In other words Benny Wenda would be nothing more than a ‘rebel without a cause’, and that would not suit his powerful foreign backers who seem to be more interested in using whatever grievances there may exist in the Indonesian Papuan provinces as a stick to hit the Indonesian Government and the Republic of Indonesia than in assisting in solving such grievances peacefully constitutionally at local and central level.

Benny Wenda is a secessionist who wants to achieve the secession of the Indonesian Papuan provinces to become independent by physical force, but in a classical tactic of any militant nationalist leader he will use social and economic issues such as a strike as an argument, and if possible as a tool to justify his own armed secessionist fight.

The Freeport strike is an industrial dispute about wages and like anywhere else in the world with rising food prices etc emotions run high and demonstrations can turn into violent confrontations with the police.

In one of such confrontations one man is tragically killed, but in a confrontation with local police in Papua, not at the hand of Indonesian troops as Wenda states in the Guardian of 12 October.

In Europe, including in the United Kingdom, there haven been recently numerous demonstrations about cuts, austerity measures, increases for fees for students etc, some ending in violent clashes with police, and occasionally people have tragically died, but the authorities in these democratic countries have responded with investigations, some of which have led to prosecutions of the police officer or officers responsible for these deaths.

Things in Indonesia as a democracy are not different; Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered an investigation into the death and wounding of several other protesters and has been quoted in the Jakarta Post of 12 October that those police officers who are found to have breached the rules should be punished.

Separately Indonesian human rights organisations have asked for the Indonesian Government to intervene to help to negotiate a peaceful solution to the industrial dispute between 8000 striking Freeport miners and Freeport as it has led to violence in which one protester has died.

This narrative, however, does not suit Benny Wenda and his foreign supporters such as the so called ‘International Lawyers for West Papua’ (ILWP) who continue to regurgitate un- and half truths about the role of the Papuan provinces in the history of Indonesian decolonisation from its former Dutch colonial rules.

These provinces were an integral part of the former Netherlands East Indies (NEI) and when Indonesian independence was proclaimed on 17 August 1945 the Republic of Indonesia was the natural successor state to the NEI, but under pressure of reactionary Dutch colonial interests successive Dutch governments held on unilaterally and illegally to the former colonial territories on the western part of the island of New Guinea that has been part of the NEI until hostilities resumed between the Netherlands and Indonesia in the early 1960s and the UN intervened and recognised in principle Indonesian authority over these territories pending a plebiscite.

Indeed the 1969 Act of Free Choice may not have been perfect but so were many other things in Indonesia of that time, though now Indonesia has moved on and is democratic just like the UK and just like the UK it may not be perfect with room for improvement.

Foreign journalists do indeed need permission to visit the Indonesian Papuan provinces but that is because a small band of Benny Wenda’s comrades carry on a low intensity armed insurgency in support of their secessionist aims.

The question the members of the ILWP should ask themselves is whether they are genuinely concerned with combating these alleged human rights abuses and want to assist in a peaceful solution to any Papuan grievances or whether they are more interested in supporting the minority but armed Papuan secessionist movement with spurious legalistic arguments based on historical misinterpretation and so perpetuate from their side a climate of insurgency and counter insurgency in which such abuses can occur?

Ms Robinson seems to express outrage simultaneously in her opening sentence of being “unjustifiable targeted” by the “Wikileaks Threat” list and of being left off the Indonesian watch list for what she calls ‘West Papua’, as she obviously does not refer to the province of the same name but as a territorial geographical name for the western, Indonesian part of the island of New Guinea.

She seems a bit like the ‘new feminist’ who expresses disgust at the same time about builders’ wolf whistles’ and about not being noticed by the builders around the corner.

An activist’s ‘street cred’ depends on how much he or she is being regarded as a threat and despite protestations about being on ‘watch lists’ etc to be left off appears to be worse and one could quote Shakespeare that ‘the Lady protests too much’ if her usual allegations about Papua were not so serious.

