DEMAND FOR INDONESIA TO OPEN A DIALOGUE TABLE, AND COLONIAL GOVERNOR OF PAPUA TO BE RESPONSIBLE FOR

by WP Sun Sep 01, 2002 18:19

The following statement by John Rumbiak of Els-ham was taken by Mark
Doris
of West Papua Action, Dublin, during a phone conversation to Australia
where the Papuan human rights activist is currently on a brief visit.
Although the statement was not recorded, it is offered as a close
approximation of what he said:

1 September, 2002 (15.30 GMT)

Rumbiak said he could confirm that two US nationals and one Indonesian
(Javanese) were killed in the recent incident near the Freeport mine.
Four
people were badly wounded, and seven others were also wounded. The
wounded
have been taken to Australia.

He said he did not believe the attack on the employees at Freeport was
done
by the so-called separatist activists led by Kelly Kwalik, or any kind
of
separatists acting around the mine. He said he had met Kelly Kwalik,
the
Free Papua Movement (OPM) Commander in the Timika Area on 26 August
2002 on
a Peace Mission supported by civil society leaders in Papua and
discussed
with him the importance of preventing conflict and maintaining Papua as
a
Zone of Peace. He also explained about military actions by the TNI,
including the presence in West Papua of Laskar Jihad militias, the
red-and-white militias and the 500 extra well-trained troops recently
arrived from Medan. and explained that in their operations, the TNI
want to
provoke pro-independence activists, especially armed separatist
activists.

Kelly Kwalik's reaction was that he fully supported the idea of
conflict
prevention, and that he would pull out his troops. He said he was
totally
opposed to the idea of the Special Autonomy Law. He added that in his
armed struggle, he respects human rights, and that this was reflected
in
his Principles of Operation, drawn up on 27 June 2002, point number 8
of
which states:

"In the armed fight, every commander and his troops have to understand
human rights, especially the rights of the civilians in West Papua.
Ordinary Indonesians or white people are not the enemy of the OPM".

Kelly Kwalik issued a statement today in which he says: "I say to the
TNI:
don't dare accuse us of being involved in the attack on the Freeport
employees. For many years since 1977, we have maintained our physical
attacks and we announce every attack to the TNI. We were not at all
involved in the attack on the 12 employees of Freeport." He went on to
say
that the TNI have misused the Statement of Principles he issued last
Friday. (These are not currently available.)

All the above strongly suggests that this incident is an attempt by the
security forces to maintain their status quo in Papua itself and
secondly
is strongly related to the military ties between Indonesia and the
United
States, on which no decision has yet been taken. The TNI believe this
incident will speed things up for Washington to agree to the resumption
of
full military ties. The way the TNI manipulated this incident was
designed
to have it classified as an incident in the "War on Terrorism".

Rumbiak said that the US government, which has security interests in
transnational corporations, should call for the military operations
around
the mine and throughout Papua against independence activists to be
stopped
immediately, and that the US government should initiate the
establishment
of an independent inquiry commission led by Americans, involving
Indonesians, to investigate and reveal the truth of what happened.
Elsham,
which has extensive contacts in Papua, is willing to cooperate with
this
independent investigation.

ENDS

by Ray Mon Sep 02, 2002 08:50

If the campaign in Ireland issue a news release, organise a meeting, or call for action in Ireland, there's no problem with posting it on indymedia Ireland (IMHO). That does not mean that every communique issued from West Papua should be reposted here. This is not a clearinghouse, its for original news.