1) Abbott told
in advance about plan to break-in to Australian consulate in Bali
2) West Papuan student activists ‘forced’ to leave consulate, calls for
Australia to act
3) Crusade for independence given new hope
4) West Papuan human rights tragedy
mocked by new Australian PM
5) PM
avoids Papua 'visit' at consulate
6) NZ 'needs to ensure West Papuan APEC protestors
are safe'
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http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/west-papuan-trio-leave-after-climbing-into-the-australian-consulate-in-bali/story-e6frg6n6-1226733628149
1) Abbott told in advance about plan to break-in to Australian consulate in Bali
TONY Abbott was warned in a phone message from a Victorian Senator that a group of activists were planning to break into the Australian consulate in Bali to stage a protest against the Indonesian Government ahead of the Prime Minister's arrival last night for the APEC summit.
But he didn't get the message until after three West Papuans had climbed the wall of the building to deliver a letter to Mr Abbott calling for Australia's intervention in the disputed territory.
Sources have confirmed that DLP Senator Michael Madigan had left a message on the Prime Minister's mobile phone over the weekend warning him that some form of action involving West Papuan protestors and the Australian consulate could take place during his APEC visit in what was another potential diplomatic incident between Australian and Indonesia.
But the warning was not received until after the incident, which took place despite tight security in Bali ahead of the arrival of world leaders including the Russian and Chinese Presidents.
It is unclear what involvement, if any, Mr Madigan may have had with the three activists who called for greater freedoms in a territory formerly known as Irian Jaya where Indonesian sovereignty is still under challenge from an Independence movement.
But Mr Abbott last night reportedly called Mr Madigan back and warned him that he would not tolerate any form of anti-Indonesian protests.
He said the government would not tolerate protestors using Australian buildings to "grandstand" against Indonesia.
Mr Abbott only last week told Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that Australia would crack down on anti-Indonesian protestors in Australia.
Mr Abbott only last week told Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono that Australia would crack down on anti-Indonesian protestors in Australia.
The PM also told Mr Madigan that the situation in West Papua was improving, not worsening.
The West Papuans who scaled a two metre wall to gain access to the consulate on Sunday morning left the compound after the consul-general allegedly warned them that the Indonesian army would be called.The activists had asked the Australian government to apply pressure to Indonesia for the release of who they claimed were political prisoners.
The West Papuans who scaled a two metre wall to gain access to the consulate on Sunday morning left the compound after the consul-general allegedly warned them that the Indonesian army would be called.The activists had asked the Australian government to apply pressure to Indonesia for the release of who they claimed were political prisoners.
The Greens accused the Australian government of putting the protestors live at risk by forcing them to leave the building but the government said they had left voluntarily.
Independent Senator Nick Xenephon called for an immediate explanation.
"These three young men were not asking for West Papuan independence from Indonesia. All they were asking for is entirely consistent with the Lombok Treaty of 2006, signed by both Australia and Indonesia," he said.
"Instead of getting sanctuary and help, the Australian government effectively threatened them and now there is serious concern over the activists' safety.
The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a statement claiming: "We can confirm that three individuals from Indonesia's Papua provinces delivered a protest letter at the Australian consulate-general in Bali this morning to Australia's consul-general. The three men left the consulate voluntarily before 7am."
http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2013/10/west-papuan-student-activists-forced-to-leave-bali-consulate-calls-for-australia-to-act/
2) West Papuan student activists ‘forced’ to leave consulate, calls for Australia to act
0:42 October 7, 2013
Pacific Scoop:
Report – By Daniel Drageset
Report – By Daniel Drageset
Three West Papuan student activists entered the Australian consulate in Bali this weekend with calls on Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott to push Indonesia to release at least 55 political prisoners jailed in the Indonesian-ruled region.
In an open letter addressed to the Australian people, the three students also called for greater press freedom for international journalists reporting on West Papua, Radio Australia reported.
Several organisations have asked Australia to give sanctuary to three West Papuans, but according to Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb the West Papuans did not seek asylum.
“They left [the consulate] voluntarily so the matter’s been resolved,” Robb said, according to Radio Australia.
The Guardian, however, reported that the consul-general had warned the three West Papuans that the Indonesian army would be called if they did not leave the consulate.
One of the students, Rofinus Yanggam, told the newspaper the group left in fear of their lives.
