West Papua activist's plea to govt

A West Papuan activist barred from speaking at parliament in Wellington has pleaded for the government to put pressure on Indonesian authorities to resolve a half-century-long battle for independence.

Independence leader Benny Wenda, who is living in exile in the United Kingdom, is visiting New Zealand as part of an overseas tour campaigning for the self-determination of West Papua, which is under Indonesian control.

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He spoke at Victoria University, opposite parliament, on Tuesday after Speaker David Carter refused to allow him to speak inside, unless it was in a political party's caucus room.

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully revealed on Tuesday that two National MPs had wanted to co-sponsor Mr Wenda's visit, alongside Labour, the Greens and Mana, but he advised them against it.
"We believe that the approach the government's taking to human rights issues in West Papua and Indonesia is a more constructive one," Mr McCully told media.

"We have quite an active dialogue with the Indonesian authorities about human rights issues ... I want to engage in that sort of diplomacy, not megaphone diplomacy, and that's what I think was being suggested here."

Mr Wenda, who has spoken in the British and European Union parliaments, said he was disappointed by the government's stance.

"It's a frustration for me but the fact that I'm here and I have a lot of friends ... that gives me confidence that they can no longer silence me."

He said he would like New Zealand's government to ask Indonesia's government to allow journalists into West Papua, to report on the conditions there.

"Journalists would make a big difference because that is our chance to tell our story ... because Indonesia has silenced us for a very long time."

On Tuesday afternoon, Mr McCully told parliament that foreign affairs officials had met with Mr Wenda earlier in the day.

Mr Wenda is now free to travel having previously been issued a red notice by Interpol, after Indonesian authorities accused him of murder and arson.

Interpol later decided the case against Mr Wenda was "predominantly political".

West Papua: Did The East Timor Tragedy Teach Us Nothing?

By Jennifer Robinson (update)

Jennifer Robinson (photo Rt.com)

AUCKLAND, New Zealand (Pacific Scoop, June 25, 012) – As violence escalates in West Papua, one cannot help but recall East Timor and wonder how much worse it must get before Australia, New Zealand and the international community will act.

Tensions are at breaking point in the easternmost province of Indonesia after the police shooting of independence activist Mako Tabuni.

Human rights activists report Tabuni was unarmed when shot six times by the Australian-trained Detachment 88 forces. Tabuni was deputy chairman of the West Papua National Committee, an organization advocating independence and the right to self-determination under international law. Tabuni had also been campaigning for an investigation into a recent spate of military killings.

The shooting follows years of violence. At least 16 people have been killed in the past month, according to human rights groups, and hundreds of homes raided, with many burnt to the ground. Thousands are reported to be evacuating, seeking refuge in the forest or heading for refugee camps in Papua New Guinea. Credible reports of human rights violations by Indonesian security forces have emerged, including torture, excessive use of force and extrajudicial killings.

Yet Indonesia’s State Intelligence Agency chief, Lieutenant-General Marciano Norman, placed blame on the Free Papua Movement, "foreign agents" and local residents for the violence.

The President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, played down the events. As Indonesia obfuscates and Australia remains silent, West Papua bleeds.

While most Australians are proud of our role in ending 24 years of bloody Indonesian occupation in East Timor, we should not forget it came after a long history of accepting Indonesian assertions of sovereignty while ignoring human rights abuse on our doorstep.

Wide-eyed innocence

After East Timor, we cannot claim any wide-eyed innocence regarding West Papua.

Australia is now bidding for a place on the United Nations Security Council on the basis of our alleged "human rights-based foreign policy," highlighting our role in East Timor while trying to keep a lid on our history of inaction there.

The federal Attorney-General has refused freedom of information requests for the release of diplomatic cables dating to the 1970s – cables that a University of NSW professor, Clinton Fernandes, says will show Australian complicity in concealing the mass starvation of Timorese.

Are we now making the same mistakes with West Papua? Few are aware of Australian and UN involvement in West Papua 30 years before the intervention in East Timor.

Like East Timor, West Papua was annexed by Indonesia in circumstances that violated international law. Comparisons are made, and with good reason.

Both territories are made up of distinct minorities. Both are rich in natural resources. Both have struggled for self-determination. Like East Timor, West Papua had a UN vote for self-determination, only the outcome could not have been more different.

