fPcN interCultural:

friends of Peoples close to Nature

This is the 56th in a series of monthly reports that focus on developments affecting Papuans. This series is produced by the non-profit West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) drawing on media accounts, other NGO assessments, and analysis and reporting from sources within West Papua. This report is co-published with the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) Back issues are posted online at http://etan.org/issues/wpapua/default.htm. Questions regarding this report can be addressed to Edmund McWilliams at edmcw@msn.com.

Summary:
A major earthquake struck near Manokwari January 4 killing at least 5 and injuring many. The city airport was rendered unusable by damage to the runway and electricity was also cut. An Australian medical journal has drawn on reporting by other peer-reviewed medical journal, media and NGO reporting to compile a detailed account of the growing humanitarian crisis confronting Papuans. Another report by an Australian NGO describes an early December assault on members of a Nabire church congregation that was engaged in a peaceful dissent. Indonesian police have arrested another peaceful rights advocate, Sebby Sambom, who at the time of his arrest was calling for the release from police detention of Buchtar Tabuni, now in custody for peaceful dissent activity. Tempo magazine describes the limited weaponry available to the armed resistance in West Papua, and the growth in its place of nonviolent struggle for rights by Papuans. Notwithstanding this development, the Indonesian military maintains a large, unjustifiable presence in West Papua. A report details the various groupings among Papuans struggling for their political rights. The massive Freeport McMoran mine has fallen on hard times with deflated copper prices necessitating cutbacks in personnel. Notwithstanding the cutbacks, Freeport, as noted by an Australian medical journal, continues to have a devastating impact on West Papua's environment and the health of Papuans. In the U.S., several NGOs held meetings with U.S. Congressional offices and the U.S. State Department to raise human rights and humanitarian concerns related to West Papua, noting in passing, that "Special Autonomy" is a failed option in the view of most Papuans. In a final commentary, WPAT notes that the failure of Indonesian courts to convict a retired senior TNI officer for his central role in the 2004 murder of leading human rights advocate Munir has dire implications for all human rights defenders in Indonesia, especially in West Papua.

Contents:
*Major Earthquake Strikes Near Manokwari*
*Australian Medical Journal Describes Dearth of Healthcare Infrastructure in West Papua and Alarming Health Data*
*Police Shoot and Beat Papuans in Church Dispute*
*Military Occupation of West Papua Continues Despite Absence of Security Threat*
*One Star or Fourteen?*
* Freeport McMoran, Facing Dire Financial Straits*
*ETAN Urges Restrictions on Any Assistance to TNI Noting Especially TNI Abuses in West Papua*
*NGO's Meet with Congressional Offices and State Department Regarding West Papua*
*Failure to Convict in Munir Killing Has Dire Implications for All Indonesian Human Rights Advocates"

With the renewed illegal logging activities in Sierra Madre, a Church-based watchdog urged Environment Secretary Joselito Atienza to heed their long-time call for the formation of an independent citizen's probe body to stop the rape of the country's remaining virgin forest.

"Illegal loggers never stop even during the Yuletide season. The forest criminals continue their evil operations with impunity," Fr. Pete Montallana, chair of Task Force Sierra Madre, said over the phone Tuesday.

(some names and data are replaced with XXX for security reasons!)
I just wanted to send through a quick update on the situation in West Papua. I just arrived after spending the last 8 weeks (November and December 2008) there making an undercover documentary with a friend. We managed to smuggle alot of very powerful video footage out of the country, and come back with a very strong message from the people of West Papua - their desire for freedom and readiness to act by whichever means to achieve it is burning more brightly now than at anytime in recent history. Below is a brief summary of our trip and our time at an OPM (the West Papuan guerilla force) training camp in the XXX region.

We are the victims of an integral plan of aggression that clearly emanates from all the armed actors operating in our territories. In the name of the struggle of the people for a country without owners, we reject these actions, come from where they may! We call your attention to events that occurred on Saturday, December 13th, in the mountain of Munchique de los Tigres, in northern Cauca, where the small shed housing the transmission equipment and the antenna of ACIN’s community station Radio Pa’yumat was ransacked and damaged. The perpetrators stole the copper wires that protect the equipment, causing severe technical damage in all the transmission equipment of Radio Pa’yumat, the voice of the Nasa people.

At the 'car wash'...modernity and traditional culture collide in the Baliem Valley.

The "car wash" in the remote Baliem Valley of Indonesia's Papua region is not as innocent as it seems at first glance, and just decades ago anything like it would have been inconceivable.

A fertile basin gouged out of jagged mountains, the valley has been in contact with the outside world only since the end of World War II. Everything, from clothing to metal, money and medicine is new here.

At the "car wash" on a quiet intersection in Wamena town, homeless men and boys from the villages squat by the roadside in the midday sun, drinking and waiting for cars and motorcycles to roll up.

Washing the cars brings in some money, but the real money comes from sex with the drivers. Seeing a camera, the workers point and laugh at friends lying drunk and unconscious on the ground.

It is with great sadness that today, the 60th Anniversary of the adoption of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, some States have denied indigenous peoples of their rights at the 14th Conference of Parties of the UNFCCC.

