The Church and human rights in West Papua

By Johanes Budi Hernawan OFM*
December 2003

A brief outline of the issues

The Province and people of Papua (West Papua or formerly Irian Jaya) are often labelled as a ‘lost paradise’, a ‘land of naked men’, ‘paradise betrayed’, or the ‘isolated people’. Such simplistic stereotypes do not help anyone understand the real situation. Having engaged with human rights issues in West Papua, I find the issues confronting the Province to be complex and cannot be reduced to such black and white terms. Unfortunately, such images are entrenched in the popular imagination of people within and outside Indonesia.

Today, West Papua is home to 2.1 million people (Indonesia has 200 million people) who live in an area as large as 422,000 kilometre square. West Papua consists of 42% migrants and 58% indigenous Papuans. In terms of the religious population, West Papua consists of 58% Protestants, 24% Muslims, 16% Catholics and 12% Buddhists. The rest consists of Hindus and various traditional beliefs. This diversity makes West Papua a multicultural society where, for the most part, people have managed to live together in harmony. However, behind the daily realities lie protracted problems which are causing tensions and conflicts in the Province for almost four decades. There are 3 fundamental problems.

Firstly, the historical and political questions arising from the transfer of power from the Dutch to Indonesia administrations in the late of 1960s. The West Papuan elite claims that the transfer was unlawful because the plebiscite for integration with Indonesia did not follow the 'one-man-one-vote' method as stipulated by the 1962 UN New York Agreement. Instead, the system of musyawarah (a consultation process to achiveve a concensus) was used which involved consultations with only 1,022 Papuan representatives. As a reaction to this position, the Indonesian government continues to assert its sovereignty over West Papua and emphasises the historical roots of the region back to the Majapahit era in the thirteenth century.

Secondly, there is a continued problem of gross human rights violations which have occurred since integration with Indonesia. For example, since the first report of the human rights violations in Papua in 1995, the Catholic office for Justice and Peace of the Diocese of Jayapura has documented 27 unresolved cases of human rights abuses across the Province. It was not until the year 2000 that the Indonesian House of Representatives promulgated Act no.26 to establish the Human Rights Court. This Act provides real power to the judicial system, particularly the National Commission on Human Rights, to address gross human rights violations all over Indonesia. Based on such a strong provision, West Papua obtained its first opportunity to deal with the human rights cases.

The first of these cases is the Abepura’s case, which occurred on 7 December 2000 when the police launched a crackdown following an attack on the police station in Abepura (20 Km from the Provincial Capital, Jayapura) by an unknown group. As a response to serious concerns raised by the church leaders in West Papua, the National Commission for Human Rights conducted investigations into the case and found sufficient evidence to conclude that the police in West Papua had committed crimes against humanity during its operation targeting students and civilians. The Commission submitted its findings to the Attorney General in August 2001 seeking actions against the perpetrators. Two years later nothing has occurred. The Attorney General's reasons for the delay is that the Ministry of Finance had not yet approved its proposed budget. This situation illustrates the lack of political will in dealing with gross human rights cases in West Papua.

Finally, the last of the major the problems confronting West Papua are welfare issues. As a province endowed with rich natural resources, West Papua makes substantial contributions to the Indonesian economy. Despite this, the province is ranked the second poorest province in Indonesia after the West Nusa Tenggara (the 2001 UNDP Human Development Index). The literacy rate for women is 44 percent compared to 78 percent in the rest of Indonesia; and for men, 58 percent compared to 90 percent. Only 10% of the West Papuan people have a high school education and only 1 percent has graduated from college. Such a description illustrates the vast poverty and injustice which is fueling resentment against the Indonesian government across the Province. Meanwhile, the West Papuan people continue to suffer indignation by the denial of redress for human rights violations. Their demands for justice, freedom and rights are justified and are converging in the form of a struggle for independence.

Dealing with human rights issues in West Papua

Having engaged with the protracted problems in West Papua, the Catholic Church in West Papua understands that working for human rights is at the core of the gospel message. Subsequently, the Church through the Office for Justice and Peace has been deeply engaged with a number of human rights efforts. For example, in 1995 Bishop of Jayapura, Msgr. Muninghoff OFM, helped brought the issue of Amungme people to international attention by reporting it to the National Commission on Human Rights. Some of the Amungme civilians had been detained, tortured and killed by the military inside of the Freeport concession area, because they were considered a major threat to the mining operations. This was the very first case of gross human rights violations in West Papua reported both at national and international levels.

In the midst of tension and fear in 1998, the Catholic Church in conjunction with other church denominations, NGOs, women groups and students groups established Forum Rekonsiliasi Masyarakat Irian (FORERI) or a Forum for Reconciliation of Irianese People. At the same time, Bishop of Jayapura, Msgr. Leo Laba Ladjar OFM founded the Office for Justice and Peace which was commissioned to deal with social justice issues across the region. This office:

• now provides human rights training and capacity building for indigenous people at the grassroots level based on belief that social justice should be a people’s movement;
• works closely with relevant human rights networks to promote justice and ecumenical collaboration in promoting human rights and peace;
• provides interventions at the Sessions of the UN Commission on Human Rights in 2002 and 2003 in conjunction with the Franciscan International in Geneva to raise international awareness.

In November 2002, the office hosted a peace-building conference attended by key organisations in West Papua, including religious leaders, NGOs, academics, members of the Provincial House of Representatives.

Human rights violations in West Papua continue to overwhelm us due to the number of violations and the small number of organisations capable of dealing with these issues. Notwithstanding the international preoccupation with fighting terrorism, most countries in the Asia-Pacific region (apart from Nauru and Vanuatu) do not want to jeopardise their diplomatic relations with Indonesia by raising concerns about the situation in Papua.

In relation to Australia, although it has provided a A$10 million grant to Indonesia as part of A$121 million foreign aid, to assist police in fighting terrorism in Indonesia, I am afraid that these monies will go to the security forces fighting separatism in Aceh, Maluku and Papua which have been labelled by the government as terrorism.

Concluding remarks

Having engaged with the people and their problems, I believe some fundamental issues should be comprehensively addressed:

• The West Papua problem is tripartite: welfare issues, gross human rights violations and historical and political issues. The problems need to be addressed ad understood and a political dialogue towards peaceful solutions needs to be opened. Subsequently, the government should implement the Law on the Special Autonomy; deliver justice to the victims by bringing all perpetrators of human rights violations to the Human Rights Court.
• Parties who wish to solve the problems in West Papua need to understand the complex and intricate problems of West Papua and not simplify the problem merely into a conflict of political interests or welfare issues.
• The Australian public, as the closest neighbour in the region, must draw the same attention to human rights abuses occurring in West Papua as it did in 1995 in relation to the Timika Case and with the problems in East Timor.
  

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