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It is hardly the impression that emerges from the 2007 annual report of Amnesty International, which records that the torture and ill treatment of detainees is widespread, and we recall of course that many detainees are imprisoned for peaceful protests. The report continues that prison conditions fall short of international standards. It speaks of extra-judicial executions and records that in 2007, there were at least six occasions when security forces opened fire on civilians. It tells us that the perpetrators appear to enjoy immunity.
Nor did my noble friend’s characterisation of the human rights infringements accord with the recent Human Rights Watch country summary on Indonesia, which said that, in West Papua, peaceful political activists continue to be classified as “separatists”, which is a criminal offence. The report speaks of village “sweeping operations” carried out with great brutality by the army, the police and paramilitary units. It mentioned too that the regional military commander appointed in 2007, Colonel Siagian, was indicted by the United Nations for crimes against humanity in East Timor.
The Government’s view was not supported by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva last August, which commented that at last Indonesia had complied with its reporting obligations under the convention. The report was six years overdue. The committee refrained from commenting that this road-to-Damascus conversion may be connected with Indonesia’s ambition to be re-elected to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The report adds that Indonesia has still not implemented the convention in its domestic legislation.
Nor is the Government’s assessment in accordance with the report by Franciscans International, which notes that,
- “in the Province of West Papua, the steadfast pattern of human rights violations, including torture, repression of the freedom of expression, unfair trials, arbitrary detention and the denial of social, economic and cultural rights, have created a culture of fear and have resulted in a stagnated development, which has made Papua the least developed province of Indonesia”.
I leave it to other noble Lord to comments on the rape of Papua’s mineral wealth, which is now being shared between the Indonesian Government and foreign investors, but not by the Papuan people.
In at least one respect, I sympathise with the Government’s problem. It is not easy in the present state of international law, and in the absence of charter reform, to suggest a simple remedy. Of course, no one would recommend an invasion as anything but a final resort when diplomatic approaches, appeals from human rights organisations and sanctions have failed to provide a solution. But a reference to the Security Council by a Government who carry the international respect of the United Kingdom could be a beginning and could reassure the West Papuan people that someone cares.
I suspect that history will not understand how human suffering on such a scale continued year after year while the world looked on complacently and
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8.08 pm
Baroness Cox: My Lords, I congratulate my noble and right reverend friend Lord Harries on giving us this opportunity to speak on the important subject of human rights in West Papua. Since Indonesia took over the administration of the territory nearly 45 years ago, the plight of the indigenous Melanesian population has deteriorated and been largely ignored by the international community. I have been involved in some of the other tragic situations in Indonesia in recent years, especially the bitter conflict initiated in 1999 by Lasker Jihad in Maluku and Sulawesi. I was present during some of the most severe violence there and witnessed the suffering of both the Christian and the traditional Muslim communities. I was in Ambon when 4,000 to 5,000 Lasker Jihad warriors were stationed there and I visited Poso in Sulawesi shortly after Lasker Jihad carried out brutal attacks on the Christian and Hindu communities.
I was also privileged to respond to a request by the Christian and traditional Muslim leaders to help to promote reconciliation between the communities and reconstruction of the devastated infrastructure by helping to establish the International Islamic Christian Organisation for Reconciliation and Reconstruction, a title that mercifully abbreviates to IICORR. Noble Lords will see the relevance of this in a moment. The organisation was launched in Jakarta with former President Abdurrahman Wahid as its president, and we were delighted when Her Majesty’s Government used IICORR to bring an interfaith delegation to the United Kingdom to develop principles and policies for reconciliation and reconstruction away from the conflict zone. We were also very pleased when, on its return to Ambon, a resurgence of conflict was quickly contained as a result of the good faith that had been established between the leaders of the two communities while here in Britain.
I refer to these events for two reasons. First, they might provide a precedent for helping to resolve the tensions and conflicts in West Papua and, secondly, they are one example of Indonesia’s progress in trying to improve its record on human rights and the development of democracy and civil society. The situation is therefore all the more a tragic blot on Indonesia’s record of endeavours to achieve improvements. I hope that this debate, which will highlight the problems, may prompt the Indonesian authorities to address them as a matter of great urgency.
