West Papua's national liberation
THE FOLLOWING article deals with a Philippines. However, over 20 years of conflict that has been largely neglected by armed struggle against the colonial the bourgeois press and even the ambitions of one of imperialism's closest revolutionary left. allies in the region, the Suharto military dictatorship of Indonesia, more than
One reason for this may be that the Free justifies a closer look at this struggle.
Papua Movement (OPM) - the national liberation movement of West Papua, In a forthcoming issue, we will be called "Western New Guinea" by the publishing a longer article on recent colonialists — does not quite fit into the developments in Indonesia.
usual pattern of liberation movements, such as those in Latin America or the MALCOLM GAULT-WILLIAMS
WEST PAPUA
A FTER NEARLY a quarter of a
century living under Indonesian rule, West Papuans (Melanesians inhabiting the western half of the island of New Guinea) are even more resistant to their subjugation than when Indonesia first incorporated West Papua into the Indonesian republic as its 26th province — what Indonesians now call "Irian Jaya."
Over 11,000 refugees have fled across the West Papua/Papua New Guinea border in recent years. The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), an independent international organization based in Denmark, gathers information about worldwide oppression of indigenous peoples. The IWGIA concluded in its 1986 yearbook that, in West Papua, "the refugees have been fleeing from the increased oppression stemming from the occupying forces of Indonesia."
Worse than the numbers of refugees fleeing into Papua New Guinea (PNG) are the estimates of the numbers of West Papuans killed or who have died as a result of Indonesian repression, suppression, or neglect. According to the Indonesian Human Rights Campaign (TAPOL), the number of West Papuan Melanesians killed ranged from 100,000 to 150,000 between 1962 and 1984.1
Without weaponry and high level training from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, West Germany, Australia and Israel, Indonesia would be unable to prolong its mobilizations in West Papua. Indonesia's 1985-86 military development budget was comprised approximately 45% of funding from foreign aid and credits. As an example of the ample aid given, Australian aid to Indonesia's military, ABRI, has 24 averaged $10 million in recent years and " has included Sabre jets, small arms trainInternational Viewpoint #161 • April 17, 1989 movement ing, air navigation training, aircraft maintenance and research and development. Between 1974 and 1984, some 1,032 Indonesian military personnel undertook training and/or study in Australia. Yet, Australia is not Indonesia's major arms supplier. According to Robin Osborne, an Australian journalist who has written much on the plight of the Melanesian people in West Papua, "Indonesia's largest military supplier is the USA" 2
Resistance led by Free
Papua Movement
The resistance to Indonesian occupation is led by the Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka - OPM). The first OPM armed action occurred in Manokwari, in the western end of West Papua, on July 28, 1965. According to Thomas Agaky Wanda, a political refugee quoted in the TAPOL Bulletin 80 (April 1987), other very early actions took place in the Central Highlands in 1965, response to.arrests" made following the Indonesian takeover of administrative control of West Papua from the Dutch in 1964. "Many people fled and formed a unit that attacked an army post in Erambu village Kalimoro...OPM troops, armed with knives, choppers (machetes), and bows and arrows killed two Indonesian soldiers and a government employee."
The Free Papua Movement has surprised most observers and foes alike in its resilience. Even so, the unification of the political and military wings of the OPM took twenty years to achieve. It was on July 11, 1985 that the dual leadership of the resistance movement signed an agreement to fight together, in Port Vila, Vanuatu. The political side of the OPM is headed by
Jacob Prai, closely linked with the Papuan underground, who believes in the self-sufficiency of the struggle and holds as futile the hope of outside aid. Prai is known to have always been against the Indonesian presence in West Papua. Seth Rumkorem, however, was a West Papuan who had been an Indonesian intelligence officer. Rumkorem is in favor of soliciting arms from any country willing to assist the Melanesian people in West Papua.3
The Port Vila Declaration contains a pledge to safeguard the "survival right of the Melanesian race in West Papua. " Further disunity, the two leaders stated, would result in "the obliteration of the Melanesian race in West Papua." 4
The Free Papua Movement's military arm, Papenal — or Pasukan Pembebasan Nasional (National Liberation Forces) - iS organized into seven regional commands, each one consisting of a large number of posts known as basis. According to Jacob Prai, the person in command of each basis takes charge of both military planning and community activity, including population movements where necessary. Women comprise a significant proportion of the troops.
