give in easily, especially when so many Papuans at home and abroad stuck to a practice of small scale demonstrations, flag waving processions and demands for ‘one man, one vote’ immediately. For him, and I think for many others too, the first thing to do now was to work for the survival of the Papuans, and to prepare for a better life for the upcoming generations. Of course this must include the formulation and implementation of political rights. Yet, for the first decades at least one has to stick to attainable policies and not burden the agenda with demands that have no relevance for the present day except to throw a spanner in the works of a better future. I know that this is not a new message for most of you. It has been said by others, and Viktor has made no secret of this in his speeches either. However, most of it is not written down. As many Papuans are, Viktor was a gifted teller of stories, not a writer. Yet, in 2009, when the doctors had told him that his life was running to its end, he felt a need to tell a farewell story. Therefore he arranged with his friend, the journalist Willem Campschreur, for a project that was carried out almost immediately. In a series of interviews, Viktor did the telling, and Willem the writing. The interviews were nearly completed by the time Viktor passed away, and after the burial on 4 February 2010, Willem continued the work. With great pleasure I can tell you that the memoirs of Viktor Kaisiepo are completed, and that they were presented to the public at the Dutch Headquarters of Amnesty International in Amsterdam in February 2010.8 I can assure you that they are an intriguing piece of work, and they make up a bit for the fact that Viktor is no longer with us. 8 Viktor Kaisiëpo Msn, Een Perspectief voor Papua. Het verhaal van mijn leven en mijn strijd. Opgetekend door Willem Campschreur (KIT Publishers, Amsterdam 2011). 27 Section one: New media activism and resistance 28 Chapter three: Free the people? Free the Media! Broadcasting Papua’s songs of freedom Nick Chesterfield It is almost a cliché today that peoples wishing to free themselves from tyranny are turning in huge numbers to citizen journalism, both to tell their stories to the outside world, and to put a formidable brake on the out of sight, out of mind mentality that allows state organs to conduct constant human abuse with impunity. The rise of citizen media is giving mainstream journalism the kick it needs to remember its core business of giving voice to the Voiceless. In West Papua, the Voiceless are slowly discovering they can roar. In early February an event occurred in Tunisia that was to be the spark for the pan-Arab awakening which quite quickly saw another dictator ousted in Egypt. After a local trader immolated himself in protest against the Tunisian regime, citizen media succeeded in viralising the news of this event. “We could protest for two years here, but without videos no one would take any notice of us,” said a relative of the martyred 25-year-old. For media activists and journalists reporting Papua, this truth is self-evident, and its acceptance hopefully could ignite the spark of uprising in Papua. The opportunities presented by the pan-Arab (and other) awakenings are not being lost on the young generation in Papua. Social media in Papua is buzzing, unafraid, with vibrant discussions of the implications for Papua of the pan-Arabic revolutionary success. The reality is that a spontaneous awakening and mass politicisation of ordinary Papuans is completely inevitable, and is being ably assisted by switched-on local people developing their capacity to tell their story to the world. In researching for several stories this year at West Papua Media Alerts, my sources have told me in no uncertain terms that they are all ready for a trigger to 29 explode the situation. The only thing holding back sustained mass action – revolution even – across occupied Papua is the constant bickering between exile groups, the actions of the collaborator elites, desperate to cling to the illusion that Jakarta is not there just to steal their land and send them to the moon and to look after those who will put their own interests ahead of those surviving under occupation. What is a mystery is how this mass consciousness will survive the elite and exile power games that are evident in most transitional polities throughout recent history (and are certainly present in West Papua today). Will the exiles hijack the efforts of the young generation or listen to the actual wishes of their people? If Jakarta can be trusted not to unleash the truly evil and deeply entrenched habitual brutality that has been its only constant as the new colonialist, will it claim a place amongst the civilised by not slaughtering those who want peace? Well, History is a wise teacher and its lesson is never to trust the evil or greedy to reform of their own accord. To keep the ugly realities in check, West Papua (and the international community) need a determined, effective, vibrant and fearless citizen and professional media to deliver real-time accountability both internally and internationally. Real time advocacy is vital for the international community to act to end Papua’s suffering. Human rights advocates conduct scientific research into abuses, but because this information does not get out easily, the problems in Papua are only now becoming known to the world. I need to ask you, dear reader, an honest question: Without the hard work of journalists in Papua and those outside assisting them to get their voice to international media, would Papua even be in people’s consciousness today? So why is the international civil society arena more concerned with West Papua 30 falling prey to the disease of factionalism and Big Man syndrome than in assisting West Papuan people to get their stories into the living rooms of the world? Many Papuan exiles claim significant legitimacy, but baulk and splutter when asked to prove it. This has developed a culture of opacity across the exile movement. A strong and diverse citizen-based media across Papua can easily counter exiles’ game playing and false claims by ensuring credibility and honesty in social movements. It benefits and strengthens social movements too by imparting the skills and practice needed for sharpening their message and creating powerful arguments for international support for their aims. Strong domestic media also removes international governments’ excuses for inaction by seriously raising the credibility and verification bar. If the international community is serious about improving the lives of Papuan people, it will help develop the capacity of the West Papuan media to tell the story of what is going on, and press Jakarta hard to allow international media access on demand. After all, with full accountability, what is there ultimately to be afraid of? Largely in response to years of willful ignorance and self-censorship of the Indonesian created horrors in West Papua by international media, many sectors of Papuan society spontaneously and independently began a dramatic take-up of social media technology, which has been exponentially increasing since 2008. Blogs, social networking and online media outlets are being utilized all over the country by a young generation of Papuans impatient for real change. Today’s mass Papuan movement is mainly urban, educated, innovative, nonviolence based, and significantly embracing of the power of citizen and social media as a key plank of civil resistance strategy. 31 Very occasionally West Papua does get in the news, but only through coordination between committed journalists and human rights workers working together and ear-bashing news editors. Due to the ongoing ban by Indonesia on international media and humanitarian organisations having access to Papua, allegations of abuse are notoriously difficult to verify. While this ban remains in place only the most dedicated journalists make the effort to go in undercover. West Papua Media Alerts has been proud to facilitate undercover trips into occupied territory and meetings with many West Papuan people prepared to tell their own story. This is getting more difficult by the day so local people are working for a solution. Live images, videos and online activism by Papuan people have already created tremendous momentum in action and awareness of Papua. By creating their own media, and their own narrative, Papuan people are reclaiming self-determination denied for so long. But reporting in West Papua is a highly risky business. Journalists, Papuan and outsiders alike, are under constant threat for reporting West Papua, with four journalists dying in suspicious circumstance in 2010 alone. Anywhere journalists report fearlessly they are targets, but most journalists in West Papua simply put up with it; they have no other option. What can international media do to lessen their risk? Partly in response to this danger and partly to give local journalists a voice globally, West Papua Media Alerts (WPMA) <http://westpapuamedia.info/> was started in 2008. It aims to provide a professional service to international media covering West Papua, ensuring high quality, verifiable reporting gets into the international media directly from the ground and not from those who seek to distort the truth of daily experience in Papua. By reporting Papuan campaigns to end human rights abuses and bringing unreported Papuan issues to the front page, we hope to hold the abusers to account. With an ever growing stable base 32 of committed and disparate voices from citizen media to professional journalists, West Papua Media Alerts is proud and excited to be part of this movement. Some of our real time work has assisted directly in the prevention of mass acts of violence by the Indonesian security forces, such as our coverage and media advocacy fixing of the July 8-9, 2010 Otsus Gagal (Give Back Special Autonomy) demos and occupation of the Jayapura DPRP (Legislative Assembly of Papua Province). Less than ten minutes before the deadline for dispersal of the two day rally of over 45,000 people Indonesian security forces were forced to back down after a BBC report aired, organised by the WPMA, which brought international attention to the explosively dangerous situation. Extensive international diplomacy occurred in that 15 minutes and, together with the extreme discipline of the mass protest, enabled the protestors to peaceably leave the scene of the protest. WPMA has worked very hard raising the media profile of West Papua, launching significant joint investigations with major media outlets and breaking several key stories in 2010 and 2011. None of this would be possible without deep trust from the people of Papua in reporting their stories. West Papuan citizen media, in conjunction with several co-author colleagues mentioned in these pages, played a key role in alerting the world to deeply heinous cases of abuse. One was the sourcing, verification and release of the deeply shocking leaked Kostrad (the Indonesian army's Strategic Reserve Command) videos of civilians undergoing torture in Puncak Jaya. The Kiwo incident neatly captures why the Indonesian military cannot be trusted to reform themselves from the inside, and why the role of a robust media is so critical in Papua. The other was footage of Indonesian BRIMOB (mobile police) taunting a former political prisoner, Yawan Wayeni, having disembowelled him moments before for 33 arguing with them. Both these videos showed the power of citizen media in activating international human rights networks to effectively raise the issue of Papua. There are many more videos in preparation for release. A swarm movement cannot have a single media strategy, but media need to understand that the swarm will get media out in its own way too. Media that had wilfully ignored West Papua’s voice for so long really has no right to dictate how information disseminates, and, if it wants to get the stories before others, then it just has to move faster. Because it is new media techniques that have already and will more in future propel Papua onto the front page, to make people choke on their cornflakes. Likewise, evidence dissemination also needs multiple, failsafe distribution routes. Single dissemination routes can easily be shut down or silenced. West Papuans have tailored their mechanisms to this very effectively; yet this is significantly frustrating outside journalists. According to many in mainstream media, West Papuans can be their own worst enemy when it comes to disseminating information. People on the ground do need to get smarter about media distribution strategies, but the media also must adapt to a social and cultural reality. West Papuan human rights and citizen media are not chaotic: they are maximising the potential audience for their information. It is important to understand that no one faction or sector in West Papua can claim dominance or leadership of this mass movement. This is not Congress in India and there is no single Gandhi figure. Rather, this is a movement with thousands of Gandhis. The civil movement refuses to be based around a single leadership group, and instead features multitudes of groups and tribes all acting autonomously and independently (where everyone knows their role and works their hardest), but which is nevertheless unified under its collective goals. 34 Such a swarm structure can occasionally present difficulties for those who cannot think outside traditional top-down strategies for national change, including traditional media. Rather than being shut out of dialogue by the game playing of unaccountable elites, this type of structure encourages a longer lasting peace by enabling all actors to have their voices heard. It is also a natural strategy to employ in a nation where it is, for the most part, illegal to congregate in groups. Other barriers for West Papuan media are much more easily solved with a bit of training and understanding of the friend-enemy (this being media executives and their unreasonable expectations far removed from reality). One issue is the lack of speed with which many West Papuan media activists work, and, whilst the performance is improving, events have to be filmed, edited, packaged and disseminated faster than ever—in one day where possible. There are issues of journalistic discipline and professional journalistic practice in new media. There must be safe information gathering, careful abuse documentation, scrupulous investigative journalism methodology, information quality assurance, assured protection of sources, and more. Effective citizen and professional media training are required to develop awareness of major current and future challenges to safe information dissemination – these are all programs that the West Papua Media network is currently engaged in and needs help with to increase its capacity. All of the above costs money and requires the international community to understand that the development of indigenous journalism in West Papua is crucial to the protection of human security and peace across Asia-Pacific. It requires international institutions in media and academia to get out of their cloisters and get muddy: to actually pool resources and help identify new sources of sustainable funding to start training journalists in innovative new media reportage techniques and to support their work for the global human interest. As 35 I said before, the West Papua Media network already has training programs ready to go; we just need the funds to make them happen. In West Papua, as across the world, accountability is always the simplest solution to combating impunity. An aggressive culture of investigative journalism must be encouraged, and the skills to enable it must be developed to deliver that accountability, be it for human rights abuse, military business mafias and corruption, human insecurity, environmental vandalism or whatever. The culture and skills must cover (and protect) the desires of the Papuan population to determine their own future in both the current occupation and in any situation for the future. Both academia and international media must take a strong role in its development, to embed international protections to enable West Papua’s journalists and citizen media to report, without fear, hindrance or threat, the stories that are important to West Papuan people and their freedom. Our hope is that we will have a really robust citizen media that can deliver accountability. We want to stop people from being afraid of speaking out, and we want West Papua’s voice to be its weapon, to broadcast its songs for Freedom. 36 Chapter four: Internet Advocacy and the MIFEE Project in West Papua Paul Barber and Rosa Moiwend Addressing the information deficit Comprehending West Papua is an immensely difficult task that confronts us all. As we attempt to understand the complex issues that impact on the fraught political situation in the territory, it is important that we treat West Papua and its people not as the objects of the exercise, but as participants in the search for insights and initiatives aimed at promoting a peaceful solution to the conflict. The question we have to answer is how organisations such as TAPOL in London and others can work as partners with local community groups and NGO partners to achieve that objective. There is sometimes a tendency, of which we are all guilty, to extract information from West Papua without accounting to the local sources for how the information is used and without involving them in resulting advocacy initiatives. This in particular affects people at the grassroots, who can feel excluded if those who purport to represent them do not involve them sufficiently in their actions. Provincial and national NGOs can be as much to blame for this as international intermediaries. Key to improved comprehension of West Papua is the free flow of reliable information both ways between Papuan civil society and civil society, public opinion and policymakers in Indonesia and the rest of the world. This applies as much to the flow of information into West Papua as it does to information going the other way. The information deficit on West Papua is well known, but the corresponding information deficit within West Papua is not so much highlighted. In this situation, misleading information or misinformation – for example about the strength of international support for certain Papuan political initiatives -- can lead 37 to overly raised expectations, which in turn can be harmful to peace-building efforts. At the same time, Papuans need information about global issues and developments, such as the growing phenomenon of land-grabbing for food projects referred to later in this chapter, and their relevance to local issues, as well as information about appropriate international mechanisms through which they can raise their legitimate concerns. Addressing the information deficit in West Papua is one way of helping to empower the Papuans to overcome their immense difficulties. It also helps to undermine the information monopoly of the state as the recent Wikileaks revelations have demonstrated. Internet advocacy as a response to the conflict The tight restrictions on freedom of expression and the denial of access to foreign journalists and international human rights and humanitarian organisations imposed by the Indonesian authorities present major obstacles to improving the flow of information, but the internet is an obvious means of confronting those obstacles. It provides a democratic mechanism, which helps to encourage free speech, promotes transparency and accountability and offers innovative means of enabling civil society organisations and local communities to raise awareness of their situation, strengthen local, national, regional and global networks and advocate their concerns and aspirations, all of which are key aspects of conflict prevention and peace-building. It can also offer an early warning and early response mechanism as a means of addressing developing tensions and conflicts. TAPOL already spends a considerable amount of time translating and disseminating via the internet reports and articles about West Papua which rarely get a mention in the Indonesian and international media. However, the challenge is to find ways in which the internet, new media opportunities and online social networking can be used by Papuan partners notwithstanding the difficulties 38 caused by a lack of grassroots capacity and infrastructure, especially in remote locations, and the risk of intimidation and intervention by the security authorities. TAPOL is taking on this challenge by working with partners and potential partners to analyse their needs and find ways of translating them into internet platforms that will be most effective and beneficial to them. Support and ideas from other organisations and individuals would be most welcome. The platforms should meet the need for authoritative, independent and bilingual sources of information and analysis on issues affecting conflict prevention and peace-building and a means for the exchange of information. They should also incorporate an advocacy function that enables local partners and other Papuan stakeholders to increase their use of the internet as a non-violent means of responding to the Papua conflict. The advocacy would be informed by information that is factually accurate and not influenced by particular political agendas. Improved insight into the complex political dynamics of the West Papua conflict, which are affected by interrelated developments involving a range of players at the local, national and international levels, is essential. Profiles of key governmental institutions, political players, and civil society organisations at all levels and an overview and analysis of recent political developments and conflictresolution initiatives, as well as links to relevant media reports, are required. This should, for example, generate a better understanding of initiatives such as the Papua Road Map produced by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), the decision to ‘return’ special autonomy to Jakarta and the proposal for ‘constructive communication’ by President Yudhoyono of Indonesia, as well the significance of international developments such as the first-ever hearings on West Papua in the US Congress. Materials would be readily available to policymakers, practitioners, academics, students, journalists, campaigners and members of the public inside and outside West Papua. 39 The Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) project in Southeastern Papua, which encapsulates the myriad political, socio-economic, cultural and environmental problems facing West Papua and its people, especially indigenous communities, is a particularly suitable subject for internet advocacy. The MIFEE project MIFEE is a collection of commercial plantations, planned to cover up to 1.6 million hectares. The project was launched on 11 August 2010.9 It is being promoted as a means of stabilizing Indonesia’s food security. It has received support from the Government of Indonesia, and Merauke has been designated a national ‘Special Economic Zone’ (SEZ) in order to attract the US$8.6 billion of investment needed for the project. Over 30 investors from Indonesia, Japan, China, Singapore, Korea and the Middle East have expressed an interest.10 Their involvement appears to be part of a global trend to make money by buying up lands abroad for food production. Merauke was first proposed for a massive food project in 2000 when the then district chief Johannes Gluba Gebze put forward his idea for a Merauke Integrated Rice Estate (MIRE) project. The proposal won the full support of the agriculture department of the central government and was implemented by the local government. Later in 2008, when a global food crisis started to push up the price of food around the world, many agrarian countries, including Indonesia, got busy, thinking up new sources of food. This crisis became the launching pad for increased investment in food production. There were fears that Indonesia itself could suffer severe food shortages by 2025 with a rapidly rising population and increasing scarcity of land for food production in Java, so the government and its 9 A recent report has suggested that the size of the project could be much smaller: Many investors drawn to MIFEE project, JUBI, 15 February 2011 (translated by TAPOL). 10 Medco Group; Artha Graha Network; PT Bangun Cipta Sarana; Comexindo International; Sumber Alam Sutra; Korindo; PT Rajawali Nusantara Indonesia; Sinar Mas; PT Kertas Nusantara; Mitsubishi (Japan); Wilmar (Singapore); LG International (Korea) (http://tapol.gn.apc.org/press/files/pr100811.html - _ftn1). 40 department of agriculture began looking everywhere for strategic locations, land that no-one was supposedly using, land with the potential to attract investors. Merauke was regarded as an ideal location for large-scale food production. However, Agus Sumule, an expert on the staff of the then governor of Papua, said it would be an act of grave injustice because it would mean Papua and especially Merauke bearing the consequences of the food crisis in Indonesia. This burden, he said, should be borne by districts throughout Indonesia, from east to west and from north to south. According to Sumule: ‘It is grossly unfair for a single province, a single district and still worse, a single ethnic group, to have to bear the burden of the national food crisis.’ However the Merauke proposal was enthusiastically promoted by Johannes Gluba Gebze, who argued in favour of the need to improve the local economy and in favour of food self-sufficiency. The local government and the central government then conducted their own studies and produced a draft for the project. The central government came up with the idea of a mega project called the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE) and issued Government Regulation 20/2008 on National Land Allocation, which identified Merauke as the main area for the national agricultural sector. These plans were drawn up without any coordination between the central government and the Papua provincial government. The district chief and his staff in Merauke did not discuss the project with the provincial government. Notwithstanding the lack of consultation, the Indonesian president issued a presidential decision, Inpres 5/2008, providing for the inclusion of the MIFEE project as part of provincial land allocation. The department of agriculture decided that 1.6 million hectares should be allocated to the MIFEE. An area of such huge dimensions, imposed on the map of West Papua, includes not only agricultural land and transmigration sites, which are suitable for food production, but also virgin forests and protected areas 41 including peat forest, water catchment areas and even residential areas, including the kampungs (villages) where the indigenous Malind people live. In all the discussions about the mega MIFEE project that took place between the Merauke district government and the central government, there was virtually no mention of the indigenous people who live in the area. The project has been designed without any regard for the human development of the Malind people. Indeed, the central and local governments have given the impression that the land allocated to MIFEE is uninhabited, that it doesn’t belong to anyone. The people who live in unity with nature and in their native dwellings have simply been ignored. During the planning stage, the indigenous people were never involved in any negotiations, they were not even told about the MIFEE project. They were kept in the dark about the fact that their kampungs, including traditional villages, would be included within the strategic mapping of MIFEE. As a result, their customary land has been valued at a very low price. Moreover, they face the threat of being relocated to land that belongs to other clans when the project goes ahead, creating the possibility of horizontal conflict between clans. The project is likely to contribute to the marginalisation of indigenous Papuans by taking over the customary-owned land and resources which provide for their livelihoods and are key to their cultural identity. It could also exacerbate existing human rights grievances, and accelerate environmental deforestation and degradation. Land-grabbing and marginalisation West Papua’s abundance of natural resources has a profound influence on the way of life of indigenous Papuans and enables them to maintain a sustainable lifestyle at subsistence levels. By contrast, Indonesian migrants, who initially came to West Papua under state-sponsored transmigration programmes and later voluntarily settled in West Papua, come from a different socio-economic 42 background, which relies more on competition amongst themselves and now with indigenous Papuans. Papuans are at a huge disadvantage in their ability to 'compete' with incomers, who are better educated and have the necessary skills to work on projects such as MIFEE The indigenous people of Merauke have already felt the impact of transmigration programmes, first implemented under Dutch colonial rule and continued under Indonesia’s Suharto regime. Population growth, changes in population demographics and the further loss of land and resources as a result of MIFFE could have a devastating and irreversible impact on the livelihoods of the local population, especially indigenous Papuans. The implementation of Article 33 of the 1945 Indonesian Constitution has resulted in violations of the rights of indigenous peoples, especially in West Papua, regarding their natural resources management. Sub-clause 2 of Article 33 provides that: “Branches of the production which are important for the state and which affect of the life of the most of the people shall be controlled by the state”. Sub-clause 3 says that: “Land and water, and natural resources found therein, shall be controlled by the state and shall be exploited for the maximum benefit of the people.” As a result of these provisions, it is likely that indigenous people will lose their rights to their lands in order that they may be exploited for the “maximum benefit of the people”. Land ownership in Merauke is mainly communal (based on clan affinities) with division into family (individual) ownership under clan control. If a member of a clan or family wants to put up for sale a piece of land, the sale should be 43 discussed with other members of the clan. If the Government needs the land for development purposes, it should get permission and agreement from the clan. However, nowadays, this mechanism does not effectively work in practice. The local and Indonesian Government’s perspective on land use is mainly governed by Article 33 of the Constitution. It has been suggested that MIFEE will bring economic, educational and infrastructural advantages for local people. Improved infrastructure is supposed to lead to better economic and educational conditions. The strategic planning of MIFEE says that the per capita income of the local people will be increased, but the experience of special autonomy has taught Papuans to be sceptical about promises of improvements to their economic well-being. The stated intention is that peasant farmers will be supported by the provision of modern equipment and technology. But training centres will be set up to educate local people in the techniques of agricultural production only in the longer term. Much more significantly, in the initial period, skilled transmigrants from outside Merauke will be moved in to run the project and to handle the transfer of technology. Tens of thousands more workers and economic migrants, mostly from outside West Papua, are expected to settle in Merauke and the surrounding areas. This can only result in the further marginalisation and disempowerment of local communities, whose lands will be used for the production of non-traditional crops such as palm oil, rice, sugar cane, corn and soyabean. The marginalisation of the Malind people in Merauke can only get worse. Ever since the commencement of the large-scale transmigration programme, Merauke has suffered from inadequate education, health and economic facilities. As a consequence, the indigenous people have been elbowed out and have become nothing more than spectators in the transmigration kampungs. 44 Loss of cultural identity The indigenous peoples’ loss of customary lands in the name of development entails profound consequences for customary systems and regulations, which are fundamental to Papuans’ cultural identity. The regulation of kampung and traditional village boundaries, the seasonal management of land and a range of customary laws are becoming redundant and are likely to disappear altogether. This state of affairs could lead to the loss of the cultural identity of the Malind people particularly and other tribes around the MIFEE project as well. Land, forests, swamps, and other aspects of the environment are integral to their lives and livelihoods. Each aspect is a vital component of their identity and the destruction of one component will lead to the destruction of others. The people identify themselves with the natural features of the land and environment that are associated with particular tribes and clan. For example, the Gebze clan identifies with its coconut symbol, the Mahuze with its sago symbol, the Basik-basik with its pig, the Samkakai with its kangaroo and the Kaize with their Kasuari and Balagaise (falcon birds). For many years, while West Papua has been under Dutch and Indonesian rule, cultural practices and identities have been gradually lost as new systems, beliefs and development processes have been introduced. The pace of loss is now being accelerated by the destruction of the natural features which are highly symbolic for each clan. Native languages are also suffering a devastating impact and are becoming more infrequently spoken. The languages are part of an inseparable customary unity that includes the land, water, forests, and livestock. The loss of any of these elements contributes to the loss of the language. Languages are furthermore an important part of customary rituals as well as sacred ceremonies. 45 Stories that pass down through the generations from ancestors (Dema) become more and more difficult to understand because the sacred borders are replaced by fields of rice and maize and palm oil plantations. Malind people recognise their ancestors and their ancestral lands through the presence of specific symbols such as trees, bamboo plants and the like. The ancestral boundary is important in terms of the customary rules on land rights. Sustained local knowledge of tribal boundaries, land rights, land use, customary law and taboos are all dependent on having access to land and respect for traditional rights over the land. If the boundary is lost, the recognition of customary law will be weakened and this creates the potential for conflict between clan, migrant communities, and government authorities. Human rights and security The security strategy for MIFEE is unclear, as is the resulting direct and indirect impact on the local population. Merauke is located near the Indonesia-Papua New Guinea (PNG) border and is already a highly militarised area. A 2009 Human Rights Watch report detailed abuses committed by Kopassus, the special elite corps of the Indonesian army, with a notorious reputation for brutality, which has close ties with Johannes Gluba Gebze.11 In other parts of Papua where natural resources are being exploited state security forces are routinely employed to protect commercial assets. There has often been an expansion in these areas of the sex and alcohol industries, which are run by migrants or the police and military themselves. The potential impact on the population’s health is indicated by the fact that Merauke reportedly has the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases in West Papua after Mimika district, where the giant mining company Freeport operates. 11 ‘“What Did I Do Wrong?”: Papuans in Merauke Face Abuses by Indonesian Special Forces’, 2009, Human Rights Watch at http://www.hrw.org/en/node/84044/section/4 46 The enhanced security presence likely to be associated with MIFEE could increase tensions and add to the vulnerability of Merauke’s inhabitants; especially because Kopassus special forces are active in the area. Concern has previously been expressed about targeted surveillance and intimidation of NGOs and journalists. In 2009, a joint report by the Indonesian environmental NGO Telapak and the UK’s Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) stated that ‘irregular groups allied to former Bupati (district head) Johannes Gluba Gebze’ operate in Merauke and ‘work in unison with the state security forces to monitor and intimidate any dissenters in the region’.12 Environmental issues The scale of MIFEE raises major environmental and ecological concerns. The conversion of protected forest for agricultural use seems likely, despite both Indonesia’s Forestry Minister and the Coordinating Minister for the Economy stating otherwise. Widespread licensed deforestation in Merauke would contradict the Government of Indonesia’s commitment to reduce green-house gas emissions by 26% by 2020. It also raises questions over a recent billion dollar REDD (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation) agreement with the Government of Norway to preserve Indonesia’s rainforests although, so far, the REDD program in Indonesia is only being implemented in Kalimantan. Advocacy on MIFEE It is expected that the opposition to MIFEE from local people will increase as the project develops. The method normally used by the customary owners of the land and forests to make themselves heard and be taken seriously is to create a pemalangan or crossbar on their land or location. This is a barrier intended to 12 ‘Up for Grabs: Deforestation and Exploitation in Papua’s Plantations Boom’, November 2009, EIA/Telapak at http://www.eia-international.org/files/news566-1.pdf 47 stop the activity of the company by peaceful means – for example, blocking the road and taking possession of equipment. Organised local opposition to MIFEE has been developing through the formation of solidarity actions and groups, such as KOMALI in Merauke and SORPATOM in Jayapura and Merauke.13 Local NGOs, such as SKP KAM; SKP Jayapura; Foker LSM, and Yasanto are working on different advocacy initiatives at various levels.14 Each organisation has its own focus and some are working with Jakarta-based NGOs such as AMAN, the Foker LSM network, the Justice and Peace Office of the Catholic Bishops Conference (KWI), JPIC MSC Jakarta, JPIC OFM Jakarta (both part of the SKP Papua network) and the Indonesia office of Down to Earth, the International Campaign for Ecological Justice in Indonesia.15 The specific focus and objectives of TAPOL’s internet advocacy on MIFEE have yet to be determined. Initial efforts will be directed at understanding the needs of local community groups and civil society organisations, facilitating the dissemination of information both ways, strengthening communications and networks, providing a platform for voices and stories from the grassroots and researching companies and institutions investing in and financing the project. Confronting MIFEE will mean understanding and addressing global developments and Indonesian government policy on food and energy security, economic interests in MIFEE, national and local development planning, cultural, 13 KOMALI (Koalisi Masyarakat Peduli MIFEE) = People’s Coalition against MIFEE; SORPATOM = Solidarity for Papuans. 14 SKP KAM = Office for Justice and Peace of the Archdiocese of Merauke; SKP-Jayapura = Office for Justice and Peace of the Archdiocese of Jayapura; Foker LSM = Papuan NGOs Cooperation Forum; Yasanto (Yayasan Santo Antonius) = Saint Antonio Foundation. 15 AMAN (Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara) = All-Indonesia Alliance of Traditional Communities; JPIC MSC = Justice, Peace and Integration of Creatures Office of the Sacred Heart Order; JPIC OFM = Justice, Peace and Integration of Creatures Office of the Franciscans Order. 48 and social issues, human rights and security issues, and environmental issues. An alliance of civil society organisations with different skills and perspectives will be required. Coordinating and networking with local and national NGOs and developing strong communications will be key to ensuring that all parties are working together on a comprehensive advocacy strategy. Otherwise, it is more than likely that in five or ten years time the next generation of Malind people will no longer sing: ‘I grew up together with the wind, together with the leaves, together with the sago, together with the coconut trees.’ Instead, they will sing: ‘I grew up without the wind, without the leaves, without my sago village. I know nothing about my Dema, the symbol of my tradition, my language, my homeland. I will no longer be able to talk about my origins. All I will be able to say is that Papua is the land of my ancestors, the land where I was born.’ 49 Chapter five: Pathways to Dialogue in Papua: Diplomacy, Armed Struggle or Nonviolent Resistance? Jason MacLeod Introduction West Papua, which borders the independent state of Papua New Guinea and was colonised by the Indonesian government in 1963, is the locus of the South Pacific region’s longest running political conflict. It is a struggle for selfdetermination that is in its sixth decade. Since the fall of Suharto in May 1998 and early attempts at talks with Jakarta by Team 100 in 1999, Papuan resistance has taken a decisive nonviolent turn. The mainstream position of the Papuan independence movement has been the desire for a comprehensive political dialogue with the Indonesian government mediated by an international third party in order to find a solution to longstanding grievances.16 More recently Neles Tebay,17 a Papuan priest and intellectual, and Muridan Widjojo, from the 16 Some student groups, farmers and the West Papua Liberation Army, however, are skeptical about the value or purpose of dialogue. Many from this group want a referendum on Papua’s political status. This group wants independence. Others see a referendum as the fruit of dialogue. Moderates, on the other hand, privately question how realistic a demand for a referendum is. Some even feel the wisest path (and least costly in terms of human life) is for Papuans to seek change through reform within the Indonesian state. But, whatever the political persuasions of various Papuan groups and leaders, it is fair to say that for the vast majority their experience of Indonesian rule is oppressive, and the desire for freedom overwhelming. Despite the diversity of Papuan opinion about how to pursue change, it is true that the call for talks remains a mainstream position for many resistance groups including the two coalitions, the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation and Papua Consensus-- and for the Papuan Peace Network (Jaringan Damai Papua, a group of influential citizens working with Father Neles Tebay to develop a shared framework and commitment to dialogue). It is also important to acknowledge that Tebay and others do not see dialogue as the end point. It is the beginning of a search for solutions. Despite the pragmatic nature of the Papuan elite, for most ordinary Papuans their goal is independence. And dialogue is viewed as the way to achieve it. At the same time it is also true that some of the contents of merdeka (freedom) – like free speech for instance – can also be realized within the existing framework of the Indonesian state. See Jason MacLeod, “Selfdetermination and Autonomy: The Meanings of Freedom in West Papua”, in M. Anne Brown (Ed.), Security and Development in the Pacific Islands: Social Resilience in Emerging States, Boulder and London: Lynne Reiner (2007): 139-167. 17 Neles Tebay, Dialog Jakarta-Papua: Sebuah Perspektif Papua, Jayapura: Sekretariat Keadilan dan Perdamaian Keuskupan Jayapura (2009). 50 Indonesian Institute of Sciences,18 have outlined a framework for a Jakarta – Papua dialogue. Together they have helped establish the Papua Peace Network or JDP (Jaringan Damai Papua). While the JDP focuses on the communicative dimension of nonviolent action, huge power differentials, in addition to gaps in understanding, exist between the Papuans on one side and Jakarta on the other. As Benny Giay once said: “Dialogue is like boiling a stone that will never cook. The Papuans want to talk about history but Jakarta will not. Jakarta wants the Papuans to forget but they cannot.” A key challenge for the movement in Papua then is how to create the conditions for comprehensive peace talks? Freedomminded Papuans need a shared belief about how change will happen in Papua. Rigorously debating the pros and cons of different approaches to achieving freedom in Papua; making a deliberate and conscious choice to pursue a particular social change direction, and, explaining the reasons for this choice to all sectors of society will yield benefits for the Papuan freedom movement. It will maximize participation in the struggle because people will understand more deeply why they need to actively participate in it, how they need to struggle and what it might take to realise their aspirations. It will also help key leaders explain why it is worth directing available resources to pursue a particular direction and why they believe other approaches might be less fruitful. Moreover, debating and pursuing a coherent strategy of change will assist Papuans to realise that while many support the idea of political dialogue, what is lacking is a pathway to get there. In strategic terms this is called a grand strategy. It is the broadest conception of how change might happen. Grand strategy then informs more concrete plans for achieving freedom at the level of campaigns. This chapter outlines – and more importantly assesses – three broad social change pathways, and combination of 18 Muridan S. Widjojo (Ed.), Papua Road Map: Negotiating the Past, Improving the Present and Securing the Future, Jakarta: Yayasan Tifa and Yayasan Obor Indonesia (2009). 51 pathways, that Papuans are using to transform the political landscape. The three pathways are armed struggle, diplomacy and civil resistance. Three pathways to social change Papuans living in Papua face difficult choices about how to respond to the Indonesian government’s occupation and ongoing acts of aggression. At one end of the spectrum Papuans can actively support the Indonesian government, collaborating with the government’s persuasive and repressive strategies of rule. Papuans can also choose to do nothing, either out of fear, habit, or because they enjoy the benefits of being part of the Unitary Republic of Indonesia. Another choice Papuans are making is to try and work the system to bring about gradual reforms. Papuans can also choose, or be forced into, exile. Some Papuans are doing a number of these things at once, operating in an entangled political space.19 On the other hand Papuans can fight back. One way to resist is to engage in quietly subversive everyday individual acts of resistance.20 These might be things like eating Papuan food, wearing the Morning Star flag, maintaining strong connections to cultural practices and imbuing these with the energy of defiance. Maintaining the belief that freedom is possible and sharing that quietly with trusted friends and family, even in the midst of displaying outward support for the Indonesian state, is an act of everyday resistance.21 Everyday resistance is powerful. But to be even more powerful, the individual streams of dissent need to join up in ways that can become a raging river of collective political contention. If Papuans choose to resist occupation and oppression and fight for their rights collectively they are faced with another choice: how to fight back? Will they use 19 Eben Kirksey, Freedom in Entangled Worlds, Duke University Press (in press). James Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press (1985); James Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press (1990). 21 See for instance Danilyn Rutherford, Raiding the Land of the Foreigners: The limits of nationalism on an Indonesian frontier, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press (2003). 20 52 conventional political processes, violent action or civil resistance, also known as nonviolent action, or a combination of approaches?22 Papuans are using all three pathways to realise their aspirations for self-determination, although since 1998 the struggle has been overwhelmingly waged through unarmed civilian based resistance. In this chapter I argue that not all pathways are of equal value. In the Papuan context some pathways have and will continue to yield little result. Some pathways tend to undermine or cancel out the effect of other approaches to making change. The potential of still other pathways has yet to be maximised. Consequently, the choice of how to resist has important ramifications for the movement and needs to be examined carefully. Do nothing Resist Conventional political processes (diplomacy, lobbying etc) Armed struggle Cultural resistance Some choices facing Papuans Every day acts of resistance Collaborate with the NKRI Nonviolent (civil) resistance Exile Figure 1. Some choices facing Papuans. Adapted from Schock (2005): 13. Armed struggle Armed struggle has been an important part of Papuan resistance since the 1960s,23 but the roots of resistance to foreign rule in many different parts of the territory go back hundreds of years.24 As a way of creating change, armed 22 Some Papuans also argue that there is a fourth pathway: culture. However, I would frame cultural resistance – employing cultural practices like song and dance to expand the contours of freedom – as not so much as a separate approach to change, but rather as a way of making change that might start off as acts of everyday resistance but be regularly employed in the service of the other three approaches: armed struggle, civil resistance and conventional political processes. 23 See for an insider Papuan account see Otto Ondawame, One People One Soul: West Papuan Nationalism and the Organisasi Papua Merdeka, Adelaide: Crawford House Publishing, (2010): Chapters Four and Six, in particular. 24 There is extensive oral history, particularly around the Birds Head, Kaimana, Fak-Fak, the Asmat Coast and the North Coast, of acts of armed and nonviolent resistance against foreign 53 struggle encompasses a range of approaches including waging guerrilla war, conventional war, carrying out military coups d’état, acts of terrorism and political assassinations. Although many who comprise the decentralised network of armed groups that is the Papuan National Liberation Army (Tentara Pembebasan Nasional Papua – or TPN) have renounced the use of violent action and pledged to support dialogue, there are a few groups (with limited membership) who still engage in low level political violence. Goliat Tabuni’s group in Puncak Jaya is perhaps the most well known of these. There is also a much larger group (but still a small minority) of Papuans who for a range of reasons, chief among them frustration at the apparent lack of progress towards independence, talk about the need for political violence. This ‘group’ argues for enlarging the guerrilla war against the Indonesian state, destroying government and migrant property and kidnapping. Some also argue for a strategy of mixed defence (combining violent and nonviolent action). To date, however, these “speech acts” have not translated into increased participation in the armed struggle.25 Even so called radical groups like KNPB (Komite Nasional Papua Barat or West Papua National Committee) more often engage in civil resistance than armed struggle, even though their rhetoric has at times glorified violence.26 intruders including the Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch and British colonial powers. Author’s field notes, December 2009. 25 According to leaked intelligence documents Kopassus estimates that the strength of the TPNPB is around ±1,129 active members with access to ±131 modern weapons. See Kopassus, Anatomy of Papuan Separatism, http://sydney.edu.au/arts/peace_conflict/docs/Kopassus_Anatomy_of_Papuan_Separatists.pdf, accessed 15 August 2011. In contrast the strength of political groups is estimated at ± 16,867 people. 26 In Melanesian culture, as well as in other cultures, what is said does not necessarily reflect what people will do. In conflict in particular, Papuans will sometimes talk in ways that are full of bluster. Others say what they think the listener wants to hear. People also speak in ways that reflect visceral rather than planned responses to traumatic situations. Violent talk does not necessarily lead to violent action. I am indebted to Br. Budi Hernawan OFM here who argued in an unpublished (2010) response to the International Crisis Group, 2010 report Radicalisation and Dialogue in Papua (Brussels: ICG) that: “If one looks to Melanesian warfare traditions, one might be able to begin to grasp the strategic nature of the Papuan people. Language in Papua does not necessarily correlate with action. Posturing is very different from action. This is not a matter of inconsistency or different moral values, but instead represents an alternative worldview.” 54 Conventional political processes By conventional political processes I mean taking action within formal political institutions. This includes local parliamentary politics, lobbying Jakarta, international diplomacy and using legal strategies. It also includes participating in Indonesian parliamentary processes, international forums, United Nations meetings, the Pacific Islands Forum, as well as lobbying foreign governments. Papuan human rights groups, Papuan politicians, Papuan diplomats and solidarity networks have all been using conventional political processes, albeit often in pursuit of different political and social goals. It is important to note that what is conventional is contextual. Some actions which would be considered conventional in a country like Australia are examples of unconventional or noninstitutional action in a colonised country like Papua. For example, forming a political party in Australia is something that anyone with enough support from the public can do. In Aceh (after the Helsinki Peace Agreement) even the Free Aceh Movement (GAM – Gerakan Acheh Merdeka) was allowed to form an Achehnese political party. In Papua, however, forming Papuan political parties is illegal. So even within the Indonesian state there are differences about what constitutes conventional political action. The same goes for freedom of speech. Freely expressing one’s opinion is allowed on some topics but not on others. In Indonesia it is guaranteed by the Indonesian constitution. In the case of peacefully expressing a political opinion the protection of freedom of expression under Indonesian law does not extend to Papua where those peacefully advocating independence are charged with makar (rebellion) and routinely tortured by the Indonesian police.27 27 Filep Karma, and some 50 other political prisoners in West Papua, for instance, are currently in jail for peacefully raising the Morning Star flag, supporting the group International Parliamentarians for West Papua and other nonviolent acts. Forkorus Yaboisembut, Edison Waromi, Selphius Bobii, Dominikus Surabut and Gat Wenda have also been charged with makar for peacefully declaring Independence at the Third Papuan Congress on Wednesday 19 October 2011. See for instance Alex Rayfield, "Violent Tactics Backfire in Papua." (2011), http://newmatilda.com/2011/11/01/violent-tactics-backfire-papua. 55 Civil resistance The third approach to creating social change is civil resistance. By civil resistance I mean sustained, unarmed and extra-parliamentary collective action in the pursuit of political and social goals.28 Civil resistance is as much about laying the foundations for a new society as it is about resisting domination. Another word for it is “people power”, “nonviolent action” or “nonviolent resistance”. For the purposes of this chapter I use the word civil resistance because it emphasises the unarmed civilian based nature of resistance. Although some challengers may be motivated by a moral or religious framework, many are not. Citizens are drawn to civil resistance for both principled and pragmatic reasons and the expression of their discontent rarely reflects a ‘perfect ideal’ of nonviolent action.29 Civil resistance is different from conventional politics. It is about engaging in political action outside formal institutions through protests, the use of contentious political symbols, social shunning, strikes, boycotts, occupations, blockades and mass protests.30 Historical experience shows us that if challengers analyse the opponent’s sources of power – essentially their political and social support base – and devise tactics and strategies to withdraw their consent and cooperation in large enough numbers, and sustain their nonviolent resistance over time, even in the face of repression, then even the most ruthless dictator can fall.31 28 Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict, Columbia University Press: New York (2011); Kurt Schock, Unarmed Insurrections: People Power in Nondemocracies, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press (2005); Gene Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, Boston: Porter Sargent, (1973); Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton-Ash, Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experiment of Nonviolent Action from Gandhi to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press (2009). 29 Judith Steim, ‘Nonviolence is Two’, Sociological Inquiry, 38; Robert Burrowes, 1996, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense: A Gandhian Approach, New York, NY: SUNY Press, (1968): 97115; Ralph Summy, 1993, ‘From Crisis to Hope’, Social Alternatives 8(4); Roberts and GartonAsh, Civil Resistance and Power Politics: 2. 30 For a useful summary see Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action. In volume two of this book Sharp documents 198 different types of nonviolent action. This list is not exhaustive. New types of nonviolent actions are being invented every day. 31 For more on the theory see Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action; and, Burrowes, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense, Chapter Six. 56 Clearing up some frequent misconceptions about civil resistance I will now clarify some frequent misconceptions about civil resistance. I do this because civil resistance is frequently misunderstood in the media, by policy communities and by academe. In contrast most readers will be familiar with what armed struggle is and with what conventional political processes like lobbying are. Civil resistance is not: the avoidance of conflict; submissiveness; inaction, or passive resistance – a descriptor that was put in the academic dustbin by scholars of nonviolent action a long time ago.32 Below I briefly clear up six misconceptions that are frequently mentioned in the Papuan context. First, civil resistance is not the same as peaceful dialogue. Civil resistance is not a form of negotiation or compromise. Negotiation (itself a particular kind of dialogue) and compromise may or may not accompany struggles carried out through civil resistance, just as they may or may not accompany struggles carried out through violent resistance. However, in the case of Papua contentious political action like civil resistance is needed to create the conditions for dialogue. This includes a strong communicative dimension but civil resistance is a qualitatively different method from dialogue, narrowly conceived. Second, creating the conditions for dialogue through civil resistance will mean engaging in disruptive, potentially illegal and unarmed collective action. Civil resistance, therefore, does not necessarily equal being law-abiding. Conversely, disruptive action does not necessarily equal violence. Disruptive and illegal action like wildcat strikes and boycotts are examples of nonviolent action, even if the Indonesian government and media outlets attempt to portray it as violence. Third, civil resistance does not assume or depend on the Indonesian government behaving peacefully. We must remember that the Indonesian people overthrew Suharto in 1998 through civil resistance even though Suharto was responsible for 32 For a complete discussion of misconceptions of nonviolent action see Kurt Schock, “Nonviolent Action and Its Misconceptions: Insights for Social Scientists”, PS: Political Science and Politics, 36, (2003): 705-12. 57 killing around half a million civilians. Civil resistance that threatens powerful vested interests, like violent action for similar goals, will be met with violence by the Indonesian state. Those who remember what happened to Arnold Ap, Thomas Wainggai, Theys Eluay and more recently the leadership of the Third Papuan Congress know that only too well. But repression does not equal defeat. In fact, it can be a sign of success; that the state recognises the power of the movement and is doing all it can to stop it. If Papuans remain nonviolent in the face of repression and their resistance is made visible to audiences who act on their behalf this can turn the tide of opinion against the Indonesian government. So, the key question is not the extent to which the state responds with violence but whether Papuans can remain resilient in the face of repression; and, if they do persist, how they might maximise their resilience to repression through strategic, tactical, and organisational innovation.33 In other words, civil resistance movements need to prepare for repression and persist in the face of it. Research on the effects of repression on civil resistance is clear; success is not dictated by the levels of repression, even extremely ruthless repression.34 Chenoweth and Stephan argue that what is decisive is mass participation in the movement enhanced by strategic skillfulness.35 33 See for instance Summy on strategy (Ralph Summy, “Nonviolence and the Case of the Extremely Ruthless Opponent”, Pacifica Review, 6, (1994): 1-29), Burrowes on strategic and tactical resilience (Robert Burrowes, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense), Martin on backfire (Brian Martin, Justice Ignited: The Dynamics of Backfire, Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, (2006)), Schock, on decentralized network structures (Schock, Unarmed Insurrections), Thalhammer, et al on developing collective and individual collective resistance (Kristina E. Thalhammer, et al, Courageous Resistance: The Power of Ordinary People, New York, NY: Palgrave MacMillan, (2007)), Popovic et al on fear (Srdja Popovic et al, CANVAS Core Curriculum: A Guide to Effective Nonviolent Struggle, Belgrave: CANVAS, (2007)), and Weber and Puangsawan on the role of Third Party Nonviolent Intervention (Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan and Thomas Weber, Nonviolent Intervention Across Borders: A Recurrent Vision, Hawai’i: Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace, University of Hawai’I, (2000)). 34 Summy, “Nonviolence and the Case of the Extremely Ruthless Opponent”; Burrowes, The Strategy of Nonviolent Defense; Schock, Unarmed Insurrections; Chenoweth and Stephan, ‘Why Civil Resistance Works’ 35 Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works. 58 Fourth, the historical record and empirical research overwhelmingly show that, although nonviolent movements should prepare for casualties, the number will almost certainly be far less than if the struggle is waged through violent action.36 Fifth, civil resistance does not depend on a “partner” willing to facilitate change. A partner is certainly needed to negotiate with. But conversion and accommodation are not the only mechanisms through which change can be brought about. Civil resistance movements can also nonviolently coerce change or even bring about a disintegration of the opponent’s system of rule, which then results in a change in the political system (particularly if a parallel system has already been created to fill the power vacuum).37 Finally, civil resistance movements do not need charismatic leaders to succeed. Effective leadership is certainly important but there are also other models of leadership. This includes collective and group-centred forms of leadership held together by a shared vision, shared strategy and a decentralized network structure. Collective leadership can also be hidden, as was the case in the Otpor student movement’s resistance against Milosevic. Broad based civilian coalitions also enable the durability of democratic transitions much more than armed struggle.38 The dangers of designing a strategy based on any one of these misconceptions should now be clear. False or partial understandings of the power of civil resistance can lead challengers away from seriously exploring or developing civil resistance to its full potential. They can cause people to overlook civil resistance and turn to other forms of struggle without understanding its power and potential. Finally, a false or partial understanding of civil resistance might also result in key 36 See for instance Gene Keyes, “Heavy Casualties and Nonviolent Defense”, Philosophy and Social Action (1991): 17. 37 th st See for instance Gene Sharp, Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20 Century Practice and 21 Century Potential, Boston: Extending Horizon Books, (2005). 38 Adrian Karatnycky, Peter Ackerman and Mark Rosenberg, How Freedom is Won: From Civil Resistance to Durable Democracy, Freedom House, (2005). 59 social institutions – the media, academe and policy communities, in particular – to discount, overlook or misunderstand the dynamics of civil resistance. Assessing armed struggle and civil resistance Now we have unpacked some of the different ways of making change and clarified some misconceptions about civil resistance, how do these approaches compare with each other? To make an informed judgement of the relative effectiveness of different approaches it is worth examining the evidence. The conventional wisdom is that armed struggle is a powerful and effective way for oppressed groups to respond to repression, including those living in semiauthoritarian contexts like Papua.39 But how does this assumption stand up to the evidence? Recent research by Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan published in 2011 compared 323 violent and nonviolent resistance campaigns between 1900 and 2006.40 Chenoweth and Stephan defined success according to whether the group (or nation) had achieved their stated political or social goals. They found that armed struggle achieved success 27% of the time (page 73). Max Abrahms has examined the success rates of terrorist groups. He found that terrorism as a political strategy is successful only 7% of the time.41 In contrast, Chenoweth and Stephan found that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 59% of the time (page 73). Fifty-nine percent is not a high number but it is double the odds of armed struggle. Second, 51% of nonviolent transitions sustain a democratic transition (as opposed to 3% of 39 See for example Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terror, New York: Random House (2005); and, Ivan Arreguín-Toft, How the Weak Win Wars: A Theory of Asymmetric Conflict, New York: Cambridge University Press (2005). 40 Chenoweth and Stephan, ‘Why Civil Resistance Works’ 41 Max Abrahms, 2006, ‘Why Terrorism Does Not Work’, International Security, Vol. 31, No. 2, pp. 42–78. 60 violent transitions).42 Finally, the probability that a country will lapse into civil war after successful civil resistance is 28% versus 43% for a violent movement. Assessing armed struggle and civil resistance in territorial and selfdetermination struggles Chenoweth and Stephan’s research shows that civil resistance against authoritarian rule is more effective than armed struggle. But what happens when we shift from a comparison of anti-regime struggles to examining anti-occupation and separatist struggles. When the type of struggle is isolated to anti-occupation struggles the margin of success falls markedly, from 35% for nonviolent campaigns to 36% for violent campaigns.43 This difference is not statistically significant. Civil resistance and armed struggle have roughly equal chance of succeeding in anti-occupation struggles. However, when we look at secessionist struggles (Chenoweth and Stephan analysed 45 major campaigns) the margin for success – fully achieving the movement’s stated political goals – dramatically decreases, falling to 10% for violent struggles and 0% for nonviolent struggles. Interestingly, the authors classify the Papuan struggle as an anti-occupation struggle and argue that achieving Special Autonomy in 2001, at the time, constituted a partial success for the movement.44 42 A 2005 study by How Freedom is Won: From Civil Resistance to Durable Democracy by Adrian Karatnycky, Peter Ackerman and Mark Rosenberg and published by Freedom House examined 67 cases of transitions from non-democracy to democracy between 1972 and 2005. The authors found that in 50 of the 67 (75%) transitions from non-democracy to democracy that occurred during the last 33 years civil resistance was a significant factor. When they broke these transitions down according to top-down and bottom-up transitions they discovered that of the fourteen countries who experienced top down transitions brokered by political elites and international negotiations only two are still free, eight are partly free, and four are no longer free. Fifty percent of these countries also experienced moderate/high economic growth in the period following transition. When Karatnycky, Ackerman and Rosenberg investigated bottom-up transitions facilitated by grassroots civilian based movements they discovered that thirty-two (64%) of these countries are free, fourteen are partly free and only four are not free. Moreover 80% of the countries that underwent a bottom-up transition to democracy led by popular civilian based movements experienced moderate/high economic growth. 43 Chenoweth and Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works, 73. The sample size is 76 antioccupational campaigns waged between 1900 and 2006. 44 Chenoweth and Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works, pp. 69-73. 61 These figures do not necessarily diminish the utility of civil resistance. They do, however, illustrate the reality that self-determination struggles are much harder to resolve regardless of the strategies used. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, self-determination movements are pursuing difficult goals. Secondly, there are often much higher stakes involved. In the case of West Papua that not only includes tearing at the fabric of Indonesian identity, it also involves who gets control of the country’s massive resource wealth. Finally, self-determination movements are strongly affected by variables outside their control, sources of power external to the occupied territory as well as the interests of the international community. But while the success rates of armed struggle and civil resistance in liberating occupied territory is roughly similar (35%), and currently at 0% for fully achieving secessionist goals, civil resistance wins out in terms of desirability. The Papuans are choosing civil resistance because it: • Results in less loss of life; • Demonstrates that Papuans are a civilised and dignified people, in contrast with the violent action of the Indonesian military and police; • Attracts more support from third parties than armed struggle; • Frames the struggle in light of international norms like peace, democracy and human rights. In contrast, parts of the Indonesian state want Papuans to respond violently so they can justify repression in the name of defending the territorial integrity of the nation and stamping out terrorism; • Plays to the Papuans strengths (dense social networks and a strong cultural identity, amongst other things) rather than the Indonesian government’s strengths (monopoly of firepower); and • Maximises the active participation of all sectors of Papuan society including women and young people. In contrast violent action privileges fit young men and contributes to a society that is less equal because women and young people are excluded from participation. 62 What makes civil resistance movements succeed? We have already discussed that civil resistance is more desirable but why is it more effective (in the case of anti-regime and anti-occupation struggles)? Chenoweth and Stephan found that main reason is that civil resistance movements attract mass participation. They essentially lower the physical, informational, moral and commitment bars to joining a mass movement for change.45 What might maximize the success of civil resistance struggles for selfdetermination and territory? When we move to a qualitative comparative analysis of self-determination struggles it becomes clear that there are a number of things that challengers waging liberation struggles can do to maximise the likelihood of success. Maria Stephan in her comparison of self-determination struggles in Palestine, Kosovo and East Timor found that it is vital that the movement “extends the nonviolent battlefield into the opponent’s heartland and internationally”.46 Stephan argues that in situations like West Papua where the challenger group has no direct leverage over its opponent, the transnational dimension of the struggle becomes even more important; more on that later. Akihisa Matsuno (see his chapter in this book) has also conducted comparative research into three recent successful self-determination struggles: South Sudan, Kosovo and East Timor. Matsuno found two factors were decisive: distinctiveness and violence. Let us look at each of these issues in turn. Papuans need to define their distinctiveness as a people, but without necessarily being trapped into a narrow exclusive definition of ethno-nationalism. Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians and the East Timorese all waged nonviolent ethno45 Chenoweth and Stephan, Why Civil Resistance Works, 30-61. Maria J. Stephan, Nonviolent Insurgency: The Role of Civilian-Based Resistance in the East Timorese, Palestinian, and Kosovo Albanian Self-determination Movements, PhD Thesis, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, (2005): 1. 46 63 nationalist struggles. When these resistance movements won independence it also helped resolve deep conflict between the resisting population and the occupier. Importantly for Papuans, the Latvians, Lithuanians, and Estonians succeeded even where the demographic of Russians and ethnic Balts was roughly 50/50.47 In regard to violence, Matsuno is drawing attention to the fact that in each of his three cases (Sudan, Kosovo and East Timor) it was the overwhelming and continuing genocidal nature of violence from the state towards the selfdetermining population that helped influence the international community to intervene. This point is important. It is not so much violence per se that is more effective; rather the extreme violence from one side – the state – sways international opinion in favour of resisting populations. In other words, the opponent’s violent repression needs to be made visible to networks that then mobilise on behalf of the resisting population. This is the CNN factor. Martin and Varney demonstrate that the extreme violence of the opponent is emphasised when the resistance maintains nonviolent discipline and is able to communicate both the violent repression and the nonviolent resistance to opponents who then can be mobilised on behalf of the repressed.48 Assessing armed struggle In Southern Sudan, Kosovo and East Timor armed struggles were present in each case. In East Timor civil resistance was more decisive.49 In Kosovo civil resistance made impressive gains but excessive caution by Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of the Democratic League for Kosovo (LDK), led to growing frustration of 47 Mark R. Beissinger, ‘The Intersection of Ethnic Nationalism and People Power Tactics in the Baltic States, 1987-91’, in Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton-Ash, Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (2009): 231-246. 48 Martin, Justice Ignited. See also Brian Martin and Wendy Varney, Nonviolence Speaks: communicating against repression, Cresskill, New Jersey: Hampton Press, (2003). 49 Stephan, Nonviolent Insurgency; Chisako M. Fukada, “Peace through nonviolent action: The East Timorese Resistance Movement’s Strategy for Engagement”, Pacifica Review: Peace, Security, and Global Change, Vol. 12, No. 1, February 2000: 17-31. 64 the Albanian population who wanted more decisive action. This created the conditions for the rise of the Kosovo Liberation Army.50 Regrettably the international community ignored Rugova through the 1990s and only acted after clashes broke out between the Serbs and the KLA, sending the message that if you are nonviolent we will ignore you but if you are violent we will help. In Southern Sudan there was little civil resistance but massive loss of life from violent clashes between northern and southern forces, with villagers often caught in the middle. Lessons from these two struggles have implications for Papuan challengers. If the movement wants to pursue the substantive goal of a referendum or the procedural goal of dialogue then the movement needs to make a decisive commitment to active, disciplined and disruptive civil resistance. There will still be causalities but if they want to pursue armed struggle then Papuans need to be prepared for even greater loss of life and the risk they will be less effective. If the Papuans pursue a strategy of dialogue without imposing political and economic costs on Jakarta they can expect to be ignored. As mentioned above, however, the fact is that the majority of Papuans are not attracted to armed struggle. That does not, however, necessarily translate into active participation in civil resistance. I do not wish to downplay the challenge of moving away from armed struggle. It takes considerable effort to restructure the political thinking that propels a strategy of guerilla war. In addition, members of the TPN-PB have made huge personal sacrifices. Kin have been targeted and a number of those living in the bush have spent long periods in gaol. Given the emotional and ideological investment in guerilla war, the extent to which Papuans have been able to steer away from armed struggle is impressive. Most of the armed groups have expressed a commitment – although some with reservations – to supporting the idea of ceasefire and peace talks. It is not clear, however, to what extent the armed groups have rigorously examined and evaluated other methods of resistance, including civil resistance. 50 Howard Clark, “The Limits of Prudence: Civil Resistance in Kosovo, 1990-98”, in Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton-Ash, Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (2009): 260-294. 65 Assessing conventional politics But what about conventional political processes; how successful are they? A recent examination of the Indonesian government’s response to torture indicates how Jakarta has been responding to conventional political tactics by Papuan civil society and its international allies. The use of torture against Papuan civilians is systemic (see for instance Br. Budi Hernawan OFM’s chapter in this book). But despite the evidence of this, and even government promises and policy initiatives to end military impunity, the Indonesian government is yet to rigorously address the Papuan charge that human rights violations in Papua are systemic. Consider two examples, the Human Rights Court and the recent leaking of the 2010 Highlands torture video. The Human Rights Court. Mass mobilisation in Papua created the context for Jakarta’s Special Autonomy law and the creation of the MRP (Majelis Rakyat Papua—the all-Papuan upper house of the local parliament) which was resisted by Jakarta. A part of that policy package was a promise to establish a Human Rights Court. On December 7, 2000 the Abepura Police Station was attacked by a group of unknown assailants. Two people, a police officer and a security guard, were killed in the attack. Members of the Paramilitary Mobile Police Brigade (Brimob) commanded by Police Chief Daud Sihombing and Johny Wainal Usman pursued the attackers. Six different student dormitories were raided. During the raid one student, Elkius Suhuniap, was killed. A hundred students were arrested (including nine women) and taken into police custody. While in custody two other students, Orry Doronggi and Johny Karunggu died after being beaten by the police. The police could not establish any link between the attack on the police station and the student detainees, who were subsequently released. After an investigation by a coalition of Papuan and Indonesian human rights and church groups Daud Sihombing and Johny Wainal Usman were ordered to stand trial for gross human rights violations and crimes against humanity. The trial was 66 repeatedly delayed but protests and hunger strikes by students put pressure on the trial to go ahead in 2004. When the trial did eventually take place Peace Brigades International accompanied some of the witnesses and their Papuan and Indonesian human rights lawyers during the trial, which was moved to Makassar, Sulawesi, supposedly for security reasons. In a case widely regarded as a travesty of justice and marred by allegations of judicial corruption, these two Brimob officers were found not guilty in September 2005. There has not been a Human Rights Court case in Papua since. This case shows that civil resistance – in this instance the unarmed Papuan insurrection between 1998 and 2001 – can create the conditions for policy changes, in this case Special Autonomy and the Human Rights Court that was a part of that policy package. Civil resistance also helped ensure that the case went to trial. But the trial itself was a farce. The case shows the limits of conventional political processes in Papua. The Court did not deliver justice for the survivors. The verdict also damped extra-parliamentary action that challenged the security forces’ impunity. Now consider mobile phone footage uploaded onto YouTube showing two Papuans being tortured by Indonesian soldiers.51 The video was released in October 2010 just prior to President Obama’s scheduled visit to Indonesia. The video received unprecedented amounts of international coverage (more than 50,000 viewers as of September 2011). It was screened in its entirety by the Indonesian television station Metro TV. The footage, which is explicit, generated widespread moral outrage, not just internationally, but within Indonesian society as well. Ordinary Indonesians were shocked by images of Indonesian soldiers torturing their own citizens. In many Indonesians’ minds, this kind of brutality by the military was something that they thought no longer happened in the new democratic post-Suharto era. 51 See West Papua Media Alerts www.westpapuamedia.info. Warning: this video shows extreme and explicit violence which will distress viewers. The videos were circulated widely on the internet and discussed at length in the international press. 67 How did the Indonesian government respond to these allegations? After the video became public, the government claimed the soldiers were being charged. Later – following Obama’s visit – it was revealed that those on trial were different soldiers who were charged in relation to a different case. When the perpetrators in the video were charged, they received a light sentence, eight, nine and ten months’ gaol. The Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhuyono, traveled to Papua immediately after the video was released. But it was not to personally reprimand the military or to talk with Papuans about the root political causes of the conflict. It was to reinforce domestic (and international) public perceptions that the Indonesian government is responding to Papuan concerns. The visit in combination with the light sentences sent a clear message that the military as an institution in Papua has the president’s unwavering support. Denial and giving the appearance of justice while in reality delivering little of substance is classic norm-violating behaviour by states.52 Despite progress towards democracy in the rest of Indonesia, West Papua remains locked in semiauthoritarian rule. The Indonesian government refuses to discuss the root political causes of conflict in Papua. It is yet to address U.N. and Indonesian civil society recommendations to stop the use of torture and to stop criminalising freedom of expression. While this state of affairs continues, trying to achieve minimalist objectives (like ending torture and securing free speech) through formal institutional means alone will have limited results. Some resistance groups have also tried lobbying the Indonesian government. Others are working on developing a framework for negotiation and/or dialogue. 52 Thomas Risse, 2000, ‘The Power of Norms versus the Norms of Power: Transnational Civil Society and Human Rights’, in Ann M. Florini (Ed.), The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society, Tokyo and Washington D.C: Japan Centre for International Exchange and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: 177-209. See also Martin, Justice Ignited. 68 To a certain extent both coalitions of resistance groups – the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation and Papua Consensus – and the Papua Peace Network itself – are all focused on conventional politics: in this case with “talks” as their main strategy. But without a widespread, organised and sustained unarmed civilian based movement that raises political and economic costs for the Indonesian government of not talking, Jakarta will be unlikely to sit down at the negotiating table. Courts, along with appealing to the President, government inquiries, ombudsmen and regulatory agencies, are examples of “conventional political action” and “official channels”. People often believe these sorts of official bodies provide justice, but in practice they seldom work well when dealing with powerful and wealthy perpetrators, such as governments. Official channels are usually very slow, can be expensive, and restrict opportunities for non-experts to participate. Issues are taken out of the public domain and moved to more restrictive arenas that are usually less sympathetic. Even when formal inquiries come up with good recommendations, governments often do not act on them. Conventional political processes are even less likely to work in a semi-authoritarian context like West Papua.53 Combining civil resistance and armed struggle In the case of the Papuan struggle for self-determination, civil resistance, while not a guarantee of success, is at least as likely to achieve political goals as armed struggle. And in the Papuan context – a semi-authoritarian enclave within a newly emerged democracy stuck in denial about the depth and extent of Papuan grievances – conventional political process alone are unlikely to produce the changes desired by Papuan society. But what about combining approaches? First let us look at combining civil resistance with armed struggle. 