This weekend, Bali hosted the 25th Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, which was chaired by New Zealand Prime Minister John Key and attended by leaders from around the region.
Calls for sanctuary
Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon called on Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to give sanctuary to three West Papuans.
Australian independent senator Nick Xenophon called on Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to give sanctuary to three West Papuans.
“These three young men were not asking for West Papuan independence from Indonesia. All they were asking for is entirely consistent with the Lombok Treaty of 2006, signed by both Australia and Indonesia,” he said, according to AAP.
“Instead of getting sanctuary and help, the Australian government effectively threatened them and now there is serious concern over the activists’ safety,” Xenophon said.
Professor Clinton Fernandes at the University of New South Wales backed Xenophon’s call.
He said when the media circus had moved on after APEC, the trio “may be tried, most certainly they will be beaten, and at some point might be disappeared”.
A spokesman for the group, Rinto Kogoya, who is co-ordinator of the Alliance of Papuan Students, said it was time the world understood what was happening inside the province, which was officially acquired by Indonesia in 1969.
“The international community doesn’t know the reality in Papua. The military oppresses the civil society – we’re not free to do anything – and I think this is the moment to open democracy to Papua,” he said, according to The Guardian.
‘Great concern’
Joe Collins of the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) was alarmed by the events in Bali.
Joe Collins of the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) was alarmed by the events in Bali.
“Its of great concern that they [the West Papuan students] may have been coerced to leave as the students would have great reason to fear the Indonesian security forces.
“There are ongoing human rights abuses in West Papua and the security forces have been banning and cracking down on recent rallies to try and stop international attention being focused on the territory,” he said in a statement.
AWPA wrote a letter to the consul-general Brett Farmer in Bali yesterday asking for “clarification” regarding the students.
“We understand that they have now left the consulate and we would like clarification from you if the left voluntarily or as some media reports have indicated that they were told that they would be handed over to the Indonesian military if they did not leave,” AWPA wrote in the letter.
Australian Green senator Dr Richard Di Natale has also joined those who has called for Australia to give sanctuary to the three West Papuans.
“By speaking out in this way, these brave West Papuans have put their lives in serious danger.
“If Australia fails to offer them protection, I have grave fears for their safety,” he said in a statement.
‘Stand up to Indonesia’
Yet another senator to voice his support for West Papua this weekend was John Madigan.
Yet another senator to voice his support for West Papua this weekend was John Madigan.
“It is about time our government had the courage to stand up to Indonesia, instead of ignoring the issue of West Papuan oppression and the human rights abuses that occur there on a daily basis,” he said in a statement.
He also said he demanded that the Australian government provided sanctuary for the three West Papuans.
The issue of the West Papuan students came just days after pleas from several organisations that Australia should not deport seven West Papuans who arrived in the Torres Islands in northern Queensland recently.
The group of seven took part in the recent West Papua Freedom Flotilla sought asylum in Australia, but were deported to Papua New Guinea under a memorandum of understanding between Australia and Papua New Guinea, Radio New Zealand International reported.
Refugee advocates in Australia said the deportation failed abide by the Refugee Convention that Australia is a party to.
Spokesperson of the West Papua Freedom Flotilla Izzy Brown said she wanted to draw the United Nations’ attention to Australia’s commitment to the Refugee Convention.
“It’s really unfortunate that Australia thinks it can send asylum seekers offshore without due process or just blatantly illegally deported like in this case here, and we really want to try and draw the world’s attention and especially the UN’s attention to Australia’s behaviour in this matter,” she said.
Daniel Drageset is the Pacific Scoop internship editor.
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http://www.smh.com.au/national/crusade-for-independence-given-new-hope-20131006-2v2bg.html
3) Crusade for independence given new hope
Australia's West Papuan refugees are celebrating new hope after a convergence of events has put the push for their homeland's independence on the international stage.
Even seasoned observers now say a ''slender hope'' on the part of West Papuans is justified after Vanuatu Prime Minister Moana Carcasses Kalosil questioned Indonesian sovereignty in the territory in a ''historic'' United Nations General Assembly speech.
"Everybody understands that West Papua is next," Rex Rumakiek, the general secretary of the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation, tells Fairfax Media from his Canberra base.
Sydney University West Papua expert Jim Elmslie says that even if the hope Mr Carcasses' speech has given West Papuans is a "pretty slender one … it's more than they had before"
On September 28 Mr Carcasses took a step beyond previous statements made at the UN about human rights abuses in West Papua and called for the UN to investigate West Papua's "political status", which Dr Elmslie says was a ''historic'' development and among the most significant events since Indonesia incorporated the territory in 1969.
