The TNI Should Withdraw From Papua to Prevent Another Lacluta

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the Lacluta massacre in East Timor by battalions of the Indonesian military, or TNI.

One of the enduring horrors of the occupation of East Timor was the “fence of legs” campaign of 1981 where civilians were rounded up and forcibly marched across the island to flush out resistance fighters – including Xanana Gusmao, now the fledgling nation’s Prime Minister.

Many died along the way. The campaign led to “very serious humanitarian consequences,” including famine as it took place during planting season and many of those press-ganged were subsistence farmers.

The march headed to Lacluta where the UN Commission for Reception, Truth and Reconciliation determined hundreds of East Timorese were murdered by Indonesian armed forces. “The commission received evidence of a large massacre of civilians, including women and children, at this time,” it said.

Indonesian authorities admitted to only 70 deaths, while Martinho da Costa Lopes of East Timor’s Catholic church said the death toll was closer to 500. One East Timorese fighter said the attack was carried out by Battalion 744, later to be commanded by Indonesia’s current president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“I witnessed with my own eyes how the Indonesian military, Battalion 744, killed civilians in front of me,” Albino da Costa said. “They captured those unarmed people, tied them up then stabbed them to death. There was a pregnant woman captured and killed just like that. I saw it from a close distance, just 100m from where it happened.”

Costa Lopes died in Lisbon in 1991. His repeated calls for intervention by the United Nations and for curtailment of United States military aid to the Indonesian Government went unheeded.

The US, Japan and a number of Western European countries continued to provide Indonesia with about $5 billion in military aid. In the aftermath of the 1975 invasion the media largely ignored, as one Australian parliamentary report called it, “indiscriminate killing on a scale unprecedented in post-World War II history,” because of Indonesia’s vast natural resources. It was, as former US President Richard Nixon put it, the “greatest prize in the Southeast Asian area”.

Indonesia’s occupation of East Timor ended with independence and perhaps as many as a third of the population killed.

But today there is another war for independence in Indonesia: West Papua. And the parallels with East Timor are striking.

Papuans have endured horrific violence since Indonesia first invaded in 1963. Amnesty International and other human rights groups agree that as many as 100,000 Papuans have been killed under occupation.

West Papua is rich in minerals and oil. Transmigration, commercial logging, mining and other government-sponsored programs are considered to be in the interests of the nation, and take priority over any local land claims.

It has the world’s largest gold mine, controlled by the Freeport-McMoRan Company of Louisiana and the Anglo-Australian company Rio Tinto. General Suharto granted the concession under the 1967 foreign investment laws that opened Indonesia to near-unrestricted foreign wealth exploitation.

When guerrillas from the Free West Papua Movement sabotaged the mine in 1977, the army responded by killing at least 800 Papuans. This was not the first, not the last time the Indonesian military would be used to protect Western capital under the guise of “protecting the unity of the nation”. It is happening still.

Grasberg workers walked out on strike over pay and conditions on Wednesday. The mineworkers are paid between $1.50 and $3.50 per hour, less than a tenth of what their colleagues in other countries get, while between April and June 2011 Freeport made a profit of $1.73 billion. Most of the wealth extracted from the mine goes abroad – a tiny percentage benefits Papuans. Two thirds of West Papua’s forests – which are at the heart of Papuans’ traditional way of life – are designated for “production” by Jakarta.

An Indonesian military intelligence report leaked to the press in August showed how the island is awash with spies. And how badly equipped are the Papuan separatists to fight the Indonesian military. The TNI is armed and trained by the US and its allies as part of the East Asia Summit grouping, which is fast developing into a Nato for Asia.

Ahead of the planned Third Papuan Peoples Conference, Indonesian paramilitary forces linked to the police and Special Forces of the army appear to have stepped up military operations in the province, which have been described as a campaign of terror by people on the ground. According to KontraS, The Commission for the Disappeared, the army’s actions are illegal under Indonesian law.

