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"

A documentary film about a mountain ethnic group in South East Asia, the Prisoners of a White God, tells the story about a researcher, who investigates the activities of christian missionaries and international development among the Akha peoples.
Prisoners of a White God received the Grand Prixes at RAFF Film Festival, at Ecofilm Festival, at Festival of the Mountain Films, at "It's Up To You" Film Festival and the Main Prize at Ekotopfilm in 2008!

Coast to Coast across the United States for Akha Human Rights

(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.

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

The Indigenous Portal is an outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS . WSIS was a two-phase series, United Nations (UN) sponsored summit about information and communication. The Geneva Summit in December 2003 laid the foundations with a Declaration of Principles and a plan of action. The Tunis Summit aimed to monitor and evaluate progress on the action plan and devise an agenda that will target goals for achievement by 2015. From these events came the WSIS Declaration and Plan of Action, as well as the Declaration and Plan of Action of the Global Forum of Indigenous Peoples and the Information Society.

The ongoing logging of the state forests in northern Finland for years has reached now the potential to wipe out very soon the Saami reindeer herding economy. The film describes the deforestation in Finland and the extinction of the Saami culture. Interviews with Pekka Aikio, former president of the Saami council and Kalevi Padaar, Saami activist.