Sunday's events in Bali and Mr Carcasses' speech closely follow a row over the Abbott government's swift deportation to Papua New Guinea of a group of West Papuan activists who fled alleged search operations by Indonesian forces to north Queensland late
Among those asylum-seekers were independence activists who had participated in a pro-independence "cultural ceremony" with Australian sailor-activist members of the self-styled ''Freedom Flotilla'' venture.
The flotilla activists, in a highly publicised sea journey during September, had left Cairns in three yachts after announcing they would sail to West Papua without permission to draw attention to human rights abuses in the disputed territory.
Tony Abbott subsequently assured Indonesia his government would attempt to prevent Australia being used as a platform for "grandstanding" against Indonesia and criticised the asylum-seekers themselves. For Melbourne brother-and-sister refugees Amos Wainggai and Papuana Mote, whose uncle Thomas Wainggai died in Indonesian custody while listed as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, the recent events put hope in front of fear.
"I'm fearful for my people back home, but I am hoping the Australian government and the UN will do something about what's happening in West Papua," says Ms Mote, who with 41 others made headlines when she and her brother fled to Australia by canoe in 2006.
In halting English, Mr Wainggai says that he will not be silenced by Mr Abbott, commenting of the Prime Minister: "He didn't think about human beings, he just think about himself."
Meanwhile Dr Elmslie warns the West Papuan issue looms as the "storm clouds on the horizon" for Indonesia. West Papua, he says, represents for Indonesia the risk that it will be seen not as a democratic Muslim country "but as having a military that's out there chopping people up".
West Papuans have been fighting - both peacefully and with arms - for independence from Indonesia since their powerful neighbour took over the country after a 1969 UN-brokered ballot widely regarded as a sham. Observers estimate killings in the thousands or tens of thousands and have documented widespread torture.
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http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/10/west-papuan-human-rights-tragedy-mocked-by-new-australian-pm-2013102134037843929.html
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4) West Papuan human rights tragedy mocked by new Australian PM
Tony Abbott's attack is the latest episode in a long tradition of Australian complicity in Indonesian state terror.
Last Modified: 06 Oct 2013 14:43
Barely two weeks into office and Australia's prime minister, Tony Abbott, has committed his government to upholding an appeasement policy that has seen Australia entangled in some of the worst human rights abuses imaginable in the neighbouring region of West Papua, where a struggle for independence has been waged for over four decades.
The Abbott government's intentions, in this respect, were loudly signalled following the arrival of seven West Papuan refugees in the Torres Strait Islands last week. The asylum seekers told Australian government officials they feared persecution at the hands of the Indonesian authorities after supporting a Freedom Flotilla, which had set sail for their province.
The West Papuan group were allegedly informed that they would be flown to the Australian mainland. Instead, the asylum seekers were shuttled off to Papua New Guinea (PNG) - which became standard practice under the ousted Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd - and cut adrift in the capital, Port Moresby.
Precarious fate awaits
Their fate in PNG will be a precarious one. A large community of displaced West Papuans currently reside on abandoned drainage lands in Port Moresby, where floods and water-borne diseases are constant threats. The community was dumped on the land by the PNG government after their homes in the eight-mile district were bulldozed to make way for a new property development.
Yet far from displaying a hint of sympathy for the West Papuan seven and the bleak fate awaiting them, Prime Minister Abbott celebrated his government's actions at a press conference this week in Jakarta: "We are fair dinkum about doing what we can to help Indonesia in every way and you might be aware of the fact that there were some people who turned up in the Torres Strait last week wanting to grandstand about issues in Papua. Well, very swiftly … they went back to PNG."
"Grandstanding", "issues", if ever apologetic words have been uttered in defence of systematic persecution these are it. Indeed, following West Papua's forced annexation to Indonesia in the 1960s, its native Melanesian population has faced a sustained campaign of state violence.
According to criminologist Elizabeth Stanley, Indonesian "security forces have killed as many as 200,000 Papuans since 1963 …. Terror has been made routine rather than exceptional". Stanley explains, "Papuan people have been systematically ill-treated, arbitrarily detained, raped and tortured. These violations, undertaken under the rubric of countering subversive or terrorist forces, have been dovetailed with all kinds of social controls. Indonesian officials have placed restrictions on group gatherings, imposed curfews, forcibly displaced populations, conducted house and mail searches, monitored cultural events, and refused ‘outsider' access to the regions".
