By Darren Zhang
Calls for the Government to end its silence over Indonesia’s brutal crackdown against a peaceful Papuan gathering are growing with the convener of New Zealand’s parliamentary support group for West Papua urging Foreign Minister Murray McCully to pull out New Zealand’s police training unit from Indonesia.
The Indonesian national army and police opened fire at a gathering of West Papuan leaders after participants reportedly raised the Morning Star flag and sung the banned national anthem, later making declarations of independence at the capital Jayapura.
Leading local human rights organisation Elsham claim six people were killed while around 300 Papuans were arrested, many now released without charge.
Speaking to Radio Australia, MP Catherine Delahunty called on McCully to review the “whole scheme” suggesting the programme was compromised by the brutal suppression of self determination.
“We are validating an invalid situation, we are giving credence and credibility to a police force that are actively attacking their own citizens,” Delahunty told the Pacific Beat programme.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, New Zealand Police is the first foreign police force to be invited into Papua and West Papua provinces to undertake community policing programmes.
“We devised a community policing training programme together with the Indonesian National Police force and it has been carried out in the provinces of Jayapura, Timika, Wamena, Biak, Sorong and Manokwari,” said Tim Haughey, Senior Police Liaison Officer based in Jakarta.
The Indonesian-ruled territory of West Papua along with much of East Asia was under Dutch rule when in 1936, a geological expedition located significant ertsberg (mineral ore) deep inside the West Papua wilderness.
Following the Japanese defeat of World War II, Indonesia gained independence in 1949 while the Netherlands began a ten year Papuanisation programme in 1957 to hand West Papua back to the indigenous people, with very few being aware of the mineral discovery.
However unknown to the Papuan and Dutch, US mining company Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold was negotiating directly with the then Indonesian army general Suharto, later the second President of Indonesia.
“The path into West Papua through Suharto promised to be fruitful for Freeport, since its board was stacked with the Rockefeller's Indonesian oil interests... An exploration agreement was reached, and soon after a geologist from Freeport was forging his way through the wilderness toward Ertsberg,” asserts N.A.J Taylor from La Trobe University.
With Soviet and Chinese weapons, Indonesia declared war against the Netherlands and on August 15, 1962 under American mediation, the Netherlands agreed to transfer interim control over to Indonesia.
A declassified confidential airgram from Jakarta to the US State Department almost unanimously agreed that "Indonesia could not win an open election" and in 1969, United Nations observers supervised the Act of Free Choice where 1,026 selected West Papuans agreed for the island to become part of Indonesia which it remains today.
During the congress, up to 20,000 leaders from tribes all over Papua attended where they ‘met, danced and debated” how to achieve their full civil and political rights.
The venue was surrounded by Armed Personnel Carriers, military trucks and Barracudas. Machine guns were trained on the participants and thousands of soldiers and paramilitary police armed with automatic weapons were present.
Amnesty International has issued a public statement calling for the release of the recently arrested tribal delegates.
“Amnesty International calls for the immediate and unconditional release of at least fourteen people who are currently being detained and interrogated by the police in Papua. They were arrested yesterday for participating in the Third Papuan People’s congress, a peaceful gathering held in Abepura, Papua province.”
The unrest comes weeks after police used deadly force on striking workers at a gold and copper mine run by the US company Freepost-Mcmoran, some 8,000 of whom have been striking since the 15 September due to a pay-rise deadlock.
“We know that torture and abuses by both the police and military are now commonplace and have been for sometime and we cannot say that New Zealand’s involvement is reducing the impact of those injustices,” said Delahunty.
John Wing and Peter King from the University of Sydney Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies maintain that up to 100,000 West Papuans may have been killed since Indonesian occupation, referring to the situation as "slow-motion genocide.”
Meanwhile Delahunty is optimistic and believes New Zealand can play a positive leadership role.
“We know that they have prioritised trade over human rights and justice. We are going to call on them to take leadership so that we can hold our heads up in this region and be a country that has in the past shown real leadership to create peace dialogue.
“That’s what the people of West Papua want, they want a peace dialogue, they want international support from Australia and New Zealand and it’s not much to ask to call on human rights, an end to torture and for discussions between Indonesia and West Papuan leaders.”
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