Tembagapura Blog

Sydney Morning Herald Report

Fears Mount Over Military Activities in Papua
Mon Sep 16, 7:39 PM ET
Jim Lobe,OneWorld US

Amid indications that military units were behind an ambush two weeks ago near the huge Grasberg gold and copper mine owned by Louisiana-based Freeport-McMoran in which two United States teachers and an Indonesian colleague were killed, the International Crisis Group (ICG) is calling for the role of the military in providing security to be substantially reduced.

In a new report released Friday, the Brussels-based group also called on the provincial government of Papua to scale down the role of military-linked companies and businesses involved in local logging and mining operations, a major cause of unrest by indigenous communities there.

“There’s a direct correlation between injustice in the management of natural resources and the strength of pro-independence sentiment in Papua,” according to Sidney Jones, ICG’s Indonesia project director who has also worked as the Indonesia expert for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

“There’s little hope for the autonomy option unless Indonesia ends the abusive practices associated with resource exploitation,” she added.

A mineral- and timber-rich province that was promised independence by the Netherlands, the region was annexed by Indonesia with U.S. backing in 1969. Since then it has been home to a simmering insurgency called the Free Papua Movement (OPM).

Over the last several years, the conflict has been characterized by sporadic clashes between Indonesian forces and scattered OPM guerrillas and by the largely peaceful independence campaign of the Presidium of the Papuan Council (PPC), an umbrella movement for the many ethnic groups which comprise the province’s indigenous population.

Tensions have increased sharply during the last 10 months since PPC chairman Theys Eluay was murdered by Indonesian soldiers in November, 2001. They have also been heightened by the presence of Laskar Jihad, a radical Islamist group that has reportedly been backed by elements in the military elsewhere in Indonesia.

The August 31 ambush, which the military blamed on the OPM, has increased speculation among Papuans of a broader strategy to destabilize the province in order to justify a major counter-insurgency campaign.

The ambush, the first of its kind against foreign nationals, was carried out with automatic weapons, something which the OPM is not known to possess. Disclosures by the police and the Papua-based Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy over the past week have also cast doubt on the military’s version of events.

An alleged rebel, who soldiers said died in a shoot-out near the ambush site, has since been identified as a military informant who was apparently killed some 24 hours before, a police autopsy found.

The police chief has suggested that soldiers may have carried out the ambush in order to extort money from Freeport. The military in Indonesia has a long record of providing protection to companies in exchange for money and other concessions, according to the ICG.

If more evidence of military involvement emerges, it could set back hopes by the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush ( news - web sites)–which is eager to enlist Jakarta’s armed forces in its war on terrorism–to provide tens of millions of dollars in military aid and training that were suspended after military-backed militias rampaged through East Timor ( news - web sites), another annexed province, in 1999.

A team of investigators from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI ( news
- web sites)) is expected to arrive in Indonesia this week to aid a police inquiry into the killings, government officials in Jakarta were reported as saying Sunday. FBI involvement is not unusual in high-profile cases in which U.S. citizens were the victims.

The Grasberg operation, the world’s largest gold and copper mine, has long been a source of tension in Papua. Freeport originally gained rights to the mine through a close relationship with the former dictator Suharto ( news - web sites), without consulting the indigenous Papuan population.

Reliant on the military for security, Freeport has also been accused of countenancing serious human rights abuses committed by the military against local communities who until recently have received very little of the wealth produced by the mine.

Elsewhere in the province, logging companies, many from other Asian countries, have also gained concessions. These companies, which increasingly engage local partners, are also accused of widespread abuses, such as environmental destruction and using the military or police to intimidate protestors, according to the ICG report.

Under a new autonomy regime offered by Jakarta, Papuans should receive a greater share of the wealth extracted from their lands. But the report says such concessions will not be adequate to quell the unrest unless it is accompanied by more local control over the companies’ operations, regulation to curb social and environmental damage, and a much-reduced role for the military and police in ensuring security.

Reported by Kori Hendricks Breschini, September 17, 2002

Hi DD [Scarabin], there was another Gunfire yesterday afternoon,

….”Shortly after noon today, Saturday, September 14, 2002, a vehicle delivering food to security forces came under fire at about Milepost 62. A soldier has been admitted to Tembagapura hospital with superficial wounds. The road between Milepost 68 and Milepost 50 is closed until further notice Police and military forces are on the scene and in pursuit of the perpetrators. We will post information as it becomes available”.

Regards,

Mirda

Article from Sydney Morning Herald newspaper (www.smh.com.au)
Submitted by Chris Towsey

Indonesians accused of murdering mine workers
By Matthew Moore and Greg Roberts in Timika and Townsville
September 3 2002

On the road again … soldiers escort the convoy. Photo: Matthew Moore

West Papuans yesterday accused Indonesian security forces of involvement in an ambush of mine workers that left three people dead and 11 injured.

On the streets near the giant American Freeport gold and copper mine, Papuan locals claimed security forces were involved in a "set-up".

This contradicted the military’s consistent version that members of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) were responsible for the ambush killings - the first time Westerners have been victims of such attacks.

At the same time an official from the giant company has cast doubt on claims by the Indonesian military that it knew the identity of the armed men who attacked the convoy of workers from the mine in Papua on Saturday.

A Freeport spokesman, Geoff Hocking, said none of the survivors of the attack whom he had spoken to in Townsville Hospital, where they had been flown, had caught sight of the assailants.

Indonesia’s provincial military commander, Major-General Mahidin Simbolon, has claimed the attackers were a faction of OPM led by Kelly Kwalik.

However, the military has failed to produce evidence for this claim, or to identify the gunman it said its forces had shot dead in an encounter after the ambush.

Two Americans and an Indonesian Freeport employee were killed in the ambush.

Matthew Mayer, the Australian representative of the West Papua National Congress, said all OPM units are under clear instructions not to attack Westerners, and the OPM had even been desisting from engaging the Indonesian military for months.

"There is no possibility Kelly Kwalik or any of our people would have done this," Mr Mayer said. "This smacks of Kopassus [the Indonesian security force]. This is just Indonesian propaganda to turn the Americans against us and what we are fighting for."

Hospital sources confirmed that a team of officials from the United States embassy had questioned most of the survivors. Four women, three men and a girl, aged 6, were flown to Townsville for medical treatment, mostly for gunshot wounds. Six of the seven adults are Americans. Mr Hocking said yesterday all were doing well.

According to Freeport sources, a convoy of company vehicles left the Tembagapura mine shortly after lunch on Saturday for a recreational rest at Kuala Kencana, a Freeport town near the lowlands provincial centre of Timika.

The convoy was transporting teachers employed by International School Systems and their families. The company is under contract to Freeport.

The ambush took place 10 kilometres south of Tembagapura.

Freeport management yesterday re-opened the 92-kilometre road to Tembagapura, which was closed after Saturday’s shootings.

With two platoons of heavily armed soldiers, a convoy of more than 40 vehicles with 140 people left the base at the Sheraton Hotel where the mine workers and their families had been stranded since the ambush.

Police reinforcements have been brought to the area.

Papuan locals told the Herald yesterday that virtually all Papuans wanted independence from Indonesia, but they had no wish to hurt foreigners and would never stage such an attack.

In Sydney yesterday, John Rumbiak, a human rights campaigner who has been active around the mine for years, was also sceptical. "This is the tradition of the military in Indonesia as a whole but specifically in Papua, to orchestrate this kind of attack and scapegoat the OPM."