Leave alone the question of her uncorroborated allegations or whether Benny Wenda, living in exile in the UK, was a ‘political prisoner’ and can be called an ‘independence leader’, Ms Robinson falls back on what seems to have become the weapon of last resort to draw attention to a conflict or insurgency with ethnic and cultural aspects which in the activist’s eyes does not get the global attention the activist believes it deserves by calling it a ‘genocide’.

Stung by a US Embassy cable of 2006, published recently by Wikileaks, dismissing claims of genocide, gross human rights violations and environmental destruction in Papua as “dramatic and vague” she appears to want to follow the example of the US based ‘Save Darfur’ campaign proclaiming the Darfur situation a ‘genocide’ to gain more global support for the secessionist campaign in Indonesian Papua by proclaiming the situation a ‘genocide’.

Like the ‘Save Darfur’ campaign and as a lawyer Ms Robinson knows very well that the consequence of declaring a situation a genocide is the obligation on the international community, whether through the UN or not, to intervene, though the world has become quite suspicious of ‘humanitarian interventions’.

Furthermore there is the serious question whether the usage of ‘genocide’ as a hyperbole is not demeaning the victims of historical genocides such as in Europe and Asia during WWII.

It must indeed frustrating for Ms Robinson to note that her fellow Australians are just like the Brits of her new place of residence more interested in furry animals.

What a pity then for her that orang utan only inhabit Sumatra and Kalimantan and not Papua, though Ms Robinson should note that when some activists began to speak about a ‘genocide’ of orang utan they were condemned for this hyperbole and lost all credibility.

Indonesia`s easternmost province of Papua will this year again organize a Lake Sentani Festival (FDS in a bid to preserve its unique and traditional arts.

The land of “Cendrawasih” (Bird of Paradise) is really blessed with an abundance of natural resources and unparalleled culture and traditional arts that have to be maintained.

In this light the preservation and promotion of Papua`s culture and traditional arts are made through the Lake Sentani Festival that has been organized three times in three consecutive years from 2008-2010, and the fourth will be staged from June 19-23, 2011.

Themed “Love, Peace, and Harmony,” the festival will feature various art and cultural activities and attractions.

FDS 2011 organizing committee chairperson Anna Sawai said in Jayapura over the weekend that the annual event held for the first time in 2008 would be enlivened by a variety of both local and national cultural activities.

“The Lake Sentani Festival this year will be the fourth and certainly we have to make better preparations to make the event a great success and to give the best possible service to the visitors,” Anna said.

According to her, the Lake Sentani Festival would be highlighted by various activities such as cultural performances, a cultural exhibition, economic products exhibition, local typical culinary exhibition, tours, water sports competitions, and cultural seminars.

Anna said that traditional dances, colossal attraction of flute and drum, and folk songs would be introduced for five consecutive days during the festival.

While in the cultural exhibition, the cultural items from Papua ethnic community in Tabi, sculptures, paintings, literature, and history with their documentary films would be displayed.

“Besides, there will be typical culinary exhibition and various water sports competition for the visitors because in principle we want to give them our best possible services during the festival this time,” Anna said, adding that the festival would be centered at Kalkhote tourist resort near Lake Sentani in Jayapura district.

The central and regional governments have already made various effort to improve the local people`s standard of living and preserve the province`s resources and cultural heritage but so far without optimal results.

No wonder Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu once said the abundance of traditional art potential in the province needed serious attention and the gentle touch of professional and skilled hands.

Suebu said skilled and professional people with a vision of the future were encouraged to explore, develop, and save the plenteous Papua traditions and cultural arts from extinction.

“Not only that, Papuan traditional arts really have precious market value, and they also support the future of the province`s tourism sector without the risk of losing their specific characteristics,” the governor said.

Papua is actually rich in traditional arts but unfortunately it lacks human resources to develop them. “Therefore it should be our common consideration and awareness as Papuan ethnic community to save our own cultural heritage,” Governor Suebu said.

According to the Lake Sentani Festival committee chairperson, various traditional dances of Papua have been prepared to jazz up the event from June 19-23 this year.