53 Jason MacLeod and Brian Martin, “The Legal Road for West Papua: A Dead End?”, unpublished paper. See also Brian Martin, Justice Ignited: The Dynamics of Backfire, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield (2007); “Backfire materials,” http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/backfire.html. 69 Mixing violent and nonviolent action is a common argument in West Papua, particularly by some student groups, farmers and the TPN-PB. The thinking behind this is that the civil resistance movement will benefit from being backed up by the armed struggle and that the armed struggle can help press home some of the demands made by nonviolent activists. The argument is that the Indonesian government will be more likely to talk to “Mr. Nice” if they know “Mr. Nasty” is waiting in the wings and will make trouble if problem solving talks do not go ahead. In the literature this is referred to as ‘radical flank effect’. ‘Radical flank’ refers to the militant wing of the movement. Radical flank effect analyses the effect of violent action by radical groups that are part of the movement on social movement outcomes. There are two kinds of radical flank effect: positive and negative. A radical flank effect is positive when the leverage of the challengers is strengthened by the presence of the radical flank. This was the effect of the presence of the New Peoples Army on the civil society coalition fighting for an end to military dictatorship and a return to democracy in the Philippines in 1986. When the radical flank effect is positive the presence of armed struggle makes the nonviolent movement seem less threatening, increases third-party support as a more viable channel for dissent, and creates a political crisis that is resolved in favour of the nonviolent movement.54 The effect is negative when the activities of a radical flank undermines the leverage of the moderates by discrediting movement goals, reducing popular participation by alienating third parties and increasing repression, including repression against the nonviolent movement. This is what happened in Northern Ireland. The Irish Republican Army closed the political space for the nonviolent civil rights movement.55 54 Schock, Unarmed Insurrections. Richard English, “The Interplay of Non-violent and Violent Action in Northern Ireland, 1967-72”, in Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton-Ash, Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (2009): 75-90. 55 70 But what does the evidence suggest? Does the presence of “Mr Nasty” mean one’s opponent is more likely to talk to “Mr Nice”? Does the existence of a violent movement that occurs simultaneously with a nonviolent one increase or decrease the likelihood of success for the nonviolent resistance movement? Erica Chenoweth and Kurt Schock looked at this question.56 All of the conflicts they studied involved pursuit of maximum demands: ending foreign occupation, independence and regime change. They found that simultaneous armed struggle decreases the likelihood of a nonviolent movement succeeding. When other factors like democracy, state capacity, historical time, level of mass participation and domestic or foreign target were controlled, Chenoweth and Schock found that civil resistance movements with a simultaneous violent movement succeeded 39% of the time. In comparison, when there was no armed struggle nonviolent movements succeeded 60% of the time.57 Chenoweth and Schock found no evidence to support the idea that armed struggle assists civil resistance movements and correspondingly evidence of negative radical flank effects. Their research shows that avoiding mixing violent and nonviolent action increases the likelihood of success. Combining civil resistance and transnational action In the previous sections I defined what civil resistance is and is not. I also established two important points. First, civil resistance is just as effective as armed struggle in anti-occupation struggles and more desirable. Second, combining civil resistance and armed struggle tends to reduce the likelihood of civil resistance movements succeeding. What makes civil resistance effective is that it leads to greater participation in the struggle which functions to undermine the legitimacy of the opponent through a collective withdrawal of consent and cooperation which includes generating divisions within the opponent’s camp. Challengers impose political and economic costs on the opponent, which 56 The authors used the using the Nonviolent and Violent Conflict Outcomes (NAVCO) developed by Chenoweth and Stephan, ‘Why Civil Resistance Works’ 57 Chenoweth and Schock, An analysis of radical flank effects. 71 translate as powerful inducements to change. If the movement remains resilient in the face of repression and continues to draw in the support of third parties it can lead to political crises that can be resolved in favour of the movement. What makes the Papuan struggle particularly challenging is that the Indonesian government draws on significant support from outside Papua to maintain its rule inside Papua. That support comes from within Indonesian society and from social groups in the societies of the Indonesian government’s international allies. That means that Papuans need to wage the struggle on three fronts: inside West Papua; inside Indonesia; and internationally, in the societies of the Indonesian government’s elite allies. Papua is also isolated politically. The Indonesian government has closed the territory off from foreign journalists, diplomats and humanitarian organisations. Given these facts, transnational activism – activism inside Indonesia and internationally in support of Papuan political goals – might make civil resistance inside Papua even more effective. Transnational activism is particularly important in the Papuan case for two reasons. First, the Indonesian government refuses to address the root political causes of the conflict. The Indonesian government regularly denies that there are systemic human rights abuses in Papua and accuses outsiders who suggests otherwise as “interfering in Indonesia’s domestic affairs”. According to Risse, who compared governments around the world who systematically abuse their citizens’ rights, this is standard operating procedure for norm-violating states.58 Therefore, sustained pressure needs to be applied on the Indonesian government and their international allies to compel them to address Papuan grievances. Second, as mentioned above, the Indonesian government depends on significant external support to maintain the occupation (passive acquiescence from within Indonesian society as well as active support from the security apparatus, international 58 Thomas Risse, “The Power of Norms versus the Norms of Power: Transnational Civil Society and Human Rights”, Ann M. Florini (Ed.), The Third Force: The Rise of Transnational Civil Society, Japan Centre for International Exchange: Tokyo, and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: Washington D.C. (2000). 72 diplomatic support for the status quo, military aid to keep the repressive lid on boiling Papuan anger, and financial investment to exploit Papuan resources). Researchers Thomas Risse, Steven Ropp and Kathryn Sikkink found that when governments – like the Indonesian government – are stuck in denial and repression, transnational campaigns can dramatically assist domestic civil movements.59 Transnational advocacy networks “put the norm-violating state on the international agenda”. This almost always occurs “through the efforts of transnational civil society”.60 However, for international civil society to take up the cause of an oppressed group, the resisting population needs to frame their demands in ways that resonate with international norms.61 This point is very relevant for the Papuan freedom movement. At the present point in time the demands for an independent West Papuan state alarm the international community. This is because the international community is state centric and Muslim Indonesia is a major partner or ally for the West and the Arab/Asian world as well. The demand for independence in West Papua also threatens the economic interests of political elites62. In contrast, demands for free speech and a free media are strongly in line with the direction of international norms. For example, following a successful pro-democracy struggle in Egypt waged through civil resistance, President Obama said that his “message … to demonstrators … is [that] your aspirations for greater opportunity, for the ability to speak your mind, for a free press … are absolutely aspirations [the United States 59 Repression and activation of a network is the first stage of Risse, Ropp and Sikkink’s Spiral Model of Human Rights Change. Denial is the second. The third, fourth and fifth stages are Tactical Concessions, Prescriptive Status, and Rule-Consistent Behaviour. See Thomas Risse and Kathryn Sikkink, “The Socialisation of Human Rights Norms into Domestic Practices: Introduction”, in Thomas Risse et al (Ed.), The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, (1999). 60 Risse, ‘The Power of Norms versus the Norms of Power’, 193. 61 Risse, ‘The Power of Norms versus the Norms of Power’. 62 It is possible to argue that the demand for a referendum – which is essentially a demand for democracy, a strong international norm – is different. But for now the call for a referendum and independence are so bound up together in Papua that the demand for a referendum has little traction. 73 government] supports.”63 Framing campaigns around intermediate (minimalist) objectives like free speech would not only assist Papuans to win that campaign, it would also build Papuan capability to win bigger political goals. That would create dilemmas for the Indonesian government. If they refuse to give in to movement demands their international standing continues to decline and they risk the movement getting more international support; but on the other hand, if they agree to things like opening up access or freedom of expression, then they empower the movement. Either way, the movement can gain strength. Transnational advocacy networks can help break through the barrier of denial by the norm-violating state. But once the government starts making tactical concessions, civilian based struggles waged by the resisting population become the main driver of change. The role of transnational organisations and networks then shifts to “to protect the physical safety of … activists on the ground”.64 But this phase is also volatile. If mobilisation inside the country is neither sufficient nor sustained, the situation can regress and the movement might not to progress to the fourth and fifth stages: prescriptive status and rule consistent behaviour. In these stages the role of transnational civil society is to support local challengers to hold governments to account. Regression is what Paul Gilbert argues occurred in West Papua after the closure of the political space that momentarily opened up during the Papuan Spring around 2000.65 What are Papuans saying about these different approaches to making change? Papuans are actively debating how to realise their aspirations for freedom (see Figure 2 below). They continue to develop and refine their understanding of civil resistance. “To struggle nonviolently is not a foreign concept” says one Papuan. “Sometimes we hear it and maybe we think, wah… this is from outside; but no. 63 Barack Obama, February 15 2011, Press Conference, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/02/15/press-conference-president. 64 Risse, ‘The Power of Norms versus the Norms of Power’, 198. 65 Paul Carson Gilbert. NGOs and Human Rights Promotion: Socialisation, Framing and the Case of West Papua, M.A thesis, University of Canterbury, (2008). 74 When we look at our own history we can see that in fact we have been using nonviolent action for a long time to fight for our rights.”66 One of the reasons Papuans are attracted to civil resistance is because it is a method that involves mass participation, in contrast to other Papuan approaches to making change like lobbying elites or armed struggle which involve small numbers of people. In this sense argues one leader, civil resistance “is about making room for people’s aspirations”.67 Figure 2. Left. A Papuan leader draws his conception of competing approaches to making change in Papua. At the top is a free Papua. This is the goal. Dialogue might be a way to realise the goal but it is not the goal; self-determination is. On the left side is the TPN/OPM who is waging war (perang) or struggling through violence (berjuang secara kekerasan). On the right side is Jaringan Damai Papua (JDP – the Papuan Peace Network). This group wants a Jakarta-Papua dialogue and is facilitating internal reconciliation. The way they are working for change is to lobby elites (melobi elit). In the middle is the civil movement who wants to build people power (membangun people power). Groups like ForDem (who helped organise the June-July 2010 demonstrations) are in the middle. However, ForDem hopes to join WPNCL and Papua Consensus as part of a much larger coalition of Papuan resistance groups. According to this Papuan, one of the reasons he is attracted to civil resistance is that it is a way of involving large numbers of ordinary people in the struggle. Armed struggle and lobbying elites in contrast involve small numbers of people. One way of making space for participation is to break peoples’ big aspirations into smaller steps. This involves building campaigns focused around intermediate objectives. One Papuan expressed the importance of Papuans developing such campaigns like this: For me desiring freedom is like wanting to eat a banana. In the Highlands, where I am from, if you want to eat a banana you have to begin at least six months before. You have to clear land for a garden. You must nourish the soil. You need a fence so the garden is not destroyed by animals. You have to find a banana sucker; plant it, water it, care for it, make sure it’s not overcome by weeds. Only when the banana plant has grown and the fruit has been harvested do you get to eat it. It is the same with merdeka (freedom). We Papuans need a strategy; we 66 Author’s field notes, December 2008. As early as 1911 Papuans were using tax resistance, labour strikes and defying bans on singing and dancing in support of political and social goals. 67 Interview, Papua, November 2010. 75 need a plan. We have to think long term. We must find seeds, dry seeds, plant and care for a garden and six months from now you can eat the Banana.68 If eating the banana is independence then the intermediate objectives are clearing the land, building a fence, planting the banana sucker, and watering and caring for it. Campaigns for intermediate objectives are not a repudiation of maximum demands like independence; they are small steps that build towards a larger goal, in the same way that stepping stones are used to cross a stream. This approach, however, is very contentious. Many Papuans still feel that demanding anything less than independence is a betrayal. Suspicion between groups runs deep, and even those who support “building people power” sometimes feel excluded by other groups who are doing this work. On the other side, large numbers of ordinary Papuans are still passive but sympathetic observers of the struggle. In particular key constituencies like Papuan politicians, church congregations, civil servants and Papuan workers are not very active; sympathetic, yes; active as individuals, yes; but active as “mass blocks”, not yet. Papuan organisers who wish to build a mass nonviolent movement still have much work ahead of them. Recent mobilisations like the one in July 2010 which culminated in some 25,000 people occupying the provincial parliament in Jayapura for two days to demand a special session of parliament to debate handing back Special Autonomy to Jakarta and the participation of up to 20,000 people during the Third Papuan Congress in October 2011, are signs of an increasingly sophisticated Papuan understanding of civil resistance. In the case of the 2010 campaign to hand back Special Autonomy, the focus was not elites in Jakarta or the international community. Papuans were targeting their own leaders’ support for Jakarta’s policies.69 Second, organisers not only mobilised community based networks. The MRP, a state institution, publicly backed the protest (although it has since 68 Interview, Papua, November 2010. Jason MacLeod, “Papuan Struggle Enters a New Phase”, Open Democracy, http://www.opendemocracy.net/jason-macleod/papuan-struggle-enters-new-phase, (2010), accessed 16 February 2011. 69 76 failed to respond to continued calls for noncooperation with Jakarta’s policies). In 2010 disobedience among members of the MRP was a direct challenge to Jakarta’s legitimacy in a way that has not been seen in Papua before. Organisers also reached out to Papuan politicians, encouraging a small block of around a dozen Papuan parliamentarians to support the protesters’ demands. It may not have been Egypt 2011 but the key principles of unity, planning and discipline were being applied in situ. This was people power Papuan style. The problem for Papuans, however, was that once they had occupied parliament and local politicians still maintained their position, there was no room to escalate, and in the weeks that followed it was clear there was no contingency plan. Events, it seemed, had moved too quickly and caught the organisers by surprise. What about contextual factors, aren’t they more important? But what about the geo-political context, I hear the skeptical reader ask, isn’t that more important? The question underpins a perennial debate in the social sciences concerning structure and agency. The contours of this debate reflect disciplinary boundaries. Political scientists emphasise structure; civil resistance scholars emphasise agency. Some like Peter Ackerman explicitly argue that it is the relative skillfulness of the protagonists that is decisive.70 Doug McAdam, a social movement scholar, takes the middle ground, insisting that both structure and agency matter: Under stable environmental conditions, established regimes are exceedingly hard to challenge, let alone dislodge. Substantial movements typically benefit from prior destabilizing change processes that weaken regimes and render them more vulnerable or receptive to challenge. But this is not to posit a simple environmental determinism in the case of successful movements. Successful movements depend critically on the capacity of insurgents to recognize and exploit the opportunities afforded to them by environmental change processes. Indeed, it is often impossible to clearly distinguish ‘external’ changes from the ‘internal’ movement efforts to exploit these changes.71 70 Ackerman, ‘Skills or Conditions’. Ackerman argues that three skills are critical: creating unity amongst the resistance; strategic planning, and maintaining discipline. 71 Doug McAdam. ‘The US Civil Rights Movement: Power from Below and Above, 1945-70’, Adam Roberts and Timothy Garton Ash (Eds.), Civil Resistance and Power Politics: The Experience of Non-violent Action from Gandhi to the Present, Oxford: Oxford University Press, (2009): 61-2. 77 Context matters. But so does the ability of movements to recognise, exploit, and even create advantageous political situations. As McAdam says, “movements may be largely born of environmental opportunities, but their fate is heavily shaped by their own actions.”72 This dynamic can be seen in East Timor. Economic downturn and the fall of Suharto helped create favourable conditions for a referendum in East Timor but these conditions had to be exploited by the Timorese who not only waged the struggle inside East Timor but gained support from pro-democracy activists inside Indonesia as well as internationalising the struggle.73 So geopolitics are important. They influence what is possible. But movements need to be ready to take advantage of political opportunities and if possible, even create them. Conclusion Waging a struggle for freedom is difficult. Doing it through civil resistance is no less so. It is challenging enough to remove a belligerent dictator; it is even more difficult to end six decades of military occupation and achieve self-determination. This chapter has argued that if Papuans can manage to resist through organised, sustained and unarmed collective action rather than disconnected acts of everyday resistance while avoiding any kind of support for the Indonesian government or even passive acceptance of the occupation, then a number of choices are open to them. The three main options are armed struggle, civil resistance and conventional political process. In this chapter I have argued that civil resistance complemented by transnational action (which includes both extraparliamentary and conventional political action), while not a guarantee of 72 Doug McAdam, John McCarthy, and Mayer Zald, “Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Framing Processes: Toward a Synthetic, Comparative Perspective on Social Movements”, in Doug McAdam, John McCarthy, and Mayer Zald (eds.), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements. New York: Cambridge University Press, (1996): 1-20. 73 Maria J. Stephan, 2005, Nonviolent Insurgency: The Role of Civilian Based Resistance in the East Timorese, Palestinian, and Kosovo Albanian Self-determination Movements, PhD Dissertation, Boston: The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University; Chisako M. Fukuda, 2000, ‘Peace through nonviolent action: the East Timorese resistance movement's strategy for engagement’, Pacifica Review, 12 (1): 17-31. 78 success, offers the best chances for creating the conditions for a comprehensive dialogue between Jakarta and Papuans about Papuan grievances (and achieving the goal of self-determination). Papuans have been waging the struggle primarily through civil resistance since 1998. In order to maximize the potential of civil resistance I have also argued that it is important to understand exactly what civil resistance is and what it is not. The majority of Papuans acknowledge that armed struggle has failed. But mixing armed struggle with civil resistance remains attractive for small sections of Papuan society. Using violent action will undermine the effectiveness of civil resistance. Violence plays to the Indonesian government’s strengths. It allows them to frame the resistance as a law and order or terrorism problem; as a threat to the security of ordinary Indonesians. Some resistance groups in Papua have also eschewed campaigns of nonviolent action and concentrated on lobbying political elites. Efforts at negotiation have not yielded fruit because they are not backed up by civilian power that compels Jakarta to sit down at the table. Conventional political action to address Papuan grievances has been repeatedly ignored by the Indonesian government. By far the best answer we have at the moment to the question, “how to wage the struggle in Papua?” is that civil resistance combined with transnational activism is more effective than armed struggle and local and international diplomacy. There are, of course, no guarantees of success, but here are some possibilities that could be part of a nonviolent struggle for freedom in West Papua: 1. Undermine the Indonesian government’s attempt to close the province by making the violence of the Indonesian government and the nonviolent resistance of the Papuans visible to transnational networks that can mobilise on behalf of Papuans. Citizen media are crucial to achieving this aim. 79 2. Expose the failure of governance and the erosion of legitimacy which is the Indonesian state’s Achilles heel in West Papua by withdrawing support for state institutions like the Majelis Rakyat Papua (MRP), the Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Papua (DPRP – the two Provincial parliaments in Papua Province and Papua Barat Province), local parliaments (DPRD – Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah) and the civil service. (Of course, an alternative strategy—used in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—would be to co-opt state institutions to support movement goals. There were early signs of this approach in April to July 2010 when the MRP supported the campaign to hand back Special Autonomy). Papuans need to enlarge the circle of dissent so that more sectors of society are actively involved in the struggle, particularly civil servants, politicians, church congregations, and workers. 3. Impose economic and reputational costs on transnational corporations through the use of nonviolent sanctions inside and outside West Papua to persuade trans national corporations to pressure the Indonesian government into political negotiations. 4. Take the struggle to mainstream Indonesia and the societies of the Indonesian government’s elite allies, for example U.S., Australian and British governments and corporations. That might include parliamentary and legal strategies as well as collective nonviolent and extraparliamentary action working in concert. 5. Coordinate with transnational activist networks to alter the Indonesian government’s willingness to maintain the occupation and to affect its capability to do so. The movement is still in its early stages. But explaining civil resistance and transnational action to other Papuans--how it will lead to change, the obstacles to success and how the participation of ordinary Papuans makes a difference—will help increase the power of the movement in Papua. Success in Papua will take time. It may or may not happen; but it is possible. 80 Chapter six: Culture as strategy: Being West Papuan ‘the Melanesian way’ Camellia Webb-Gannon The value of culture as an element of resistance to foreign domination lies in the fact that culture is the vigorous manifestation on the ideological plane of the physical and historical reality of that society that is dominated or to be dominated. Culture is simultaneously the fruit of a people’s history and a determinant of history. (Amilcar Cabral in Campbell 1980) Some scholars argue that the development of a West Papuan nationalism (a pan-West Papuan culture infused with patriotism) is little more than a reaction to violent Indonesian occupation (Ballard 2006, p. 11; Chauvel 2004, p. 6; Webster 2001-2002, p. 513). Richard Chauvel maintains, ‘Papuan identity flourished and spread not out of a shared ethnic, religious or cultural heritage, but as a common struggle against Indonesian rule. The strong ethnic expression of Papuan nationalism was born of political struggle rather than from some immutable primordial identification’ (2004, p. 6). While there is no disputing that political struggle did foster the national identity of West Papua’s approximately 310 ethnolinguistic groups (Chauvel 2004, p. 5), the implication is that West Papuan nationalism therefore is in someway less authentic than it portrays itself to be, or that it was perhaps forced upon West Papuans rather than chosen by them. Chauvel argues, ‘that Papuans should have developed a pan-Papuan identity separate from an Indonesian one was not a forgone conclusion, for ever since the Pacific War Papuans have been confronted by a number of alternate visions of their future’ (Chauvel 2005, p. 83). He notes the Indonesian nationalist, Soegoro's, post-war vision of West Papua as part of an independent Indonesia, and the Dutch educator in West Papua, Van Eechoud's, vision of a Melanesian future for West Papua (Chauvel 2005, p. 83). Whilst agreeing with Chauvel that the future never is a ‘foregone conclusion’, I disagree that West Papuans have been primarily passive subjects of a national 81 identity formation, but have, instead, drawn on a long autochthonous cultural history (before European or Indonesian colonialism) to shape the Melanesian trajectory of their national identity. In this chapter, then, I draw on alternative descriptions by Chauvel of West Papuans' ‘resentment about being objects rather than participants in the struggle for decolonization’ and ‘Papuan nationalism [as] young, dynamic, and flexible’ (Chauvel 2005, p. 82). I argue that West Papuan leaders were and are very active agents, if not in the international meetings which decided their political fate, but which excluded them (for example the 1962 New York Agreement negotiations), but in crafting, embodying, and promoting their national and Melanesian cultural identity while simultaneously engaging actively in independence-focused politics in the West Papuan jungles and towns and globally from the late 1960s onwards (Ondawame 2010, p. 71). In a similar argument to Chauvel’s, that West Papuans were passive recipients rather than active co-creators of the nationalist identity that the Dutch fostered in West Papua up until the early 1960s, David Webster writes that West Papuan nationalism: could have been mobilized in the interest of union with Indonesia, in particular [because of] the common language, raising the question of why emergent nationalism was eventually realized on the lines of West Papuan rather than Indonesian identity. Without the separation from Indonesia, it seems unlikely that Papuan nationalism would have emerged, at least not in the same form. Both ‘pro-Dutch’ and ‘pro-Indonesian’ streams existed within Papuan elites. It was events in the 1960s that determined West Papuan identity as the decisive one’ (Webster 2001-2002, p. 513). Webster here credits ‘Indonesia’ as being the primary national identity within which ‘West Papua’ could have been incorporated – without establishing what it is that makes ‘Indonesia’ a more legitimate or fundamental national identity, and more worthy of a state for its nation, than West Papua. The oft-mentioned ‘racial’ differences between Melanesian Papuans and Asian Indonesians are obviously a problematic, even racist construct upon which to 82 hinge political goals (Webster 2001-2002, p. 512). Nevertheless, unlike most of Indonesia’s citizens, West Papuans do tend to identify ethnically (in terms of political and social cultures) with Melanesia, rather than with what they see as Asia (Otto Ondawame, interview, July 2009, Sydney; Michael Kareth, interview, September 2008, Boekel; Author’s field notes, September 2009, Port Moresby). Many West Papuans view themselves as more similar to, and prefer to live similarly to, other Melanesian peoples including those of Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji. As West Papuan veteran freedom fighter and diplomat, Otto Ondawame, who is based in Port Vila, Vanuatu, explains: I don’t feel Indonesian, I’m uncomfortable staying in Indonesia, or Asia, or Malaysia or Singapore or whatever. I feel comfortable when I stay in Melanesia like Vanuatu or Solomon Islands. I feel like it’s my home, I feel that we share [the] same culture [and] traditional way of life. (Otto Ondawame, interview, July 2009, Sydney) This identity, both a construct and a lived reality, persists despite Melanesian countries’ disparate colonial histories, and in West Papua these similarities with other Melanesian cultures existed prior to Dutch encouragement of a distinctive West Papuan cultural nationalism, contrary to what Webster implies. While, as Ballard writes, at least some of ‘the seeds of [a political pan-] Papuan identity [were] born of suffering’ (2006, p. 11), West Papuan national identity is now a highly articulated, partly appropriated (from other Black political identity politics), largely unified, and highly localised phenomenon. A similar phenomenon to what Mark Anderson describes in his book about “Black and indigenous” identities among the Garifuna people of Honduras is apparent within the contemporary West Papuan independence movement: “Sentiments of belonging to the category Black, and affirmations of blackness tend to articulate with one another today in ways that they likely did not in earlier eras” (2009, p. 73). “Over the past 15 years”, Anderson argues, “Latin America has witnessed a marked increase in Black activism, articulated in complex ways with indigenous movements” (2009, p. 2). This trend, evident in West Papua too, will be discussed further in this 83 chapter. Nevertheless globalisation has increased the interaction between the West Papuan diaspora and the homeland, and West Papuan cultural nationalism continues to flourish, drawing on new international inspirations that further legitimise its struggle for survival. In this chapter, therefore, I argue that West Papuan nationalism is not a purely reactive phenomenon, which, had the Indonesian regime not been violent, may never have arisen or which may otherwise have taken on a more ‘Asian’ cultural identification. That Dutch preparation and Indonesian violent opposition were in fact the circumstances under which West Papuan nationalism did take root does not preclude that, in an era of third-world nationalisms and decolonisation, Black power politics, and globalisation, West Papua may have developed a national identity separate to Indonesia’s, with Melanesian linkages, regardless of peaceful, even consensual, incorporation in the Indonesian republic. In this chapter I focus on the extent to which and reasons why Melanesian identification is so central to West Papuan cultural nationalism, why this is perceived as a threat to Indonesia, and how West Papuans use this identity to advance their independence movement. First, I canvas the ways in which, ‘in the context of Indonesia, [West Papuan] cultural performance as a representation of nationhood is conceived as an activity of resistance’ (Glazebrook 2004, p. 1). I look at Indonesia’s perception of the threat that West Papuan culture poses to its own nationalism or national integrity and inquire whether Indonesian politicisation and criminalisation of West Papuan symbols and institutions, and blatant disregard for many aspects of Papuan culture, could be considered cultural genocide. Second, I examine what many of the West Papuans that I have interviewed (as part of my recently completed doctoral research) identify as the crucial and unifying ‘components’ of their pan-West Papuan culture, the central importance placed on culture for their survival and the ways in which culture is theorised as a resistance strategy. Finally, I look at the importance and influence of the unifying identity of 84 Melanesianhood in West Papuan culture and politics, drawing on cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s concept of identity, which he says is: Not as transparent or unproblematic as we think. Perhaps instead of thinking of identity as an already accomplished fact, which the new cultural practices then represent, we should think, instead, of identity as a 'production', which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within, not outside, representation. (Hall 1993, p 222) Cultural genocide, and culture as resistance Cultural genocide is prohibited in the 2007 (non-legally binding) United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (United Nations General Assembly 2007) to which Indonesia is a signatory. It includes attempts to eliminate a group’s foundational institutions, language(s), traditions, rituals, and artistic and spiritual practices and artifacts. Each of these elements of cultural genocide applies to the West Papuan people under Indonesian occupation. Examples of cultural genocide against West Papuans are so prolific that the examples I give next are only several of the many that have been described to me by West Papuans I have interviewed. Oridek Ap is a West Papuan activist and refugee living in The Hague, The Netherlands. He is the son of the renowned West Papuan musician and curator/anthropologist, Arnold Ap, who, as a result of his culture-affirming work collecting songs and dances from around West Papua, was assassinated by the Indonesian military in 1984. Oridek spoke to me of the loss of his father, but also of the legacy of his work. Arnold Ap may have been killed as an attempt to suppress the cultural power embodied in West Papuan songs and dance, but his powerful work lives on. In Oridek’s words: When my father died in ’84, somehow I h[ad] suppressed [my] feelings to protect myself. ... It was a painful experience, because you know your father is gone. ... But when I learned to play music, to play the ukulele and guitar, and we sang our songs, I got to know my father, and I got to understand why he made his sacrifice. ... He gave [my people] hope by singing the old songs, by telling the old 85 stories, by dancing our dances. It was a simple thing, but it was the soul of my people, and it was almost gone but he managed ... to keep it alive and [others] managed to promote it through the people, so I was proud and I accepted his choice finally. ... We still have our elders in Papua and let’s hope that they tell the old stories and they still sing their old songs. ... When people are singing their old songs - that’s our hope. But when they are singing the new songs, composed by Indonesians or other people, the old songs will disappear. And as soon as the old songs disappear, our people also disappear. (Oridek Ap, interview, September 2008, The Hague) Not only West Papuan musicians, songs and dances, but local languages too have been targeted by various Indonesian state interventions. Jayapura-based West Papuan priest and prominent intellectual, Neles Tebay, recalls being an elementary school student and not being allowed: to speak in local language. ... If we students were found speaking in our native language, then we got [a] penalty. ... So, by those kinds of things, they [were] saying that our local, native language is bad. If you want to be recognised as an Indonesian, as a man, then you speak Indonesian, you know? (Neles Tebay, interview, December 2008, Jayapura) The late West Papuan human rights activist, Viktor Kaisiepo, who had made a home in Amersfoort, The Netherlands, mourns the loss of local West Papuan languages through Indonesianisation: The Indonesian education system says that as soon as you go to school, primary school, you have to speak Indonesian. By the end, you end up at university at the age of 20 something [and] you don’t speak your mother tongue anymore, [so] what’s the use of education? Educate to gain knowledge, not to lose knowledge! And this is happening in the whole of Melanesia, so it is creating distance between the cultural patterns. (Viktor Kaisiepo, interview, September 2008, Amersfoort) West Papuan religion – primarily Christianity – has also been victimised by Indonesian campaigns that target its leaders. For example, the Reverend Socrates Sofyan Yoman, an outspoken advocate of peace with justice in 86 Jayapura, West Papua, and chair of the Papuan Baptist Synod, is named in a Kopassus list leaked in November 2010, as the number one state ‘enemy’ in West Papua (Nairn 2010). Journalist Allan Nairn, whose web blog featured the leaked document, contends that ‘given that the Kopassus report states as settled fact that security forces do “murder [and] abduction”, those who they define as being the enemy can be presumed to be in some danger’ (Nairn 2010). In response to the news of his status in these files, Reverend Yoman responded that churches were targeted by TNI/ Kopassus because “we can't condone torture, kidnapping or killing”. He said that he has received anonymous death threats “all the time, everywhere”, but that as a church leader he must endure these (Nairn 2010). Education, in particular West Papuan history education, includes a heavy dose of Indonesian indoctrination in an effort to erase Melanesian cultural perspectives. Refugee and West Papuan activist in Australia, Herman Wainggai, contends that asserting ‘Melanesianness’ under the Suharto regime was ‘very taboo’, and that through the medium of education curricula ‘starting from primary school [to] high school and [then] university, Indonesia tries to ... change Papuan young generations’ brains - ... [to] brainwash them with their curricula, [to] change our identity as Melanesians’ (Herman Wainggai, interview, November 2009, Melbourne). Refugee in Oxford, the UK, Benny Wenda, recalls the moment when he realised that West Papua was part of the island of New Guinea, and that this fact had been hidden from school students purposely. Growing up, Wenda had witnessed horrific violence meted out against his people by Indonesian soldiers in Wamena. He: ‘always questioned why these people are killing. ... As soon as I grew up and I went to high school, then I understood, I saw the map. [On] the map [there was] just one line [and I thought] okay, I know [there] must be another side’ (Benny Wenda and Richard Samuelson, interview, August 2008, Oxford). Wenda says that in school, he was taught only about ‘Sabang to Merauke’ (the limits of Indonesian territory), but that he was curious about the ‘straight line’ on the map. He continues: 87 Then one time, I went with a few friends [to the] headmaster’s [office], and I saw the globe. [I noticed that] the island is connected down there! ... Then I put my finger and turned it around while they [were] speaking [and] in my mind [I thought] ‘there’s a connection’ - then they said ‘Papua New Guinea’. And that’s one word we cannot say – ‘Papua’ – at the time. Papua, this [word is] taboo. [And I realised] Papua New Guinea is Papua; okay that is [the] connection. (Benny Wenda and Richard Samuelson, interview, August 2008, Oxford) Neles Tebay believes that transmigration and in-migration from other Indonesian islands pose the biggest threat of cultural genocide to West Papuans. He says of the great influx of migrants, who now outnumber indigenous West Papuans in Papua: When they are many in terms of number, then their culture will be dominant, whether you like it or not. ... Papuans are having [a] crisis of cultural identity. And I think this is the very big problem we are facing now. ... Papuans want to express themselves as Papuan, but their way of expressing themselves is different from the pendatang (migrants), ... from Malays. So when ... the migrants are big in terms of number ... they will judge everything from their cultural norms. ... I think that’s why many people are getting drunk. ... When they get drunk, then they can express themselves. [But] without having drunk, its like they cannot ... express themselves; what they think, what they feel. ... The presence of others also challenges our worldview. I’m not talking culturally in terms of music or songs, but how we perceive the world, how we interpret events and things happening around us. All these things are challenged, really challenged by [the] different culture, Malay culture. (Neles Tebay, interview December 2008, Jayapura) Because of these processes of cultural genocide outlined in the examples above, West Papuans not only cling to their national and cultural identity for dear life, but have, in response to the constant threats to their culture, repositioned it as a tool of resistance. It is both the thing fought for and fought with. Nancy Jouwe, daughter of West Papuan veteran freedom fighter Nicolaas Jouwe, living in 88 Utrecht, The Netherlands, describes how cultural identity develops into a strategy of survival: The thing about culture is, in the best sense, it’s very much, to its fullest, expressing who you are. And if you constantly have the feeling that who you are is not being seen, as in the Dutch context, or is threatened, in the Papuan Indonesian context, then culture really becomes an important strategy, [an] identity marker, but also a strategy to keep your voice alive. And it’s also about, in Papua itself, there’s very [little] historic data left. You know a lot of stuff before 1962 was taken away or demolished. So you know, you talk to people about this, they have this sense of [a] people without history. So it’s important to have access to your history, and cultural heritage, it’s basically the sort of empirical outcome of that history, to actually know who you are and where you want to go. Like bell hooks, for instance, said: ‘you know it’s only in our history that makes possible political recovery’. And what did Bob Marley say? I can’t remember the actual quote, but it has to do with knowing your cultural roots – [that] is key in order to basically get somewhere as a people, but also as an individual. (Nancy Jouwe, interview, September 2008, Utrecht) Glazebrook writes about how Arnold Ap’s work as a cultural collector and curator, and as a cultural performer, was interpreted by the Indonesian regime as subversive, despite the usually covert nature of the resistance messages his work contained. She also describes the various ways in which his work evoked ‘Irianese nationalism among followers’ (Glazebrook 2004, p. 4). Glazebrook contends that ‘anthropologists have drawn attention to the way that regional diversity is honoured and valued by the Indonesian state as long as it remains at the level of display and performance, rather than at the level of belief or enactment’ (2004, p. 4). According to Bruce Knauft however, this represents a major cultural impasse. He writes of Melanesian performance, and embodiment of culture, as being an integral part of the holistic living out of life: We in postindustrial Western societies [which in this present example could be extended to Indonesian ‘society’] tend to divorce [social and spiritual] cycles from one another; we tend to assume that our bodily, social, and spiritual worlds are largely separate – that they operate along separate orders of causation. In 89 Melanesia, by contrast, these processes tend to be linked as complementary parts of a cosmological universe made manifest through bodily ecology. (Knauft 1999, p. 84) In keeping with Knauft’s analysis of Melanesian performance, the political resistance that was a large part of Ap’s world was incorporated in his museum work and embodied in the work of his performance group Mambesak, through the use of local metaphor, regional languages (as opposed to Bahasa Indonesia), and costume (or lack of) such as dancing unclothed during a state campaign to ban koteka (the traditional Papuan highlands penis gourd) – all of which were ways that an alternative, West Papuan identity was marked out in resistance to homogenising strategies of Indonesian rule (Glazebrook 2004, p. 9). Describing a similar strategy, West Papuan refugee Opina Sapioper, in The Hague, The Netherlands, explained to me: We are real active with our culture because we want to keep it as long as we are outside our own country, but [the Dutch Government] also knows the background of why we continue doing our culture. The main thing is [that] we just want independence, but we can’t just go out [and] shout outside on the street that we want independence. ... So we’re doing it under the [cover of], as we call it, culture. (Seth Rumkorem, Opina Sapioper, Julianis Sapioper, and Simon Sapioper, interview, September 2008, The Hague). The remainder of this chapter explores the resistance strategies employed in ways similar to those of Ap and Sapioper, through cultural expression, by West Papuans in the diaspora, demonstrating the unifying underpinnings offered through the discourse and reality of a shared Melanesian identity, regardless of global location. Cultural identity 90 There are two distinct and equally important positions that the politics of cultural identity adopt, according to cultural theorist Stuart Hall. In the first, cultural identity asserts itself in terms of ‘one, shared culture, a sort of collective “one true self”, hiding inside the many other, more superficial and artificially imposed “selves”, which people with a shared history and ancestry hold in common’ (Hall 1993, p. 223). Hall argues that from this identity position, ‘this “oneness”, underlying all the other, more superficial differences, is the truth, the essence, of “Caribbeanness” [or Melanesianness, in this case], of the black experience’ (1993, p. 223). He continues: Such a conception of cultural identity played a critical role in all the post-colonial struggles which have so profoundly reshaped our world. It lay at the centre of the vision of the poets of ‘Negritude’. (Hall 1993, p. 223) However, Hall identifies a ‘second, related but different view of cultural identity’ which ‘recognizes that, as well as the many points of similarity, there are also critical points of deep and significant difference which constitute “what we really are”; or rather – since history has intervened – “what we have become”’ (Hall 1993, p. 225). This is because of the ‘ruptures and discontinuities’ imposed by colonialism (Hall 1993, p. 225). Hall writes: Cultural identity, in this second sense, is a matter of 'becoming' as well as of 'being'. It belongs to the future as much as to the past. It is not something which already exists, transcending place, time, history and culture. Cultural identities come from somewhere, have histories. But, like everything which is historical, they undergo constant transformation. ... Far from being grounded in a mere ‘recovery’ of the past, which is waiting to be found, and which, when found, will secure our sense of ourselves into eternity, identities are the names we give to the different ways we are positioned by, and position ourselves within, the narratives of the past. (Hall 1993, p. 225) It is in both of the senses, described above by Hall, that I portray in this section 91 the explanations I received from West Papuans about why they believe they are, and how they maintain the continuity of being, and becoming, Melanesian. These descriptions are attempts to capture the ‘oneness’, the unity, that West Papuan people experience by being part of a larger history and heritage (albeit one that colonialism has shattered in many ways, a fitting example being the artificial colonial border drawn between West Papua and PNG). ‘Crucially, such images [as the ones I am about to recount] offer a way of imposing an imaginary [yet vitally important] coherence on the experience of dispersal and fragmentation, which is the history of all enforced diasporas’ (Hall 1993, p. 224). Yet at the same time, these descriptions capture the continuing efforts of West Papuans to position themselves and to forge a future as Melanesians. There are, according to West Papuans, several critical components of pan-West Papuan culture. Singing and dancing are often listed together as mainstays of West Papuan cultural identity. One young West Papuan woman living in Port Moresby described West Papuan culture to me as: ‘Singing, dancing, food, [and] family atmosphere. It’s like everyone’s related to each other, and it’s like when something happens to one person, everyone’s involved in it. And you can run from this person or to that person and they’ll still help you out’ (Author’s field notes, September 2009, Port Moresby). David Tekwie, a young man of West Papuan and PNG heritage, explains that West Papuan identity is expressed through ‘our culture’s song and dance’ (David Tekwie, interview, September 2008, Port Moresby). Young people’s social groups among West Papuans living in Port Moresby, including performance group Tabam Ramu, centre around performances of singing and dancing – these performances are seen as a celebration of West Papuan culture and an expression of a unified identity that transcends factions, as well as a means of attracting Papua New Guineans’ attention to West Papuan politics (Sonny Karubaba, interview, September 2008, Port Moresby). As youth leader and West Papuan refugee Sonny Karubaba explains: 92 If [a West Papuan faction] is hosting a show to do a promotion or [raise] awareness for West Papua, the other group won’t show up. But you know, if we use culture to do our promotion, everybody comes, because they say, that’s my culture. So the strategy that we started off when I was back at university is we get the kids, the young people, ... and tell them hey, lets practice some West Papuan culture. ... We have regular training practices ... and then the parents who were interested ... bring their kids to practice the culture as well. ... In the process the parents come ... together to unite, and they [say] ‘oh, this is very good’ ... [because] previously they [did not talk much] because of their differences. But through the culture they were able to talk to each other. ... They appreciate West Papuan dance and everybody feels proud if the West Papuan traditional dance is performed in the school or anywhere. They really appreciate it you know, despite the fact that we also perform dances where it covers all of the West Papuans and not only one particular area. ... So everybody really appreciates that someone is still practising the culture and the dance here. (Sonny Karubaba, interview, September 2008, Port Moresby) Food is also identified by many West Papuans as an important cultural marker (Michael Kareth, interview, September 2008, Boekel; Anonymous B, interview, September 2009, Port Moresby). Karubaba, again, describes the importance of sago to West Papuans in PNG: Papeda [sago] - we like it very much. [When we eat it], we get people to talk about stories of the past, we sing stories of the past, we kind of ask [the older generation about] the meaning of [all these songs], and just involve young people. The aim is to teach people about our culture and tradition. (Sonny Karubaba, interview, September 2008, Port Moresby) Markus Haluk, a student activist in West Papua, also emphasised the significance of sago to West Papuans, as it marks West Papuans as different to the Indonesian migrants who introduced, and eat, rice (Markus Haluk, interview, December 2008, Jayapura). The use and preservation of local languages is seen as another cultural resistance method. A group of West Papuan refugees in Port Moresby told me 93 that they keep West Papuan culture alive through using West Papuan languages (Author’s field notes, September 2009, Port Moresby). A young West Papuan female student leader in Port Moresby described to me how her father, a West Papuan refugee, had started to give Biak language lessons to groups of Biak young people in Port Moresby, saying: It’s very important that we ... know our mother tongue because we are so far away from home, and the fact is that many people in Biak, many people in West Papua, do not speak Biak now. They’re so into Bahasa that ... I don’t know if the children know Biak language. But over here, it’s only grandparents communicating [in] Biak language, and we kids, we don’t know. So my dad and I said, ‘Oh, we have to set up something you know, learn Biak’, so now we have a class of Biak, and I am very proud to be part of it. (Anonymous B, interview, September 2009, Port Moresby) Melanesianness Perhaps the most striking similarity in terms of cultural affiliation among the West Papuan generations, factions, and diaspora populations I interviewed, was the near-ubiquitous identification with Melanesian culture and with what they described as Melanesian values. It was this Melanesian identity that most West Papuans that I spoke to believed differentiated them most - culturally, spiritually, and politically - from Indonesians. Many West Papuans that I interviewed identified as Melanesian: in their Christian beliefs; in their attitudes towards land and resources; in their ideas about community and communal living; politically, and physically and in the sense of a felt ‘roots’ connection with a Melanesianness. Christianity, the common religion of Melanesia, was first brought to Dorei Bay, in West Papua, by German Protestant missionaries in 1855, who were joined by several members of the Dutch Protestant Mission Union in 1862. Catholic missionaries came to West Papua in 1888 (Moore 2003, pp. 123-4). Up until 1960, ‘before the occupation’, writes Otto Ondawame, ‘93 per cent of the population of West Papua were Christians’ (2010, p. 41). Indigenous West 94 Papuans are still predominantly Christian, while Indonesians in West Papua are primarily Muslim (Ondawame 2010, p. 156). Christianity is an important shared cultural identifier among Melanesians (Farhadian 2007, p. ix; Nicolas Jouwe in Farhadian p. 173; Douglas 2002). As head of the Kingmi (West Papuan indigenous) Church, Reverend Benny Giay, explains: ‘We have this Bible which I see is a global thing. [We] make use of this to communicate. Whether we like it or not, Christianity is a bridge to the world community. ... We are part of a bigger tribe’ (Benny Giay, interview with the author, 5 December, 2008, Jayapura). At the same time however, Giay has been concerned with ‘understanding how my people adopted Christianity ... [and in developing] a new understanding, a new theology, a West Papuan theology’ (Giay in Farhadian 2007, p. 28). Thus it is that Christianity in West Papua, and in Melanesia more broadly, takes on what Fiona Magowan terms a shared ‘translocal sentiment’, by which she means that ‘religion [here, Christianity] is not a fixed set of elements but a dynamic web of shared meanings used in different ways in different contexts’ linking distinctly West Papuan theologies with the Christianities of Melanesia (Magowan 2007, p. 462; see also David Neilson 2000, p. 263). Ways of valuing land and resources, even across the large expanse of seas that connects Melanesian islands, also locate West Papuans within broader Melanesian cosmolologies. Ron Crocombe argues that, in Oceania, the ‘smaller original ethnic communities have become less significant, and more geographically spread owing to extensive mobility. The nation-state as an ethnic identity (or, in the case of multi-racial states, the indigenous people of the state) has become very significant, and ethnic identity above that level is of increasing importance’ (Crocombe 1993, p. 195). Sonny Karubaba explains that being Melanesian, to West Papuans, is ‘about sharing this same land [and] same identity. Despite the fact that [Melanesians] have language differences, we’re able to understand each other’ (Sonny Karubaba, interview, September 2008, Port Moresby). When I was in Port Vila, Vanuatu, in 2009, I interviewed Chief Selwyn Garu, secretary of the Malvatu Mauri (Vanuatu National Council of 95 Chiefs), about Melanesian identity and the reasoning behind Vanuatu chiefs’ and people’s support for West Papua. He told me, we look across the nations at West Papua and Kanaki; these are Melanesian nations, and the values that they share are similar. So that’s where we, the Vanuatu chiefs, ... identify with [them, because] they share the same respect for life, for land, for everything. (Selwyn Garu, interview, July 2009, Port Vila) He continues: Melanesia is not a concept; it’s a reality. You have the ways of the people of Melanesia, the features of the people who live in Melanesia, ... their customs, you know. These are things that identify them, or distinguish them from the other people. And you find that in Melanesia, ... the customs, systems of governance, are similar in the sense that you have pockets of ... indigenous communities made up of tribes and clans under their own chiefs with their own land, their own access to the sea, and their own resources on the land that they live on, and they live quite independent of each other. But at the same time, their work and their life kind of interacts with other people around other communities. ... So when we talk about Melanesia ... these are the realities. Melanesia is not a concept; it’s a reality ... because of the values that they share. ... One of the values that they share across Melanesia is the word ‘respect’, and the value and respect of the land, respect for the sea, respect for the relationships that people have. ... These are things that kind of tie people together, and I think one of the things that makes Melanesia what it is, is this respect that can be accorded to everything, as though everything is alive. (Selwyn Garu, interview, July 2009, Port Vila) The West Papuans that I interviewed frequently identified with what they believed was a unique, Melanesian sense of community-living and family care. Oridek Ap described a traditional, West Papuan ‘accept[ance] that you don’t need many things - that’s the Melanesian thought, because we are social you know, and we share’ (Oridek Ap, interview, September 2008, The Hague). And John Tekwie, former governor of Sandaun Province in PNG, with mixed West Papuan and PNG heritage, justifies caring for West Papuan relatives on the other side of the border, saying that when ‘one of our brothers is suffering, us Melanesians, we, in terms of caring and thinking of our other relatives, go beyond third and fourth and 96 fifth generations; they are still our relatives’ (John Tekwie, interview, August 2008, Port Moresby). Geo-politically as well, West Papuans identify strongly as Melanesian. This is for strategic reasons and because of felt cultural affinities. Jacob Rumbiak, a West Papuan refugee living in Melbourne, recalls how now deceased (probably poisoned in jail [King 2004, p. 181]) West Papuan independence and cultural leader Thomas Wainggai, in the late 1980s, started to ‘call the territory of West Papua, West Melanesia. That was strategic, ... we used it to influence Papua New Guinea, Solomons, Fiji and Vanuatu [that they] must back up their own family’ (Jacob Rumbiak, interview, November 2009, Melbourne). Herman Wainggai adds that there was another strategic dimension to this nomenclature – he says that Indonesians ‘sometimes use [the name] Papuan [as if] we are dirty ... so that’s why people use the [word] Melanesian ... rather than Papuan, or Irian’ (Herman Wainggai, interview, November 2009, Melbourne). Thomas Wainggai and his movement for a Republic of West Melanesia taught West Papuans, according to the ardent follower of his philosophy, Jacob Rumbiak, to view West Papua from: God’s eyes - ... Not highlands, valley; not coast, not island; but you ... are Papua, that’s the name given by foreigners when they came. Your nation is a Melanesian nation, ... we are still one nation, Melanesia. They [the Moluccan Islands] are west Melanesia, last in [the] west, and east is Fiji, south is Kanaky, New Caledonia and Vanuatu, north is Rabaul and Solomons, Bougainville, that’s north, and [in the] middle is Papua New Guinea, Torres - still Melanesia, and west is Maluku, Dobo and Kei. (Jacob Rumbiak, interview, November 2009, Melbourne) The influence on Melanesian strategising of the 1960s Black Civil Rights movement in the US is evident too – West Papuan refugee, youth leader and sports and business identity Frank Makanuey, living in Port Moresby, has planned a campaign together with a group of West Papuan university students in Moresby whereby they intend, ‘following what the American civil rights 97 [movement] did [with the] million man march, ... to get a million Melanesian signatures’. Makanuey says, ‘we want to tell the world [that these] one million signatures from three different countries give the West Papuan Melanesians their right to preserve their culture’ (Frank Makanuey, interview, September 2008, Port Moresby). A sense of Melanesian ‘roots’, or grounding, is also felt by many West Papuans. Of West Papuan descent but born in The Netherlands, Nancy Jouwe remembers the sensation of visiting her ‘home’ in West Papua for the first time, saying: ‘I’m not the sort of person who was heavily looking for their roots, I wasn’t, but [I had] a sense of coming home. ... I had this physical sensation of roots coming from my feet and [I could] sort of ... feel the earth; ... you become one with the earth’ (Nancy Jouwe, interview, September 2008, Utrecht). The late Viktor Kaisiepo, a West Papuan cultural and political leader who was based in The Netherlands, similarly told me that although: I became a Dutch citizen, ... I am not a Dutch person by birth, by design, by genes, by DNA. I can be a Dutch person, ... with a passport from the Dutch, and protection from the Dutch, but I cannot act like the Dutch. ... I can to a certain extent try, but there will be things in my system that will connect me to my roots, which are Melanesian’ (Viktor Kaisiepo, interview, September 2008, Amersfoort) Neles Tebay, from the Mee tribe in the highlands of West Papua, has had similar realisations, describing how ‘the more I keep [my] distance, or the more I am away from [my] home village, I come to realise that I belong to the tribe of Mee. But the more I am away from this island, then I come to realise that I am Papuan, I am Melanesian’ (Neles Tebay, interview, December 2008, Jayapura). These examples demonstrate that, contrary to the arguments of some scholars, the forms that West Papuan nationalism has taken as a result of resistance to Indonesian occupation, in particular its affiliations with a broader Melanesian culture, are neither arbitrary nor a purely Dutch creation. Thus, while the Dutch did foster West Papuan nationalism in an anti ‘Indonesian’ direction, the ‘Melanesian’ characteristics it acquired were not out of keeping with the cultural 98 similarities that West Papuans have traditionally shared (pre-colonialism) and still share with other Melanesian cultures. Of course, adversity, and having to unite against a common enemy, tends to expedite and solidify identity-forging processes and articulation (Ballard 2006) (compare for example the strength of West Papuan identity with the much less distinct pan-Papua New Guinean identity across the border [David Tekwie, interview, September 2009, Port Moresby]). However, that West Papuan identity took on particularly strident Melanesian overtones in keeping with the many similarities between West Papuan peoples and other Melanesian peoples cannot be credited solely to the Dutch nor to the Indonesians.74 I suggest that had West Papua not been colonised by Indonesia (after the Dutch), its cultural identity would still probably favour Melanesian rather than Asian articulations because its underlying cultural characteristics were, pre-colonisation, more similar to those of other Melanesian societies. Indeed, one of the major strengths of West Papuan nationalism is its cultural affiliations with a greater Melanesian identity, even despite the fact that at a state/government level, little Melanesian support (apart from Vanuatu) for West Papuan independence has been forthcoming. The significance of traditional and contemporary Papuan culture has been shown to lie not only in its utility to express West Papuan identity but also in its ability to unite West Papuan generations and diaspora and homeland communities through sharing and borrowing of cultural forms and ideas. Sonny Karubaba from PNG explains the power of culture to bring generations together: We [West Papuans] sit down together when we have a gathering; ... the old people also come around and they sit together and talk about our cultures, our traditions, [and] we ... invite them to talk to our young people ... about our political 74 And though the argument might be posed that, ironically, the language that unifies West Papuans and allows for national unity to be verbally communicated is Bahasa Indonesia (see Benedict Anderson 2006, p. 178) some West Papuans would argue differently. It was once remarked to me by student leader Victor Yeimo, quite emphatically, that West Papuans do not speak Bahasa Indonesia, but rather, Bahasa Melayu, the major language of the Austronesian family (and one with a political distinction in this case, used with West Papuan dialect additions and in opposition to Bahasa Indonesia, the official language of the oppressor). (Author’s field notes, October-December 2008, Jayapura) 99 struggle [which is] interesting to the young people [who are learning about] what [brings] us here, ... and why we practice all these traditional dances. ... And then we hold on to it, [and] we continue to practice (Sonny Karubaba, interview, September 2008, Port Moresby) Otto Ondawame believes that the diaspora and those struggling inside West Papua must work together to achieve independence – both groups have important roles to play. He explains: Both of them have to work together toward one goal, for simple reasons. People inside ... know the political situation inside, but ... they don’t know about the diplomatic [situation], what language they have to use, [or about] international political relationships, ... so one must complete [the] other. ... Other liberation movements indicate clearly that both must play an important role. [In] East Timor the guerrillas continued to fight, fight, fight, ... but [if] people outside [did] not speak out strongly, it could not have gone anywhere. (Otto Ondawame, interview, July 2009, Sydney) This chapter has shown that the cultural expression of nationalism is one of the strongest similarities and points of consensus and exchange between and among West Papuan populations living throughout the world. Thus the following words from a young West Papuan woman in Port Moresby seem a fitting end to this chapter: ‘We [West Papuans] must go back to our roots, it’s the culture that will keep us together’ (Anonymous B, interview, September 2009, Port Moresby). 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Pacific Affairs 74 (4):507-28. 103 Section two: Papua/Jakarta Politics Figure 1 West Papuan students carrying the "coffin of Special Autonomy" as a protest to Jakarta. Image: KNPB/West Ppaua Media 104 Chapter seven: Policy failure and political impasse: Papua and Jakarta a decade after the ‘Papuan Spring’ Richard Chauvel This chapter discusses the recent patterns of politics in Papua and policy responses in Jakarta. The timeframe for this examination is the resurgence of Papuan nationalism following the fall of Suharto in 1998 and the period of the implementation of the 2001 Special Autonomy Law down to 2011. Were it to look back over the last decade since the “Papuan Spring”-- the period after May 1998 up to the Second Papua Congress in June 2000-- the Indonesian government would see much about which to be satisfied. The mobilisation for and articulation of Papuan aspirations for independence have been contained, if not suppressed. The administration in Papua has been divided into two provinces, with prospect of still more provinces, and the number of district governments has more than tripled. Political and administrative authority is no longer centered in Jayapura, but dispersed throughout the land of Papua. The Papuans struggling for independence are fragmented between numerous organisations. The Presidium Dewan Papua (PDP, Presidium of the Papua Council), like the OPM (Organisasi Papua Merdeka, Free Papua Movement) before it, no longer dominates the pro independence movement as it did during the brief “Papuan Spring”. Papua does not pose the threat to Indonesia's territorial integrity that it seemed to a decade ago. The Indonesian government’s confidence in international recognition of its sovereignty over Papua seems well grounded. With the exception of Vanuatu, no state questions Indonesia’s sovereignty in Papua. However, I would argue that, what in 1962 when the Dutch withdrew was a significant diplomatic triumph for Indonesia, has in the last ten years become an ‘Achilles’ heel’ for a democratising Indonesia. Papua is Indonesia’s last and most intractable regional 105 conflict. Papua has become a battle ground in a struggle between a ‘new’ and an ‘old’ Indonesia. The ‘old’ Indonesia considers that its soldiers’ torturing fellow Indonesian citizens in a most barbaric manner is an ‘incident’. The ‘new’ Indonesia aspires to the ideals of its original founders in becoming a progressive outward looking cosmopolitan, multi ethnic and multi faith society. The influence of ‘old’ Indonesia has made Papua the exception to many of the nationwide processes of democratisation. Over the past decade the formulation and implementation of the 2001 Special Autonomy Law has been one of the battlegrounds between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ Indonesia in the conduct of Papua policy. I will argue that the Special Autonomy Law has failed, not simply because it has been symbolically ‘returned’ by Papuans on at least two occasions, but rather because it has failed to achieve the Indonesian Government’s principal objective, that of lessening Papuan support for Independence. My chronological ‘bookends’ for examining this proposition are the Kongres Papua of mid 2000 and the Mubes MRP (the Public Consultation between the Papuan Peoples’ Assembly and Indigenous Papuan Society) of June 2010. The statements issued by both meetings encapsulate a broad segment of Papuan opinion. In retrospect, the Kongres Papua was the high point of the enthusiasm and mobilisation of support for Independence that characterised the Papuan Spring. The Kongres Papua gave a mandate to one organisation in particular, the Presidium Dewan Papua, to implement its program. On the tenth anniversary of the Kongres, the Mubes MRP arose out of a sense of frustration and disappointment with much of what had developed in Papua since the Kongres. Besides “returning” the Special Autonomy Law to the Indonesian Government, the Mubes MRP reaffirmed the demand of the Kongres Papua that Indonesia recognise the sovereignty of the West Papuan people, as declared on 1 December 1961. It went further to demand a referendum. 106 I contend that the Papuan nationalist sentiments expressed at the Mubes MRP in 2010 were as strong as those expressed at the Kongres ten years earlier. Indeed, with respect to migration, the Indonesian settler community and Papuan identity, the discussion at the Mubes MRP was a more forthright expression of Papuan ethnic nationalism. In 2000 the Indonesian settler community was included, at least rhetorically, in the pro-independence movement as one of the PDP’s ‘pillars’. In 2010, the Mubes MRP demanded that migration from outside Papua be kept under tight surveillance. The Mubes MRP also expressed concerns about intermarriage between Papuans and Indonesians and the consequent dilution of Papuan identity. The strong Papuan nationalist sentiments expressed during the Mubes MRP confirmed the range of opinions aired during the public consultations conducted by the Papua Peace Network. These nationalist sentiments were evident at the Papua Peace Conference of July 2011.75 The Special Autonomy elite: The meat in the sandwich Next I wish to highlight the changing nature of political leadership in Papuan society. I have argued elsewhere76 that under Special Autonomy and the Indonesia-wide processes of democratisation, two distinct spheres of politics have emerged in Papua: the politics of Papuan nationalism and the electoral and bureaucratic politics of provincial and district governments. In the latter, Papuan politicians compete with each other and with Indonesian settlers in provincial and district parliaments and, since 2005, in direct elections for governors and heads of district governments. The proliferation of district governments, more than tripling over the past decade, has been another factor supporting the growth of a Papuan political and bureaucratic elite. The significant increase in budget allocations to both provincial and district governments has made political and 75 Neles Tebay, “Peace Means Ending the Stigma of Separatism for the Papuan People”, Jayapura, 11 July 2011, (Tapol translation) This document was released at the end of the Papua Peace Conference (KPP) and identifies the criteria for determining whether the Papuan people live in a Land of Peace. 76 Richard Chauvel, “Electoral Politics and Democratic Freedoms in Papua”, in Edward Aspinall and Marcus Mietzner (ed), Problems of Democratisation in Indonesia, Indonesia Update Series, Institute. of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 2010, p. 309 107 bureaucratic positions attractive in that they provide access to government resources. Not surprisingly, the Indonesian government was the principal focus of much of the criticism expressed at the Mubes MRP. However, those Papuans in elected and unelected government positions – the Special Autonomy elite – were also much criticised. The common argument advanced at the Mubes MRP that the Special Autonomy Law had not produced any significant benefit for Papuans was accompanied by the assertion that Special Autonomy funds had been misappropriated by provincial and district politicians and officials. It was also argued at the Mubes MRP that the members of the MRP and the provincial parliament and the Governor and the heads of the district governments had not worked to improve the welfare of Papuan society. The Governor, it was asserted, spent much of his time on trips to Jakarta and overseas rather than meeting with his own people.77 In his reflections on the Public Consultations about dialogue with Jakarta held throughout Papua in the first months of 2010, Muridan Widjojo noted the great social and cultural distance between district and provincial governments in Papua and their own societies.78 Towards the end of the US Congressional Hearing on Papua in September 2010, after listening to the testimonies of four Papuan representatives, the Chairman, Eni Faleomavaega, posed the question: “So let me ask you this. It's my understanding that Governor Suebo (sic) and the other governor are the two highest elected officials among the Papuan people. Now, how much credence is given to these two elected governors in terms of their relationship as elected officials with the Papuan people?”79 77 “Satu Tanah, Satu Hati, Satu Budaya”, Ringkasan Eksekutif, Hasil Musyawarah MRP dan Masyarakat Asli Papua, Jayapura, 9-10 June 2010 78 “Konsultasi Publik dan Fondasi Dialog Papua-Jakarta”, Tuesday, April 13, 2010, http://muridan-papua.blogspot.com/ 79 Preliminary Transcript of September 22, 2010 Congressional Hearing on West Papua, http://www.etan.org/news/2010/09wpapuahearing.htm#DROOGLEVER 108 In addition to the failure of the Special Autonomy elite to improve the welfare of Papuans, collectively, the politicians, senior bureaucrats and the representative institutions in which some of them are members, have lost most of their policy battles with the central government in Jakarta since the implementation of Special Autonomy. The provincial Parliament, the MRP and the Governor opposed the Megawati Government’s unilateral creation of a new province of West Irian Jaya (now West Papua). The central government ignored the objections of the Papuan politicians and bureaucrats and established the new province despite the fact Jakarta had not followed the provisions of the Special Autonomy Law. Likewise, the provincial governments and the MRP’s attempts to curb migration from other areas of Indonesia and limit the deployment of troops in Papua have borne no fruits. Prior to the 2009 elections, the MRP attempted, unsuccessfully, to create an additional eleven seats in the provincial parliament for Papuans, because there was a concern that Papuans would not obtain a majority of seats. In the light of the results of the 2009 elections, in which Indonesian settlers gained control of many district councils (DPRDs), the MRP, again unsuccessfully, sought to change the regulations for the election of the heads of district government (Bupati and Walikota) so that the candidates for these positions and their deputies had to be ethnic Papuans, as was the case for candidates for Governors under the Special Autonomy Law.80 One optimistic Papuan blogger on the KOMUNITAS PAPUA mail list shortly after the Mubes MRP noted these many failures of the Special Autonomy elite and how the Indonesian government had ignored Papuan demands, but added that given that the Mubes MRP had demanded a referendum Jakarta would take notice.81 80 For the 2009 election results in Papua see: Richard Chauvel, “Electoral Politics and Democratic Freedoms in Papua”, in Edward Aspinall and Marcus Mietzner (ed), Problems of Democratisation in Indonesia, Indonesia Update Series, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 2010 pp 322-324 81 “Ketika DPRP/MRP tolak provinsi IJB, JAKARTA bilang epen k, DPRP/ MRP tolak transmingrasi jakarta bilang epen k, DPRP/ MRP tolak teritorial Militer jakarta bilang epen k, 109 As it turned out, the central government did not take much more notice of the Mubes MRP’s demand for a referendum than it had of the earlier Papuan demands. These failures have made it difficult for the Special Autonomy elite to develop credibility and legitimacy in the eyes of their Papuan constituents. One telling indicator of the lack of legitimacy of the Special Autonomy elite can be seen in the Declaration of the Peace Conference, held in Jayapura in July 2011. Among the matters established in the Peace Declaration were the criteria for the selection of the Papuan negotiators in a future ‘dialogue’ with the Indonesian Government. The second criterion was that the negotiators could not have any bureaucratic, emotional or any other relationship whatsoever with the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI).82 Under Special Autonomy, Papuan politicians and officials have been in a vulnerable position. They have to manage the highly asymmetrical relations with the central government, while developing their support base among their constituency in Papua. They are the meat in the autonomy sandwich. The criticism made of politicians and officials at the Mubes MRP suggests that they have not been able to develop Papuan support for their policies from within Papuan society. From the beginning of the debate about Special Autonomy in 2000 and 2001, the politicians willing to support Special Autonomy have had a difficult task. In the wake of the euphoria for Merdeka (independence) that accompanied the Papuan Spring it was difficult to argue that Special Autonomy was better than Merdeka, particularly with the high levels of distrust many Papuans held for the Indonesian government and the long history of unkept promises. Barnabas Suebu was one of the most influential advocates for Special Autonomy. Nevertheless, the DPRP/MRP meminta 11 kursi jakarta bilang epen k, DPRP/ dorong SK 14 Jakarta bilang epen k, trus mubes MRP meminta refrendum pasti jakarta bilang epen k, ahaaai.” KOMUNITAS PAPUA, 14 June, 2010 82 Deklarasi Perdamaian Papua, Konferensi Perdamaian Tanah Papua, Jayapura, 5-7 July 2011. 110 argument that Suebu used was that Papuans could achieve most of what they hoped for in Merdeka through Special Autonomy.83 If the Special Autonomy elite have disappointed their Papuan constituents and failed to develop credibility, this has not meant that they have been supported by the Indonesian Government. On the contrary, many members of the Special Autonomy elite are held in great suspicion by the Indonesian intelligence organisations. An Indonesian Department of Internal Affairs intelligence document of mid 2000 recognised that the provincial government had been “contaminated” by the independence ideal and recommended that strong sanctions be applied to well-known supporters of Papua Merdeka amongst local officials.84 Attached to the same intelligence document was a diagram entitled the “Papuan Political Conspiracy” that depicted the various groups of Papuans whom the Indonesian intelligence community thought supported Papuan independence. In addition to the well-known public advocates of independence, the diagram named many Papuans who had been most successful in the Indonesian system, including Barnabas Suebu, Governor of Papua until recently and then Indonesian Ambassador in Mexico, his immediate predecessor and another former Governor and a number of Papuan members of the Indonesian parliament. The security forces’ concern about the influence of pro-independence ideals among Papuan government officials has persisted despite the fact that the political space for the articulation and mobilisation of pro-independence ideals in Papua has been severely curtailed. The criminalisation of peaceful political activities has been an effective strategy for keeping Papuan nationalist sentiments off the streets. In a 2007 secret report of the Kopassus unit stationed in Kotaraja, a suburb of Jayapura, the analysis of the ‘enemy’ argued that the activities of the separatists in Papua were centred around Jayapura, where most of activists lived. “Most of the separatist group had become officials in 83 “Peserta Seminar Otonomi Minta Irja Merdeka”, Republika, 29 March 2001 Nota Dinas, Direktur Jenderal Kesbang dan Linmas, Ermaya Suradinata to Menteri Dalam Negeri, 9 June 2000, 578/CD/kesbang/D IV/VI/2000 84 111 government institutions and occupied important positions.” The separatists were not a large group, but, because many of them held official positions, their views were often reported in the mass media.85 As many young Papuans did not have a strong Indonesian nationalist ideology, the report argued, the separatists, who “increasingly had as an objective the ideal of Papuan independence, were able to influence all levels of society and government institutions.”86 The Indonesian authorities’ suspicion and distrust of Papuan politicians and provincial government officials has made it difficult for Jakarta to implement the 2001 Special Autonomy Law in a way that might have enabled the Law to achieve its objective of reducing Papuan support for independence from Indonesia. Agus Sumule, an academic at Universitas Negeri Papua in Manokwari and an advisor to the Governor of Papua province, has cited two examples of how the Indonesian government has endeavoured to limit the autonomy devolved to the provincial government in Jayapura. Firstly, he cites the practice of distributing the budget allocation of Special Autonomy funds to Papua every couple of months rather than on an annual basis. Sumule argues that an annual allocation of these funds would facilitate optimal planning and program implementation. He understands that the practice of graduated allocation of funds was conducted at the behest of one of the Indonesian intelligence agencies out of fear that, if the funds were distributed on an annual basis, there was a greater likelihood the money would be used for ‘subversive’ purposes. Secondly, despite the fact that the Special Autonomy Law devolves authority to the provincial government in all areas of government except foreign affairs, defence and security, finance and religion, Sumule argues that in practice there has been virtually no devolution of authority to Papua as a consequence of the Special Autonomy Law.87 85 Nur Wahyudi, Lettu Inf Nrp 11010047840180, Laporan Triwulan I Pos Kotaraja, Satgas Ban – 5 Kopassus, Agustus 2007, pp. 8-9 86 Ibid, p. 6 87 Agus Sumule, “Perpres P4B VS UU Otsus Papua”, Sinar Harapan, 12 November 2011, http://www.sinarharapan.co.id/content/read/perpres-p4b-vs-uu-otsus-papua/; 112 In a similar vein, diplomats from the American Embassy in Jakarta observed in September 2009 that “Many central government ministries have been reluctant to cede power to the province. As a result, implementation of the [Special Autonomy] law has lagged and Papuans increasingly view the law as a failure."88 The American diplomat identified Governor Suebu as being a particular problem for those in the central government, including the Department of Home Affairs, the military and the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), who distrust all Papuans and like Papuan politicians to be weak and dependent on Jakarta. John Heffern, the US Charge d’Affaires, argued in March 2007: “In terms of vision, initiative, and competence, Suebu is head and shoulders above any other Papuan leader in memory. This makes him a threat.” Governor Suebu had been arguing for revisions to the Presidential Instruction on the acceleration of development in Papua, which would have empowered Suebu at the expense of the central government.89 Finally, what has been the role of the Indonesian government itself in the failure of its own Special Autonomy Law? Since Suharto’s fall, government policy has vacillated between accommodating Papuan values and aspirations and the suppression of Papuan nationalist sentiments. The Special Autonomy Law itself was an expression of the more accommodating tendency. Much of the implementation of the Special Autonomy Law has reflected the influence of those sections of the Government – ‘old’ Indonesia – who considered that the accommodation of Papuan interests and values in the Law was too generous and, if implemented according to the spirit and letter of the law, risked empowering Jayapura-based politicians and bureaucrats who would use Special Autonomy as a platform to take Papua a further step to independence. Niat Luhur Yang Bisa Berujung Malapetaka: Tanggapan atas Dokumen-dokumen Rencana Percepatan Pembangunan Papua, 20 February 2011. 