Just like in East Timor before independence, West Papua is a prime example of a colony where the extraction of wealth for the benefit of a few outweighs a people’s fundamental right to self-determination. If atrocities such as the one at Lacluta are to be prevented in the future in West Papua, the TNI should withdraw and international investigators should be allowed access to the region.

Jakarta is at a crossroads with international attention focused on West Papua following the Pacific Islands Forum meetings in New Zealand. The head of the UN Ban Ki Moon was unequivocal when asked about Papua. Papuans’ rights should be upheld, he said. Indonesia’s government could take this opportunity to fulfill its pledge to grant Papuans autonomy. But this must include an end to the lawlessness of government-sponsored armed groups, a withdrawal of army units, and determining how Papuans’ natural resources are used must be the preserve of Papuans.

Thursday Reading

• Two activists in Papua have been sentenced to prison following a trial that critics say was flawed. See West Papua Media Alerts for more info and to send letters of appeal to the Indonesian government.
• Jennifer Robinson puts forward a strong argument that leaks reveal it’s past time to speak for West Papua. Excerpt: The conflation of human rights and politics in Papua is not the sole realm of the Indonesian government. The Australian and US governments are equally guilty. I was also given a stern warning by an Australian diplomat that my human rights work risked ”becoming a political football” for our government and that I was to ”keep [my] head down”. I soon learnt this was characteristic of the spineless and reactionary approach Australia takes to foreign policy on Papua.
• Not to make light of a dark subject, but the way this story’s presented does conjure up images of a door-to-door ‘rape on wheels‘ service.
• Big news today: The widows of seven victims of the Rawagedeh massacre in West Java in 1947 by Dutch troops have been ordered to pay compensation by a court in Holland.
• Ten thousand workers in West Papua have brought production at Grasberg to a standstill, despite Freeport-McMoRan saying that operations would not be affected by industrial action. Reportedly 114 Brimob police have been sent in “to maintain public order“.
• Obama will attend the East Asia Summit this year in a bid to strengthen military and economic ties with the region – most notably with Indonesia and India.
• Indonesia and Vietnam have pledged greater co-operation when SBY met Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung on Wednesday. The two countries said they would work together on improving food security, increase trade to $5 billion by 2015, conduct joint maritime patrols in the heavily disputed South China Sea (Vietnam and Indonesia appear to be making a stand against China here) and accelerate discussions over the Eastern Sea and South China Sea borders.
• Indonesia is seeking Russian investment in the provinces. “East Kalimantan Regional Secretary Irianto Lambire highlighted opportunities in coal-transportation, palm oil and cacao plantation projects, while the West Nusa Tenggara Regional Investment Board chief promoted seaweed and tourism-related businesses.”
• An interesting feature on Bali’s Green Revolution in the Post.
• Off topic: An article you won’t find in the Daily Mail. “…by looking at nearby genetic regions we could show that the Indian -13910T has the same origin as that found in Europeans; that it could lead back to the same few people who may have migrated between Europe and India.”
• Singapore and Indonesia have stepped up rhetoric about counter-terrorism co-operation.
• The US and Australia ($) are cranking up their military ties to provide the US with a “foothold between the Indian and Pacific oceans.” “Analysts said the progress was significant. “What we are seeing is the beginning of the hard evidence that the US security fulcrum is moving from the Middle East to Asia,” said Ernest Bower, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.”
• The heart-breaking tale of Indonesia’s mentally ill who live in chains – literally. Beautifully told by Sara Schonhardt.

Court Sentences Journalist Critical of China to Jail

September 9, 2011| News | The Jakarta Globe

An Indonesian radio broadcaster critical of the human rights record of the Chinese authorities has been convicted of administrative violations following what he said was a years-long campaign to shut his station down.

Gatot Supriyanto Machali, the manager of Erabaru FM in Batam in Riau Islands, was sentenced to six months in prison and a year of probation by a court on Tuesday for “broadcasting without permission” and “disrupting other frequencies.”

