West Papuan human rights tragedy mocked by new Australian PM

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.

Indonesian "security forces have killed as many as 200,000 Papuans since 1963 …. Terror has been made routine rather than exceptional".

- Elizabeth Stanley, criminologist

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.




(2013-10-06/aljazeera)