88 Cable 1638, US Embassy Jakarta to the Secretary of State, Washington, 30 September 2009, http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/09/09JAKARTA1638.html 89 Cable 0852, US Embassy Jakarta to the Secretary of State, Washington, 23 March 2007, http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/03/07JAKARTA852.html 113 We also need to examine how President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has dealt with the government policy impasse over Papua. He was, as the Security Minister in Wahid’s government, responsible for the closing down of the “Papuan Spring” in the six months following the Kongres Papua in 2000. He has recognised the need to raise the levels of material welfare of Papuans, but he has also resisted the idea that Papuans have political, historical and cultural issues in addition to those economic concerns that need to be addressed. Thus far, the President has resisted the Papuan demands for a dialogue to address this wider range of issues. He has also been reluctant to address human rights violations by the security forces in Papua. Speaking to senior military and police leaders in January 2011, the President expressed his satisfaction that there had been no serious violations of human rights since he became President in 2004. However, he did recognise that there had been acts of violence by the security forces. “I am concerned about cases in Papua. These acts were not the policies of Generals, Marshalls or the Government. They were incidents.” He expressed his frustration. He had wasted time, energy and thought explaining these incidents to the United Nations.90 In one respect, the President is probably correct in that the recently videoed acts of violence were not carried out on instructions from military leaders or the government. A more likely explanation is that instructions were not necessary. These acts reflected a deeply ingrained institutional culture of violence in the way members of the security forces interact with Papuans. Changing the instructions of governments and generals is relatively easy, changing institutional cultures takes “time, energy and thought”. These videoed acts of violence against Papuan civilians, together with the security forces’ violent intervention breaking up the Papuan People’s Congress in October 2011 highlight the entrenched position of the Indonesian security forces 90 “Klaim President tentang Hak Asasi Dipertanyakan”, Koran Tempo, 22 January 2011, p. A5 114 in Papua. In October 2007, a US Embassy cable cited an Indonesian foreign affairs official, Berty Fernandez, who had been seconded to the provincial government of Papua, as arguing that the Indonesian military operated in Papua “as a virtually autonomous governmental entity”. According to Fernandez, there were far more troops in Papua than the military were willing to admit and that they were there to protect the military’s interests in illegal logging.91 The violent breakup of the Papua People’s Congress on 19 October 2011, coinciding as it did with a several months long strike at the Freeport Gold and Copper Mine and the killing of a Papuan Police Chief in the central highlands, prompted the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, to urge the Indonesian government to open a dialogue to address the “legitimate needs of the Papuan people”.92 On 9 November President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced that his government was prepared to be open to the idea of a dialogue with Papuans, with three conditions or pillars, namely: Indonesian sovereignty in Papua, the effective implementation of Special Autonomy and the acceleration of development.93 At the time of writing, it was too early to assess whether the President’s announcement has the potential to break the impasse in Jakarta’s Papua policy. However, Neles Tebay, the head of the Papua Peace Network and chair of the Papua Peace Conference of July 2011, welcomed the offer of dialogue.94 91 Cable 2769, US Embassy Jakarta to the Secretary of State, Washington, 1 October 2007, http://wikileaks.org/cable/2007/10/07JAKARTA2769.html 92 “US voices concerns on Papua Rights”, The Jakarta Globe, Friday, 11 November, 2011 93 Arientha Primanita and Markus Junianto Sihaloho, “Jakarta Open to Papua Dialogue, With Conditions” The Jakarta Globe, Thursday, November 10, 2011 94 “Neles Tebay: Jakarta Siap Dialog”, Bintang Papua, 9 November 2011, http://www.bintangpapua.com/headline/16608-neles-tebay-jakarta-siap-dialog 115 Chapter eight: The injustice and historical falsehood of Papuan integration into Indonesia through the Act of Free Choice, 1969 Socratez Sofyan Yoman Surely the people of Indonesia who are outside of Papua are confused and keep asking why the indigenous Papuans have never acknowledged and accepted the events in 1969 but instead have consistently and continually opposed the integration of West Papua into Indonesia? Are the people and the nation of West Papua, ethnic Melanesians, mistaken in their understanding of the history of Papua's integration into Indonesia? These questions are not easy to answer and it takes a long struggle and journey. For the book published by LIPI (the Indonesian Institute of Sciences: Lembaga Ilmu Pengetahuan Indonesia) under the title Papua Road Map: Negotiating the Past, Improving the Present and Securing the Future, the four basic problems in Papua are: (1) the history and political status of Papua, (2) state violence and human rights violations, (3) marginalisation, (4) discrimination. This LIPI initiative has provided space and opportunity for the people of Papua and the Indonesian government to sit together for negotiation, mediation and communication and dialogue to give dignified responses to the basic problems. In my opinion, the four problems found by LIPI’s team actually originated from one root problem, ie, the history of the integration of Papua into Indonesia through the Act of Free Choice, 1969, which was implemented in West Papua in accordance with an Indonesian system, namely musyawarah (consensus by discussion). Implementation via the method used by Indonesia is quite contrary to the actual content of the New York Agreement of 15 August 1962, approved by the United Nations, the United States, the Netherlands and Indonesia, namely - one adult, one vote. This was completely ignored by the Indonesian government through use of military force to ‘consult’ on integration in 1969. 116 The Indonesian military involvement in the Act of Free Choice 1969 In the process of Papua's incorporation into Indonesia, the Indonesian military played a very crucial and important role, both before, during and after the Act of Free Choice. A military document) stated: intensify all activities in each field using all the power of organic material and personnel as well as the B / P from both the Army and from other forces. Stick to the guidelines. Referendum on West Irian (IRBA) in 1969 must be won. Vital strategic materials have to be secured. Minimise defeat for our troops by reducing the static unimportant posts. OPS to be implemented. Each coordination as well done as possible. Commander 17/PANG OPSADAR .95 A secret letter by Infantry Colonel Soemarto was later published by a Dutch national newspaper: In 1969 the Indonesian government manipulated the Act of Free Choice concerning the official status of Dutch New Guinea (Irian Jaya). By all means, fair or not fair, Jakarta wants to block the native people of Papua in the voting against joining Indonesia. It appears the so called "secret order" in the month of May 1969 was provided by Soemarto, the Indonesian Commander in Merauke, the regency head in that area.96 Christofelt L. Korua, retired from the police, was an eyewitnesses who claimed, "the people of Papua voted in 1969 as determined by Indonesian officials ... and guarded by the military and police of Indonesia"97 In 1965-66 the Kodam (Military Command) in West Papua was under the leadership of Brigadier General R. Kartidjo, who carried out "Operation Awareness" designed to conduct intelligence activities, influence the tribal chiefs and make arrests of the leaders of the OPM (Free Papua Movement) as well as 95 Letter Official Telegram Col. Inf. Soepomo, Regional Military Command Tjenderawasih XVII Number: TR-20/PS/PSAD/196”, dated 20-2-1967, according to Radio Gram MEN / PANGAD No.: TR-228/1967 TBT dated 7-2-1967 96 NRC Handdelsbald, March 4, 2000 97 Author Interview: Jayapura, December 11, 2002). 117 Papuans who rejected integration with Indonesia. After that Brigadier General R. Bintoro (Military Commander from 23 March 1966 until 25 June 1968) led "Operation Bratayudha" to destroy the OPM under Ferry Awom in Manokwari, and take control of West Papua as a whole. The next military commander, Brigadier General Sarwo Edhi Wibowo, led “Operation Awareness" to eliminate the remnants of the OPM so the Indonesian government could consolidate power throughout the region.98 A secret letter from the Military Area Commander Tjenderawasih XVII, Colonel Infantry Soemarto, declared: We must be absolutely sure to win this referendum, carried out with methods that are both ordinary and unusual. Therefore, I believe the Chairman of the Regional Consultative Council (MUSPIDA, Musyawarah Pimpinan Daerah) will bring together a consensus on our goal to unite Papua with the Republic of Indonesia.99 One commentator relates how in Manokwari, while the council voted, Papuan youths in a nearby church sang the song ‘Alone, Alone’. To deal with this, the Indonesian soldiers arrested people, threw them in a car and took them away. Hugh Lunn, a foreign journalist present, was threatened with weapons by Indonesians while he was taking photos of a demonstration by the Papuans.100 Most members of the Consultative Council for the Act of Free Choice 1969 were immigrants from Manado, Toraja, Batak, Ambon/Maluku and Buton. That was made evident by the 59 pro-Indonesian statements contained in UN documents available today. I believe it highly unlikely at the time that Papuan people would make such pro-Indonesian statements. The U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia in 1969 stated, "95% of Papuans want independence", and Sudjarwo 98 Yorrys Raweyai: Why Papua Wants Freedom, Papua Presidium Council, 2002, pp. 33-34). NRP.16716 to the Military Resort Merauke-172 dated May 8, 1969, No. R-24/1969, Subject: Security Act of Free Choice in Merauke. Intin (Source: NRC Handelsbald, March 4, 2000) 100 See John Saltford, United Nations Involvement with the Act of Self-Determination In West Irian (Indonesian West New Guinea), 1968-1969 (available online) 99 118 admitted, "many people of Papua might not agree to stay with Indonesia." The question is, how was it possible at the time of the Papuan people’s strong desire for independence that they were making such contradictory statements? The answer is that the 59 pro-Indonesian statements were the result of military manipulation using Indonesian immigrants. Report by the UN Representative, Dr. Fernando Ortiz Sanz Ortiz Sanz reported that the political views and wishes of the people of Papua had been delivered through various media channels -- “statements and other communications delivered to me in writing or orally.” He also reported that “there have been peaceful demonstrations, and incidents along the border between West Irian and Papua New Guinea which is controlled by Australia.”101 Furthermore, there were statements (petitions) on the Indonesian annexation itself; tensions and conflict, especially in Manokwari, Enarotali, and Waghete; struggles by the people who had fled to Australian TPNG (Territory of Papua and New Guinea), and the taking of political prisoners -- more than 300 people, who were released upon Sanz’s request, which all showed that without doubt the majority of Papuans in West Irian upheld a desire for independence. However, the answers given by members of the Consultative Council (Dewan Musyawarah) on the question submitted to them was to agree to stay with Indonesia.102 Implementation of the Act in 1969 was manipulative and full of deceit, as Ortiz Sanz himself reported. When he arrived in West Irian in August 1968 he was confronted with situations that did not comply with the provisions of the New York Agreement Article XVI. Firstly UN experts (who had lived in West Irian during the transitional period of administrative responsibility) did not know the situation well and had streamlined their tasks. As a result, their basic functions to advise and 101 102 UNGA, Annex IA/7723, 6 November 1969, paragraph 138, p. 45 UNGA IA/7723 Annex, paragraph 250, p. 70 119 assist in preparation for upholding the provisions of self determination were not properly carried out during the period 1 May 1963 - 23 August 1968. For the purpose of his mission Ortiz Sanz only met people drawn from a few areas over a few months with a limited number of staff, whereas essential provisions of the New York Agreement Article XVI should have been carried out over five years with a large number of experts.103 The New York Agreement laid down the rights of freedom of speech, freedom of movement and freedom of assembly for the native population, but the essential conditions were not implemented and the Indonesian administration on every occasion held tight political control. Despite Sanz’s desire and willingness to go to West Irian as soon as possible after he was appointed the UN Representative his departure was delayed until August 7 1968 at the request of the Indonesian Government.104 On several occasions, he approached the Indonesian government which had the power of implementation of Article XVI of the New York Agreement, but failed to get encouraging answers. On January 7, 1965 Indonesia withdrew from UN membership and therefore it was not possible to send UN experts to West New Guinea.105 At the end of 1968 Ortiz Sanz and his team members were busy doing a second three-week trip to West Irian. Returning to Jakarta, Sanz reported to his superior that they had been followed everywhere by Indonesian officers, and, as result, he had difficulty contacting or communicating freely with Papuans. Despite this, he noticed anti-Indonesian feeling, but other reports indicate that he ignored the resistance of the Papuans against Indonesia.106 In his contact with the people of Papua and in some of the statements he received he learned that some politicians had been arrested. He investigated with the Ambassador, Tjondronegoro Sudjarwo, and other officials, the possibility of obtaining their 103 UN Doc. IA/7723 Annex, paragraph 23, P.4). The implementation of Article XXII (22) Report of the Official Results ACT OF FREE CHOICE Number 27, Document A / 7723, p. 5 105 UNGA I/A/7723 Annex, paragraph 7, p.3 106 Ortiz Sanz to Rolz-Bennett, December 18, 1968, UN: Series 100, Box 1, File 3 104 120 release. On November 21, 1968, he wrote a letter successfully requesting the government free political prisoners in various places in Papua on International Human Rights Day.107 Finally, Ortiz Sanz in his official report for the UN General Assembly in 1969 conceded that a majority of the people of Papua showed willingness to separate from Indonesia and supported the idea of the establishment of an independent State of Papua.108 UN members protest in the General Assembly of 1969 The Act of Free Choice brought harsh criticism and protests in the UN General Assembly in 1969 by many members of the UN. They questioned the implementation of the Act, which, they said, involved lies and crimes against humanity and was in violation of international law. Hence, I believe, the UN General Assembly only "took note" of the Act. The terminology, "taking note", is not the same as “approving”. The results the of Act of Free Choice 1969 were not certified but only recorded because of fierce opposition from many UN member countries led by the government of Ghana. In the official archives at the UN in New York, 156 of 179 statements by unidentified persons are stored, all accepted up to April 30, 1969. Of these statements, 95 are anti-Indonesian, 59 pro-Indonesian and two are neutral.109 107 UNGA 1969, A/7706-7723 / A/7723, 6 November 1969, paragraph 61, p.23 108 UN Doc. Annex I, A/7723, para, 243, p.47 Six lists of summaries of political communications from Unidentified Papuans to Ortiz Sanz, August 1968 to April 1969: UN Series 100, Box 1, File 5 .) 109 121 The Ambassador of the government of Ghana, Mr Akwei, protesting in the UN General Assembly, cited the report of Dr. Fernando Ortiz Sanz on the attitude of the Indonesian Home Affairs Minister who asked the members of the Consultative Council (Dewan Musyawarah) to determine their future by adopting one ideology, Pancasila, one flag, one government and one State from Sabang to Merauke. The Ambassador of the government of Gabon, Mr. Davin, commented that it was very difficult to express an opinion about the methods and procedures used for the deliberation of the people of West Irian. He was confused by the extraordinary objections formulated by Mr. Ortiz Sanz in the last words of his report. The need was to address fundamental questions: a) Why were the majority of representatives appointed by the government and not elected by the people? b) Why were the UN observers to be present at the election of only 20 percent of representatives, some of them only briefly? c) Why were consultation meetings chaired by the Governor, in other words, by representatives of the government? d) Why were only people from government organizations and not from the opposition movement present as candidates? e) Why was the principle of "one man, one vote", as recommended by representatives of the Secretary-General, not implemented? f) Why was there no secret consultation, but only open discussion attended by government and military? g) Why did the minister deliberately influence the representatives in public by telling them that, "the only right answer to the question is to announce that they are willing to stay with Indonesia?” h) Why are the rights recognized in Article XXII (22) New York Agreement, which deals with freedom of expression, association and assembly not enjoyed by all indigenous Papuans? 122 Historians protest Professor J.P. Drooglever found, in his research for the Dutch government, that the UN Secretary-General's final report was based entirely on Ortiz Sanz's report about his role in the implementation of the Act of Free Choice.110 This report contains only a weak criticism of the obstruction from the Indonesian side. On this basis, U Thant could not but conclude that an Act of Free Choice had been implemented. Drooglever says that, in the opinion of Western observers and the Papuans who spoke out about it, the Act of Free Choice was a falsehood; a group of voters who, under tremendous pressure, seemed to have unanimously declared itself in favor of Indonesia.111 Drooglever found that there was “almost no understanding of Indonesian nationalism among the people of Papua.”112 Dr. Hans Meijer, another Dutch historian of 1969 in West Papua, argues that the Act of Free Choice was not really democratic, as the archives reveal.113 The Netherlands Minister of Foreign Affairs, Lunz, stated clearly in a letter in the archives that he believed the Act of Free Choice was implemented in a way that was not honest because honest people in Papua were not able to speak against Indonesia. The Netherlands already knew that the 1969 process was not democratic, although the Dutch did not do anything about it. Mr. Saltimar was the Dutch ambassador in Jakarta at the time of the Act of Free Choice. He wrote a letter to Mr. Schiff as General Secretary of Foreign Affairs that he had seen a lot of things that were wrong but he was not responsible for reporting this in official documents.114 The Act of Free Choice was an insult and needs to be revisited 110 Pieter Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice: Decolonization and the Right to Self-Determination in West Papua, Oxford: One World Publications, 2009 111 ibid, p.78 112 ibid, p.75 113 ‘Documents show support for West Papua Dutch take-over’, ABC Radio National Asia / Pacific Program, first broadcast, April 17, 2001 114 ibid 123 Academics protest Dr. John Saltford, a British academic investigating the results of the Act of Free Choice, stated that there was no freedom or opportunity in the negotiations or decision-making process leading up to the Act for West Papuans to be involved.115 Thus, the United Nations, the Netherlands and Indonesia failed to act honestly since the signing never allowed the people of Papua to express their views on self-determination honestly. Saltford notes that Ortiz Sanz himself submitted a report that many of the statements he received in the final weeks of 1969 were against Indonesia: thus, it is acceptable to conclude that at least 60% of the population was against Indonesia, but would agree to a referendum that was fair and open. Therefore, Ortiz Sanz chose to be careful in dealings with the UN General Assembly and submitted the report he did due to U Thant’s pressure.116 Saltford, on Radio Australia, November 27, 2002, said the UN SecretaryGeneral, in his official report to the UN General Assembly, declared that there were many petitions for and against the position of Indonesia in West Papua, but that the majority wanted to live in the republic. But when he, Saltford, actually looked in the archives of the United Nations, he found many anguished and angry petitions and a summary that said a majority wanted genuine selfdetermination in West Papua and opposed Indonesia. On Saturday, January 16, 2010 in the studio of Media Indonesia, Ikrar Nusa Bhakti, addressing the prohibition of five books by the Indonesian Attorney General and in response to a comment by this author that the implementation of Act of Free Choice in 1969 in West Papua was won by Indonesian “security” tactics said, "What Mr Socratez said about the implementation of Act of Free Choice 1969 being undemocratic, it is true." 115 116 Saltford, United Nations Involvement with the Act of Self-Determination in West Irian ibid 124 Pastor Dr. Karel Phil Erari states that: …the people of Papua feel that the Act of Free Choice was engineered by the Government of Indonesia, the Netherlands, the United States and the United Nations, [and that] the Papuans were excluded as subjects of international law, and its implementation was not done democratically in accordance with the customs and practices prevailing in the international community."117 And: ”…the history of the integration of Papua into Indonesia is a bloody history. Human rights violations by murdering, kidnappings, disappearances, rape, massacres, and suspicion [have taken place]…By law, the integration of Papua in the Unitary Republic of Indonesia is problematic."118 Erari finally declares that: History is speaking, that the drums of Trikora, December 19, 1961, from Yogyakarta have carved out a cultural and humanitarian tragedy. The actors of history recognise that in the implementation of the Act of Free Choice they are not involved in the process of preparation of the Act of Free Choice. The members of the DPRD-GR (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah – Gotong Royong, the Regional Representatives Council of Mutual Assistance) including the chairman were disbanded and replaced by the Consultative Council Act of Free Choice (DMP), which numbered 1025 members. The whole implementation of the Act of Free Choice was controlled by Special Operations (Opsus) forJakarta’s mission, which won a Choice for Indonesia.119 Recognition of the Government of the United States, Britain and Indonesia 117 Karel Phil Erari, Jubilee And Liberation Towards a New Papua: Five Decades of Evangelical Christian Church in Papua 1956-26 October 26 October 2006, Aksara Karunia, 2006 118 119 Saltford, United Nations Involvement with the Act of Self-Determination In West Irian, p.182 ibid, p.169 125 A secret report by Jack W. Lydman of the US Embassy staff in Jakarta dated July 18, 1969 noted that members of Ortiz Sanz’s UN team believed that 95% of Papuans supported independence in Papua.120 There is no doubt that a strong desire of West Papuan people is for independence in the land of their ancestors. Sudjarwo himself, Indonesia’s official representative for West Irian affairs, in effect admitted that many people of Papua might not agree to stay with Indonesia.121 Members of Congress protested in the US, MPs in the UK Parliament, European Union and Ireland On February 17, 2005, Eni F.H. Faleomavaega in correspondence with the Government of the United States wrote that, in 1969, Indonesia set up an election that saw many brutal operations. Known as an "Act of - No Choice" and lacking any election law, 1025 West Papuan leaders under the supervision of a strong military were selected to vote on behalf of the 809,327 West Papuans on the region's political status.122 On February 14, 2008, Faleomavaega and Donald Payne, another member of the U.S. Congress, sent a letter to the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon, arguing that the Referendum (1969) for native Papuans was never implemented. In fact, 37 (thirty seven) members of the U.S. Congress wrote letters in 2006 and requested Mr. Annan to ask the UN to carry out a review of the Act of Free Choice. On July 19, 2002, 34 Members of the European Union Parliament called on the EU Commission and Parliament to persuade the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, that the Act of Free Choice 1969 was no more than a joke. A total of only 120 Cited in Saltford, United Nations Involvement with the Act of Self-Determination In West Irian, Note 32 121 UNGA Official Records MM ex 1, paragraph 126, cited in ibid, p10 and Note 44 122 See Dumma Socratez Sofyan Yoman, Suara bagi kaum tak bersuara [ Vote For The Voice that Could Not Speak], Deiyai, Abepura, 2009, p277 126 1025 Papuans, all selected by the Indonesian authorities, were allowed to vote, there was no UN supervision, and the future of the people of West Papua’s 800,000 indigenous people was at stake, but they could only speak to live with Indonesia. The 34 Members appealed to the Council and the Commission of the European Union to urge the UN Secretary-General relating to reconsider the selfdetermination of West Papua to create stability in South East Asia.123 On December 1, 2008 in the British Parliament in London the Hon. Andrew Smith, MP, and the Rt. Rev. Lord Harries of Pentregarth and 50 members of Parliament from various counties stated they honestly wanted the indigenous West Papuans to have self-determination because their future was destroyed by the Act of Free Choice. They appealed to governments through the United Nations for the implementation of self-determination for Papua freely and honestly, in accordance with the standards of international human rights, the principles of international law and the Charter of the United Nations. On December 1, 2009, also at the Houses of Parliament in London, International Lawyers for West Papua (ILWP), at the launch of the book by Prof. Pieter Drooglever on the history of the Act of Free Choice, stated that forty years ago it was ironic that the integration process was carried out in the name of an “Act of Free Choice” when actually there was none. There were two scandals, namely: (1) illegal Indonesian annexation of West Papua, and (2) international collusion with Indonesia.124 Looking at the root causes of the history of the integration of Papua into Indonesian territory, full of manipulation and falsehood, a prospective peace settlement and human dignity must be found between indigenous Papuans and the Indonesian government. Therefore, the idea of a dialogue between the 123 Report of the EC Conflict Prevention Assessment Mission: Indonesia, European Commission, March 2002 124 Statement by International Lawyers for West Papua, WPNews December 10, 2009 127 Indonesian government and the Papuans must be supported by all concerned. Peaceful dialogue in the author’s meaning is without conditions and is mediated by a neutral third party, just as the Jakarta-Aceh talks were. An unconditional dialogue means not in the framework of the demands of the Free Papua Movement and also not in the framework of NKRI (the Unitary State Republic of Indonesia). It means that dialogue must be honest and equal in a new framework. Without a new framework, rest assured that history will never find a comprehensive and dignified solution. Therefore, it is expected the dialogue should look at the issue of Papua with a pure conscience and a clear mind to find a solution to achieve permanent peace for the future of Indonesia and also the future of the indigenous people of Papua. Translated by Dr John Rawson, Director of Indonesian Solidarity, Sydney 128 Chapter nine: Jakarta-Papua dialogue and community participation Neles Tebay Introduction The phrase, ‘Jakarta-Papua dialogue’ is now no longer taboo words in Indonesia. By Jakarta-Papua dialogue I mean a dialogue between the Jakarta-based central government of Indonesia and the Indigenous Papuans.125 The idea of JakartaPapua dialogue has already been a topic that is being widely discussed both in Papua and West Papua Provinces, as well as in Jakarta since 2009. The discussions involve the indigenous Papuans, migrants living in both provinces, and the central government of Indonesia. This chapter highights the necessity of a dialogue between Jakarta and Papua and community participation in the process of the dialogue. The necessity of dialogue between Jakarta and Papua Some people argue that there is no driving factor that can push for the Government and the Papuans to engage in peace talks. Why? It is argued that the Papua conflict is only a low level of intensity conflict and that the Papuan separatist movement does not pose a threat to the unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia. There is also no strong uprising that raises the necessity for a negotiation between the two conflicting parties. Therefore some people think that peace talk between the Government of Indonesian and the Indigenous Papuans is not urgently needed. Therefore they tend to undermine all ideas related to peace talks between Jakarta and Papua. Nevertheless I see a peaceful dialogue between the Government and the Papuans as a dignified means to end the violence and prevent unnecessary future bloodshed. We do not have to wait for another tsunami like that of Aceh’s or another massacre as happened in East Timor to justify the importance of peace talks between the Government and the 125 For my personal perspective on dialogue between the Government of Indonesia and the Indigenous Papuans, see Neles Tebay, Dialogue between Jakarta and Papua: A Perspective from Papua, Missio, Aachen/Germany, 2009. 129 Indigenous Papuans. Considering dialogue as a conflict-prevention policy I see some factors that can highlight the urgency and necessity of peace talks between Jakarta and Papua. Violence never resolves the Papua conflict Papua’s history clearly shows that the conflict between the Government of Indonesia and the Indigenous Papuans has yet to be addressed in a comprehensive manner, notwithstanding the fact that many different approaches have already been tested, including the use of force by all parties to the conflict. The conflict between two opposing parties – the government of Indonesia and the Papuan people – began when Indonesia took control of Papua on 1 May 1963. Ostensibly with the intent of resolving the Papua conflict the government has conducted at least twelve large-scale military operations against the Indigenous Papuans.126 Military operations in Wasior (2001)127, in Wamena (2003)128 and Puncak Jaya Regency in (2004)129 are evidence of the violent approach of the Indonesian government to conflict resolution and the continued use of the military as a means to address the Papua conflict. These attempts to resolve conflict through the use of violence have resulted in fatalities on both sides. However, the greatest numbers of casualties have occurred among the Papuan people, particular those in remote communities. History shows that violence has not been able to resolve the Papua conflict; it has merely increased the number of victims and exacerbated the problems. A peaceful resolution of the Papua conflict is, therefore, urgently needed to prevent further bloodshed. 126 For details of the military operations conducted by the Indonesian military prior to 1990, see Carmel Budijardjo and Liem Soei Liong, West Papua: The Obliteration of a People, Tapol, London, 1988, pp.77-92. 127 The details of the Wasior case can be found in Grave Human Rights Violations in Wasior, Papua, Amnesty International, London, 2002. 128 For information on the Wamena incident see Koalisi Lembaga Swadaya Masyarakat, Laporan Awal Kasus Wamena, 4 April 2003. 129 A Widiiyanti, “Warga Papua Laporkan Kekerasan oleh TNI ke Komnas HAM,” in detikcom, 22 November 2004. 130 Special Autonomy has failed to improve the welfare of Papuans It is now common knowledge that Special Autonomy status was granted to the Province of Papua in 2001 (then known as Irian Jaya Province) as part of state policy; it represented the government’s response to the increasing calls for independence by indigenous Papuans. Special autonomy was regarded as a genuine attempt by the government to provide realistic solutions to a number of problems propelling Papuans’ demands for independence. However, the evaluation conducted by the Indigenous Papuans in June 2010 reveals that the government has failed to implement the Law on Special Autonomy for Papua. Instead of faithfully implementing the law, the government is more interested in creating additional new regencies and even provinces. The government has not produced governmental regulations needed to implement the autonomy law. Without feeling guilty, the government even continues to produce policies that clearly violate the autonomy law. Nine years of the implementation of the law have not brought about a positive impact in the Papuans’ life. The level of Indigenous Papuans’ prosperity has not improved. The quality of education remains poor, health services in rural areas are minimal and HIV/AIDS is spreading rapidly. In 2003, the National Bureau of Statistics reported that 80% of the 2,469,785 inhabitants of Papua were “poor.” In February 2007, Governor Bas Suebu quoted official statistics in announcing that there were 480,578 poor families in the province of Papua. This means that 81.52% of the total number of families in 2,283 villages, or 72.72% of the people in Papua, can be characterised as poor or chronically poor. In other words, people in villages all across Papua without exception are poor.130 Irrespective of the massive amounts 130 See H Julia Odeodata, “Gubernur Papua: 72 Persen Penduduk Papua Miskin”, in Sinar Harapan, 2 February 2007. 131 of money poured into Papua, the indigenous people of Papua live below the poverty line in a country – their own country – that is rich in natural resources. The safety of their existence as indigenous people is not guaranteed by the government. Even their survival is very vulnerable, for they are neither protected nor empowered by the government. Due to the lack of protection, the Papuans are now seriously worried about their existence today and in the future within the Republic of Indonesia. As the central and local governments have never fully proven their moral commitment and political will to put the autonomy law into practice, the Papuans do not believe the government will implement the law in the future. That’s why the Papuans decided to symbolically hand the Special Autonomy law back to the government as manifested through a peaceful march on June 18, 2010. Through this symbolic action, the Papuans clearly convey their message that special autonomy policy is no longer a better or realistic solution to the Papuan conflict. The action also reflected Papuans’ distrust of the Indonesian government. The practice of illegal logging and fishing also continues unabated. With the sanction of the government, forests continue to be destroyed by logging activities, the development of palm oil plantations and rampant mining. The pace of migration to Papua from other parts of Indonesia is accelerating and is not properly regulated. Non-Papuans dominate many aspects of life in Papua. There is discrimination against indigenous Papuans and they are marginalised in their own land. Special autonomy for Papua has achieved nothing. In fact, as stated by the Sinar Harapan newspaper, “Papua Province is a clear example of the failure to implement special autonomy”.131 Lack of consistency by the government in implementing the Law on Special Autonomy 131 “Otonomi Khusus Papua Gagal”, Sinar Harapan, 26 November 2008. 132 The government has been inconsistent in implementing its own policy. The Law on Special Autonomy comes under the provisions of an edict of the national parliament, MPR RI Year 1999. The Law on Special Autonomy for Papua Province (Law No. 21/2001) came into effect when it was signed by the then President, Megawati Sukarnoputri. However, 25 months after the enactment of the law, this very same president issued a presidential instruction (Inpres No. 1/2003) to advance plans for the creation of the new provinces of West Irian Jaya and Central Irian Jaya, even though there had been no prior consultation with the regional government or the indigenous people of Papua. The president made this instruction in the knowledge that it contravened the Law on Special Autonomy. The inconsistency of the government in implementing special autonomy was also evident when it issued a substituting regulation (Perpu No. 1/2008) for the revision of Law No. 21/2001 on Special Autonomy for Papua. In making this decision the government demonstrated that it could amend the special autonomy provisions as it saw fit in the pursuit of its own interests and without any consultation with the people of Papua, as required by the Law on Special Autonomy. (The Law states: “Revision to the provisions of the Law must be brought before the national parliament or the government by the Papuan people via their representatives in the Papuan People’s Council [Majelis Rakyat Papua—the all-Papuan upper house of the Papuan parliament] and the regional assembly in accordance with the terms of the prevailing stipulations.”)132 The government of Indonesia under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono subsequently upheld the creation of West Irian Jaya Province. In contravention of the Law on Special Autonomy, the Yudhoyono government issued a substituting regulation (Perpu No. 1/2008) covering a revision of special autonomy. In addition, President Yudhoyono issued Law No. 35 on the establishment of West Papua Province instead of promoting consistent implementation of special autonomy. Furthermore, President Yudhoyono issued another Presidential 132 Law on Special Autonomy for Papua Province, No. 21/2001, paragraph 77. 133 Instruction (Inpres No.5/2007) for Accelerated Development in the Provinces of Papua and West Papua. The national parliament has also shown that it lacks goodwill in implementing special autonomy. This became evident when the People's Representative Council (DPR) took the initiative on 22 January 2007 in drafting a law for the formation of four new provinces in Papua (provinces of West Papua, Southwest Papua, South Papua and Central Papua). Neglecting its obligation to bring about thorough implementation of special autonomy, the government, with support from the national parliament, instead busied itself with the creation of new regencies in Papua and West papua Provinces. These initiatives and measures multiplying provinces and administrative units further undermined the trust and confidence of Papuans in the genuine will of the central government to implement special autonomy. They also led to confusion between implementation of the policy to create new administrative units and the policy of special autonomy. In addition, efforts to implement special autonomy have proved ineffective as they have not been carried out in an orderly or systematic fashion. In the words of the former Governor of Papua, Barnabas, “the implementation of special autonomy from 2002 to 2006 can be summed up in two words ‘kacau balau’ (chaos and confusion)”.133 According to the governor, this chaos has three causes: 1) the lack of a common perception between the people, the local government and the central government regarding special autonomy, 2) the lack of will, sincerity and seriousness on the part of the central government to entrust the provincial authorities to implement special autonomy, and 3) the absence of regulations needed for the implementation of provisions of the Special Autonomy Law (Perdasi and Perdasus). The confusion and chaos that have characterised the implementation of special autonomy to date were in fact predictable and understandable. In my view, this is 133 See “Implementasi Otsus Papua Kacau Balau” Bintang Papua, 19 November 2008. 134 because the government did not have clear targets for what it wanted to achieve by means of special autonomy. To this day the government lacks a clear vision for special autonomy. Without clear, long-term, final goals the government is unable to set interim targets for a five-year period, let alone for what it aims to achieve on an annual basis. As a consequence there has been no clear direction or benchmark for the implementation of special autonomy in Papua. The central government’s lack of vision for special autonomy has allowed development policies to be determined according to the whims of local leaders. The government in Jakarta cannot fulfil its monitoring role in overseeing the implementation of special autonomy in Papua. As a result the practice of special autonomy has been inconsistent and lacking direction. Hence it does not seem surprising that the government is mostly blamed for the failure of special autonomy.134 While the government’s commitment to implement special autonomy has seemed to falter, this has not stopped it from increasing the military and police presence in Papua. The number of military posts, especially along the border with Papua New Guinea, has doubled, the size of infantry battalions established since special autonomy took effect has increased and new infantry battalions have been deployed in some areas. The Papuan people bear the brunt of an excessive number of military personnel from outside Papua (non-organic) and their arrogant attitude in dealing with local communities. The arrogance of the security forces is expressed in the form of arbitrary acts against indigenous Papuans, whom the military continue to regard with suspicion and treat as separatists. Declining trust of the government among Papuans 134 See Max Sijabat Ridwan, “Government Blamed for Stagnant Special Autonomy in Papua,” The Jakarta Post, 29 March 2008. 135 Papuans know that the Special Autonomy Law has accommodated a number of their concerns. They are working under the assumption that, if special autonomy is properly implemented, these problems will be resolved. It is hoped that implementation of special autonomy will improve the welfare of indigenous Papuans, that they will gain a sense of justice and that their right to life will be guaranteed. Once Papuans experience the benefits of special autonomy, it is likely that they will not feel the same need to hoist the Morning Star flag and call for independence. In fact, distrust of the Indonesian government increases by the day. There are a number of signs of this distrust. Beginning in March 2008, Papuans began to demand a referendum to decide the political status and future of the land of Papua. This demand was put forward mainly by youth and students associated with the Forum Pemuda Mahasiswa Papua (FPMP). They called for a referendum because they felt the government had failed to implement special autonomy. (14) Distrust of the government is also expressed in attempts to raise the Morning Star flag. There were frequent incidents throughout Papua during 2008, for example in Timika on 23 September, in Wamena on 9 August, in Fakfak in July 2008 and in Manokwari and Jayapura on 1 July 2008. From my perspective, both the demands for a referendum and the attempts to fly the Morning Star flag have occurred because of the government's failure to address the problems that have given rise to these protests through effective implementation of special autonomy. As more Papuans become aware of the failure of special autonomy and realise the consequences of this for their lives and their future, more and more people will lend their voice to the calls for a referendum and there will be an increasing number of flag-raisings. It is only natural that the larger the number of people who question the merits of being an Indonesian citizen, the greater the numbers of people will be who are inclined to rally to the call for independence. Both the calls for a referendum and flagraisings are a clear sign of the failure of the government to implement special autonomy. This failure of the government has given new strength to separatism 136 in Papua. In the end it is the Indonesian government itself that provides the strongest stimulus and cause for the growing separatist movement in Papua. Lack of communication between the Government and the Papuans Since Indonesia took over the territory of West Papua, there has been no constructive communication between the indigenous Papuans and the central government. The government and the Papuans are used to talk about each other. They sometimes even attack and accuse each other through the media. However, they never talk to each other. They never engage in peaceful discussion. As a result they never understand each other. Each party demands understanding from the other party. Sometimes they blame each other for misunderstanding. Prejudice and distrust makes relations between the two parties even worse. From 1963 until today, Papuans have never been considered agents of development and transformation in Papua. Instead, it has been the government that has decided what the Papuans must or must not do — without consultation. By not involving the Papuans in the decision making process, the government has shown little respect for the human dignity of Papuans. Development policies are determined by the government without the participation of indigenous Papuans. We know that there is regular communication between the President and the governors of Papua and West Papua provinces. There is also some level of communication between the coordinating political, legal and security affairs minister with the members of provincial legislative councils of the two provinces. All these communications can be categorized as internal communications within the government, for the government officials who meet with the central government do not represent indigenous Papuans, but their regional governments. These meetings should not be called constructive communications between the government and indigenous Papuans. 137 The government can think of the members of the House of Representatives (DPR) and Regional Representatives Council (DPD) elected in Papua and West Papua provinces, or members of provincial legislative councils and members of legislative council at all regencies in the two provinces, as Jakarta’s partner for communication in Papua. The reason for this choice is that they are all elected by Indonesians in the two provinces. However, they should not be considered as Jakarta’s partner for communication because they represent their respective political parties. The government might also consider indigenous Papuans who lead local governments as a partner for communication. This choice can be justified by the fact that the present governors of the two provinces and the regents of all regencies in the provinces are all indigenous Papuans and elected by all Indonesians living in Papua. Indeed, the local government officials can make a meaningful contribution to government communication with Papua. As Jakarta is far from Papua and West Papua, the central government knows little about Papua and its problems. Therefore, the central government needs intermediary institutions that can provide information about and from the two provinces. The local governments, then, serve as the eyes and ears of the central government in the two provinces. They can play an intermediary role between the indigenous Papuans and central government. Working on the ground among the indigenous Papuans, they see and observe realities in their respective regencies and provinces. They are expected to hear the cry of the Papuans. They are supposed to perceive Papuan grievances and their root causes, the real needs of people, the challenges, the opportunities and the possibilities in the two provinces. They can communicate all these things to the central government. Based on their inputs, the government can have a better understanding on Papua and its problems. This understanding, in turn, will be helpful in communication with the Papuans generally. 138 However, it would be a huge mistake to consider them Jakarta’s partner for effective communication. No government official should be considered as Papua’s representative in communication with the central government. The reason is that the government officials, whoever they are, represent local governments. The presence of the central government is made visible in and through the local governments. Their status is the same as that of other government officials in all Indonesian provinces. As Indonesian officials, they work above all for the government. They are hired by the government. They prioritize the interests of the central government. They are expected to side with the central government. As the government representatives in the two provinces, the local governments and legislative councils have no other choice than to obey and follow the government’s interest. They must implement all the laws, regulations, rules and instructions of the central government. They cannot be expected to raise and defend the interests of indigenous Papuans. They should defend and, if necessary, die for the sake of the central government’s interest and policies, despite protest from ordinary Papuans. They should not be critical towards the government. The local governments in Papua and West Papua have never rejected any central government policies for Papua. They never criticize the central government’s inconsistency in implementing Papua’s autonomy law. That is why the local governments and legislative councils did not participate in the indigenous Papuans’ symbolic action of ‘returning’ Papua’s autonomy law to the central government as manifested through peaceful demonstrations in June and July 2010. If the government is truly committed to engage in constructive communication with Papuans, then the local government officials should not be considered as a partner oin communication. It is the indigenous Papuans who are not Indonesian government officials that should be considered Jakarta’s partner for constructive communication. Indeed, the indigenous Papuans should decide: Who is to communicate with the central government? Who is to represent Papua in constructive communication between Jakarta and Papua? 139 The Papuan Customary Council should and is willing to conduct the selection of indigenous Papuans’ representatives. Once these are selected, they can be Jakarta’s legitimate partner for constructive communication between the central government and Papuans. This communication is sorely needed today in order to build trust between the two parties. Papuans’ survival under threat The Papuans contend that the autonomy law has failed to bring prosperity to indigenous Papuans in the 10 years since its enactment. Many Papuans still live under the poverty line. They are among the poorest people in Indonesia, although the province is rich in natural resources. For 10 years, Papuans have seen that the government has never demonstrated its political will or commitment to protect and empower indigenous Papuans through consistent implementation of the autonomy law. Affirmative policies accommodated in the law went deliberately unimplemented by the central government in Jakarta. As a result, Papuans are becoming a minority in their ancestral land due to the uncontrolled influx of migrants from other provinces. While outnumbering Papuans, migrants also dominate the overall society. It has led to the marginalisation of Papuans. One can easily see throughout Papua’s towns that indigenous Papuans have been marginalized, partly due to the government’s failure to protect them by implementation of the autonomy law. Lacking the necessary skills to compete with the migrants, Papuans have been easily marginalized economically, politically and socially. Due to the government’s unwillingness to implement the law, Papuans have not been given protection today, nor do they have clarity about their fate and future within the Republic of Indonesia. The Papuans are now deeply worried about their very existence. The fundamental problem for the Papuans is not about separatism, as is usually highlighted by the government and military. Instead, the threat to Papuans’ survival as human beings in their ancestral lands constitutes a fundamental problem. The question should be addressed properly. A dialogue between 140 Jakarta and Papua is important for both parties to jointly reach a peaceful and negotiated solution to the issues triggering the Papua conflict. Papuan community participation If there is to be a participatory solution to the Papua conflict, bringing in the community is of fundamental importance. In my understanding, the Papuan community comprises of two groups, namely, Indigenous Papuans and Residents of Papua. They need to be facilitated to exercise their participation from the beginning of the process of dialogue. Indigenous Papuans Indigenous Papuans referred to here are Papuans of Melanesian racial origin. The Indigenous Papuans comprise three groups, namely, 1) Papuans living in Papua and West Papua Provinces, 2), Papuans living in the Diaspora and 3) the Papuans who are members of Tentara Pembebasan Nasional (TPN) in the jungles of Papua. The involvement of indigenous Papuans from these three groups is absolutely essential to any dialogue concerning the Papua conflict. The special character of the Papuan conflict requires the participation of indigenous Papuans in a dialogue with the government. This “special character” derives from the fact that this is a conflict between indigenous Papuans and the government. Indigenous Papuans are the ones who oppose the Indonesian government’s authority over the Land of Papua. Dialogue between Jakarta and Papua must be a dialogue between the government of Indonesia and indigenous Papuans. Any dialogue intended to seek a resolution of the Papua conflict that does not involve indigenous Papuans is not valid. It should also be recognised that indigenous Papuans have never been given the opportunity to control their own development as part of the Republic of Indonesia. All development policies have been decided far from Papua and without any participation by indigenous Papuans. These policies have been imposed by the government on the western half of the island of New Guinea, and indigenous 141 Papuans have been forced to accept these policies without the opportunity to respond or provide alternative views. Opposition or even attempts to suggest an alternative approach have been regarded as a separatist and subversive act. As a result Papuans have become the victims of government policies. This model of “non-participation” should be avoided by all means in a future dialogue on the Papua conflict. Indigenous Papuans must be given the broadest possible right to participate in the entire dialogue process. To do this the government must provide the opportunity and create free space for indigenous Papuans to discuss and develop an understanding of the issues they face. The government and security apparatus must give security guarantees enabling indigenous Papuans from the three groups to engage in discussion and express their opinions without fear of intimidation or harassment. The government, security forces and the community must ensure that the situation is safe and peaceful so that the dialogue process can proceed smoothly. Residents of Papua Residents of Papua, as referred to here, include indigenous Papuans and nonPapuans who live in the Land of Papua. A participatory and democratic resolution of the Papua conflict for “Papua, Land of Peace” requires the participation of as many as possible, if not all, of the residents of Papua. In the process of dialogue the interests of non-Papuans cannot be neglected, even though their position in the conflict is different to that of indigenous Papuans. The position of non-Papuans in the Papua conflict is unique, since they have not been the victims of violence at the hands of the Indonesian state. There are no groups of non-Papuans in Papua who oppose the government of Indonesia. The government also has never looked upon non-Papuans as state enemies. The separatist label has never been applied against non-Papuans living in Papua. The government has never felt the need to conduct military operations against non-Papuans in the Land of Papua. 142 While non-Papuans have never been the target or victims of state violence in Papua, it should be recognised that peace is the desire of all people, irrespective of their background. Therefore, every person living in the Land of Papua should aspire to peace. It stands to reason that all people of Papua, indigenous and non-indigenous, wish to see Papua become a “Land of Peace.” Hence each person living in this land should contribute, either individually or collectively, to making Papua a “Land of Peace.” Every resident of Papua should also be given the opportunity and the space to participate actively in a dialogue process to resolve peacefully the Papua conflict. Means for participation A Jakarta-Papua dialogue cannot be limited, narrowly understood or restricted to only this final stage of a process. The preceding stages must also be recognised as an integral part of a broader process of dialogue between Jakarta and Papua. In my opinion, there could be four stages to a Jakarta-Papua dialogue: (1) internal dialogue among indigenous Papuans; (2) dialogue between indigenous and non-indigenous Papuans; (3) dialogue between representatives of the Papuan people in Papua and overseas; (4) dialogue between representatives of the Indonesian government and the Papuan people. Internal dialogue among indigenous Papuans Internal dialogue among indigenous Papuans would be the first stage in a comprehensive process of dialogue on the Papua conflict. The process must begin in Papua, where the conflict occurs. It begins with a public consultations conducted in a number of places in Papua. Each public consultation should have the participation of local leaders representing religions, Churches, tribal communities, women, youth, political factions within the resistance movement and other Papuan groups. Every group should be consulted through their representatives, and given a chance to express their opinion about JakartaPapua dialogue. They should feel honoured, respected and treated with dignity. 143 They should feel that their aspirations have been accommodated. Concluding all public consultations, one large conference with participation by representatives from all tribal groups and areas needs to be conducted in Jayapura. Dialogue between indigenous and non-indigenous Papuans Once dialogue has been held among indigenous Papuans, the next step would be dialogue among all the residents of Papua. The participants in this dialogue should include representatives of indigenous Papuans and non-indigenous residents of Papua. The dialogue should discuss topics such as: that there are two alternatives for internal dialogue among residents of Papua. The first would be to conduct a dialogue in a number of places in Papua and then to finalise this in a plenary conference that would include representatives from all residents of Papua and all areas. The second possibility would be to hold one large conference with participation by representatives from all the residents of Papua. Whichever course is chosen, the majority of the people, if not all, should be involved in this process. The outcomes of this dialogue would be referred to the assemblies of the provinces of Papua and West Papua as representative institutions. The provincial assemblies would then refer the outcomes of the dialogue to the government of Indonesia via their governors. The outcomes of this dialogue could serve as input for the Indonesian government in preparation for dialogue with representatives from Papua. Dialogue between representatives of the Papuan people in Papua and in exile The involvement of Papuans living overseas (in exile) is also vital to ensuring a peaceful and democratic resolution of the Papua conflict. Without their involvement in the dialogue process the conflict would continue and the people of Papua would not enjoy a peaceful existence. For this reason Papuans living overseas must also be involved. 144 In my view, once internal dialogues among indigenous Papuans, and then among indigenous and non-indigenous Papuans have been held, the next step would be dialogue among indigenous Papuans in Papua and overseas. This dialogue could discuss issues such as: Could this dialogue be held in a foreign country? Representatives from Papua could present the decisions and outcomes from internal dialogue as a basis for discussion. This meeting could also appoint representatives of indigenous Papuans who could represent Papua in a future dialogue with the government. The agreements made in this dialogue should reflect the unity of the position of the Papuan people. This would help to set the stage for dialogue with the government. The agreements made in this internal dialogue could form the agenda for dialogue between representatives of the Papuan people and the government. Dialogue between representatives of the Indonesian government and the Papuan people This would be the final stage in the dialogue process. In this stage representatives from the government and the Papuan people would engage in a dialogue facilitated by a third party agreed upon by the both parties. Each party will come to the negotiating table and be able to present the outcomes of previous dialogues. It is hoped that this opportunity to deepen understanding of each of these issues, and to reflect and discuss in detail, will enable representatives of the government and the Papuan people to reach agreement on a number of issues. Community participation after the signing of an agreement The signing of an agreement would not be the final stage of a conflict resolution process for Papua. Once the text of an agreement has been agreed upon, the government of Indonesia and the Papuan people will need to address a more difficult task, i.e., follow-up and concrete action to implement the joint agreement. The commitment of the two sides to resolve the Papua conflict peacefully would only really be tested after an agreement is reached in the final stage of dialogue. 145 If the agreement is not implemented, all the efforts and sacrifices that led to the agreement would be in vain. The whole notion of a Jakarta-Papua dialogue would be meaningless. Both sides would lose credibility. Therefore, the government and the Papuan people must also commit together to engage in follow-up and concrete action to implement agreements. A third party is still expected to continue to play an important role in ensuring proper follow-up to an agreement. The third party would take on the role of a monitor in supporting and overseeing implementation of the agreement reached in the final stage of dialogue. From the perspective of the Papuan people the role of a third party in this final stage is vital and fundamental. This has to do with Papuans’ experience in the past. Given that the government has not been consistent in implementing the Law on Special Autonomy for Papua, Papuans fear that the government would not follow through on any agreements made in the process of dialogue. In order to build Papuans’ trust in the government, a third party would need to play a role in monitoring implementation of an agreement. With a third party playing a role in supporting, urging and giving direction, the government and Papuan people could show the international community that both parties are genuinely committed to all the agreements reached in the final stage of dialogue. If all agreements are implemented effectively and with consistency, I am confident that Papua can become a Land of Peace. Closing remarks A dialogue between the Indonesian government and the Indigenous Papuans will take place only if both parties are committed to talk to each other for a peaceful settlement of the Papua conflict. The Papuan community can participate in the whole process of the dialogue only if the Indonesian government allows them. Therefore the Indonesian government’s endorsement is deeply needed. 146 Section three: Recent international context of the sovereignty debate 147 Chapter ten: Self-determination and Papua: The Indonesian dimension Peter King What might persuade the Indonesian government that the time has come to yield to the near-unanimous desire of indigenous Papuans for self-determination and independence in West Papua—or at least to begin a reconciliation process by taking Papuan discontents seriously? To begin with, there is a lot of historical baggage to jettison if Indonesia is ever going to treat Papua and the Papuans as partner rather than subject. The Dutch plan to keep West New Guinea as a separate dependency after conceding Independence to Indonesia in 1949 was resisted over the next 13 years by President Sukarno and an irreconcilable Jakarta elite. They went to the brink of all-out war before the Dutch succumbed to American pressure and gave up the struggle in 1962, leaving the Papuans to face the wrath of Sukarno and ABRI (the armed forces; the future TNI) alone. The Indonesian establishment already regarded the Papuans, especially their leaders, as traitors to the unitary republic well before they became a part of it. Why? Because they had begun to demand and prepare for separate independence as rightfully theirs—and the Dutch of course had agreed, but only for a very short season. The Indonesian civilian and military forces which won Papua for the unitary republic all those years ago remain in play today. The ex-general President Yudhoyono is married to the daughter of the general who executed (apposite word) the implausible 1969 Act of Free Choice with its “unanimous decision” by the One Thousand and Twenty Two selected Papuans to accept incorporation in the unitary state/republic, the NKRI (Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia). That general was Sarwo Edhie Wibowo—instrumental also in carrying through Suharto’s politicide against the Left in 1965-66 with its half million victims. 148 On the civilian side the Opsus intel operations in and around Papua against the Dutch in 1961-3 and in support of Suharto and Sarwo Edhie in 1969 against the Papuans later on were prominently staffed by Chinese intellectuals who had fallen under the spell of the celebrated anti-communist Dutch Jesuit, Father Joop Beek. The most prominent of them--whose younger brother, the tycoon Sofyan Wanandi, bankrolled much of the action--was Jusuf Wanandi, the darling and even dukun (shaman) of Australian diplomats for many years, who played a leading role in founding The Jakarta Post and the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).135 As late as 2010 Jusuf Wanandi disingenuously averred of the Act of No Choice (as the Papuans call it) that, ‘in the end, a council of 1025 people representing every district took part in the Act of Free Choice in July and August of 1969, and decided to remain part of Indonesia.’136 More emphatically, in 2005, he had said: The problem of Papua is not the same as that of Aceh. There has never been a major armed struggle for independence in Papua as was the case in Aceh. There is also no critical mass in Papua as the populace lives in small tribes spread over such a large region with many valleys and mountains… We might note in passing that the OPM’s minor armed struggle has had the overwhelming support of Papuans since 1965, and that a critical mass of very critical Papuans has mobilised against the Jakarta government on many separate occasions since, including at least twice in the past 16 months. In 1969, Jusuf Wanandi continues, “The people of Papua opted to stay within Indonesia. This was confirmed by representatives in the representative assemblies across 135 Jamil Maidan Flores, ‘The voice of Jusuf Wanandi’, The Jakarta Post, December 22, 2008 Jusuf Wanandi, ‘The Papua Dilemma: Personal reflections on an ongoing challenge’, Inside Indonesia , No 98, 16 January 2010 136 149 Papua in accordance with the August 1962 agreement between Indonesia and the Netherlands.”137 The myth of a voluntary Papuan decision for integration lingers, as well it might when the NKRI is legally upheld with a ferocity reminiscent of the Dutch in Java—indeed raising the Papuan flag can attract a prison term of 15 years under a law inherited from the Dutch!138 Sophistical denialism on Papua remains a Jusuf Wanandi specialty, although it seems his CSIS itself may be for turning. It is currently seeking dialogue and advice in civil society quarters in Australia about Papua’s obviously troubled future, and indignation approaching anger at government inaction on Papuais currently evident in regime-distant Indonesian civil society, and even in parliament. Meanwhile President Yudhoyono, despite his commendable if rather late conversion to a just peace in Aceh,139 quite deliberately positioned himself as denialist in chief on Papua as conflict and crisis steadily worsened there in 2011. The issue has begun to go media-viral and gain international traction reminiscent of the East Timor crisis in the 1990s--and it is also, in synergy with labor militancy over low pay for Papuan and settler workers, beginning to threaten the viability of the Freeport mine while incidentally making a mockery of the idea that Indonesian military reform is still on the government’s agenda. On October 19, 2011, in response to the utter unresponsiveness of the 137 Jusuf Wanandi, ‘Papua problem and the international community’, The Jakarta Post, September 1, 2005 138 See also Peter King, ‘Resilient Minnow? Implacable Minotaur? West Papua and Indonesia in the 21st Century’, Papua Paper No 1, West Papua Project, CPACS, University of Sydney, November 2010 139 Aceh peace came with the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in August 2005. It has been a signal sucess despite the lack of justice mechanisms in its text and operation. See Edward Aspinall, Peace without justice? The Helsinki peace process in Aceh, Report for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, April 2008 150 Indonesian government to Papuan demands, the Third Papua People’s Congress in Jayapura declared the independence of Papua and announced a government for an independent Papuan republic, recalling previous people’s declarations in October 1961 and June 2000. A bloody police and military crackdown ensued, with seven killings, hundreds of arrests and beatings and the jailing on treason charges carrying huge prison terms of yet another generational cadre of Papuan political leaders. Eight days before this bloody crackdown, which has enjoyed his unqualified approval since, the President was forced to fend off criticism of human rights violations in Papua by none other than US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton: “As far as the politics of Papua go, we've already made it clear that there are no systemic human rights violations in Papua. There are only isolated incidents, they are not the norm," presidential spokesman Teuku Faizasyah told AFP.140 This presidential denial almost at once became emblematic of Jakarta’s tone deaf, wilfully blind and bottomlessly cynical capacity for inaction on all but “security” (read: insecurity) matters in Papua. But there was a flurry of purported activity in face of the embarrassment that the “treason” and the bloodshed were causing. Within ten days after the crackdown on the Congress Yudhoyono had set up a Unit for the Acceleration of Development in Papua and West Papua provinces (UP4B) under ex general Bambang Darmono (former commander for military operations in Aceh) [in order] “to formulate … change in Papua and to build constructive communications between central and regional administrations”, according to another presidential spokesman.141 So accelerated development would continue (and intensify) but there would be constructive communication. Dialogue by another name? Maybe, but only 140 ‘Indonesia rejects Clinton allegations on Papua’, Agence France-Presse, November 11, 2011 ‘President establishes a unit to settle conflict in Papua’, West Papua News Network, October 31, 2011 141 151 between bureaucrats, apparently! Eleven days after this, on November 9, the President went a little further. According to a Jakarta Globe report, he was open to the idea of a dialogue, which has risen to the fore of political debate in recent weeks, following intensified military operations and increasing violence in the provinces of Papua and West Papua. However, he said any dialogue must be based on three ‘pillars’. “The first pillar is NKRI [the Unitary Republic of Indonesia], meaning the enforcement of the sovereignty of the Indonesian Republic; the second pillar is special autonomy, which must be implemented well; and the third is the accelerated development of Papua and West Papua as a national priority,” he said.142 The rather obvious problem for attaining meaningful dialogue as an alternative to violence is that the three pillars cited by the President precisely summarise the major Papuan grievances about their situation. The NKRI after all has survived the subtraction of East Timor under reformasi—and also the very special autonomy of Aceh, which goes far further than anything on offer for the Papuan provinces. As for special autonomy it remains the main focus of Papuan economic and social grievance—and should be a grievance for Jakarta as well with its wasted and embezzled trillions of rupiah in “development” funding which doesn’t even get to be targeted on infrastructure (or health or education) in Papua.143 As for accelerated development, the Papuans are deeply suspicious and fearful for the long-run consequences of their existing and emerging giant resource projects, including the Freeport mine, the BP gas project in Bintuni Bay, West Papua province, and the threatened mega food and plantation estate in Merauke, discussed in this book by Paul Barber and Rosa Moiwend. 142 Arientha Primanita & Markus Junianto Sihaloho, ‘Jakarta Open to Papua Dialogue, With Conditions’, Jakarta Globe, November 10, 2011 http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/jakarta-open-to-papua-dialogue-with-conditions/477466 143 See Richard Chauvel’s chapter in this book 152 But what if Jakarta began to seriously consider a genuine, Aceh style, internationally mediated dialogue with the Papuans? What might induce the bureaucrats, politicians or even the military to adopt some version of the Papua Road Map to dialogue as laid out and being “socialised” by LIPI (the Indonesian Institute of Science) and Muridan Widjojo in Jakarta and by the Papua Peace Network in Jayapura led by Catholic priest Neles Tebay? This initiative is being strongly supported behind the scenes by the Humanitarian Dialogue Center in Geneva, which had a big hand in the first, unsuccessful attempt at Aceh peace under reformasi Five scenarios come to mind: 1) Persuasion by “moderate” voices… exemplified by the Road Map group who would put dialogue about independence on hold while civil society in Papua and Indonesia is mobilised to activate potential voices for “moderation” towards Papua among the Jakarta elite and to persuade Papuans that dialogue about everything else (tragic history, failed special autonomy, threatening in-migration) would be worthwhile. 2) Fear of escalating protest and repression in Papua… putting Indonesia’s international reputation at further high risk as it did in East Timor during 1991 and 1999 and in Aceh for long periods from 1976 until the MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) between the Indonesian government and GAM (the Free Aceh Movement) in 2005. This signal act of reconciliation legitimised the GAM and the political party which emerged from it to contest, and win, elections in Aceh. It was as if a party spun off by the OPM guerillas (the Free Papua Movement) was now ruling in Papua. But no such option is under consideration for Papua where any purely local Papuan party is, and would be, illegal, so long as Jakarta rejects dialogue and renegotiation of Papua’s status – or at least the status of special autonomy. 153 3) A turn at the Centre against the TNI, especially the army, which has failed to follow the cues laid down for its business divestment–or for the “political divestment” of its so-called territorial function. Thus the overwhelming local presence of the TNI in large parts of Papua, especially the central highlands, continues to disgrace the government and the country with uncontrolled repression, including torture, assassination and brutal sweeping operations, and routine forced requisition of civilian budgets to support military programs and campaigns. 4) Realisation generally in Indonesia that Papua can be an opportunity as well as a (secessionist) threat…The toxic combination of Papuan rejectionism (of the NKRI –the unitary republic--and its works and TNI impunity could even ultimately imperil the rather limited democratic political gains made over the past 13 years under reformasi in Indonesia itself. In a political economy perspective these gains have mainly served so far to entrench a new post Suharto version of decentered and decentralised KKN (Korupsi, Kolusi dan Nepotisme) and money politics. They have confirmed Indonesia as the Big Sick Man of South East Asia, despite much-trumpeted five per cent annual economic growth in recent times.144 Grinding poverty is still the norm for a near majority of the population145, and KKN looms over the future of the economy as a true Great Big Tax on Everything, which seemingly cannot be evaded while corrupt police, prosecutors and judges (the legal mafia) and a largely corrupt political, bureaucratic and military elite still prevail against a vocal and active NGO sector. Indeed there is only one truly effective anti-KKN official watchdog, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), while the Presidency is certainly not another.146 144 Peter King, ‘“Corruption Ruins Everything”: Gridlock over Suharto’s Legacy in Indonesia’, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus [online], February 2008 145 A quick illustration of this: On a recent trip to tourist-ridden and “booming” Bali I struggled to find any tourist sector worker (driver, hotel hand, cook, shop minder) in receipt of more than Rs 800,000 per month ($2.50 per diem), which happens to be the official minimum wage in Jogjakarta. Journalists there were campaigning at the time to achieve four times that sum as a minimum wage while acknowledging that many of their number in fact received less. Sri Wahyuni, ‘AJI calls for decent salaries for Yogyakarta journalists’, The Jakarta Post, 21 January 2010 146 In support of this claim we may note that KPK effectiveness was not seriously affected by the appointment of a reputedly corrupt official from the Attorney General’s office as head in 2009 154 Papua stands out after East Timor and Aceh as the next frontier where the most effective blow can be struck against TNI impunity; rampant embezzlement of the massive and increasing government funding which has flowed out to--and also back from--Papua under special autonomy since 2001, and the money politics of the starkly unrepresentative and unresponsive mainstream Indonesian political parties which dominate electoral politics and parliaments in Papua as everywhere else in Indonesia, except Aceh. Papua is also the place where the dangers of inaction may be greatest for Jakarta. 5) Reprise of the East Timor scenario, including acquiescence in an internationally sponsored referendum on Papuan independence. Notwithstanding the failure of all of the above possibilities for a new deal by gradualism in Papua there is still of course the non-gradualist East Timor scenario of 1999, which could begin to play out again, and quite suddenly, in Papua. The predecessor of the October 2011 Papuan political mobilisation was the one which began in July 2010 with a huge people’s march from the MRP (the all-Papuan upper house in Papua province) to the DPRP (the lower house of parliament) to “hand back” special autonomy and demand a referendum on Papua’s future. If defiance is carried further next year after the bloody crackdown of this year, and the army, which still seems to have remembered nothing and learnt nothing—largely because it has suffered nothing except the loss of its extra-legal empire in East Timor--revisits its militia and mayhem tactics of 1999 in Dili, then a new scenario might indeed unfold. There could even be a fresh opening for a global civil society uprising on behalf of Papua, and even another Australian-led peace-keeping intervention. (although that official is now in jail convicted of murder), and that a cabal of disaffected (with aggressive KPK investigations) police and prosecutors conspired to frame for corruption (and even to murder) two high (and clean) KPK officials at that time. (They survived.) Peter Gelling, ‘Corruption scandal hits Indonesia's anti-corruption commission’, Minn-Post.com, 9 November 2009 155 In other words Indonesia as a people’s polity has a strong interest in terminating repression and police/military impunity in Papua. But the Indonesian official elite post Suharto continues to be complacent about the long term outcome in Papua, with settler numbers building to a bare majority and beyond and military (including Kopassus) cooperation with Australia and the US restored. But Indonesia has, for the Papuans and for many disinterested observers, lost its mandate to rule in Papua long ago by consistent failure across the years to treat the people as true partners in “development” or anything else. What NKRI Jakarta still sees in Papua is not Papuans but rich resources and almost limitless land and forest and sovereign territory (over a fifth of the archipelago’s total) to do with as it will. “Separatism” is the sin against the holy spirit of the NKRI, and the causes of separatism—lack of “development” aside—are a closed book and a matter of ultimate indifference to Jakarta. As the Papuan leader, Theys Eluay (subsequently murdered by Kopassus), rather cunningly declared to the Second Papua People’s Congress in June 2000: We are not separatists; we do not need to declare independence--we never (voluntarily) joined your republic in the first place. One could add that separatism is in truth a practice of Indonesia in Papua—treating the Papuans as a potentially or actually subversive underclass from Day 1 of the Indonesian occupation in May 1963. In the upshot, after nearly five decades of repression and exploitation by the myopic unitary republic, “losing” Papua would not be a tragedy, as most but not all Indonesians or at least Javanese think.147 Indeed it is becoming a kind of necessity. Indonesia’s resource-profligate ways with forests have already led it to Number 3 in the world’s carbon pollution stakes. Destruction and burning of peat and other tropical forest in the interests of the palm oil boom have already laid waste large tracts of Sumatra and Kalimantan and elevated Papua into a last 147 Several prominent Indonesians who are relaxed and comfortable with Papuan, Timorese, Malukan and/or Acehnese independence are quoted in Peter King, West Papua and Indonesia since Suharto: Independence, Autonomy or Chaos? UNSW Press, Sydney, 2004, p.70 156 frontier for giant plantation and food estate schemes. These schemes now promise to turn the Papuans ultimately from a people without a land into a people without land as well. And they will most assuredly nullify any other plans and programs to lower Indonesia’s preposterous (for a non-industrial power) carbon footprint. The green path, for Papua and Indonesia both, is to finally, belatedly, ensure that customary landowners can control their own destinies and be helped to save their own forests for human purposes. Papuan political leaders need to be given a chance to ensure that in the interests of Papua (and Indonesia and the planet) the deforested fate of Sumatra and Kalimantan is averted for Papua. It is also a big negative for Indonesia that Papua’s hundreds of millions of dollars in special autonomy funding might just about as well have been thrown in the sea.148 The main function of this largesse has been to grease the policy of divide and rule which has set Papuan political elites (and regions) against each other to control the money and given them powerful reasons to pretend that special autonomy is working and stay loyal to the Jakarta-imposed system. Papua and West Papua, two of the smallest (by population) provinces of Indonesia, have “enjoyed” the biggest largesse from the centre. But the extremely high level of per capita funding has translated into a staggeringly high level of per capita corruption among the bupatis (regency chiefs), walikotas (mayors), governors, bureaucrats (local and central) and importunate brigadiers who have divided it up. PT Freeport famously adds well over a billion dollars a year to the Indonesian treasury but KKN Papua annually subtracts a possibly comparable sum. 148 Agus A. Alua, The Schema of the Implementation of Special Autonomy, Presentation at West Papua Project/ Indonesia Solidarity Conference, Sydney University, August 6 to10, 2007 (online); Andi Hajramurni, “Papua governments blew Rp 30t on ‘special autonomy’: Official”, Jakarta Post, 10/9/2009. Rs 30 trillion (US$300 million) was the amount allocated to Papua in 2008. Ridwan Max Sijabat, ‘Govt blamed for stagnant special autonomy in Papua’, Jakarta Post, 29/3/2008 157 The awkward truth is that, notwithstanding the prospective tax and royalty billions to be collected from Freeport copper and gold, BP gas, BHP nickel prospects and prospective Chinese paper mills in Papua, Indonesia would arguably be better off without her two troublesome Papuan provinces. Or at least better off with a Papua enjoying genuine autonomy, Aceh style. Indonesia has certainly turned out to be much better off without East Timor--not that this perception is particularly strong among Jakarta’s nationalists! The argument is partly about Indonesia’s lack of legal, historical and moral entitlement to occupy Papua in the way that it has, and the utter alienation of the Papuans which has resulted. This alienation is what makes the defence of unconditional sovereignty in Papua such an interminable, debilitating, corrupting, expensive and reputation-ravaging affair for Indonesia. One hopes for another Habibie or Gus Dur—Presidents who grasped the point in the early days of reformasi. Meanwhile one also hopes, like Mr Micawber in Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield, for something to turn up. Going on East Timor and the present state of the Middle East it quite likely will. 158 Chapter eleven: New Zealand as a potential West Papuan peace broker: Learning from Bougainville Maire Leadbeater Thirteen years ago New Zealand hosted peace talks for the parties to the conflict in Bougainville. Since these talks were instrumental in ending a horrific war it is understandable that New Zealand has gained a good reputation as a peace broker. Over the last decade many West Papuan leaders have urged New Zealand to take up the peacemaker mantle again. Now that the call for dialogue between West Papuan representatives and the Government of Indonesia is high on the agenda, it is time for a closer look at New Zealand’s role in helping to broker peace in Bougainville. For my part I would be delighted if my Government would develop and extend its reputation as a peace broker and I have repeatedly called for New Zealand to make the offer to help facilitate talks for West Papua. However, the Bougainville example is complex – there is a good news story about New Zealand’s role in the 1997 and 1998 talks, but a less benign story about our diplomatic role in the early stages of the Bougainville conflict with Papua New Guinea. It is important to consider the whole picture, especially if New Zealand’s past role with respect to Bougainville is to become a model for future conflict resolution in West Papua. Despite the passage of time, the broad parameters of New Zealand foreign policy making have not changed greatly since the time of our Bougainville achievement. But New Zealand Government representatives have been singularly cautious in responding to requests for help from West Papuans. This is not so puzzling if one looks a little more closely at New Zealand foreign policy and in particular at its West Papua policy. 