“The root cause of the attack on Erabaru is the intervention of the Chinese regime,” Gatot said. “The government was pressured by the Chinese Embassy to criminalize me and shut the station down. In this case the authorities passed the buck to the courts.”

Another three months will be added to Machali’s jail sentence if he is unable to pay a fine of Rp 50 million ($5,800), which the court also imposed.

The government brought charges against Machali in March for broadcasting without a license, charges that carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

In 2008 the government rejected the station’s license. But Gatot continued to broadcast and sued the government in an attempt to regain the broadcast license.

Although an appeal of his lawsuit has yet to be heard by the Supreme Court, in March the authorities conducted a daytime raid on his station and confiscated broadcasting equipment.

A letter dated January 2007, purportedly from the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta to the Indonesian government and seen by the Jakarta Globe, called for the station to be shut down, alleging it was part of an international conspiracy to overthrow the Chinese government.

At the time of writing, the Chinese Embassy was unavailable to comment on the issue.

“We are only reporting the facts of human rights abuses in China, as well as lots of other news, because most of our listeners are Chinese,” Gatot said. “I think the news that most scares the Chinese authorities is the coverage we have done on organ harvesting from Falun Gong members.”

Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, is a spiritual movement with an estimated 70 million practitioners worldwide. In the letter seen by the Globe, it is described as an “evil cult.”

Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are believed to have been imprisoned extrajudicially in China and subjected to forced labor, severe psychological and physical torture and other forms of abuse.

Gatot’s conviction drew criticism from press freedom outfit Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Jean-Francois Julliard, the group’s secretary general, wrote to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar, asking them to intervene in the case. In the letter, Julliard called the sentence “disproportionate” and said the ruling was given for “political reasons.”

“We are not only calling for his release but for his right to continue to broadcast his program,” said Benjamin Ismail, from RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “Even if he violated Indonesian law, the infractions he committed do not justify imprisonment and such an excessive fine. The law should be revised in order to ensure equal access to broadcasting licences, and to decriminalize these infractions.”

Machali plans to appeal the verdict, which he can do within seven days.

Wednesday Reading

• Jackie Kennedy speaks from the beyond: Indonesia’s founding president Sukarno was a sexual predator who “left a bad taste in your mouth”.
• Grasberg mine workers in West Papua have begun a one-month strike over pay and working conditions, which are shocking. “The workers still expect wages to increase to between $17.50 and $43 an hour from $1.50 to $3.50.”
• Al Jazeera is running a series of articles on investing in conflict-affected areas. The first one is on Rio Tinto, the Anglo-Australian company that co-owns the Grasberg concession.
• Ahead of a conference on Saturday where the Indonesian government aims to show it is serious about meeting its commitments on climate change and forest protection, the government has announced it is going to plant 1.7 billion trees. Just don’t mention the haze.
• David Adam Scott asks: Would an independent West Papua be a failed state? Conclusion: Probably not.
• A must-see trailer of the must-see documentary Forgotten Birds of Paradise by Dancing Turtle Media.

Syria’s Slow March to a Breaking Point

September 7, 2011 | Commentary | The Jakarta Globe

There is no sign of a political solution to the Syrian uprising, and the fear now is that full-blown war is inevitable.

Opposition groups say 360 civilians were killed during Ramadan — more than 100 in a single day during the siege of Hama — bringing the reported civilian death toll to more than 2,200, according to the United Nations. The regime says 600 of its troops have been killed and 2,000 wounded by the “armed gangs” it blames for the uprising that began in March.

On March 18 I was visiting friends in Daraa, where the uprising began, when protesters first took to the streets in large numbers. I remember how my friend Farouq, himself staunchly anti-regime, told me early that day that there would be no unrest in Syria. And how later that same day we passed protesters in the streets.

As populations around the country joined the revolt, it was clear it would not be a quick revolution like in Egypt and Tunisia. Antigovernment protesters have not been completely peaceful, but the confrontation has yet to descend into all-out civil, tribal or sectarian conflict as we have seen in Libya, Yemen and Bahrain.

