West Papua : 'If You Mess With Us You're Dead'

1) 'If You Mess With Us You're Dead'
2) Container port to be built in Sorong
3) Govt ‘not serious’ in applying Papuan Special Autonomy
4) RI, Russia to cooperate in four sectors
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http://newmatilda.com/2011/06/20/if-you-mess-us-youre-dead
WEST PAPUA 20 Jun 2011
1) 'If You Mess With Us You're Dead'

By Jason MacLeod

Tags: yones douw west papua jason macleod derek adii

There was nothing clandestine about the beating of human rights activist Yones Douw in West Papua last week. Jason MacLeod reports on the latest in a long pattern of public violence by the Indonesian military

"You can mess with the police," said the Indonesian soldiers, "but if you try it with us, you’re dead."

According to witnesses that was what was said to Yones Douw, a 42-year-old Papuan human rights defender as he was beaten with lumps of wood by soldiers from Kodim 1705, Nabire’s District Military Command in the Indonesian province of Papua. Immediately after the beating Douw went to the local Siriwini hospital but was refused treatment. Local staff demanded a letter from the police before they would treat his wounds. Douw now fears for his safety and has gone into hiding.

The incident occurred on the 15 June. Douw, a church worker with the Kingmi Church’s Bureau of Justice and Peace in Nabire, heard that a protest was going to take place at the 1705 District Military Command (Kodim) base in Nabire, Papua province, and he went to the base to monitor it. Thirty minutes after he arrived, a group of protesters turned up in three trucks, broke into the front entrance of the base and started to shatter the windows and throw objects. Douw immediately rushed into the base to calm the protesters.

In response, the military fired shots into the air and started hitting the protesters. Douw was struck on the head with pieces of wood many times. He also sustained injuries on his shoulder and wrists from the beatings. The protesters fled the scene, pursued by members of Kodim 1705 and armed troops from neighbouring Battalion 753. This is what gave Douw time to escape.

Yones Douw was not the accidental victim of some random act of violence. And the protesters he was defending were not some random mob of outraged Papuans or an attack by the Papuan Liberation Army, Papua’s lingering guerrilla force. The attack on the Nabire District Military Command was an expression of a grief stricken family angered at the senseless killing of one of their own. The family wanted to hold the military accountable for the killing of Derek Adii, a man who was beaten to death by soldiers a few weeks earlier.

In mid-May Douw, a chronicler of human rights violations in the troubled Paniai region for some years now, published a report that was picked up by Jubi, West Papua’s only independent news service. Douw’s report detailed the killing of Derek Adii on 14 May 2011. Adii, a 26-year-old Nabire man had just completed his application to join Papua’s burgeoning civil service.

According to Douw’s report, Adii was boarding the crowded passenger vessel KM Labobar at Nabire’s dock when he was beaten by six members of the military. One of the soldiers allegedly pulled out a bayonet and stabbed Adii in the head. The six men then threw his body overboard. Adii died at the scene.

Douw believes he was beaten by the military for retribution — not only for reporting Adii’s killing but also for continuing to shine a spotlight on human rights abuses in West Papua, an area the Indonesian police and military are trying to close off from international scrutiny by locking out journalists and even diplomats.

The circumstances surrounding Adii’s very public murder and Douw’s public beating in the front yard of a military base located on a main road in the middle of a town is typical of the patterns of human rights abuses in West Papua. Australian National University scholar and former Director of the Catholic Office of Justice and Peace in West Papua, Br Budi Hernawan OFM who is studying torture in West Papua, says that torture and human rights abuses in Papua are a kind of "public spectacle".

In the 400 odd cases of torture that Hernawan has studied it is mostly poor and innocent Papuan civilians are rounded up and publicly abused. The perpetrators are nearly always the Indonesian military and police. It is classic state terror, the purpose of which is to violently pacify the population, to enforce the security apparatus’ control over human bodies and the body politic — and to intimidate and silence Papuan dissent.