The OPM's most serious logistical problems are the lack of modern weapons and the serious shortage of medicines. The most widely used weapons are bows and arrows, 1. West Papua: The obliteration of a people, TAPOL 1984, p.б. (TAPOL can be contacted in Britain at 111 Northwood Road, Thornton Heath, Croydon, Surrey CR4 8HW.) 2. Indonesia's secret war: The guerrilla struggle in Irian Jaya, Osborne, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, 1985, p.147. 3. "Organisasi Papua Merdeka: The Free Papua Movement lives," Malcolm Gault-Williams, Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol.19, No.4, Oct-Dec 1987, p.37. 4. "The war nobody's told you about: Indonesia in West Papua," Malcolm Gault-Williams, Northern Sun (Minneapolis, USA), Vol.9, No.10, November 1986.
April 17, 1989• #161 International Viewpoint spears, and long, sharp cassowary bones. Most of the firearms are World War II rifles left over from Dutch times, or guns seized from the Indonesian military - the Angkatan Bersenjata Republik Indonesia (ABRI). Seth Rumkorem estimated the number of OPM firearms as only totalling about 300 in 1983. Yet, as reported in the 1984 West Papua TAPOL appendix, on several occasions, Papenal has succeeded in shooting down enemy planes, as documented in captured Indonesian military
Following OPM unity, Indonesia undertook a major military operation codenamed Operasi Sate (Operation Skewered Meat). Highlighting the operation were both attacks on OPM military headquarters and also a program of strategic village control. Operasi Sate was intended to wipeout the Free Papua Movement before the April 1987 elections. In August 1986, F-5 Tiger aircraft carried out a series of aerial attacks lasting four days, to smash Markas Victoria, the mobile OPM command post. The target was not hit, but widespread damage was inflicted on surrounding countryside.
Additionally, restrictions were placed on villagers throughout the northern coastal region. These were strikingly similar to the restrictions imposed on the inhabitants of strategic villages in East Timor, which Indonesia forcibly took over in 1975.
Peter Hiett, a BBC journalist, reported on
Human rights abuses in
West Papua one of the many counter-attacks made by the OPM during this time. Hiett said the Indonesian military station he and other journalists visited in the village of Arso Kota, east of the provincial capital of Jayapura, was well-fortified and armed. "Such facts suggest that the OPM is a substantially greater force in these areas near the border with Papua New Guinea — where the OPM is believed to have its bases — than the authorities would have us believe." 5
The Indonesian aim of the trip by thirteen foreign correspondents was to give them a guided tour of transmigration sites in West Papua, attempting to contradict foreign criticism of the transmigration program. In the December 1986 TAPOL Bulletin Hiett said that following the OPM attack in the Arso Kota area, Indonesian officials were reluctant to take them to a second transmigration site, and that "there was one particular village on the way back to Jayapura that they did not want to pass through in the
And three months earlier, Roman Catholic Bishop of Vanima John Etheridge told the TAPOL Bulletin: "I believe very strongly that there are human rights abuses happening in West Irian, by the Indonesian army and police. I've heard so many stories about the abuses..."