Sham vote

In 1999, East Timor got a proper vote and won independence (not before an estimated 200,000 Timorese had died). But in 1969, West Papua got a sham vote and became part of Indonesia.

Last month, East Timor celebrated 10 years of independence or, as the Timorese say, 10 years since the international community recognized their independence.

But an estimated 400,000 Papuans have now been killed after more than 40 years of Indonesian oppression and abuse.

This year, Indonesia faced international condemnation for the imprisonment of West Papuan leaders for peacefully calling for independence. When asked if Australia had raised concerns with Indonesia, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Bob Carr, responded by admitting that "before I could raise the subject…

The Indonesian Foreign Minister nominated that they have a clear responsibility to see that their sovereignty is upheld in respect of human rights standards," and Carr "was impressed by that."

In responses eerily similar to statements made by Gareth Evans about East Timor during Indonesian rule, Carr warned members of Parliament "against foolishly talking up" West Papuans’ right to self-determination because it "threatens the territorial integrity of Indonesia" and "would produce a reaction" towards Australia. It would be a foolish foreign affairs minister who did not learn from our mistakes in East Timor.

Australia should, at a minimum, reconsider military aid to Indonesia and call for them to allow media and international organizations access to West Papua to investigate abuses and facilitate peaceful dialogue.

East Timor should remind us of the hefty price of turning a blind eye to repression in the mistaken belief that it serves stability in our region. As a Deakin University academic, Scott Burchill, has long argued, it is not only "a dereliction of our ethical duty, it is politically short-sighted and usually results in blowback."

Jennifer Robinson is an Australian human rights lawyer in London. The article was first published in The Age. Pacific Scoop
All editorial and news content produced under the principles of Creative Commons. Permission to republish with attribution may be obtained from the Pacific Media Centre - pmc@aut.ac.nz

Human rights lawyer defends West Papuan activism

Australian human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson speaks to Jim Middleton about West Papua's struggle for independence from Indonesia.

Pers. ABC Report

Australia has raised hackles in Jakarta over Canberra's response to an ABC 7.30 report accusing an Indonesian counter-terrorism unit of human rights violations in West Papua.

Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, has called on Jakarta to investigate the killing of a West Papuan activist, Mako Tabuni, allegedly by members of a unit called Detachment 88, which has received training and support from the Australian Federal Police.

Jennifer Robinson is an Australian lawyer best known for her role in helping fight efforts by WikiLeak's Julian Assange to avoid extradition from Britain.

But for a decade she has also been deeply involved providing legal assistance and advice to West Papuan activists seeking autonomy, and in some cases independence from Indonesia. 

Transcript:

 

JIM MIDDLETON: Jennifer Robinson, welcome to the program.

JENNIFER ROBINSON, LAWYER: Thank you very having me Jim.

JIM MIDDLETON: Let's start with this: an influential Indonesian legislator has rebuked Bob Carr for seeking an inquest into the killing of Mako Tabuni. They're branding him a terrorist, at least the Indonesian legislators are, and are accusing Australia of double standards, raising questions about this episode but then being more than happy when Detachment 88 tracked down jihadist and bomb makers in Indonesia. What do you think about that?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: There's absolutely no hypocrisy involved whatsoever. And in fact, this is actually very revealing about Indonesian government's perception of peaceful West Papuan activists who are speaking out on behalf of their people for self-determination.

The Australian Government is right to institute an investigation into this, when you have forces designed to be countering terrorism being turned against domestic dissidents and peaceful activists. In no way can you compare Mako Tabuni to jihadists. He was a peaceful activist, a leader of his people. And all he was doing was criticising the government for their human rights abuse, seeking accountability for that abuse and putting forwards the West Papuan's desire for self-determination. This is not a crime and it's not terrorism.

JIM MIDDLETON: Isn't this the problem for Australia, though, it wants to help Indonesia combat Muslim extremism and then it turns out that the people they're training, Detachment 88, are also using what they've learned from Australia in West Papua?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: It is a difficult problem, and one that can be combated, I think, by imposing certain human rights conditionality in the military aid that we provide. If Indonesia is unable to assure our government that the assistance we provide does not contribute to human rights abuses then we shouldn't be providing it at all.

JIM MIDDLETON: Julian Assange's future may still be up in the air but you've not been without success in another extradition case. Tell us a little about the withdrawal of an Interpol Red Notice against West Papuan independent leader Benny Wenda who, of course, is currently in exile in Britain.