“Clad in bark and leaves, thousands of male and female dancers of Papua origin are ready to entertain the participants and visitors of the 4th Lake Sentani cultural festival,” Anna said in Jayapura on Wednesday.

She said various preparations and the trainings of cultural attractions from Jayapura in particular and Papua in general to make the event a great success have been made since the beginning of this year.

At the opening ceremony of the festival at Kalkote resort on the side of Lane Sentani, Anna said the participants and visitors would be awed by the beauty of Lake Sentani and entertained by the traditional dances found nowhere else in the world.

“Just like the previous festivals, the shouts and cheers of thousands of Papua traditional dancers will reverberate the atmosphere of Kalkote resort as the center of Lake Sentani Festival 2011,” Anna said.

Anna said the great annual cultural event was intended to support the government`s program in tourism sector and to preserve the local cultural values to enrich the national cultural treasure.

“The objective of FDS 2011 is to lift and preserve Papuan indigenous cultural values, packaged in such a way for both domestic and foreign tourists,” Anna said.

Meanwhile, Jayapura district head Habel Melkias Suwae said the festival was also intended to make Jayapura district a reliable national and international tourist destination in Indonesia.

“Through the annual Lake Sentani Festival, we will introduce both domestic and foreign tourists with Jayapura district cultural potential and other tourism objects in our bid to step up tourism industrial development here,” Habel said.

To reach the goal, Habel said the great annual cultural event of Lake Sentani Festival this year would be conducted with three main concepts namely performances, exhibition and tour package.

“In addition, the festival will be a perfect event for us to promote trade and investment in various sectors such as mining, forestry, fishery, agriculture, and tourism,” Habel said.

He added that the festival this year was themed “Love, Peace and Harmony” as an expression of the local community`s cultural identity.

From July 16 to 19 in 2008, the Papua Tourism Office organized the first Lake Sentani Festival to support the annual Lembah Baliem Festival in Jayawijaya district.

Since then, the LSF was held as an effort to protect the culture of Jayapura district, especially at the areas around Lake Sentani.

Located some 75 meters above sea level and surrounded by beautiful hills, the 3.63-hectare Lake Sentani is a perfect place for fishing, swimming, canoeing, skiing, and other kinds of water sports.

Therefore, Lake Sentani Festival in 2010 which was themed “Loving Culture for Our Future” served as a year-long gateway for the tourism industry in Jayapura district specifically and in Papua province in general.

Source: Antara News

Dina indrasafitri, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sun, 05/08/2011 9:30 AM | National

Transportation Minister Freddy Numberi said on Saturday that the crash of a Merpati plane in West Papua on Saturday was more likely caused by bad weather rather than technical glitches.

“Even if the plane is new, it’s no guarantee [that the flight will be accident free],” he said in Jakarta.

Freddy acknowledged that he rarely heard of any problems among Merpati’s operating planes, which lead to the assumption that it was more likely bad weather that caused the tragedy.

The Merpati MA 60 airplane, heading from Sorong to Nadire, crashed into the sea 500 meters from the runway of Utarung Kaimana Airport in West Papua.

Freddy said an investigation was still under way.

“The current explanation is that the plane’s wing broke and the plane was lost into the sea,” he said.

Of the 27 on board, there were 21 passengers, two pilots, two technicians and two cabin crew members. 18 of the passengers were adults, two were children and one was an infant.

Currently, the remains of 16 of the 27 have been found. (Swd)

Today Indonesia is democracy, West Papua just like Jakarta, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Lampung, Sumatra, and many other provinces can strongly build itself a s a land of song.

Sadly, some opportunist idler like Jay Griffiths, Dominic Brown and an escaped muderer like Benny Wenda are continuing to spread lies in the UK. Please be careful with their demonic propaganda to provoke bloody conflict in the peaceful land of Papua.

Source : Papua Story

Source : Papua Story

On September 20, 2002, Supreme Judiciary of Jayapura issued the letter of accusation on Benny Wenda by indictment of having two state passports (Indonesia and PNG), organizing bleeding attack of Abepura on 6-7 December 2000,and organizing attack of police station and TNI in Papua. Since his escape from prison within detention process makes Benny Wenda to be hunted “WANTED” NCB of Indonesia Interpol due to murder case.