Condemning or combatting these actions are not on the current Australian government's agenda. Abbott argues, "We want to do everything we reasonably can to demonstrate to the [Indonesian] government and the people of Indonesia that we respect Indonesia's sovereignty". Woe betide the West Papuan people then.
Abbott continues, "We want to work with Indonesia to ensure that Indonesia is strong in the years ahead because Indonesia is a future global leader and we want to be its trusted partner on this journey."
So there you have it, partnership with the Indonesian state trumps the defence of a persecuted ethnic group. Sadly this is something of a bipartisan tradition among Australia's two biggest political politics.
Labor's complicity in Indonesian state crime
Earlier this year, before the Australian Labor Party (ALP) lost office, the Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, staged an incredible attack on West Papuan supporters during a senate estimates hearing.
"The people who fly Papuan flags and the people who talk the language of secession and independence. They are planting in the minds of people who actually live in the place the notion that this campaign has some kind of international resonance," Carr opined. He added, "that is a cruel deceit by self-indulgent people safe in their own beds, safe in a democracy. It is a cruel deceit about the potential of a demand for secessionism. Australia and the world recognise Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua."
In a salute to Australia's colonial era, Carr evokes the image of a docile native people whipped into a frenzy by mischievous outsiders. Nothing could be further from the truth - West Papuans are more than capable of articulating and driving a struggle for civil and political freedom. Of equal absurdity is the suggestion that those who express solidarity with West Papuans somehow bear responsibility for the province's parlous human rights situation. That ‘distinction' lies with the Indonesian security forces, their political masters and foreign benefactors.
Though we shouldn't be surprised by Carr's political position, after all it was the former ALP Prime Minister, Paul Keating, who proudly eulogised Indonesia's former ruler, General Soeharto, a man who helped engineer two epic bloodbaths in 1965 and 1975 respectively. In The Age Keating remarked, "Soeharto, by his judgement, goodwill and good sense, had the greatest positive impact on Australia's strategic environment and, hence, on its history." The accolades do not stop there, "Soeharto took a nation of 120 million people, racked by political turmoil and poverty, from near disintegration to the orderly, ordered and prosperous state that it is today."
Ever the moral compass Keating assured us, "The descriptions of Soeharto as a brutal dictator living a corrupt high life at the expense of his people and running an expansionist military regime are untrue. Even Soeharto's annexation of [East] Timor was not expansionist. It had everything to do with national security and nothing to do with territory."
Of course this is what one might expect a government figurehead to say, given Australia's deep military, economic and diplomatic ties with the Soeharto regime. Allan Behm, who once served as head of the Australian Defence Department's International Policy and Strategy Division, observes:
"By the mid-70s, Australia and Indonesia had established a substantial and diverse defence cooperation program. During the subsequent decade, the defence cooperation program funded the transfer of some 23 ex-RAAF Sabre fighters and seven Attack-class patrol boats to Indonesia, and some tentative links between the Special Forces of the two countries that were largely confined to unit-level visit exchanges, long range patrol training, and some special training in counter-terrorist and counter-hijack skills."
'Silent genocide'
The actions of the Australian government have nothing to do with the interests of the Indonesian people. Indeed, the Australian state readily lent its military support to the Soeharto regime, which persecuted the Indonesian people for decades. The Abbott government's position on West Papua has everything to do with insular conceptions of the Australian national interest held by foreign policy makers in Canberra; conceptions that rarely get discussed or debated outside discrete policy circles, which have something of an echo chamber quality to them.
Compounding matters many Australians know little about the depth or breadth of the atrocities that have occurred, and are occurring, in West Papua, or their government's role in the suffering. Indeed, the West Papuans call their plight "the silent genocide". But perhaps silence is too kind a word, it is the censored genocide. Communications and movement in and out of West Papua are under constant surveillance by the Indonesian military. Consequently reporting on the atrocities is a notoriously dangerous task for journalists and activists alike.
So the silence continues, and sadly it is aided by major regional powers like Australia which once again stands complicit in one of the great crimes of our age.