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Benny Wenda is a leader in exile of the West Papuan independence movement. He was 10 years ago a political prisoner and later sought refuge in the UK where he was granted political asylum. Almost 10 years later the Indonesian government sought an international arrest warranted for his arrest for precisely the same politically motivated challenges for which he was granted asylum in the United Kingdom.

Ten years ago I worked on his case when he was a political prisoner in Indonesia, and I provided the witness statement that supported his asylum application in the UK. So it was of great concern to me that a refugee living abroad could still be persecuted by their home state through the use of the Interpol arrest warrant system. And as it turns out it is a very common occurrence. We've been very fortunate in that two years later, with the help of Fair Trials International, we've been able to challenge that politically motivated Interpol arrest notice and it has been taken down.

JIM MIDDLETON: And what was it that you learned at the original trial, I think in Jayapura, which enabled the case to be brought which subsequently led to Interpol withdrawing the Red Notice?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: During the course of that trial, the prosecution was unable to adduce any reliable evidence that placed Benny at the times and the places where they alleged he had been to commit various criminal offences.

JENNIFER ROBINSON: They produced witness statements, witness statements that we couldn't identify those who had made them, they wouldn't bring them to the court for cross-examination. And there was widespread accusations and belief amongst the defence team that evidence had been fabricated.

So basically the purpose of my statement was to show that, in the course of the trial that I sat through and assisted on, there was no credible evidence put forward to form the basis of the Interpol arrest notice indeed the original charges in Indonesia.

JIM MIDDLETON: You describe this as a test case for Interpol. Interpol concluded, in withdrawing the Red Notice, that the case had been predominantly political. What implications then do you think this might have for the whole use of Red Notices by Interpol?

JENNIFER ROBINSON: Fair trials International has used Benny's case with our help to become a test case and to be the first case of a longer campaign in seeking to have the Interpol notices internationally that have been sought for dissidents around the world taken down. So his is hopefully the first of many.

But it raises fundamental questions about Interpol and the international oversight. What you have is essentially an international police body in France which is not subject to the judicial review of the French courts, but also there is no judicial body at the international level through which you can challenge those warrants.

All that you have available to you is internal Interpol committees. And in my view this is insufficient, there ought to be judicial oversight. Happily we were successful in this case and I hope that Benny's case, and we believe that Benny's case will become an example for many other dissidents living around the world who have suffered the persecution that he has as well.

But Fair Trials International is currently working on that and are calling for anyone who is in the same situation to get in touch with them so they can help them.

JIM MIDDLETON: We had better leave it there. Jennifer Robinson thank you very much indeed.

JENNIFER ROBINSON: You're welcome.

The UN’s Chequered Record in West Papua

by Jennifer Robinson – Al Jazeera

In the 1960s, West Papuans were sacrificed in the name of Cold War politics – and the UN did nothing about it.

Jennifer Robinson (fhoto Anu)

Thousands have taken part in rallies across West Papua and in Australia to mark the UN Secretary-General’s (UNSG) visit to Indonesia, calling on Ban Ki-moon to revisit UN mistakes that lead to the denial of West Papuans’ right to self-determination and to assist in resolving ongoing human rights abuses in Papua.

UN peacekeeping was at the top of the agenda of the UNSG’s visit to Indonesia on Tuesday. West Papua was not, but many argue that it should be. After all, West Papuans are asking that the UN revisit its first - and flawed – administration of a post-conflict society. Observers hailed the success of the UN administration of East Timor and its successful transition to independence.

But few are aware of the UN’s failure in its first attempt at administration in West Papua more than 40 years earlier. East Timor got a democratic vote. West Papua got a sham vote. East Timor got independence. West Papua became part of Indonesia – against its will and in breach of its right to self-determination under the UN Charter.

Had the UN properly discharged its mandate back then, West Papuans would have celebrated more than 40 years of independence instead of having endured nearly 50 years of oppression. In that time, it is estimated that as many as 500,000 Papuans have been killed at the hands of Indonesian security forces. Yale and Sydney Universities report that the situation is approaching genocide. Papuan activists campaigning for self-determination are routinely arrested and jailed for peacefully expressing their political opinions.

The recent conviction of the Jayapura Five – including Forkorus Yaboisembut, a Papuan tribal leader – drew international condemnation from lawyers and human rights groups. Speaking from prison, Yaboisembut – a recognised political prisoner – called upon Ban Ki-moon to organise peace talks with Indonesia and to use his visit to Jakarta’s new Peacekeeping Centre to negotiate the release of all political prisoners in Indonesia.