This morning indigenous peoples were shocked to see the final version of the Draft Conclusions on Agenda Item 5: Reducing emissions from deforestation in developing countries: approaches to stimulate action, of the 29th Session of Subsidiary Body for Scientific and Technological Advice (SBSTA). This Document (FCCC/SBSTA/2008/L.23) removed any references to rights of indigenous peoples and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). This move was spearheaded by the same States (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the USA) which voted against the adoption of the UNDRIP by the UN General Assembly last 13 Sept. 2008.

This is the 55th in a series of monthly reports that focus on developments affecting Papuans. This series is produced by the non-profit West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) drawing on media accounts, other NGO assessments, and analysis and reporting from sources within West Papua. This report is co-published with the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) Back issues are posted online at http://etan.org/issues/wpapua/default.htm Questions regarding this report can be addressed to Edmund McWilliams at edmcw@msn.com.

Contents:
* Thousands of Papuans Demonstrate Peacefully, Calling for Independence
* Papuan Academics call for a Human Rights Court and Reconciliation Commission for West Papua
* Papuans Peacefully Demonstrate against Militarism
* Secession Threats Raised in West Papua and Elsewhere over Passage of Islamic Law-Based Legislation
* Papuan Governor Suebu to Launch Anti-HIV/AIDS Campaign as the Disease Spreads Explosively in West Papua
* Papuan Governor Suebu Describes "Special Autonomy" Implementation as "Chaotic"
* National Seminar Discusses "Marginalization" of Papuans; Racism Cited as An Underlying Cause

ETAN Responds to the Wall Street Journal

by John M. Miller (National Coordinator, ETAN)

A recent Wall Street Journal Asia editorial urged its readers to watch the “low-profile” but important issue of the U. S. military relationship with Indonesia. The Journal (“Obama's Indonesia Test,” Nov. 20) repeated the widely-discredited case that re-engagement with the largely-unreformed and unrepentant Indonesian military was the best way to promote reform and human rights. It called on President-elect Barack Obama “to stand down liberal Senators and interest groups” like the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) and Amnesty International for seeking conditions on military assistance to Indonesia.

The editorial acknowledges the obvious, stating “Indonesia's military has certainly had human-rights problems in the past,” but urges the incoming administration to forget about them in the name of building an alliance on the “global war on terror.” We have certainly seen what ignoring international human rights concerns during the Bush years has accomplished (Guantanamo, torture, “extraordinary rendition,” etc…).

The West Papuan community and their supporters in Australia are holding grave fears for the safety of Yunus and Anike Wainggai. We have reasonable suspicion that their disappearance is linked to an ongoing and high-level Indonesian intelligence operation involving the disappearance of other refugees. Anike and Yunus, went missing from their public housing flat in Collingwood Melbourne on Saturday 15 November 2008.

The Lani Singers interview and music that went out on BBC Radio 3, in September 2008

This is the 54th in a series of monthly reports that focus on developments affecting Papuans This series is produced by the non-profit West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) drawing on media accounts, other NGO assessments and analysis and reporting from sources within West Papua. This report is co-published by the East Timor and Indonesian Action Network (ETAN) Back issues are posted online at http://etan.org/issues/wpapua/default.htm Questions regarding this report can be addressed to Edmund McWilliams at edmcw@msn.com.

Summary:
* International Parliamentarian Group (IPWP) Concerned about West Papua Convenes in London
* Peaceful Papuans Beaten, Detained for Welcoming Launch of IPWP; Indonesian Parliamentarians Protest Launch
* Papuan Religious Leaders Call for Dialogue between Papuans and Jakarta over Fraudulent 1969 "Act of Free Choice"
* Greenpeace Calls for Moratorium on Logging in West Papua*
* The Failure of TNI "Reform"
* U.S. Academic Testimony to US Congress Regarding Impact of Freeport Operations on The Papuan People

Indigenous representatives marginalized...
From the article below: The Indigenous Peoples Caucus, which represents the accredited indigenous observers at the WIPO IGC, wanted to make an intervention during this morning plenary session, but was unable to do so. Negotiations then moved to informal meetings (also excluding NGOs) that changed the course of the meeting.
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Indigenous People Seek Recognition At WIPO Meeting On Their Rights

The United Nations Fourth Committee has rejected by a vote of 61 - 40 the attempt, made through a draft resolution at the last decolonization Committee of 24 seminar, to include a specific exclusion of territories affected by a sovereignty dispute, such as the Falkland Islands and Gibraltar, from the omnibus resolution that reaffirms inalienable right of self-determination of 11 territories.

An elected Legislative Council rules over the Falklands internal affairs.

The territories directly affected are American Samoa, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Guam, Montserrat, Pitcairn, Saint Helena and Turks and Caicos Islands.

This documentary reveals Canada's darkest secret - the deliberate extermination of indigenous (Native American) peoples and the theft of their land under the guise of religion. This never before told history as seen through the eyes of this former minister (Kevin Annett) who blew the whistle on his own church, after he learned of thousands of murders in its Indian Residential Schools

ress Release: for immediate release & circulation
INTERNATIONAL PARLIAMENTARIANS FOR WEST PAPUA

At the Houses of Commons, London on 15th October 2008 at 3pm, will be the launch event for a historical international gathering of Parliamentarians, in support of self determination for the native people of West Papua.

Exiled West Papuan independence leader Benny Wenda will be joined by Melanesians & Parliamentarians from across the world for the launch of 'International Parliamentarians for West Papua'.

Please assemble in Parliament Square for 2pm.