This could change, as more soldiers join the armed resistance known as the Free Officers Movement and as anger grows among the heavily armed population. But it is still unclear if violent resistance will grow to seriously trouble the regime.

Many of the youth who have been the foot soldiers of the uprising still want to use nonviolent means. “As soon as we shoot back we lose our legitimacy and the regime’s lies become real,” said a member of a revolutionary youth organization from Douma, one of the main protest hubs near the capital.

The tribes have begun to rise up in Syria’s east. In Deir ez-Zor and Al-Bukamal, near the border with Iraq, tribal confederations have threatened an all-out insurrection if the killings and detentions — more than 10,000 are thought to have been arrested since March — continue.

The same tribes were armed by the regime years ago as a buffer against Kurdish aspirations in Syria’s northeast, and the West used them as agents to suppress Sunni resistance to the occupation of Iraq.

Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which is really a mafia that exerts control through the dozen or so security forces and elite brigades of the army, seriously misjudged the crisis. Instead of recognizing the scale of its problem, it reacted to events as if they were disconnected from the whole — and from history.

Popular discontent in Syria is grounded in decades of unabashed nepotism and graft. As a result, salaries stagnated while living costs increased. In rural areas a four-year drought compounded increasing inequality, which was catalyzed by neoliberal policies carried out under advice from the International Monetary Fund and “experts” from European government agencies.

The countryside emptied as cities like Damascus, Aleppo and Homs became richer and more stratified. Sprawling, dusty satellite towns grew, devouring rural migrants but producing little.

Meanwhile, promises of political reform came virtually to naught. The Assad regime’s state of denial — combined with vast social inequality, an openly corrupt political system and often brutal, indiscriminate repression — set it adrift from the people.

But what will follow the regime if it falls? Its mantra of negative legitimacy — “it’s either us or chaos” — still holds some weight. But the youth’s priority is to bring the regime down.

A friend of mine from Daraa went out to buy bread for his family and was shot in the head. The local news later said he had been killed by “terrorists.”

“It’s true, they are terrorists,” sobbed Zouher, one of his friends. “But they are not against the regime. It was the Shabbiha.”

The Shabbiha are a criminal militia, drawn from the Alawite minority, who have been blamed for some of the more sadistic acts of violence.

“We spent the last 40 years in jail,” Zouher, a young protest organizer from Daraa, continued. “When all you have to look at all your life is stone and iron, you forget that you are human.

“What do I want to see after the regime falls? I want to see us reimagine our humanity.”

Here he reminded me of Milan Kundera’s aphorism: “The struggle of people against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting.”

Syria’s street opposition is prepared for a long struggle.

But the regime will not back down. Elections slated for next year will probably entrench the current system, as happened in Burma in 2010.

In August, I took part in a panel discussion on Syria at the Frontline Club in London’s Paddington. Sharing the platform was one Ammar Waqqaf, from the pro-regime British Syrian Society. Hama, which was by all reliable accounts sustaining heavy fire as we spoke, was the focus of many of the questions

Waqqaf, schooled in public relations at Britain’s Cranfield School of Management, let slip a chilling reminder of the regime’s attitude to killing. “You ain’t seen nothing yet,” he quipped.

Ammar, a protester arrested during the July assault on Homs, told me how prison guards cut his genitals with a razor blade, and he showed me where they pushed metal spikes under his finger nails.

“They kill people without thought which is normal, and we resist in peace because our cause is just,” he said. “But when they torture you, they don’t just want to hurt your body. They take your mind. They break you.”

In a steady voice, tears pouring down his cheeks, he recited the words of the great Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, written after the 1973 October War: “We want a new generation/That does not forgive mistakes/That does not bend. We want a generation of giants.”

Daniel Pye, a former correspondent for the London Daily Telegraph in Syria, is a copy editor at the Jakarta Globe.

Photo by Daniel Pye.