159 There is a flattering perception that New Zealand’s foreign policy has an ethical foundation and is independent – ‘made in Wellington’ rather than ‘made in Washington’. Unfortunately the reality is not so rosy, but sometimes a good international reputation, even if not fully merited, can be put to good use. As much as anything New Zealand’s ‘good reputation’ is based on New Zealand’s refusal to toe the Western line on nuclear issues. In the mid 1980s New Zealand broke with the mould by refusing to accept nuclear warships in its ports and passing legislation to confirm its nuclear free status. That achievement reflected years of organising, campaigning and protesting on land and water. It is definitely to our credit that we have managed to stay nuclear free despite massive pressure from the United States. On the down-side we have Wikileaks to thank for revealing recently that New Zealand fully restored its intelligence relationship in August 2009. The leaked cables from the Wellington US Embassy document that both our current Prime Minister John Key and his predecessor Helen Clark were very willing to improve NZ-US ties and to find ways to manage the ‘domestic political sensitivities’.149 In practice this has meant that New Zealand has contributed to the US-led wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan. 150 In foreign policy New Zealand usually lines up closely with Australia. Sometimes there are tensions and differences of approach as there were over the Bougainville talks, but the two Trans-Tasman cousins are firmly aligned to the Western group of states. Both belong to powerful intelligence and military alliances such as the secretive UKUSA151 Agreement and the Five Power Defence Agreement 152 and have military ties to the ASEAN member nations. 149 United States Embassy, Wellington, ‘New Zealand accepts US proposal on Defense Engagement,’ Cable to Secretary of State Washington,25 February, 2008. 150 The 2003 Iraq military deployment team had a ‘reconstruction’ role and in this way New Zealand could be seen to be keeping a distance from the war effort. 151 United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand (1946) 152 Britain, New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, and Malaysia (1971) 160 New Zealand gives military training aid under its Mutual Assistance Programme (MAP) to a number of states in the Asia-Pacific including Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. New Zealand’s West Papua policy from the 1960s to the present is based on preserving cordial ties with Indonesia, a policy which does not differ substantially from that of Australia, Britain and the United States. The West Papua policy is bipartisan and did not change when our Labour–led Government ceded office to a National-led Government at the end of 2008. This is the official mantra: ‘New Zealand will continue to support peaceful and sustainable development in Papua and the full implementation of the Special Autonomy Law (OTSUS) for the benefit of all those living there.’153 In our Parliament, only the Green Party is a consistent advocate for West Papuan rights, including the right to self-determination. For the sake of restored defence ties, New Zealand has chosen to overlook the evidence of Indonesian military brutality and lack of accountability for past crimes. All defence ties were suspended in 1999 at the height of the post- referendum violence in Timor-Leste. But in 2007 they were quietly restored. About the same time New Zealand began a training programme for the West Papua police. One sentence was included in a speech delivered by then Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters late in 2006: ‘Indonesia has accepted our invitation to have an officer attend next year's NZDF Command and Staff College course, and the College's tour will incorporate Indonesia.’ 154 Although the Indonesian Ambassador to New Zealand, Amris Hassan, welcomed the move, suggesting to 153 Hon Murray McCully, Minister of Foreign Affairs, letter to Indonesia Human Rights Committee, 28 July, 2010. 154 Rt Hon Winston Peters, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Address to the Centre for Strategic Studies Conference: ‘The Asia-Pacific: Future Strategic Perspectives, Victoria University, Wellington’, 13 December 2006. 161 Indonesian media that it is a ‘new chapter in the relations between two countries’,155 it was New Zealand that sought out reengagement. During the Suharto era our Government was often on the back foot over its defence ties with the dictatorial regime, so officials sought to keep the training deployments out of the public eye.156 Neither the public nor the parliament was consulted when defence ties were resumed. Compared with the military training and equipment supplies provided to the Indonesian security forces by Australia and the United States, New Zealand’s support is low-key. The military training is largely limited to officer exchanges. More recently, selected members of the West Papuan police have taken part in New Zealand led workshops where they have been introduced to the gentle art of engaging with communities. There is nothing wrong with a preventative approach to crime, but it seems unlikely that short courses will succeed in transforming an oppressive police force into kindly neighbourhood cops. The systematic use of violence and torture practiced by the mostly migrant police force in West Papua has been well documented. The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) states that the security forces routinely torture and beat suspects and convicts to extract confessions or obtain information. 157 When I visited West Papua last November I found that many people were aware of the New Zealand programme, which has been publicised in the local media. For those in the NGO and activist community training the police was generally seen as equivalent to supporting the coercive arm of the state. Surely New Zealand should choose instead to spend their aid dollars on scholarships for young Papuans to study English in New Zealand? 155 Antara, December 13, 2007. Leadbeater, M.(2006). Negligent Neighbour; New Zealand’s Complicity in the Invasion and Occupation of Timor-Leste. Nelson: Craig Potton. 157 Jakarta Globe, 31 December 2010. 156 162 But from the perspective of the New Zealand Embassy the NZAID-funded Community Policing Initiative has become ‘the centerpiece of New Zealand’s constructive engagement approach with Indonesia on the Papua issue. It demonstrates New Zealand is serious in its desire to make a real difference on the ground…’158 Embassy officials reported on the ‘warm reception’ they received in their round of official meetings. Sometimes even the police programme has not been enough to oil the diplomatic wheels. New Zealand Embassy officials had to reassure TNI Chief of Staff, Brigadier General Hambali, that ‘the New Zealand Government did not support separatism’ before he would drop his guard. This meeting was then written up in the Papua Pos newspaper and also on the military website as a ‘New Zealand is on our side’ news story.159 Of course, no one should confuse this unfavourable picture of official New Zealand policy on West Papua with the views of the New Zealand public. I believe public interest and sympathy have gradually increased along with disquiet about our Government’s expedient realpolitik approach. Thirteen years ago New Zealand set an important peace brokering precedent when it hosted a series of off-site talks, bringing together the parties involved in the conflict on the island of Bougainville. New Zealand was motivated by humanitarian concern, but New Zealand was not neutral160 and it did not move until it had a green light from the big players, Australia and Papua New Guinea. 158 NZ Embassy, Jakarta, cable to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Wellington, Indonesia: ‘Visit to Papua and West Papua-Overview’, 23 September, 2008. 159 Papua Pos, 11 September, 2008 and TNI website article, 15 September, 2008. Translations provided in ibid. 160 New Zealand is described as a ‘neutral’ by Bougainville scholars such as Anthony R. Regan in Regan, A. (2010). Light Intervention: lessons from Bougainville, Washington: United States Institute of Peace Press, p.79. In my view this is not an accurate description given New Zealand’s military and diplomatic ties to Papua New Guinea. 163 Bougainvilleans share with West Papuans a sense of being wronged by the process of decolonisation. For reasons of historical trading ties, geography and cultural factors most Bougainvilleans saw themselves as part of the Solomons archipelago and resented their incorporation into Papua New Guinea in 1975. The people had a strong sense of being ethnically distinct. The young Boungainvillean heroine of Lloyd Jones’ novel, Mister Pip, expresses it this way: ‘According to Port Moresby we are one country. According to us we are as black as the night. The [PNG] soldiers looked like people leached up out of the red earth. That’s why they were known as redskins.’ 161 A further common factor is the issue of resource exploitation, which began when Australia was the colonial administrator of the territory. The huge open cast mine at Panguna left social and environmental destruction in its wake: For villagers the technology of helicopters, drills, 105-tonne trucks and bulldozers ravaging their luxuriously verdant mountains was terrifying. There were also some 10,000 construction workers, nearly all male, mostly alien and seemingly, menacing. A billion tonnes of ore was eventually to be processed; the crater left would be four sq kms: the Jaba River would be polluted for 50 years.162 This description would surely resonate with the Komoro and Amungme people of West Papua who have been forced to suffer the impacts of the Freeport McMoran mine on their lives and ancestral land. Until its closure in 1989 the giant Panguna open cast gold and copper mine owned by Bougainville Copper Limited, a subsidiary of Australian company CRA, now Rio Tinto, was the source of some 17 % of the PNG Governments internal revenue and 36 % of gross export earnings. 163 161 Jones, L. (2006), Mister Pip, Auckland: Penguin Books, p. 8. Griffin, J. (1995).Bougainville a challenge for the Churches .Catholic Social Justice Series, No 26, 12. Quoted in Nicholson,S. and Hooper,H.(2000). Living up to the Pacific Promise – New Zealand’s role in peace-building in our neighbourhood in n Tie,W. (Ed.)Just peace? Peacemaking and peacebuilding for the new millennium, Conference proceeding, Auckland:Massey University. 163 Regan, A.J.(2005). Doing less to achieve more: ‘lessons’ from a successful international peacebuilding intervention—Bougainville 1997–2000. Canberra: Australian National University. , 162 164 In 1988 and 1989 indigenous landowners in the mine area formed the Panguna Landowners Association. When PNG and the mine authorities would not give them a hearing they resorted to a programme of civil disobedience which culminated in the destruction of the electrical pylons serving the mine. PNG deployed riot police and later the military. Francis Ona and his landowner supporters formed the BRA (Bougainville Revolutionary Army) and began a struggle for independence. In January 1990 Australian citizens were evacuated from Bougainville and PNG proceeded to close down all services: banks, health facilities and schools. A tight blockade was imposed. The people could not access humanitarian assistance or medicine. Education ground to a stand-still. At least 8,000, or more than 5% of the population, died in just under a decade of war from violence or disease. 164 The community was wrenched into warring factions: Guerrilla warfare establishes separate groups that can coalesce or split up according to ever-changing circumstances; they can change sides almost overnight. Families found themselves in need and had to choose sides just to survive… Those who tried to remain neutral during the war… found they were victims of either the PNG occupation forces or the PNG blockade…. thousands of people found themselves herded into ‘care centres’. The alternative was to accept life on the run or to retreat into the mountains behind the blockade.165 Moses Havini, Bougainville’s international representative during the conflict, once described the war in Bougainville as ‘Australia’s proxy war’. 166 Australia has major economic interests in Papua New Guinea and in the mid-1990s was contributing over $300 million to PNG in aid. Australian increased the level of its Draft paper for Regan (2010). Quoted in Braithwaite, J., Charlesworth, H., Reddy P. and Dunn,L. Reconciliation and Architectures of Commitment: Sequencing Peace in Bougainville. Canberra: ANU (2010) 164 Adams,R..(Ed.). Peace on Bougainville: Truce Monitoring Group, Wellington:Victoria University Press (2001). 165 Havini, M. Women cope with armed conflict. In Sirivi,J.and Havini,M., (Eds.) As mothers of the Land The birth of the Bougainville women for peace and freedom, Canberra: Pandanus Books(2004) 166 Macdonald, F. War what war, Listener, June 12 1993 (pp3-5). 165 defence support during the war and Australian supplied helicopters flown by Australian and New Zealand mercenary pilots flew strafing missions. Shockingly, the helicopters were also used to drop BRA suspects into the sea and to conduct raids on suspected militants within the Solomon Islands. New Zealand’s pilots came in for official criticism167 , but there was no formal investigation of their potential involvement in war crimes. Bougainville solidarity activists in New Zealand in the early 1990s were appalled at the Government’s complacency and refusal to risk upsetting the Papua New Guinea Government. The New Zealand Government told us that it would undertake ‘quiet diplomacy’168 but saw the problems as an ‘internal matter for the Papua New Guinea Government to resolve.’ 169 PNG officers continued to come to New Zealand to take part in training courses and exchange visits and in 1994 at the time of a visit from PNG Prime Minister, Paias Wingti, a ‘Status of Forces Agreement’ was concluded. New Zealand sent humanitarian aid but our Government simply accepted PNG’s assurances that the aid was being widely distributed when other information indicated that the aid only went to the areas under full PNG control.170 It therefore came as a surprise to me to learn several years after the fact that Foreign Minister Don McKinnon had visited Bougainville in 1993171 . He was moved: ‘by the vacant stares on people’s faces’ and the sight of ‘a generation of young people who had received no education of any kind, except on how to clean M16s and how to shelter from mortar shells… .’ He said that this experience led him to 167 New Zealand Herald, 13 February, 1990 Pax Christi, Bougainville –NZ’s neighbouring war (1994) 169 Rt Hon Don McKinnon Minister of Foreign Affairs, letter to Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 25 March, 1994. 170 Macdonald, War what war. 171 Henderson, J., New Zealand and Oceania. In Alley, R. (Ed.) New Zealand in world affairs IV 1990-2005, Wellington: Victoria University Press (2007), pp232-254 168 166 the view that New Zealand ‘had a responsibility as a neighbour and a friend, to try to do something to better prepare these people for the next millennium.’172 Prior to 1997 this concern did not translate into strong regional leadership, or persistent human rights advocacy. In 1993 Prime Minister Jim Bolger called on Papua New Guinea to make a Bougainville ‘position statement’.173 He was unsuccessful and Bougainville was not referred to in South Pacific Forum communiqués until 1997.174 New Zealand assisted with logistics for some of the earlier failed attempts at peace processes175, but maintained the position that it was ‘willing to help’ with mediation but only if asked.176 John Hayes, New Zealand’s High Commissioner in Papua New Guinea in the early 1990s did, however, take a close personal interest in Bougainville, and took advantage of the occasions when he could visit the island in the company of PNG Government representatives such as the Bougainvillean MPs. He believes that this visits helped to develop his relationships with key players on both sides of the conflict. 177 Fortunately for the people of Bougainville there were many ‘doves’ within PNG civil society and government circles. These parliamentarians, Church leaders, and officials were behind many negotiation endeavours. There were also many internal attempts at reconciliation between Bougainville’s opposing factions.178 According to Hilary Charlesworth and her colleagues at ANU there were as many 172 McKinnon,D. New Zealand’s role in restoring peace on Bougainville, Speech to the Royal Commonwealth Society, London 30 April, 1998. In Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade Review, April,1999. 173 New Zealand Herald, 12 August,1993 174 The Bougainville conflict was discussed at the 1997 South Pacific Forum and the Communiqué recorded the Forum’s endorsement for the efforts made by PNG to restore peace. 175 New Zealand made the naval vessel Endeavour available to serve as a neutral venue for 1990 negotiations, and also provided logistical support to a regional peacekeeping force sent to the island to help with peace talks in 1994. 176 Rt Hon Don McKinnon Minister of Foreign Affairs, letter to Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, 25 March, 1994. 177 Personal communication John Hayes 14 February 2011 178 Kabui, J., Reconciliation a priori. In Adams,R.(Ed.) Peace on Bougainville: Truce Monitoring Group Gudpela nius bilong peace, Wellington: Victoria University Press (2001), pp.33-44 167 as 11 attempts at peace processes, which, while they failed in the short term, helped to lay the ground for ultimate success in a negotiated end to the conflict.179 The 1996 Papua New Guinea offensive ‘Operation High Speed 11’ ended badly for PNG, with 10 soldiers killed and others taken prisoner. A small determined guerrilla resistance showed no signs of backing down in the face of the greater military might of Papua New Guinea. Frustrated, the Papua New Guinea Prime Minister, Sir Julius Chan secretly contracted Sandline International, a notorious firm of mercenaries, to ‘render the BRA militarily ineffective and repossess the Panguna Mine.’ 180 In February 1997, journalist Mary-Lousie O’Callaghan broke this story in the The Australian181 setting off a train of dramatic events. PNG was plunged into constitutional crisis when the Commander of the Defence Force called for the resignation of Prime Minister Chan and took it upon himself to terminate the Sandline contract. Chan was voted out of office not long after. The debacle had an upside - it strengthened the momentum for a negotiated end to the conflict. There was a ‘widespread consensus in Bougainville that violent conflict between Bougainvilleans was destructive and had to end.’182 Australia was not in a very good position to take advantage of this opportunity. From the point of view of the Bougainville independence movement Australia was far too closely aligned with the Papua New Guinea Government and military. 179 Braithwaite, J., Charlesworth, H., Reddy P. and Dunn,L, Reconciliation and Architectures of Commitment: Sequencing Peace in Bougainville, Canberra: ANU (2010). 180 McMillan, S, ‘Bringing Peace to Bougainville’, New Zealand International Review, MayJune,1998. 181 O’Callaghan,M., Enemies within Papua New Guinea Australia and the Sandline crisis: The inside story, Sydney: Doubleday (1999) 182 Regan, A.J., ‘The Bougainville Peace Agreement, 2001-2002: towards order and stability for Bougainville?’ in May, R.J.,Regan, A.R.,Dinnen,S.,Morgan,M.,Lal,B. and Reilly,B. Arc of Instability? Melanesia in the early 2000s, Christchurch:Macmillan Brown Centre of Pacific Studies, University of Canterbury (2003). 168 Australia clearly had a lot at stake beyond its economic interests in the Panguna mine. There was the Australia-Papua-New Guinea-Indonesia nexus to consider.183 Papua New Guinea had recently strengthened its Jakarta ties and hardened its stance towards the independence movement in West Papua. For Australia this was a welcome move and in line with its own support for Jakarta against the threat of ‘separatism’. From their perspective Bougainville breaking free of Papua New Guinea would set a dangerous regional precedent. 184 So there was a perception that New Zealand, unlike Australia, could be impartial as it did not have such significant conflicts of interests. Foreign Minister Don McKinnon decided that the time was propitious for a New Zealand initiative. Unlike their Australian counterparts New Zealand politicians and officials were not constrained by a policy banning direct contact with BRA representatives. Don McKinnon personally made contact with Martin Miriori, Bougainville Interim Government ‘ambassador’ at The Hague, not long before the Sandline crisis.185 By 1997 John Hayes had returned from overseas postings to a position as Senior Official for Pacific Island Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, so he was well positioned to play a key role. John Hayes and Don McKinnon, were both personally involved in the covert negotiations with Bougainville leaders and other key players that preceded the talks.186 183 King,P. Breaking deadlocks-Peace-making opportunities for Australia in East Timor, West Papua and Papua New Guinea, in Clements.K.(Ed.), Peace and Security in the Asia-Pacific Region post Cold-War problems and prospects, Palmerston North: Dunmore Press(1993). 184 Reflecting this ‘unity before all’ approach at the South Pacific Forum in 1997, Australian Prime Minister John Howard supported the idea of a non-military solution but stressed that this must be based on keeping Bougainville within Papua New Guinea. ‘That is fundamental, in my view to the proper resolution of the dispute.’The Australian, 19 September, 1997, p 5. 185 Moore, N, New Zealand in the Bougainville Peace Process, notes of a seminar presentation to the State, Society, and Governance in Melanesia Program seminar series, Australian National University, May 8, 2001, http://rspas.anu.edu.au/papers/melanesia/seminars/nigelmoore8may01.php (retrieved February 10, 2011). 186 McMillan, S. ‘Bringing Peace to Bougainville’. New Zealand International Review, MayJune1998 169 Today John Hayes is an MP in the ruling National Party and he is more than happy to share his Papua New Guinea and Bougainville experiences and insights. He had some unusual strategies and was able to build on the good relations he enjoyed with key figures such as the PNG Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Bill Dihm. John Hayes relates that their friendship was cemented in 1989 during a two day sail on the Marlborough Sounds – in the middle of winter with the temperature dropping to around 7 degrees. 187 John Hayes confronted personal danger in Bougainville - his helicopter was fired on when he attempted to meet with Francis Ona and his team. But he became resourceful in finding ways to gain cooperation, using humour and sometimes even what he called ‘reverse black magic’ or ‘puri puri’ – his whalebone tiki Te Amokura, which he told people would harm ‘anyone who harms me’.188 On July 5, 1997 New Zealand brought more than 70 Bougainville leaders, including many women, together at the Burnham military camp near Christchurch. Revolutionary leader Francis Ona (President of the self-declared BIG or Bougainville Interim Government) and his close supporters refused to take part, but BIG Vice President Joseph Kabui did participate as did other BRA leaders. The processes used in the meeting were quite eclectic; the use of Maori kawa or protocol blended with Bougainvillean ceremony helped to break barriers between opposing sides. The New Zealand facilitation was intentionally unobtrusive. John Hayes likened this to the style of a ‘mosquito’. ‘Make an intervention and then withdraw, leaving ownership of the process with the parties.’ 189 187 Hayes, ‘Bringing Peace to Bougainville’, in Henderson, J. and Watson, G., Securing a Peaceful Pacific, Christchurch: Canterbury University Press (2005), pp 140-149 188 189 Ibid Ibid 170 Initially, New Zealand Defence personnel positioned themselves between the factions to prevent any possible violence, but none took place. Women set the precedent for their men by openly reconciling with their sisters from opposing factions. The delegates were taken on various tourism jaunts including to shopping malls ‘to show them what they had been missing out on for 10 years.’190 During a traditional venting session: ‘tarout’, the parties let go with unrestrained emotional outpourings. The ‘Burnham Declaration’ signed at the conclusion of the talks was a breakthrough and paved the way for the second Burnham talks in October 1997. At these talks the Bougainville leaders met with PNG leaders and Australian and Solomon Island representatives. An unarmed Truce Monitoring Group (TMG) under New Zealand command was dispatched in December 1997. Progress was further cemented in January 1998 at Lincoln University where leaders of other Pacific countries participated in the meeting. A permanent ceasefire agreement was signed. These negotiations did not address the two fundamental catalysts of the conflict: the future of the Panguna mine or the political status of Bougainville. However, by 2002 PNG had passed laws implementing the Bougainville peace agreement based on acceptance of a deferred referendum on independence within 10-15 years and the ‘highest possible autonomy’ in the interim. After the Lincoln meeting the negotiations increasingly involved other players: Australia, the United Nations and fellow Melanesian nations, Fiji, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. The 2002 agreement was a compromise proposed by Australia’s Foreign Minister Downer. 191 A key element of the compromise was Bougainville’s acceptance that the referendum would not be binding but subject 190 Ibid Regan, ‘The Bougainville Peace Agreement, 2001-2002: towards order and stability for Bougainville?’ 191 171 to the ultimate authority of the PNG Parliament. It is conceivable that the people of Bougainville might vote for independence only to have the PNG Parliament reject their choice. New Zealand is widely credited with allowing the Bougainvilleans to find their own solutions, and that holds true for our role in the first stage of the peace negotiations, when the agenda was limited to building trust and ending hostilities. Media comment at the time suggested that New Zealand’s bolder approach caused some tensions in trans-Tasman bilateral relations.192 Australia and New Zealand have traditional if unofficial spheres of influence in the Pacific based on their former colonial roles. So New Zealand could be seen to be encroaching on Australia’s ‘patch’ in the southwest Pacific, and some Australian resentment was to be expected. However, other evidence suggests that the rift was not fundamental or long lasting. New Zealand always kept Australia informed. The two Foreign Ministers, Don McKinnon and Alexander Downer, are said to have collaborated closely. Downer like McKinnon was affected by his personal experiences in Bougainville – he later recounted being moved by an accidental encounter with Bougainvillean women from both sides of the conflict who were conducting a joint peace march.193 Some Bougainville leaders were alert to the possibility that New Zealand might have a hidden agenda or be too susceptible to Australian influence After the first Burnham Talks, Don McKinnon visited Bougainville and was welcomed by Interim Government Vice-President Joseph Kabui who was effusive about New Zealand’s Burnham hospitality and the new unity among Bougainvillean factions. He cautioned Don McKinnon not to allow the Australian influence to ‘redirect the spirit of Burnham’. He went on to say ‘People must be 192 193 New Zealand Herald, 23 August, 1997 Braithwaite et al, Reconciliation and Architectures of Commitment 172 given a real choice. The land and the blood that has been shed, are intricately linked together…with the issue of self-determination.’194 Reuben Siara, an advisor to Francis Ona, feared that the process had strengthened Australia’s hand, ‘Perhaps the people did accept New Zealand more easily than Australia but to me it didn’t make any real difference…New Zealand had to get involved at the outset to open the door for Australia...’ 195 Siara believes his view was confirmed when New Zealand passed over the command of the peacekeeping forces to Australia in May 1998. Siara wrote this before the 2002 agreement on a deferred referendum. Was this the best outcome that could be achieved for Bougainville? Would Bougainville have achieved more if they had begun negotiations with an alternative and more genuinely neutral mediator than New Zealand? On the other hand it is probable that Papua New Guinea and Australia would not have agreed to join a peace process with an alternative neutral mediator. Of course, these questions are nearly impossible to answer in retrospect. The Burnham process did not run according to any textbook on conflict resolution, but it did offer the participants a secure environment and the luxury of time. Somehow in the depths of a South Island winter a ‘Melanesian way’ was fostered – allowing the bitterness of the past to be expressed without restraint. Long term gains for Bougainville? The Panguna mine remains closed but there have been some talks recently with landowners about the possibility of reopening it.196 194 Kabui, J. (1997) Speech, Bougainville: McKinnon’s visit hailed as historic moment for BRA, August,1997, retrieved 16 January,2011. www.asiapac.org.fj/cafepacific/resources/aspac/kabui.html 195 Siara,R., ‘The time is now’ in Adams, R.(Ed.) Peace on Bougainville: Truce Monitoring Group Gudpela nius bilong peace, Wellington: Victoria University Press (2001), pp.125-130 196 Post Courier, 29 November 2010 173 I asked a leading Bougainville woman activist Josephine Siriviof the Bougainville Women for Peace and Freedom to share some reflections with me about the Bougainville peace process. 197 She told me that peace in 2011 means relief ‘from living in fear and suffering’; the chance to rebuild structures that were destroyed by war, including the fabric of traditional life, and ‘women taking up roles in their rightful places’ in matrilineal societies which were ‘distorted by the white men’s culture’. For Josephine the ‘long lasting peace’ on Bougainville is the achievement of the women who used traditional ways of peacemaking to broker peace among the men. Josephine believes a truth and reconciliation process is needed now and that it must also be conducted according to Bougainville protocol. The peace package with PNG is not being backed by adequate funding but is ‘like a can without meat’, so the struggle for resources and justice for the future generation continues. So how likely is it that New Zealand might assist in future with peace broking for West Papua? Unfortunately, firm conclusions are not possible. In West Papua today, as in Bougainville in 1997, there is a ‘consensus for peace’ marked by growing movement towards unity among groups that have not always worked well together. So we could say that the West Papuans have made similar preparations to those made by the people in Bougainville before the Burnham peace talks began. The sticking point is likely to be that New Zealand will not act unless it gets a nod of approval from Indonesia and probably also Australia. Ten years ago we seemed to be making progress. This was the time of the brief ‘Papuan Spring’ when reformist President Abdurrahman Wahid was in power and gave his backing to a reconciliation approach including an agreement to rename the province Papua and allow a national congress open to all to take place. His 197 Sirivi, J., personal email, 29 January 2011 174 initiatives were soon derailed by the generals, but this was also a time when New Zealand was more active on the Papuan issue. Foreign Minister Phil Goff met with Free Papua Movement (OPM) Spokesperson John Ondawame against his officials’ advice.198 The Minister later cautiously hinted that New Zealand might be willing to play a mediation role – if that was acceptable to both parties. Foreign Minister Goff represented New Zealand at the Southwest Pacific Dialogue Forum Yogyakarta in 2002. Before the meeting, Goff said ‘It is hypothetical, but if we were requested, we can play a fruitful role in the talks on Papua.’199 After the meeting, Phil Goff said ‘What we are basically putting on the table is New Zealand’s readiness, if requested, to give assistance to help in the resolution of the situation in Papua. That is not to say we are trying to impose on them. The decision rests in Indonesia’s court if and when it thinks it is appropriate.’ He was not confident of success: ‘Indonesia has always been very wary about third party involvement in what it regards as essentially a domestic affair.’200 Regrettably, there does not seem to have been any progress since 2002, despite this issue being raised repeatedly with New Zealand political leaders and Foreign Affairs officials. Several West Papuan leaders, including Father Neles Tebay, have raised this issue publicly and in private meetings with New Zealand Foreign Affairs officials and politicians. We hope, however, that the personal meetings have stirred the consciences of the powerbrokers. The Bougainville example shows that the personal commitment of politicians and diplomats can make a difference. When they 198 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Indonesia: Irian Jaya:Visit to New Zealand by OPM spokesperson John Ondawame’, memo to Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Wellington, 6 October 2000. 199 Jakarta Post, 5 October, 2002 200 New Zealand Herald, 8 October, 20002 175 considered that the time was right, both Foreign Minister Don McKinnon and diplomat John Hayes were willing to take initiatives and, at times, personal risks to ensure the peace talks got under way. It is not surprising that New Zealander politicians and diplomats were troubled by what they saw in Bougainville when the island was blockaded. To my knowledge only one New Zealand politician, Green MP Keith Locke, has visited West Papua, and I believe we should strive to find ways to encourage others to visit, perhaps as part of a regional parliamentary delegation. The current New Zealand Government led by Prime Minister John Key is not known for creative foreign policy initiatives. The order of the day is about pursuing free trade deals both at a multilateral and bilateral level and human rights issues play second fiddle when trade deals are at stake. However, none of us can predict how the political dynamics will play out in the future or when there will be a change in Jakarta’s stance on dialogue with West Papuan representatives. Even if at the end of the day New Zealand does not play a role in peace broking, the debate about how New Zealand should engage with West Papua is an important one. As solidarity activists it is vital that we highlight the improper use of New Zealand resources to support the repressive security forces and contrast this with the potential gains of resources spent on peace making or supporting West Papua’s civil society peacemakers. New Zealand solidarity activists will continue to advocate for comprehensive change in our Government’s West Papua policy and for aid to the police and military to be ended. We will also continue to challenge New Zealand to offer its peace broking services to assist with the process of dialogue between West Papuan representatives and the Government of Indonesia. 176 Chapter twelve: West Papua and the changing nature of selfdetermination Akihisa Matsuno Introduction When US President Woodrow Wilson presented his Fourteen Points in January 1918, he was envisaging what was later to be known as the principle of selfdetermination as democracy applied to the relations among peoples of the world. It was democracy in its simplest understanding, i.e., a form of government where those who govern are the governed at the same time. He said: What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world’s peace, therefore, is our program. For Wilson, colonialism was itself a denial of democracy. He was advocating this as a response to the Russian revolutionary government’s Decree on Peace in October 1917, which proposed an immediate withdrawal of Russia from the war. So he had pragmatic reasons to do this: to consolidate the Allies in the fighting against the Central Powers. But he also believed that the principle constituted a necessary condition for a peaceful and prosperous world. The American experience of colonialism was not a foreign occupation exactly, but was unfair relations with the mother country manifested in a set of discriminatory tax and trade measures that hindered free economic development of the colony. The central demand, therefore, was ‘fair dealing’. 177 Wilson’s proposal, however, ended up in a half-hearted application of selfdetermination to only a limited number of territories controlled by the losing Powers of World War I, such as Germany and the Ottoman Empire. Selfdetermination was used as a punishment for the loser countries. Colonies of the winner countries such as Britain and France were completely excluded from consideration. The principle of self-determination is indeed a ‘principle’ much distorted from the beginning by the intricate interests of world powers. World War II brought back self-determination to the centre stage of world politics again. The 1941 Atlantic Charter stated that Britain and the US agreed to ‘respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them’. The United Nations Charter, adopted in June 1945, in its Article 1. 2 on the purpose of the UN called for ‘respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples’. PostWWII self-determination was thus mostly understood, and in fact implemented, within the framework of the decolonisation of the Asian and African countries. In 1960 the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 1514 (XV), the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, to accelerate decolonisation, and in 1966 adopted the two Covenants of Human Rights in both of which Article 1 says that ‘all peoples have the right to selfdetermination’. However, the political dimension of self-determination was never consistent. Colonial powers were not always sincere in their approaches to the new moral principle; the Cold War factor soon captured the strategic thinking of those in power, distorting their interpretations of self-determination, and newly born states were largely hostile to the notion of self-determination of a population under their sovereignty. The last attitude was justified in the doctrine of ‘respect for colonial boundaries’ that aimed to prevent further instability in newborn countries. There was also a technical difficulty in defining ‘a people’. 178 Under such a situation, it took East Timor twenty-four years to finally arrive at a proper exercise of self-determination. That was possible only after the Cold War factor became irrelevant in the region and the anti-communist dictator, President Suharto, was removed. The case of Western Sahara has stumbled into a deadlock as the Middle East factor, America’s war on terror and France’s hegemonic ambitions still effectively block international pressure on Morocco to comply with the UN standards of decolonisation. Further, there are numerous cases of indigenous peoples demanding self-determination. The UN-supervised decolonisation mechanism is utterly insufficient to respond to those demands because they are not listed as non-self-governing territories at the UN Decolonisation Committee. And as was said above, they face hostility within the current nation-state system. Meanwhile, a number of countries have obtained independence in the past two decades. Some seceded peacefully, others through a violent process. Three Baltic states seceded from the Soviet Union in 1991 with Soviet recognition, and this set a precedent for other Soviet republics. Also through 1991 and 1992, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence. Bosnia and Herzegovina had to fight against Milosevic’s Yugoslavia for the subsequent three and a half years until the Dayton Agreement ended the war in 1995. Montenegro separated from Serbia peacefully in 2006. Kosovo’s plight remained unaddressed for years but decisive intervention by NATO in 1999 and the subsequent UN administration led to the unilateral declaration of Kosovo in 2008. Czechoslavakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in January 1993 peacefully. In Africa Eritrea formally became an independent state in 1993 through a UNmonitored referendum after having fought a bitter war of liberation against Ethiopia for more than three decades. In January 2011 South Sudan held a 179 referendum on independence after almost half a century of conflict. An overwhelming majority voted in favour of independence. This chapter aims to look at the problem of West Papua in such a changing landscape of self-determination. Self-determination in the last two decades has mostly occurred outside the traditional context of decolonisation. What the conditions were for those events to happen and what implications they have for West Papua are the questions we explore below. The question of self-determination for West Papua Any legal examination of the right to self-determination of the people of West Papua needs to go back to the 1962 New York Agreement. The Agreement, which Indonesia signed, uses the term ‘the exercise of the right to selfdetermination’ in Article 21, and repeatedly uses the term ‘self-determination’, equating it with the act of free choice envisaged in the Agreement. The notion of self-determination in this Agreement is clear enough. Although it does not confirm or reaffirm, unlike the UN resolutions on East Timor in the 1970s and 1980s, ‘the inalienable right to self-determination and independence’ of the people of West Papua, it does say that ‘the act of self-determination will be completed before the end of 1969.’ The exercise of the right to self-determination here should be understood as conceived in the UN General Assembly’s Resolution 1541 (XV) in 1960 because the latter preceded the Agreement. Thus the arrangements for the act of self-determination in the New York Agreement included a guarantee of the opportunity for the Papuans to exercise freedom of choice; unmistakable formulations of the questions as to whether they (a) wish to remain with Indonesia or (b) to sever ties with Indonesia, and the eligibility of all adults, male and female to participate (Article 18). Clearly West Papuans were to be given a choice to form an independent state. The Indonesian official position, therefore, was that the people of West Papua at the time of the Act of Free Choice still had the right to self-determination. And so 180 the question is whether that right to self-determination was exercised properly in accordance with the Agreement. Detailed analyses have reached the similar conclusion that self-determination did not happen in accordance with the Agreement. The only possible claim to counter this so far has been the United Nations Resolution 2504 (XXIV) that took note of the Act’s result and acknowledged the fulfillment by the UN of its responsibilities under the Agreement. There is a different view which Muridan Widjojo calls the ‘nationalist’ position in Indonesia. That position sees West Papua (West New Guinea) as an inseparable part of Indonesia (Widjojo, p. 8), and therefore as an implication there is no such right to self-determination for the population there. Logically this argument cannot be Indonesia’s official position because it contradicts Indonesia’s recognition, albeit a reluctant one, of the right to self-determination referred to in the New York Agreement. Or would Indonesia say that the New York Agreement was merely a matter of tactics and that the Act of Free Choice was only a face-saving measure for the Dutch? This line of argument, however, would be a dangerous diplomatic adventure if publicly made because it would mean that Indonesia had defied the internationally mediated process and the subsequent ‘recognition’ process by the UN over the Act of Free Choice. Some would argue that the original solution to the West New Guinea issue should have been the total transfer of sovereignty to Indonesia of the whole Netherlands East Indies, including West New Guinea, under the doctrine of uti possidentis juris or respect for colonial boundaries (Saltford, pp. 8-9). This would have been a much more principled position as a decolonisation process, and if this had had happened, Papuan self-determination would have been a non-issue. In that sense the Papuans did not have ‘the inalienable right to selfdetermination’ as the East Timorese did, for example. Indonesia had to accept the separation of West New Guinea from the rest of the Netherlands East Indies only because of the weak position of the Indonesian delegation at the Round 181 Table Conference in the Hague in 1949, and Indonesia had to accept the concept of Papuan self-determination only because, again, of its weak position when it negotiated the New York Agreement in 1962. The international community should have denied self-determination for West New Guinea as it did to the secessionist province of Katanga in the newly born Congo in 1960. This argument has attracted some international support. This chapter, however, presents three recent cases of self-determination to show that what could be perceived as the logical foundations of the Indonesian claim to West Papua are not that certain any more. The new trends show, although not explicitly stated so, that territorial claim can be more relative and that more substantial issues such as legitimacy, morality and democracy have more weight when sustainability is at stake. The three cases are Kosovo, South Sudan and East Timor. Kosovo: self-determination as a remedy The independence of Kosovo, which the Assembly of Kosovo declared on 17 February 2008, was a case of remedial secession. No states claimed that the people of Kosovo had a right to self-determination, and self-determination occurred there not as a matter of the right, but as a remedy. After negotiations over the final status of Kosovo failed to reach agreement, the UN Secretary General’s special envoy, Martti Ahtisaari, proposed the independence of Kosovo between the unviability of its reintegration into Serbia and the unsustainability of continued international presence there. Kosovo’s returning to Yugoslavia was not a viable option, he explained in his report, because ‘Belgrade could not regain its authority without provoking violent opposition’. A long history of enmity, mistrust and antagonism, the actions by the Milosevic regime, Kosovo Albanians’ armed resistance and the brutal repression by Belgrade, caused a humanitarian crisis that eventually led to NATO’s military intervention. The subsequent establishment of an international presence created a situation in which Serbia 182 exercised no governing authority. Martti Ahtisaari writes, ‘this is a reality one cannot deny; it is irreversible.’ (S/2007/168) But Serbia and Russia challenged the independence declaration of Kosovo. These governments succeeded in persuading the General Assembly to agree to the referral of the case to the International Court of Justice for an advisory opinion. The ICJ’s advisory opinion, delivered in July 2010, was that Kosovo’s declaration did not violate any general international law because international law contains no prohibition on the declaration of independence. In retrospect, we may say that the territorial integrity of Serbia was neglected. The protection of people in Kosovo had more weight than the territorial integrity of Serbia. So, how about the legality of recognition of an independent state of Kosovo by other states? Logically, if an independence declaration per se is not illegal in international law, the recognition of it cannot be illegal either. However, the US and EU asserted that Kosovo was a unique case and that it by no means would be used as a precedent because they were aware of the danger of how such recognition of secession without the consent of the mother state would influence the situations of secessionist movements in other areas (Borgen, pp. 12-3). Whatever the interpretation of the US and EU was, the case of Kosovo apparently did create a precedent provoking a ‘recognition battle’ between Russia and (mostly) Western governments. The cases in point are South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia officially recognised South Ossetia and Abkhazia as sovereign states in August 2008, six months after the independence declaration of Kosovo. Although its position over Kosovo was that secession could occur only when the mother state accepted it, Russia recognised the secessions of the two areas without consent of their mother state, Georgia. Here Russia too, as can be expected, asserts that South Ossetia is a unique case. 183 At the political level at least, if there are more than one similar ‘unique’ cases, they are not unique anymore. What the above cases imply, despite these governments’ completely opposing views over specific situations, is that ‘secession can be a legal remedy in extreme cases’ (Borgan, p. 22). So, the question will be what constitutes ‘an extreme case’. Since there is no consensus, answer must be relative, political and a matter of proportion. South Sudan: self-determination long due Sudan became an independent state in 1956, but plunged into a long civil war between North and South. There were significant ethnic, linguistic, religious and social differences between North and South, and in fact the British ruled them as separate entities. The history of Sudan seems to suggest that a lack or low level of integration, natural or historical, between areas ruled by the same colonial power can be a reason for the establishing of a separate state. This means that colonial boundaries are not as absolute as usually assumed. The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement included the right to selfdetermination of the people of South Sudan. The recognition of this right goes back to the 2002 Machakos Protocol, and it was further confirmed in the 2004 Declaration in Nairobi. An interesting logic that emerged in this process attracts us: the juxtaposition of the ‘unity’ of Sudan and the ‘right to self-determination’ of a population within its borders. The Machakos Protocol says, in its Agreed Principles, that ‘the unity of the Sudan, based on the free will of its people, democratic governance, accountability, equality, respect, and justice for all citizens of the Sudan is and shall be the priority of the parties and that it is possible to redress the grievances of the people of South Sudan and to meet their aspirations within such a framework’ (1.1). It also says that ‘the people of South Sudan have the right to control and govern affairs in their region and participate equitably in the National Government’ (1.2), and that ‘the people of South Sudan have the right to self-determination, inter alia, through a referendum 184 to determine their future status’ (1.3). It further says that ‘the people of the Sudan share a common heritage and aspirations’ (1.5). These articles are of course a result of political compromise between the Sudanese government and the resistance organisation of the South Sudanese, the SPLM/A. The term ‘people’ is used to designate two different groups: the people of South Sudan and the people of Sudan of which the people of South Sudan is a part. The point is to allow a people within the state boundary to exercise the right to self-determination to determine their future status. Even more interesting is the UN Security Council Resolution 1547 (2004) on the establishment of a UN advance team for Sudan on 11 June 2004. Its fourth preambular paragraph, ‘reaffirming its commitment to the sovereignty, independence and unity of Sudan’, stands without any contradiction of the fact that the resolution backs a settlement of the problem which firmly upholds the right to self-determination of a people within that very sovereign state. East Timor: Indonesian interpretation of self-determination Here I examine the case of East Timor, a case that involved Indonesia and therefore has direct implications for West Papua. Internationally the question of East Timor was a typical case on the world’s decolonisation agenda, and as such was a question of the right to self-determination and independence of the people of East Timor. It was, for the principle of self-determination, a case of delayed exercise of the right to self-determination and independence due to certain political factors. Therefore the Popular Consultation was the realisation of that recognised right. But the case was not so simple for Australia and Indonesia because both states had claimed that Indonesia already had sovereignty over East Timor. When Prime Minister John Howard as a result of ‘policy adjustments’ on East Timor in 1998 urged then Indonesian President B. J. Habibie to address the East 185 Timorese demand for an act of self-determination (DFAT, p. 28), he was asking that a population within a state whose sovereignty over the territory in question Australia had given de jure recognition to, should be allowed an opportunity for an act of self-determination. President Habibie followed his advice, and by the People’s Consultative Assembly’s decision that recognised the result of the Popular Consultation Indonesia severed ties with East Timor. Indonesia has never verbally explained her interpretation of the nature of the Popular Consultation. Indonesia has never said that it was an act of selfdetermination by the people of East Timor. The official words, ‘Popular Consultation’, implied that the people of East Timor was ‘only to be heard’, because the decision whether East Timor would separate from Indonesia or not ultimately rested on Indonesia’s highest representative body, the People’s Consultative Council or MPR. Such an interpretation was possible under the terms of the agreement between Indonesia and Portugal, the former colonial power, of May 1999. Indonesia understandably needed to present the act as a domestic process, but this very interpretation inevitably created a precedent that a population under Indonesia’s sovereignty had an opportunity to express their collective will whether they wanted to remain in Indonesia or to separate from it. This amounted to a right to secession, although it wasn’t presented as such. For Australia and Indonesia self-determination was a political remedy to the unsustainable situation they faced. Implications of above cases for West Papua What are the implications of the above cases for West Papua? The case of South Sudan seems to be highly relevant. The recognition of the right to selfdetermination of the people of South Sudan occurred in spite of the fact that the British transferred sovereignty to one Sudan. This British action was later seen to have ignored significant ethnic, linguistic, religious and social differences between North and South that were real, and the historical reality that the North and South were administered as if they were separate entities. 186 So, even if we adopt the Indonesian ‘nationalist’ position that West Papua was a part of the Netherlands East Indies, the automatic inclusion of West Papua into the Republic of Indonesia is not necessarily supported. The legitimacy of colonial boundaries, once ‘respected’ and never challenged, is now shaky and cannot be claimed without question. To judge this matter we need to look into the details of the reality on the ground: how far the Dutch administered West New Guinea and the rest of the archipelago as one colony, and how far the colonial administration united people politically in the archipelago so that racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious and social differences would become irrelevant for being together as one people. As history tells us, West New Guinea and the rest of the Netherlands East Indies were not unified administratively. Although it remained loosely tied to the government in Batavia through the resident in Ambon and the governor in Macassar, (the Netherlands) New Guinea was an underdeveloped part of the Dutch East Indies (Drooglever, p. 34). Early discussions among Indonesian nationalists show that their imagination of Papua did not go beyond the bonds formed through the internment camp at Boven Digul, a reference in the 14th century Javanese chronicle, Nagarakrtagama, and ‘a source of wealth’ that should not simply be thrown away (Drooglever, pp. 111-112). Even the Federalists representing East Indonesia, who were more assertive on West Papua, excluded it from their list of Indonesian territories while lobbying the UN Security Council in August 1947 (Saltford, p. 5). The reality was that, like South Sudan, West Papua developed a distinct identity because of racial, ethnic, linguistic, religious and social differences with the rest of the Netherlands East Indies. The recognition of this difference was reflected in the difference of opinion amongst Indonesia’s political leadership at the time of bilateral negotiations. The subsequent development of Papuan nationalism under 187 the post-war Netherlands administration cannot be regarded as something that was merely brewed by the political engineering of the Dutch. The case of Kosovo has spread the idea that state sovereignty is not an absolute concept anymore, and has stimulated debates on Humanitarian Intervention and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). The crisis in Libya has further stimulated the debates. This chapter does not review all such arguments. However, the current consensus is that the use of force to intervene in a different country is only ‘legal’ with a United Nations Securty Council resolution. And an intervention must be a last resort. NATO’s intervention in Kosovo was carried out without a UNSC resolution, but it was regarded as ‘legitimate’ later with a series of UNSC resolutions that ‘recognised’ the result as acceptable. Here the central theme is the ‘legitimacy’ of an intervention and not exactly its ‘legality’, and ‘legitimacy’ may come from a range of sources including ‘justness’ of an action. All these arguments suggest that state and morality are now seen as more related to each other than before, and this explains the fact that what is happening within the borders of a sovereign state is increasingly under international scrutiny. If a humanitarian crisis with the scale of Kosovo, Rwanda or Darfur once again occurs somewhere on the globe, the international community may face more difficulties in resisting to calls for an intervention. It now seems that the formal logic of self-determination is going into the background in the cases of Western Sahara and West Papua as the UN’s decolonisation agenda is seen, though wrongly, as coming to completion. But a more moral question behind self-determination is coming to the fore, and this is more substantial. I think that a key shift in the construction of sovereign responsibility occurred when East Timor was increasingly drawing the attention of the world in the 1990s. For many, including those realists with no sympathy towards the cause of the East Timorese, the situation on the ground looked a ‘failure’, and this failure, that had lasted for any years, significantly contributed to the revival of the claim of self-determination for the people of East Timor. This 188 factor, ‘failure’ in governing, did not exist at the time decolonisation started, and therefore did not constitute an originally necessary condition for an act of selfdetermination. It was a completely new factor that came after many years. The self-determination of the East Timorese that had been neglected for years suddenly became the issue because it seemed to be the only way to respond to the situation on the ground that had become no longer viable. Klabbers presents an interesting argument. He writes, ‘(W)hat is clear, though, is that courts and tribunals are not in the habit of equating self-determination with secession; instead, secession increasingly comes to be viewed as a new possible “right” in its own right, separate from a right to self-determination.’ (Klabbers, p. 198) The world now tends to see the issue of self-determination not in terms of its original legality alone, but more in terms of the current situation of functioning morality within state borders. The current situation in West Papua resembles that of East Timor in the late 1980s. There were serious human rights abuses, the area was closed to foreign media, an influx of migrants was marginalising locals and causing simmering resentment, local leaders who once supported Indonesia were switching to independence and there was a new generation who were educated under the Indonesian system as Indonesian children who, nonetheless, refused to identify themselves as such. These young people were increasingly vocal and continued to expose the ‘unsustainability’ of the situation. Indeed the unsustainability of the situation in West Papua seems to be a truth. Only it will take some more time for the world to realise it. References Borgen, Christopher J. 2009. The Language of Law and the Practice of Politics: Great Powers and the Rhetoric of Self-Determination in the Cases of Kosovo and South Ossetia. Chicago Journal of International Law; Summer 2009; 10, 1, pp. 133. 189 DFAT: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. 2001. East Timor in Transition 1998-2000: An Australian Policy Challenge. Canberra. Drooglever, Pieter. 2009. An Act of Free Choice: Decolonization and the Right to Self-Determination in West Papua. Oxford: One World Publications. Klabbers, Jan. 2006. The Right to be Taken Seriously: Self-Determination in International Law. Human Rights Quarterly; February 2006; 28, 1, pp. 186-206. Widjojo, Muridan, S. ed. 2009. Papua Road Map: Negotiating the Past, Improving the Present and Securing the Future. Jakarta: LIPI, Yayasan TIFA and Yayasan Obor Indonesia. S/2007/168. 26 March 2007. Report of the Special Envoy of the SecretaryGeneral on Kosovo’s future status. Saltford, John. 2003. The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua, 1962-1969. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon. 190 Chapter thirteen: Reflections on the New York Agreement, the Act of Free Choice and developments since John Saltford European colonialism resulted in an arbitrary line being drawn down the centre of New Guinea in the 19th Century. The eastern side, Papua New Guinea, eventually got its independence from Australia in 1975, but its western neighbour, West Papua, was to endure a very different fate. In this short chapter I will examine what happened and take a look at some of the recent debates on the best way forward for West Papua. History To begin with we need to look at some history. In 1949 the Dutch ceded sovereignty of the Netherlands East Indies to the new Indonesian Republic. But they kept hold of their colony of West Papua (known then as Dutch New Guinea), not least because they reasoned that the Melanesian West Papuans had very little ethnically, culturally or historically in common with the Indonesians. Over the next thirteen years preparations for eventual West Papuan independence were developed in the face of increasingly strong opposition from Jakarta, which claimed the territory for itself. But in August 1962 the debate on who owned West Papua was effectively superseded by the 1962 UN-brokered New York Agreement201, which guaranteed the West Papuan people the right to selfdetermination. Specifically this agreement, signed by Indonesia and the Netherlands, acknowledged that it was for the West Papuans, and no one else, to decide whether their land was to become an independent state or a province of Indonesia. 201 th General Assembly Official Records United Nations, 17 Session, Annexes Agenda item 89, Doc A/5170, Annex of 20 August 1962, Agreement between the republic of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands concerning West New Guinea (West Irian), http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/New_York_Agreement 191 As a first step, under Article 2 of the Agreement the Dutch handed over West Papua to a temporary UN authority (UNTEA) on Oct. 1, 1962. But right from the start, instead of safeguarding Papuan political and human rights, UNTEA’s priority was simply to hand administrative control over to the Indonesians and pull out as quickly as possible. To get a general idea of the UN’s record during its short administration of the territory it is perhaps sufficient to quote from just a couple of reports made by UN officials on the ground. The first comes from a confidential letter by the UNTEA Divisional Commissioner for Merauke in December 1962: If the date (of our departure) is advanced or if the Agreement is changed doing away with a plebiscite, I do not expect widespread disturbances because we have sufficient forces to control the situation - a whiff of grapeshot can easily control the situation if that is what UNTEA wants.202 The second comes from the Merauke Commissioner's colleague in charge of Biak: I have yet to meet any thinking, sober, generally responsible Papuan who sees any good in the coming link with Indonesia. Unwelcome as the anxiety and resistance of thinking Papuans maybe it is of course hardly surprising if one is not under pressure to close one's eyes to what is in fact happening to this people at the hands of the three parties to the Agreement.203 Whatever one makes of these comments, they hardly describe a situation that today's UN would want to use as a model for future operations. Seven months after their arrival, the UN left, transferring administrative control to Jakarta without any consultation with the West Papuan people. But returning now to the New York Agreement, in order to pass judgment on its implementation we need to consider four key articles. 202 UN Archives New York, DAG 13/2.1.0.1:3. Missions and Commissions. Subgroup: UNTEA, 1962-63. Series Non-Registry Files, Report by D. Wilson (Divisional Commissioner, Merauke) to Somerville, 8 December 1962 203 Ibid., report by Rawlings to Somerville, 12 December 1962 192 Under Article 16, a number of UN experts were to remain in the territory following the transfer of administrative responsibility to Indonesia. Their primary task was to advise and assist the Indonesians in their preparations for Papuan selfdetermination that was to take place before the end of 1969. But these experts were never deployed because Indonesia objected. Under Article 22, the UN and Indonesia had to guarantee fully the rights, including the rights of free speech, freedom of movement and of assembly of the Papuans. These rights were not upheld, even during the UNTEA administration, and, with no UN staff in the territory once Jakarta took over, Indonesia was free to act as it pleased. The official 1969 UN report concedes that this article had not been fully implemented adding "the (Indonesian) Administration exercised at all times a tight political control over the population." 204 Under Article 17, one year prior to self-determination, the Secretary-General was to appoint a representative who would take charge of a team of UN officials, including those already stationed in the territory. Their task was to continue and build on the work outlined in Article 16 and remain until the act of selfdetermination was complete. A Bolivian diplomat, Ortiz Sanz, was appointed but, as he made clear in his official report, the non-implementation of Article 16 meant that there was no experienced UN staff in the territory for him to lead. Instead he had to make do with a newly arrived team of 16 who were supposed to assist and observe an act 204 th General Assembly Official Records United Nations, 24 Session, Agenda item 98, Doc A/7723 6 November 1969, Agreement between the Republic of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands concerning West New Guinea (West Irian). Report of the Secretary General regarding the act of self-determination in West Irian, http://www.papuaweb.org/dlib/pbb/unga-1969-pepera.PDF 193 of self-determination in a vast territory covering over 160,000 square miles. Under Article 18, all adult Papuans had the right to participate in an act of selfdetermination to be carried out in accordance with international practice. This central tenet of the agreement was never implemented and the West Papuan people were denied any opportunity to express an opinion on their future. Instead, with no genuine involvement by the population, the UN effectively stood by as Indonesia hand-picked, bribed and threatened 1,022 West Papuans to take part in a series of theatrical “Consultative Assemblies” at which they were required to publicly give their unanimous consent for integration with Indonesia. The final wording of the UN report says only that the procedure had been carried out in accordance with "Indonesian", and not "international" practice as specified in the article. Of course one could argue that “International Practice” is such a vague term that it is difficult to judge whether or not the Act of Free Choice met the required criteria. But in fact accepted international practice on this issue had been set out nine years earlier in UN General Assembly Resolution 1541 of December 1960. This laid out clearly the circumstances under which a non-self governing territory (which West Papua was) could integrate with an independent state. Principle VIII of the resolution states clearly that integration should be on the basis of complete equality between peoples of the non-self governing territory and the independent state with which it is being integrated. Furthermore, Principle IX says: the integrating territory should have attained an advanced stage of selfgovernment with free political institutions so that the peoples would have the capacity to make a responsible choice through informed and democratic processes….The integration should be the result of the freely expressed wishes of the territory’s peoples acting with full knowledge of the change in their status, 194 their wishes having been expressed through informed and democratic processes, impartially conducted and based upon universal adult suffrage.205 Regardless of Jakarta’s claims, the implementation of the Act of Free Choice clearly did not even begin to fulfil any of the conditions set out in Resolution 1541. Recent research and campaigning In 2003 I wrote a book based upon de-classified documents from the UN and elsewhere206. In it I concluded that the Act of Free Choice was a sham that had denied the Papuans their right to genuine self-determination. Since then further significant resources have become available. In November 2005, a detailed Dutch Government-commissioned report was published with an English translation following in 2009207. Written by distinguished historian, Professor Pieter Drooglever, it makes full use of all the available evidence to show how the Act fundamentally denied the people their legitimate political and human rights. Elsewhere, de-classified US documents from the period are now also available.208 Meanwhile an international campaign calling on the UN to conduct a review of its conduct during the Act continues with support from NGOs, academics, politicians and respected figures such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu.209 In October 2008 205 th th General Assembly Official Records United Nations, 15 Session, 948 plenary meeting, Resolution 1541, 15 December 1960, Principles which should guide members in determining whether or not an obligation exists to transmit the information called for under Article 73e of the Charter, Annex Principle ix http://www.ilsa.org/jessup/jessup10/basicmats/ga1541.pdf 206 John Saltford, The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua 1962 – 1969 (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003). 207 Pieter Drooglever, An Act of Free Choice (The Hague and Oxford, Institute of Netherlands History and OneWorld Publications, 2009). 208 Brad Simpson (ed), “Indonesia’s 1969 Takeover of West Papua not by “Free Choice” th Document marks 35 Anniversary of Controversial Vote and Annexation”. The National Security Archive, The George Washington University, posted 9 July 2004, http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB128/index.htm 209 Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO), “West Papua: Nobel Prize Desmond Tutu calls on UN to act”, February 2004 http://www.unpo.org/article/435 195 “International Parliamentarians for West Papua” was launched at the UK House of Commons210. In support, rallies and demonstrations took place in West Papua and elsewhere including a peaceful gathering of several thousand in the provincial capital Jayapura. As a result a number of participants were arrested and beaten. One of the organizers, Yosias Syet, was found murdered shortly afterwards,211 while another, Bucthar Tabuni, was put on trial. He avoided a conviction for treason, but his peaceful call for a referendum could, according to the trial judge “harm the sense of national unity and the unitary state of Indonesia, hamper development, defy laws and disturb peace among the heterogeneous peoples of Papua,” In July 2009 Tabuni was sentenced to three years in jail. In January 2011 Amnesty International warned that he faced torture or other ill treatment after being moved to an isolation cell.212 Critics of the “pro-Papua” lobby Supporters of the “pro-Papua” lobby campaign against environmental exploitation and political and human rights abuses in West Papua. But an important issue for them remains the denial of the Papuans’ right to self-determination in the sham Act of Free Choice. In response Jakarta officials continue to defend the Act and warn that any questioning of it would undermine the new democratic Indonesia. In Australia, the arrival of 43 West Papuan asylum seekers in early 2006 prompted a crisis of sorts between Canberra and Jakarta, complete with tense exchanges, a re-called ambassador and even a few eyebrow-raising cartoons. Later that year the academic Rodd McGibbon argued in his Lowry Institute paper, “Pitfalls of Papua,” that the “pro-Papua” lobby’s case was based upon 210 International Parliamentarians for West Papua, “The West Papua Declaration”, 1 December 2008, http://www.ipwp.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=10&Itemid=10 211 Asian Human Rights Commission – Urgent Appeals Programme, “Indonesia: Killing of an activist”, 5 December 2008 http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-2612008 212 Amnesty International, “Indonesia: Prisoner of conscience at risk of torture: Buchtar Tabuni, 12 January 2011, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA21/001/2011/en 196 seven myths and implied that the abuses, killings and denial of political freedoms were not nearly so serious as some would claim.213 McGibbon’s paper then condemned the “myth” (number six on his list) that the recently de-classified documents on the Act of Free Choice revealed anything new. This, he explained, is because the Act was merely “an open act of realpolitik” which was understood and accepted by the main actors at the time.214 As the collator of some of these documents, I fully agree that there is no need to sift through piles of 40 year old papers to realize that the Act of Free Choice was a crudely orchestrated charade. A quick read of the UN’s own publicly available report on the Act will tell you that. However as a sometime academic, McGibbon may appreciate that, in the face of stubborn denials by Jakarta and general international ignorance on the issue, the collation of a comprehensive body of evidence was nonetheless necessary to demolish Indonesia’s own particular myths of what took place. In summary, McGibbon warns against “the utopian thinking, dangerous demands and misguided analysis that have emerged in recent public debates regarding Papua.” 215. The thrust of this argument seems to be that to challenge too closely Indonesia’s shameful record in West Papua would only damage AustralianIndonesian relations while making the situation in West Papua worse by raising false hopes among the people. Better therefore to keep quiet. The same year Australian Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone went so far as to apparently label the Papuans as bigots for not welcoming the Indonesian occupation. In a frankly bizarre attack she asserted: 213 Rodd McGibbon, “Pitfalls of Papua: understanding the conflict and its place in Australia/Indonesia relations,” Lowry Institute Paper 13, 2006 http://www.lowyinstitute.org/Publication.asp?pid=475 214 Ibid, 105 215 Ibid, vii 197 so-called Papuan nationalism in Indonesia is based on nothing more than hostility to people from other parts of Indonesia. Such racist sentiment should be condemned, not encouraged. Let’s not support separatism.216 Is Special Autonomy the answer? Turning to the possible solutions, Special Autonomy has been held up by many over the years as the only realistic mechanism to resolve the conflict and, in McGibbon’s words, ensure the “peaceful integration of Papua into the state.”217 In his 2006 paper “Initiating a Peace process in Papua”218 Timo Kivimaki advocates “proper” implementation of Special Autonomy leading to a fairer economic deal for Papuans. This he argues would also result in greater political freedoms, a curtailing of human rights abuses and some limitation of transmigration. In other words Jakarta would be expected to do no more than observe the minimum standards expected of a modern state. But in return the Papuans would have to abandon any hope of independence. Kivimaki describes such a solution as one in which both sides can “win the peace.”219 But it might be better described as an acceptable starting point for negotiations rather than a conclusion. From the beginning many Papuans have understandably taken a pessimistic view of Special Autonomy, particularly as, less than two years after the 2001 Special Autonomy (Otsus) bill was passed, its future was undermined by a Presidential Instruction (Inpres) dividing the territory into three provinces. By July 2003 a meeting in West Papua of senior officials and politicians concluded that only 10% of the Special Autonomy provisions had been implemented220. In recent years the Papuan Traditional Council, the Papuan Governor, the Papua 216 Amanda Vanstone, “Let’s not support separatism, ” Weekend Australian, Sydney 29 April 2006 217 McGibbons, “Pitfalls of Papua,” xi 218 Timo Kivimaki, “Initiating a Peace Process in Papua: Actors, Issues, Process and the role of the International Community”, East West Center, Washington, Policy Studies 25, 2006, http://www.eastwestcenter.org/fileadmin/stored/pdfs/PS025.pdf 219 Ibid, 70 220 Laurence Sullivan, “Challenges to Special Autonomy in the province of Papua” ANU Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, State Society and Governance in Melanesia Discussion paper (2003/06), http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/otsus/sullivan-2003-ssgm-otsus.pdf 198 People Assembly Chairman and Yusak Yaluwo, who led President Yodhoyono’s July 2009 election campaign team in Papua, have all concluded that Special Autonomy has failed. The same year the US Embassy in Jakarta was privately saying much the same thing. Cables now available on Wikileaks reported: Most money transferred to the province remains unspent although some has gone into ill-conceived projects or disappeared into the pockets of corrupt officials….Many central government ministries have been reluctant to cede power to the province. As a result, implementation of the Special Autonomy law has lagged and Papuans increasingly view the law as a failure,'221 Meanwhile, thousands have marched in numerous demonstrations rejecting Special Autonomy and, in many cases, calling for a referendum on independence. In early 2011 Papuan students in Jakarta called for Special Autonomy to be cancelled with one representative, Agus Kosay, describing it as a “new form of colonialism”.222 Even the Indonesian Government now admits that “Special Autonomy has yet to yield significant outcomes.”223 So while Special Autonomy remains as one possible, albeit significantly flawed, answer, Papuans can legitimately point to other examples of conflict resolution where fundamental compromises have been made by both sides, not just one. For example, the 2001 peace deal for Bougainville agreed to autonomy from Papua New Guinea for the territory and a referendum on independence currently envisaged for some time after 2015. A similar deal agreed by the Sudanese government and Southern rebels in 2005 allowed for autonomy for Southern Sudan and a referendum on independence. As we know this has taken place with a huge vote in favour. 221 Philip Dorling and Nick McKenzie, “Jakarta Accused over Papua,” The Age ( Melbourne), 23 Dec 2010 , http://www.theage.com.au/world/jakarta-accused-over-papua-20101222-195na.html 222 Ina Parlina, “Special autonomy failed, new talks needed: Student activists,” Jakarta Post, 29 Jan 2011, http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/01/29/special-autonomy-failed-new-talks-neededstudent-activists.html 223 Indonesian Embassy, London, “Recent Developments in Papua,” http://www.kemlu.go.id/london/Lists/LembarInformasi/DispForm.aspx?ID=18 199 Finally, supporters of West Papuan independence should also take note of a July 2010 ruling by the International Court of Justice on Kosovo in which it ruled that the territory’s 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia did not violate international law. Interestingly, in a submission to the Court, the Dutch Government explained their support for Kosovan independence by stating: The people of Kosovo had the right to self-determination and secession from Serbia because the Belgrade authorities systematically violated civil and human rights of Albanians for years. International law thus allows the proclamation of Kosovo's independence.224 To conclude, proper resolution of the West Papuan conflict requires genuine negotiations without any pre-conditions from either side. And this would undoubtedly be helped by Indonesia’s abandonment of its distorted version of history that can only further distort current efforts to solve the issue peacefully. 