United In Struggle

Earlier this year came stories of a hidden valley with dozens of new species of plants and animals discovered by scientists that made front page news around the world.

Yet for the people of West Papua (or Papua as Indonesia now calls it) in eastern Indonesia, their own story of struggle has rarely seeped beyond the remote mountains and jungles that have hidden their cries for independence for decades, since a United Nations vote in 1963 saw the territory annexed by Indonesia. Since then, church groups and non government organizations claim more than 100,000 Papuans have died in their push for independence.

OPM Commander Titus Murip surveys assembled troops at the central command area. [All Photos On This Page Are By BEN BOHANE]

Indonesia maintains a ban on media access and reporting in the restive province but that has not stopped a flurry of news emerging recently that have highlighted a grim picture of what is going on there, from military atrocities and fleeing refugees, to angry confrontations with the Freeport gold and copper mine. Indeed, the wrangling over West Papua continues to evolve into one of the most serious strategic issues facing the Pacific.

In early January this year a boatload of 43 refugees sailed from the north coast for six weeks until landing on Australia's Cape York peninsula to claim political asylum. They spoke of continuing Indonesian military atrocities and the build-up of Islamic and secular pro-Jakarta militias that threatens to turn West Papua into a re-run of East Timor's bloody history before its independence. Although thousands of refugees have routinely fled West Papua over the past four decades, most have gone into neighboring Papua New Guinea, where 8,000 continue to live on little more than bananas and sago along a border that is mostly out of mind and out of sight.

Geselenia village chief with Bible and a chunk of rock representing the wealth of their land – copper and gold.

This latest boatload is the first time that a large number have arrived on Australian soil at once, under the glare of media scrutiny and has triggered a wave of sympathy there. It promises to add to the uneasy relationship between Jakarta and Canberra; Indonesian President Susilo Bangbang Yudhoyono withdrew his Ambassador from Canberra after the refugees were issued with temporary visas, although Australian Prime Minister John Howard reiterates that his government "does not support for a minute the West Papuan independence claim."

Adding to the credibility of the refugees' claims is a statement by the United Nations' special envoy on the prevention of genocide, Juan Mendez, who told The Sydney Morning Herald in March that he was "worried" about reports of abuses in the province and the Indonesian government's ban on human rights observers from monitoring the situation.

Said Mendez, "It's very worrying and there's evidence about violence that's continued since 1963. It's important that we look closely at the conflict now and make sure it's not getting out of hand."

OPM Commander John Kokriak (left) with Bernard Mawen (right) in front of the West Papua independence flag.

In what appears to be a change in UN policy on the issue, Mendez also said the UN was prepared to step in and mediate a solution to the long-running conflict. Mendez' comments follow a number of detailed reports from Sydney University and Yale University's School of Law, which have labeled Indonesian policies in the province as tantamount to genocide.

Momentum is building in the U.S. where a bill before Congress to review the now discredited UN "Act of Free Choice," which allowed 1,025 hand-picked tribal leaders to vote for integration with Indonesia on behalf of 800,000 Papuans, must be investigated and signed off on by the U.S. Secretary of State Condaleeza Rice within the next year. The review has been endorsed by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and members of the Black Caucus within the U.S. Senate.

OPM central guerrilla command in the mountains above the Freeport mine.

One of the most outspoken Congressmen on the issue is the American Samoan Delegate, Faleomavaega Eni Hunkin, who is also a member of the U.S. House International Relations committee. Faleomavaega says the UN, the U.S. and Pacific nations such as Australia and New Zealand should support the people of West Papua with the same opportunity given to the people of East Timor, also a former Dutch colony.

"We've become very hypocritical. We preach democracy on one hand and then here are these people fighting tyranny and fighting the fact that for 40 years they've been tortured and murdered - all forms of atrocities - and nobody pays any attention to this," says Faleomavaega.

West Papuan leaders in Vanuatu, the only Pacific country openly supporting them, say that getting the UN to take responsibility for its past actions and to initiate a review of the 1963 vote is one of their key agendas.

A boat on the Fly River border between PNG and West Papua.

"The UN got us into this mess so they should take responsibility. It was not a one-man, one-vote system," says the OPM (Free West Papua Movement) spokesperson in Port Vila, Dr. John Ondawame. "Also by having the UN involved, it can take some of the blame away from Indonesia. You know, the Javanese are very proud - it can help if we give them a face-saving way to pull out. We are open to real negotiations, but it can only happen when there is a complete withdrawal of TNI (Indonesian) troops from our land."

Ondawame relates an anecdote that gives him hope: when the UN ratified the controversial Act of Free Choice in 1969, it was opposed by the so-called "Brazzaville Group" of 15 African nations, on the basis that the vote was not one-man, one-vote. Leading the Brazzaville Group was Ghana, and serving in the Ghanese delegation was a young diplomat named Kofi Annan, now the UN's secretary general.

"We hope that Kofi Annan today has not forgotten the principles he once held as a young diplomat when our people were sacrificed because of cold war politics at the time," says Ondawame.

Meanwhile, pressure mounts on the U.S.-owned Freeport gold mine after a series of articles in the New York Times detailed its controversial ongoing payments to the Indonesian military for "protection" around the mine. Demonstrations in Timika closed the mine for nearly a week in late February and the company's offices in Jakarta were the scene of violent clashes for several days with angry Papuan students demanding the closure of the mine.

Clashes in mid-March reportedly led to the death of three Indonesian policemen and an intelligence officer. Ondawame says the OPM supports the student demands.

Traditional raincoats in the West Papuan highlands.

"For too long Freeport has exploited the West Papuan people and our resources. It is time to renegotiate the mining lease otherwise we will support its permanent closure" says Ondawame, who is also an Amungme chief. The Amungme are the traditional landowners of the area where Freeport operates.

"We are not anti-American. On the contrary we would like the U.S. to deal directly with OPM to create a long-term solution. We are concerned that some extremist Islamic groups supported by (Indonesian politician) Amien Rais, can manipulate the situation by using Papua demands to close the mine because they are anti-American," Ondawame says.