Religious faith is at the very centre of West Papuan life and identity. Christianity arrived in West Papua in 1855. I understand that now approximately 95 per cent of the indigenous population is Christian. The remaining 5 per cent includes a small Papuan Muslim population, whose conversion to Islam predates the current period of Indonesian rule. As my noble and right reverend friend has said, the demographic change is extremely serious. In 1970, indigenous Papuans made up 96 per cent of the population but,
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With 1,500,000 West Papuan Christians in an Indonesian state of 230 million mostly Muslim Indonesians, it would be an easy mistake to portray this conflict in terms of Christian versus Muslim, but that would be a misleading and dangerous oversimplification. The conflict is primarily political—a struggle for West Papuan independence—with the West Papuans seeking their internationally recognised right to self-determination in a UN-administered, one-person-one-vote referendum. The so-called “Act of Free Choice”, to which reference has already been made, is now generally recognised as state-managed by Suharto’s Indonesia. It was an affront to democratic values. Moreover, the events of 1969 must not be seen by the international community as an acceptable, just and final situation.
There is, however, a significant religious dimension to the conflict. Christianity is officially recognised under the Indonesian constitution, and the provisions in the Pancasila have been generally honoured throughout most of Indonesian society. Christians have by and large been allowed to settle and flourish, until the intrusion of militant forces in recent years and the emergence of significant elements within Indonesian society that have sought to use Islam as a vehicle for Indonesian nationalism and the forcible extension of authoritarian control to outlying regions such as West Papua. This facet of the West Papua conflict was highlighted by an Australian Special Broadcasting Service television report in 2005, which featured an interview with a Papuan who claimed to have infiltrated a Lasker Jihad training camp in the town of Sorong. These are his words:
“The sort of activities Lasker Jihad were involved in, in Sorong, were firstly, intimidating and killing Papuans who were involved in the Papua Independence Movement, and secondly, spreading rumours in various places, to create fear”.
As recently as 23 February—only a few days ago—the West Papuan Baptist leader, Reverend Socratez Sofyan Yoman, stated:
“Jihadists are now operating in every aspect of [West Papuan] society, including in the military and police, business, and throughout the government”.
West Papuans are primarily persecuted by Indonesian security forces simply for being Papuan, but within that persecution are significant anti-Christian elements. Papuans report regularly being abused by Indonesian soldiers and police with terms such as “kaffir” and “pig eater”. West Papuan Christian leaders who bravely speak out about human rights abuses regularly report being subjected to intimidation and threats from Indonesian intelligence agents, police and soldiers. For example, Reverend Benny Giay, leader of the
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- “spreading false allegations about conditions in Waris to local and international NGOs and of being a provocateur and betraying the Indonesian state”.
Seven religious leaders made a statement on 7 February this year calling for international dialogue for West Papua. They included leaders of the Roman Catholic, Baptist and Pentecostal churches, as well as leaders of the Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist communities. Entitled West Papuan Churches & Other Religions Appeal for an International Dialogue, their statement included an appeal to the international community to have,
- “a solution to the difference of ideology in West Papua must be dealt with immediately by a dialogue between the central [Indonesian] government and the native West Papuans ... facilitated by a neutral third party approved by both parties”.
While they recognise that there are many sensitive issues, they believe that these could be solved through dialogue and reconciliation.
The church and other religious leaders also catalogued numerous concerns, including the excessive number of military personnel in West Papua; the military personnel’s failure to understand or try to learn the local culture; their suspicion of the people, treating them as enemies, creating widespread tensions; the authorities’ unwillingness to implement the special autonomy law resulting in an inequitable distribution of educational, health and economic services throughout all Papuan regions; widespread unemployment, leading to tensions and divisions between Papuan tribes; massive exploitation of the region’s natural resources; and numerous examples of killings and destruction of religious buildings. The conclusion of their report, signed in Jayapura, West Papua, on 11 February 2008, is that the special autonomy law No. 21/2001 is a total failure, which has brought disasters to humanity and destroyed the future of native West Papuans. The fact that this appeal was signed by leaders of the different faith communities is evidence of the deep concerns of people of different faiths that their future as West Papuans is under threat.