224 Quoted in ETAN West Papua Report, August 2010 http://www.etan.org/issues/wpapua/2010/1008wpap.htm 200 Section four: Short term and long term goals and diplomatic strategies 201 Chapter fourteen: A self-governing Papua within Indonesia versus the archaic notion of an independent nation-state: Choice between reality and a dream Franzalbert Joku Whenever, and for whatever reason, the issue of Papua, that vast chunk of landmass which today comprises Indonesia’s two easternmost provinces, Papua and West Papua, is raised there are a number of fundamentally nagging questions that must obviously come to mind: First, why does that sizeable and rich geographic region located between 130 and 141 Meridien East today remain a conflict-prone area nearly 183 years after the Dutch proclamation of 24th August 1828 that officially stamped western New Guinea as part of its East Indies colony. Is geography the sole reason for Papua’s rather turbulent journey over the years since foreigners first began setting foot on its shores? Or is it more to do with factors of demography? In other words, have Papuans become victims as a legacy of the human quest for knowledge, wealth and territories? Have superpower rivalry and constantly evolving defense and security alliances and other strategic interests of the more established and dominant nations, especially those within the region, any role in determining Papua’s rather wobbly fate? Where do these questions leave the often sore issue of the inalienable right of the Papuans as a culturally and ethnically distinct people to determine their own future, as international laws and its many conventions would have one believe? Is this the only reason why the call for Papuan independence is still audible today even after nearly half a century of unification with Indonesia? What happened to 202 the gleaming promises of development and happiness that integration was to have brought about? On a more current note, why are the Special Autonomy laws and regulations, the much heralded political compromise pact between Jakarta and Papua, unable to deliver the fundamental humanitarian values of freedom, security, justice and prosperity when Papuans most need them? Why are they not being implemented as intended? Has Special Autonomy failed? If so, where is the failure and what remedies can be proposed? It is against this background that I welcomed the opportunity to participate in the discussions last February at this remarkable University of Sydney. I am personally very keen to help generate new perspectives or insights on Papua and well thought-out policy recommendations for the government of Indonesia, as the West Papua Project so clearly hopes to do. Papua is more than just a topic of scholarly interest to us, the Papuans. It is our God-given habitat, our life and our future. It means everything to us. Therefore, it hurts us deeply when others pursue the subject with ulterior motives. The failings of government leadership and institutions to deliver what we are rightfully entitled to are simply unforgiveable. Our people have long endured sufferings and creating any more hardship for them is unacceptable. At an Indonesian Foreign Ministry-sponsored seminar entitled “The Papua Issue Within the Context of Indonesian Diplomacy” held on the island of Bangka just over two years ago, I presented a critical reflection on the implementation aspects of the Special Autonomy law as seen from the Papuan socio-cultural perspective. The paper in its original form was compiled in Bahasa Indonesia and, unfortunately, I have not had the opportunity to produce an English translation yet. However, I do have in my files a paper entitled “Torture in Papua 203 Continues in the Hands of Safari Suit Elite Brigade – A Reflection on the First 10 Years of Special Autonomy” for anyone interested. As this title indicates, I basically concluded that despite the noble intentions of the Indonesian Government to make amends in Papua by urgently addressing development as well as evolving political and social issues, principally through the Special Autonomy law, its intended objectives fell far short of the originally stated targets. Although the Special Autonomy law essentially was designed to accelerate development across the board in order to quickly overcome past disparities and help stem the rising tide of independence aspirations, it did incorporate key clauses relating to affirmative action policy, rights protection, economic empowerment and participatory involvement by Papuans in their own development. Public demonstrations against Special Autonomy ensued on numerous occasions and finally the national Government regretfully admitted that all had not gone well in Papua and that concerted efforts were needed urgently in order to accelerate progress and restore political stability. A presidential decree was issued to give effect to this. In October 2011 the President moved swiftly to set up a Unit for the Acceleration of Development in Papua and West Papua provinces (UP4B) under ex general Bambang Darmono and ensure that accelerated development plans for Papua do actually take place in an effective and timely manner. The central government action is not without reason. Latest statistics on population give a frighteningly high percentage of Papuans living under the poverty line despite the constantly increasing total annual budgetary allocation for the two provinces of Papua. Whilst itthe government identifies urgent priority areas such as education, health, nutritional program, economic empowerment and poverty alleviation, provincial budgetary allocations do not reflect such 204 urgency. Hence, the frequent calls to abandon Special Autonomy and give preference to independence. The central government’s total Special Autonomy fund allocation, outside routine provincial budgets, for the two provinces currently averages more than US$3 billion a year. Despite such generous funding allocation and a relatively small population, it defies all common sense that most Papuans still live under povertystricken conditions. A recent national parliamentary investigation found that local level corruption among officials in Papua is the second worst in the nation after Riau. Life expectancy for the two provinces today is put at 65.2 years, whilst their combined human development index currently stands at 33rd, which means the lowest in the whole of Indonesia. Forty-eight years after integration Papua can only boast of possessing two university professors and 13 PhD holders, according to official data released by the Bureau of Statistics in 2006. However the population falling into the category of working age (15-65 years) in total numbers nearly 1.2 million for the two provinces put together and, notably, according to the same statistical data, the number of unskilled jobless among Papuans in the two provinces has dropped significantly. The bureau’s concern was more about high rates of unemployment among non-Papuans, who influx the provinces at will in search of employment and other opportunities. New openings created for Papuans accounted for the sharp reduction of their unemployed after the introduction of Special Autonomy, the bureau said. Papuan involvement in the local economy is at best negligible, as the businesses sector is dominantly in the hands of non-Papuan traders, companies and corporations. To make matters worse there is no visible evidence to suggest that provincial and regency governments are in any way concerned with such a state of affairs. Papuan communities are often directed to try their hand at poorly 205 planned and coordinated agricultural, cattle raising and land fisheries projects, well away from where the real money is in Papua. In the final analysis, the so-called “failure” of Special Autonomy in ensuring timely and effective delivery of goods and services to the people can be traced more accurately to government inability and incapacity to implement the law than to the law itself. The law was a product of long and arduous struggle over the years in search of change and improvement. Special Autonomy now forms a constitutional framework within which the government system in Papua must be made to operate. Its formulation took many man-hours and bitter debates both inside and outside the parliamentary system, and it therefore must be nurtured and protected at all costs. The problems with Otsus, as Papuans call Special Autoomy, can apparently be traced to four major areas of its implementation, and they are, namely, proper identification and formulation of correct policies; coordinated planning from the centre right down to provincial, regency, district and village level; focused and timely application of decisions, and prudent management and financial control. Otsus raises pressing issues which deserve the attention of all concerned and they must be resolved in order to bring Papuans closer to realizing their aspirations, their quest for freedom, justice, security and prosperity. These issues are fundamental to improving the livelihood of the Papuan people and must be resolved now, not later. Only then will Papua achieve and its people relish the true meaning of an existence which can only be described as autonomous and self-governing – a status not very dissimilar to being a sovereign independent nation-state. That is why some of us have elected to return home from exile and assist in the peaceful evolutionary political processes currently underway which, if I may add, we all helped create. It is an option that is feasible, achievable and sustainable, 206 one that has already earned the recognition and support of the international community, the government of Indonesia and a sizeable section of the Papuan population. Special Autonomy status didn’t just fall out of the sky and nor did it come into existence because of the political generosity of the Indonesian leaders. It was Papuan, which means our, demands for independence that brought about the Special Autonomy project as a political compromise between Jakarta and Papua. Therefore, Papuans, who really believe in themselves and in their future destiny, have a duty to protect this hard-won political status and certainly not dismantle it. Papuans have long-been ignored and orphaned by the international community, as bigger nations selfishly and probably quite rightly pursued their own interests and agendas. The actions of responsible world institutions apparently only reflected such predetermined priorities. It, therefore, makes little sense then for us to shamelessly go begging to them or wait in vain for compassionate gestures from them. I do not believe for one moment that any amount of debating in the Irish, British and Australian Parliaments or even the United States Congress will alter the course of events experienced in Papua thus far. Our future, as far as I am concerned, is right here in our own hands, in Papua, and in seeking out workable and sustainable concessional political arrangements with Jakarta. The importance of such processes as decolonization, independence or setting up of new nation-states that once strongly featured especially in the post-Second World War period is in my view fast dwindling as the world increasingly turns its attention to the more pressing issue of how to manage its diminishing natural resources to cope with a rapidly growing population. Other topics such as global warming, terrorism, poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, HIV-AIDS and food 207 security seem to have also captured the full attention of the world leaders, more so today than ever before. Given all of the foregoing, I cannot help but propose that Papuans consider seriously taking stock themselves of political options actually available and act upon them: the sooner the better. The one option staring us right in our face is the path to equality and prosperity through empowerment and emancipation without changing sovereignty. Once we, the people of Papua, choose that option we will have chosen between reality and dream. 208 Chapter fifteen: The case and the cause for returning West Papua to the United Nations General Assembly Rex Rumakiek “No right exists anywhere to hand people about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were property in a game.” (Woodrow E. Wilson, 28th President of the USA, 11 February 1917) Introduction This chapter will provide some insight into the ongoing struggle in West Papua (Indonesian New Guinea) and the fundamental reasons why it can only be resolved at the United Nations. This is strictly the view from the Independence Movement, the OPM, from a senior member of the umbrella body, the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL). In 1962 President Sukarno of Indonesia almost created a Superpower conflict in the Pacific after his country’s claim over West Papua was rejected by the United Nations. He won the support of the Communist bloc to take West Papua by force. As a preventative measure the United States successfully mediated the transfer of West Papua to Indonesia through the New York Agreement (NYA). West Papuans were not involved: they were sold down the drain just like pawns in this peace and security gamble. But all is not lost for the Papuans. The NYA provided that by 1969 Indonesia would allow Papuans to exercise their right of self determination according to International practice, meaning a referendum. Indonesia carried out what was known as Penentuan Pendapat Rakyat, meaning ascertaining the views of the people, but translated as an “act of free choice”. That exercise turned out to be an act of no choice but those responsible for the NYA did not even raise an eyebrow. The Netherlands colluded with Indonesia and got the result passed at the United Nations. The denial of the fundamental 209 right of self-determination became the Issue that our people are still pursuing today. Background In the 1950s Sukarno’s Indonesia claimed West New Guinea, which it called Irian (Ikut Republik Indonesia Anti Nederland, or, Join the Indonesian Republic Anti the Netherlands), at the United Nations, but could not legally justify the claim. It lost four successive UN resolutions,1 while the Dutch plan to decolonize the territory won a simple majority vote [51%].2 Consequently, Sukarno decided to take West Papua by force. To fulfill his expansionist ambition, Sukarno played the anti-imperialist card and won the support of the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China. The support of the Communist bloc was not due to the West Papuan issue itself, but, instead, it was because of the opportunity it offered the Communist bloc to gain a strategic foothold in the Pacific. At that time, the ever-expanding Communist Party of Indonesia, the PKI, was the largest Communist organization outside of the Communist bloc. The Netherlands was determined to defend West New Guinea but could not secure support from its Western Allies – in particular, the United States (US) and Australia. Under heavy pressure from the United States, the Netherlands eventually agreed to disengage from its stand against Indonesia’s threat of war. In a confidential letter to the Dutch Prime Minister, US President J. F. Kennedy wrote: Such a conflict would have diverse consequences out of all proportion to the issue at stake. This would be a war in which neither the Netherlands nor the West could win in any real sense. Whatever the outcome of particular military encounters, the entire free world position in Asia would be seriously damaged. Only the Communists would benefit from such a conflict. (Cited in J.G de Beus 1977) Direct involvement by the US resulted in the promulgation of the New York Agreement that gave Indonesia a temporary mandate to administer West Papua, 210 pending a referendum on self-determination after six years.3 The agreement was negotiated and signed without the consent of the people most concerned: the West Papuans. Nevertheless, it is a binding international agreement that recognises West Papuan peoples’ right of self determination. Article XXV of the NYA also stipulated that this agreement replaces any previous agreement concerning the territory.4 Conclusion 1: West Papua was a victim of Cold War politics. From the New York Agreement of 1962 to the so-called Act of Free Choice of 1969, agreements were made without the consent of the people of West Papua. President Sukarno came out the clear winner of this diplomatic brinkmanship. He might have won the day but as it has turned out later the West did not allow him and his Communist friends to realize their dream. A year later (1964) Indonesia withdrew its membership from the United Nations and attempted to annex North Borneo, but failed.5 In 1965, the West Point trained General Suharto ended the confrontation with Malaysia, massacred hundreds of thousands of Indonesian Communists and removed Sukarno from power.6 The Communists’ dream of a foothold in the Pacific came to naught. Suharto also ended Sukarno's communist leaning and anti-West rhetoric and established his credentials firmly with the West. For that the West rewarded him with material support and appeasement for his recalcitrant behavior and military adventurism. Once comfortably in power, Suharto immediately granted US mining giant, Freeport McMoRan a license to illegally open a multibillion dollar copper and gold mine in the Mimika region of southern West Papua.7 Suharto’s colonial settlement program in Papua, called Transmigrasi, was well funded by a consortium of 11 Western powers through the World Bank.8 In 1969, Suharto carried out the fraudulent "Act of Free Choice" in West Papua (the supposed act of self-determination stipulated in the New York Agreement), while those who masterminded the NYA looked on silently.9 In 1975, the overconfident 211 Suharto annexed East Timor to complete Sukarno’s dream of “Greater Indonesia”. Suharto’s dictatorship came to an end in 1998 when he was forced, by the same student movement that had supported his take over in 1965, to step down. In 1998, the first civilian President, German educated Dr. Hassan Habibie, put an end to Suharto’s military adventurism. He set Indonesia on the course of democratic reform. More importantly, he rectified one of Suharto breaches of International law by granting East Timor a referendum that resulted in the territory breaking away from the Javanese Empire.10 Australia played an important job in securing the referendum on behalf of the United Nations. Before the reality of East Timor breaking away sank into the minds of many Indonesians, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) went a step further, and “resolved” the Aceh conflict.11 The challenge, however, remains for West Papua. While SBY has the world’s approval, will he solve the West Papuan issue? After all, the West Papuan case was a breach of an international obligation similar to the case of East Timor, and it too can be rectified. All these transformations are or can be part of the post-Suharto era of reform and democratization that is currently restoring Indonesia’s image and reputation as a respected member of the United Nations community. A commitment to resolving the West Papua conflict would contribute tremendously to Indonesia’s democratic credentials. West Papuans have been very consistent in their approach to finding a dignified solution. They have taken the post Suharto era of reform and democratization seriously. Papuans believe that there is absolutely no need for violence in West Papua. They have shown integrity by being open and accommodating. In 1999, 100 West Papuan representatives invited by the President to meet with him were frank in calling on President Habibie for dialogue on the West Papuan issue.12 The Papuan Congress of 2000, representing the whole Papuan constituency, resolved that peaceful dialogue with Indonesia is the best way forward for West Papua.13 Many Papuans were prepared to embrace the Special Autonomy law 212 after 2001 by declaring Papua a "Land of Peace." The military wing of the OPM complied with civil society's demand by unilaterally refraining from attacks on the Indonesian military. But, all along, violence perpetrated by the Indonesian military and its militias continued. The assassination of Papua Presidium Council (PDP) Chairman Theys Eluay severely curtailed any organized follow up on the resolutions from the Papua Congress.14 However, internal consultations continued until the formation of the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL) in Vanuatu in April 2008.15 The OPM, including its military wing TPN, is a senior member of the Coalition. WPNCL has pledged to continue to work for a peaceful negotiated settlement. It has written to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono several times, proposing peaceful negotiations with third party facilitation. This would be based on the principles of conflict resolution that offer a win-win solution. However, there has been no reaction from the President. Meanwhile, violence continued whilst WPNCL maintains its international campaigns, following on from long established OPM activities. WPNCL also continued to consult with all the stakeholders to work together on one Road Map to achieve West Papuan peoples’ aspirations for dialogue and self-determination. Conclusion 2: In 1969 the powers responsible for the New York Agreement colluded to deny Papuans their right of self-determination. [Appeasing Indonesia to keep it under Western control] The issue West Papuans started a more vigorous campaign for independence after the fraudulent "Act of Free Choice" of 1969 engineered by the Suharto regime that made the territory part of Indonesia. Instead of a referendum – as required under UN Resolution 1541 (XV) on Self Determination (1961), and as agreed upon under the New York Agreement (1962) - Indonesia applied the Javanese musyawarah (or consensus) system, in which secret ballot is not involved. Under 213 this system, 1022 carefully selected tribal leaders, representing almost one million West Papuans, were asked to 'show hands’ in front of officials, which included an intimidating military presence. They of course voted for integration – it would have been impossible to vote otherwise when they had been forewarned of what would happen to their lives and their families if they did. It was sheer terror. 16 Had the UN procedures on self determination been followed in a secret ballot procedure, the Papuans should have had an opportunity to vote on the following options: (1) Political independence (2) Self-government in free association with the administering power (in this case, Indonesia) (3) Integrating with the administering power (Indonesia).17 The UN procedure for referendums on self determination is very strict because of the serious nature of the vote that can permanently alter the status of an entire people. It is therefore necessary to allow a sufficient amount of time to educate the people so that they understand the procedure prior to the referendum. It is the UN’s responsibility to assess the territory, and to be satisfied that the people are ready for such an exercise. Furthermore, it is very important that the whole vote be exercised in complete freedom, without pressure or intimidation of any kind. The referendum must also be conducted by a neutral body. Indonesia failed to ensure, or perhaps deliberately ignored, all of these important conditions, and even rejected suggestions by the UN Special Representative, Dr Fernando Oritz Sans, to these ends.18 Indonesia justified the use of the musyawarah system with the argument that “in West Irian there exists ... one of the most primitive and underdeveloped communities in the world.19 A group of African countries, led by Ghana, contended that if what Indonesia argued was in fact the case, then the ‘Act of Free Choice’ was not the appropriate solution for West Papua. Rather, they advocated further 214 development. However, instead of amending the existing resolution, Ghana submitted a new resolution which proposed a timetable for further development in West Papua, which would lead to another referendum to be organised by the United Nations. Regardless of the relevance of Ghana’s resolution it did not get enough support (due to the prevailing technical conditions at the time). A delegate from Sierra Leone summed up the concerns of these African Nations in the following words: “No society could be so primitive ... in the modern world that the vital exercise of democratic governent could be indefinitely denied to its peoples”.20 It is clear that in 1969 Suharto’s military regime prevented the Papuans from casting their votes regarding their political status. They were denied their right to self determination. Conclusion 3: Indonesia failed to deliver a free and democratic referendum for the Papuan people as promised under the New York Agreement. Also, as a member of the UN, it has failed its responsibility to uphold UN conventions, specifically, Resolution 1541 (XV) on self-determination.21 The Solution: Internal redress In response to continued resistance by the Papuan people, and in view of their vigorous demands for dialogue on independence [first from the 100 Papuan representatives that met with President Dr. Hassan Habibie in 1999 and second from the Papua Congress in 2000], Indonesia decided to grant West Papua Special Autonomy status. It was passed into law by the Indonesian Parliament in 2001.22 The Special Autonomy Law legislated many powers to the Papuans, conferring almost the same status as independence, minus sovereignty. In hindsight, this should have been Indonesia’s program when it took over the administration of the territory in 1963. This was what the Africans were concerned about in 1969, and it is now four decades overdue. The independence movement, the OPM, has never been against development but has maintained 215 that independence is a birthright that cannot be traded for development. On the other hand, Papuans do not believe that Indonesia will ever develop West Papua for the sake of the Papuans. However, in the spirit of democratic reform, Papuans welcomed the Special Autonomy Law of 2001, hoping that it might bring about positive change. Yet, in the same way that the "Act of Free Choice" of 1969 was engineered to become an "act of no choice", Special Autonomy status was continually flouted and undermined by Indonesia until it became redundant. The power to make policies for the implementation of Special Autonomy was not granted. Consequently the Majelis Rakyat Papua (MRP, or Papuan Peoples Assembly) ostensibly established as a vehicle to implement Special Autonomy, was in reality a mere symbolic institution which could not properly function. This had overtones of the New York Agreement, which granted Papuans the right to self-determination, but in the end denied them the opportunity to exercise that right. In a conference held in Jayapura on June 9-10, 2010, the MRP declared that Special Autonomy had failed. Some 10,000 people marched to the DPRD (Regional Peoples Representative Assembly) offices to present the MRP resolutions and symbolically hand back Special Autonomy in a coffin.23 There had been similar public pronouncements prior to this, but this particular action was significant as it came from the institution responsible for Special Autonomy. It is the clearest indication that Special Autonomy has failed, and has lost the trust of the people of West Papua. Today, after almost half a century of subjugation, underdevelopment and violence remain Indonesia’s legacy in West Papua. Conclusion 4: If Special Autonomy was implemented transparently granting the Papuans full self-governing powers to be in charge of their own affairs the demand for independence might have diminished over time. That opportunity however has gone and with it the trust of the Papuan people. Any serious thought of resuscitating it must be done through a negotiated agreement with third party facilitation. 216 International discourse The international community had given Indonesia the benefit of the doubt that the full implementation of the Special Autonomy Law of 2001 would diminish Papuan demands for independence. This may have been possible, had it been implemented transparently and honestl. However, the opportunity to do so was wasted by Indonesia, despite billions of dollars spent on Special Autonomy over the past 10 years. West Papua is now at the crossroads, with one path leading in the direction of a modified Special Autonomy, offering the same old promises but no transparent action while violence continues; the other is seeking internationalization of the issue. The latter path offers the potential to usher in a new era - one with its own dynamics and momentum. Here we find ourselves on the brink of finding the best possible formula for a transparent and lasting solution to the almost half a century old conflict. WPNCL is confident that, with internationalisation, whatever the outcome it would be peaceful. Vanuatu, the only country in the South Pacific region that supports the West Papuan struggle, has allowed the OPM to establish itself in that country since its own independence in 1980. In 1985, Vanuatu brought the two conflicting leaders of OPM, Mr. Jacob Prai and Gen. Seth Rumkorem, to Vanuatu and ended their differences so that they could work together.24 In 2000, Vanuatu invited leaders of the OPM and PDP to sign a Memorandum of Understanding.25 These leaders then joined Vanuatu’s delegation to the United Nations Millennium Summit in New York. The following month (October), for the first time, Vanuatu and Nauru put West Papua on the agenda of the Pacific Islands Forum in Funafuti, Kiribati.26 In 2003 Vanuatu officially allowed the OPM to open an office known as the West Papuan Peoples’ Representative Office in its capital, Port Vila. In 2005 OPM representative Dr. John Ondawame accompanied Prime Minister Barak Sope to the United Nations. West Papuan representatives have also accompanied the 217 government’s delegations to Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) meetings. In April 2008, Vanuatu allowed Papuan leaders to hold their WPNCL Summit in Vanuatu. The following month, Vanuatu presented the issue at the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) meeting. The issue was discussed and adopted at the (foreign) ministerial level but was blocked by Sir Michael Somare of PNG at the Prime Minister level.27 Last year (2010), Vanuatu went even further by passing a bill in Parliament to cement its support for West Papua, declaring it would proceed legally in taking the Papuans’ case to the United Nations and the ICJ (International Court of Justice).28 The issue is now becoming a serious agenda item for MSG and even for the PIF. Following on from OPM lobbying, WPNCL is seeking support from the MSG and the PIF to sponsor the West Papua case to the United Nations General Assembly and the International Court of Justice. It is an issue whose time has finally come. Conclusion 5: 5.1 The West Papaun issue is an international case that can only be resolved at the United Nations. West Papua was delivered to Indonesia to avoid Superpower conflict, or, in other words, for world peace. In this postCold War era it is possible to reverse that decision. The world owes it to West Papua. 5.2. WPNCL is also leaving the door open for direct negotiation. However, it will no longer ask or wait for Jakarta. Convincing Jakarta to negotiate is now the responsibility of third parties. We are hoping that those who created the monster, the New York Agreement, will play a role in this process. After all the West Papua case was born out of a conflict management situation but West Papuans were left out. If this is the option to take, then West Papua must play an important role in the process as equals to find a lasting solution. Closing remarks: 218 We have found ourselves in a very enlightened time where the Middle East is exploding with popular demands for freedom and democratic rule. Propped up regimes during the Cold War era, such as Suharto’s Indonesia, cannot any longer be sustained. The winds of change are sweeping the world; the people are taking totalitarian governments to task. Indonesians might say, we have been there; we have done it. They might have been, but unfortunately for West Papua nothing has changed and I don’t think Indonesia will ever allow full freedom and democracy in West Papua. Because the more freedom and democratic rights restored to the Papuans the louder they will demand their right of self determination and independence. Even the much talked about Special Autonomy will not shut them down, especially after its original purpose was totally undermined. Paradoxically, as we all know too well after half a century, the Indonesian military and its militias are stubbornly allergic to the notion of independence and will continue to commit violence. The only way forward is the United Nations. (Or perhaps the government of Indonesia should adopt a federal system?). References 1. Sighted in, W.Henderson, West New Guinea: The Dispute and Its Settlement (1973). 2. Kees Lagerberg, West Irian and Jakarta Imperialism (1979). 3. Henderson, Op. cit. 4. Martin Tsamenyi and Nyaneke Blay, West Papua Self-determination and International Law (1993). 5. Easter D, Britain and the Confrontation with Indonesia,1960-1966 ( 2004) 6. Rex Mortimer, Indonesian Communism under Sukarno: Ideology and Politics, 1959-1965 (1974) 7. R. Rumakiek (1996), Masters Thesis, The Colonial Legacy and West Papua, University of Sydney, pp 40-41” 8. M.A. Sri Adhiati and A.Bobsien (Eds), Indonesia’s Transmigration Program, An Update (2001) 219 9. UNGA Official Records, Doc.7723 (November 6, 1969), Annex 1, report by the UN Representative. 10. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Update, 31 January 2001 11. Edward Aspinall, A More Promising Basis for Peace in Aceh, East-West Center, Washington (2005). 12. Jason MacLeod, The Struggle for Self-determination in West Papua (2009) 13. Down to Earth No. 47, November 2000 14. ‘Papuan leader killed amid military build-up’,.Survival International, 31 January 2002 15. Internal WPNCL Report (2008). 16. John Saltford, United Nations Involvement with the Act of Self-determination in West Irian, 1968-1969, p 15. 17. United Nations Monograph, United Nations and Decolonization (2001). 18. Saltford op cit pp 13-14 19. Sighted in Sam Blay (Prof. of International Law), West Papua: Legal and Political Options (Van.Doc.2000). 20. UNGA Official Records, 4th Session Plen. Sess. 1812 Meeting, 13th November 1969, Para 6. 21. Blay, op cit, p.6. 22. Indonesian Parliament, Special Autonomy Law 21/2001 23. ‘Special Autonomy has failed’ MRP Statement No 02/MRP/2010,. 24. Internal OPM Report, 1985. 25. OPM and PDP Report, November 2000. 26. PIF Meeting, Funafuti, Kiribati, October 2000, Communiqué on West Papua. 27. Internal WPNCL Report, August 2008. 28. Parliament of the Republic of Vanuatu, Second Extraordinary Session, Motion No 2 of 2010, 19 June 2010. 220 Chapter sixteen: The resistance struggle of the West Papuan people organisationally requires Trias Politica Herman Wainggai Introduction For nearly fifty years the resistance to Indonesian occupation has taken various forms – including armed opposition, public demonstrations by students and other community groupings, celebrations of national identity with flag raisings, pronouncements of an independent nation, clandestine resistance groups, public rallies to provoke authorities to incarcerate dissidents, voluntary exile by political organisers, songs of defiance in the mother-tongues of the different tribes, promotion and retention of national identity and resistance to the colonial power through the stories told to the children and to the grandchildren in each home and in each village throughout West Papua. Despite this vast array of evidence of West Papuan commitment to freedom, against the backdrop of intense suffering and deprivation, the international community has been deaf to the call of the people for recognition of their struggle. This chapter highlights the decision to adopt the organisational grid of Trias Politica in the West Papuan struggle for independence in order to gain credibility from the international community for the peaceful resolution of the independence issue and demonstrate a readiness for self-government as a nation-state. In pursuing resolution to their political situation the Papuans have pursued peaceful dialogue and have come to refer to their struggle as a kind of ‘memoria passionis’. The role of the WPNA will also be considered – its campaign, future policy, constitution and strategies for peaceful resolution. The traditional canoe is used as a metaphor of the WPNA. The struggle of the ancestors is passed on to the 221 next generation through knowledge, loyalty and perseverance. The WPNA is like a canoe carrying different tribes united by nationalism to be one people, one soul and one nation. ‘Memoria Passionis’ inspires the non-violence movement225 West Papua is a land with around 300 different languages226 and is home to ancient cultures including the oldest cultivating society in history. Yet its future is not secure and faces critical risks. Prior to the first Indonesian military invasion on 19 December 1961, code-named Trikora, there was a balanced ecosystem of flora, fauna co-existing with humans. There were stunning birds of paradise flying over natural forest and shallow coral reefs, coastal swamps and alpine glaciers. Since the occupation the beauty of West Papua has been increasingly lost or put in jeopardy. The natural resources have been seized by foreign opportunists who see Papua as a place to be exploited for their own purposes. Yet the international community is becoming increasingly aware of the need for peace and justice in every sense in the land. Papuan people need healthy and prosperous communities and a healthy economic environment for the nation. Like other nations, Papuans search for democracy, justice and equality, but West Papua continues to be haunted by what has been called a ‘memoria passionis’, or a collective ‘memory of suffering’. On the one hand this refers to the complex of suffering experiences of the West Papuans under Indonesian government control for nearly five decades.227 On the other hand the Memoria Passionis is a theological term referring to the redemptive sufferings of Jesus. This faithconstruct imbues many West Papuans with a sense of identity, purpose and meaning in a life of afflictions and subjugation. In that sense it is analogous to the early black American experience of slavery in America, finding cultural 227 DESCRIPTION OF PROBLEMS IN PAPUA Presentation by Catholic Churchleaders in Papua in A PERSONAL MEETING WITH PRESIDENT ABDURRAHMAN WAHID JAKARTA, 27 JUNE 2000, (The Office for Justice & Peace Jayapura Diocese, translation provided by Theo van den Broek) http://www.raceandhistory.com/worldhotspots/papuaproblems.htm Viewed 29 January, 2011. 222 expression in their ‘spirituals’ e.g. Nobody knows the trouble I seen, nobody knows but Jesus. This has enabled them to celebrate ‘life in the midst of death’ and transform defeat into hope of victory, hate into love, violence into peace and the inhuman dispensing of wrong into commitment to justice. The ongoing conflicts, however, inspire West Papuans to endeavour to solve their ‘memoria passionis’ through non-violence. In this way their claims can be resolved peacefully and in accordance with international conventions. The net effect of the long marathon of misery and suffering under the Indonesian regime has been to galvanise all components of Papuan society in the struggle women, youth, churches, tribal council, NGO’s and political agencies. Their plight has been largely unknown by the world but West Papuans are undaunted in their resolve to prosecute to the conclusion a dignified solution that is comprehensive and represents a true political settlement of their demands. West Papua’s struggle requires organisational resistance One of the most powerful weapons in the campaign for self-determination is an organised resistance with a disciplined chain of command. This is vital but in itself is not enough. The revolutionary struggle requires coordination, decisionmaking and representation. Organised resistance must coalesce into a unified and mass supported political institution that is a manifestation of the will of the people. This will earn from the international community recognition, credibility and leverage for change to come about. Institution as an embryonic state Within the political institution there must be placed an ‘embryonic state’, which will direct and coordinate the struggle. This embryonic state is demonstrated in actuality in democratic societies in various forms but is known as Trias Politica, whereby the separation of powers is safeguarded by an executive, legislative and judiciary. Within that organisational structure in the resistance phase are the 223 political, diplomatic, clandestine and military wings, as well as what is described as the Moral Force. The political wing is commissioned by leaders who are willing to risk their lives in confronting the colonial government legally and politically. This role involves sacrifice and risk of imprisonment and death, and those willing to undertake it can become heroic symbolic figures. The diplomatic wing is the leadership of the resistance organisation in promoting and advocating self-determination to the international community and devising strategies with the colonial government for the peaceful resolution of the independence issue. The clandestine wing consolidates its networks and logistics to the resistance movement. The military wing is the last human resource as a power to mobilise military diplomacy. The West Papuan resistance since the 1980’s has eschewed the mobilisation of the military wing to bring to an end the Indonesian occupation. The moral force wing consists of indigenous NGOs - including religious, student, academic, women, environmental, professional, human rights groups and various other legal elements – which exist to uphold peaceful action and strengthen people's partisanship. West Papua National Authority (WPNA) origins The West Papua National Authority emerged from the West Melanesia movement of the 1980’s and the opposition to Indonesia within the Papuan universities and the various campaigns in the last decade of the millenium. Its significant leadership and support had served time as political prisoners, and by the first half of the decade had garnered significant grass-roots support. 224 Commitment to unite the resistance In 2001, three West Papua organisations sent delegations to the Pacific Island Forum in Nauru. These delegations were rejected at PIF and raised a lot of questions about unity amongst those involved in the West Papuan struggle. Subsequently, in February 2002, in Wewak on the north coast of Papua New Guinea, political leaders and activists from the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM, Free West Papua Organisation), Papua Presidium Council (PDP), and the West Papuan New Guinea Congress gathered to form the United West Papua National Front for Independence (UWPNFFI). This gathering was welcomed by Sir Michael Somare (current Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea) and by the late Sir Tony Bais, another founding father of PNG. Publication of WPNA Two years later, on 6 February 2004, also in Wewak, due to the global issue of terrorist organisations using the word Clandestine Front in their organisations, UWPNFFI made an amendment to change the name of the organisation to United West Papua National Council for Independence (UWPNCFI). Following this a final gathering was held in Wewak, Papua New Guinea on 14 -16 July 2004. Outcomes from extensive workshops resulted in the incorporation of the ideology of a Trias Politica to be responsible for the moral, political, military, and diplomatic divisions of the resistance in West Papua. A fresh commitment was made to a peaceful revolution imbued with the spirit of the sacrifice of ‘body and soul, blood and tears’ for the sake of the coming generations. The following month in Jayapura, on 16 August 2004, a specially convened meeting of the UWPNCFI resulted in the public announcement of the formation of the West Papua National Authority (WPNA) by Rev. Terrianus Yoku, President of National Congress. Papuan National Consensus confirms WPNA as National Provisional Government 225 On 14 May 2009, the West Papua Youth and Students Peace Movement facilitated two meetings between the civil rights organisations (Moral Force) and political organisations (Political force). During the meeting the West Papua National Consensus Committee invited the Papua Presidium Council/PDP - which had organised the 2nd Papuan Congress in May 2000 - to assume responsibility as a National House of Representatives. The Traditional Council (DAP) 228 was confirmed as the forum for discussion and determination of indigenous issues. The West Papua National Authority was invited to continue functioning, through its thirty-two departments, as the National Provisional Government with responsibility to deliver political independence for the nation. Since then, the (collective) Papua National Consensus has functioned as a unifying spirit for political development inside and outside of West Papua. Transitional (Time-framed) Nature of WPNA The WPNA is a transitional government and as such will bring the resistance through to the processes of political independence – including referendum, surrender of control by the Unitary Republic of Indonesia to a United Nations Transitional control, and democratic elections. The Authority is proposing a federal political arrangement and therefore all states or sectors within Papua to be yet formalised will be represented in a democratic representational system. The Papuan people themselves will need to decide on this - the right to choose the political form of the nation-state at the end of the day is vested in the people who will express their intent through the parliament they elect after independence. 228 Dr. Thomas Wainggai who made the proclamation of ‘West Melanesia” on 14 December 1988, based on indigenous identity, respected the land rights of the indigenous people of Mamberamo Tami (MAMTA) Tribal Council who had responsibility for the land around Mandela Stadium, Jayapura, where the proclamation was made. Dr Wainggai had had an in camera meeting with Theys Eluay, who at the time was chairman of MAMTA, to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land. In November 2001, the Presidium leader, Theys Eluay, was murdered by the Indonesian military. Under pressure from the international community, trials took place, but lower-ranking military officers ultimately convicted of the crime were quietly released from prison some months later. 226 Identified leadership of WPNA Speaker, National Congress: - Rev. Terrianus Yoku, a Protestant pastor in Sentani (Jayapura). Pastor Yoku is an ex-political prisoner, and member of the Papua Presidium. President of the Executive: - Edison Waromi, S.H., a lawyer, ex-political prisoner 1989-1999, 2001, 2002, and 2003-4; long-time member of West Melanesia National Council and Organisasi Papua Merdeka. Supreme Commander, West Papua National Liberation Army: - BrigadierGeneral Richard Joweni, a long-time member of Organisasi Papua Merdeka and chairman of West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL). Co-ordinator, Foreign Affairs: - Jacob Rumbiak, former lecturer in the physical sciences at Cenderawasih University, political prisoner, long-time member of Organisasi Papua Merdeka, and founding member of the non-violent campaign for independence. Mr. Rumbiak currently lives in Melbourne. UN Representative - Tarrimas Kaisiepo; long-time member OPM; ex political prisoner; Secretary-General Byak Tribe; Papua Presidium Council; currently residing in Vanuatu; Oceania Decolonisation Committee – vice secretary general. Diplomat, Asia-Pacific - Herman Wainggai; long-time member of West Melanesia National Council; student organiser and activist; political prisoner 2001, 2002—2004, currently residing in Melbourne. For obvious reasons there are many other leaders who cannot be identified at this time but presently occupy important roles in Papuan society. Three international paths to self-determination There are three paths that could be followed whereby West Papua is able to become an independent nation-state. The first path via United Nations The first is by the registration of the West Papuan issue on the UN agenda through a member state, OR through the lobbying of a West Papuan Transitional Government office set-up in New York, UN member states support the national 227 official representative of West Papuans to register the problem into the Learning and Liaison Section of the United Nations. Either way the aim is specifically for West Papua to be classified as a nation yet to be de-colonised. Some nations are in the process of being lobbied, including some countries yet to be disclosed. This path would see member states pressing the UNGA to Review the 1962 New York Agreement and the 1969 Act of Free Choice (PEPERA) revoking the UN General Assembly Resolution No. 2504, 19 November 1969. The outcome of such a review could lead then to a newly determined status of West Papua and a decolonisation process based on UN protocols and mechanisms for decolonisation. The second path via the UN to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) The referral or prosecution of cases to the UN’s ICJ is limited to member states only or some UN bodies. As West Papua is not a member state of the UN it cannot itself prosecute the legality of its take-over by Indonesia directly through the ICJ. So this second path would involve the referring of Papua’s case directly to the ICJ by a member state. The Republic of Vanuatu, for instance, in June 2010, passed a bill to register West Papua on the UNGA agenda with a request for its status to be referred to the ICJ. Until now it has yet to do so. While there has been expressed interest in working towards this end by a variety of individuals or groups – e.g. International Lawyers for West Papua, and other international lawyers willing to work pro-bono – until now no case has been brought. The third path via international dialogue The third path provides for the Republic of Indonesia’s agreement for an international dialogue with a third-party mediator for a political solution through one of two alternatives as the main instrument: 1) Referendum – a genuine testing of the will of the West Papuan people, or 2) Legal recognition of one of the political events in West Papua’s history since 1961 which proclaimed a Free Papua by the de facto West Papuan leadership based for example on 228 constitutional law, religion, cultural and national identity and geography. This would be a win-win situation for both Indonesia and West Papua, and would be the preferable course of action, providing for Indonesia to retain initiative and for the option of no further Papuan blood being spilt. Political processes arising out of legal recognition In the event of legal recognition being afforded to West Papua’s declaration of independence the following processes will need to take place: Transition UNGA passes resolution jointly signed and ratified by Indonesia and West Papua National Authority (and possible third party international member) ratifying the legal recognition of West Papua’s independent status and its borders. Authority and Administration will be handed over from the Unitary Republic of Indonesia to the UN Transitional Assistance Body – eg UNTAWP (United Nations Transitional Administration for West Papua) – with an Administrator working with the WPNA, the pra-sovereign governing body. The United Nations flag will be flown together with the Morning Star flag. All Indonesian military and police personnel will be repatriated to Indonesian territory from West Papua and a UN peacekeeping force will be deployed. Currently serving indigenous Papuan members of the military or police may continue to serve under the control of the UN peace keeping authority. West Papuan armed resistance fighters will be welcomed and formal surrender of weapons will take place at appointed posts throughout the country. Immigration processes will be set in place to receive returning exiles and to determine citizenship of the newly formed sovereign state. 229 A census of the people will be taken and a process will be set-up for NonPapuans to apply to stay within West Papua and commit to the newly constituted sovereign state or alternatively return to Indonesia. All transition of economic and financial arrangements within West Papua formerly done on behalf of West Papua by the Republic of Indonesia will be handled by a specially convened financial body by the new authority. The people of West Papua will be free to create Political Parties for representation in general elections. A first election will be held to determine the members of the Constitution Council, that is the Nation Formation Council. Indigenous Papuans will be eligible to vote in this election - the determination of ‘indigenous’ will be made at the birth-village requiring witnesses from both the father’s and the mother’s side. The Constitution of the nation state of West Papua will be published. General Elections will be held according to the structure of the newly formed state. The Formation and Government of the new nation State of West Papua The constitution will frame the basis for West Papua’s ideals and philosophy, in order to set the directions of national policy for the new nation state. The new government will be formed from the general election. The head of state will declare the newly independent nation of West Papua. International Relations West Papua’s admittance into membership of the United Nations. Through its Foreign Affairs Department West Papua will begin to open diplomatic relations with the international community. Development and Security Practical independence will be pursued through a program of national 230 development in every aspect of life within West Papua. West Papua’s sovereignty will be maintained throughout its area by the creation of security mechanisms. West Papua aims to exist on friendly and peaceful terms with the international community and its neighbours on the basis of mutual respect and the worth of all people and nations and the sovereignty of their respective states. Issues surrounding a referendum The pressure upon Indonesia for a Referendum may come from a number of different sources, including diplomatic pressure on Indonesia from member states who have been lobbied by a projected intensive West Papuan lobbying campaign. This in turn could result in there being the numbers for a successful resolution in the UNGA for Indonesia to allow a Referendum of the West Papuan people under the auspices of the UN. Indonesia could flout the resolution as it did for many years concerning its condemnation for its invasion of Timor Leste. The other pressure may come from a mobilisation of social democratic forces from within Papua itself, similar to the actions we see across the world at this time. A concerted civil disobedience action, accompanied by sustained mass demonstrations across West Papua, and reported across social and mainstream media may prove too much for the Indonesian Governement to ignore or supress any longer. The outcome of such actions would not be further talks, or promises of reform but the guarantee of a referendum, the release of all political prisoners, the withdrawal of the army, the anti-terror unit Densus 88 and Brimob, as well as a guarantee that no militias will be armed or supported by security forces within Indonesia. The preparation for the Referendum Whether Indonesian administration finishes before or after a referendum, it is non-negotiable that the Indonesian security forces leave WP and is replaced by a substantial UN peacekeeping force for at least 12 months prior to the Referendum. A body will be created to set up the conditions concerning the 231 preparation, eligibility of voters and the conduct of the referendum. Indigenous Papuans will be eligible as per the conditions mentioned beforehand. The conduct of the Referendum will be carried out as per international protocols under the auspice of the UN. The follow-up to the Referendum A transition period will take place as per my previous remarks regarding transition after legal recognition. Conclusions West Papua's struggle is a tragic, rich and tough drama about cold-war politics, the depravity of an unrestricted military dictatorship, greed and corruption, the struggle to end a colonialist era as well as an indifferent Indonesian public and international public to the attrocities of fifty years perpetrated on the Papuan people. It is also a drama about sacrifice, hope and courage of a people who have never stopped and will never stop fighting for justice and freedom. The nonviolent struggle has required a maturity and unity to form a transitional government which will need to convey the West Papuan’s multi-faceted resistance through to independence. The shape of this government is a Trias Politica with executive, legislative and judiciary bodies, promoting self-determination and devising strategies to Jakarta and the international community for the peaceful political resolution of the independence issue. The role of the West Papua National Authority (WPNA) in its campaign and agenda, is crucial. This is particularly so in promoting and maintaining unity between the leadership inside and outside West Papua, not only between those who are prominent in the national (Indonesian) and international arenas, but also between the tribal leaders, the NGO and religious sectors, and the student organisations. The concept of Trias Politica signifies the internationalising of the Free West Papua movement, identifies fundamental 232 issues facing West Papuans and provides some ultimate solutions to achieve peaceful settlement. References Byrne, Louise West Papua: tensions and contradictions in the transition to independence (incomplete dissertation) Globalism Institute, RMIT University, Melbourne 2011. Franck, Thomas M Nation against Nation, What Happened to the U.N. Dream and What the U.S. Can Do About It? Oxford University Press, United Kingdom 1985. Locke, John: The Separation of Powers. Web site: www.chuckbraman.com, viewed 31 January, 2011 Marthen Singgir & Herman Wainggai: West Papua National Youth Awareness Team’ s Notes, 2002. Montesquieu, That Bloke Montesquieu. Website: http://www.southsearepublic.org/article/458/read/That_Bloke_Montesquieu, viewed on 30 January, 2011. Principle Regulations of the West Papuan Struggle for Independence, United West Papua National Council for Independence, Chapter XI, Article 54. Rumbiak, Jacob., Foreign Affairs, West Papua National Authority. Solving the Political Impasse between Indonesia and West Papua, Melbourne 2010. The Office for Justice & Peace Jayapura Diocese, (translation provided by Theo van den Broek), Presentation by Catholic Churchleaders in Papua in A PERSONAL MEETING WITH PRESIDENT ABDURRAHMAN WAHID JAKARTA, 233 27 JUNE 2000, Race and History, http://www.raceandhistory.com/worldhotspots/papuaproblems.htm, 2000, Viewed 29 January, 2011. West's Encyclopedia of American Law, edition 2. Separation of Powers, The Gale Group, Inc., Copyright 2008, http://legal- dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Trias+politica, accessed on 30 February, 2011. Woolford, Kelly. Papua Adventures, http://www.papua-adventures.com/florafauna.html, viewed 31 February, 2011. 234 Chapter seventeen: Papuan perspectives on peace in West Papua John Ondawame The experiences and the history of Papua have shown that violence has never solved the Papuan conflict. ... The solution to the Papuan conflict lies in peaceful means, namely, dialogue, which is urgently needed to prevent further bloodshed in the future’ 229. Introduction Peaceful efforts to bring about fundamental change in West Papua have always been problematic in the last four decades, for many reasons. However, the call for change has been broadcast loud and clear in the last 12 years since a democratisation process was set in motion after the 1998 fall of Soeharto’s military regime in Indonesia. This chapter will examine those voices for change from a Papuan perspective, through providing a brief history of the OPM resistance movement, as well as the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation formed in 2008. In this chapter I examine these organisations’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as the priorities they hold in common. My primary objective is to present an overview demonstrating how Papuan attempts to establish a peace process have unified and developed over the last seven years. Colonisation, conflict and violence in West Papua The New York Agreement of August 1962 and the 1969 Act of Free Choice are seen by many West Papuans as gross violations of their human rights. Papuan 229 Tebay, Neles (2009), Dialog Jakarta-Papua, Office of Justice and Peace of Catholic Diocese of Jayapura, p.2. 235 leaders argue that they were never consulted before the New York Agreement was signed. Leaders, and I include myself here, uphold that the Act of Free Choice was not conducted in line with the international standard of ‘one person, one vote’. Out of a potential 1.5 million West Papuan voters, only 1,025 so-called ‘representatives of the people’ voted, with a significant degree of coercion involved, including being held at gunpoint230. Therefore, for many Papuans, the legitimacy of Indonesian claims over West Papua is questionable. As one observer has stated,‘the current political status of the territory is nothing more than a colony of Indonesia for legal reasons’231 . The Indonesian armed forces have, over the years, exercised a heavy-handed security policy in the region that has involved documented human rights abuses against the people of West Papua including extra-judicial killings, executions, torture, intimidation, imprisonment, sexual violence and rape232 . The Indonesian government has also actively promoted, as well as passively allowed, widespread discrimination against indigenous people and the influx of migrants that today has reduced the Papuan population to a minority in its own land. The most significant factor contributing to social disadvantage of West Papuans is the massive influx of immigrants from Indonesia to West Papua under both 230 Ondawame, Otto (2003), ’Comments’, In Lyubomir Ivanov (Ed.), Future of the Falkland Islands and Its People, Sofia. pp.63. See also: Otto Ondawame, (2003), ‘The Colonial Politics of Papuan Rights’, In Janusz Bienek and Garry Trompf (Eds), Historical Perspective, Plight of Papuan Religion and Politics in West Papua (or Irian Jaya), Michelite Community in PNG and Australia, Mt. Hagen, pp.103. 231 Janki, Melinda (2009), Statement of the Co-Chairman of International Lawyers for West Papua, speaking during the launch of the European Parliament group for West Papua, Brussels, January 2009. 232 Budiardjo, Carmel & Liem Soie Liong (1984). West Papua: The Obliteration of People, TAPOL, London; Australian Council for Overseas Aid (1995), Trouble at Freeport: Eyewitness Account of the West Papuan Resistance to Freeport MacMoRan Mine in Irian Jaya, June 1994February 1995, Australian Council for Overseas Aid, Melbourne; Amnesty International (1991), Human Right Violations in Irian Jaya, Geneva; Zonggonau W, et al. (1997), Accuses: The Case of West Papua, Port Moresby; Haluk, Markus (2009), A Report of State Violence in West Papua, Consensus Working Committee, Jayapura 236 sponsored and spontaneous233 “transmigration” programs234. In 1959 it was estimated that non-Papuans made up 2 per cent of the total population. In 2011 the number is expected to rise to 53.5 per cent235. If migration continues at the same rate, the percentage of indigenous Papuans will shrink to 15.2 per cent in 2030236. Estimations differ but the serious marginalisation of the people of West Papua is not in doubt, as indicated by the following list of disadvantages Papuans face: • Discrimination in jobs, health services, and education, the result being that non Papuans dominate the economy; • An unequal distribution of social services and economic opportunities between Papuans and non-Papuans; • Exploitation of natural resources, which benefits foreigners and a small elite of Papuans, and leaves indigenous landowners in poverty237; • The prohibition of many aspects of Papuan culture, languages, traditions and ways of life including the use of national symbols such as the Morning Star flag;238 • The spread of HIV via sex-workers arriving in West Papua from other parts 233 The sponsored transmigration program is supported by the government and aims to shift landless peasants, mainly from Java and Bali, to outer islands in Indonesia, including West Papua. Spontaneous transmigrants are those who come of their own accord and under their own costs. Most of them come from Sulawesi, Nusa Tenggara, Kalimantan, Moluccas and Sumatra. 234 Manufandu, Septer states: “One ship brought in 2,206 migrants every week. If there are three ships, it will be 6,618 migrants every week. A month will be 26,472 and a year will be 317, 664. If it takes seven years, the number of immigrants in Jayapura alone will reach 2,223,648. Papuans become a minority group in their own soil.” See, Manufandu, Septer (2009), West Papuan Update, Papuan NGOs Cooperation Forum, Jayapura, pp. 26. 235 Widjojo, Muridan, (2009), Papua Road Map: Negotiating the Past, Improving the Present and Securing the Future, LIPI, Jakarta, pp. 17. 236 Manufandu, Septer (2009), ‘Demographic Disaster In West Papua’, West Papuan Update, Papuan NGOs Cooperation Forum, Jayapura, pp.25. 237 It is estimated that 81.5 per cent of Papuans live under the poverty line. See, Septer Manufandu (2009), West Papuan Update, Papuan NGOs Cooperation Forum, Jayapura, pp. 22. 238 Specifically, “Government regulation No: 77/2007 prohibited the use of Morning Star-the flag of the OPM as cultural symbol”. Agus, Alua (2010), ‘MRP described as a child who was born in the jungle’ Cenderawasih Pos, 19 June, Jayapura. 237 of Indonesia. As of 2009, 4,500 people suffer from HIV and 1,055 from AIDS in West Papua239. Comparatively, the level of HIV/AIDS in West Papua is much higher than in other parts of “Indonesia” and Papua New Guinea. This suggests that the spreading of this deadly disease seems to be a colonial policy to exterminate the Papuans. The Free Papua Movement and West Papua National Coalition for Liberation Papuan people have engaged in various forms of resistance to Indonesian colonisation. This section will focus on two key resistance groups: the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM) or Free Papua Movement, and the West Papuan National Coalition for Liberation (the Coalition)240. The central objectives of the OPM and the Coalition are to liberate the people of West Papua from Indonesian colonialism, discrimination and exploitation, and to establish a democratic, just, peaceful and prosperous independent state of West Papua241. The OPM The resistance movement came to life on July 26, 1965 with the creation of the OPM. However, a silent resistance movement had already started in West Papua during the Dutch colonial period. Ferry Awom joined forces with the Papuan Kasuari Battalion242 and employees of the Department of Forestry and 239 In the gold mining district of Degeuwo in Paniai regency, there are 234 sex workers (from Jakarta and Surabaya) and some 152 people were reportedly infected by HIV and AIDS in the gold mining area between 2007 and 2009. See: Manufandu, Septer (2009), West Papuan Update, Papuan NGOs Cooperation Forum, Jayapura, pp. 28. 240 The OPM is the main resistance movement in West Papua, which has a political and military wing. The military wing of the OPM is called TPN. The Coalition is a newly established body aiming to bring all resistance movements into one body for the sake of national unity and the unification of common perceptions. More than 28 resistance movements, including the OPM, joined the Coalition. 241 Ondawame, Otto (2010), One People, One Soul, West Papuan Nationalism and the Organisasi Papua Merdeka, Crawford House Publishing, Adelaide, pp. 85-86. 242 Ferry Awom was a member of the Papuan Voluntary Forces, which was called the Papuan Kasuari Battalion and was trained by the Dutch to defend West Papua from the Indonesian occupation during a brief war between the Dutch and Indonesians in 1961-2. 238 Agriculture243, and declared an independent Papuan state after attacking military and police posts244. Although the movement was crushed four days later by the Indonesian military, it fuelled Papuan nationalism, and the OPM increased its military activities in the border region with Papua New Guinea. All military activities were carried out by the OPM in this earlier period. However, since the establishment of the National Liberation Army of West Papua (NLAWP) in 1968, military activities have been carried out by the NLAWP as well. The OPM’s political vision and mission was to achieve independence for West Papua by destroying Indonesian colonialism. Simultaneously, Papuan leaders in the Netherlands established the National Liberation Council (NLC) in 1968 that was responsible for political lobbying245. The relationship between the OPM inside Papua and the NLC in the Netherlands was amicable and strong. The leaders of the NLC advised the leaders of the OPM, and the NLC supported independence. The OPM, through the President of the Provisional Revolutionary Government of West Papua, General Seth Rumkorem, again unilaterally declared independence on July 1, 1971. He called for a fair and democratic referendum under the direct supervision of the UN. However, in 1976, the leadership split between the two main leaders of the OPM, Jacob Prai, who was Chair of the Senate of the West Papuan Provisional Parliament, and Seth Rumkorem. This caused a restructuring and reorientation of the OPM that widened its influence and decentralised power within the organisation. More negatively, the split caused internal power struggles, which threatened both the OPM’s unity and 243 Manokwari was the main training centre for agriculture and forestry in West Papua during the Dutch Administration. Because of this, workers were elite Papuans who understood well their rights to self-determination and independence. For this reason, they joined the Kasuari Battalion. 244 MacDougall, J. (1995), ‘Sebuah Cita-cita dari Hutan Irian’, Apakabar Daily Newspapers, Jakarta, 25 September. See also: Ondawame, Otto (2010), One People, One Soul, West Papuan Nationalism and the Organisasi Papua Merdeka, Crawford House Publishing, Political Program, Adelaide, pp. 64. 245 Ondawame, Otto (2010), One People, One Soul, West Papuan Nationalism and the Organisasi Papua Merdeka, Crawford House Publishing, Adelaide, pp. 74-78. 239 reputation.246 Seth Rumkorem led a military unit called Tentara Pembebasan Nasional (TEPENAL), or the National Liberation Army. He established four regional command structures mostly in the northern parts of West Papua such as Biak, Japen-Waropen, Manokwari and Sorong. A group called Pembela Keadilan (PEMKA), or the Restoration of Justice group, was led by Jacob Prai. TEPENAL had five regional command structures. The Port Vila Peace Declaration in 1985 led to the two groups unifying once more. The OPM was commanded by General Matthias Wenda up until 2008, and then by Kelly Kwalik, who was shot by the Indonesian police in December 2009. It is now led by General Richard Youweni, Chairman of the OPM and of the Coalition. He is serving as Acting Supreme Commander of the TPN until an official decision is made on who will fill the post247 . The OPM now consists of two wings: military (TPN) and political. The purpose of the military wing is to launch campaigns to protect the lives of indigenous Papuans from the Indonesian military and to destroy the colonial occupation forces, its facilities and its allies. The military wing has nine decentralised regional commands, which make coordination a key challenge. The supreme TPN commander (also the Chair of the Coalition) is responsible for military initiatives248. The political wing operates inside and outside of West Papua and has offices in Sweden (since 1998) and in Vanuatu (since 2003). The office in Malmö (Sweden) is responsible for diplomatic outreach, public education 246 Ondawame, Otto (2010), One People, On Soul, West Papuan Nationalism and the Organisasi Papua Merdeka, Crawford House Publishing, pp. 81-110. 247 A new Supreme Commander of the TPN will be appointed soon. General Richard Youweni is currently acting as Supreme Commander. General Jack Kemong is Regional Commander of the Nemangkawi Command of the TPN in the Southern Highlands region. 248 It is interesting to note that the Chair of the Coalition is also the Chairperson of the OPM. 240 campaigns and fundraising, whereas the Vanuatu office (which is also the Secretariat of the Coalition) leads on international campaigning. Both wings, with a few exceptions249, support dialogue as a viable method to resolve the conflict. In addition, the OPM and the Coalition work closely with groups in London and New York. The OPM argues that all Papuans that support independence are members of the OPM. The OPM claims that they have never received weapons from abroad and that their most effective arms are traditional weapons. The Coalition The Coalition was established in order that an effective political agenda might also be established250. It has provided new direction for the OPM and helped to improve its image, leadership, and organisational structure. To take into account the independence of each member of the Coalition, it has a less formal organisational structure than other organisations. But in order to coordinate effectively between its members, the Coalition is structured as follows: the National Congress is the highest body in the Coalition. Its decisions are implemented by the National Executive Council. The Secretary General runs the daily administrative operation, assisted by Coordinator of the Congress. The Secretary General appoints representatives for Desk, Bureau and General Administration, and the Ad Hoc Committee. Inside Papua, the Coalition is led by Richard Youweni, the Supreme Commander of the OPM and Chairman of the Coalition. The Chairman is supported by the Committee, which is 249 A small section within the political and military wings believes in armed struggle as a viable alternative to conflict resolution in West Papua. They are represented by the older generation and the militant section of the OPM. 250 Among the leaders are: General Richard Youweni, Chairman; Dr. Otto Ondawame, Vice Chairman; Mr. Rex Rumakiek, Secretary General; and the late General Kelly Kwalik, Supreme Commander of the TPN. In addition, several country representatives were appointed. At the moment, two-thirds of the coalition’s Executive Council are from the OPM and TPN. 241 responsible for the socialisation of the Coalition’s programme, the promotion of peaceful dialogue and reconciliation, and also for mobilising the public. The current chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee is Alberth Kaleile. Branches of the committee are operating in each province and regency in West Papua under the coordination of the Ad Hoc Central Committee based in Port Numbay (Jayapura). Abroad, we have appointed representatives to select countries to assist the Coordinator of International Relations. The Coalition has also gained more regional and international recognition for West Papuan issues. In 2010, the Government of Vanuatu, for example, expressed its full support for both the Coalition and the broader goal of independence for West Papua251. Consulting within the movement Since 2003 a dedicated consultation effort has been undertaken within the movement as part of a reconciliation and unification process. This has included a series of meetings which have helped groups in West Papua to reach common positions and better prepare themselves for any dialogue with the Indonesian government (see the appendix for a full list of meetings and their outcomes)252 . Weaknesses and strengths of the OPM and Coalition The OPM and now the Coalition have faced many difficulties in achieving their main objectives. The three main weaknesses of these two organisations are: • The lack of national unity and common perceptions • No clear overall leadership, organisational structure, program or strategies 251 The Government of Vanuatu has given support to the people of West Papua for several decades. Most recently this was reaffirmed in 2009 by Bakon Kaltonga, ‘Communique on West Papua, Statement of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and External Trade’, 17 April. On 18 June 2010, the Vanuatu Parliament unanimously passed a resolution affirming their support for the independence of West Papua. 252 All previous reconciliation meetings have been funded by local supporters. However, the meetings in Ipoh and Port Vila were partly funded by the Olof Palme Peace Foundation in Stockholm. 242 • Lack of political will of major external actors to address the issue of West Papua Despite these weaknesses, the two organisations have some significant strengths as well: • They are united in their common sentiment against the colonial power • There is an increasingly strong desire within each to promote internal reconciliation and consolidation towards peaceful dialogue, national unity and unity in common perception • There is increasing international support - the problem is no longer a completely isolated issue • Papuans are carrying out the struggle vigorously on their own home soil. Today, the Papuan community has committed to solve points one and two of the list of weaknesses above by taking peace initiatives seriously. Internal reconciliation has strengthened at different times and places, and this will briefly be described later on in this chapter. Priorities of the OPM and Coalition To achieve more significant national unity, further reconciliation is needed and the following approaches should be taken: • Reconciliation amongst Papuans must be supported: The fragmentation of Papuan society is a major challenge for peace. Reconciliation must be encouraged both inside and outside Papua. • Support for ongoing consultation about dialogue between Jakarta and West Papua, led by Father Dr. Neles Tebay and the Coalition’s Working Group, must be forthcoming253: The consultation meetings suggested by Tebay, which the Coalition supports, include: meetings among Papuans in West 253 The Working Group is the new term for what used to be called Task Force for Peace and Reconciliation. The name was changed after the Port Vila Leaders’ Summit. The main tasks of this group are to promote reconciliation and to socialize the Coalition’s policies and programs. 243 Papua; between Papuan leaders abroad; between leaders of factions in Papua and leaders of the OPM abroad; between political leaders of the OPM and regional commanders of the TPN; and, finally, internal reconciliation254. Internal reconciliation is important to unify common perceptions, to form a team of negotiators and to decide about the agenda for internationally mediated peaceful dialogue. • Appropriate ways to encourage the Indonesian Government to engage in peaceful dialogue must be found: Jakarta has so far been very reluctant to engage in dialogue, despite the many calls for peaceful talks from the OPM and the Coalition. The Coalition had approached the Indonesian government and expressed its views on three occasions in the recent past255. However, Jakarta has not responded to these calls. When the leaders of the Gerakan Aceh Merdeka (GAM), or the Aceh Freedom Movement, called for peace talks, the result was the Memorandum of Understanding between Jakarta and GAM in 2005. Jakarta conceded that dialogue became possible because of the GAM’s clear leadership and effective military forces. The Coalition, therefore, focuses on unifying the Papuan leadership to demonstrate the genuine willingness of Papuans to engage with the Indonesian government. There are, however, other ways Jakarta can signal support. One is to implement the Papua Road Map of the Indonesian Institute of Science (LIPI) for achieving dialogue256. • An effective channel of communication between peace process delegates and local constituencies must be built: This especially applies to the 254 Correspondence between the author of this paper and Dr. Neles Tebay, 5th May 2010. 255 Otto Ondawame, then Secretary General of the Coalition, wrote a letter to the Indonesian President of Indonesia, Dr. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, in 2006 calling for peaceful dialogue. Jakarta did not reply so the Secretary General of the Coalition called once again for dialogue in November 2007. On October 15, 2009, the new Secretary General of the Coalition. Rex Rumakiek, wrote another letter to the president to call for peace talks. On August 6, 2010, the latest letter was sent via the president's special envoy, Dr. Felix Wainggai, urging the president to engage in a process of international peaceful dialogue. 256 Muridan S Widjojo (2009). Papua Road Map: Negotiating the Past, Improving the Present and Securing the Future, LIPI, Jakarta, pp.3-226. 244 military wings of the OPM. For example, internal meetings between OPM political leaders and regional military commanders are needed prior to any peace talks. • A nonviolent approach must be promoted as a viable alternative strategy to address the issue. Mobilisation of all forces within the Papuan community is necessary. Failure of the above strategies will lead to the following strategies being undertaken: • International Court of Justice will be consulted. The Coalition will take legal action against those major actors that are implicated in the denial of Papuan rights through the International Court of Justice, aiming to secure an advisory opinion on the political status of West Papua under the sponsorship of a member country of the UN. • The decolonisation process will be taken up once more. Efforts to relist West Papua to the list of the Committee of 24 at the UN will be undertaken. Mobilisation of support from governments and NGOs would be an important task. However, there are still many challenges to achieving this strategy. Recommendations to the Government of Indonesia and the International Community As a result of LIPI’s and the Papuan Peace Networks’ work, the idea of dialogue as a conflict management tool has become part of the public discourse in Indonesia, and is accepted among many stakeholders on both sides as one of the keys to resolving the conflict in Papua. Papuan society and the resistance movement are less fragmented and better prepared for a genuine dialogue – and will become increasingly ready once the recommendations above on strengthening Papuan unity are implemented. All resistance movements should be brought into one united body. 245 But Jakarta has so far been very reluctant to engage in a dialogue despite the many calls for peaceful talks from the OPM and the Coalition. The absence of formal and public support from the Indonesian President for the above mentioned initiatives for a peaceful resolution of the conflict remains a major challenge. The Coalition, therefore, has focused on unifying the Papuan leadership to demonstrate its strong desire for peaceful dialogue. But the Indonesian government needs to take its own steps to make dialogue more likely. With that in mind, the following recommendations to the Indonesian government are put forward: • The government should consider engaging in the process of peaceful dialogue to resolve the conflict in West Papua. The President should publicly endorse dialogue and appoint a special envoy. • An international meeting should be convened on the Papua Road Map drawn up by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI). Invitees are those stakeholders that believe that the Papua conflict can be solved through dialogue257. The meeting would end with recommendations addressed to the Indonesian government. • The government should stop further immigration to West Papua, given the contentious and dislocating nature of the policy for Papuans. The immigration policy is an integral part of the Indonesian government's efforts to colonise West Papua. • The government should undertake a process of demilitarisation in West Papua to build confidence and trust amongst large sections of the Papuan population. Those nations supplying arms and military equipment to Indonesia should insist that they are not used in Papua. • The government should allow international humanitarian organisations and journalists to enter West Papua to monitor the situation. Similarly, 257 Stakeholders include participants from West Papua, Indonesia and the international community. 246 international and regional actors should consider how they could potentially play a positive conflict resolution role. New Zealand showed in the Bougainville peace process that a neutral facilitator can be very effective. Specifically, a neutral facilitator should organise meetings between delegates from Indonesia and Papua to discuss and agree on an agenda for peace talks, including but not limited to: participants, preconditions and barriers to negotiation, principles, leveling the playingfield, resources for the negotiation, form of negotiation, venue and locations, communication and information exchange, setting 258 substantive agenda, time frames, and decision making procedures the . Specifically: • Melanesian governments and those belonging to the Pacific Islands Forum should take an active role in promoting peaceful dialogue, the decolonisation process and sponsoring the issue at the International Court of Justice. Both bodies – the Melanesian Spearhead Group and the Pacific Islands Forum) are asked to clearly position themselves regarding the status of West Papua and revitalise Melanesian cultural links as a means of cultural diplomacy. • The European Union (EU) should stop supporting the Special Autonomy Law, because it does not meet the aspirations of Papuans. Furthermore, the EU must fully support a dialogue process that could lead to fair and equitable outcomes. • The USA, The Netherlands and the UN have unresolved moral and perhaps legal obligations to the people of West Papua. It therefore is appropriate for them to consider being more active in restoring the dignity and human rights of the people of West Papua. They should call for a genuine referendum on self-determination in accordance with international law and 258 David Bloomfield and Charles Nupen (1998), ‘Negotiation Process’ in Peter Harris and Ben Reilly (eds), Democracy and Deep-Rooted Conflict: Options for Negotiations, IDEA, Stockholm, pp. 114-118. 247 under the supervision of the UN. Appendix: Overview of the most important meetings of the WPNCL and in the lead up to it’s constitution 1. Think-Tank Papuan Leaders' Meeting in Nieuwegein, Holland in mid-2003259 This meeting emphasised the need for national unity and reconciliation among all Papuan political and social groups. The primary objectives of the meeting were to discuss national unity, reconciliation and consolidation within the wider Papuan community and resistance movements in particular and also to find appropriate strategies to achieve those goals by dividing tasks among the main political, military and social groups. 2. Papuan Leaders’ Consultation Workshop in Abepura, West Papua in late 2004260 During this workshop, the leaders discussed reconciliation and consolidation efforts within the movement, and agreed to organise a Papuan leaders’ summit to define the way forward. 3. Papuan Leaders’ Consultation meeting in Sydney 2004261 The meeting was about the revitalisation of the Task Force for Reconciliation262 , including the roles and responsibilities of the Coalition’s members inside and outside West Papua. 259 Ondawame, Otto (2008). Let’s Working Together to End the Suffering of Our People, A Briefing Paper, Secretariat of the WPNCL, Port Vila, pp.3. 260 Task Force for Peace and Reconciliation (2004). A Workshop was held in Abepura, Jayapura to discuss reconciliation and consolidation within the movement, Document, Jayapura. 261 Rex Rumakiek (2004). 262 The Task Force for Reconciliation is today called the Working Group for the Coalition. Main role of the old Task Force for Reconciliation was to consult different fractions within the OPM/TPN and also different resistance movement with a view towards internal reconciliation. These tasks are being continued by the Working Group for the Coalition but focusing on peaceful dialogue as the main objective. 248 4. Papuan Leaders' Consultation in Port Vila in late 2004 The meeting discussed reconciliation and consolidation with the OPM as a priority and stated the need to: ‘unify different perceptions and then form a united front that will represent the aspirations of the people of West Papua’263. 5. A meeting in Yambi, Papua New Guinea in late 2005264 This resulted in a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for better working relationships between the various elements of the resistance and the establishment of the West Papuan National Coalition for Liberation as the main umbrella organisation in the liberation struggle. 6. A meeting in Madang, Indonesia in mid-2006265 This was between several commanders and representatives of the TPN who declared their support for unity as well as peaceful dialogue. 7. A military leaders’ meeting at the beginning of 2007266 The military leaders held a meeting in Papua and decided to reorganise the existing military structure. They emphasised again the urgent need of reconciliation and consolidation267. Further, they recommended political leaders to organise a Papuan Leaders’ Summit. 263 Ondawame, Otto (2008), ‘Let’s Work Together to End the Suffering of Our People’, Briefing Paper, Secretariat of the WPNCL, Port Vila, p.5. 264 Task Force for Reconciliation (2006), ‘Report’, Briefing Paper, Secretariat of the WPNCL, Port Vila, pp. 6. See also: Ondawame, Otto (2008), ‘Let’s Work Together to End the Suffering of Our People’, Briefing Paper, Secretariat of the WPNCL, Port Vila, p.5. 265 Task Force for Reconciliation (2008). Memorandum of Understanding, Document, Madang, See also: Ondawame, Otto (2008), ‘Let’s Working Together to End the Suffering of Our People’, Briefing Paper, Secretariat of the WPNCL, Port Vila, pp. 6-7. 266 Task Force for Reconciliation (7th April 2007). TPN leaders meeting in the Headquarters of the OPM in the jungle to discuss their position on reconciliation process, Document. 267 Military reconstruction here means the abolition of Commando Units within the TPN (PEMKA Unit, Victory Unit and Arfak 1965 Unit). All units were merged into one National Liberation Army. 249 8. A meeting in Ipoh, Malaysia in late 2007268 The meeting discussed the broad terms of reference for possible peace talks, and reinforced the emerging Coalition structure. A conclusion of the meeting was a decision to organise a high level meeting of Papuans in Port Vila to continue discussions. 9. The High Level Papuan Leaders’ Summit in Port Vila, Vanuatu in mid-2008269 More than 50 delegates and observers representing 13 various resistance movements participated in the summit and signed a new MoU to work together towards peaceful dialogue. However, a few key actors could not or did not attend the summit for various reasons. Nevertheless, the new leadership has committed to bring them into the national body in the near future. 268 Ondawame, Otto (2008), ‘Let’s Working Together to End the Suffering of Our People’, Briefing Paper, Secretariat of the WPNCL, Port Vila, pp. 7. 269 Ondawame, Otto (2008), ‘Let’s Working Together to End the Suffering of Our People’, Briefing Paper, Secretariat of the WPNCL, Port Vila, pp. 8-18. 