Australian support for repression in West Papuans is driven by foreign policy, says Tom Orsag
The demand for independence in West Papua hit the headlines briefly
in October as West Papuan activists briefly occupied the Australian
consulate in Bali. Meanwhile the Australia government deported seven
West Papuans who arrived here requesting asylum. This followed the
arrival of the “Freedom flotilla” in West Papua in September, defying
threats from the Indonesian military to complete its 5000 kilometre
journey from Australia.
Indonesia seized West Papua by force in the 1960s. Its people’s ongoing struggle for independence deserves our support.
The three West Papuans who occupied had a letter calling on the
Australian government to request the release of 55 West Papuan political
prisoners from Indonesian jails, including Filep Karma, jailed for 15
years for raising the West Papuan flag in 2004. Indonesia has made the
flying of the Morning Star flag of West Papuan independence a criminal
offence.
Tony Abbott dismissed the protest at the Australian consulate as
“grand standing” and reiterated his support for the “territorial
integrity” of Indonesia and its control over West Papua.
Abbott’s complicity over West Papua is a sordid continuation of the
long held policy of both Labor and Liberal governments. It is estimated
the Indonesian military has killed 500,000 people in West Papua since
the 1960s. In one massacre at Biak in 1998, 200 people were first gunned
down and then their bodies dumped at sea. As recently as 2011 images of
the torture of independence activists appeared in the international
media.
Abbott declared that the situation there is getting “better, not
worse”. But protests for independence continue to be brutally suppressed
by the military, with arrests, beatings and killings commonplace. In
May demonstrations making 50 years of Indonesian occupation were
attacked by the authorities, with three people shot dead. Demonstrations
in October were again broken up by force.
Colonial legacy
West Papua’s position inside Indonesia is a product of the European
colonial carve up of the area. West Papua comprises the western half of
the island of New Guinea, formerly controlled by the Dutch as part of
the Netherlands East Indies. But unlike the rest of Indonesia its
population is ethnically Melanesian, as is the eastern half of the
island, formerly an Australian colony and now independent Papua New
Guinea.
Indonesia won its independence in December 1949, following a successful national war of liberation against the Dutch.
The Dutch retained control of West Papua until 1961 when Indonesia,
claiming all of the territory of the former Dutch colony, launched an
invasion.
UN mediation led to an agreement that Indonesia would carry out a
referendum to determine West Papua’s status, eventually held in 1969.
This allowed West Papua to be integrated into Indonesia and was
cynically referred to as the “Act of Choice”.
The vote is widely regarded as a sham. Just 1025 handpicked
supporters of Indonesian rule took part. The vote was by a show of hands
in the presence of the Indonesian military.
Indonesia wanted West Papua for a number of reasons: to expand its
territory enabling more transmigration from crowded Java; to tighten its
grip of sea lanes running through the archipelago and for its natural
resources.
Following the take over, the Indonesian government has carried out
what has been called a “slow motion genocide”. Papuans made up 96 per
cent of the population in 1971. But following the government-sponsored
migration of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians from Java, University
of Sydney academic Jim Elsmlie estimates that Papuans make up just 50
per cent of the population today. This will decline further over time if
the policy continues.
Australian complicity
Until 1962, the Australian government’s favoured West Papua remaining
under Dutch control, consistent with its own colonial control of Papua
New Guinea. After pressure from the US and UK governments, however,
Australia shifted, remaining firmly against independence but now
supporting West Papua’s incorporation into Indonesia. External Affairs
Minister Garfield Barwick wrote that an independent West Papua would be a
“standing provocation” to Indonesia, and a strong relationship with
Indonesia was more important than allowing it self-determination.
On the eve of the farcical “Act of Free Choice” two West Papuan
activists crossed in then Australian-controlled Papua New Guinea,
carrying testimony from West Papuan leaders calling for independence.
Australian authorities prevented them from travelling to the UN,
detaining them on Manus Island, the site of the present refugee
detention centre.
Australian government policy has been driven by a determination to
place economic and strategic interests above all else. This has meant an
unbending disinterest in the human rights and lives of West Papuans.
Two-way trade between Australia and Indonesia grew from $8.5 billion 2005 to $14.6 billion in 2012.
Direct Australian investment there totalled $5.4 billion in 2011.
This includes Rio Tinto’s 15 per cent stake in Freeport’s Grasberg mine
in West Papua.