It is a script that Yones Douw has refused to buy into. In the meantime other Papuans have stepped into Douw’s shoes. They are now chronicling the military’s attack on him and sending reports out to a domestic and international network in the same way that Douw has been ceaselessly reporting on the human rights abuses of others.


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Jason MacLeod is based at the Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Queensland where he lectures in nonviolent political change and researches West Papuan resistance movements.
Read Jason MacLeod's full bio


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http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/06/20/container-port-be-built-sorong.html

2) Container port to be built in Sorong
Linda Yulisman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 06/20/2011 11:33 PM

State seaport operator PT Pelindo II says it will lead a consortium to build a Rp-800 billion (US$93.6 million) container port in Sorong, West Papua. 

Pelindo II president director RJ Lino said on Sunday in Jakarta that the company would work with another state seaport operator, PT Pelindo IV, and five shipping companies — PT Salam Pacific Indonesia Line, PT Samudera Indonesia Tbk., PT Meratus Line, PT Tempuran Emas and PT Tanto Intim Line — to build the port. 

The consortium will sign a memorandum of understanding governing the project in July. 

“We plan to start construction by early next year and expect to finish it in the middle of 2013,” he told The Jakarta Post in a telephone interview. 

Lino added that the port would have an annual container handling capacity of 500,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) and was intended to be a regional hub for the eastern part of Indonesia, linking Sorong regency with other parts of the archipelago, including Jayapura, Merauke, Bitung, Jakarta and Surabaya, as well as neighboring countries, such as Papua New Guinea and Australia. 

The port would support the establishment of Papua and Maluku’s economic development 
corridor, one of six corridors recently launched by the government, Lino said. 

“We will secure a 3,000-hectare area. The government expects to develop an industrial estate in the area and the port will support activities there,” he said. 

In February, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa and National Development Planning Minister Armida Alisjahbana launched an economic master plan to increase growth by 7 to 8 percent a year between 2013 and 2025.

The plan covers the development of six economic corridors throughout the archipelago, specifically in Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Bali and Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi, and Papua and Maluku.

The economy in the Papua and Maluku corridor is expected to grow six-fold by 2030 under the plan, in which the development of adequate infrastructure is considered vital. 

Lino said that the port would cut Papua’s logistics costs by more than 50 percent.

The Indonesian Logistics Association (ALI) chairman Zaldy Masita said that it was very expensive to ship goods to and from Papua due to limited transport capacity. 

“It costs around Rp 20 million to Rp 24 million to transport goods from Java or Sumatra to Papua, or about five times the cost needed to ship goods to America,” he told the Post over the telephone.

Zaldy said that the proposed port could reduce Papua’s logistics costs as long as the volume of transported goods was increased.

“To increase the volume, the port should employ domestic ships to transport goods that are carried by foreign ships to the port from outside Indonesia to [internal] destinations — instead of letting foreign ships directly deliver the goods to Tanjung Priok Port [in Jakarta] or Tanjung Perak Port [in Surabaya], for example,” he said.

He said such arrangements would be in line with cabotage principle implemented this year, which stipulates that vessels operating in Indonesian waters must be domestically owned.
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http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/06/20/govt-‘not-serious’-applying-papuan-special-autonomy.html
3) Govt ‘not serious’ in applying Papuan Special Autonomy
Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura | Mon, 06/20/2011 8:00 AM

Since the enactment of Law No. 21/2001 on Papuan Special Autonomy 10 years ago, the law has been obstructed by state officials. 

Many people believe that the central government was never serious about building relationships and developing Indonesia’s easternmost province of Papua.

These stern remarks were made by Association of Indonesian Papuan Central Mountainous Students (AMPTPI) secretary general Markus Haluk in Jayapura Saturday.

Markus said that Jakarta’s ambiguous attitude was reflected by the absence of action or response from the Ministry of Home Affairs on the establishment of the Papuan People’s Assembly (MRP).

The ministry’s silence has been interpreted as an approval of the West Papuan MRP, which 
has been strongly opposed by Papuan people for fears over potential horizontal conflict among Papuans, he said.