In an earlier debate in the House on West Papua, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, said:
“Papua is in many ways the last blot on Indonesia’s global reputation”.—[Official Report, 8/1/07; col. 104.]
I therefore ask the Minister whether Her Majesty’s Government will take a more active and urgent interest in the problems associated with the violations of human rights in West Papua and urge the Indonesian Government to undertake urgently needed measures to lead ultimately to a peaceful resolution of the conflict in accordance with the democratic will of the West Papuan people. In particular, would the Government consider facilitating Indonesian-West Papuan dialogue without preconditions under UN or EU auspices? Alternatively, I am sure
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Unless an effective intervention is undertaken urgently, the people of West Papua may be condemned to such continuing oppression and violations of fundamental human rights that their cultural identity and physical survival will be threatened. That is why I passionately hope that they will hear some reassuring message from Her Majesty’s Government tonight.
8.18 pm
Lord Avebury: My Lords, the last time we debated West Papua on an Unstarred Question, that, too, was initiated by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries. He was looking at the issue then primarily from the standpoint of self-determination, which has been referred to by both the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, and the noble Baroness. Now the noble and right reverend Lord is asking us to focus on human rights more generally, although he set that in the context of the right to self-determination.
I begin by reminding your Lordships of the observation by the special rapporteur on self-determination, Hector Gros Espiell, at the Human Rights Commission in 1975, repeated in the report that he made to the General Assembly of 1980. He said that the right of self-determination is of fundamental importance as the prerequisite for the enjoyment of all other human rights. It may be too late to rectify the unlawful transfer of sovereignty from the Netherlands to Indonesia in 1969, but the international community could make some amends for being accomplices in that fraudulent act if we made far greater efforts to persuade Jakarta to follow the pattern wisely adopted in the case of Aceh, to which the attention of your Lordships has been drawn by the noble Baroness, of negotiating a genuine local autonomy.
As the noble Baroness said, West Papua and Aceh were both covered by local autonomy laws, but while Aceh proceeded to free elections—in which members of the Free Aceh movement achieved high office in the case of Governor Irwandi Yusuf and Deputy Governor Muhammad Nazar—in West Papua the people continue to be in the iron grip of the military and Brimob, the paramilitary police. Surely there is a lesson to be drawn from the comparative experiences of Aceh and West Papua. Several years of painstaking negotiation over Aceh, in which I was involved for some time as an adviser to the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva, which was the facilitator at that time, led to a successful outcome, and the same could be true of West Papua.
As has been said, there have been several authoritative reports on West Papua over the past year, notably that of the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders following her visit in June. She was deeply concerned by the evidence that she received of the harassment and intimidation of defenders and the restriction of their access to victims and sites of human rights violations throughout Indonesia, but she found that the trend was more pronounced in West Papua, where she received credible evidence of arbitrary detention,
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There were cases where the defenders themselves were threatened with prosecution. Despite assurances given by the authorities that there was no institutional policy of targeting defenders, the concerns of the special rapporteur persisted and she made recommendations for improvements to the mechanisms of oversight and accountability of the police, the military and the intelligence agencies. Can we in the European Union ask the Government of Indonesia what steps they are taking to implement the special rapporteur’s proposals, and can we ensure that this matter is on the agenda for the Human Rights Council at its forthcoming meeting in Geneva? I hope that the Minister will be able to answer that.
The US State Department records a number of cases where the Brimob military has killed civilians at demonstrations. In one case a man was actually beaten to death. The State Department says that, although there are always promises of investigations of these abuses, no member of the security forces has ever been charged. There has been a climate of impunity more generally in Indonesia going back very many years, as we were reminded last month by the death of former President Suharto, who was largely responsible for the institutionalised violence against popular opposition. That included the demand for cultural autonomy in West Papua in the mid-1980s. Today the security forces in West Papua behave as if Suharto were alive and well; they get away with it because large areas of the province are closed to outside scrutiny. I agree with the proposal that has been made that there should be an international presence there to monitor what goes on.