250 Chapter eighteen: West Papuan independence policies: Tension in the transition Jacob Rumbiak Introduction This chapter sets out the infrastructural priorities adopted by the West Papua National Authority (WPNA) in the transition from Special Autonomy (2001—2010) to an independent nation-state on the western border of Melanesia Pacific. It develops the Authority’s premise that the application of self-determination strategies best serves West Papuans’ short-term aspiration for political independence and their longer-term ambition for a modern nation-state that celebrates, rather than over-rides, its tribal and traditional formations. It also argues the Authority’s other premise, that the Unitary Republic of Indonesia will only liberate itself from its embarrassing impasse with the West Papuan independence movement if its government and politicians also start considering their position in terms of self-determination. West Papua was, after all, incorporated into Indonesia through an agreement between Indonesia and Holland in 1962 that cites ‘self-determination’ eleven times. It would seem logical, and prudent, for Indonesia now, in 2011, to recognise that Papuans are never going to reconcile themselves to integration, and that there is much more to be gained than lost in co-operating with the moves being made to re-insert the territory on the UN Decolonization List in preparation for another referendum. The chapter builds on my previous paper Solving the Political Impasse Between Indonesia and West Papua—The Readiness of West Papuans to Run Their Own Country, which was prepared for the International Peace Research Association conference at Sydney University in July 2010. That paper was also presented— with slight modifications—in 2010 to The Washington Solution seminar at George Mason University in the US, the Cordillera Peoples’ Alliance conference in The 251 Philippines, and the Kanaky Labour Party Conference on IAAI Island in New Caledonia. Solving the Political Impasse Between Indonesia and West Papua included a summary of the Papuan People’s Assembly’s (MRP) formal denouement of Special Autonomy on 10 June 2010. That this elected cultural (not political) representation of Papuan tribal, women, and religious leaders was prepared to take responsibility for jettisoning the political program that created it shocked Jakarta. That the MRP’s decision was after a two-day formal evaluation with twenty Papuan civil (not political) organisations meant the broadest representation of West Papuan civil society supported it. That this conservative sector of Papuan society then walked alongside the West Papua National Authority calling for a referendum was an unprecedented demonstration of Papuan political unity270. President Yudhoyono immediately ordered an audit of the state budget to examine ‘Which of our policies have been incorrectly focused? …. Is it the management, the budgeting, or the overall efficiency?’271 . Later, in November, his personal spokesperson admitted that in 2010—which included the first US Congressional Hearing on West Papua272 , the institution of a WPNA presence in George Mason University273 , and videos of the military torturing Papuans on the internet—the government ‘managed to deliver a good 270 The MRP had previously defended West Papuans right to call for a referendum (see Cenderawasih Post 18 March 2008 Papua Peoples Assembly Council (MRP) demands Indonesian government release Papuan Peace Rally demonstrators calling for a referendum (cited in Jacob Rumbiak, Briefing Paper, March 2009). 271 Papua provinces development funds: SBY The Jakarta Post, 30 July 2010. 272 Preliminary Transcript of September 22, 2010 Congressional Hearing on West Papua Federal News Service, 22 September 2010 (http://www.etan.org/news/2010/09wpapuahearing.htm). 273 Frans Kapissa, Politics and Law lecturer at Cenderawasih University, was a keynote speaker at the Washington Solution Seminar at George Mason University on the day, 9 November 2010, that veteran American journalist Allan Nairn published a cache of KOPASSUS documents on his website (allainnairn.com). Kapisa was one of fifteen civic leaders listed in one of the documents for ‘abduction and murder’. The list included the head of the Baptist Synod and other evangelical ministers, political activists, traditional leaders, legislators, intellectuals, students, and the leader of Papua Muslim Youth. Kapissa was immediately adopted by the US-based ‘Scholars at Risk’ program and enrolled at George Mason University. For years, Kapisa has long been the intellectual and emotional mentor for West Papua’s non-violent student activists, and in 2006 was bashed during the ‘Abepura Incident’ (The Age, 27 March 2006 Cover-up fear over dead in mine riot: EXCLUSIVE Pictures of the bloody confrontation that rocked West Papua). 252 public show, ... but we have achieved almost nothing of substance, to be honest”274. American academics detailed the awful data of what ‘achieving nothing’ meant for the average Indonesian citizen.275 For the past decade, West Papuan political institutions have been applying the principle of self-determination to their domestic policies and practices; essentially learning the skills and practicing the craft of being a nation state. In this context, the West Papua National Authority was appointed in May 2009 as a transitional government to carry and deliver the political independence aspirations of the Papuan people. The appointment was within a ‘West Papua National Consensus’ that was driven by the influential student movement and backed by the stalwart freedom fighters. In this political configuration, parliamentary duties are undertaken by the Papua Presidium Council (PDP) and the judicial by the Dewan Adat Papua (Papua Customary Council, or DAP). With a mandate to deliver political independence (not ‘human rights’ or ‘social development’), the West Papua National Authority has a distinct shelf life—although this does not mean that its policies and strategies are not based on sustainable principles and objectives. Resistance and nation-making are complex endeavours that require order and discipline, and since the discharge of Suharto, some Papuan individuals and organisations have responded opportunistically to flaky government incentives and international agencies with money but limited understanding of West Papua’s complex society. Their activities inside and outside West Papua have impeded political progress, and have provided Indonesia with even more room to 274 Corruption takes gloss off Indonesia’s boom The Age, 27 December 2010; quoting The Jakarta Post, 20 December 2010 Little achieved in politics this year. 275 According to a lengthy report by the Harvard Kennedy School Indonesia Program in 2010 ‘Democracy has not eliminated corruption or strengthened the rule of law…the economic oligarchy has survived the crisis in tact and its relationship to the state is largely unchanged…[there is still] widespread institutional corruption particularly of the judicial system and the police force…weak legal and regulatory infrastructure, patrimonial politics, disempowered citizens, political gangsterism …child mortality and maternal mortality three times that of Vietnam … one fifth of children underweight etc (‘From Reformasi to Institutional Transformation: a strategic assessment of Indonesia’s prospects for Growth, Equity, and Democratic Governance). 253 pursue policies that are genocidal and practices that exacerbate the nepotism and corruption characteristic of Indonesian politics since 1945. The Application of Self-Determination Principles and Strategies The abject failure of Indonesia to govern West Papua—whether the authoritarian regimes of Sukarno decentralisation (1962-1966) regimes of and Habibie Suharto (1998—1999), (1966-1998), Wahid or the (1999-2001), Sukarnoputri (2001-2004), and the current incumbent—can no longer be denied or whistled away as something else. a) Self-determination in International Law The West Papua National Authority—since its inception as ‘United West Papua National Council for Independence’ in 2002, and its origins in the ‘West Melanesia’ movement in 1987—has always considered ‘self-determination’ to be the legitimate and most appropriate political operative from which to debate and fight for West Papua’s independence. In contrast, Indonesian politicians are still little interested in developing liberal democratic conditions in their own country (beyond the organisation of elections), let alone self-determination for West Papua. However, the MRP’s ‘return’ of Special Autonomy in June 2010 and demand for a referendum (supported by twenty-eight Papuan civil organisations) has forced them, and Indonesia’s foreign sponsors, to sharpen their focus, because the MRP was the centerpiece of Special Autonomy. It presupposes the cessation of talks with the Unitary Republic of Indonesia, and re-posits West Papuan self-determination in the realm of international relations where the problem began almost half-a-century ago. In an International Criminal Court, Indonesia would obviously not be able to sustain the rhetoric that it acquired West Papua between 1962 and 1969 through legitimate means. Most internationalists believe, like the West Papua National Authority believes, that it annexed a bounded territory that was already 254 ‘embarked upon programmes in full compliance with the provisions of the UN Charter and UN Resolutions designed to facilitate the exercise by the people of the territory of their right of self-determination’276. That the West Papuan people continue to hold inalienable rights to a political process of self-determination is without dispute277. That the Unitary Republic of Indonesia holds inalienable responsibilities for the self-determination of West Papuans is also without dispute278. That the United Nations has an inalienable responsibility to mediate the West Papuans’ rights and the Indonesian Republic’s responsibilities is also not in dispute. New York University’s Thomas M Franck asserts that ‘with the Commission of the New York Agreement, the world conceived and delivered an international nation’; that is, that Nederlands Nieuw Guinea, after 21 September 1962 was a UN territory, administered by the Indonesian Republic after 1 May 1963, until the West Papuans freely determined, through a referendum, whether they wanted independence or integration279. Given that no one, not even the UN Administrator in West Papua in 1968—69, would vouch for the procedural impartiality of the Act of Free Choice (referendum), the United Nations obviously bears ongoing responsibility for an act of self-determination. In addition, Indonesia has signed two International Covenants—on Civil and Political Rights, and on Economic Social and Cultural Rights—of which Article 1 asserts that self-determination is not limited to colonies but is exercisable everywhere and continuously, and in the post-colonial context remains a constant ongoing legal entitlement280. Additionally, Indonesia voted in favour of 276 George Lambert (2000) WEST PAPUA: Real Politik v International Law For International Court of Jurist reading, see George Lambert 2000, and 2001 Abstract: WEST PAPUA: Real Politik v International Law Yumi Wantaim Seminar, Melbourne 2001. For analysis of UN documents, John Saltford 2000 United Nations involvement with the act of selfdetermination in West Irian (Indonesian West New Guinea) 1968 to 1969; Indonesia Cornell Southeast Asia Program p71-92, and Saltford The United Nations and the Indonesian takeover of West Papua, 1962-1969 RoutledgeCurzon, London, New York 2003. 278 See New York Agreement,15 August 1962, Unitary Republic of Indonesia and Kingdom of the Netherlands wherein the word 'self-determination' is used eleven times (see Articles X, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XX, XXI). 279 Thomas Franck 1985:80 Nation against Nation, What Happened to the U.N. Dream and What the U.S. Can Do About It? Oxford University Press, United Kingdom 1985. 280 Frank, Thomas M 1985:156. 277 255 the Declaration of the Indigenous People’s Charter at the United Nations on 13 September 2007 (GA Resolution 61/295)281. This Charter affirms the ‘fundamental importance of the right to self-determination of all peoples, by virtue of which they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development’, and West Papuans have rights of self-determination under Articles 1 and 3. This charter is not a legally binding instrument under international law, and furthermore has not been ratified by the Indonesian government. Nevertheless, Indonesian politicians need to remember their engagement with a charter that ‘represents the dynamic development of international legal norms, reflects the commitment of the UN's member states to move in certain directions, and will be a significant tool for human rights violations’282. While the debate over West Papuans’ rights to self-determination is as swamped by money-politics in 2011 as by Cold War realpolitik in 1962, the current impasse between a beligerant republic and West Papuans’ sophisticated nation-making project is unsustainable. The Authority believes the application of selfdetermination principles to the debate will obviously serve the interests of the West Papuan people, but it is also convinced it will relieve Indonesia of an embarrassing and debilitating issue. b) Who has right to self-determination in West Papua? 281 282 Muhammad Anshor, the Indonesian representative at the UN, provided a convoluted explanation for Indonesia’s curious vote in favour of the Indigenous People’s Charter: ‘Several aspects of the Declaration remained unresolved, in particular what constituted indigenous peoples…..the Declaration used the definition contained in the International Labour Organization definition, according to which indigenous people were distinct from tribal people. Given the fact that Indonesia’s entire population at the time of colonization remained unchanged, the rights in the Declaration accorded exclusively to indigenous people and did not apply in the context of Indonesia. Indonesia would continue to promote the collective rights of indigenous peoples’ (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs//2007/ga10612.doc.htm). Press Statement, United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, New York, 17 October 2007 (www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/press_release_2.pdf) 256 The West Papua National Authority regards its advocacy for review of UN processes around the New York Agreement of 1962—1969 as pre-requisite to re-listing West Papua on the UN Decolonization Agenda and the implementation of another referendum. Some human rights advocates wonder about the fairness of a referendum for West Papuans, especially in light of demographic statistics produced by Jim Elmslie in 2010283 . Elmslie demonstrates, using Indonesian 2010 Census statistics, that indigenous Papuans are now a distinct minority (48.73%) in their own homeland, with an annual growth rate of 1.84% compared to the nonPapuan rate of 10.82%. While the drop from being an overwhelming majority (96.09%) at the beginning of the Indonesian occupation to a distinct minority (48.73%) in 2010 is alarming, it will not adversely affect a self-determination referendum. The West Papua National Authority advocates that only indigenous West Papuans from inside and outside West Papua will be able to vote in a selfdetermination referendum, with the determination of ‘indigenous’ at the birthvillage requiring witnesses from both the father’s and the mother’s side. Migrants, non-Papuan wives and husbands, and the children of mixed marriages will not vote in the referendum to prevent any backlash against them should the integration vote prevail (although it is anticipated a referendum will deliver similar results to the ballot in East Timor in 1999, Kosovo in 2009, and South Sudan in January 2011). The West Papua National Authority will protect and guarantee the safety of migrants and other non-Papuans who wish to stay during the referendum period. After the referendum they can choose to become citizens in accordance with the nation’s constitutional requirements (see Appendix 2) 283 Jim Elmslie, West Papuan demographic transition and the 2010 Indonesian census: ‘slow motion genocide’ or not? CPACS Working Papua No.11/1, September 2010, The University of Sydney. 257 c) Formalising political self-determination in West Papua There were many reports and much analysis of West Papua at the beginning of the decade when post-Suharto decentralisation policies were rolling out and impacting on obvious fractures in the independence movement284 . Much less was written then, and now, about the purposeful application of self-determination in the Papuans’ nation-making endeavours. The following short summary of these most recent endeavors shows the multitude of forces now pulling together in the quest for independence and the formation of a nation-state on the western border of Melanesia. Thousands of people rallied in Jayapura in June and July 2010 in support of the Papuan People’s Assembly’s legislated return of Special Autonomy to Jakarta. Twenty-four civil organisations that had collaborated in the MRP’s rejection of Indonesian governance, also walked with the Papua Presidium and West Papua National Authority calling for a referendum.285 This was an unprecedented demonstration of political unity across the broadest representation of Papuan society. The ‘civil’, the ‘cultural’ including the religious, and the ‘political’ were working and walking together in both resistance and nation-making endeavours. 284 285 See for example Peter King West Papua & Indonesia since Suharo—independence, autonomy or chaos? University of New South Wales, Sydney 2003. Richard Chauvel Constructing Papuan Nationalism: History, Ethnicity, and Adaption East-West Center, Washington 2005; Essays on West Papua, Volume 1 & 2 Working Papers, Monash Asia Institute, Monash University 2003; Indonesia: ending repression in Irian Jaya, International Crisis Group, Asia Report No 23, Sept 2001; with Ikrar Nusa Bhakti The Papua Conflict: Jakarta’s perceptions and policies East-West Center, 2004; Australia’s strategic environment: the problem of Papua Australian National University 2004. Rodd McGibbon Policy Studies 10: Secessionist challenges in Aceh and Papua: is Special Autonomy the solution?; Policy Studies 13: Plural society in peril: migration, economic change, and the Papua conflict East-West Center, Washington 2004; Pitfalls of Papua Understanding the conflict and its place in Australia-Indonesia relations Lowy Institute, Sydney 2006. Majelis Rakyat Papua/MRP is a Papuan upper house created within the Special Autonomy paradigm for the ‘cultural representation of Papuan indigenous people’ and ‘arbitration of Papuan ethnic rights’ with equal (elected) representation of tribal, women, and religious leaders (Agus Sumule Protection and Empowerment of the Rights of Indigenous People of Papua (Irian Jaya) Over Natural Resources under Special Autonomy: From legal opportunities to the challenge of implementation Working Paper No. 36, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University 2002). The Presidium is the executive of the Papua Council that organised the nd MUBES and 2 Papua Congress in 2000. West Papua National Authority origins are in the West Melanesia fourteen-star movement of 1987. In 2009 it was appointed representative government of Papuan independence within a ‘West Papua National Consensus’ that included The Presidium as the Legislature, and Dewan Adat Papua as the Judiciary. 258 Papuan students uploaded images onto the internet, which were replicated around the world on YouTube. The massing of civil organisations in this campaign was led by Dewan Adat Papua (Papua Customary Council). The Dewan Adat was formed in 2002 during the Presidium’s Conference on Indigenous Rights286. Behind the leadership of Dani chief Forkorius Yaboisembut, this modern representation of tribal Papua has been politically active and strategically sophisticated. It was its no-confidence motion in the central government on 12 August 2005 and protest-theme of ‘sending Special Autonomy back to Jakarta’ (via the provincial governments in Jayapura and Manokwari) that precipitated Jakarta’s decision to enact the necessary implementation regulations for the MRP in 2005. The civil organisations that collaborated with the MRP Declaration of June 2010 and walked alongside the West Papua National Consensus (West Papua National Authority and Papua Presidium Council) to return Special Autonomy and call for a referendum were: DEWAN ADAT PAPUA/Papua Customary Council (National Chief: Forkorius Yaboisembut, S.Pd) DEWAN ADAT LANI PAGO/Lani Pago Customary Council (Chief: Lemok Mabel) DEWAN ADAT ANIM HA/Anim Ha Customary Council (Secretary: Drs. John Wob, Msi) KINGMI CHURCH (Pdt. Dr. Benny Giay) GKI PROTESTANT CHURCH (Pdt. Hiskia Rollo, STh) CHURCH YOUTH MOVEMENT (Pdt. John Baransano,STh) MUSLIM PAPUA (Tokoh, Haji. Z. Sabuku) WEST PAPUA YOUTH (Tokoh, Yan Ch. Warinusi, SH) 286 Broek, Evelien van den Dewan Adat Papua, an upcoming power EPS Bulletin Vol. 13, No. 3, Jul-Oct 2005. Since 2002, the Dewan Adat has held an annual Plenary Meeting for all of the 253 tribes in West Papua. The Plenaries in Jayapura (2002), Sentani (2003), Biak (2004), and Manokwari (2005) were each attended by more than 300 representatives from the different indigenous Papuan groups (ibid). 259 UNITED PAPUAN PEOPLE’S DEMOSTRATIC FORUM (Salmon Yumame, SE, MM) STUDENT ASSOCIATION CENTRAL HIGHLAND (Markus Haluk) PAPUA WOMEN’S SOLIDARITY (Abina Wasanggai, S.Pd) WEST PAPUA WOMEN’S SOLIDARITY (Albertina Dani) DEMOCRACY FORUM (Frederika Korain, SH) WEST PAPUA NATIONAL COMMITTEE/KNPB (Mako Musa Tabuni) PROFESSIONAL GROUP (Benjamin Jensenem, SE) CENDERAWASIH UNIVERSITY (Natan Tebay) CENDERAWASIH UNIVERSITY (Kristian Peday) INDONESIAN CHRISTIAN STUDENTS (Stevy Stollane Ayorbaba, SH) FRONT PEPERA (Selfius Boby) CHRISTIAN STUDENT AND YOUTH, REPUBLIC OF INDONESIA (Paulus Tawer) PAPUA NATIONAL YOUTH AND STUDENT FRONT LAPAGO WOMEN’S GROUP (Regina Sambon) With the formation of the West Papua National Consensus in 2009 and subsequent division of political responsibilities, the West Papua National Authority believes the nation now has the appropriate leaders, organisation, and institutional capacity to contribute meaningfully—at local, national, regional and international levels—to the resolution of the longest standing political impasse in the world. The Authority therefore anticipates that neither the Indonesian government, nor international funding bodies, or even the media will look to Papuan political entrepreneurs whose misrepresentations have impeded political progress during the past decade and consequently created even more space for Indonesia to do what it does best. One rogue group, the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation, was brought back to the political mainstream on 26 October 2010 when the West Papua National Consensus invited three of its identities, Albert Kaliele, Septinus Paiki 260 and Simon Mosso, to join the May 2009 political construct. The West Papua National Coalition for Liberation was proposed in Malaysia in 2007 during a meeting of Papuan ‘leaders’ organised by Australian academic Damien Kingsbury and funded by the Crisis Management Initiative (CMI)287. While it has always been an empty shell, with no political mechanisms or even grass-roots support in West Papua, it has run up a litany of Indonesian-Intelligence inspired manoeuvres in Australia, PNG, Vanuatu, and the US. As recently as August 2010, its affiliates in Vanuatu compromised the written request of the West Papua National Consensus to the Vanuatu government for sponsorship into the Pacific Island Forum, which they had agreed to represent but instead lobbied quietly for an altogether different agenda.288 In September 2010, WPNCL affiliates in the US ensured there were no serious Papuan politicians at the historic US Congress Hearing on West Papua in Washington. Consequently no one in the (invited) delegation was prepared to or able to respond to Senator Falaemovaega’s fairly simple request for a progress report subsequent to the return of Special Autonomy. West Papua National Authority: Guidelines for the transition from Indonesian Province to Melanesian Nation-State The origins of the West Papua National Authority are in the West Melanesia movement of 1987 and the university-based resistance and nation-making movement of the 1990s. Most if its leaders and members were released from political incarceration centres in 1999 and concerned themselves with shaping a pyramid management structure for Papua’s extensive grass-roots resistance. By 287 288 The Crisis Management Initiative (CMI) is a Finnish organization concerned with ‘resolving conflict and building sustainable peace’. After the tsunami in 2004, it employed Kingsbury to advise the Free Aceh movement during talks with the Indonesian government, which resulted in the Acehnese accepting Special Autonomy and shutting down their historic independence movement. (For more see http://www.deakin.edu.au/arts-ed/sips/staffdirectory2.php?username=dlk). The request from the West Papua National Consensus for the Vanuatu government to sponsor West Papua into the Melanesian Spearhead Group, Pacific Islands Forum, Africa-CaribbeanPacific Group and UN Decolonization List, was the outcome of a formal agreement between the Maraki Vanuariki Council of Chiefs, Port Vila Council of Chiefs, and West Papua National Authority in Port Vila on 29 November 2007. 261 2004, government-like infrastructure was being developed, and the Authority currently has thirty-two active departments. At the same time it has become a national umbrella body for reconciliation between Papuan leaders and a transitional government for promoting political self-determination to Jakarta and the international community. In May 2009, Papua’s influential student movement and numerous civil rights organisations issued the Authority with the national responsibility for delivering political independence. The Authority’s guidelines for the transition from Indonesian province to Melanesian nation-state are: Step 1: A two-day meeting in July 2011 to elect the leadership of an executive, legislature, and judiciary for the transition period from [Indonesian] autonomy to [Melanesian] nation-state. This meeting will be limited to one hundred political leaders, requiring a 24-hour presence of fifty international security agents. Step 2: A two-day meeting between the executive of West Papua’s transitional government and Commission 1 of the Indonesian government, auspiced by an impartial internationally based third party. The Authority believes that a regional state agency with international status rather than the United Nations should mediate these preliminary talks. Step 3: West Papua reverts to its 1962 status as ‘international nation’ under UN supervision, with an international (armed) peacekeeping force in place for a minimum of twelve months prior to referendum. Step 4: Referendum monitored by the United Nations. Step 5: The UN maintains supervisory presence for three years after the referendum, working closely with the transitional government to implement the priority sectors of health, education, transport, communication, information, agriculture, housing, and electricity. 262 Step 6: National Election of National Parliament and Executive under UN supervision. Step 7: Development of short and middle-term programs for the ‘Democratic Republic of West Papua’ based on sustainable principles with evaluation and accountability mechanisms. Priority program under UN Supervision (after referendum, before national elections) There are numerous infrastructure issues of national concern identified by the Authority as requiring priority attention during the three-year UN period after the referendum. These are: health, education, transport, communication, information, agriculture, housing, and electricity. a) Health West Papua National Authority believes the recovery of human health is fundamental to the stability and success of the nation-state, and that the priorities during the three-year UN period should be malnutrition, treatable diseases, mental illness, and sanitation. i) Malnutrition The West Papua National Authority first of all wants to create a national health program which delivers to every citizen the right to at least one healthy meal a day. The key component to such a program will be the creation of a national distribution mechanism to each village and all schools (including boarding schools—see education). The Authority plans to design the national health program on a principle of selfsufficiency in the production and distribution of fresh produce in three years. This means co-ordinating from the design-stage with the agricultural and transport sectors. 263 The National Health Program components are: Fresh clean water Carbohydrate (taro, cassava/tapioca, sweet potato, corn, yam, rice, soybean, wheat). Protein (fresh meat, fresh fish, eggs) Fruit, vegetables, salt Cooking oil Cooking stove and fuel (gas, kerosene, solar) ii) Treatable diseases The health index of the West Papuan population is extra-ordinarily low, even by Indonesian standards. The West Papua National Authority aims to eradicate the following diseases during the three-year UN period through a radiating network of mobile clinics from the major towns and centres which will have an educative as well as clinical role: HIV and AIDS Sexually transmitted diseases Tuberculosis Malaria Cholera Data generated will feed back into a centralised health-management system. iii) Mental illness West Papua National Authority research indicates that 26% of indigenous Papuans suffer from various levels and types of mental illness, mainly resulting from the stresses inflicted by fifty years of military occupation. The most difficult of these to treat will be the mental effect of rape for women, and of torture and incarceration for men. The Authority’s intention is for a team of Papuan priests and pastors to work with a team of international post-traumatic-stress experts in surveying the population and designing a national program that includes 264 educative as well as clinical programs for the recovery and rehabilitation of victims. iv) Sanitation There is no public sanitation system in West Papua, so independence presents a unique opportunity for the planning and implementation of a national system using twenty-first century re-usable and recyclable technologies. West Papua National Authority intends for the design, planning and piloting stages of a system to take place during the three-year UN period. b) Education For the past half-century, informal education has been denied in West Papua, formal education has been under-funded, the state curriculum (affecting the private-school curriculum as well) has been heavily politicised, and there has been no provision for older-age technical training. The West Papua National Authority believes the priority for the three-year UN period to be: i) holiday-based re-training for already-established teachers ii) full-time teacher-training for primary, secondary, and tertiary teachers (each emphasising the value of informal as well as formal education). iii) full-time technical teacher-training programs In terms of education infrasture, the priority will be to build boarding schools as well as to repair and stock the schools that already exist. Community-based weekly-boarding schools will facilitate the education process of primary and secondary school children in the rural regions, and can also be used as centres for mature-age technical training and community development centres. The Authority envisages all levels of learning and tuition to include computers for students with wireless internet coverage. 265 c) Transport, Communication, and Information These are vital sectors that need to be well integrated if the needs of West Papuans in the twenty-first century are to be served. The Authority believes a nation-state should have a well-planned ‘green’ public transport system—onground, in-air, and by-sea. Like the sanitation system, these sectors require national planning and costing, with care for the principle of sustainability, which the Authority has not yet done. d) Agriculture The West Papua National Authority plans to facilitate a combination of modern and traditional agricultural systems with a view to developing green-based selfsufficiency in food within the three-year UN period. There are, currently, a few value-added products (canned fish and pearls) that can—with fiscal and marketing assistance—be developed for export within this period. e) Housing The West Papua National Authority intends to design public housing systems for the major urban centers which are appropriate to the local cultures and local environmental conditions. f) Electricity There is currently no national power supply, and no village beyond a few kilometres of a major centre has electricity. Furthermore, the power in the major urban centres is subject to ‘rotating blackouts’ and the boat that delivers fuel every two weeks is often late. Independence thus offers an opportunity to design, develop and implement a national power supply fuelled by a variety of renewable sources that include wave-energy, micro-hydro technology, solar and electricity. g) Rural and Urban Development 266 Under Indonesia, the territory of West Papua has degenerated from being an almost pristine environment to one in a filthy condition marked by physical pollution, air pollution, and sound pollution. The Melanesian-indigenous aesthetic for rural and urban upkeep will be on the governance agenda and will be reclassified as a priority because for half a century under foreign occupation, Indonesia has created a dirty physical environment which has had negative impacts on citizens’ health (for example, through air pollution by fumes, sounds of vehicles destroying peoples’ hearing, traffic jams, not enough garden parks or public toilets, and much more). The West Papua National Authority’s National Development Agenda a) The Short-Term National Development Program Development will be based on solid analysis of accurate research. The shortterm program begins with the departure of the UN but in tandem with priorities developed during that three-year period, and emphasizing the establishment of sustainable national social infrastructure. i)Social Beyond the normal variety of social facilities required to serve the needs of citizens, such as schools, hospitals, and correctional houses, the Authority wants to emphasise the importance of building libraries as part of the development of people with strong ‘oral’ traditions. The Authority will also be emphasising the need for facilities to cater for victims of a society that has been at war for fifty years, during which time many of the social components of the tribal infrastructure have disintegrated. Thus West Papua will now need houses of protection for women and children of domestic violence, orphanages for children, and houses for the elderly. Contemporary West Papua, as distinct from the nation of the 1950s before the Indonesian occupation, is a multi-religious society. The Authority therefore 267 anticipates creating legislation and space for mosques, synagogues and temples as well as Christian churches. ii) Cultural-Economy The land itself offers an extraordinary capacity for the employment of West Papuans in a variety of sectors, which the Authority believes can be developed in ways that will not over-exploit or deplete the rich topsoil of a very fragile environment. For instance, opportunities include the development of farming (buffalo, pigs, goats, deer, kangaroos, cassowary, chickens) and fishing (saltwater, fresh-water, and brack-water), and harvesting forest-based plants for medicines. The Authority also anticipates the development of community-based ecotourism, within which however the cottage craft industry that has mushroomed in recent years (wood-carving, bark-painting, and weaving) will be re-appraised. One of modern West Papua’s most distinguishing features is the culture and traditions of the nation’s 312 tribes, each with its own panopoly of sacred sites, mythohistorical and legal traditions, calendar of nature-based festivals, and musicdance-storytelling repertoire. These need documenting and analysis, with a view to their enabling and application in modern times rather than their treatment as commercial products. iii) Technical Economy The Authority envisages the gradual development of a technical economy, beginning with specialised training in assembling technologies. Thus, West Papua would buy elements—of the computers, cars, ships engines, and so on, that it needs—from its highly-industrialised neighbours in Asia which specially trained Papuans would then assemble in West Papua. iv) Law and Democracy 268 The Authority does not anticipate imposing the modern laws of democracy, human rights and citizenship in isolation from a serious attempt to transcribe their application across tribal and traditional understandings. This is a big and complex task, but better attempted in the form of a national debate at the beginning of a nation’s existence rather than reverted to when all else fails, as in Papua New Guinea. b) The middle- and long-term focus The middle term program will continue the priority-term and short term-programs but with a more outward emphasis—like, for example, sending semi-finished products for completion in industrially developed countries, and sending skilled Papuans to help poorer nations around the world. The longer term focus similarly emphasises both the development of industrial technology at home, and political outreach to international organisations where Papuans can use their own experience to influence (for example) the UN’s commitment to the virtues of justice, and peace and human safety and security. c) The form of the nation-state of West Papua The West Papua National Authority anticipates forming a federal political system that will accommodate the long-established, still active, (seven) tribal states as well as modern streams of democratic representation. Ultimately, however, the right to choose the political form of the nation-state does reside with the people who will express their intent through the parliament they elect after independence. 269 Appendix 1: MRP Declaration, 10 June 2010: The Failure of Special Autonomy On 10 June 2010, at the conclusion of a two-day evaluation of Special Autonomy by the Papua People’s Assembly (Majelis Rakyat Papua/MPR) and Papuan political and civil rights leaders, MPR Chairman Agus Alua announced that the government’s policy had failed across all demonstrable social, cultural and political measures: a) Presidential Instruction INPRES No.1/2003, which established the new province of West Irian Jaya, contravened Article 76 of Special Autonomy Law No.21/2001. b) The central government has never published government rules and regulations (Peraturan Pemerintah) for implementing Special Autonomy in Papua province. c) MRP and DPRP (regional legislatures) rejection of the creation of West Irian Jaya province, presented to the Interior Minister and to Vice-President Yusef Kala between 24 November 2005 and 20 March 2006, was ultimately supported by the National Constitutional Court, which ruled that the creation of a new province first required the approval of the Papua People’s Assembly. d) The central government continues to drop Special Autonomy funds into Papua and West Irian Jaya at the end of the year, rendering it impossible to implement budget projects and forcing provincial officials to write fictitious reports. e) There has been no realization of Article 34, Special Autonomy Law No.21/2001, dividing Papua’s natural resources between West Papua and Jakarta. f) Despite MRP efforts to legislate for the protection of Papuan culture(s), Government Regulation/PP No. 77/2007 bans the Morning Star symbol, contradicting Chapter 5 of Special Autonomy Law No. 21/2001. 270 g) Regulation No. 35/2008 imposing Special Autonomy in the province of West Irian is inconsistent with Special Autonomy No 21/2001, especially Article 76. At the time of devising the regulation, the MRP advised Vice-President Kala and his technical team of this inconsistency, but was ignored. h) Central government’s creation and support of the growth and activities of redand-white militia (barisan merah putih/BMP/red-and-white line) in Papua has usurped the political power and decision-making functions of the Papua People's Representative Council/DPRP and Papua People's Assembly/MRP, rendering both vulnerable to criticism. i) Central government rejected MRP’s proposal for eleven Special Autonomy seats in the provincial parliament, but when Barisan Merah Putih presented the government with the same legislative proposal, it was passed and approved by the National Constitutional Court. j) MRP Decree/Surat Keputusan No. 14/2009 stipulating that candidates for the positions of governor, vice-governor, bupati and vice-bupati are indigenous Papuans was rejected by the Minister for Home Affairs. 271 Appendix 2: West Papua Provisional Constitution: Guidelines CONSTITUTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF WEST PAPUA CHAPTER 1 THE STATE AND SOVEREIGNTY 1. Democratic Republic of West Papua 2. Constitution supreme law 3. National and official languages 4. National sovereignty, the electoral franchise and political parties CHAPTER 2 FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES PART I Fundamental Rights 5. Fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual 6. Enforcement of fundamental rights PART II Fundamental Duties 7. Fundamental duties 8. Fundamental duties non-justiciable but public authorities to encourage compliance CHAPTER 3 CITIZENSHIP 9. Automatic citizens 10. Entitlement to citizenship 272 11. Persons born after Day of Independence 12. Naturalisation 13. Avoidance of dual nationality 14. Further provision for citizenship CHAPTER 4 PARLIAMENT 15. Parliament 16. Power to make laws 17. Election of members of Parliament 18. Electoral Commission 19. Principal Electoral Officer 20. Functions of Electoral Commission and Principal Electoral Officer 21. Procedure of Parliament 22. Speaker and Deputy Speakers 23. Committees 24. Proceedings to be public 25. Public finance 26. Ratification of treaties 27. Privileges of members 28. Life of Parliament CHAPTER 5 NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHIEFS 29. National Council of Chiefs 30. Functions of Council 31. Organisation of Council and role of chiefs 32. Privileges of members of Council 273 CHAPTER 6 HEAD OF STATE 33. President of the Republic 34. Election of President 35. Qualifications for election as President 36. Term of office and removal of President 37. Speaker to act as President 38. Presidential powers of pardon, commutation and reduction of sentences CHAPTER 7 THE EXECUTIVE 39. Executive power 40. Council of Ministers 41. Election of Prime Minister 42. Appointment and removal of other Ministers 43. Collective responsibility of Ministers and votes of no confidence 44. Termination of office of Ministers 45. Other times when a Minister ceases to hold office 46. Ministers to remain members of Parliament CHAPTER 8 JUSTICE 47. The Judiciary 48. The Judicial Service Commission 49. The Supreme Court, the Chief Justice and other judges 50. Appeals from Supreme Court to Court of Appeal 51. Ascertainment of rules of custom 52. Village and island courts 274 53. Application to Supreme Court regarding infringements of Constitution 54. Election disputes 55. Public Prosecutor 56. Public Solicitor CHAPTER 9 ADMINISTRATION PART I The Public Service 57. Public servants 58. Exclusion of security of tenure in relation to political advisers and transfer of public servants 59. Membership of Public Service Commission 60. Functions of Public Service Commission PART II The Ombudsman 61. Ombudsman 62. Enquiries by Ombudsman 63. Findings of Ombudsman and reports 64. Right of a citizen to services in own language 65. Ombudsman not subject to direction or control CHAPTER 10 LEADERSHIP CODE 66. Conduct of leaders 67. Definition of a leader 275 68. Parliament to give effect to this Chapter CHAPTER 11 EMERGENCY POWERS 69. Emergency regulations 70. Period of and renewals of state of emergency 71. Effect of emergency regulations 72. Complaints to Supreme Court concerning emergency regulations CHAPTER 12 LAND 73. Land belongs to custom owners 74. Basis of ownership and use 75. Perpetual ownership 76. National land law 77. Compensation 78. Disputes 79. Land transactions 80. Government may own land 81. Redistribution of land CHAPTER 13 DECENTRALISATION 82. Legislation for decentralisation 83. Local Government Councils CHAPTER 14 AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION 276 84. Bills for amendment of Constitution 85. Procedure for passing Constitutional amendments 86. Amendments requiring support of referendums CHAPTER 15 TRANSITIONAL PROVISIONS 87. First President of the Republic 88. First Prime Minister and other Ministers 89. First Parliament 90. Existing offices 91. Judges of the Supreme Court 92. Rights, liabilities and obligations 93. Electoral system 94. Legal proceedings 95. Existing law SCHEDULE 1: ELECTION OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC SCHEDULE 2: ELECTION OF THE PRIME MINISTER 277 Chapter nineteen: Reclaiming the messianic promise S. Eben Kirksey During the presidency of George W. Bush, many West Papuans proved to be attentive listeners to the language of American power. Like Congressman Eni Faleomavaega, who played with Bush’s own words, ‘to spread the peace that freedom brings’, indigenous activists were talking about their dreams in terms that might somehow capture the imagination of White House staff. Certainly the messianic spirit was at play in the Bush White House. ‘I think a light has gone off for people who’ve spent time up close to Bush’, said Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and a treasury official for the first President Bush. ‘He’s always talking about is this sort of weird, Messianic idea of what he thinks God has told him to do’289 . George W. Bush was playing to widespread elements of the US political imagination. According to Kathleen Stewart and Susan Harding, anthropologists who study the cultures of the contemporary USA: ‘American nationalism rests both on the millennial claim that American-style democracy and technological progress will save the world and on an apocalyptic paranoia that imagines external enemies, ”thems” who are out to get “us”’290. George W. Bush himself publicly said: ‘I trust God speaks through me’. Specifically he said that God told him to go to war in Iraq291. By invading Iraq, Bush was implementing the messianic visions of the Project for a New American Century—‘a neoconservative organization supporting greater American militarization, challenging hostile governments, advancing democratic and 289 Suskind, “Faith, Certainty and the Presidency of George W. Bush”, 17 October 2004. After meeting Bush at the White House in 2002, Jim Wallis, a theologian and civil rights activist, described the President as “a messianic American Calvinist. He doesn’t want to hear from anyone who doubts him.” Many of Bush’s evangelical followers believed that he had been anointed by God. Jones, “The Liberal Antichrist”, 102. 290 Stewart and Harding, “Bad Endings”, 293. 291 Newport, Expecting the End, x. 278 economic freedom’292. This organization, founded by disgruntled Republicans in response to the ‘incoherent’ foreign policy of the Clinton Administration, imagined a new international order where increased defense spending would lead to a future of peace and prosperity for the American people. The Project for a New American Century was explicitly secular, though many of its leading figures (like Dan Quayle, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Dick Cheney) depended on a base of evangelical Christians for political support. The Project for a New American Century certainly achieved elements of their vision—defense spending more than doubled from $259 billion in 1997, when the group was launched, to $651 billion in fiscal year 2009293. But these changes in fiscal policy failed to bring about the promised peace and prosperity for the American people. During George W. Bush’s final months in office—as the economy fell into disarray and specters of terrorism continued to flicker across the national stage—the messianic spirit left the President, at least in the eyes of all but the most faithful. Ultimately, even with help from senior Democratic Members of Congress, freedom dreams from West Papua were failing to gain purchase in the world of US foreign policy at this historical moment. In advocating for small, molecular, transformations in the final years of George W. Bush’s administration, I learned that more dramatic transformations could only come with wildly contagious visions of hope. The conditions of historical possibility for the people of West Papua changed when a grassroots coalition in the United States launched a project that grounded imagination in the politics of collaboration. Collective freedom dreams coalesced around a single event—the election of the first African American, Barack Obama, as President of the United States. The 2008 Obama campaign worked to embody the messianic spirit—rallying the masses behind hope, quoting Martin Luther King’s famous plea about “the fierce urgency 292 “Project for a New American Century” accessed on 9 September 2010 [available on-line http://rankdirectory.org/site/www.newamericancentury.org/]. 293 These figures come from GPO Access, the official portal for information about the Budget of the United States Government. On August 26, 2010, I consulted the following two pages on 9 September 2010: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy97/pdf/guide.pdf, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy09/pdf/budget/defense.pdf 279 of now.” Obama promised to close the gap between the imagined and possible future real, in the words of John Hartigan, a cultural anthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin.294 My friends in West Papua got caught up in the revolutionary excitement surrounding Obama’s election campaign. When Obama was a boy, growing up in Java, his stepfather, Lolo, had served a tour of duty as an Indonesian soldier in West Papua. Lolo returned from the frontlines with scars from leech bites and troubling stories of killing ‘weaker men’295. West Papuans, relatives of these ’weak men’, hoped that memories of these troubling tales, and a shared sense of black consciousness, might lead Obama to chart a radical new future for their homeland if he were elected President296. After the 2008 presidential election it quickly became clear, to me at least, that there would be radical continuities in Bush Administration and Obama Administration policies towards Indonesia. People with direct links to human rights abuses in Indonesia were appointed to Obama’s cabinet, millions in US taxpayer dollars continued to flow as aid for the Indonesian military, and the US Embassy supported business as usual at the Freeport mine and the BP natural gas project297. In the coming months many erstwhile Obama supporters were disillusioned in the United States—as the President intensified combat operations 294 John Hartigan, “Millenials for Obama,” 5 December 2009. Obama, Dreams From my Father, 39-45. 296 Danilyn Rutherford’s new book, Spectral Sovereignties, has a more in-depth treatment of how Obama was claimed by West Papuan independence activists. She also writes of the troubled times that the President and his mother lived through—arriving in 1967 on the heels of the Indonesian massacres of 1965. “At this time,” writes Rutherford, “neither Obama nor his mother had a clear understanding of the tumultuous events that had just transpired in Indonesia. One cannot help but imagine the specters that would have haunted his Jakarta neighbourhood a few short months after Suharto’s rise to power. Villagers suffered in the killings, but they also participated in the killings: communities like Obama’s neighbourhood were literally filled with ghosts” (Rutherford forthcoming). 297 Obama appointed Admiral Dennis Blair as Director of National Intelligence in November 2008. Blair was infamous in human rights circles for disobeying orders from the Clinton Administration to stop spectacular human rights violations by the Indonesian military in East Timor, when he was Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Command in 1999. Blair was dismissed by Obama in May 2010 as the result of an unrelated scandal. See: Nairn, "US Complicity in Timor,” 27 September 1999. 295 280 in Afghanistan, as he struggled to implement a health care reform package, as he failed to close Guantanamo Bay. Real changes from the Bush Administration had occurred. But, many of the dreams that had been fixed on Obama’s election went unrealised. Still, the people of West Papua clung to Obama’s elusive promise about hope. Eni Faleomavaega, West Papua’s champion from American Samoa, had assumed a very influential position after the Democratic Party took control of the House of Representatives in 2006. He was appointed Chairman of a Foreign Relations Subcommittee—the one regarding Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment. Faleomavaega had become the key player shaping US policies toward West Papua. Like me, Faleomavaega had clearly experienced the messianic spirit of merdeka moving within him. Like me, he had also felt his share of frustrations with the movement. The people of West Papua had placed expansive hopes in him—desires that were not entirely realistic. Many people who claimed to represent merdeka, some with hidden agendas, were competing for his attention. Faleomavaega’s statement of July 2007 -- an announcement lauding the Indonesian government for their ‘complete change’ in policies towards West Papua -- was a public signal of his disappointment with the discord amongst leaders. The poly-centric struggle for merdeka was failing to interface with this sympathetic figure—an influential ally who had the capacity to articulate their collective desires within the labyrinthine structure of US power. My own enthusiasm as an advocate for the cause, as a pro bono volunteer, had also begun to wane. When tens of thousands of people took to the streets of West Papua in June and July of 2010, demanding dialogue and an official vote on the issue of independence, the messianic spirit began to stir within me again. Reaching out to Chairman Faleomavaega, I learned that he shared my enthusiasm for the news from the streets. Faleomavaega asked me to draft up a letter to President Obama—giving the President background on the issue and encouraging him 281 ‘make West Papua one of the highest priorities of the Administration’. After consulting with friends back in West Papua, key architects of the recent protests, I put a formal request in the letter to President Obama—asking him to meet with the Team of 100, during an upcoming trip he had scheduled to Indonesian in November 2010. More than a decade earlier, the Team of 100 had the historic National Dialogue with Indonesian President B.J. Habibie on February 26, 1999. Now they desired an international dialogue. After finalising the draft of this letter, working with the staff in Faleomavaega’s office, I watched from the sidelines as he worked to enlist the support of 50 other Congressional Representatives—members of the Congressional Black Caucus, men and women who fought for civil rights in America in the 1960s, members of the Hispanic Caucus, as well as the last remaining member of the Kennedy family in Congress, Rep. Patrick Kennedy from Rhode Island. After the letter was sent, I began to look towards the White House with cautious optimism. Previously I had been critical of the President—for rallying the masses behind empty hopes. With Democratic Members of Congress who carried serious moral authority backing this initiative, the vacuous idea of ‘hope’, in my own political imagination, came to settle on a possible event approaching on the horizon. If a meeting took place between Obama and the Team of 100, perhaps the President would be inspired to take their freedom dreams to heart? This Congressional letter received a perfunctory response from low-level office staff at the State Department, who showed no signs of helping put West Papua on the President’s agenda. At this moment in history, US foreign policy was being enacted by bureaucrats in the Administration—at the State Department, the National Security Council, the Pentagon, the CIA—who had more de facto power than directly elected representatives, like Faleomavaega. In the wake of the Bush Administration, executive branch powers eclipsed the legislature and the judiciary. Tenacious lobbyists—representing foreign governments, like Indonesia, as well as multinational corporations—were also persistently working 282 behind the scenes. A lobby group funded by BP and Freeport, The US Indonesia Society, had just provided a platform for establishing the Joint US-Indonesian Commission, a comprehensive partnership between the two governments.298 Traveling to Washington in late July 2010, along with Octo Mote—the key architect of the Team of 100 who had obtained political asylum in the United States a decade earlier—we briefed Chairman Faleomavaega about the coalition of indigenous leaders, church groups, and elected officials who had come together in the recent demonstrations. Faleomavaega told us that he was determined to keep pushing the Administration to put West Papua on the agenda. He told us that he wanted to hold a US Congress Hearing about West Papua—the very first in the history of the US Congress. Inviting us to both testify, Faleomavaega asked us to work with his staff to identify other witnesses299. As news of this coming hearing leaked out onto the internet—as Octo and I reached out to potential witnesses, chatting with our Skype contacts and Facebook friends—excitement began to spread. A lively messianic spirit animated this future event. Wild reports began to circulate. The date of the hearing happened to coincide with the meeting of Heads of State at the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Reports on the internet conflated our Hearing, of a Sub-Committee in the US Congress, with the UN Hearings taking place at the same time. According to word on the street, world leaders were coming together to discuss a referendum on the issue of independence for West 298 David Merrill, “Appeal from USINDO President David Merrill to the USINDO Community”, email sent to author from [email protected], Date: Tue, Oct 19, 2010 at 11:27 AM. 299 Octo Mote and I worked to bring witnesses to the US Congress who might translate the ideal of merdeka into a message that might gain traction in Washington. Following the advice of friendly Congressional Staff, and veteran human rights advocates, we sought out people who could testify directly in English, rather than through a translator. Live translation would have been a technical complication that would have meant a time lag every time a question was asked of the witness. We struggled to find West Papuans who could speak this language of power. The Congress did not have a budget for the Hearing, so with plane tickets from West Papua at around $1,500 per person, economic considerations also mediated our selection of people who might speak to pressing political concerns. 283 Papua. One internet commentator posted a message, a juxtaposition of different textual forms and fonts, that interlayered the official hearing announcement from the US Congress with his own hopes and desires: Sub-Committee Congress Hearings outcome/hasil yang diinginkan adalah [results which are desired are]: 1. The lodging of the West Papua issue onto the agenda of the UN General Assembly as an urgent priority. 2 The acknowledgement of the US Congress that human rights cannot be separated from the right to self-determination. 3. The only way for the issue of human rights (continuously held) to be addressed now after 48 years of Indonesian military rule in West Papua is to restore the right that was stolen to self-determination via a UN administered Referendum. Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA (D-AS), CHAIRMAN Crimes Against Humanity: When Will Indonesia’s Military Be Held Accountable for Deliberate and Systematic Abuses in West Papua? You are respectfully requested to attend the following open hearing of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment to be held in Room 2172 of the Rayburn House Office Building.300 As the internet became a space for wild revolutionary imagining, while speculative dreams about the significance of the hearing proliferated, Chairman Faleomavaega found himself wrangling with other parts of the US Government about the substance and meaning of this event. Initially Faleomavaega proposed a hearing on the issue of “genocide” in West Papua. The United States ratified the UN Convention on Genocide in 1948, committing the government to “prevent and to punish” other states that commit this crime. In the lead up to this hearing, 300 Don Flassy, "KOMUNITAS PAPUA Ada 2 On-line Petition for UN motion for West Papua dan untuk Orang dan Pemerintah Belanda," e-mail message sent from [email protected] to [email protected]. Date: Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 12:38 PM 284 a lively debate was taking place among scholars about genocide. Jim Elmslie, a political economist from the University of Sydney, had just published a study of census data arguing: ‘A demographic catastrophe is happening in West Papua and this is the basis for the genocide claim’. Stuart Upton, who completed his doctorate at the University of New South Wales in 2009, published a rejoinder, calling genocide an ‘emotive term’ and suggesting that the decrease of the numbers of West Papuans (in relative terms) can be explained as ‘part of the normal pattern of inter-island migration’301. Faleomavaega wanted to bring these conversations from the Ivory Tower to the attention of the US government and the public at large. But, firm protests from the Department of State led him to omit the word ‘genocide’ from the official hearing title.302 Playing with language, Faleomavaega’s staff quickly changed the hearing title to ‘Crimes Against Humanity’, a phrase that was codified into international law with the 1998 Rome Statue. This treaty established the International Criminal Court in The Hauge to prosecute torture, sexual violence, and the disappearance of persons—all crimes that were happening with a predictable regularity in West Papua. However, the US never ratified the Rome Statue. Thus, in the eyes of many observers in Washington, the significance and meaning of this Hearing had been brought down a notch. Unaware of these internal dynamics in the US government, excited anticipation of the Hearing continued to mount amongst indigenous activists. Two West Papuan witnesses were officially invited to testify: Hengkie Rumbewas, an 301 Both Elmslie (2009) and Upton (2009) agree on some basic points: that West Papua has experienced a large scale demographic transformation, that the economy is dominated by Indonesian settlers, and that West Papuans suffer disadvantages in education, employment and health. They also both agree that there have been significant human rights abuses by the Indonesian security forces (Chauvel 2009). For a more detailed accounting of the genocide question, see footnote number four of the Introduction. 302 Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, Opening Statement, Hearing of the US House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, "Crimes Against Humanity: When Will Indonesia’s Military Be Held Accountable for Deliberate and Systematic Abuses in West Papua?" September 22, 2010. Available on-line: http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/hearing_notice.asp?id=1204 285 English teacher and musician, and Salamon Yumame, a retired telecommunications executive who helped organise demonstrations involving some 20,000 people June and July 2010303. At the very last minute, Chairman Faleomavaega surprised us by adding Nick Messet, an ethnic West Papuan who was reportedly an operative of Indonesia’s State Intelligence Agency (BIN), to the official list of witnesses304. With news of Messet’s participation a boisterous discussion erupted on the internet amongst West Papuan activists. The Alliance of Papuan Students issued a formal statement about Messet’s appearance as a witness: The people of West Papua have a clear attitude towards counter-revolutionary plots, towards people who have become bourgeois comprador agents of Indonesian National Unity in West Papua. We shout together: Yell, Yell, Reject Mr. Nick Messet.305 But, I was not in a position to reject Messet. From talking to Faleomavaega’s staff, I learned that the Chairman wanted to ensure a balanced hearing—to give a voice to West Papuans who supported integration with Indonesia. Following the conventions of the Foreign Relations Committee for dealing with sensitive 303 Octo Mote and I helped identify these two witnesses. We also put two experts forward: Pieter Drooglever (a Dutch historian) and Sophie Richardson (Asia Advocacy Director, Human Rights Watch). Two witnesses from the Obama Administration—from the Pentagon and the State Department—were also to appear. 304 Nick Messet was an erstwhile proponent of independence for West Papua. In the 1970s he lived in Papua New Guinea, working as a bush pilot. The government of Papua New Guinea deported Messet after they caught him aiding OPM guerrilla fighters. From exile in Sweden, Messet began working on securing weapons for West Papuan soldiers. According to newspaper reports, in September 1982 he met with the head of the KGB in Moscow to secure an arms deal. Returning to West Papua in 2008, Messet formally renounced his aspirations for independence and became an Indonesian citizen. Nick Messet became an operative of Indonesia’s State Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Negara, BIN), according to a credible second hand report from an Indonesian General. Suara Pembaruan Daily, “Nick Messet: Saya Bukan Pengkhianat”, 18 March 2008, Available on-line: http://www.suarapembaruan.com/News/2008/03/18/Nusantar/nus11.htm; Richard Chauvel, “Between Guns and Dialogue: Papua After the Exile's Return”, 23 April 2009, Nautilus Institute Report (Melbourne, Australia). Available on-line: http://www.nautilus.org/publications/essays/apsnet/policy-forum/2009/nicholaas-jouwe.pdf; Anonymous interview, Washington D.C., 20 September 2010. 305 Yusak Gombo, "KOMUNITAS PAPUA Seruan Aksi Nasional Papua Barat", electronic mail sent from [email protected] to [email protected]. Date: Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 2:41 PM. 286 issues involving other governments, Chairman Faleomavaega did not offer Indonesian officials seats at the table. Instead, Messet was to speak on Indonesia’s behalf. Eight other West Papuan leaders, representing diverse constituencies, selffunded their own travel to Washington to sit in the audience and observe the occasion306 . The delegation was tight on money. Since hotel rooms start at around $100 per night in Washington DC, my mother, Jane Kirksey, offered up her house in the Maryland suburbs. In the days leading up to the Hearing, as I worked with the invited witnesses to hammer out the final drafts of their written statements, the representatives of this heterogeneous, poly-centric, network worked on internal reconciliation in my mother’s basement. On the morning of the Hearing—September 22nd, 2010—we all piled into cars and headed to the House of Representatives’ Rayburn Office Building. Some members of delegation were clad in suits and ties, while others sported colorful batik shirts. After passing through metal detectors, and crowding into an elevator, the group scrambled to put on headdresses, made with yellow, black, and green bird of paradise feathers. Hengkie Rumbewas, the musician who would testify as an official witness, was carrying a tifa drum from Biak, carved out of wood and covered with lizard-skin. As the elevator doors opened, the group broke out into song, punctuating the verse with drum beats. Eh Mambo, Simbo eeeh. Mambo yay yay yay yaeeeeeeh. Eh Mambo ya yaeeeeeh. As the delegation processed through the Rayburn House Building, bringing song to the halls of power, Congressional aides peered around doors with expressions ranging from open curiosity to mild alarm. The song, from the coastal town of Sarmi, was about a master hunter named Mambo who went missing in the forest one day. Mambo had caught a wild pig in 306 The groups included the newly established Democratic Forum, the Papuan Presidium Council, West Papua National Authority, the Consensus Team, and Papuan Customary Council. 287 a spiked trap. Wounded by the trap, the cunning animal quietly laid in wait for the hunter’s return. When Mambo arrived on the scene the pig sprang up and killed him. The words of the song, the imagined cries of his wife, are simple: Mambo where are you, Mambo yay yay yay yaeeeeeeh. Popular in the 1980s, the halcyon days of the Suharto regime when open criticism of the Indonesian government was not possible, these lyrics contained hidden meanings. Hengkie Rumbewas, who led the delegation in song, told me that these meanings were passed on to him directly from a legendary source: Arnold C. Ap, a West Papuan cultural anthropologist and performer who was imprisoned and executed for his support of the merdeka movement307. According to Arnold Ap, the hunter Mambo is a figural representation of West Papuans and the cunning pig is Indonesia. In the early 1960s, some elite West Papuans welcomed the Indonesian government—thinking that they had caught a wonderful prize, a nationalist force that promised deliverance from the shackles of colonialism and a new era of freedom (merdeka)308 . ‘The West Papuans who were excited about capturing this pig were too simple (polos)’, Hengkie Rumbewas told me. This hidden parable brought to mind the tragic struggle of Theys Eluay—who was suddenly killed long after he thought he had captured the power of the Indonesian state. Tears flowed as delegation members processed down the halls of Congress—remembering the disappeared, political activists who had vanished without a trace like Mambo in the forest. Gathering in the room where the Hearing was about to take place, the delegation mingled with a motley crew that had assembled as the audience—members of high powered lobbying firms, key Congressional staff from the House and Senate, reporters, grassroots human rights activists, and officials from the 307 Hengkie Rumbewas, Indonesian-language interview, 29 September 2010, Hamden, CT. The imprisonment and murder of Arnold Ap has been detailed by human rights researchers (Budiardjo and Liem 1988). 308 Perhaps at this historical moment these West Papuan elite thought that they had successfully “raided the land of the foreigners”, claiming power from a regional center of authority (Rutherford 2003: 17). 288 Indonesian embassy. After we were all seated Chairman Faleomavaega suddenly banged his gavel, initiating the hearing—marking a symbolic space where all the words uttered would officially become part of the Congressional Record. His opening statement clearly put the issue of independence on the table for discussion. Reviewing irregularities in the 1969 Act of Free Choice he argued: ‘Since 1969, the people of West Papua have been deliberately and systematically subjected to slow motion genocide, in my humble opinion, by Indonesian military forces. And yet Indonesia declares that the issue is an internal matter, while the US Department of State recognises and respects the territorial integrity of Indonesia’. Before asking the witnesses to testify, Chairman Faleomavaega invited the delegation to sing the ballad of Mambo, to ‘share a little of their culture’, saying ‘make sure the song is melodious and meaningful and good for everybody to hear’. The messianic spirit was at play, here in the chambers of the House Foreign Relations Committee, as the delegation stood up to perform. The uninhibited joy on the faces of the delegation registered this moment when the people of West Papua seemed to have captured a wonderful prize—as imagined events and powerful figures came into contact with historical reality. Future imaginings—about an encounter with President Obama, an independence referendum, a seat at the United Nations—also seemed to be materialising on approaching horizons of possibility. In the coming hours each of the invited witnesses presented testimony—we recounted US support for Indonesia’s takeover of West Papua in the 1960s, horrifying violations of human rights, and the failings of Indonesia’s ‘Special Autonomy’ policy. After our formal testimony, Faleomavaega began asking the West Papuan leadership a series of difficult questions—steering the discussion toward issues of good governance and the promise of electoral democracy within the Indonesian national framework. Even as he subjected the problems of West Papua to intense critical scrutiny, Chairman Faleomavaega made it clear that he 289 was up against a prevailing attitude of indifference in the United States. ‘I'll be upfront and be frank with you’, he said at one point during the Hearing. ‘West Papua is not even on the radar screen as far as Washington is concerned. I just want to be realistic’. Chairman Faleomavaega was working to dispel the myth that Westerners will come to save the people of West Papua. If the House Foreign Relations Committee has historically promoted the idea of the West as a savior of the rest, Faleomavaega laid bare the limits of American power and the narrow scope of his own influence. The crimes against humanity we discussed during the Hearing were serious, but the diffuse institutions and practices of human rights left few options open to his Congressional Sub-Committee. As Chairman, Faleomavaega could try to convince his colleagues in Congress to give Indonesia less aid, or encourage the Obama Administration to use its influence with Indonesian officials to promote accountability. But, Indonesia was a sovereign nation. Certainly a US military invasion bringing a definitive end to Indonesia’s occupation in West Papua was not on the table for discussion. At an earlier moment in history, anthropologists worried that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights would not have ‘world-wide applicability’, that it would not be ‘convincing to the Indonesian, the African, the Chinese … The rights of Man in the Twentieth Century cannot be circumscribed by the standards of any single culture, or be dictated by the aspirations of any single people’309 . West Papuans clearly have found the idiom of human rights to be convincing— they have taken this set of institutions and practices off of the shelf with all of its inherent problems and contradictions. But for me, the Congressional Hearing laid bare the limits of international human rights law. 309 Executive Board, American Anthropological Association 1947 "Statement on Human Rights" in American Anthropologist 49(4) 539-543 290 After leaving the halls of Congress I reflected on the unfamiliar logic contained in the Mambo song, as it played together with the familiar idioms of human rights and good governance in the House Foreign Relations Committee chambers. The song contains a warning about the moment of capture—when a long anticipated event or object of desire is suddenly at hand. If the Hearing had played out differently, if the delegation had obtained support for the seemingly wonderful prize of national independence from the US Congress, would this new pig have become a dangerous surprise? The ballad Mambo is a call to be cautious when a figure of hope materializes, a call to critically examine what is at hand while looking past it into the mysterious beyond. West Papuans were struggling for sovereignty at a historical moment when human rights laws, and international institutions, were failing to bring Indonesian military impunity to an end. At this juncture, however, emerging nationalist movements were simply not fashionable with global powerbrokers. Many influential intellectuals, among them Jacques Derrida, the French philosopher who is one of the founders of deconstruction, have also dismissed nationalism as an ‘archaic phantasm’310. ‘Nationalisms of the native soil not only sow hatred, not only commit crimes’, writes Derrida, ‘they have no future, they promise nothing even if, like stupidity or the unconscious, they hold fast to life’311. However, ‘Derrida’s dismissal of nationalism is too hasty’, writes Pheng Cheah, a literary critic at the University of California, Berkeley. Despite the failed promises of postcolonial nationalism—in light of widespread misery and suffering in an era of uneven globalisation—Cheah contends that the nation is still a form that can enable ethical and political transformations. Popular nationalist movements have arisen in the postcolonial south to resist the forces of economic transnationalism. 310 Derrida, Specters of Marx, 82. Derrida contends that the root problem of sovereignty and territorially-bounded nation states, what he regards as the “old concepts of politics,” is that these phenomena are grounded in what he calls “ontopology.” The idea of ontopology links the “ontological value of present-being [on]” with a stable locality, “the topos of territory, native soil, city, body in general.” Derrida, “For A Justice To Come,” 24. Derrida, Specters of Marx, 83. 169; Cheah, Spectral Nationality, 392. 311 291 Instead of dismissing these movements as ‘essentially and irredeemably ontopologocentric’, Pheng Cheah argues, ‘one can see them as spectral promises’312. Nationalism can thus allow for the promise of the messianic. Hopes connected to the arrival of a Messiah contain ‘the attraction, invincible élan or affirmation of an unpredictable future-to-come (or even of a past-to-comeagain)’, in the words of Derrida313. ‘Not only must one not renounce the emancipatory desire’, writes Derrida, ‘it is necessary to insist on it more than ever’314 . Rather than pin his hopes on a specific program, event, project, or Messiah, Derrida sought to describe a universal structure of feeling that works independent of any specific historical moment or cultural location: ‘the universal, quasi-transcendental structure that I call messianicity without messianism is not bound up with any particular moment of (political or general) history or culture’315 . Derrida messianicity is ‘without content’, in contrast to messianism which contains specific objects of desire.316 Rather than Derrida’s messianicity without messianism, an empty structure of feeling where hope is detached from any particular person or place, nationalism contains definitive objects of desire. In West Papua the nation is just one figure that was animated by what I call the messianic multiple, the spirit of merdeka. In my forthcoming book, “Freedom in Entangled Worlds”, I describe the messianic multiple as a sense of expectation that is oriented to future horizons that contain many different saviours and imagined events. Rather than be fixated on the arrival of any single Messiah, this logic is like liquid mercury—it dances about, moves in different directions, and coalesces around multiple figures of hope317 . 312 Cheah, Spectral Nationality, 392-393. Derrida, “Marx & Sons,” 253. 314 Derrida, Specters of Marx, 74. 315 Derrida, “Marx & Sons,” 253. Italic emphasis mine. 316 Derrida, Specters of Marx, 28. Derrida also regards messianicity “as promise and not as ontotheological or teleo-eschatological program or design” (1994: 74). 317 Words are “like drops of liquid mercury splashing about, moving in any direction”, writes Chinese poet Gu Cheng (Weinberger 2005). Like liquid mercury, merdeka is difficult to contain. It runs through figural holes and travels abroad in unlikely disguises. All manner of heterogeneous, and seemingly contradictory, elements are contained in the fluidity of merdeka—hopes for national 313 292 After news of the Hearing faded from internet discussion groups, West Papua’s messianic spirit began to dance away from the US Congress, moving in different directions, and coalescing around new future events and figures318. A new cohort of young West Papuan activists reinvigorated the movement for merdeka, imagining sweeping changes, pushing beyond the visions of older generations of freedom fighters. Rather than emulate the struggle of bygone heroes like Theys Eluay and Bald Grandfather Willy, who leveraged covert support from multinational corporations and military agents in their nationalist struggle, the emerging generation was more careful in their coalition building. Students and activists in rural areas again took to the streets, rallying behind the cry of merdeka, wrapping their freedom dreams around the architecture of the modern world system. independence, capitalist wealth, socialist equality, Christian salvation, and indigenous sovereignty. These imperfect equivalencies allowed a massively popular grassroots movement to coalesce in West Papua after the fall of Suharto. (Thanks to Katie Peterson and Li Dong for bringing Gu Cheng’s work to my attention during our time together at Deep Springs College). 318 Weinberger, "Diary", 2005. 293 Section five: Obstacles to peace in West Papua Figure 2 West Papuans march in protest near Jayapura in 2010. Image: West Papua Media 294 Chapter twenty: Comprehending Papua: Breaking Papua’s political-security deadlock – costs and benefits of the various options Bilveer Singh Introduction While increasing scholarship is emerging on Papua (now split into two administrative provinces), formerly known as Dutch New Guinea, Irian Jaya and Irian Barat, for this volume, what does the operative word ‘comprehend’ or ‘comprehending’ entail? According to The Free Dictionary, to ‘comprehend’ means ‘to perceive or understand’. In the same vein, the Oxford Dictionary defines ‘comprehending’, in addition to ‘understanding’, as encompassing the notion of ‘grasping mentally’. In Bahasa Indonesia, a simple translation of ‘comprehending’ can be translated into ‘mengerti’ or ‘memahami’, connoting the notion of ‘understanding’. In what similar or different manners would the diverse tribes in Papua - in Jayapura, the Baliem Valley, Sorong, Manokwari, Paniai, Yapen, Fakfak, Merauke, Mimika, Asmat, Raja Ampat and Biak - approach the notion of ‘comprehending Papua’? The key question here is – what is it that we are trying to ‘understand’, or ‘perceive’ about Papua in this volume? Are we trying to understand how the Papuans view, perceive and make sense of the situation in Papua today and in the recent past, say since the Bunker agreement in 1962? Which Papuan groups or entities are we talking about – those in the two provinces of Papua in Indonesia [Papua and Papua Barat, more commonly known as West Papua] or those domiciled outside Papua, be they in Indonesia or elsewhere? Are we trying to understand why some Papuans are prepared to operate within the framework of the Republic of Indonesia while others support breaking away, either peacefully or otherwise? Are we concerned with comprehending the Indonesia Government and Indonesian public perspectives on Papua, and the evolving situation of the territory, especially since 1998? Or, are we non-Papuans and non-Indonesians trying to make sense and grasp how the Papuans are relating to Indonesian players? In this discourse 295 of ‘comprehending Papua’, the most important and critical players will remain the government and people of Indonesia, who constitute more than 240 million, the fourth largest state in the world in terms of population, with the Papuans themselves comprising a small but highly critical minority. In the discussion that follows, this vital dimension – that is, what are we trying to understand and eventually solve - must not be lost at any cost. At the same time, the various queries I have put forward are important starting issues that must be grappled with before the substantive aspects of ‘comprehending Papua’ can be adequately addressed. To this end, this chapter will elucidate the following: some ‘hard truths’ about Papua, the continued grievances of the Papuans, the various options confronting Papuans as far as their future is concerned and a possible road map for the way forward. Papua and the ‘hard truths’ In 2011, comprehending Papua requires one to confront many hard truths. First, following the resolution of the East Timor and Aceh issues, Papua remains the oldest unresolved issue of nation building (besides the Republik Maluku Selatan issue) in Indonesia. Second, the Papua issue continues to involve a broad range of internal and external actors, often with competing and conflicting interests. Third, despite the longstanding nature of the issue, there appears to be no apparent hope of an immediate breakthrough of the logjam mainly because of two key factors: 1) the sheer asymmetry of power between the Papuans and Indonesia, not just politically, economically and militarily but also in the significant minority status of the Papuan population, which constitutes barely more than 1.6 million people as compared to an equal number of ‘pendatangs’ (migrants) and some 240 million Indonesians who remain steadfast in opposition to any ‘Balkanisation’ of the unitary state of the Republic of Indonesia (NKRI); and 2) the importance and interests of the external players who remain largely committed to supporting the integrity of Indonesia in opposition to Papuan pleas for support for independence. Both of these factors have vastly complicated the conflict resolution process in Papua, greatly advantaging Indonesia and the existing 296 status quo of Indonesia’s territorial integrity. Fourth, massive policy changes have been introduced in Papua, especially with the onset of the Reformasi era in May 1998. Among others things, this includes the change of name of the territory from Irian Jaya to Papua in 2002, the establishment of the Forum for Reconciliation in Irian Jaya (FORERI) in July 1998, the convention of MUBES 2000 (Papuan Mass Consultation) in February 2000, the convention of the ‘Second’ Papuan Peoples’ Congress in May-June 2000, the setting up of the Papuan Presidium Council (PDP) in June 2000, the formal establishment of the Papuan Peoples’ Assembly (MRP) in 2005, the division of Papua into three provinces (two of which have been constitutionally set up with separate regional administrations), the launch of Special Autonomy (otonomi khusus) for Papua following the enactment of the Special Autonomy Law of 2001, the holding of elections for regional and national legislatures, and the general decline of violence (even though this has continued in an intermittent fashion). Fifth, if one is objective, sincere and realistic, the undeniable fact that of all the governments Indonesia has had, the Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) administration, in power since October 2004, has been the most ‘pro-Papua’ and genuine in trying to address many of the highly contentious and complex day-today and legacy issues inherited from the past. President Abdurrahman Wahid was helpful but President Bambang has gone the furthest in accommodating Papuans’ grievances. This is evident in the following: the enhancement of the Special Autonomy Law through Presidential Instruction Number 5/2007 which saw five ‘new deals’ being given to Papua, including: ensuring food security and the eradication of poverty; enhancing educational standards; providing for basic health needs; expanding the basic infrastructure to ensure all-round development, especially for less accessible areas; and implementing affirmative action policies to benefit the indigenous Papuans in governmental and nongovernment spheres. Between 2002 and 2009, the Indonesian Government injected some 27 trillion rupiah into Papua, making the Papuans, some of the highest per capita recipients of largesse from the central government. SBY has 297 also ensured that military abuses would not be tolerated as they had been in the past, and this was best indicated in the bringing to justice through the recent sentencing of three soldiers involved in the abuse of two prison inmates in Papua. Sixth, Papua has remained largely an internal issue, despite Papuans’ various attempts to internationalise it, which have for the most part failed. Even though there is some support and sympathy from elements in various international communities, all governments (except Vanuatu) have sided with Jakarta on the issue, and this is unlikely to change in the near future. Seventh, a development that will increasingly colour the future of Papua is the emergence of Indonesia as an increasingly vital regional and global geo-political player. This is not just due to its status as the largest Muslim nation and third largest functioning democracy but also its role in various global foras such as the G20, the United Nations, the Association of South East Asian Nations, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, the ASEAN Regional Forum, and the East Asian Summit, best symbolised lately by the visits of Chinese and American leaders as well as SBY’s state visit to India as its chief guest on Republic Day in January 2011. This has greatly enhanced Jakarta’s all-round leverage on all issues. Thus Jakarta will become increasingly immune to pressures from outside while key extraneous players are also increasingly unlikely to pressure Indonesia on issues deemed vital to Jakarta, such as Papua. This is due to Indonesia’s growing importance and political weight, where Jakarta’s cooperation and goodwill is required on issues of a strategic nature and where Papua’s membership of the Indonesian State is viewed as final and uncontested. In view of these hard truths, how can one move forward? Papuans’ continued grievances According to esteemed Papuan political activist Don Flassy, the Papuan conflict can be viewed as a cake that has been cut into three pieces.319 The first slice 319 Author’s interview with Mr. Don Flassy on 14 October 2005, Jayapura, Papua. 