The UNSG made no public supportive comments about West Papua during his visit.

But he may have been dissuaded from doing so given the controversy caused by his comments at the Pacific Islands Forum last September.

Controversy over West Papua

At the Forum, Ban was pressed to support peaceful dialogue between West Papua and Indonesia, to put an end to human rights violations, and “to find a strategy to get Indonesia out of a land that isn’t theirs”. In response to media questions, Ban said that West Papua should be discussed at the Decolonisation Committee of the UN General Assembly. He emphasised that the UN would “do all to ensure” that human rights will be respected in West Papua and that “whether you are an independent state or a non-self-governing territory or whatever, the human right is inalienable and a fundamental principle of the United Nations”.

Ban’s comments implicitly recognise that there is a legitimate case for review of West Papua’s legal status, as well as an acknowledgment that there is basis for concern regarding the human rights situation. West Papuans welcomed Ban’s comments in the belief that, after a long history of UN betrayal, the UN may finally act in their interests and protect their rights under the UN Charter.

The UN act in accordance with the UN Charter? Seems a pretty reasonable expectation. But, sadly, Ban’s comments were highly controversial – representing “a remarkable shift” by the UN chief on West Papua since Ban was “the first head of the UN to come out and say that”. Fifteen human rights and social justice movements immediately called on Ban to appoint a special UN representative to investigate alleged human rights violations in West Papua and its political status.

But the shift in position was apparently too radical to countenance. Days later, and no doubt in response to Indonesian complaints, an unnamed “Official Spokesperson for the Secretary-General” announced in New York that his “off-the-cuff response may have led to the misunderstanding that he was suggesting the matter of Papua should be placed on the agenda of the Decolonisation Committee. The Secretary-General wishes to clarify that this was not his intention.” While the correction let stand the UNSG’s apparent endorsement of the need for the UN to “do all to ensure” human rights are protected in West Papua, no action has yet been taken.

It appears the UN has let West Papua down – and this is not the first time.

The UN’s history in West Papua

West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea, just 300 km north of Australia. The other, better-known half of the island is the independent state of Papua New Guinea (PNG). The Melanesian peoples of West Papua and PNG share similar ethnicities, cultures and religions. It is merely their different colonial past that sets them apart.

West Papua (then West New Guinea) was colonised by the Dutch, but for convenience’s sake was loosely administered as part of the Dutch East Indies – modern-day Indonesia. When Indonesia obtained independence after World War II, West New Guinea remained under Dutch control and was prepared for independence, as was PNG by Australia. West Papua was a Dutch colony and Non-Self Governing Territory on the path to independence. More than 50 years ago, on December 1, 1961, West Papuans raised their flag and sang their national anthem as they formally announced their independence from the Dutch.

Soon after, Indonesia invaded with political support and arms from the USSR. The US – concerned about losing Indonesia to the Russians and keen to secure lucrative mining contracts – intervened. Under US pressure, the Dutch agreed to a UN- and US-brokered settlement, the New York Agreement of 1962, providing for a UN-supervised Indonesian administration and vote for self-determination by which Papuans could choose independence or integration with Indonesia.

West Papuans were not consulted.

Under the terms of the agreement, West Papua was transferred by the Netherlands to a United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA). Between 1962 and 1963, UNTEA had full authority to administer the territory, to maintain law and order, and to protect the rights of the West Papuans. The territory was then transferred to Indonesian administration in 1963, but on condition that it remained under UN supervision until the vote for self-determination in 1969.

Media reports from around the world at that time highlighted the need for UN vigilance in ensuring a free and fair vote. In 1962, one editorial emphasised, “there is no doubt at all about the United Nations’ responsibility under the agreement – quite apart from its moral responsibility – to ensure the Papuans are allowed to exercise a free choice” and that responsibility “should need no stressing”.

But the UN turned a blind eye – both to human rights abuse and the fact the voting practices did not meet international standards. The 1969 “Act of ‘Free’ Choice” is popularly known as the “Act of ‘NO’ Choice”. A handpicked group of 1,022 West Papuans were coerced, under threat of violence, into voting unanimously for integration with Indonesia.