### Whole populations dispossessed of land
The causes of political and social unrest in West Papua extend far beyond the question of persecution of an indigenous people and their self-determination. Whole populations are being dispossessed of land and resettled to make way for both the plundering of their natural resources by a foreign power and the transmigration of Asians — Javanese — on Melanesian soil. W.F. Wertheim has written that "under the present Suharto regime the old myth of an overpopulated Java and the underpopulated Outer Islands appears still to haunt not only the minds of Indonesia's present rulers, but also of those determining the policies of the World Bank and other Western donors of so-called 'Development Aid' cooperating in the IGGI (Inter-Governmental Group on Indonesia)." 6
Specifically, funds are provided by the World Bank. World Food Program, the EEC, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank, West Germany, France, the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Nations Development Pro-
WEST PAPUA gram. Wertheim added that the Indonesian "military power-holders are...intent upon putting the most ambitious targets into practice, being mainly motivated by strategic and security considerations...the transmigrasi strategy, far from being operated in consultation with the people concerned and on a voluntary basis, is both in the area of origin and in the locality of destination largely being effectuated through sheer compulsion and deceit."7
Indonesian plan to move
five million people
Indonesia's 1984-89 five-year plan calls for the movement of five million people from Java, Madura, and Bali specifically to those areas that resist Indonesia's imposed sovereignty: Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, the South Moluccas, East Timor and West Papua. Government figures show that the target of 750,000 families may even be overfulfilled by the end of this year. In 1986-87, 158,333 families were moved — 8,333 above target.
Nonetheless, the World Bank told the Washington-based Environmental Defense Fund, in a letter dated July 29, 1987: "In response to increased awareness of the implementation issues such as those you have raised, and to reduce constraints, targets for new settlements have been reduced from more than 100,000 families per year to 2-3,000 families this year." It remained unclear whether the Bank figure referred to sponsored and/or unsponsored transmigrants. At best, the Bank's letter was highly misleading.
Over the next twenty years, some 65 million more Asians are planned for migration to Javanize the Fourth World territories 5. BBC Despatch, October 28, 1986. Quoted in TAPOL Bulletin 78, December, 1986, p.11. 6. "Transmigrasi: Myths and realities; Indonesian resettlement policy 1965-1985," Mariel Otten, IWGIA Document 57, October 1986, p.1. 7. Ibid, pp.1-2. 8. TAPOL Bulletin 83, October 1987, p.23.
N PHILIPPINES
THAILAND
South China Sea
MALAYSIA o SINGAPORE
SUMATRA
INDONESIA
BRUNEI
S SABAH
Celebes Sea
SARAWAK
KALIMANTAN
CELEBES
Straite
Buru
Java sea
Ujungpandang,
(Makassar)
Hama Sea
Fiores Sea
TIMOR
PACIFIC OCEAN
PAPUA talmahera
NEW
GUINEA.
WEST
PAPUA
(Irian Jaya)
Aratura Sea
25
AUSTRALIA
WEST PAPUA claimed by Indonesia. Robin Osborne has come to the conclusion that "it is now clear that in Irian Jaya the prime aim of the (transmigration) program is to quell local separatist feelings by sheer force of numbers." Osborne has brought attention to the "strong presence of Indonesian military families, many of them retired personnel, amongst transmigrants in the border areas. Reports from Jakarta have spoken of army families being the 'foundation' of many new settlements. Said OPM's northern area commander James Nyaro: 'Don't think of these settlers as ordinary civilians. They are trained military personnel disguised as civilian settlers'" 9
As groups such as Cultural Survival, Survival International, Environmental Defense Fund, TAPOL, and Friends of the Earth, as well as published works in The Ecologist and IWGIA Documents point out, transmigration has not just resettled Javanese, but has resulted in "the spread of poverty; forced displacement of indigenous peoples from their homes, communities and lands; de-forestation and soil damage; destruction of local governments, economies, means of sustainable resource use; forced assimilation programs; widespread use of military force to 'pacify' areas and to break local resistance by bombing and massacring civilians."
While the transmigration process continues - combined with Indonesian repression towards the natural inhabitants — the sense of insecurity in West Papua has created an "unregistered floating mass." John A. MacDougall, editor of the Indonesia Mirror wrote in the October 1987 TAPOL Bulletin of the forcibly returned West Papuans back in Indonesian hands: "many returnees comprise an extensive pool of 'internal refugees' whose existence persists and whose conditions are often perilous in many respects."