298 refers to Papuans’ anger over human rights violations and abuses by the security apparatus since 1963. The second slice referes to developmental and prosperityrelated issues with poverty, the main distinguishing feature of Papuan society despite the immense natural wealth. The third slice comprises Papuans’ struggle for merdeka, independence, as the way to resolve their grievances and sufferings. Other Papuan nationalists championing independence, such as Nicolaas Jouwe, the late Seth Rumkorem, Jacob Prai, Ruben Maurey, Andy Ajamseba, John Otto Ondawame and key PDP leaders such as Tom Beanal, Thaha Al-Hamid, Willy Mandowen and Herman Awom, have listed a litany of issues that have created ‘unbridgeable divides’ and ‘irreconcilables’ between Indonesia and Papua320. These divides are: 1. Historical: Even though Papua was part of the Dutch East Indies, it was never integrated into the Indonesian archipelago, due in part through The Hague’s neglect as well as a Dutch perception that the Papuans were ‘backward’ and different from the rest of Indonesia. A major historical grievance is the fact that the Papuans were promised independence by the Dutch and the basic components of statehood had already been set up (a parliament, a national flag and a national anthem) but this promise was aborted through ‘international conspiracy’ and the sheer force of Indonesian power. 2. Legal-Constitutional: The 1962 New York Agreement that transferred Papua from the Dutch to Indonesia was undertaken without consulting the Papuans. As the Papuans were totally uninvolved in the process, especially following the United Nations Declaration on Self-Determination, not only is there a sense of historical injustice, but Papuans also want the mistake remedied. Similarly, Papuans have demanded that the flawed 1969 Act of Free Choice that legally integrated Papua into Indonesia be reviewed. 320 See Bilveer Singh, Papua: Geopolitics and the Quest for Nationhood, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transactions Publishers, 2008), pp. 85-119. 299 3. Political: Since May 1963, political power in the territory has largely rested in the hands of Jakarta’s appointees. Papuans feel that they are heavily marginalised and discriminated against in the arena of politics and they want this to be reversed. Also, despite many indigenous Papuan holding key positions in the territory, these Papuans are viewed by other Papuans as champions of Jakarta’s causes rather than Papuan ones. 4. Economic: The blatant exploitation of Papua’s wealth for benefit of outsiders, and the poverty of Papuans, are fundamental issues that have created all-round grievances. Papuans feel exploited and their anger is further aggravated in the knowledge that their territory is a world-class treasure trove of natural resources. 5. Cultural: For Papuans, their world revolves around their culture and traditions. There is a growing perception that Indonesia’s policies, especially with regard to the rapid migration of non-Papuans, have greatly threatened Papuan culture. Papuans feel that their culture and traditions are not only ignored and marginalised, but, worse still, are looked down on as backward practices that need to be ‘civilized’. 6. Religious: A largely Christian society, the introduction of Indonesian rule and in particular, the increasing number of non-Christian migrants has created a situation where Papuans are becoming a minority in their homeland. In particular, the increasing presence of Islamist extremist groups is a grave concern. 7. Human rights: Papua was essentially occupied by Indonesia through force, and the military has remained the key player in the territory. Most Papuan challenges have also been countered by the military, with most human rights abuses blamed on the military, which has been fighting a low-intensity war there since May 1963. 300 A research team under the auspices of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) in 2008, similarly concluded that there were four inter-related broad categories of issues that have created a divide between Papua and Indonesia. These include: the marginalisation of and discriminatory impact on indigenous Papuans stemming from economic development, political conflict and mass migration, especially since 1970; the failure of development, especially in the fields of education and health care; the gap between Indonesia and Papua over history and political identity; and finally, accountability for past state violence against Papuans321 . It is primarily due to this situation that the PDP Secretary General Thaha AlHamid has described the situation in Papua as one of “dirty, brutal internal colonisation that is undertaken through repression and divide and rule policies” (strategi belah bamboo: angkat satu kelompok and injak yang lain)322. At the same time, most Papuans continue to distrust Indonesia, believing that Jakarta is not keen to build bridges and undertake reconciliation with Papua. Jakarta’s reservations stem mainly from the fear that internal peace and harmony in Papua is a threat to Jakarta as this would result in the rise of a Papuan nation, and hence, of a threat to the NKRI. In order to address their grievances, Papuans have undertaken a host of actions.323 There have been calls to review the New York Agreement as well as the Act of Free Choice. There have been almost continuous calls for the closure of Freeport. In addition to calls for the reduction of TNI soldiers, some have even demanded that the TNI totally leave the territory. The Indonesian Government has been called to cease its transmigration programmes, official and unofficial, in Papua. Some have even demanded the expulsion of all pendatangs from Papua. In order to ensure that Papuans are politically empowered, and their culture and 321 See Muridan S. Widjojo, Adriana Elisabeth, Amiruddin Cahyo Pamungkas and Rosita Dewi, Papua Road Map: Negotiating the Past, Improving the Present and Securing the Future, (Jakarta: LIPI, 2008). 322 Author’s interview with Mr. Thaha al-hamid, Secretary-General PDP, in Jayapura, 2007. 323 See Bilveer Singh, op cit, pp. 121-168. 301 traditions respected, there have been regular demands for the wholesale ‘Papuanisation’ of society. Here, not only is there a demand for political power to be entrusted into the hands of ‘putra daerah’, the ‘sons of the land’, but even more importantly, Papuans have demanded that the territory’s institutions should adopt a Papuan system that respects local culture and traditions. The grievances of the Papuans have been expressed by various groups and organisations. At times, some officials have tried to highlight these but, for the most part, due to fear of being labeled a ‘separatist’ and hence, losing their positions in government, this is a rarity. Instead, there are many non-‘official’ individuals and organisations that have expressed concern about the ‘wrongs’ committed in Papua. These groups and individuals can be best described as the ‘Papuan resistance’. While the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM) has long symbolised this, since the fall of Suharto, the PDP and its various affiliates have been active in this arena. Particularly important are two key institutions, namely, the Dewan Adat Papua (Papuan Customary Council, or PDP) and the MRP. There are also various important student groups and NGOs. Front Pepera Papua Barat (United Front for the West Papuan Struggle) is a radical organisation that has been active in calling for Freeport’s closure. There are many other organisations involved in the ‘struggle’ for Papuan causes. Among others, these include the West Papua Council, Papua Panel, the Koteka Tribal Assembly Council, the Mamberamo-Tami Tribal Council, Alliance of Papuan Students (AMP International), the West Papuan Community, the Group 14 (14 Star Group), Melanesian Council, Melanesian Solidarity, PDP-Pacific Committee, PDP-Europe Committee, WathPapua, ELSHAM Papua, Amungme Tribal Council, Tribal Council of the Komoro Tribe, Papua Tribal Council, Polisi Adat Papua, Satuan Tugas Papua, Satuan Tugsa Koteka and LEMHARKOT (foundation to defend the human rights of Koteka people).324 324 Ibid, pp. 211-221. 302 While many of these organisations are willing to seek dialogue with the Indonesian authorities, the presence of the OPM and other military elements, such as the OPM Liberation Army and OPM Revolutionary Council, also symbolise the willingness of some elements to embrace the military option, which despite being around for more than forty years, has yielded little success. Still, since the onset of the Reformasi era, two broad political-military coalitions have operated within and outside of Papua to pressure the Indonesian Government to find a new modus vivendi in the territory. These are the National Liberation Council and West Papuan National Coalition for Liberation. The latter, especially, has broadly succeeded in uniting the various OPM commands to assist the diplomatic approach in breaking the deadlock, though there is little by way of other achievements thus far. Options for Indonesia and Papua325 While the present conflict between Papua and Indonesia does not seem to indicate the possibility of an early conclusion, it is nevertheless critical to consider the probable outcomes that may evolve within the foreseeable future. In the words of Nicolaas Jouwe, there are two main types of scenarios possible. There can either be an external arrangement, meaning independence, or an internal arrangement of different packages.18 Essentially, this means that the ongoing conflict could end in any of three different directions: independence for Papua, a genuine offer of wide-ranging autonomy, or the maintenance of the status quo. When Papua was under de facto (1963-1969) and later de jure (since 1969) control of Indonesia, two main types of discourses dominated the Papuan politics, namely, the nationalists struggling for independence, and Suharto’s New Order, driven mainly by the military, striving for tight and total control through the ‘security approach’. While independence continues to be sought after by segments of the Papuan population, since May 1998, there has been a recognition in Jakarta that the old style of control is no longer sustainable. This in 325 This section has been taken and adapted from the author’s book, Papua: Geopolitics and the Quest for Nationhood, pp. 195-205. 303 turn has lead to a greater willingness to dialogue, to the implementation of the Special Autonomy Law, and to greater devolution of power as various civil society and political groups call for greater justice, development and control. Against this backdrop, the various possibilities and the probable precipitating factors that can lead to a new modus vivendi are now discussed. Scenario 1: Independence The independence scenario should not be entirely ruled out. Admittedly, this scenario appears highly implausible since it entails a considerable amount of political goodwill from Jakarta in allowing a repeat of East Timor. This amount of ‘goodwill’, however, can be achieved through two independent circumstances. The first involves an international-imposed Papuan independence on grounds of the fraudulent Act of Free Choice and the universal right to self-determination. This is highly possible given the increasing support for Papuan independence within the Western world, which is strongly opposed to the manner in which the Act was conducted as well as the bleak human rights record that Indonesia possesses. While the United States, being the main proponent of the Act, is unlikely to anger Jakarta by engaging in a policy turn around on the status of Papua, American non-involvement could eventually cripple under mounting international pressure. Primarily, the demands for action could come from its closest ally in the region, Australia. Being one of Indonesia’s closest neighbors, the Australian government, fuelled by its concerns for the wellbeing of Papua New Guinea, (independent but largely under Australian oversight) could be a strong advocate for the granting of independence to Papua. Australia’s call would likely be echoed by the Dutch, which still maintains that its expulsion from Papua was illegitimate and undertaken at ‘gun point’ by the US. This partnership would also be enforced by other countries, which because of concerns about the human right abuses in Papua, would be intent on correcting the international “betrayal” of Papua during the Act of Free Choice. Already, some small states in the South Pacific such as Vanuatu, Fiji, Nauru and Tuvalu, are supportive of this option. 304 Clearly then, human right’s abuses by the Indonesian military serve to fuel escalating international involvement in the Papuan conflict. Any attempts by Jakarta to further suppress dissident movements in Papua will not be taken to kindly by the international community which is still reeling from the atrocities committed against the East Timorese. The recurrence of such atrocities will only invite direct international intervention, something which Jakarta is strongly opposed to. Nevertheless, if faced with a barrage of internationally-endorsed sanctions and the threat of international isolation, Jakarta will eventually be forced to conduct a referendum for Papua, clearly cognisant that any such referendum will eventually lead to its secession from Indonesia. An internationally-induced independence for Papua is likely if Jakarta erroneously continues to exercise reppressive tendencies as well as human rights violations in Papua. The second circumstance in which Jakarta can be expected to demonstrate a respectable amount of political goodwill which would eventually allow Papua to secede could occur if Jakarta becomes sufficiently frustrated by this fundamental thorn to its concept of the unitary state. Unlike Aceh, the Indonesian government may come to realise that Papuans’ are ethnically different. Papua’s union into Indonesia, like that of East Timor, was undertaken through the threat of force. Whereas East Timor was effectively ‘conquered’ by Indonesian forces, Papua would have had shared a similar fate had the United States not intervened to mediate between Indonesia and the Dutch. Undeniably then, Papua’s ‘integration’ into Indonesia is highly contentious. As a result, the Indonesian government might undertake the painful step of cutting its losses should the question of legitimacy continue unabated. Rather than continuing in an uphill battle to prove its legitimacy in governing Papua, the Indonesian government might be tempted to eventually allow Papua to secede. While Papua’s rich mineral resources are crucial to Indonesia, the political cost, 305 at some point in time, would hardly be worth the trouble. Openly then, the Indonesian President, with mandate from the MPR, may eventually concede to Papuan calls for a referendum, with the intention of allowing Papua to secede. Through the referendum, Indonesia can then claim to adhere to democratic norms as practiced by the international community. This will eventually serve as a crucial point in advocating greater cooperation with rich Western states which are integral in ensuring the flow of capital and finance into Indonesia. Undeniably, Jakarta will come to realise that the in-flow of foreign investments could be of significant value to Indonesia’s battered economy which has yet to fully recover from the 1997 economic crisis and the subsequent global financial crises. Considering the potential spin-offs from its cooperation with the international community, the secession of Papua from Indonesia could, under certain conditions, become attractive for Jakarta. Such a consideration, however, carries the potent assumption that Jakarta is willing to forgo a piece of its territory for the benefit of its vast archipelago. Such circumstances will, however, be very much dependent on the state of economic development in the Republic as well as the political convictions of its future leaders. Still, Indonesia has invested time, money and lives in Papua and would not allow it to secede easily. The implications of Indonesian nationalism and the concept of a unitary state are fundamental considerations for Jakarta. These are also the very underpinnings of its nationalism and the struggle of its statehood. Of equal significance is the lack of political support within Jakarta for the secession of Papua. Similarly, the resistance movements within Papua are too factionalised and disunited to force Jakarta to seriously consider the need for independence. It is more likely that Papuan independence will be undertaken from a forced concession from Indonesia due to mounting international pressure, rather than as a result of its own goodwill. Such a possibility would mirror closely the events that precipitated East Timor’s independence. This possibility, however, is equally mired with problems. This includes the lack of widespread international support for Papuan independence. The lack of interest from the United Nations’ General 306 Assembly for the Papuan cause further hampers the possibility of an internationally-imposed independence scenario. Furthermore, the independence scenario entails the need for massive and internationally funded logistical and humanitarian support. Such requirements are in themselves major deterrents for the involvement of the international community in the conflict. Such structural restraints tend to rule out an internationally-imposed independence scenario. This is, however, subject to Indonesia’s continued efforts to ensure the maintenance of basic human rights and the curtailment of its overt repression. This is something that has been vigorously enforced by President SBY since he became the first directly elected president in an election in which most Papuans supported him. If President Bambang’s policies of pro-active developmental support and zero-violence against Papuans are pursued by succeeding leaders, Papuans would have little cause to cry foul and seek international support for their independence. It is expected that Indonesia will remain highly careful in its dealings with Papua so as to avoid instigating international awareness and subsequent intervention. Thus, the possibility of a prevailing status quo scenario remains high. The perpetuation of the status quo is very likely if Jakarta, through its appeasement of the international community, is able to continue its assimilation policies. Scenario 2: Status quo ante The status quo ante scenario essentially foresees the maintenance of many of Jakarta’s present policies and calls for greater continuity rather than change. This includes sustained efforts towards assimilation, repression and suppression of dissident views as well as a continued Jakarta-based administration of the provinces. Such an approach from Jakarta can be understood in terms of its need to curtail and discourage other secessionist movements within the country. Having undergone the East Timor experience, Jakarta will very likely heighten its control of its territories leaving little room for compromise. While this status quo scenario appears unlikely, its possibility cannot be totally dismissed. The status 307 quo scenario can be forseen by the presence of several factors. Foremost among these is the possible reversal of the democratic process in Indonesia. Despite having its first ever-direct presidential election in 2004, the political scene in Indonesia continues to be highly volatile. Such volatility foreshadow the rise of a firm and autocratic order very similar to Suharto’s New Order. While this would obviously contradict Indonesia’s efforts towards greater democratisation, the need for stability may in future easily override such idealistic goals. The establishment of a new autocratic elite could eventually see the abandonment of any diplomatic discussions with Papuans. Instead, the government would attempt to pacify secessionists’ with offers of amnesty and the guarantee of greater economic development aid aimed at reducing socio-economic discontent. They would hope that this would dampen disenchantment in Papua, in turn facilitating its assimilation process into Indonesia proper. Apart from the reversal of the democratic process as a result of a political transition, the maintenance of status quo in Papua might also be possible if the secessionist movement in Papua, which is already plagued by factionalism, is unable to pose a significant threat to Jakarta and decides to strategically co-opt Jakarta’s rule in exchange for concessions not amounting to independence. The co-option of Papuan elites within Indonesian rule would then allow greater social and economic exchanges. This would eventually operate within the framework of an Indonesian Unitary State. The perpetuation of the status quo in Papua is highly likely if the international community becomes increasingly oblivious to the secessionists movements in Papua, preferring instead to maintain stable relations with Jakarta. While this will not effect an immediate change, the international silence will eventually leave the secessionist movement in the cold. Realising that they lack international support, ordinary Papuans will then opt for peaceful coexistence with Indonesia, albeit maintaining the need for the improvement of basic issues such as police brutality. Concurrently too, Jakarta will engage in assimilationist policies to take advantage of international non- 308 involvement. Overall, international non-intervention will only serve to perpetuate the status quo. Having discussed the varying factors that will ensure the perpetuation of status quo, it is worthwhile noting the counter factors that might render the status quo scenario unlikely. Foremost among these is the fact that the democratisation process in Indonesia, having been attained through prolonged turmoil, is unlikely to be reversed. Increasingly, Indonesians are very much in favor of greater freedom of expression and a more active role in the political scene. The rise of another autocratic government is unlikely, if not entirely impossible, in a civicconscious society such as Indonesia’s. Similarly, the possibility of Papuans yielding to Jakarta’s assimilationist policies is highly unlikely given the protracted nature of the conflict. In actuality, Papuans can be expected to fully capitalise on the success of East Timor as well as Indonesia’s democratization process towards attaining its eventual independence. Of equal unlikeliness is the silence of international community. While the need to maintain good bilateral relations with the world’s largest Muslim country is of utmost importance to the international community, such a need cannot override the need to respect basic human right issues. This is especially so if Jakarta continues to engage in outright oppression and abuse in Papua. Given the international consciousness of the Papuan conflict, it is highly unlikely that Jakarta will be able to further prolong its tight rule over Papua without inviting international condemnation. Increasingly too, Jakarta is fully cognizant that an amicable solution in Papua is highly crucial to restore its tarnished reputation as a result of the East Timor saga. Such a necessity brings us into discussion the third possible solution to the Papuan conflict. Scenario 3: Federalism or Special Autonomy Recognising that the perpetuation of the status quo or the granting of outright independence are both unlikely scenarios for the foreseeable future, a compromise of the two extremes looks as though it offers a more palatable mid309 point option. This compromise is likely to manifest itself in the introduction of state-wide federal structure or a specific autonomy for Papua. Federalism essentially involves the separation of a distinct territory from a sovereign state as mutually agreed by two contending parties. Such an agreement could possibly be appropriated and enforced by a neutral third party. While Indonesia is effectively managed through the provincial system, unresolved issues pertaining to level of autonomy, financial appropriations and political discretion remain highly contentious for Papuans. In actuality, such problems are similarly echoed by most of Indonesia’s provinces. The insurgencies in East Timor, Aceh and the Malukus in the past suffice as evidence of possible grievances within the present provincial arrangements and the need to make specific adjustments to solve the problem. The federalism scenario that is suggested would then likely be introduced nationwide as opposed to being Papua-specific. If Jakarta continues to face woes with varying states of insurgency and secessionist movements across its territory, it would eventually be coerced to agree to a federal style unitary state, similar to that of India. The federal system would bring about higher levels of powers for the proposed states to determine their financial budgets and political agendas. These powers would also allow states to introduce and implement policies that are better suited to its territorial needs. Law and order mechanisms would be placed under the control of the state to allow greater congruence of agendas and goals of the police, the courts and the political leaders. For some, the implementation of a federal system is undoubtedly the most attractive and viable option facing Jakarta for ending secessionist movements in Papua. Also, federalism would place Jakarta at an advantageous position to end other secessionist movements in its vast archipelago through mutually agreeable power-sharing mechanisms. The federal structure, however, can be expected to meet skepticism among Papuans who will feel shortchanged by the current provincial system. Papuans have been very critical of the provincial system which they view as an indirect way of implementing Jakarta’s repressive policies. The 310 failure of Jakarta to allow greater discretion among Papuan elites in determining the running of their province will also hamper the possibility of a power-sharing mechanism. The federalism suggestion assumes Jakarta’s willingness to fully implement and abide by the code of conduct between the federal states and its central government. While such willingness has failed to surface in the present provincial system, mounting secessionist movements in Indonesia could possibly coerce Jakarta to become more willing. Yet, at the same time, the introduction of regional autonomy in post-Suharto Indonesia is almost akin to some variants of federalism, and for Indonesia to make the jump from existing ‘regional autonomy’ to future ‘federalism’ may not require that much of a psychological and real administrative change after all. An equivalent scenario might entail a Papua-specific policy arrangement. This would involve a special autonomy arrangement for Papua only. The nature of the special autonomy arrangement runs similar to those in the federal structure, namely, a greater say for Papuans in the management of their territory. Such specifically-oriented arrangements would reflect Jakarta’s intention to avoid a state-wide autonomy arrangement, which would require massive logistical preparations as well as legislative arrangements that could take years to be effectively implemented. As an immediate measure to moderate the mounting secessionist tendencies, a special autonomy, arguably similar to that in a federal structure, would be extended to Papuans. This special autonomy arrangement would serve to pacify Papuan demands as well as contain Jakarta’s anxieties. The federalism scenario or its special autonomy equivalent, as mentioned earlier, is among the most plausible solutions to the Papuan conflict. Significantly, the greater autonomy associated with both structures would mean greater citizen empowerment which would be welcomed by the international community as a sign of Indonesia’s gradual democratisation. Also, the federalism or autonomy scenario is a solution that could be achieved within the framework of Indonesia’s territorial integrity. Lastly, if Jakarta is genuinely engaged in allowing greater 311 empowerment, the scenario could assist the peaceful solution to the conflict by satisfying many Papuan demands. Only then could the Papuans be expected to put aside their secessionist aims in support of the unitary state of Indonesia. In relation to this option is the ‘Bougainville Option’ which many political and armed separatists operating in PNG have put forward for Bougainville. This refers to the peace agreement signed between the PNG Government and the Bougainville separatists on August 30, 2001. In some ways, this is a ‘mixed’ formula entailing elements of the status quo, autonomy, and federalism with the hope of independence in future. In the Bougainville agreement, Bougainvillehas become a special province with wide-ranging autonomy in internal affairs. Also, the agreement specified that, within 10 to 15 years of its signing, a referendum would be held to ascertain the plausibility of Bougainville’s political independence. The expressed purposes of the agreement, though somewhat contradictory, were to: a) facilitate the expression and development of Bougainville identity and the relationship between Bougainville and the rest of Papua New Guinea; (b) empower Bougainvilleans to solve their own problems, manage their own affairs and work to realise their aspirations within the framework of the Papua New Guinea Constitution; and (c) promote the unity of Papua New Guinea19 .While this formula appears attractive for the Papuans, as an interim mechanism to achieve peace with Jakarta (with the hope of future independence), Indonesia is unlikely to endorse it due to its objection to Papuan independence, especially following the experience with East Timor’s referendum in 1999. The realisation among Papuan nationalists that both independence and the status quo are fraught with difficulties means that they are increasingly pushing for a compromise option. While there is a unanimous rejection of the existing status quo, at the same time, in view of the growing enlightened approach of new leaders in Jakarta, especially since SBY became President, Papuan nationalists have also been articulating the dangers of independence. Maurey Ruben, a 312 former minister in the Rumkorem cabinet and now in exile in Sweden, articulated this most succinctly when he stated the need to prevent ‘Congo II and East Timor II’. According to Maurey, if Papua gains independence, the intense divisions, tribalism and the struggle for power and spoils will result in a bloody civil war. ‘An independent Papua will end up as Congo II, and everyone will be worse off’, he maintains. Secondly, Papuan independence is also likely to result in external actors, especially Australia, emerging as even worse ‘predators’. Already, in poor East Timor, the Australians have emerged as the new colonisers and the East Timorese are worse off. It is likely that Australians will rapaciously exploit and plunder Papua’s wealth, transforming it into an East Timor II, only this time it will be even worse. This means, in the quest for independence, the Papuans would only have succeeded in changing one coloniser for another’20 .The increased tendency of Papuan nationalists to articulate views of this nature is also likely to result in the adoption of a ‘middle’ course through dialogue, compromises and concessions, resulting in some kind of ‘internal independence’ for Papua within the framework of the Indonesian Republic. Conclusion: Comprehending Papua and the way forward Given the above backdrop, in order for any meaningful method of resolution of the issue to take place such as a win-win dialogue, a number of critical steps would need to be undertaken. The following are useful steps that should be borne in mind: 1. Both sides must agree that the only way to move forward is through dialogue. The use of force to determine the ‘way forward’ must be totally abandoned by both sides as this will only be counter-productive for the interests of both parties. 2. Both sides would need to establish the parameters and framework within which dialogue could take place. There would be a need to agree on what is to be discussed during the dialogue – what issues should be placed on the agenda. For example, whether legacy issues such as the Bunker Agreements and Act of Free Choice should be discussed, how to move ahead implementing the special autonomy regulations, reduction of police and military presence, and so on. In 313 short, there should be a prior agreement on what the dialogue is for and on what issues the dialogue should centre. Only once these are clear could a substantive dialogue be initiated, This should not be a free-for-all get-together with no clear issues agreed a priori. 3. Equally important are decisions about who should be involved in the dialogue. Is this a dialogue between Papuans inside Papua, between Papuans inside and outside of Papua and Indonesia, or between the regional administrations in Papua and the Central Government? Say, in the present circumstances, if SBY’s government legitimately represent’s Indonesia and the people of Indonesia in general, who would legitimately be representing the ‘Papuans’? Is there a single voice and organisation representing the Papuan interests and collective? These are fundamental questions given that the Jakarta Government must dialogue with someone, as they did for example in East Timor and Aceh. Dialogue with multiple Papuan groups and leaders is not possible. As long as questions remain about who represents Papua and Papuans, organising a dialogue will be unproductive and no solution will be found. The fact of the matter is that the Indonesian Government, especially under the leadership of President Yudhoyono, wants to negotiate and settle the issue, once and for all, but does not know with which group to negotiate other than the regional administrations of Papua and Papua Barat. For the Papuans as a community, there is a useful window of opportunity until 2014, at which time a totally new and different political paradigm and reality will surface, one which will probably not engage with the issue. Thus, it is prudent that this opportunity be seized, and the ball is largely located in the Papuan court, given the context of a democratic Indonesia where the regional and central administrations are much more responsive and accountable than in the past. After almost five decades of Indonesian rule in Papua, the integration of Papuan society into mainstream Indonesia is far from complete. At the same time, various efforts to this end must be commended, including the involvement of a sizeable portion of the population voting in the country’s local and national elections. Still, the nation building process has been plagued by numerous 314 setbacks and gross mistakes by various political actors. These have fuelled the low-level military conflict between the Indonesian military and the OPM, which has been ongoing since 1963. With the secession of East Timor, coupled with the political turmoil generated as a result of the Papuan issue, Jakarta has been increasingly pressured to undertake concrete and credible initiatives to remedy the regional conflict, which, following the Aceh peace deal in August 2005, appears to be the last major conflict that continues to confront Jakarta. With the options of Papuan independence and perpetuation of status quo highly unlikely, Jakarta is faced with the dilemma of implementing other initiatives to remove this painful thorn in its domestic politics as well as international relations. While the granting of special autonomy and the widening of its parameters remain a highly viable and likely outcome to settle the conflict, its attractiveness to both Jakarta and Papua remains to be seen. For the Papuans, the options are either to exist within the NKRI or outside it. If it is outside the NKRI, it means fighting for independence, something which appears unattainable. If the Papuans decide to exist within the NKRI framework, then there are various options, something enlightened post-Suharto era leaders such as President Bambang Yudhoyono have been prepared to consider. The Papuan conflict has been extremely costly for both Indonesia and Papua. While it was the US and others that pressured the Dutch to surrender the territory due to Cold War considerations, it is Indonesia that has failed to win the ‘hearts and minds’ of the Papuans. Tragically, the territory has been treated as a ‘frontier’ for exploitation with the mode of internal colonialism as the modus operandi. However, in efforts to bring peace to Papua in the era of regional autonomy and democratisation, much has also been achieved to uplift the wellbeing of Papuans. For peace and development to be achieved, three categories of players in Papua must play their part. First, the Papuans must abandon armed struggle and opt for dialogue to resolve their conflict with Jakarta. This also entails abandoning the struggle for independence, at least for the time being. That independence as an option be abrogated must be agreed 315 upon by all Papuan leaders, whether operating from within or outside of Indonesia. Second, Indonesia must demonstrate leadership and restraint. It must admit and recognise that grave mistakes have been made in governance in the past. Much needs to be undertaken to win the Papuans’ trust and confidence. Almost every Papuan family has suffered in one way or another from Indonesian abuse in the past. Not only must this cease, but appropriate compensations must also be provided. Only then can reconciliation be successful. Indonesia must also be sensitive to Papuan culture and traditions. These are extremely critical to the Papuan worldview. Finally, the external stakeholders, especially the multinational corporations, while continuing their economic activities, must also pursue ‘best practices’ in terms of promoting Papuan welfare, respect for Papuan culture and traditions, and protection of the environment. There is much that needs to be done, especially by PT Freeport which has come to symbolise predatory practices of foreign corporations in Papua. In the final analysis, understanding the Papuan problematique requires a deep awareness of Papua’s history, the culture of its peoples, and the experiences of Papuans in recent history. While many key issues are important, the critical ones include the political status of the territory, ongoing economic exploitation and widespread poverty among the Papuans, the feeling of being pressured on social-cultural grounds, unhappiness with environmental degradation and, finally, anger with the pervasive human rights violations since Indonesia gained control of the territory in May 1963. For Papua to emerge as a zone of peace and for the conflict to be settled and then resolved, Jakarta must first realise that there are serious problems in the territory. Next, the political leaders in Jakarta and Papua must demonstrate a strong political will to settle the problems peacefully through dialogue and compromise. Whichever mechanisms and modalities are agreed upon by both sides is not as critical as the outcome, namely, peace and stability in Papua. This requires the Papuans, Indonesian leaders and external stakeholders, the main players in Papua, to demonstrate sensitivity, willingness 316 to compromise, and determination to act peacefully, to break the imbroglio so that the problematique can be resolved once and for all. 317 Chapter twenty-one: Large corporations and obstacles to peace in Papua Kylie McKenna and John Braithwaite Introduction In the literature relating to resources and conflict in Papua, the starting point is often the historical background which resulted in Papua’s incorporation into Indonesia through the contested Act of Free Choice process. This historical entry point is used to describe the geographic, social, cultural, economic and environmental context, as well as to elucidate the conditions which have shaped specific local grievances about the manner in which resource extraction in Papua has occurred. These analyses of the ‘past’, however, have not always been extended, or integrated into, contemporary understandings of the opportunities that large corporations have to contribute to peace with justice in Papua. Rather, the entanglement of resource exploitation with Papua’s incorporation into Indonesia has lurked as a shadow that appears too large, or somehow beyond the scope of the responsibilities of business. Likewise, many scholars focus on the apparent ‘resource curse’ in increasing the likelihood of civil war326. Whilst descent into civil war is certainly one possibility, there is also the possibility of a ‘resource opportunity’ through which large corporations could contribute to building just peace and development. Precious resources such as diamonds can be a blessing for Botswana’s development and a curse for Sierra Leone, depending on how negotiations with resource projects are managed and hedged with checks and balances327. In previous work we have argued that Indonesian resource projects have in practice been at different 326 Paul Collier, The Bottom Billion: Why the poorest countries are failing and what can be done about it (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); Michael L. Ross, “The Political Economy of the Resource Curse,” World Politics 51, No. 2 (January 1999): 297-322 327 Anne D. Boschini, Jan Pettersson, and Roine, Jesper. “Resource curse or not: A question of appropriability,” Scandinavian Journal of Economics 109, Issue 3 (2005): 593–617 318 times and places both a curse and a ‘resource opportunity’, as when community security around a resource project creates an ‘island of civility’328 where peacemakers from conflicting groups can meet to begin peace processes that ripple outwards from the island of civility or peace zone329. This chapter puts forward one ‘resource opportunity’ in the Papuan context: a multilateralised peace negotiation initiated by Papuan leaders that includes the private sector. First, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategies of Freeport and BP are contrasted in terms of their response to the grievances at the heart of Papua’s conflict. It will then be argued that these resource projects not only provide an opportunity for the companies to contribute to peaceful development in Papua through the prism of CSR, but that they also offer Papuans an important platform to initiate peace negotiations with Jakarta. Local grievances entangled with resource development Papua’s entanglement in the decolonisation process of Indonesia is the core grievance expressed by its independence movement - more specifically - the unfair way in which the territory was incorporated into Indonesia. Papua has been charaterised as an ‘internal colony’330, where ‘the core dominates the periphery politically and exploits it materially’331. A significant proportion of Papuans have contested the coercive manner in which their homeland was incorporated into Indonesia, particularly the treatment of Papuans by the Indonesian government and security forces since that time. Papua’s history is further complicated by the fact that it has experienced more than one phase of colonisation, and is a region that has suffered enormously as a result of western interests in the Cold War and beyond. 328 Mary Kaldor, New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era (Cambridge: Polity, 1999). 329 John Braithwaite and others, Anomie and Violence: Non-truth and reconciliation in Indonesian peacebuilding (Canberra: ANU E Press, 2010). 330 Anthony L. Smith and Angie Ng, “Papua: Moving Beyond Internal Colonialism?,” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies, 4, no. 2 (2002): 90-114. 331 Michael Hechter, Internal colonialism: the Celtic fringe in British national development (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1999), 9 319 The incorporation of Papua into the Republic of Indonesia, as well as its economic underdevelopment, laid the foundations for its independence movement, led by the armed separatist group, the OPM (Organisasi Papua Merdeka). Whilst the core grievance of many Papuans is primarily political, attributable to contested processes such as the Act of Free Choice, cultural factors and the emphasis on ‘difference’ (ethnically, culturally and geographically) have ‘kept the demands for independence alive’332. Expressions of Papuan independence can therefore be characterised as claims for both ‘recognition and redistribution’333 where the remedy for justice claims might be a wise balance between distributive justice and identity politics. In crucial ways, the American mining company, Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold is perceived to have been intricately entangled with these core grievances. This can be seen through the historical entry point of the company into Papua, the political relationships the company shared with the US government and Suharto’s New Order regime, the justification and source of funding the huge Grasberg mining complex provided the Indonesian military, and of course, the lack of financial returns to the Papuan economy and general development. As a result of this entanglement, many Papuans have transferred their grievances against the state to the company334. Yet despite a commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility, Freeport has not yet embraced the opportunity to respond to these grievances in a way that could contribute to peaceful development in Papua. 332 Smith and Ng, “Papua: Moving Beyond Internal Colonialism?,”, 95 Nancy Fraser and Axel Honneth, Redistribution or recognition? : a political-philosophical exchange, (London: Verso, 2003). 334 Volker Boege and Daniel M. Franks, “Re-opening and developing mines in post-conflict settings: the challenges of company-community relations,” in High-Value Natural Resources and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding. Volume 1. Peacebuilding and Natural Resources series, ed. by Päivi Lujala and Siri Aas Rustad, 8 (London: Earthscan, 2011). 333 320 This is the problem which is at the heart of McKenna’s forthcoming doctoral thesis, where she argues that despite a commitment to CSR, or one of its many synonyms, such as sustainable development or community relations, major resource companies in both Bougainville (Papua New Guinea) and Papua have failed to resolve local grievances related to resource development. Corporate social responsibility in Bougainville and Papua In McKenna’s thesis, the disparity between the CSR programs and the grievances of local communities became apparent through contrasting the characteristics of Freeport, BP and Bougainville Copper Limited’s CSR initiatives, with the characteristics of conflict in Papua and Bougainville respectively. Bougainville and Papua were chosen as case studies because they are two conflicts that have been associated with natural resources. Both regions have independence as a key aspiration - with Bougainville seeking independence from Papua New Guinea and Papua seeking independence from Indonesia. Both territories also involve companies that are looking back over a fifty year period of natural resource extraction to find more effective ways of contributing to corporate community development. The legal agreements of Freeport and the Bougainville copper mining projects were both signed in 1967, whilst a new resource project operated by BP started production in Papua in 2005. The BP project is important because BP has been well received in Papua335 and the company has explicitly designed its CSR programs based on the lessons they’ve learned from Freeport. There are methodological issues in thinking across the different political contexts in which Freeport and BP entered Papua, as well as the environmental 335 International Crisis Group, “Indonesia: Resources and Conflict in Papua”, ICG Asia Report, No. 39 (2002): ii; Michael Ross, “The Natural Resource Curse: How Wealth Can Make you Poor,” in Natural resources and violent conflict: options and actions, ed. Ian Bannon and Paul Collier, 29 (Washington, World Bank, 2003). 321 differences between gas and mining336 . But the main aim of this comparison has been to bring out the key lessons, constraints and connections between these resource companies and the dynamics of the two conflicts. A key finding of McKenna’s thesis is that Freeport and Bougainville Copper Limited (a subsidiary of Rio Tinto that was the operator of the Bougainville copper mine) have structured their community engagement programs around solving social problems through the distribution of material benefits (for example, through scholarships, health care, sporting and infrastructure projects). Whilst these types of resources are clearly important, and they might be targeted at those who hold the strongest grievances towards the companies, they do not really get at the heart of the concerns that locals hold about resource development. McKenna argues that these grievances represent broader feelings of injustice that CSR, as it currently exists amongst major resource companies, has not been designed to engage with. Freeport This problem is exemplified by Freeport’s lack of progress in the long and fraught relationship it has shared with Papuans since the 1960s. The social and environmental consequences of Freeport’s Grasberg mining operation seem to exacerbate a broader sense of injustice about Papua’s incorporation into Indonesia. As a Papuan former employee of Freeport stated: …it is hard to find any problem in Papua not connected to Freeport. It shows how significant it is when one talks about Papua. Any problem with Indonesia is the same as what people accuse Freeport of doing. Some people accuse Indonesia of polluting culture. Freeport is the other side of the same coin of Indonesiamodernization, social diseases. … Put that in context and start to think about 336 For a discussion on resource specific conditions see Matthias Basedau, “Context Matters – Rethinking the Resource Curse in Sub-Saharan Africa” Africa Analyst, Volume 3, Issue 1 (April 1, 2008): 1-17 322 CSR and it will be more complex. (Interview with Kylie McKenna, Jayapura, June 2010) Freeport Sulphur, as it was then named, signed the first Contract of Work to ever be signed with the Indonesian Government in 1967, two years before Indonesia was given sovereignty over Papua through the Act of Free Choice process. As a result, Freeport is perceived to have been used as a tool by the Indonesian state to exploit Papua through economically enabling Indonesian rule. As a Papuan peace activist stated: …we are in [phase] number three of colonisation. First was [a] big country – USA and Dutch. Second was Indonesia. Third is Freeport – new coloniser. Because he is a partner of Indonesia. They come without anything – everything is not legal. Freeport colonise and has everything – modernisation and things for the military to guard. Money to command the police and military. It is a model of a small state. An environment department, same as a minister. Defence minister, security department. ... Freeport is a new coloniser for us. So we are most victims because under three [colonisers] above us. (Interview with Kylie McKenna, Timika, July, 2010) Of significance to the future of Freeport’s presence in Papua, there is a popular perception amongst Papuans that Freeport’s controversial entry into their homeland is a key factor constraining a positive relationship with the company. As a founding member of Tongoi Papua (Freeport’s trade union) stated: …before the status of Papua, Freeport already made a contract in 1967. That’s the problem. That’s why until now there is always a problem. (Interview with Kylie McKenna, Timika, July, 2010) Despite this deeply held grievance, much of Freeport’s community work has focused on the distribution of large amounts of money, such as its infamous one 323 per cent trust fund337, as well as the distribution of health care and scholarships. These kinds of initiatives, whilst useful in and of themselves don’t really address the issues of most concern to Papuans (Table 1 illustrates the disparity between Papuan grievances and Freeport’s community programs). Table1 Papuan grievances Freeport’s CSR Internal colonialism: controversy over Support for rural youth 1967 Contract of Work Security arrangements & conduct of Human rights training Indonesian security forces Economic development for Indonesia Apprenticeships for Papuans Transmigration Preventative health care & hospitals Diminishing of indigenous cultures & Micro-credit program & agribusiness traditions Environmental destruction Distribution of funding through community organisations The story of Freeport’s entanglement in the incorporation of Papua into Indonesia provides an important backdrop for thinking about the possibilities for and constraints to CSR in Papua. The historical entry point of Freeport into Papua has shaped the relationship between Papuans and Freeport, and crucially, local perceptions of the company in their efforts to ‘do well’. Calling on Freeport to acknowledge its role in the contested nature in which Papua was incorporated into Indonesia is an expectation that is unlikely to be met. This is because Papuan demands for an historical review of the Act of Free Choice are being faced with reluctance on the part of the Indonesian government. Yet, looking more closely at Papuan grievances towards Freeport, 337 see Denise Leith, The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto’s Indonesia, (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003). 324 and thinking deeply about what kind of response would reconcile this type of grievance, opens an important opportunity for Papua’s opposition groups and independence movement. If Papuans can negotiate creatively with the company, it could open an important ‘resource opportunity’ for Freeport to contribute to peace in Papua. This might be a tactic through which Freeport could also sidestep legal actions against it through the Alien Tort Claims Act in the United States, strikes, sabotage and other problems that have beset Freeport over the decades. However, there is a high risk that Freeport will only seek to silence criticism through more and more distribution of material benefits, which again fails to resolve the underlying grievances in its political context. An alternative approach might be a request to symbolically re-write Freeport’s first Contract of Work, or a request for Freeport to sit with Papuan leaders and to take a shared resolution to the Indonesian government. BP Tangguh was both welcomed as a new model for international corporate conduct and feared because of Papua’s past experience338. In contrast to Freeport, BP has been commended by many Papuans for its efforts to avoid the mistakes of Freeport and to recognise the rights of local people. BP has attempted to do this through engaging in a number of community initiatives which do not directly set out to challenge or engage with recommendations for a historical review of the Act of Free Choice. However, the company has implemented practical strategies, which indicate awareness on the part of the company of the injustices that Papuans have experienced as a result of resource development in the hands of the Indonesian government. The most well known 338 Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel, “Seventh Report on the Tangguh LNG Project and Overview of Panel’s Experiences (2002 -2009),” BP Indonesia (2009): 47 http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/indonesia/STAGING/home_assets/downloads/t/TIAP_R eport_2009.pdf 325 and successful example of this has been BP’s ‘Integrated Community Based Security’ (ICBS) strategy which aims to reduce the presence of Indonesian security forces around Tangguh, and instead draws on local civilians to provide security. As a result of advice given to BP by independent consultants and the Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel (TIAP), BP recognised that Papuans held significant distrust and fear of Indonesia’s security forces due to their experience of the military surrounding Freeport. This recognition was a significant outcome of BP’s initiative to undertake the first human rights impact assessment to ever be conducted by a resource company in Indonesia. As with Freeport, BP is required to subsidise security expenses mandated by the government petroleum-resource regulator, BPMIGAS339 . In the eyes of many Papuans this still does taint BP as security partners of the Indonesian state. However, as an alternative to financially supporting the TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia), BP embarked on a significant consultative process where it discovered that community based security could be aligned with official Indonesian defense doctrine. According to a BP Indonesia executive, when this was discovered: …BP organised a national conference of community security with the national security guardian board – with the generals who train the police on the philosophy of the country. They advised us to bring this to the national security board for them to agree. … We said it is the same as community based policing. (Interview with Kylie McKenna, Jakarta, July, 2010) Another executive of BP Indonesia further described the process: 339 Dennis C. Blair and David L. Phillips, “Indonesia Commission: Peace and Progress in Papua: Report of an Independent Commission Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, Centre for Preventive Action,” Center for Preventative Action (2003): 64 http://www.cfr.org/publication/8281/indonesia_commission.html 326 The concept before it was used; we brought it to the National Defense Institute to discuss entirely. We agree on the type of strategy. They say OK, let the people manage it. We referred to human rights abuse and how to minimise human rights abuse. A member of the British Embassy was there – the aim was to change the perspective of the Indonesian government. (Interview with Kylie McKenna, Jakarta, July, 2010) What this quote illustrates is the significant opportunities that can be opened up for local communities in conflict-affected areas to challenge the practices of the state. Whilst BP has recognised the constraints to developing a new approach to security, it did not let these constraints overwhelm the company’s ideals. Significantly, in TIAP’s 2005 report340, the panel referred to the Regional Military Commander’s statements about ICBS: ‘while pointing out that Tangguh is a vital national project, he described the principles of ICBS as the new mechanism for security at projects like Tangguh’. As a consequence, national authorities in Papua are now recognising this new space of security that BP has opened, with a view to implementing the model elsewhere in Indonesia. Another important influence that BP has had on the national authorities in Papua has been the training and awareness of human rights that ICBS has introduced. This provides a distinct contrast to the previous experience of Papuans with Indonesian military deployments that have often been associated with human rights violations in the area of the Freeport mine341. According to a Papuan human rights NGO worker involved in the training of BP security guards, all guards involved in protecting the Tangguh project have, or are scheduled to 340 Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel, “Third Report on Tangguh LNG Project,” BP Indonesia, (2005): 25, http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/downloads/T/TIAP_R eport_Feb_2005.pdf Accessed 12th January 2011. 341 Chris Ballard, “Human rights and the mining sector in Indonesia: a baseline study,” Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development, Paper No. 182 (October 2001), http://www.rimmrights.org/Documents/indonesia_hr_baseline.pdf 327 receive, human rights training by a Papuan human rights NGO. The informant said the course consists of: … how to react in cases of conflict. Most materials are taken from the general declaration on human rights – the covenant on civil and political rights about social and economic rights – basic principles of human rights. … Then conflict resolution – how security guards make resolution after conflict. (Interview with Kylie McKenna, Jayapura, June, 2010) When asked if the respondent had trust in the training that is provided, he stated that it: ‘depends on the scope of the conflict. Small scale – yes. But if it became the unity of several tribes it is impossible for them to do it [without the use of the military]’ (Interview with Kylie McKenna, Jayapura, June, 2010). In this instance, it is BP’s policy that the military can be called in to assist with a security disturbance, but ‘only as a “last resort” upon the coordinated request of BP security and the Papua Police’342. An executive of BP Indonesia further stated: If the problem becomes bigger and can’t rely on our security we call the police. And then if they can’t handle it they ask the military. … We only call the police – we can’t call the military. If the police need more then they call the military. (Interview with Kylie McKenna, Jakarta, July, 2010) This statement is in line with BP’s initial 2003 response to the human rights impact assessment on the issue of military deployment. It demonstrates that it has learned from the mistakes of resource development on Bougainville in relation to the security sector, and the better path of community policing as opposed to violent state policing that was taken by some post-Bougainville mining projects in Papua-New Guinea343. Whilst BP argued that ‘any attempts to dictate “principles … to limit military deployment” with or without BPMIGAS 342 Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel, “Third Report on Tangguh LNG Project,”, 24. Sinclair Dinnen, Law and order n a weak state: crime and politics in Papua New Guinea (Adelaide, Crawford House Publishing, 2001). 343 328 support would likely be seen as a transgression of that sovereign right’344, BP also acknowledges that it could utilise the process of dialogue opened up through the evolution of the ICBS programme, as an opportunity which ‘may give BP some ability to influence such issues as the location, strength, and missions of other Police and military deployments’345. Largely then, BP’s community based security approach has been well received in Papua, and as we have seen, has gained wide acceptance at local, regional and national levels with important flow on effects beyond the site of Tangguh – such as the increasing awareness of human rights. However, due to the long history of controversies involving the activities of the military around Freeport, not all Papuans are convinced about community security. As one Papuan human rights advocate stated: ...about the security system. It is good. Community based security. The local community guard the company. But I believe Brimob [Mobile Police Brigade] is also inside the company. You cannot say no policemen. (Interview with Kylie McKenna, Jayapura, June, 2010) In addition, a Papuan religious leader commented: …I am still so pessimistic about this because they are contractors for the government. There must be government responsibility inside to protect – there must be army or policemen inside even if not in uniform. (Interview with Kylie McKenna, Jayapura, June, 2010) What this shows is that despite BP’s efforts, there is a distinct sense that Papuan trust in the company is on shaky ground. There remains a lot of fear associated 344 BP, “Human Rights Impact Assessment of the Proposed Tangguh LNG Project,” BP Indonesia (2003): 18, http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/downloads/I/hria_res ponse_Tangguh_HRIA_1737.pdf 345 Ibid., 18. 329 with the presence of the company in the context of the collective memory that Papuans have of Freeport. What the interview data indicate, however, is that many Papuans do not want the companies to give out more money for this trust to be achieved. Rather, there seems to be a greater hope for something deeper and more restorative, such as symbolically re-writing Freeport’s first Contract of Work, and changes in the behavior of the national authorities. Whilst it is still early days in the life of the BP project and the company is still building a relationship with local residents, BP’s acknowledgement that the process of dialogue it has opened up through the evolution of the ICBS as giving it ‘some ability to influence’346 is an important one. For the benefit of peace in Papua more broadly, this acknowledgement might offer Papuans a powerful partner and significant platform to initiate peace negotiations with Jakarta. Multilateralising a Papua Peace Dialogue For half a century Papuans have been frustrated by the on again, mostly off again approach to peace negotiations. It is vitally important that peace dialogue with the Government of Indonesia be seriously on again for the first time in more than a decade, and there seems to be some prospect of this. Papuans do have options in pluralising peace negotiations to include talks with major foreign investors at quite separate tables, perhaps including putting on the table an approach to palm oil development and the logging benefits that its rich tropical forests can offer in a post-Copenhagen world. Obviously, though, the two major private negotiating partners that a unified Papuan resistance movement could consider would be BP and Freeport. The Papuan side has negotiating clout because West Papua is resource rich even though its people are personally poor. Thoughtfully designed negotiations with foreign investors can help the main negotiations with the Government of Indonesia and can deliver benefits in their own right regardless of what happens with government talks. 346 Ibid., 18. 330 The reality of village Papuans not reaping much benefit from resource development and shouldering the grave costs in habitat destruction that reduces both food and spiritual values means Papuans do not have a lot to lose from openness to a resource exploitation pause. The philosophy could be that resource development will benefit Papuans more when a dialogue with the Government of Indonesia has secured some new and satisfying vision of merdeka or freedom for Papuans. It will benefit them more when Papuans benefit from more credible anti-corruption institutions on the ground in Papua. The Bougainville comparison is an interesting one in terms of a movement for merdeka considering a policy of a resource exploitation pause until new direct negotiations with BP and Freeport secure environmental, occupational health and safety, profit-sharing, community policing, community development and affirmative action terms that address Papuan grievances. Obviously the closure of the Bougainville mine was lose-lose for the company and for Bougainville and it would be in no one’s interests in Papua to see the blowing up of electricity pylons that shut the Bougainville mine. Any pause would obviously have the objective of shifting the relationship between foreign investors and Papuans to win-win from the current win for the investor lose for Papuans. That is, the aim would be to avert the collapse to lose-lose that occurred in Bougainville. While the idea would obviously be to avoid the permanent degradation of the mining site that occurred in Bougainville, it is also important to see that had the war never occurred in Bougainville, it might be almost mined out now, a future independent Bougainville would have no tax base to support an independence government, and the copper and gold would have been extracted at prices only a fraction of what Bougainville would gain from those resources were the mine reopened tomorrow. Moreover, environmental engineering and standards have improved greatly, so the possibilities for mining the resources with less environmental destruction and loss of livelihood and sacred sites for villagers are much improved today. We simply make that point that a pause in resource exploitation is not like a strike that shuts a factory. While a factory is shut, its 331 plant becomes more obsolete; its economic value declines, often sharply. In the current medium term conditions of the world economy, when we pause production to leave some resources in the ground, they are likely to increase in value. At least this seems fairly true of copper, gas, oil and trees. Gold may be at a more precarious high. The point of a resistance movement having a resource pause policy would not be that it intends to implement it. It would be that it would only implement it if the foreign investors did not come to the table and respond to Papuan grievances. Part of the reason for considering this would be to have the companies adopt a different position from the pressure they currently put on the Government of Indonesia to maximise resource extraction, to preserve the political status quo and to minimise environmental regulation. Rio Tinto, which continues to control the Bougainville mining rights, is sensitive to world opinion and Melanesian opinion because it would like to re-open the Bougainville mine347, is a Freeport joint venture partner (with a 40 per cent production share in the largest Grasberg development).348 Direct negotiations with Rio Tinto are therefore also an interesting option with a view to Rio Tinto pressuring both Freeport and the Government of Indonesia for a deeper Papuan peace process. Rio Tinto can also remind Freeport from its Bougainville experience that resistance movements have a variety of nonviolent tactics at their disposal - strikes, sabotage, targeting ethical investment funds, the kind of litigation that shut down the OK Tedi Gold Mine in PNG, and long memories that can affect future negotiations of license terms with a new indigenous leadership. Another interesting option could be a campaign targeting the World Bank. It might reasonably be asked to apologise for its role in funding the Suharto regime transmigration policies that helped make Papuans a minority in their own land. That targeting could be simply protests outside the World Bank headquarters in 347 The Autonomous Bougainville Government is also negotiating with a Chinese miner who might be given the nod rather than Rio Tinto’s BCL. 348 We are grateful to Maire Leadbeter for raising this point during the Sydney conference. 332 Washington or outside the suburban homes of its directors. The demand of protestors could be direct negotiations that request the World Bank to help establish anti-corruption institutions in West Papua to ensure that the benefits of any future peace deal in Papua do not flow into the pockets of generals and criminals. This is actually something the World Bank might want to do, or at least should want to do. Thus, embarrassing them into peace talks to that kind of end might not be so difficult. The World Bank would also be capable of providing Papua technical advice on the option that Timor Leste took of setting up a Norwegian-style Petroleum Fund. The idea of such a fund is to preserve most of the benefits of resources that will be mined out by the current generation for future generations that it is hoped will be more educated and less corrupt than contemporary leaders. Another rationale is that large surges in resource royalties can exceed the absorption capacity of states that are only beginning to build their institutions. A Future Fund for Papua could optimise the trade-off between the stream of development funds sufficient to pay for urgent development needs of the current generation in areas like education and health, while putting constitutional limits on the percentage of the funds (quarantined off-shore) that the current generation of leaders can take from future generations. Because there are many possible strands to a multilateralisation strategy when a region is resource-rich, multilateralisation can keep the main Government of Indonesia negotiators guessing and listening. For this reason, the Government of Indonesia will seek to tell private players not to go to the negotiating table with Papuan resistance leaders. That is why it is necessary to worry shareholders about a production pause. At the end of the day firms must be responsive to shareholders, even in the face of resistance from host governments. A way of thinking of this objective for the Papuan resistance is capacity development in nonviolent tactics that could, if needed, make a production pause happen. Obviously these would be secret tactics. The idea would be not to use them or even threaten them, but to convince shareholders and stock market analysts who advise pension funds on whether to purchase shares in Freeport, BP and Rio 333 Tinto that there is a credible risk of a production pause and that they therefore need to insist that management does indeed manage. To make progress with peace negotiations, negotiating teams generally cannot be too large. For a fragmented resistance movement, appointing a suite of negotiating teams – one to develop options for a BP resource exploitation pause and negotiation, another team to negotiate with Freeport, another with logging and palm oil investors, another with the World Bank, another with Rio Tinto, and so on, can allow greatly broadened participation in important different strands of a peace process. Of course co-ordination would be required and one leader from each negotiating team would have to be on a central co-coordinating team. Another way of putting this is that multilateralised private-public peace negotiations can help a divided resistance learn how to work together and how to forge unified positions on the questions that count. Wider participation in a variety of direct negotiations can create opportunities for the younger generation to learn to be effective negotiators, to prove themselves in a smaller round of negotiations with Rio Tinto, so they are promoted to a subsequent bigger negotiation with the Government of Indonesia. Conclusion This chapter has been concerned with how the social and environmental consequences of resource development can contribute to a deep sense of injustice among indigenous landowners. We have shown how BP’s communitybased approach that is more attuned to this sense of injustice has been more responsive than Freeport’s statist approach349. A problem with the CSR literature is that it can treat indigenous peoples as passive recipients of better and worse CSR. One remedy we have pondered to that problem is to conceive of a Papuan resistance movement that takes the lead in seeking direct negotiations with 349 Denise Leith, The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto’s Indonesia, (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003); Aderito Soares, “The Impact of Corporate Strategy on Community Dynamics: A Case Study of the Freeport Mining Company in West Papua, Indonesia”, International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 11 (2004): 115–-142. 334 foreign investors to secure a more socially, economically and environmentally just future for Papua. In the past, we have seen incipient manifestations of such direct peace negotiations with both Freeport and BP, for example in negotiations conducted from the somewhat narrower employee perspective by the Freeport trade union Tongoi Papua350. So Papuans already have networks of rich experience in corporate negotiations to draw upon in crafting a new generation peace process. Our main point is that Papuans must be the ones who craft their negotiating destiny. On the corporate side, we therefore argue that the real test of the social justice credentials of CSR is how responsive it is when it is indigenous people who set the framework for negotiations over CSR, as opposed to the usual situation of the company leading and convening CSR consultations with indigenous peoples. Responsiveness to indigenous initiation of CSR conversations might indeed be the crucible of engagement with social justice. Bibliography Ballard, Chris. “Human rights and the mining sector in Indonesia: a baseline study.” Mining, Minerals and Sustainable Development, Paper No. 182 (October 2001). http://www.rimmrights.org/Documents/indonesia_hr_baseline.pdf Basedau, Matthias. “Context Matters – Rethinking the Resource Curse in SubSaharan Africa.” Africa Analyst 3, Issue 1 (April 1, 2008): 1-17 Blair, Dennis C., and David L. Phillips. “Indonesia Commission: Peace and Progress in Papua: Report of an Independent Commission Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, Centre for Preventive Action,” Center for 350 John Pakage, “Workers end four-day strike at Freeport Indonesia,” Reuters, April 21, 2007 http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/04/21/us-freeport-indonesia-idUSJAK33044520070421 335 Preventative Action, (2003). http://www.cfr.org/publication/8281/indonesia_commission.html. Boege, Volker, and Daniel M. Franks. “Re-opening and developing mines in postconflict settings: the challenges of company-community relations.” In High-Value Natural Resources and Post-Conflict Peacebuilding. Volume 1. Peacebuilding and Natural Resources series, edited by Päivi Lujala and Siri Aas Rustad. London: Earthscan, 2011. Boschini, Anne D., Jan Pettersson, and Roine, Jesper. “Resource curse or not: A question of appropriability.” Scandinavian Journal of Economics 109, Issue 3 (2005): 593–617. 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International Crisis Group. “Indonesia: Resources and Conflict in Papua.” ICG Asia Report, No. 39 (2002). Kaldor, Mary. New and Old Wars: Organized Violence in a Global Era. Cambridge: Polity, 1999. Leith, Denise. The Politics of Power: Freeport in Suharto’s Indonesia. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003. Pakage, John. “Workers end four-day strike at Freeport Indonesia.” Reuters, April 21, 2007 http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/04/21/us-freeport-indonesiaidUSJAK33044520070421 Ross. Michael L. “The Political Economy of the Resource Curse.” World Politics 51, No. 2 (January 1999): 297-322 Ross, Michael L. “The Natural Resource Curse: How Wealth Can Make you poor.” in Natural resources and violent conflict: options and actions, edited by Ian Bannon and Paul Collier, 12-42. Washington: World Bank, 2003. Smith, Anthony L., and Angie Ng. “Papua: Moving Beyond Internal Colonialism?.” New Zealand Journal of Asian Studies 4, no. 2 (2002): 90-114. Soares, Aderito. “The Impact of Corporate Strategy on Community Dynamics: A Case Study of the Freeport Mining Company in West Papua, Indonesia.” International Journal on Minority and Group Rights 11 (2004): 115–-142. 337 Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel. “Seventh Report on the Tangguh LNG Project and Overview of Panel’s Experiences (2002 -2009).” BP Indonesia (2009) http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/indonesia/STAGING/home_assets/dow nloads/t/TIAP_Report_2009.pdf Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel. “Third Report on Tangguh LNG Project.” BP Indonesia, (2005) http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/STAGING/global_assets/dow nloads/T/TIAP_Report_Feb_2005.pdf Accessed 12th January 2011. 338 Torture in Papua: A Spectacle of Dialectics of the Abject and the Sovereign351 Budi Hernawan Introduction The world was shocked when it was confronted with the excruciating pain of two Papuan highlanders being tortured, depicted in graphic footage screened via online media352. In an unusually swift move, the Indonesian government addressed this issue promptly and decisively. The Minister for Security Affairs publicly confirmed that some soldiers had ‘acted in excessive manner’ (Kompas October 22, 2010). This statement, however, contradicted a comment made by Roy Suryo, a cyber-media specialist and a member of the Indonesian Parliament, who told the public that the footage was highly contentious because the men in uniform did not wear their ranks in the right place and that such rough conversations could not be attributed to army soldiers (Antaranews.com, October 20, 2010). It took only two months for the army to hold a court-martial. Despite no victims or witnesses being present, the first series of hearings convicted four soldiers and sentenced them to between six and ten months in prison. The second hearings convicted three other soldiers and sentenced them to between six and 12 months. All the soldiers were convicted of insubordination but none of them were charged with torture or even assault. Although local, national and international 351 A paper presented at the Conference “Comprehending West Papua” on February 23-24, 2011 organised by the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies of the University of Sydney. 352 This footage appeared for the first time on YouTube on 17 October 2010 but then was removed on the following day. On its press released dated 17 October 2010 (http://www.humanrights.asia/news/press-releases/AHRC-PRL-021-2010), the Asia Human Rights Commission acknowledged that it received the footage and then published it on its website at the same date. By 24 January 2011, it reached 7,397 hits. Similarly, the Fairfax News Media separately received the same footage and uploaded it on the same website (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEisR8rFLOo&feature=related). By 24 January 2011, the viewers reached 64,020. 339 NGOs fiercely criticised the verdict and the inadequacy of the court hearings, something has been missing from the debate. That is, there has been inadequate attention paid to the reasons why these horrific acts occurred. This chapter investigates the nature of torture, its raison d’être, and how it functions to generate and maintain the brutal reality in Papua. First, I will briefly discuss two different definitions of torture to clarify the analytical framework of this chapter. Second, deploying Foucauldian genealogy, I will identify power relations that underpin the dialectics of resistance and state-terror. Third, I will analyse the key elements of torture in Papua in greater detail in order to construct the reality of torture. Notes on definitions This chapter adopts Foucault’s definition of torture in his book Discipline and Punish as ‘a policy of terror: to make everyone aware, through the body of the criminal, of the unrestrained presence of the sovereign. The public execution did not re-establish justice; it reactivated power’ (Foucault 1991, p. 49). In the Foucauldian view, torture equals terror and has to meet three fundamental criteria, these being: [1] gradually painful, [2] scarring, and [3] spectacular (Foucault 1991, pp. 33-34). The third element has a central role in ensuring that torture is performed as a public event and thus reaches the maximum terrifying impact on the social body. This is the ultimate goal of the public display of the injured body. It is not only to inflict agonising pain and suffering over the individual but more importantly, to ensure that the whole social body witnesses the real power of the sovereign as inscribed over the abject. This message has to be very clear to the public to complete the whole torture ritual (Foucault 1991). Foucault argues that a policy of terror aims at generating docile body politics. The social body has to be subjugated to the reign of terror induced by state 340 apparatus. In this sense, torture is always a key element of public policy to control the public. This definition is markedly different from Article 1 of the 1984 UN Convention Against Torture, which states: The term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions. Although the UN definition includes elements of ‘severe pain or suffering’ and punishment, it does not emphasise that the intention is to scar the bodies of the victims. Conversely, it emphasises a utilitarian notion of torture as a means to obtain a confession or to extract information as the main goal. Furthermore, the theatrical nature of torture is not reflected in the definition. Legal scholars, such as Langbein (1977), Peters (1985) and Spierenburg (1984), argue that the elimination of public atrocity arrived with the advent of the Enlightenment in eighteenth century Europe in which such brutality could not be tolerated. More importantly, these scholars explain that there was a fundamental change in the European criminal justice system whereby gaining a confession from a suspect was no longer viewed as ultimate proof, and was replaced by circumstantial evidence to convict a suspect. All of this fundamental change that occurred in Europe was then translated into the UN definition353. 353 In Discipline and Punish (1991), Foucault explains the dramatic change from public atrocity to hidden punishment manifested into prison systems and the panopticon. In a similar vein, Rejali 341 Although the UN definition helps explain torture practices across Indonesia, including in Papua, in the context of criminal investigation and combating terrorist operations (Nowak 2008), it fails to capture the public nature of torture in Papua. That is why Foucault’s framework on torture is much more relevant for this investigation. Genealogy of torture The genealogy of torture in Papua derives from the complex power relations that underpinned the question of sovereignty during the process of decolonisation of Indonesia from the Netherlands under the Cold War. There were three different clusters of power relations competing with each other to assert sovereignty over three different levels: first, the postcolonial Dutch attempted to recreate new boundaries of sovereignty over the former Dutch East Indies by proposing the union of Indonesia and the Netherlands. Second, Indonesia, as a new emerging nation, asserted its sovereignty over the former territory of the Dutch East Indies, including then Dutch New Guinea (Cholil 1971; Dinas Sedjarah Militer Kodam XVII/ Tjendrawasih 1971; Pusat Sejarah dan Tradisi TNI 2000; Soekarno 1962; Yamin 1956). Third, the embryonic Papua asserted its sovereignty over the former Dutch New Guinea (Alua 2000; Drooglever 2009). These competing sovereignties, and most notably the dispute between Indonesia and Papua, have not entirely been resolved, (Chauvel 2005; Chauvel and Bhakti 2004). In a Foucauldian sense, the question of sovereignty does not only mean drawing state boundaries and mapping a geographical area but rather, the question of who has the right over death and life. Sovereignty only becomes effective in an action of killing or injuring354 (Foucault 1997: 240-1). In this sense, both (2007) explains the ongoing practice of torture within liberal democracies. He argues that the more public scrutiny and human rights monitoring bodies are in place, the more hidden the practice of torture is. It means torture remains, even in liberal democracies, as it is a matter of forms of practice. 354 Further discussions on the relationships between Foucauldian notion of sovereignty and torture can be found in an edited book by Stephen Morton and Stephen Bygrave (2008). 