“If Jakarta approves the establishment of a West Papuan MRP, it is Jakarta itself which thwarts special autonomy by approving a 
policy that is not [conducive with] aspirations,” Markus said, reminding that there had been a consensus earlier that all Papuans wanted only one MRP for the entirety of native Papuan land.

Separate MRPs are feared to lead to disparity in policy and decision making with regard to the protection of the basic rights of indigenous Papuans.

Special autonomy was granted to Papua as a solution for rising demands from Papuans who wished to separate from the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia, Markus said.

“In its implementation, however, there seems to be an absence of sincerity from Jakarta in carrying out the special autonomy, whereby unpopular policies that hurt Papuans have been created,” he said.

According to Markus, the unfavorable act started with the issuance of Presidential Instruction No. 1/2003 on the establishment of the provinces of West Papua and Central Papua, even though based on Law No. 21/2001 the division of provinces in Papua should have been approved by the MRP.

Before the wound was healed, the government issued Law No. 35/2008, which revised several articles in Law No. 21/2001, where the changes were never known by Papuans, he said.

“The latest wound was the establishment of an MRP in West Papua. So if special autonomy fails, it is caused mainly by the nation’s leaders themselves,” Markus said.

Markus urged the President and the Minister of Home Affairs to be consistent in implementing special autonomy in Papua and be thoughtful enough to apply favorable policies to encourage Papuans to feel a part of this country.

It was reported from Manokwari that the West Papuan MRP’s chairmanship board has given its approval for the authenticity of the four pairs of gubernatorial candidates hoping to compete in the next regional elections for the 2011-2016 office term.

The four are Abraham O Atururi — Rahimin Katjong, Dominggus Mandacan — Origenes Nauw, George Celcius Auparay — Hasan Ombaer and Wahidin Puarada — Herman Donatus Felix Orisoe.

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http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2011/06/20/ri-russia-cooperate-four-sectors.html
4) RI, Russia to cooperate in four sectors
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Mon, 06/20/2011 11:31 PM

The Russian and Indonesian governments have agreed to cooperate in four sectors: food security, 
energy, transportation, and trade and investment, an official said on Sunday.

Amir Sambodo, a staff expert for Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa, said Hatta had previously met the Russian Minister of Economic Development, Elvira Nabiullina, in St. Petersburg to discuss cooperation.

On food security, which has been expected to top the agenda of the 24th Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in 2012, Amir said the two governments had already discussed wheat and flour procurement.

The Russian government has asked the Indonesian government to further discuss food security issues before the summit at a talk to be held on Russky Island, off the coast of Vladivostok in eastern Russia, Amir told The Jakarta Post via a text message sent from St. Petersburg. 

Amir added that Hatta visited Russia to present APEC’s evaluation and continuation agenda to the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday and Friday.

He added that in the energy sector, Russia wanted to invest about US$6 billion in nickel and copper smelters in East Kalimantan.

“The raw materials will be taken from Sumbawa in West Nusa Tenggara province, Papua province and Halmahera in North Maluku province,” Amir said. 

He also said that the two governments would cooperate to develop nuclear energy; in the transportation sector, including railway infrastructure development, and in the trade sector.

Russian ambassador to Indonesia Alexander Ivanov said in Jakarta that the trade between Russia and Indonesia was $2 billion in 2010, up 100 percent from 2009.

“We are targeting to increase our trade relations by 50 percent this year,” Ivanov told the Post at Russian National Day ceremonies in Jakarta on Wednesday.

Ivanov said that the nations had already built business councils in both countries in 2010 to strengthen trade relations.

Other than those four sectors, Russia and Indonesia are currently engaged on many levels, including politics, security, tourism and 
culture.

Currently, Indonesia’s exports to Russia are comprised principally of palm oil, cocoa, tea, vanilla and furniture.

According to data from the Trade Ministry, Indonesia’s exports to Russia were $1.04 billion in 2010, up 63 percent from $640.70 million in 2009. 

Indonesia’s share of the Russian market increased to 0.48 percent in 2010, up from 0.38 percent in 
2009. (drs).

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