During the period of UN supervision and in the lead-up to the vote, the Indonesian military is estimated to have been responsible for the deaths of 30,000 West Papuans. Frank Galbraith, US Ambassador to Indonesia at the time, warned that Indonesian military operations “had stimulated fears… of intended genocide”. Australian journalist and eye-witness Hugh Lunn reported that Papuans carrying signs saying “one man, one vote” in protest against the voting procedures were arrested and jailed. Others were killed.

The UN was aware of the repression – but did nothing about it. And, worse, it collaborated with Indonesia to prevent international criticism.

Meantime, the US and Indonesia were busy carving up West Papua’s rich natural resources. Having signed concession agreements with US mining company Freeport in 1967, two years before the scheduled vote, Indonesia had no intention of allowing West Papuan independence (Freeport is a major contributor to Indonesia’s GDP, and Kissinger was later rewarded with a place on Freeport’s board).

The US agreed, but diplomatic cables reveal that it was worried that UN members might “hold out for free and direct elections” (as required by international law), frustrating Indonesia’s intentions. The US discussed the need to meet with the UN Representative, Ortiz Sanz, to “make him aware of political realities” but later reported, with relief, that Ortiz conceded “that it would be inconceivable from the point of view of the interest of the UN, as well as the [Indonesian government], that a result other than the continuance of West Irian within [Indonesia]“. In July 1969, a US diplomatic cable reported that the “Act of Free Choice… is unfolding like a Greek tragedy, the conclusion preordained”.

West Papuans were sacrificed in the name of Cold War politics and natural resources.

UN officials admitted in private that 95 per cent of Papuans supported independence. But as UN Representative Ortiz Sanz told Australian journalist Hugh Lunn, “West [Papua] is like a cancerous growth on the side of the UN and my job is to surgically remove it”. And remove it he did. In 1969, Sanz reported the vote’s outcome to the UN General Assembly, noting only that “Indonesian” and not “international” voting practice was adopted. West Papua formally became a province of Indonesia.

Former UN Under-Secretary General Narasimhan has since admitted the process was a “whitewash”. British diplomatic correspondence admitted “the process of consultation did not allow a genuinely free choice to be made”. Distinguished international jurists dismiss the 1969 vote as a “spurious exercise”, amounting to a substantive betrayal of the principle of self-determination.

Yet no action has been taken by the UN – or the international community – to redress this injustice. A growing number of international parliamentarians are calling upon their governments, through the UN, to give effect to West Papua’s right to self-determination. As Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a supporter of West Papua’s campaign to have the UNSG instigate a review, has asserted, “[a] strong United Nations will be capable of, among other things, acknowledging and correcting its mistakes”.

Rights groups have urged the UNSG to appoint a Special Representative to investigate the situation in West Papua, including the outcome of the 1969 “Act of Free Choice” and the contemporary situation, and ask that he use his good offices to negotiate the release of political prisoners and persuade the Indonesian government to lift the ban on access to West Papua for international organisations and journalists.

But will Ban Ki-moon act?

No UN action forthcoming – yet

Since his comments last September, the UNSG has remained silent on West Papua. At his talk in Indonesia on March 20, Ban recalled his own experience as a young boy in South Korea – where he said that UN peacekeepers had been “the beacon of hope” for his people.

Like Ban, the people of West Papua once saw UN peacekeepers as their hope. But as Dr John Saltford, author of The United Nations and the Indonesian Takeover of West Papua, 1962-1969: The Anatomy of Betrayal, has said: “The Papuans had a great deal of trust in the UN, and the UN betrayed them and continues to betray them because, so far, it has refused to review its position on the issue.”

As the Human Rights Council is preparing for Indonesia’s Universal Periodic Review, submissions have poured in with evidence of widespread human rights abuse in West Papua – evidence that many hope will spur the UN into action. But given its history on West Papua, should Papuans place further hope in the UN?

The UNSG’s remarks in Indonesia this week also urged hope in the UN, drawing on his own experience in South Korea: “Please have a bigger sense of hope, don’t despair! It may be very difficult for you. But look at me. As a young boy, I was very poor. [South Korea was] almost on the verge of collapse… But because there was the United Nations, because there is still the United Nations, you can have hope… This is my message to you.”

Let’s hope he is not encouraging more false hope from West Papuans in the UN. Let’s hope the UN will act – because if it does not, then it is simply not the organisation that its leader believes in.

______________________

Jennifer Robinson is a London-based human rights lawyer.

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