342 Indonesia’s security apparatus and Papua freedom fighters have manifested their sovereignty by claiming their right to kill or injure since the first arrival of Indonesia’s administration in Papua on May 1, 1963. One of the private archives I used to research this chapter documented torture in Papua, committed by the Indonesian security forces, as early as 1963. This act of injuring was deployed to silence a student protest in Manokwari that called for ‘one man, one vote’ -- the way in which Papuan adults, men and women, according to Article XVIII (d) of the 1962 New York Agreement, were entitled to cast a secret ballot during the plebiscite (Vlasblom 2004)355. The use of brutal methods to terrorise the whole community increased on the eve of the date of the plebiscite. However, the total cases from the period of 1962-1969 only constitute 2 per cent of the total cases of torture in the last fifty years (see Figure 1). Once Indonesia officially gained power over Papuan territory and met with armed resistance, the use of torture and other brutal techniques intensified. The practice was eventually institutionalised when Papua was declared a Military Operation Zone (Daerah Operasi Militer/DOM) in the 1980s. Many torture survivors and a few former army soldiers explained that a number of military installations around Jayapura, including Ifar Gunung, Kloofkamp and Dok V were designated to detain and torture anybody who was targeted as an OPM member or sympathiser. These places still existed in the 1990s. On the part of the Papua freedom fighters, the efforts to assert sovereignty over Papua were manifest in their armed resistance from 1967 until 1977 when the Indonesian security forces defeated them militarily. Since then, the OPM has modified its strategy focusing on low-level armed guerilla tactics, occasionally launching deadly attacks on military and police installations. At the same time, the notion of Papuan sovereignty has been transformed into a political struggle. 355 In this paper, I use an unofficial English translation of the original Dutch version, voluntarily provided by a source that wanted their identity to be kept confidential since the translation is solely intended for private, non-commercial use. 343 Based on 12 public documents and three personal archives, my research has codified 431 cases of torture in Papua over the period 1963-2010. One of the elements presented in Figure 1 below shows the evidence of the relationship between the practice of torture and changes to the Indonesian regime in Papua the last fifty years. Out of 431 codified cases of torture, 42 per cent occurred in the reformation era (Reformasi), which was the period between the fall of Soeharto’s New Order in May 1998 and the enactment of the Special Autonomy Law (Otsus) for Papua in November 2001. This transition period holds the record for the highest frequency of torture. It is followed by the second highest period (37 per cent) during the New Order regime, from 1967 to 1998. The third is the Otsus era from 2001 until the present that constitutes 19 per cent of the total figure, and, finally, the pre-Indonesian period that constitutes only 2 per cent of the total figure. 344 Figure 1 Genealogy of torture (n= torture cases from Hernawan database) This description might not follow the maxim that an authoritarian regime causes the highest number of torture victims. The three year transitional period of 19982001 witnessed the highest recurrence of torture cases, slightly above the New Order era. Reformasi caused ongoing instability and lawlessness across Indonesia following the sense of euphoria as the aftermath of the fall of Soeharto’s dictatorship. In the case of Papua, these conditions might have become a justification for the security apparatus to act on their own policies to protect the territorial integrity given that the central government was in a crisis of legitimacy and thus was unable to control its own apparatus. The Indonesian security forces and the police force, which at the time were under the same umbrella organisation, continued to deploy harsh measures, notably, killing and torture, to deal with the ‘Papuan Spring’356 where Papuan political aspirations were expressed through raising the Morning Star flag in a number of places and occasions and Papuan gatherings. Another possible explanation is that during this particular period, civil society organisations had gained momentum and were operating in the far greater freedom available to monitor and to document on-going violence. This might have contributed to the highest rate of cases of torture being documented during Reformasi and the subsequent reduction of cases during the Otsus era. In other words, monitoring and public scrutiny might have largely contributed to the decline of reported cases of torture because the state security apparatus might have been more cautious of public scrutiny. Based on an examination of the genealogy of torture that is inherently linked to the question of sovereignty, the section below delves into the patterns of torture in Papua. 356 The term Papuan spring refers to the short period between 1998 to 2000, where there was greater freedom of expression for Papuans, including expressing their aspirations for merdeka (independence), under the late President Abdurahman Wahid. 345 Patterns of torture Having compiled a database of torture cases in Papua, I have identified six major patterns. First, most of the victims are farmers, males, and highlanders that live in rural areas, including the two men in the torture video mentioned in the introduction. Only a few cases involve victims that were OPM members or OPM leaders. This means most victims have nothing to do with pro-independence movements. Instead, these victims have become ‘collateral damage’ of military and/or police operations ostensibly intended to eradicate the separatist movement. Second, all female victims (13 per cent of all victims) were sexually assaulted, raped or sexually enslaved. This fact shows how torture has been used to subjugate Papuan women. The recent joint study project of Komnas Perempuan, International Center of Transitional Justice (ICTJ) Indonesia, and the Papuan People’s Council (Majelis Rakyat Papua/MRP) (2010), shed light on this issue. It covers the period of 1963-2009 and examines 261 files of violence against Papuan women. This study found two types of violence -- state violence in 138 files, and domestic violence in 98 files. Fourteen women suffered both forms of violence. This study, importantly, exemplifies how Papuan women are vulnerable to multiple abuses even in their own families, which are supposed to be protective of their safety and well-being. As one West Papuan woman recounts: On 13 August 1968, my husband was just released from detention but then he fled to the bush to hide because the army came to our village and raped our women. The men had gone. I was arrested and was forced to show where my husband was hiding. I said I didn’t know. Then I was electrocuted, tied up with barbed wire and was forced to join the patrol with three other women. Every time I fell down on my walk they hit me like a pig. During the patrol, I was forced to drink muddy water mixed with fagot and chili. For two days, I had to leave my baby unattended at home. Actually I knew the cave where they were hiding but if I had told them, all of them would have been killed. If such a thing had happened, 346 I would have been responsible to God. Then I thought better I died. God would have received me. I witnessed Mr Petrus* was arrested. He was then tied up onto a tree and was shot. But he missed it so the army stabbed him and dumped him into a ditch. Back to the village, Alex*, an Ambonese soldier, raped me under the gunpoint. Other women were ashamed because it was taboo. But I acknowledged it. It was not my fault! So why I should be ashamed! I also told my husband when I visited him in his hiding place. He burst into tears because he was so sorry.357 Third, some victims were detained for a short period of time, but most victims were never charged or brought to court. This fact demonstrates that torture methods have failed to collect evidence sufficient to lay charges. Even if torture had been effective in this respect, such evidence would be inadmissible under the Indonesian Criminal Code as well as the UN Convention Against Torture, to which Indonesia is a party. Fourth, perpetrators enjoy almost complete impunity. The Abepura case in 2000, which involved torture by Jayapura police, is the only case where the perpetrators (two police officers) were brought to the Indonesian Human Rights Court and eventually acquitted. The martial court that heard the torture video case convicted seven soldiers and punished them with six to 12 month jail terms. However, the court convicted them with crimes of disobedience, not torture. These cases exemplify how the Indonesian justice system fails to address and deliver justice to the victims of torture in Papua. On the contrary, the victims remain living with a ‘separatist’ stigma and scars on their bodies and minds. This corresponds with the Foucauldian view that torture in Papua is less a use of power to achieve utilitarian outcomes, and more of a symbolic manifestation of power, an inscription of power on the body. 357 Based on the informed consent with all of my interviewees, all of them prefer to be cited in full anonymity. Therefore, I refer to each of them using numbers, dates, and general reference of location. Anonymous interview with a victim IIA/33 in Papua on 11 August 2010. 347 Fifth, torture was committed mostly in public spaces and at military/police stations. This element becomes very relevant with the distribution of mobile phone videos as this constitutes a phenomenon distinctive to Papua, which is not found in any other of the torture situations involving drug dealers (Nowak 2008) or terrorist suspects in Indonesia. Most torture files, including the torture video358 , show that the torture was committed in a public arena, such as on city roads, in the backyards or front-yards of Papuans’ homes, marketplaces and other open areas that are accessible and visible to anybody, including women and children. In the case of torture committed in the military and police compounds, many victims were tortured in an open area in the compound. Even though this method is similar to those used in Aceh to eradicate Aceh Freedom Fighters (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka/GAM) (Aspinal 2006; Rahmany P 2001), in former Indonesian East Timor (CAVR 2005, pp. 259-260; 310-11), and in Jakarta to combat criminals (Soeharto 1989, pp. 389-390), in Papua the torturers keep bodies alive so they can transmit and amplify the terror to Papua. Sixth, the torturers use simple and low cost methods. Electric shock, for instance, has not been frequently used when compared to beatings. Methods of using drugs and high technology are almost absent. The following testimony illustrates the methods: Under rain, I was walking out of the company compound when four Brimob members pointed their guns on me. I was confused. I asked what happened and the immediate response was only beatings with the rifle butts. So I gave up. I saw many people were already on the beach, including our village head. I didn’t know these Brimob because they were in plain clothes and trouser uniforms and 358 The martial court verdict states that according to the confession of the convicted soldiers, the women and children were only fifty meters away from the crime scene and only separated by huts and trees. It was highly likely that they could have heard the screaming of the victims. This demonstrates the public space as the locus of torture (Keputusan No. 187-K/PM.III19/AD/XI/2010). 348 bands in their heads. They beat me, and beat me until I was bleeding and fainted… Anton, a detective there, dragged me out of Manokwari police station. He picked some pebbles in a can. Every time I can’t answer a question, he forced me to crunch a pebble. How could I resist? I did it and broke all my teeth. He then hit me with a wooden bar 5 x 5 cm at the back of my neck and I fell down and had a seizure. My ears turned deaf and I felt I was going to die. Hasan stabbed his bayonet through the left side of my nose onto my mouth359. This might be related to the fact that, generally, the Indonesian security services are underpaid, provided with poor equipment and minimal facilities to carry out their duties360. So the members of the military and the police can only use whatever is accessible, for example, their own hands and legs, guns or other equipment available on the spot. Based on these six persistent patterns, I would argue that torture in Papua is a spectacle that has been imposed to create a ‘society of gaze’ as Foucault described the public execution of Damiens in 1757 who had attempted regicide of King Louis XV of France: It was the effect … of a certain mechanism of power: of a power that not only did not hesitate to exert itself directly on bodies, but was exalted and strengthened by its visible manifestations; of a power that asserted itself as an armed power whose functions of maintaining order were not entirely unconnected with the functions of war; of a power that presented rules and obligations as personal bonds, a breach of which constituted an offence and called for vengeance; of a  These are pseudonyms. 359 Anonymous interview with a victim II/A36 in Papua on 16 August 2010. The minimum level of equipment is not the only explanation for the sixth pattern. A junior army officer respondent explained that due to the minimum salary, he had to let his soldiers be motortaxi drivers to earn additional money to fill the gap between the basic needs of their families and the amount that they can earn from the army (Anonymous interview in Papua II/C8 on 22 July 2010). 360 349 power for which disobedience was an act of hostility, the first sign of rebellion, which is not in principle different from civil war; of a power that had to demonstrate not why it enforced its laws, but were its enemies, and what unleashing of force threatened them; of a power which, in the absence of continual supervision, sought a renewal of its effect in the spectacle of its individual manifestations; of a power that was recharged in the ritual display of its reality as ‘super-power’. (Foucault 1991, p. 57) Since 1963 the Indonesian security apparatus has succeeded in manifesting its unrestrained power – the power of a state that is willing to take any necessary measure to assert its sovereignty. It has managed to control the entire landscape of the Papuan social body and thus it has no fear of being held accountable. This power has infused terror into the social body by leaving a scar on Papuan bodies and on the Papuan collective memory. Therefore, such power does not need to hide what it does, because it already defines its actions, such as killing and injuring, as a manifestations of its sovereign power. What it needs is surveillance to maintain the terror. This construct of symbolic power might explain why the Indonesian security forces have ceased to maintain their ‘torture chambers’ around Jayapura. The territorial command and the heavy presence of the army from the village level to provincial government administration level have been effective in maintaining control and terror. However, the degree of assertion might fluctuate as a result of the emerging human rights monitoring regime. Furthermore, this symbolic power has reversed the subject not only into the object but into what Julia Kristeva (1982) calls ‘the abject’. In Kristeva’s view, the abject means a construct that escapes our comprehension because it has become a ‘non-existence’. Certain forms of power have converted ordinary Papuans from the lowest class, race and gender into non-existence. This power has infused the notions of meaningless and formlessness into these people to the point that they have lost control over their own subjectivity. In Kristeva’s 350 language, power has constructed ‘the sign of an impossible ob-ject, boundary and limit’ (Kristeva 1982, p. 154). The production of meaning is not a single event; rather generates dialectics in a Hegelian sense. It entails a triadic method of argument - ‘thesis-antithesis- synthesis’ that produces and reproduces the power relations of the sovereign and the abject over time. The arrival of Indonesian administration asserted the sovereign, a thesis, and met resistance as an antithesis from the Papuan freedom fighters. The clash of the thesis and the antithesis generated a synthesis, which was a war between the two with the more militarily successful Indonesia amassing its power to assert sovereignty. This synthesis becomes a new thesis and generates a new antithesis, which is armed guerilla waged by the OPM. As a result, the new thesis and antithesis generate torture as a policy of terror. This cycle needs to be broken in order to fundamentally eradicate torture. The torture videos, however, show that the nature of power in Papua has not fundamentally changed, despite the emergence of democracy in Indonesia. In a non-war situation, army soldiers easily arrest, interrogate, detain and torture suspects without any legal justification. Although the court has convicted the perpetrators in this particular instance, it has failed to prosecute the breach of police legal jurisdiction by the soldiers that undermined police authority to interrogate suspects as part of a criminal investigation. Further questions A thorough assessment of the impact on the memory and the collective social body of survivors of torture in Papua still needs to be done. Many Papuans, including survivors of torture, have frequently used the term ‘trauma’ while they have delivered their testimonies of their horrendous experiences. Despite the large body of literature on the impact of torture on mental health, very little research deploys empirical methods to measure the level of trauma and its 351 impact on survivors and their community. A recent preliminary investigation of the impact of therapy on torture survivors in Aceh, Jakarta and Papua shows that they suffer from anxiety, depressive and somatic symptoms. With group and individual therapy, the survivors have experienced symptom relief and improvement in functioning (Larson-Stoa 2010). Although this study paves the way for trauma healing in a therapeutic sense, such help remains a luxury for most Papuan torture survivors as the necessary support simply does not exist. One should not forget that torture is not the only human rights abuse occurring in Papua. The Papuan churches in collaboration with local NGOs, Jakarta-based NGOs and international NGOs have long documented other forms of abuse, including extra-judicial killings, enforced disappearances, and gender-based violence against women. Moreover, these organisations have broadened their perspectives to include economic, social, and cultural rights in their analyses to capture the fast growing economic development and depravation resulting from the extraction of natural resources and the formation of new districts (pemekaran). Large-scale extractive industries, such as Freeport, a US based gold and copper mining company361, has been one of the largest contributors to this environmental disaster. It dumps tones of its toxic waste per day into the nearby Aikwa River, devastating the livelihoods of Papuans, particularly around Timika city. The gravity of human rights problems can also be seen by the fact that some 9,700 West Papuan refugees live in PNG (UNHCR 2009), as well as the several of hundreds that live in the Netherlands, dozens in Australia, and smaller numbers scattered in Vanuatu, Sweden, the UK and the US. Many of the refugees suffered from human rights abuses that to this day prevent them from 361 The first public report on the human rights abuses in Papua by the Catholic Church precisely reveals the atrocities committed by the Indonesian army using Freeport company facilities in 1995 (Münninghoff 1995). Chris Ballard conducted a study on the high cost of environmental and human lives in Timika area that has inscribed a traumatic memory over the Amungme people (Ballard 2002). 352 returning to their land, even though they confront dire conditions in PNG362 (Glazebrook 2008). Conclusion For over 50 years, Papua has been subjected to a reign of terror by the Indonesian state. The state has been willing to resort to brutal measures to control its citizens, rather than uphold the rule of law and democratic procedures to deal with resistance and conflicts. This practice is deeply rooted in the question of sovereignty over Papua’s territory. The Dutch colonial power, the Indonesian state and the Papuan resistance movements have all asserted their sovereignty since the area was named West New Guinea. Following the Indonesian state’s military defeat of the armed resistance and assumption of sovereignty over Papua, it has deployed torture to show its right to determine death, or life, for Papuans. This practice has led to the construction of Papua as the abject. The sovereign, Indonesia, has inscribed its power on the Papuan body in order to pacify the whole community. It has had to use the most terrifying of methods to transmit a clear message of terror. The whole Papuan society is forced to watch how awesome Indonesia’s power is. The society is forced to feel the reign of power permeating their bodies and minds. This is the ration d’être of the spectacle. Yet, although torture constitutes a crime against humanity under Indonesian law, it is not the only human rights violation committed by the Indonesian security apparatus in Papua. Other serious crimes, such extra judicial killings and enforced disappearances, are also common. Therefore, it is possible to imagine the gravity of the human rights situation in Papua, one that needs a regulatory response that takes into account the torture legacies that permeate the justice 362 My fieldwork in Papua New Guinea (27 April-29 May 2010), including the UNHCR refugee camp in Iowara, Western Province, reveals that the status ‘stateless’ of many Papuan refugees in PNG has caused enormous difficulties in their daily life because they are not entitled for PNG government services and legally, they are very vulnerable. 353 and security sectors, Papuans’ hope for freedom, and the consolidation of Indonesia’s democracy. References Alua, Agus A. 2000. Papua Barat dari Pangkuan ke Pangkuan Suatu Ikhtisar Kronologis. 2nd Edition. Jayapura: Biro Penelitian STFT Fajar Timur. Aspinal, Edward. 2006. "Violence and Identity Formation in Aceh under Indonesian Rule." ed. Anthony Reid. Singapore & Seattle: NUS Press & University of Washington Press. Ballard, Chris. 2002. "The Signature of Terror: Violence, Memory and Landscape at Freeport." In Inscribed Landscape: Marking and Making Place, eds. Bruno David and Meredith Wilson. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Bygrave, Stephen Morton and Stephen ed. 2008. Foucault in an age of terror : essays on biopolitics and the defence of society. New York :: Palgrave Macmillan. CAVR. 2005. "Chega! The Report of the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation Timor-Leste." Dili: the Commission for Reception, Truth, and Reconciliation Timor-Leste (CAVR). Chauvel, Richard. 2005. Constructing Papuan Nationalism: History, Ethnicity, and Adaptation. Washington D.C.: East-West Center. Chauvel, Richard and Ikrar Nusa Bhakti. 2004. "The Papua conflict : Jakarta's perceptions and policies." Washington, DC: East-West Center Washington. Cholil, M. 1971. Sedjarah Operasi2 Pembebasan Irian Barat. Jakarta: Pusat Sejarah ABRI. 354 Dinas Sedjarah Militer Kodam XVII/ Tjendrawasih. 1971. Irian Barat dari Masa ke Masa. Djajapura: Dinas Sedjarah Militer Kodam XVII/ Tjendrawasih. Drooglever, Pieter. 2009. An Act of Free Choice, Decolonization and the Right to Self-Determination in West Papua. Oxford: One Word Foucault, Michel. 1991. Discipline and Punish: the Birth of Prison. London: Penguin Books Ltd. Foucault, Michel. 1997. "Society Must Be Defended": Lectures at the College de France. New York: Picador. Glazebrook, Diana. 2008. Permissive residents : West Papuan refugees living in Papua New Guinea. Canberra, A.C.T.: ANU E Press. Komnas Perempuan. 2010. "Stop Sudah! Kesaksian Perempuan Papua Korban Kekerasan dan Pelanggaran HAM 1963-2009." Jakarta: Komisi Nasional Anti Kekerasan terhadap Perempuan, Majelis Rakyat Papua, ICTJ. Kristeva, Julia. 1982. Powers of Horror, An Essay on Abjection. New York: Columbia University Press. Langbein, John. 1977. Torture and the Law of Proof, Europe and England in Ancien Régime. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press. Larson-Stoa, Deborah. 2010. "Effect of Therapy on Depression, Anxiety, Somatization, and Functioning in Indonesian Torture Survivors." In Department of Psychology: The University of South Dakota. 355 Münninghoff, H.F.M. 1995. "Laporan Pelanggaran Hak Asasi Terhadap Penduduk Lokal di Wilayah Sekitar Timika, Kabupaten Fak-fak, Irian Jaya, 1994/1995." Jayapura: Keuskupan Jayapura. Nowak, Manfred. 2008. "Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Addendum, Mission to Indonesia." New York: United Nations General Assembly. Peters, Edward. 1985. Torture. New York: B. Blackwell. Pusat Sejarah dan Tradisi TNI. 2000. Sejarah TNI Jilid I-V. Jakarta: Markas Besar Tentara Nasional Indonesia Pusat Sejarah dan Tradisi TNI. Rahmany P, Dyah. 2001. Matinya Bantaqiah, Menguak Tragedi Beutong Ateuh. Jakarta: LSPP, Cordova, ICCO. Rejali, Darius M. 2007. Torture and Democracy. Princenton and Oxford: Princenton University Press. Soeharto. 1989. Soeharto: Pikiran, Ucapan dan Tindakan Saya: Otobiografi seperti dipaparkan kepada G. Dwipayana dan Ramadhan K.H. Jakarta: PT Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada. Soekarno. 1962. Pembebasan Irian Barat : kumpulan pidato / dan keteranganketerangan mengenai perdjuangan pembebasan Irian Barat dari 17 Agustus 1961 sampai 17 Agustus 1962. Djakarta: Departemen Penerangan R.I. Spierenburg, Petrus Cornelis. 1984. The spectacle of suffering : executions and the evolution of repression : from a preindustrial metropolis to the European experience. Cambridge, New York Cambridge University Press. 356 UNHCR. 2009. "UNHCR Papua New Guinea Factsheet." Port Moresby: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Vlasblom, Dirk. 2004. Papoea: een Geschiedenis. Uitgevers: Mets & Schilt. Yamin, Muhammad. 1956. Kedaulatan Indonesia atas Irian Barat: jaitu uraian tentang tuntutan rakjat terhadap wilajah Indonesia bagian Irian-Barat. Bukittitnggi Nusantara 357 Chapter twenty-three: Comprehending West Papua: Demographic transition and the 2010 Indonesian census Jim Elmslie An analysis of the population of West Papua The 2010 Indonesian census preliminary report shows the population for the two provinces of Papua and Papua Barat as 3,612,854363. In this analysis I am treating the two provinces together using the term West Papua as they were previously one province and the historical data reflects this. The 2010 census does not break the population down to its two main segments: Papuans and nonPapuans (migrants from other parts of Indonesia and their offspring). However previous censuses have recorded ethnicity and it is possible to extrapolate from historical data to determine the current ethnic make up of West Papua and how quickly demographic change is occurring. As baseline figures I will only use published Indonesian data, although some dispute the accuracy and objectivity of these figures. Papuans were identifiable as a distinct population segment in the 1971364 and the 2000 censuses365. In 1971 they were referred to as ‘Irian born’, while in the 2000 census a comprehensive breakdown of different tribal populations was undertaken. By examining how the two population groups have grown over this period we can determine two quite different growth rates: the Papuan rate driven exclusively by natural increase (births less deaths), and the non-Papuan rate, caused primarily by inward migration from other parts of Indonesia as well as natural increase. 363 Hasil Sensus Penduduk 2010, Data Agregat per Provinsi. Badan Pusat Statistic, Jakarta, 2010 364 Irian Jaya: Economic Change, Migrants, and Indigenous Welfare. Chris Manning and Micheal Rumbiak in Hal Hill, Ed., Unity and Diversity, Regional Economic Development in Indonesia since 1970. Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 1991, p.90. 365 Hasil Sensus Penduduk 2000. Badan Pusat Statistic, 2000. 358 The Papuan population increased from 887,000 in 1971 to 1,505,405 in 2000. This represents an average annual growth rate of 1.84%. The non-Papuan population increased from 36,000 in 1971 to 708,425 in 2000. This represents an average annual growth rate of 10.82%. The 2010 census figures so far released only give a total population figure without breaking that figure down into respective ethnic groups, however we can determine the ethnic breakdown by using the historical growth rates of the Papuan population. Assuming the historical Papuan annual growth rate has been maintained over the course of the last decade, the Papuan population in mid 2010 (at the time the census was conducted) would be 1,790,777. This equates to 49.55% of the total 2010 population of West Papua of 3,612,854. Accordingly, the non-Papuan population would be 1,822,677, or 50.45%. Alternatively we can estimate the non-Papuan population by using the 2000 census number, 708,425, and applying the historical growth rate of 10.82%. This would give a mid-2010 non-Papuan population of 1,882,517, or 52.10%. Accordingly the Papuan population would be 1,730,336 or 47.89%. These two sets of calculations result in a very similar outcome, indicating that historical growth rates for both populations have continued. In fact if we added the projected populations of each group – 1,790,777 Papuans and 1,882,517 non-Papuans – we come to a total of 3,673,294. This is only 60,440 more than the actual figure from the 2010 census of 3,612,854, being an error of only 1.67%. To allow for this error, given the ethnic split, I will deduct half the total over-estimation (60,440 divided by two equals 30,220) from each population group to determine the final ethnic numbers. Adjusted population figures: Papuan population (1,790,777 – 30,220) = 1,760,557 48.73% 359 Non-Papuan population (1,882,517 – 30,220) = 1,852,297 51.27% Total population 3,612,854 100% This analysis shows that the Papuans have become a minority in West Papua from being an overwhelming majority (96.09%) less than four decades ago. Population projections to 2020 It is reasonable to assume that the historical annual growth rates for each ethnic group will continue unless major policy changes are undertaken or agreed to by the Indonesian government. Non-Papuan migrants are drawn to West Papua by the economic opportunities generated by the massive natural resource extraction industries led by mining, oil and gas, logging and agriculture. Plans to convert millions of hectares of rainforest to oil palm and other plantation crops may even increase this rate. Papuan growth rates are unlikely to increase, and may well decrease as the Papuan population receives poor health services and battles an HIV epidemic. Many Papuans are also displaced by natural resource developments as well as being dispossessed of their traditional lands by migrants and the Indonesian government. Military ‘sweeping’ operations also affect considerable numbers of Papuans, disrupting normal existence and creating internal refugees. If the Papuan 2010 population of 1,760,557 continues to increase at an annual rate of 1.84% there will be 2,112,681 Papuans in 2020. Likewise if the nonPapuan population continues to increase at its historical rate of 10.82% there will be 5,174,782 non-Papuans in 2020. This would give a total population of 7,287,463 of which Papuans would make up 28.99% and non-Papuans 71.01%. 360 Projected population breakdown for West Papua in 2020: Papuan population 2,112,681 28.99% Non-Papuan population 5,174,782 71.01% Total population 7,287,463 100% To achieve these population predictions the overall population growth rate of West Papua would have to increase from the current rate for Papua province of 5.46% (and that of much smaller Papua Barat province of 3.72%). To reach the figures in these projections the average annual growth rate of West Papua would be 6.44% in 2011, rising to 8.05% in 2020. This may seem like a large jump in the growth rate but it is probably already underway. The weighted average annual growth rate for the two provinces was, in 2010, 5.09%. This reflects the average rate of growth over the decade to 2010 as recorded in the 2010 Indonesian census, not the actual growth rate of each year. From anecdotal eyewitness, accounts this rate increased over the course of the decade as many more migrants came to West Papua by ship and aircraft. This means that the actual rate of growth at the end of the decade to 2010 may well have been more than 5.09%. It is therefore quite possible that the higher growth rates, given the strong pull factors for migrants to move to West Papua, will be achieved short of any change in Indonesian government policy. These predictions clearly indicate the demographic catastrophe that is happening to the Papuan people. From 96.09% of the population in 1971 they will make up only 28.99% of the population in 2020; a small and rapidly dwindling minority. Consequences of demographic transition and the minoritisation of Papuans 361 Besides the fact that the Papuans are becoming a minority in the overall population, stark regional differences in the ethnic make up of different regions are apparent. In all sizeable towns and urban areas of West Papua eyewitness accounts put the non-Papuan population as a clear majority in excess of 70%. Conversely, in rural and remote areas, the Papuans still constitute a majority, where they are largely excluded from mainstream economic activity as well as adequate health and educational services. Such a racial divide holds severe consequences for the political stability of West Papua, and ultimately for Indonesia and the region. Papuan political activism has grown rapidly in recent years in response to the demographic transformation that has engulfed them, among other things. Younger Papuans in particular are refusing to accept what many non-Papuans in Indonesia and elsewhere presume is their inevitable fate. Demonstrations against Special Autonomy and Indonesian rule in general have increased dramatically in recent years, culminating in the mass protests and the occupation of the Papuan parliament building in July 2010. This puts the Papuan people on a collision course with the Indonesian state and its security apparatus, which regard ‘separatism’ as a serious crime. All this is exacerbated by the fact that the Papuans are Melanesians who are predominantly Christian and the non-Papuan migrants are Asians who are predominantly Muslim. Racial and religious tensions are inevitable, heightened by competition over land and resources and the Papuans exclusion from the formal economy and paucity of government services that they receive. In this situation, conflict between the Papuans and the Indonesian state will intensify. The different racial breakdown of the cities and the bush, and the fact that many Papuans are openly expressing their dissatisfaction with the status quo and calling for independence, or at least a referendum on independence, is fuel to the fire of violent conflict. The Indonesian government’s response is 362 primarily military and repressive: viewing Papuan ‘separatists’ as criminals, traitors and enemies of the Republic of Indonesia. It is a recipe for ongoing military operations to search for and destroy Papuan ‘separatists’, a term that could be applied to a large, if not overwhelming, portion of the Papuan population. While most of Indonesia has enjoyed a huge growth in democratic freedoms since the fall of ex-President Suharto in 1998, this has not been the case in West Papua. For the reasons explained above, the Indonesian military retains almost absolute control over Papua and Papua Barat provinces. Civilian political figures and bodies in West Papua have little power to influence policy, and no say in how the military and police operate. There is a culture of complete impunity for security personnel guilty of frequent and gross human rights abuses, including murder and torture. Corruption is endemic, with some observers calling Papua now the most corrupt province in Indonesia. The Indonesian military, the TNI, having lost their previous power bases in East Timor and Aceh, ruthlessly maintain their control over West Papua, both as a power base and as a considerable source of revenue. TNI involvement in legal businesses, such as mining and logging, and, allegedly, illegal businesses, such as alcohol, prostitution, extortion, wildlife smuggling, and so on, provide significant funds for the TNI as an organisation and also for individual TNI members, especially senior officers. The TNI will vigourously defend its interests, which lie with maintaining the status quo and allowing the demographic transition outlined above to unfold. This obviously leaves the Papuans in a dire situation. They see international intervention as necessary for Jakarta to engage in serious dialogue about their future. Most Papuans seem to have utterly lost faith in the Indonesian government and its ability to deal fairly with them. After decades of what is in effect an armed occupation, they feel that the Indonesian state is unable and unwilling to deal with them fairly and to give them even their most basic human rights as Indonesian citizens. Hence the pleas to the international community for 363 recognition of their plight and for third party mediation – an outcome flatly rejected by Jakarta and the TNI. Thus the tensions fuelling the conflict in West Papua continue to intensify. Besides the consequences for the Papuans, how events unfold in West Papua has serious implications for the whole of Indonesia. West Papua is rapidly becoming an international issue, tracking in some ways the history of East Timor. Modern communications technology allows information and images of TNI atrocities to spread rapidly across the globe. Films, newspaper articles and books are spreading knowledge of the conflict in West Papua amongst the Western intellectual elite, particularly in the media and religious and academic institutions. Should violence break out on a larger scale in West Papua, which is quite likely given the situation outlined above, it will be quickly communicated around the world and splashed across newspapers and television sets. This would be a disaster for both the Papuans and the Indonesian government. It was the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre in Dili, where Indonesian soldiers killed more than 200 East Timorese, that set the stage for East Timor’s independence. It was the occupation of East Timor for 24 years that retarded Indonesia’s natural role in international affairs given that it is the world’s fourth most populous country, and the world’s biggest Muslim nation. East Timor became the prism through which the world viewed Indonesia, saddling it with a reputation as a cruel military dictatorship brutally occupying East Timor. Is this to be Indonesia’s future because of its occupation of West Papua? There is certainly the danger that events could unfold in this manner. Should the situation in West Papua deteriorate and violent conflict grow, there will also be repercussions for the West, particularly Australia and the US. Indonesia and Australia share a long border and sit uneasily together; two very different countries bound by geography to coexist as best they can. Australia’s interests lie in promoting a strong, stable, democratic and peaceful Indonesia. 364 Negative developments in West Papua, as outlined above, would be the worst outcome imaginable for the bilateral relationship. The US has perhaps even more at stake. In the global conflict between radical Islam and the West, Indonesia has been held up as a model Muslim nation. Indonesia shows that Islam can co-exist with and even underpin democracy (apart from West Papua). The West views Indonesia as a ‘moderate’ Islamic nation. Although basic human rights are still imperfectly upheld in Indonesia, the situation is widely seen as vastly improved from the Suharto era. The treatment of women, in particular, is lauded. The US believes that many of the world’s Muslim nations have much to learn from Indonesia and that following the Indonesian example will improve global security by undercutting radical Islam. For its part, Indonesia sees its destiny as an important player in world affairs and particularly in the family of Islamic nations, where it is the largest. These are very positive developments. However should the conflict in West Papua escalate and negative images and stories of human rights abuses come to dominate the international image of Indonesia once again, these positive developments could be eclipsed. Indonesia will want to vociferously defend its sovereignty over West Papua, a sentiment deeply held across the archipelago, and above all in the military. But unless the military abuses and impunity are addressed by the government, its relations with the West, including the US, may well sour in response to a deteriorating situation in West Papua. This in turn could affect Indonesia’s somewhat fragile economic situation -- as vulnerable as ever to massive and widespread corruption. Politically, too, the situation keeps alive the possibility of a military comeback in Indonesia as a whole in response to economic meltdown. That is a final reason why attention must be paid to the political situation in West Papua. As in all human conflicts, middle ground can be found. Yet if the 365 demographic trends discussed in this chapter unfold as predicted, the conflict in West Papua can only worsen, with negative consequences for all players. Epilogue: “Slow Motion Genocide”? Many West Papuan leaders think that they are suffering genocide under Indonesian rule. On the face of it, looking at the figures analysed in this chapter, this does not appear to be the case. The Papuan population is still growing, albeit at a much slower rate that the non-Papuan population. There are not mass killings taking place at the moment, or in recent years -- only ongoing systematic human rights abuses, up to and including murder. Yet what is happening to the Papuans is an immense tragedy and is threatening the long-term survival of at least those groups heavily impacted by the mass inward migration of nonPapuan Indonesians. Everywhere people are living tense and fearful lives under the rule of the violent and unaccountable Indonesian military and police. What is the correct term to describe the Papuans’ dilemma? Some have called it a ‘swamping’. Clemens Runawery, a West Papuan elder spokesman living in Papua New Guinea, has called it a ‘slow motion genocide’366 by which he means a process like that which occurred to the indigenous people in Australia and the United States, and to a slightly lesser degree in Canada and New Zealand. The process of the settler peoples taking over the land and resources of the traditional owners by force, and turning them into small minorities through largescale immigration. Some people consider that genocide is the appropriate term for this process; some people do not. While now in the ‘new’ Western countries the emphasis is on reconciliation and saying ‘sorry’, this process is still unfolding in West Papua. 366 Clements Runawery talking at the Australian Institute of International Affairs (SA), Adelaide st University, South Australia, 21 September, 2006. 366 From the Indonesian viewpoint the Papuans are Indonesian citizens, albeit recalcitrant, and some even traitorous for trying to break up the country, but nonetheless, citizens. And West Papua is most definitely, for most observers, part of Indonesia, confirmed by the United Nations. Therefore the movement of Indonesian citizens from overcrowded regions to sparsely populated and resource rich areas like West Papua is logical and necessary for the development of the nation. Jakarta is acutely sensitive to outside interference in what they see as strictly internal problem. However, for the reasons I have explained above, it is an international problem because it has international ramifications. There is also the very real concern that a more familiar genocidal situation is developing. In recent genocides, such in Rwanda in the 1990’s, and more recently in Sudan, different ethnic groups have perpetrated genocide on their neighbours for a variety of reasons, one of which is conflict over resources, especially land. There is a profound split in West Papua’s population between the original Papuans and the newly arrived non-Papuans. It is a split along racial, religious and cultural lines. It is also a spilt on economic perceptions: the Papuans believe that they own their traditional lands and resources: the Indonesian state does not recognise this. The incoming non-Papuans are drawn by those resources and the economic opportunities that the exploitation of them creates. The two population groups are, in effect, competing over the resources, especially land. This is what happened to the indigenous peoples of the new West, and the indigenous people lost out every time until the very recent past. It is appropriate, indeed a responsibility under the UN Genocide Convention, to hear the Papuans claims of genocide and investigate them properly. It would be in all parties’ interests, even Indonesia’s. If genocide is not occurring in West Papua the Indonesian government should have nothing to hide; if it is, the situation can be addressed before it slides out of control, with all the repercussions already discussed. This should be a first step taken by the 367 international community in addressing the West Papuan issue – an international fact-finding mission to see first hand what is going on in the troubled region. Indonesia has no valid reason to block such a mission and I believe that it would be in their interests – a chance to begin moving along the road to a long-term solution to the self-imposed problem of West Papua. 368 Chapter twenty four: Comprehending West Papua through culture: The dynamics of Sentani contemporary Malo painting, and indigenous perspectives Yvonne Carrillo-Huffman This chapter explores the dynamics of barkcloth revival and identity of Maro or Malo painting from Lake Sentani, West Papua (formerly Irian Jaya) in eastern Indonesia. Despite a history of outside influences in Lake Sentani society, the imagery on decorated barkcloth has managed to continue to portray knowledge of cosmology and ancestry through the strength of local oral traditions and/or the increasing need to protect, promote or revive local uniqueness and identity. Sentani barkcloth traditionally had utilitatian, ceremonial and status uses. It also functioned as an exchange object and featured in rituals. Exposure to historical events particularly since European contact has been the cause of major cultural disruption. Outside forces -- colonial powers, missionaries, traders, collectors, wars and conflicts – have been very influential throughout various periods of the history of Malo cloth. However, despite these major outside pressures, decorated Malo has retained an active role in reflecting social and cultural continuity and identity. The multiple dimensions in Sentani Malo production become relevant when examining its utilitarian use, ceremonial exchange, status, and ritual use and its conversion into a commodity, art form, and symbol of regional identity. In this chapter, I will argue that in spite of major outside influences, the importance of specific designs represented in Sentani Malo are still strongly interwoven with people’s ancestry, cosmology and relationship with their natural world. Decorated barkcloth production plays a key role in safeguarding traditional knowledge and local identity, and the continuing strength of the oral traditions also become fundamental in reactivating barkcloth production. 369 The recent contemporary field collections of Malo paintings (2009) made by this writer for the Australian Museum have provided a valuable opportunity to actively engage with Papuan people to document and to incorporate indigenous perspectives from the Sentani area to address how they view the social, cultural and spiritual significance of Malo and its production today. In the published literature on Sentani material culture, Maro is the term widely used when referring to decorated barkcloth from Humboldt Bay and Lake Sentani. However, departing from this tradition, I use the term Malo when referring to barkcloth made in Asei island, the major production centre in the Sentani area. During my stay in Asei, Yothan Ohee, the oldest surviving male on Asei emphasised that the correct Asei language term was Malo. This remark was later confirmed by Agus Ongge and his daughter Anjee Ongge, both Malo painters also from Asei (this does not necessarily mean, however, that the term Maro is not used in other areas of Sentani). History Lake Sentani is situated on the northeast side of West Papua, (formerly known as Irian Jaya), the western half of the island of New Guinea. The Dutch colonial settlement began in 1898 on the northwest side of New Guinea in what became known as Dutch New Guinea until the Japanese occupation during World War II. When the Allies re-possessed the island, Dutch New Guinea was returned to Dutch colonial rule. With the agreement of the United Nations, Indonesia was finally permitted sovereignty over West Papua on the condition that the Papuans be permitted a referendum, or ‘act of free choice’, regarding their future status. But no real referendum was given: only a pre-selected handful of men were chosen to vote for the transfer of sovereignty to Indonesia (as discussed in Pieter Drooglever’s chapter in this volume). The subsequent introduction of a series of major political, social and economic initiatives by the Indonesian government led to general discontent and social unrest amongst Papuans. But the most challenging initiative is the transmigration program involving the relocation of 370 large numbers of migrants from the archipelago to West Papua, and this still represents a major threat to the survival of Papuan cultural identity. Maro is the common name given to West Papuan barkcloth and has also been internationally identified with a type of painted barkcloth produced in this area during the 1920’s and 1930’s (Howard1996: 118). Most of the literature described Maro as painted barkcloth mainly produced in Lake Sentani and Humboldt Bay. Traditionally, however, the production of barkcloth was found in six areas of West Papua: west along Cenderawashi Bay, along the north at Sarmi, along coastal areas in the northeast and just inland around Lake Sentani, further south inland around Waris and Senggi and along the southern coast from Etna Bay to the Otokwa River (Howard 1996: 114). Contemporary barkcloth production is today mainly concentrated on Asei Island in Lake Sentani at the foot of the Cyclops Mountains in the vicinity of Jayapura, the largest city in West Papua. Traditionally, barkcloth was made by women. Decorated Malo were worn by married women and initiated girls in Humboldt Bay. G.L. Bink described that people went naked except for the married women who wore Malo ‘waistcloths’ (see Bink 1897). Decorated barkcloth was also worn over a plain undecorated one (Hoogerbrugge 1992: 127). In addition, Malo was worn by men in ceremonial dances, hanging down from the waist-belt (Hoogerbrugge 1992: 127). With the arrival of Europeans, particularly with the control and influence of colonial administrators and missionaries, the production and use of barkcloth for wear was gradually replaced by cotton cloth (Hoggerbrugge 1992: 128). It was, however, perhaps the subsequent interest of Europeans in Sentani decorated barkcloth in the 1920s and 1930s that transformed the traditional identity of Malo into an ‘art form’. During this time, Swiss ethnologist Paul Wirz and French art dealer Jacques Viot made a series of Malo painting collections. The collection made by Viot was exhibited at the Musée d’Ethnographie du Trocadéro in Paris in 1933. Other Europeans, like the German national Stüber, also made important 371 collections and exported these to private collectors and museums in Europe and North America. The Second War World severely affected the production of Malo painting in the area of Lake Sentani and elsewhere in the region (Howard 1996: 119). Relationship between Malo designs, social function and identity Malo paintings have been interpreted by Europeans as an ‘art form’. The beauty and intricate designs give a viewer an impression of fluidity and movement. For the purposes of this chapter, however, it is important to explore the real functional and spiritual role of Sentani barkcloth designs and how these are interconected with people’s cosmology and landscape today: Certain designs are associated with ancestors and cosmic symbols which represent life, balance and fertility in Lake Sentani. Some of these designs were associated with the village Chief or Ondoafi power and therefore regarded as a guaranted [sic] for plentiful fishing, hunting and harvesting of crops and wellbeing for the community. (Enrico Konologi: personal communication, Jan 2009) Enrico’s views illustrate the relevance of Malo paintings today in safeguarding local and regional identity as a result of their being challenged by outside pressures. In Lake Sentani, object designs on plates, bowls, paddles, canoes and barkcloth are interwoven with ancestor narratives, cosmology, animals and their living environment. Humans and animals are regarded as having the same origin, and can therefore be regarded as being the same (Hermkens 1996: 130). Some designs are believed to enhance the power and prestige of the people who have the rights to certain objects decorated with special motifs. The designs are therefore also bearers of identity. For example, some fish designs represented on canoes and decorated barkcloth are today still considered essential symbols associated with the status of the Ondoafi and members of his family, particularly women. 372 One day, whilst I was on Asei island in January 2009, two young girls from nearby Ayapo village, east of Asei, approached in a large wooden women’s canoe of the type known as kaji. One of the girls wielded a beautifully decorated carved paddle covered with spiral-form motifs and fish designs. The figure of a carved crocodile canoe prow, was said to symbolise the power and status of the Ondoafi’s wife to whom the canoe belonged, as did the designs on the paddle (Anjee Ongge, personal communication, Jan 2009). Another example of Sentani Malo design as a bearer of social identity was given by ninety year-old Yothan Ohee, the oldest man in Asei. He was attentively examining a photograph taken by Paul Wirz in Siboiboi in 1926 which showed a beautifully decorated large Malo hanging by a small grave hut. When asked about the meaning of the designs, he pointed out the spiral-form or fouw motif and indicated it was the cloth worn by an Ondoafi’s wife or Hakalu (‘The Rock’). These designs reflect the Ondoafi’s wife’s personality, strength and respect shown in life towards her family and community (personal communication, Jan 2009). Barkcloth was also traditionally associated with female fertility and the continuity of life. A woman who cannot have children is given a magic potion and is covered with a barkcloth under which she has to stay. A month later she is pregnant, but she is still has to stay under the barkcloth. After she has given birth to the children, the cloth is decorated with two rows of feathers and stored well, since a spirit lives in it. (Hoogerbrugge 1967:13) The revival of Malo: an artist’s perspective The process of Malo revival has been previously addressed in the literature relating to Lake Sentani. Throughout different periods of Sentani history (1930s, 1970s and 1990s) there have been a number of assumptions made regarding the disappearance and reemergence of Malo paintings as a result of outside 373 influences. During my brief 2009 fieldwork in the Sentani area, I was particularly interested to identify and examine the role played by culturally active individuals and the dynamics involved in their own revival process. Following recommendations from Enrico Konologi, I worked with well-established Sentani artist Augus Ongge, Seru Ongge’s son. According to Augus, his father taught him the art of Malo painting as well as the associated knowledges of cosmology, narratives and clan designs from Sentani. Augus is from Asei Island and has worked tirelessly for nearly 40 years in preserving aspects of Sentani cultural tradition for the new generations. He remarks that he was the one who initiated the process of Malo revival in his community in Asei in 1974. At the time, Augus and another artist, Martan Tokoro, from Simporo Baborongko (Sentani Tengah), Central Sentani, were requested by the National Handicraft Association, Kantar Perindustrian Propinsi Papua, to begin the commercialisation of Malo painting in the Sentani area. Augus and Martan travelled to the islands of Asei and Baborongko in Lake Sentani, where they met with the Ondoafi and village elders. The initiative received support amongst the community in Asei, but not in Baborongko. From 1975 to 1979 Augus became a major player in the revival process, which was mainly focussed in Asei. He conducted regular workshops teaching oral traditions of Sentani cosmology and production techniques to the youth. In 1985, Augus and Martel, at the invitation of the Central Government, travelled to Jakarta to exhibit some of their own Malo paintings to promote Sentani regional culture. In 1992 Augus returned to Jakarta to exhibit 100 pieces of decorated barkcloth, all made by his community in Asei. The outcome of Malo painting revival has brought Augus individual recognition and respect within his community and overseas, where he has participated in workshops and exhibitions (Seoul [1994], Darwin [1998, 1999] and Brisbane [2005]). The success of the revival of the Malo painting tradition has encouraged a new wave of emerging Asei artists, both male and female, such as Seru Ongge, Anjee 374 Ongge and others. One of the most fundamental reasons for Augus’ dedication to the preservation and continuity of Malo production is the ongoing threat from outside influences and the fear of losing aspects of Sentani tradition as a result of its commercialisation. The intense process of the commodification of Malo painting is underminding people’s cultural identity. Its preservation and productivity in the hands of Sentani ‘traditional owners’ is considered to be a cultural priority and a symbol of regional identity. Relationship between Malo designs and Sentani cosmology and landscape In Sentani two main traditional stylistic designs can be distinguished on Malo paintings: the spiral-form or fouw, commonly referred as ‘Sentani’ and associated with Sentani Lake, and the ‘Nafri’ style from the Humboldt Bay area. One of the most important motifs in Asei is the spiral-form fouw in the homo-kelew design represented on barkcloths. Design aspects of cosmology have been examined by Hoogerbrugge (1967: 19) who wrote “The rhombus forms can be seen as representing the two worlds, together forming the cosmos”, and Hermkens (1996: 136) who also wrote: Thus the spiral motifs can be seen as representing the connections between heaven and earth, north and south, lake and mountain. The spirals of the homokelew can be regarded as a bridge between heaven and earth, a visualization of the origin myth, and the relations between ancestors and spirits. Another important element of the spiral-form design from Asei is depicted with pointed halves and is called wandjamo, still used by some artists today in Asei. According to Hoogerbrugge (1967:54), this motif symbolises a ‘cloud ending in a point’. Hermkens further illustrates the significance of the cosmological dualism of this design by interpreting oppositions such as male and female, and good and evil, also symbolised by spiral-forms. The spiral has been interpreted to be the synthesis between the two, making life on earth possible. Both elements are 375 essential for life: without the one the other would and could not exist. As such, the spiral ornament can be regarded as a symbol for two similar but different entities and their mutual connection and balance (Hermkens 1996: 132). The other important stylistic variation of Malo painting motif is the Nafri style, originally from Tobati, in the Humboldt Bay area. The Nafri style representations include spirit figures, images of creatures, Uaropo the protector of the sea, animals, and narrative depictions. It is thought that the Nafri style was that which stimulated European interest and collecting in the early 20th century. Today, Malo paintings within the Nafri tradition are no longer being produced in Tobati (Augus Ongge: personal communication, Jan 2009) except by renowned artist Mbra Mbra. However, the Nafri tradition is still retained in Asei today by well-known artist John Ohee who has clan rights to Nafri designs (Anjee Ongge: personal communication, Jan 2009). Thus Sentani’s barkcloth designs, despite increasing commercialisation, still retain great importance as cultural narratives, reflecting oral traditions about people’s cosmology, ancestral origin and the spiritual symbolism of animals and other landscape creatures. Each Sentani village has specific knowledge of the origin of their own clans. By stating the identity of the land, these narratives are today extremely important. Each clan has its own myths (Galis 1955; Hoogerbrugge 1967: 6) that tell stories about the birth, origin and customs of the ancestors of the Lake Sentani peoples. These are owned by the leader, the Ondofolo (Hoogerbrugge, 1967: 6). In Asei, I asked Anjee about the origin of Malo designs, and she indicated that they originated from “the east, Papua New Guinea, Sepik ...”. When asked why Malo paintings with Nafri designs from Humboldt Bay area are now made in Asei, she stated: “These designs belong to everyone and can be shared by everyone in the village, because Asei is Sentani, we all have and share the same origin…” (Anjee Ongge: personal communication, Jan 2009). This statement, however, 376 may be viewed possibly as a result of trying to protect a Papuan common cultural identity against increasing outside pressures. ‘Modernisation, globalisation and commercialisation of Malo identity The retention and adapatability of Sentani barkcloth designs, ownership, and identity are continuously being challenged by environmental and social pressures. This is clearly illustrated when an Asei woman, Anjee Ongge, crossed cultural boundaries by marrying an Indonesian migrant, Yola Iskander, who migrated to West Papua from Java seven years ago. According to Anjee, by becoming part of Asei community, Iskander had to learn and adopt aspects of Sentani’s culture and social obligations. One important aspect of his responsibilities is learning to paint barklcoth with specific designs from his wife’s clan. This was a community matter, involving the authority of the village Ondoafi and elders to give Anjee permission to pass on the knowledge by teaching Iskander skills, techniques and narratives to reproduce specific clan line designs, such as fouw (fish) and other animals. Thus, in Asei, social limitations involving the representation of specific ancestral motifs associated with clan lineage were relinquished – or expanded - when Iskander became actively engaged as a community member in the production of Malo paintings. By becoming a valuable member of his household and within his adopted village, Iskander’s Javanese identity is recognised as an advantage in negotiating barkcloth sales. The small enclosed and competitive businesses of Islamic migrants from the Indonesian archipelago islands of Macassar and Java into West Papua’s capital, Jayapura, makes Iskander a valuable agent in generating economic revenue through the sales of Malo paintings at Jayapura’s Hamadi markets. Furthermore, he is an agent with dual responsibilities: that of generating maximum profits through selling Asei’s decorated barkcloth production (to which he now has a cultural connection through his marriage with a Sentani woman) and also of using his own Javanese identity to maximum 377 benefit for his adopted community in his dealings with the Hamadi business migrants. The enormous emphasis placed by the Indonesian government on ‘modernisation’, transmigration, and increasing Islamisation of West Papua is extremely challenging to West Papuans, and these influences are already felt in all aspects of Papuan daily life. At a governmental level, besides seeking to alleviate overpopulation pressures in the archipelago, the transmigration programme is also believed to have an important role in unifying the Indonesian nation (Elmslie 2002: 73). Thus, development of the island is officially seen as an important attempt to unite the people of Indonesia politically, economically and culturally (Djopari 1987, p. 96). Most of the migrants are Muslim, and view West Papua as a new frontier where rapid economic development is happening with broader economic possibilities than are found back in their original home provinces. This competitiveness has been centred in the commercialisation of Papuan cultural items, such as Malo paintings, for the tourist markets at Hamadi in Jayapura and has resulted in very high demand for the supply of bark. The increased demand to obtain bark for barkcloth production has resulted in the depletion of all trees in Asei (Augus Ongge, personal communication, Jan 2009). Today, people have to travel to a certain locality, three hours’ drive from Sentani district, to buy bark. Barkcloth is made from the bark from trees from the Moraceae family, specifically the genera Ficus. On Asei, Malo is made using two different types of barks: Aye, reddish bark (the most common type of bark) and Kombow, white bark (from a tree which grows slowly and is rarer). This locality outside Sentani district has become the main distribution centre of bark for the demand in Asei as well as Hamadi markets. Here trees are not cut down, but the bark is peeled off by making an incision in the outer bark and only the desired size of bark is taken, leaving the tree uncut. The rectangular pieces are rolled up and later on the outer bark is removed. The best bark (thick texture with no 378 holes) is exclusively sold to people in Asei as well as other artists. The lesserquality bark (thin with holes) is bought and then sold at Hamadi markets. According to Augus Ongge (personal communication, Jan 2009) the increasing number of migrants today selling Malo for tourists has created fierce competition to buy bark, particularly Aye, the reddish bark, most commonly use in Malo paintings. These migrants run the main souvenir shop outlets for the tourists at the Hamadi markets. Here, traditional West Papuan cultural items are sold, not by Papuans, but by migrants from Java and Macassar. The most common items for sale are undecorated and decorated penis gourds (horim) worn traditionally by the Dani males from the central highlands, and Malo paintings from Lake Sentani. The penis gourds are hand-painted with black pen by Macassar and Javanese artists with local stylistic spiral-designs and decorated with chicken feathers on the ends. The words “West Papuan Art” are also often written on the items. When I asked one of the vendors about the meaning of spiral-designs being painted over the penis gourds, I was told they are “Sentani designs…” (personal communication, Jan 2009). Thus the misappropriation and overly intense commercialisation of aspects of Papuan cultural material has resulted in severe cross-cultural mixing, with Sentani traditional designs and important cultural symbolism now being drawn not only on non-Sentani cultural items (such as penis gourds), but by individuals not even of West Papuan origin. The majority of Malo designs sold on the barkcloth at Hamadi markets are painted with stencils and this method is recognised by Sentani people as not being “real” Malo painting. Only a few individuals are today considered to be “true” Malo artists painting designs by hand. This traditional technique is still firmly associated with the right to represent specific clan designs by people in Asei and a few other Sentani artists. In Asei, the community contests outside pressures by associating their ancestral clan rights to the production of better 379 quality Malo paintings to differentiate from those sold at Jayapura’s Hamadi markets. This emphasis to mark a distinctive Sentani identity on contemporary production of barkcloth is continuously being reinforced onto the new generations from an early age. The young learn knowledge about designs and their meaning and techniques to paint them and assist with the sale of the family’s household Malo paintings to tourists visiting Asei. This is illustrated by the example of Anjee’s eleven-year old niece Ruth Pow, who is actively contributing to her household’s small production by decorating her father Johanes’ Malo designs. Ruth uses the traditional coconut rib to apply the commonly used colours red (or nime-nime), made from stones; white (or kèlèuman) from lime; and black (or nokoman) made of charcoal. Each individual colour is mixed with water and some resin to make it thicker. Ruth interprets her father’s designs to be a variety of fish motifs ‘living under the Lake” (the following terms are in Bahasa Indonesian, rather than Asei/Sentani language): Ikan Gargaji, (sawfish), Ikan Sembilan, (cat fish), Sarang Ikan, (fish nest), and other creatures living in Sentani Lake. Other designs include marine life narratives of life under the Lake such as “Geete Geete (type of fish) living in Rumput laut (sea grass) where it lays eggs over the Sarang Ikan (fish nest)”. All motifs are associated with clan designs from both her mother and father’s lineages (personal communication, 2009). People in Asei are trying to strengthen their collective effort for prosperity and thus undermine migrants’ tenacious competitiveness by establishing a link between their indigenous identity and their ‘right’ to produce a higher quality or a “real” Malo painting. This was clearly demonstrated on my first visit to Asei when a woman displayed her barkcloth on the ground and stated strongly; “This is Sentani Malo, not Hamadi!” (personal communication, Jan 2009). Conclusion 380 During my short visit to the Sentani area, I was interested in examining the dynamics of cultural identity and contemporary production of Malo paintings, in spite of the increasingly contested commercialisation by both Sentani artists and Indonesian migrants. During lengthy discussions with artists and people in Asei, I was told that the real Malo paintings are clearly distinguishable from those produced by non-Papuans because of their ancestral connection with people’s cosmologies, and are interwoven with the landscape and clan designs. The preservation of knowledge and meaning to distinguish what is a ‘real’ Malo painting is becoming a major priority to safeguard its intangible heritage. I suggest that major outside forces have influenced the disappearance of barkcloth production for a time, but it only went ‘dormant‘. Almost all designs on barkcloth from the Sentani area are closely interlinked with people’s spiritual belief systems. Sentani people have confirmed spirits and ancestors never die, these can be reactivated and reawakened by a series of outside influences. Malo paintings are like canvas with written memories, stories of ancestors, spirits, events, landscapes and clan lines. These designs represent a ‘holding threat’ to the preservation of cultural identity by continuing to weave together cosmologies, ancestor spirits and their relationship with their environment, and thus to ensure the survival of Malo tradition and Sentani culture for future generations. Dedication: The author would like to dedicate this chapter to the traditional owners of the knowledge related to painted barkcloth in the Lake Sentani area and would like to thank all Sentani artists, particularly Augus Ongge, Anjee Ongge and Iskander, and everyone in Asei and staff at the Lokabudaya Museum in Abepura, and all the other Papuan community there and here in Australia involved for their generosity in facilitiating my trip to West Papua. Their contributions have reinforced the writer’s view of the importance of preserving 381 traditional knowledge, knowledge that needs to be recognised and elevated to the same level of western academe. Bibliography Aragon, Lorraine, 1990. Barkcloth Production in Central Sulawesi: A Vanishing Textile Technology in Outer Island Indonesia. Expedition, Vol 32, No1, pp. 33-48. Bink, G.L., 1897. Drie maanden aan de Humboldtsbaal. Tijdschrift voor indische Taal-, Land-en Volkenkunde (TBG), No 39, pp.143-211. Carrillo-Huffman, Yvonne, 2008. The Revival of Nemas: Reconstructing Erromangan Traditions. Explore: the Australian Museum Magazine, Dec 2008 – Feb 2009, pp.24-26. Christidis, L. & Daniel, V. & Monaghan, P. & Carrillo-Huffman, Y. & Huffman, K.W. (October) 2008. Engaging with Creator Communities: The Way Forward for Museums. The International Journal of the Inclusive Museum. Vol 1, No2. www.museum-journal.com Djopari, D. 1987, “Proyek Perinitis Untuk Membangun Masyarakat Desa di Irian Jaya” in Kasiepo et al. (eds), Pembangunan Masyarakat Pedalaman Irian Jaya, (Pustaka Sinar Harapan). Elmslie, Jim, 2002. Irian Jaya under the Gun. Indonesian Economic Development versus West Papuan Nationalism. Crawford House Publishing, Adelaide. Greub, S. (ed)., 1992. Art of Northwest New Guinea. New York, Rizolli. 382 Hermkens, Anna-Karina, 1997. The Way of the Objects.Analogical Inference and the Allocation of Meaning and Order in Lapita, Dongson and Lake Sentani Material Culture. MA Thesis, Theoretical Archaeology, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden, August 1997. Hoogerbrugge, J. 1995. Notes on the Art of Barkcloth Painting in the Jayapura area, Irian Jaya, Indonesia. In: Pacific Material Culture. Essays in Honour of Dr. Simon Kooijman on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday. Pacific Material Culture, Leiden, No 28, pp. 178-179. Howard, Michael C., 1996, Irian Jaya’s Barkcloth Revival, Arts of Asia, 26(5) pp.114-124. Howard, Michael C. 1998. Maro Paintings of Irian Jaya, Art AsiaPacific, No 18, pp.54-61. Kamma, Freerk C., 1975. Religious Texts of the Oral Tradition from Western New-Guinea. Part A. The origin and sources of life. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Kamma, Freerk C., 1978. Religious Texts of the Oral Tradition from Western New-Guinea. Part B. The threat to life and its defence against “natural” and “supernatural” phenomena. Leiden: E.J. Brill. Kooijman, Simon, 1959, The Art of Lake Sentani. New York: The Museum of Primitive Art. Ratton, C., 1935. L’Exposition de tapa de la Nouvelle Guinée Hollandaise au Musée D’Ethnographie Du Trocadéro. Arts et métiers graphiques, Paris, vol 35(May), pp. 60-61. 383 Sande. G.A. J. van der. 1907. Ethnography and Anthropology Nova Guinea, vol 3. Leiden. *All reasonable attempts have been made to trace Copyright holders of material published. 384 Notes on contributors 385 John Braithwaite is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow at the Australian National University. He works on a project called Peacebuilding Compared. The first case study in that project was on West Papua, written with Mike Cookson. It is included in a volume entitled Anomie and Violence: NonTruth and Reconciliation in Indonesian Peacebuilding. He is currently writing on the 'error of misplaced realism' in western policies toward East Timor after 1974 with Hilary Charlesworth and Aderito Soares. Paul Barber joined TAPOL (‘political prisoner’ in Indonesian), the Indonesian Human Rights Campaign, a small UK-based NGO, as a volunteer in 1994, and has gone on to become a key member of the team working alongside Carmel Budiardjo, herself a former political prisoner in Indonesia. Paul has a background in law and human rights and is indefatigably productive in both fields, especially concerning Papua. Yvonne Carrillo-Huffman is a Collection Officer for the Pacific Collections at the Australian Museum. For over a decade she has been actively developing initiatives to make cultural collections more accessible and relevant to and for Pacific peoples. A main focus of interest is the role objects play in reviving and strengthening cultural identity and how they are reinterpreted into contemporary artworks. She has been responsible for initiating cultural reawakening projects in partnership with communities living in Sydney and the Pacific region. She is a strong advocate of the equality of traditional knowledge and western knowledge systems, and has co-curated numerous cultural exhibitions. She has a BA in Anthropology, Macquarie University, and is currently involved in documentary film work. Richard Chauvel teaches in the School of Social Sciences and Psychology at Victoria University, Melbourne. He has research interests in Indonesian history and politics, Australia-Indonesia relations and Australian foreign policy. His research has focused on political and social change in eastern Indonesia, most 386 particularly in Maluku and Papua. His publications include two policy papers for the East West Center Washington’s project on “The Dynamics and Management of Internal Conflict in Asia”. He was a consultant for the International Crisis Group in Papua and his report was published as Indonesia: Ending Repression in Irian Jaya 20 September 2001, ICG Asia Report No 23 Nick Chesterfield, editor at westpapuamedia.info, is a human security journalist and activist with extensive experience of the Papua issue through refugee protection, human rights advocacy, environmental protection, and citizen media work and safety training. He has conducted many field investigations in the West Papuan region since 1999. Together with citizen media and human rights workers from inside Papua, Chesterfield helped set up West Papua Media <http://WestPapuaMedia.Info> in 2008, to counter the willful lack of coverage of West Papua by the international press. Pieter Drooglever was lead researcher of the task force documenting the decolonisation of Indonesia at the Institute of Netherlands History at The Hague. At the end of 2000 he was commissioned by the Dutch government to conduct a study into West Papua and the Act of Free Choice, which culminated in the publication of Een Daad van Vrije Keuze in 2005. Translations in English (An Act of Free Choice: Decolonisation and the Right to Self-Determination in West Papua) and Indonesian appeared in 2009 and 2010. Jim Elmslie is an a tribal art dealer, political economist and founding CoConvener of the West Papua Project, at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, the University of Sydney. His PhD thesis, Irian Jaya Under the Gun: Indonesian Economic Development versus West Papuan Nationalism, was published by the University of Hawaii Press in 2002. He has travelled frequently to the island of New Guinea since 1983 and made his first trip to West Papua in 1987. 387 Andreas Harsono (Self portrait:) “A writer in Jakarta, finalizing travelogue, A Nation in Name: Debunking the Myth of Indonesian Nationalism. Helped set up Jakarta's Alliance of Independent Journalists, the Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of Information, the Pantau Foundation and the Bangkok-based Southeast Asia Press Alliance. Member of the International Consortium for Investigative Journalists. A Nieman Fellow in Journalism at Harvard University. Jember, a small town in eastern Java, is my hometown.” Andreas is also the Indonesia and East Timor consultant for Human Rights Watch and in 2010 in Washington DC he was awarded the West Papua Advocacy Team's John Rumbiak Human Rights Defenders’ Award. Budi Hernawan, OFM, is a Franciscan friar who worked in West Papua, Indonesia, from 1997-2009, mostly at the Office for Justice and Peace run by the Catholic Church (SKP) of which he was director from 2005-2008. Currently he is a PhD scholar at the Regulatory Institutions Network of the Australian National University investigating torture in Papua. His latest publication is: “Terror, Resistance and Trauma in Papua (Indonesia): a reflection” Canberra: Centre for International Governance and Justice, ANU, 2009. Franzalbert Joku was born at Sentani near Jayapura in 1953. Married with five children, he was in exile in PNG from 1975 to 1992 and worked as a reporter at the PNG Post Courier for many years. Later he worked for PNG Prime Ministers and other political leaders. After 1998 he returned from exile and in 2000 he became a leading member of the Papua Council Presidium (Presidium Dewan Papua) campaigning for Papuan independence. Since 2006 he has been active with Nick Messet in Papua and PNG in the Independent Group Supporting the Special Autonomous Region of Papua within the Republic of Indonesia (IGSSARPRI), an initiative encouraged by the former Governor of Papua, Barnabas Suebu, to persuade Papuans in exile to return to West Papua. 388 Peter King is Co-Convener of the West Papua Project. He was the founding President, later Director, of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, and is a Research Associate in Government and International Relations at Sydney University. Publications include: West Papua and Indonesia since Suharto: Independence, Autonomy or Chaos? UNSW Press, Sydney, 2004, and ‘“Corruption Ruins Everything”: Gridlock over Suharto’s Legacy in Indonesia’, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus [online], February 2008. S. Eben Kirksey is a cultural anthropologist at the CUNY Graduate Center, New York City, who studies the political dimensions of imagination as well as the interplay of natural and cultural history. His first book, Freedom in Entangled World (Duke University Press, forthcoming 2011), is about an indigenous political movement in West Papua, and he is the co-author (with Andreas Harsono) of a celebrated investigation which has been updated as ‘Criminal Collaborations? Antonius Wamang and the Indonesian military in Timika’, South East Asia Research, 16, 2, 2008. Maire Leadbeater is Spokesperson, Indonesia Human Rights Committee, Auckland, and author of Negligent Neighbour: New Zealand’s Complicity in the Invasion and Occupation of Timor-Leste (Craig Potton, 2006). Kylie Mckenna is a PhD student at the Regulatory Institutions Network, Australian National University. Her thesis titled 'Interdependent Engagement: Achieving Corporate Social Responsibility in Bougainville and Papua' explores the way in which major resource companies can contribute to peaceful development and avoid the social conflict that is often associated with natural resource extraction. Jason MacLeod is a doctoral candidate at the University of Queensland, researching the viability of nonviolent strategies and tactics to enlarge the prospects of self-determination in West Papua. He teaches civil resistance in the 389 School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland and teaches into the Masters course on nonviolent action at Sydney University. He has previously held positions at Monash University, the University of New England and Christian Heritage College where he taught community development. He has been published in Pacifica Review, Social Alternatives, New Internationalist, Open Democracy, ZNet, Truth Out, and Inside Indonesia, in addition to writing several scholarly book chapters on West Papua and nonviolent struggle. Jason coordinates a civil resistance training and education programme in non-democracies. Akihisa Matsuno is a professor in international politics at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), Osaka University. His recent publications include 'Papua - the right to self-determination drifting in international relations', PRIME No. 32 (Meiji Gakuin University), October 2010 (in Japanese). Rosa Moiwend is from the Malind tribe of West Papua. She is an activist working with the Office for Justice and Peace in Jayapura, promoting justice and peace building. Rosa has worked with the Malind community at the grassroots level, and with partner organisations at the national and international level, to organise people to document the human rights situation in Papua every year and to advocate for the rights of indigenous Papuans. She is also a member of SORPATOM (Solidarity of People Against MIFEE). John Ondawame is the Vice Chairman of the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation. He was born in 1953 in Wanamum, Mimika Regency in West Papua. Ondawame was a member of the OPM and went into exile in 1979. He obtained his PhD degree in political science from Australian National University in Canberra in 2000, MSc degree from the University of Western Sydney in 1995, Graduate Diplomas from the University of Sydney in 1994 and Uppsala University in 1986, and Bachelor of Arts degree from the Cenderawasih University, West Papua, in 1976. Ondawame was a recipient of the 2001 390 Reconciliation Award bestowed by the Australians Against Execution group, and the 1972 President Suharto Award for Academic Excellence. In 2000, Ondawame joined the West Papua Project at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies of the University of Sydney as project coordinator. Currently he is Coordinator for International Relations for the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation operating from its new office in Port Vila, Vanuatu. Rex Rumakiek, born in Biak, is Secretary General of the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL) and former head of the Decolonisation Desk of the Pacific Concerns Resource Centre, Suva. He lives in Canberra. Jacob Rumbiak is Foreign Affairs representative of the West Papua National Authority. He was a student, academic, and political prisoner in Indonesia for twenty years before escaping to East Timor and Australia in 1999. ‘His experience of political and social life in Java, as well as his knowledge of the Indonesian military establishment, underpin his analyses and strategies for promoting democracy in Indonesia, as well as justice in West Papua.’ He is based in Melbourne. John Saltford is the author of The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua 1962-1969, which is based on his PhD dissertation. He lives in London. Bilveer Singh is Head, Centre of Excellence for National Security, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore [on leave from the Department of Political Science, National University of Singapore]. Socratez Yoman is a published author on the failure of Special Autonomy, the chair of the United Baptist Churches in West Papua, and a West Papuan activist and academic. 391 Herman Wainggai is former political prisoner, organiser and long-time activist. Born in 1973 he was a co-founding member of the West Papua National Youth Awareness Team and the West Papua National Authority. It was visits to his uncle, Dr. Thomas Wainggai, serving a life term in prison for raising a West Papuan flag, that developed Herman’s passion for political development and social progress. At the age of twenty, while studying Law and Theology at STT Walter Post Sentani, Herman became a key figure in the nonviolent students’ movement, organising peaceful demonstrations to advocate human rights, democracy and freedom in West Papua. As a result, Herman was charged with subversion and incarcerated in an Indonesian prison for two and a half years. In 2005, Herman organised the escape of forty-three West Papuans in a traditional double-outrigger canoe, circumnavigating West Papua then crossing the Arafura Sea to Australia. Their odyssey sparked media reports around the world, and when the Australian government granted them asylum Jakarta recalled its Ambassador from Canberra. He believes the independence of West Papua will be a major development in the democracy of Indonesia. Camellia Webb-Gannon is the coordinator of the West Papua Project at the University of Sydney. Her PhD thesis (2011) examined the politics of peacemaking within the West Papuan independence movement, among many other things. She is a co-author of Anatomy of an Occupation: The Indonesian Military in West Papua (August 2011), and responsible for its original analysis of Indonesian intelligence operations among the Papuans. 392