Forced repatriation of refugees
The lack of support by the government of Papua New Guinea for the OPM and especially the refugees crossing the border has been striking. While refugee camps have been established (after international pressure was exerted) Papua New Guinea has not been very responsive to the critical life or death needs of the incoming West Papuans. A glaring example of this is the action taken just last May, when PNG authorities airlifted West Papuan refugees out of Blackwater refugee camp, near Vanimo, to Kiunga and then on to East Awin.
The evacuation of Blackwater followed the preposterous claim by Indonesia that the Blackwater refugees were responsible for an attack on a transmigration site inside West Papua. The March 1988 attack had actually been caused by two different translok (transmigrant) groups clashing 26 with one another.°
Papua New Guinea politician Warren International Viewpoint #161 • April 17, 1989
Dutton condemned the relocation of Blackwater refugees to East Awin, believing that the action was taken under strong Indonesian pressure to remove active OPM supporters from an area close to Jayapura and the scene of intense Free Papua Movement activity. The evacuation took place despite representations made last year by Blackwater refugees not to be moved to East Awin. In a declaration in March 1987, Blackwater camp refugees rejected the idea of going to an inland site. The Blackwater refugees are primarily coastal people who are now finding it difficult to integrate with inland people and inland life-styles.
The roots of the refugee situation along the West Papua/PNG border go back sever-
Initially, Papua New Guinea wanted to rid itself of the problem by repatriating the vast majority of refugees. A program of forced repatriation began in 1985 when several groups were forced to return into West Papua. Gerard Thomy, an OPM leader given asylum in Ghana, represented the West Papuan attitude toward repatriation: "They will not return home, and if an attempt is made to return them home, they will disappear into the bush. They know that their villages and gardens were destroyed after they left and they know that we are fighting a war of independence." 11
Strong opponents of relocation
World protest halted this policy and led to the collapse of Michael Somare's government. When the government led by Paias Wingti took office, it decided to accede to the United Nations Convention on Refugees and involved the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in finding a solution. One aspect of the resultant new policy was the relocation of refugees a good distance away from the border. Another aspect provided political asylum for more politically active refugees in Papua New Guinea and overseas.
Yet, relocation had strong opponents, especially in Australia where it was feared that providing long-term accommodation for West Papuans in Papua New Guinea would entice additional masses of West Papuans to cross the border. This was a clear recognition of West Papuan dissatisfaction toward the Indonesian occupiers.
Consequently, Australia withheld funds for relocation, insisting that the UNHCR should instead persuade Indonesia to allow an international agency to monitor the return of refugees back inside West Papua. The assumption was that this would encourage refugees to return home voluntarily. However, Indonesia refused all efforts either by the UNHCR or the International Red Cross to establish a presence in West Papua.12
In October 1986, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea singed a Treaty of Mutual Respect, Friendship and Cooperation.
Under the terms of this long debated treaty, the two countries have agreed not to threaten or use force against one another and not to cooperate with others (that is, the OPM) in hostile or unlawful acts against each other, or allow their territory to be used by others.13
Although Indonesia failed to get Papua New Guinea to agree to joint border patrols and the right of "hot pursuit" for Indonesian troops trying to track down Papenal guerrillas operating within PNG territory, Indonesian military commander Benny Murdani worked out a deal with PNG's BrigadierGeneral Anthony Huai, the commander of the PNG Defense Force (PNGDF), for coordinated action to control security in the border region, especially during the refugee relocation process.
Objective to eliminate the
Free Papua Movement
Murdani's primary aim has been to "sanitize" the border region and ensure close collaboration between the Indonesian armed forces and the PNGDF. This is especially in regard to operations against the OPM, but also includes the exchange of military attachés as the channel for military intelligence exchanges concerning primarily the border region.