Indonesia’s geo-political and strategic importance to the Australian ruling class is even greater.
Indonesia straddles the sea routes between the Indian and Pacific
Oceans. World shipping, both trade and naval, passes through the Malacca
and Sunda Straits.
In the late 1990s, Peter Hartcher wrote in the Financial Review
that, “Forty per cent of all world shipping passes through the
archipelago [of Indonesia] … A sixth of all Australian trade passes
through those Indonesian straits.”
Both the United States, as the world’s sole military superpower, and
Australia, as the regional military power, perceive an interest in
keeping the islands of the Indonesian archipelago under the tight
control of the political and military establishment in Jakarta. This
ensures maximum “stability” for both economic and geopolitical interests
in the region.
Any threats to the unity of the Indonesian state—such as the
secessionist movements in West Papua or Aceh—are perceived as threats to
this “stability”. They worry an independent West Papua would be a
micro-nation open to “outside influence” from other world powers. This
is something that Australia’s rulers are determined to avoid so close to
home.
Therefore they have done everything they can to support Indonesia’s
control over its archipelago, and oppose independence movements.
This complicity has extended to direct military support for the repression carried out by the Indonesian military.
There have been reports in the last year that Detachment 88, an
Indonesian army unit that has received extensive training from the
Australian Federal Police, is involved in torture and extra-judicial
killings in West Papua.
Australian supplied military helicopters were used in the 1970s to
carry out indiscriminate shootings and napalm bombing, according to a
report released last month by the Asian Human Rights Commission.
In November 2006, the Howard Government signed a new security treaty with Jakarta. As the Melbourne Age
reported at the time, “At the core of the treaty is a commitment from
Australia never again to intervene in Indonesia’s internal affairs or
undermine its territorial integrity.” This includes any support for
moves towards West Papuan independence.
The treaty also made it harder for West Papuans seeking political asylum to settle in Australia.
The grant of asylum to 43 West Papuans who arrived in Australia in
February 2006 angered the Indonesian government. By including references
to asylum seekers in the new treaty, the Howard government hoped to
make the case of the 43 the last of its kind.
The 2006 treaty formalised renewed links between the Australian SAS
and Indonesia’s Special Forces—Kopassus. The SAS had previously helped
train Kopassus, only to see them used to terrorise the East Timorese in
the lead-up to their independence in 1999.
Tony Abbott says he will “do everything that we possibly can to
discourage and prevent” West Papuans assisting the independence movement
from inside Australia. We have to make sure he fails.
Deadly spear of ‘development’: Freeport’s Grasberg mine
Two years before the formal decision on West Papua’s future,
Indonesian dictator General Suharto signed a contract with US mining
company Freeport to establish a mine at Ertsberg, on the largest above
ground copper deposit ever discovered. Later Freeport set up another
mine at Grasberg, today the world’s largest gold mine and the
third-largest copper mine, with reserves worth an estimated $50 billion.
The mine remains the largest single taxpayer to the Indonesian
government.
Like all copper mines it produces huge amounts of waste. This has
simply been dumped, severely impacting nearby rainforest. Local rivers
are now unsuitable for aquatic life.
In 2006, Freeport chairman James Moffatt’s pay package was worth $US47 million and CEO Richard Adkerson made $US36.1 million.
Moffatt believes the company is bringing civilisation to the people
of West Papua. In 1995, he told The Nation magazine, “We are thrusting a
spear of economic development into the heartland of Irian Jaya … This
not a job for us, it’s a religion.”
The mine is situated at the top of a 4700 metre high mountain range,
which the company has hewn down by 1200 metres. As a result landslides
are common.
In 2003, Freeport was forced to admit that it paid the Indonesian military to harass local Papuan landowners.
The New York Times reported that company records showed the total
amount paid between 1998 and 2004 was nearly $US20 million. During the
three month strike from September 2011, Indonesian police admitted they
were paid “pocket money” by Freeport. They had shot and killed five
miners.
One “noteworthy” Freeport board member was Henry Kissinger, former US
Secretary of State and war criminal. As President Nixon’s national
security adviser, in July 1969, he wrote, “You should tell [Suharto]
that we understand the problems they face in West Irian.”
As Secretary of State he agreed to Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor
in December 1975. He was the company’s main lobbyist for dealings with
Indonesia until 1995.
Source : www.solidarity.net.au
0 komentar :
Posting Komentar