West Papua

ETAN media release, August 21: The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) and the West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) today welcomed the removal of Colonel Burhanuddin Siagian from his command in West Papua. Siagian faces two indictments in East Timor for crimes against humanity committed in 1999.
"Col. Siagian's removal from Papua is a welcome move," said John M. Miller, National Coordinator of ETAN. "Indonesia should take the next steps and suspend him from any command and then hand him over for trial for the crimes he committed in East Timor."
Siagian was the target of international campaign urging his removal from Papua and calling for his trial.

August 18, 2008: Fresh evidence links Indonesia’s military to the 2002 murder of two American school teachers in the remote Papua province. An article in the latest issue of South East Asia Research, a peer-reviewed journal published in London, is a forensic account of a murder that is still the subject of an open FBI investigation. “Credible sources link Indonesian intelligence agents to the planning of this attack,” said co-author Eben Kirksey, an American anthropologist. “But, Senior Bush Administration officials—including Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, and Robert Mueller—have helped cover-up evidence of Indonesian military involvement in the murder of U.S. civilians,” continued Dr. Kirksey. “The FBI has failed to bring this case to a definitive resolution.”

A tribal chief in Indonesian occupied West Papua launched a legal campaign on August 11 to get compensation from the US mining giant Freeport for environmental damage to his homelands.
Fabianus P., chief of the Kapiraya tribe, said tailings from Freeport's huge gold and copper mine in Indonesia's easternmost Papua province were causing more widespread ecological damage than was known, the PNG Post Courier cited the Indonesian Antara news agency in an August 13 report.

Ben Bohane, reports in Pacific Magazine from Port Vila, Vanuatu, that the guerrilla resistance in Indonesian-occupied West Papua has reached a new level of unity and has announced that it is entering into a "new phase of struggle".

On Saturday August 9, 2008, Indonesian military and police (TNI/POLRI) shot dead Opius Tabuni, a native West Papuan civilian. The incident happened when the native indigenous Papuans were celebrating international Indigenous day in Wamena.
First, all the main activities of the event went well and peacefully. One of the program was a speech by Forkorus Yaboisembut, the chairman of the Papuan Customary Council. Before the chairman of the Papuan Customary council ended his speech, the people had already raised four flags.

Reports today (August 10) confirm that it was the Indonesian police who shot the local man Opinus Tabuni yesterday at remote highland city of Wamena in West Papua.
The UN World Indigenous People Day event where the shooting occurred, was attended by 20,000 West Papuan people, who had travelled mostly from the Baliem Valley and neighbouring highland areas. Many visiting community leaders from other regions of West Papua attended the rally, including the Goldman Peace Prize winner Mama Yosefa Alomang and speakers from Dawan Adat Papua.
Reports say at the end of the rally Indonesian police and other security forces with a water cannon, which had been on standby outside the rally, moved in to disperse the crowd. The four flags had been raised at the end of the ceremony. These flags were the Indonesian National flag, the United Nations flag, the SOS flag saying Papuan people are in danger and the banned nationalist symbol the Morning Star Flag.

August 7: The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) today congratulated US congress members for their letter to Indonesian president, Dr. H. Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono urging him to work for the "immediate and unconditional" release of West Papuan political prisoners Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage.

Jakarta Post, August 5 reporting from Jayapura: At least 3,000 people mobilized by the Papuan Christian Communication Forum staged a rally in Jayapura on Monday, questioning the functioning of the special autonomy law.
They claimed the law had been in force for seven years, but that most indigenous Papuan people had not seen any improvement in their welfare.
The protesters from 45 churches in Jayapura flocked to the Papuan gubernatorial office at 9 a.m. local time, unfurling banners with slogans including: "Special Autonomy Law -- Blessing or Disaster", "Special Autonomy for whom" and "Papua Pancasila Yes, Papua Sharia No."
Besides questioning the special autonomy law, protesters opposed campaigns by Jakarta-based groups calling for sharia law in Indonesia.

Latest reports from Fakfak state that six of the West Papuans involved in a flag-raising ceremony, with the banned Morning Star flag, on early Saturday July 19, will be charged under the Indonesian Criminal code for crime of 'subversion'.

West Papua, July 19, 2008: Indonesian police detained 41 people in Fakfak, 890 kilometers west of Jayapura, for allegedly hoisting the "Morning Star" flag of the West Papuan independence movement. Ten years ago, this month, hundreds of West Papuans were massacred by the Indonesian occupation forces in Biak for participating in a flag-raising ceremony - and there have been recent protests in West Papua and around the world to mark the 10th anniversary of "Bloody Biak".