Following his March 1986 visit to Jakarta, Huai said that PNG and Indonesian miliauthorities had reached an understanding to pursue the common objective of eliminating the Organisasi Papua Merdeka, which he described a "a bunch of terrorists" that he was resolved to "wipe from the face of the earth." 14
Moses Werror, then acting chair of the OPM's Revolutionary Council in Papua New Guinea, warned Huai to keep out of the Free Papua Movement's struggle against Indonesia. Speaking further on OPM strategy, Werror explained that Papenal's main tactic was to go into Indonesian administrative centers and "to hold the stations as long as possible and capture food, ammunition and weapons." 15
Appointed only that year as commander of OPM forces in the north border region, Bas Mekawa urged Huai to stop "trying to destroy the Melanesian race and impose Asians in the Pacific." The 50-year-old former district chief claimed to be in command of about 7,000 guerrillas in his region. He said they were armed primarily with axes, bows and arrows, spears and clubs, plus a number of rifles. The OPM, he 9. Pacific Islands Monthly, Sydney, July 1984; see also The Guardian, New York, April 13, 1948, and ACFOA Briefing, May 1985, p.6. 10. TAPOL Bulletins 87 & 88, June & August 1988. 11. Interview by Alan Smith in the Papua New Guinea Times, 1986 (exact date unknown). 12. TAPOL Bulletin 87, June 1988, p.2. 13. Niugini Nius, October 28, 1986. 14. "OPM: The world's least-known guerrillas," Malcolm Gault-Williams, September 1986; see also Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol.19, No.4, p.42.
April 17, 1989 • #161 International Viewpoint went on, carries out mobile warfare because it is the only viable strategy against a far better-equipped enemy. "If they knew where we are, they would move in and immediately crush us. That's why we're always moving." 16
New OPM/Indonesian army clashes
Indonesia has wanted to make sure that no refugee camps remain anywhere near the West Papua/PNG border, providing sanctuary and support to the OPM. Blackwater camp has been considered as the most dangerous camp because many political activists lived there, including deserters from ABRI. The Indonesian army still smarts from the humiliating blow struck by Blackwater refugees in October 1984, when visiting upper-level Indonesian officials were forced to beat a hasty retreat because angry West Papuan refugees greeted them with a hail of rocks.!?
Following documented Indonesian financing of sympathetic PNG political parties' election campaigns in 1987, Huai was sacked as the Defense Force commander for making unauthorized visits to Jakarta, receiving gifts from Indonesia's Murdani, and for leaking details to him about the Joint Declaration of Principles between Papua New Guinea and Australia.
There are reports of renewed fighting in West Papua between the Free Papua Movement and the Indonesian army. According to reports in the PNG press, heavy fighting took place in Sarmi sub-district, west of Jayapura (the territorial capital) and in the highland sub-districts of Paniai and Nabire. A Papenal military leader, Mathias Wenda, regional commander in Jayapura, spoke of fighting in several places causing the deaths of more than 150 people.1
The heightened level of activity has been accompanied by widespread arrests. Many people held for varying periods within the last 20 years have been re-arrested and subjected to interrogation and maltreatment. There were also reports in the local press in April and May last year of more Melanesians fleeing across the border, into Papua New Guinea from Komovai and Bewani. The adults are being charged with illegal
The Indonesian army has been trying — for the past 22 years — to crush Free Papua Movement operations in West Biak. The West Biak OPM is led by Melkianus Awom, known by his nom-de-guerre as Konsup (Komandan Superiori). Operation Clean-Out (Operasi Sapu) is meant to succeed where the previous operation, Operasi
The chief target in this latest operation is kampung dwellers in the countryside who are suspected of supporting the guerrillas and supplying them with food. Their sago stands and gardens have been cut down and burnt. By depriving the Papenal guerrillas of food, the Indonesian hope is that they will give up the military struggle. To put further pressure on Melkianus, the Indonesians have arrested his wife and children. The district military command in the town of Biak hopes to force Konsup to surrender, thereby demoralizing the OPM in West
As a result of Operation Clean-Out, kampung dwellers are now facing severe food shortages due to their great dependency on their local sago stands and food gardens. Forbidden to hunt or gather food in the forest for fear of their making contact with OPM fighters, the villagers are suffering under the Indonesian policy of systematic pressure, intimidation, and denial of essential food production.