Source : Interpol

Imagine 400 football fields of trees disappearing during the duration of a soccer match. That was the rate of deforestation in Indonesia just a few years ago, between 2000 and 2006.

After bans by European countries on imports of illegally logged timber products, the rate of destruction has halved – to about 1 million hectares a year. But this is still considered high, and urgent action is needed, say researchers, analysts and environmental activists. If nothing is done, Indonesia’s unprotected natural forests will be depleted in about 35 years, said Bustar Maitar of Greenpeace Indonesia.

The consequences have been stark. In the 1950s, over 85 percent of the country was forested land. Today, it is down to under 47 per cent, according to World Bank figures.

Forests are a source of fresh oxygen. The trees and the soil under them also absorb a huge amount of climate-warming carbon dioxide. When large swathes of forests are felled, the chemical exchanges are disrupted, the locked-in carbon is released into the atmosphere, and climate change is sped up.

In 2007, local NGO Pelangi Energi Abadi Citra Enviro – whose report was funded by the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development – ranked Indonesia as the third largest carbon emitter in the world, after the US and China.

Most of Indonesia’s deforestation occurs in areas like Jambi, South Sumatra, West and Central Kalimantan, Riau, and Papua in East Indonesia.

Activists say there is no accurate map showing the extent of the deforestation because of incomplete information given by local provinces, and the inaccessibility of the archipelago’s remote and rugged terrain. Satellite imagery is also hindered by heavy cloud cover throughout the year.

But what is clear is that deforestation began as early as the 1960s, when the export of timber was seen as a quick way of bringing in revenue. With few regulations, illegal logging soon grew out of hand, said Dr Maria Monica Wihardja, an associate research fellow at Indonesia’s Center for International and Strategic Studies.

By the late 1990s, an estimated three million hectares of forest land were being cleared each year, said Dr Krystof Obidzinski at the Centre for International Forestry Research. Decentralized approval of land permits and rampant corruption made it harder to stop runaway forest destruction. Also, large- scale clearing by fire, with its resulting haze, added to the environmental damage.

The cost has manifested itself in other ways.

Animal life has been affected. For example, reports estimated the number of orangutans in Borneo has dropped by over half in the past 60 years, with the loss of their habitat. In Sumatra, their number is just one-fifth of what it was 75 years ago.

At least 78 rivers have reportedly been polluted by activities from palm oil plantations that displaced the forests, disrupting the supply of water to those living nearby.

“There have been cases of increased flooding in some areas which previously had forests because plantations do not have water retention ability like the forest trees,” said Dr Krystof.

Mass logging by timber companies and oil palm plantations has also displaced the Orang Rimba people who live in Sumatra’s Jambi forest. With their homes gone, they have had to be relocated to a state-controlled park.

Jakarta has sought to rein in the problem by amending forestry regulations several times since the 1980s. But experts say these efforts are being undercut by strong lobby groups, corruption, loopholes in the law, and simply, a lack of monitoring and implementation.

A Human Rights Watch report released last month estimated that Indonesia lost $2 billion year from 2003 to 2006 to illegal logging, unpaid taxes as well as hidden subsidies for timber companies. That figure did not include the billions likely lost each year from unreported timber smuggled abroad.

Surging prices for coal and other minerals have also intensified pressure to clear more forest land for mining, said Dr Maria.

Lax law enforcement is also making efforts to save Indonesia’s forests harder. A Chatham House report last July noted that while Indonesia has made great improvement in cracking down on illegal logging, enforcement has been poor, with only a quarter of illegal logging cases successfully prosecuted.

A renewed effort is under way to preserve forest lands through a United Nations scheme called Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation).

Through Redd, Norway has pledged to give Indonesia up to $1 billion if it can prove a reduction in its carbon emissions and halt deforestation.

How successful it will be is still unclear, given the complex network of economic conditions influencing deforestation, the multiple stakeholders involved, and the perennial problem of corruption.