Kristian Lasslett is currently Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Ulster and a member of theInternational State Crime Initiative's Executive Board. He is editor of the State Crime Testimony Project and joint editor-in-chief of State Crime. His first book State Crime on the Margins of Empire (Pluto Press) is forthcoming. Kristian is presently carrying out research on forced eviction, corruption and civil society in Papua New Guinea.
Follow Kristian Lasslett on Twitter: @klasslett
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial policy.
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Source:
Al Jazeera
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http://www.theage.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/pm-avoids-papua-visit-at-consulate-20131006-2v2be.html
5) PM avoids Papua 'visit' at consulate
- d later
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has narrowly avoided a major diplomatic headache that threatened to undermine his presence at his first world leaders' forum, after a potentially serious security breach at the Australian consulate in Bali.
Three men, from a group of West Papuans trying to highlight the treatment of their people at the hands of the Indonesian authorities, scaled the wall of the consulate on Sunday morning to draw attention to human rights abuses in the secretive province.
The high-profile act took place just hours before Mr Abbott was set to arrive on the Indonesian resort island where world leaders have gathered for the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit.
The West Papuan campaigners left voluntarily despite initially indicating that they wanted refuge in Australia.
It was reported subsequently they chose the APEC host city to call for greater transparency in West Papua and for international journalists to be allowed into the territory on the western half of the island shared with Papua New Guinea.
Independent senator Nick Xenophon called on Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to explain how the activists got access to the consulate - and if they were threatened to leave - ahead of the APEC summit.
Mr Abbott arrived at at Bali's Ngurah Rai airport late on Sunday.
While an inaugural get-together with US President Barack Obama fell through because of the continuing political crisis in Washington, Mr Abbott will meet Secretary of State John Kerry on Monday night. He was also due to meet, one-on-one, the second-most-powerful man in the world, China's President Xi Jinping, just hours after arriving in Bali. The meeting with President Xi comes just months after Beijing granted Canberra special partnership status, elevating it to one of few countries with formalised annual dialogue at leaders' level.
During Mr Abbott's Jakarta visit last week, he promised he would not allow Australia to become a platform for those campaigning against the Indonesian state, which he described as indissoluble.
While the diplomatic embarrassment of the consular security breach resolved itself quickly on Sunday, it has exposed a worrying lack of security at Australian facilities in Bali, the location of the 2002 and 2005 Islamist bombings.
It has also highlighted the plight of the West Papuan resistance amid claims of repression, torture and widespread abuses of power by Indonesian authorities.
The West Papuan activists left after delivering a two-page hand-written letter addressed to "the people of Australia".
A source said the group, who had earlier wanted to "seek refuge" in the building, decided for their own safety that they should leave.
The men said they were not demanding independence from Indonesia, but were using the APEC meeting to ask Mr Abbott, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Mr Kerry to press Indonesia for greater freedom and better treatment. ''We want these leaders to persuade the Indonesian government to treat Papuan people better. Human right abuse [sic] are our routine.''
It comes as PhD research at ANU suggests torture has been used as a ''mode of governance'' in West Papua, with security forces committing at least one incident of torture, on average, every six weeks, for the past half century.
http://www.voxy.co.nz/politics/nz-needs-ensure-west-papuan-apec-protestors-are-safe/5/169979
6) NZ 'needs to ensure West Papuan APEC protestors are safe'
Sunday, 6 October, 2013 - 13:44
The Green Party is calling on Prime Minister John Key to show leadership while he is at the APEC summit over the West Papua issue.
Three West Papuans, Markus Jerewon, Yuvensius Goo and Rofinus Yanggam entered the Australian Consulate in Bali and have released an open letter to the APEC leaders currently meeting in Bali regarding the plight of West Papua under Indonesian rule.
"John Key needs to use his position at APEC to ensure that these West Papuan protestors are safe," Green Party MP Catherine Delahunty said today.
"These young men are calling for refuge and calling for the citizens of West Papua to be treated with respect to their human rights.
"They are asking Australia to help them challenge Indonesia to allow freedom of the press and freedom for political prisoners in West Papua.
"If New Zealand wants to be elected to the United Nations Security Council then we need to show leadership on issues that affect human rights in our own backyard.
"John Key has the opportunity while he is at the APEC summit to make a statement in support of human rights for West Papua and the right to amnesty for West Papuan political refugees.
"New Zealand must encourage Australia under the Abbott Government to do the right thing and challenge Indonesia to change their approach to West Papuans who stand up for their human rights and self-determination," Ms Delahunty said.
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