There is actually nothing new about these operations. One such — Operasi Pamungkas (Operation of Extermination) launched in the early 1970s. The operation was then concentrated in Bird's Head and North Biak, which was at the time a base area for Melkianus Awom and his fighters. The Indonesian military, equipped with modern weapons against a core group of 167 OPM guerrillas — who had no more than 15 firearms between them - inflicted many losses on the Free Papua Movement.
Melkianus Awom is the brother of Ferry Awom, the renowned founder and original leader of the OPM. Melkianus fought side by side with his brother - "The father of the OPM" — and other leaders like Lodewijk and Barend Mandatjan when the Movement first launched the armed struggle in Manokwari in 1965. All these leaders were captured and killed
Twenty-three years of liberation struggle
Before continuing the armed struggle in Cendrawasih Bay region, Awom and Zacharias Kafiar undertook a dangerous and historic mission. Travelling be sea to Wutung, Papua New Guinea, Melkianus and Zacharias submitted documents setting out the aims and ideals of the OPM to Australian government officials for forwarding to the United Nations. After accomplishing their mission, the two West Papuans returned home and have been leading the OPM struggle in West and North Biak ever since. The struggle continues in its twenty-third year without any political or material help from abroad (Vanuatu is the only nation that recognizes the Free Papua Movement).
Jacob Prai has said that Indonesia's presence in West Papua "ensures the OPM's continued existence....The behaviour of the military guarantees the growth of the OPM despite the dangers and difficulties of maintaining such an organization. Everyone backs us against the alien Indonesians and we have thousands of active sup-
During the first OPM mission ever to visit Australia, in November and December of 1986, the Free Papua Movement represen-
WEST PAPUA tatives Jacob Prai, Otto Ondowame and Nick Messet asked the Australian government to:
• Discuss with Indonesia human rights claims by the OPM-FPM, and also put these claims to the United Nations Human Rights Commission;
• Support the UN High Commission for Refugees in resettling West Papuan refugees;
• Assist refugees in camps with medical, welfare, and educational aid - including a scholarship program;
• Seek at the United Nations a thorough re-examination of the 1969 so-called "Act of Self-Determination," with a view to a "timetable for independence being determined by the UN's Decolonization Committee. " 20
"The new 'Ulster" in our part of the world"
Sir Garfield Barwick, a leading architect of the transfer of West Papua from Dutch to Indonesian hands in the early 1960s, has stated that the developments within the western half of the island of New Guinea did not surprise him at all. "It is the new 'Ulster' in our part of the world." He indicated that he, like other diplomats involved at transfer time, always suspected that the Asian-stock Indonesians would treat the Melanesians badly. Osborne noted in Secret War:
"What Barwick had underestimated was the ability of West Papuans to fight back and the reluctance of PNG's indigenous leadership to seal the historically disastrous border." 21
Worldwide ignorance of West Papuan colonization by Indonesia, the nature of the repression, and the degree of resistance has made it possible for Indonesia to proceed with its destruction of native Papuan life largely unhampered by international condemnation.
By their complicity and acquiescence, most Western countries have lent their support to the atrocious crimes and the deaths of over 150,000 West Papuans at the hands of the Indonesian military.
Should the present situation continue, the cultural extermination of the Melanesian people inhabiting West Papua is certain. There is some hope, however, that by bringing the plight of West Papuans to the attention of increasing numbers of people, the Organisasi Papua Merdeka will, in enough time, muster the international support necessary to facilitate Melanesian expressions of what the West Papuans themselves wish for the future of their land. * 16. Ibid. 17. TAPOL Bulletin 66, November 1984. 18. Post Courier, May 2, 1988. 19. The Australian, November 25, 1986. 20. TAPOL Bulletin 80, April 1987. 27 21. Osbore idem, p.189.