Said the Nature Conservancy’s Dr Dicky Simorangki: “People are still struggling to understand how it works. There has to be an institutional framework, legal mechanisms as well as administrative ones, and a decision over who gets what in the financial incentives.”

Dr Krystof said: “It’s a good concept, but let’s see how well and how far it can be implemented.”

Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 2553 5055.

Papuan community leader and city councilor Athanasius Allo Rafra has welcomed the government plan to establish a taskforce in March in a bid to accelerate development in Papua and West Papua provinces.

“I support the establishment of the taskforce because the development of Papua and West Papua has progressed at a snail’s pace,” said Allo Rafra on Wednesday.

The taskforce (UP4B) would work to make sure the development of the provinces is conducted in line with government and community priorities.

Allo lamented that budget allocations in both provinces had been squandered because of unclear guidelines on development priorities.

“It isn’t clear where the priorities lie, whether it is in infrastructure, education, health or other sectors,” he said.

Allo said he hoped the taskforce would perform a similar function as the taskforce that helped Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam and Nias provinces to recover after the earthquake and tsunami.

He called on the central government to strictly supervise all development activities in Papua and West Papua to avoid misuse of the state budget.

Source: The Jakarta Post

Vice President Boediono will lead a meeting of 22 ministers in his office to discuss accelerating development in Papua on Monday.

In attendance are expected to be the National Education Minister, the Health Minister, the Home Affairs Minister, the Public Works Minister, the Industry Minister, the Trade Minister, the Law and Human Rights Minister, the Agriculture Minister and the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister.

“This follow-up meeting will discuss the concept and design of the presidential decree on the acceleration of development in Papua and West Papua,  Beodiono’s spokesman, Yopie Hidayat said, as reported by kompas.com news portal.

Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu and West Papua Governor Abraham O will not attend the meeting since the pair was at a meeting at the presidential office on the same subject in January.

The solar-wind hybrid power system has a capacity of one MW and it consists of solar panels producing 800 W of energy and a wind turbine generating 200 W of energy. The power system was constructed on Mansiman Island in Manokwari district.

A climate and energy campaigner of Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Arif Fiyanto stated that the reason to select the island to house the project was, as only 32% of its population has access to electric power. Greenpeace would educate the inhabitants about the management and maintenance of the new power systems prior to presenting them to a broader area, he added.

Arif further said that Indonesia has a geothermal power potential of 28 GW whereas only 3% of that was explored by the nation. The government is required to be more involved for the development renewable energy in the region, he added.

Source: cleantech

But Scher added: “We do see that there was progress in the fact that this was a trial that was conducted quickly” and was “open and transparent.”

“This is not something that one could imagine happening just a few years ago,” Scher, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, said at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think-tank.

“I think there is still work to be done and clearly, as noted, we are concerned by the sentences,” he said, adding that the United States was raising the case with Indonesia.

President Barack Obama’s administration has put a priority on developing relations with Indonesia, believing the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation can offer a model due to its commitment to democracy and moderation.

“We’re in a pretty good position with Indonesia. Indonesia’s a critically important country for us,” Scher said, calling the archipelago an “emerging global player.”

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced in Jakarta in July that the United States would lift a 12-year suspension of contacts with Kopassus, the elite special unit accused of widespread abuse, mostly under military strongman Suharto’s rule which ended in 1998.

In last year’s video posted on YouTube, the soldiers were seen inflicting a burning stick on the genitals of an unarmed man and threatening another with a knife as they interrogated them about the location of a weapons cache.

Papua, the ethnic Melanesian-majority western half of New Guinea island, has witnessed a low-intensity conflict for decades since a fair vote by representative tribal leaders to incorporate into Indonesia.

Having officially assumed the chairmanship of ASEAN, Indonesia brings forth an agenda of making ASEAN a people-centered community. This has proved that the widely held cynicism that views ASEAN as merely a forum for the Southeast Asia’s government elites is baseless.

But what does this new approach really mean? What then is the role played by the government elites and notably the ASEAN Secretariat? And, with a very specific interest, does will the new agenda have any impact on Papua?