One of the factors that have led to gross human rights abuses in the past has been the operations of the international resource companies, particularly Freeport-McMoRan, the copper and gold mining company at Timika, which brought in military units that have clashed periodically with local people, leading to a number of deaths and serious injuries. Now, as we have heard, BP is investing $5.5 billion in its LNG plant at Tangguh. That has already led to an influx of 10,000 non-Papuans and to the displacement of local inhabitants. BP says that it is not going to repeat the mistakes made by Freeport, but Carmel Budiardjo of TAPOL, in an article in the February issue of Liberation, says that there were no consultations whatever with local people who lost their occupations and territory, and no compensation was offered to them for their displacement.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, mentioned that there are a good many political prisoners in the territory. They have been convicted on charges of subversion for participating in peaceful demonstrations or raising flags asserting Papuan identity. In a directive that was issued by the chief of police in December 2005, it was ordered that anyone engaged in commemorative activities on certain dates,
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Human Rights Watch documents a number of these cases, although because of the lack of transparency in the courts and the widespread fear among witnesses and relatives of being charged themselves there may be many others that are not in the public domain. For example, Linus Hiluka was given a 20-year sentence and, in the most notorious case of all, Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage got 15 and 10 years respectively for their activities in peaceful demonstrations.
Human Rights Watch makes a number of recommendations for dealing with this situation. It asks that international donors and Governments raise concerns about regressive policies and curtailing free expression in meetings with President Yudhoyono and government officials; that we regularly monitor trials and meet defendants; that we support comprehensive training in international human rights standards and applicable international law for all members of the judiciary; and that we support comprehensive training in international human rights standards and, again, applicable international law for all members of the police force. I hope that our close friendship with Indonesia will enable us to raise all these matters. Knowing President Yudhoyono, as I do, I am sure that he will listen to us.
8.26 pm
Lord Astor of Hever: My Lords, I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for bringing to the House tonight the important issue of human rights abuses in West Papua. While these abuses have been ongoing, a year has passed since West Papua was last debated in this House. It is important that we do not lose sight of the atrocities committed there, despite its geographical distance from Westminster.
Human rights violations in West Papua are frequent. The Government of Indonesia repress the freedom of expression, enforce arbitrary detention and deny the social, economic and cultural rights of the Papuan people. The noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, set out very eloquently some of the other abuses, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer of Sandwell, and the noble Lord, Lord Avebury.
Torture is a central pillar of West Papuan rule. It is deemed by the Indonesian security services to be one of the most effective methods of keeping order. According to the few charities that do have access to the country, the police paramilitary unit, the Brigade Mobile, is responsible for raping, killing and beating unarmed civilians in Papua. Despite this, with one exception, no one from the unit has been convicted of any crime. This is a chilling place, where there is no jury, no judge and no verdict that is not Indonesian Government-controlled. Merely to fly a West Papuan flag or sell a West Papuan souvenir can merit a life sentence. The murder of 2,000 people in East Timor is the dark precedent that looms behind this picture. Let us not forget that the Indonesian Government stand
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We on these Benches seek to avoid unnecessary bloodshed at all costs. I therefore believe that Her Majesty’s Government should work with the Indonesian Government to establish an inclusive and frank discussion forum to try to achieve a basic standard of human rights. What discussions have Her Majesty’s Government had with Jakarta about Papua? Has the Foreign Secretary met his Indonesian counterpart since his appointment?
In March 2006, the BBC website reported widespread protests against the Indonesian Administration. The UN special representative of the Secretary General on human rights defenders, Ms Jilani—mentioned by the noble and right reverend Lord—observed after her visit that nearly every West Papuan she talked to expressed high levels of dissatisfaction with the Indonesian Government. The Papuan People’s Council does represent an attitude of the West Papuan people. Does the Minister agree that any solution must include this political voice alongside the central Government of Indonesia? Not only will this give the West Papuans some sense of involvement in their Government, it will also give the independence groups a peaceful means of making themselves heard and, one hopes, go some way to ending the current culture of violence. Does the Minister agree that the Papuan People’s Council must be involved in any negotiation with the Indonesian Government if an adequate solution is to be reached?
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