Indonesia’s agenda of people-driven ASEAN aims at two central points. First, as Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa contends, ASEAN should address Indonesian interests and bring benefits to the people. The beneficiaries are the people, and no longer the states’ elites.

Second, in line with Marty’s statement, Indonesia’s director general for ASEAN Djauhari Oratmangun emphasizes that Indonesian people groups, including in the business sector, academics, civil society groups and ordinary individuals, would likely become significant players. In other words, instead of being passive spectators, Indonesian people and the peoples of ASEAN member states should actively participate in making ASEAN truly a community of and for the people of Southeast Asian countries.

The people-centered ASEAN agenda, however, is not new. Asia and ASEAN history has plenty of evidence of various kinds of businesses that have operated beyond territorial borders for decades or even before ASEAN was founded. Cross-border movements of agricultural and industrial products (legally or illegally), capital and investment, workers, and even religious propagation, have made ASEAN one of the most dynamic regional associations.

Their movements have contributed significantly to local, national and regional economic growth. As the media reported tens of thousands of migrant workers from West Nusa Tenggara in Malaysia sent home US$1.1 million in remittance in 2009 alone.

Trade volume and value among ASEAN country members is growing steadily. Cultural interaction and understanding is developing. Positive growth is also found in the education sector shown by the increasing number of students and exchanging scholars across national borders within ASEAN.

The story is not all positive, though. Illegal migrants, smuggling, and various kinds of organized crime are also part of such regionalization. Many people move across cross-national borders without proper conditions and legalities. Not even sometimes with good intentions. This fact has partly contributed to the fact that conflict and insecurity in a country is likely to worsen because of “bad neighbors”, to borrow one of Michael Brown’s triggering factors of internal conflict.

There is no question that in the newly proposed agenda, the ASEAN country members and the ASEAN Secretariat are likely to focus on handling the unexpected practices by setting up tougher regulations while at the same time encouraging people to constructively participate in ASEAN.

It is in this context that we raise a crucial question: Is there any chance for civil society groups to help resolve the problems in Papua under Indonesia’s agenda of a people-centered ASEAN?

The problems in Papua are not limited to independence or separatist claims made by a small group of indigenous Papuans, which the Indonesian government deems a non-negotiable issue. There are many issues that civil society groups are likely to be constructively engaged in to seek peaceful, democratic and just solutions in Papua.

Central to these are human rights problems. Different groups of local Papuans are still prone to continuing civil and political rights abuses, whereas the long-standing demands for investigating and trying human rights violations in the past have not been properly addressed. A number of political activists remain in jail as political prisoners without fair trial.

Some tribal groups are still grieving for their social and economic rights and cultural rights as well. As more and more business organizations — either national or international, run by civilian or non-civilian units with or without legal permits — come in and compete to extract the rich natural resources of Papua, the more likely local people will suffer by losing their land and cultural values.

Not only are they being marginalized by the large influx of people either from Indonesia’s other provinces or foreign countries, indigenous Papuans are likely to be alienated or uprooted from their sacred land and environment.

Securing national integration, protecting economic interests, nationalizing different ethnic groups, and developing the region are the common political and legal arguments used to justify the entire “integration and development policies” in Papua which unfortunately have caused different local Papuans to be deprived of their basic rights.

There is no doubt that making ASEAN a people-driven organization also means giving space for civil society groups to work in Papua. Human rights activists, national and international journalists, and developing and empowering NGOs need to have access to visit and work safely and assist people in need in the region. This would be the very first instance for Indonesia’s chairmanship of ASEAN.

We highly appreciate the Indonesian government’s initiatives, promises and consistency in leading ASEAN by encouraging people to get benefits and to play a crucial role in the New ASEAN agenda. The Do What You Say You Will Do (DWYSYWD) formula (Kouzes & Posner, 2003) is one of the basic principles of international leadership. It surely will not be another lie.

*) The writer is director of Parahyangan Centre for International Studies (PACIS), Parahyangan University, Bandung.

Source: The Jakarta Post