Australia must be a good global citizen towards refugees who transit Indonesia
Anita Roberts
The ten men staring through the bars at me ask me questions I cannot answer. 'Why are we here? What have we done that so hurts the Indonesian government? Why does Australia do nothing?' Mr Daud, an Afghani asylum seeker, also doubts the UN: 'The United Nations is the whole world, they must accept us, they need all people, the poor and those from war.' Like his fellow asylum seekers in detention in Denpasar, Daud has taken too many risks to consider the possibility that he will not be granted refugee status.
Daud, 'the Commander', fought with the United Front against the Taliban. When the Taliban captured and killed his brother, also a United Front commander, he put his wife and six children into hiding and fled. He has been in detention in Bali since he was arrested there on 14 June 2000 for overstaying his tourist visa. He has not yet been able to contact his family.
An officer from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) interviewed the asylum seekers in mid-July. Five months later, they have heard nothing, and hopes are sinking. Time stretches endlessly. The treatment of Daud's group is inconsistent with the UNHCR's own guideline advocating a 'rapid, flexible and liberal' process of status determination. Nor has the Indonesian Immigration Office in Denpasar, responsible for the 'quarantined' group, been kept informed.
The Immigration Department, meanwhile, lacks the funds to put Mr Daud on trial for breaking immigration law, so it treats his overstay as a procedural offence and is holding him in immigration detention. Officials hope the UNHCR will take him off their hands as a refugee. They are confused with the lack of policy guidelines to direct their response not only to the asylum seekers but also the various international bodies which also claim a role, the UNHCR and international organisation for migration (IOM).
If Daud does not get refugee status, he will in theory be blacklisted and deported from Indonesia. This would mean waiting in detention until either Indonesia has the funds to deport him or his home embassy agrees to pay. The latter is unlikely, and in any case, Daud would refuse to be repatriated. Immigration sources acknowledge that people in this situation have been detained for over forty years in the Kalideres detention centre in Jakarta. Over five hundred asylum seekers like Mr Daud are now stuck in Indonesian detention centres.
Indonesia's 'selective policy' on immigration means it does not accept the principle of naturalisation, nor does it permit itself to become a processing centre for refugees. However, while not party to the Refugee Convention, Indonesia has chosen not to remain blind to the global issue of asylum and refugees. The Department of Foreign Affairs and that of Justice and Human Rights both speak of a new 'humanitarian approach' to the refugee issue, which is in fact at odds with domestic law. This stance has allowed UNHCR and the IOM to become involved in the refugee determination process as representatives of the international community. Thus Mr Daud's future is determined by several often incompatible bodies - the Indonesian and Australian governments, and these international agencies.
The two governments each effectively have isolationist policies. Indeed, Indonesia is operating in a legal and policy vacuum regarding the current flow of Middle Eastern asylum seekers. There is no issue-specific memorandum of understanding on it between them. The Indonesian Department of Foreign Affairs argues that a framework for a MoU should be taken from the UN Convention on Transnational Organised Crime, held in December 2000. While this MoU remains unrealised, cooperation is largely informal and carefully understated.
Persecution
Since the beginning of 1999, Indonesia has become the key staging point for the movement of people from the Middle East to Australia. Eighty five percent of those illegally entering Australia come by boat via Indonesia. Most asylum seekers enter Indonesia legally and try to reach either Christmas Island or Ashmore Reef. An asylum seeker is a person who applies to a national government for recognition as a refugee, and for permission to stay because they face persecution on the grounds of race, religion, political opinion, nationality or because they belong to a particular social group.
However, asylum seekers in Indonesia do not have their applications considered by the Indonesian government, as Indonesia has not yet signed the UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees 1951 (the Refugee Convention) and its 1967 Protocol. Instead, the UNHCR branch in Jakarta considers their applications. If successful, they will await resettlement in a third country.
More than five hundred more illegal immigrants are feared to have died en route to Australia in 1999 alone. Yet, Indonesia and Australia both ignore this tragedy. Commenting on a report in December 2000 that 163 illegal immigrants had probably drowned while sailing to Ashmore Reef, Australia, Australia's Immigration Minister Mr Ruddock said: 'The incident appeared to have happened outside the area of responsibility'. What a contrast to the enthusiasm (and the money - an estimated A$2 million) the Australian Maritime Safety Authority exhibited to save Isabelle Autissier, the solo yachtswoman in 1995, and Tony Bullimore in 1997! Australia knows Indonesia does not have the capability to mount a 'coastwatch' service. Australia cannot hide behind its national boundaries.
Each year illegal people trafficking moves an estimated four million people worldwide, and generates proceeds of US$10 billion. Daud paid US$3,000 to an agent in Karachi, Pakistan, whom he met through an agent in Kabul, Afghanistan. For this fee he obtained an Afghanistan passport, Indonesian visa, and travel to Indonesia. In Indonesia, he contacted agents in Bali and Jakarta, and paid another US$2,000 in his attempts before arrest. Most of the asylum seekers I spoke to indicated they would try to reach Australia, even if it meant using up all their savings on up to three attempts. Indonesian police and immigration officials at remote ports, who lack the means to look after a sudden influx of foreigners, can sometimes be bribed just to let them leave. Their last resort was to contact the UNHCR and submit to status determination.
Peace
Australia attracts asylum seekers because of its wealth, peace, and stability. Mr Daud says: 'If our life is not in danger, why leave our children, our wife? I do not want to see Indonesia or Australia, I come here for safety.' The current flow is different only because they enter illegally. Does this make them criminals?
A recent letter to the editor in the Sydney Morning Herald stated 'illegals can nowadays not only drift in at will anywhere along our coastline but also demand the right to this and that'. Mr Ruddock himself claims illegal migration costs the Australian taxpayer millions of dollars in coastal surveillance, detention, litigation and removal costs. It is this perception that must be challenged. Firstly, from the 6,808 overstayers found in Australia in 1999, only 920 arrived as asylum seekers by boat. A media beatup. Secondly, the majority of those arriving by boat tend to apply to remain permanently in Australia as a refugee and as such contact Australian immigration. If any deception is involved it will be discovered when processing the claim for refugee status.
Asylum seekers rely on their own initiative and savings to reach safety. They face great dangers for a second opportunity at life. They use the established channels available to them - that is, narcotic and weapons networks. Restricted opportunity for legal migration has forced their hand. For those fleeing persecution, being smuggled is a reasonable alternative to bureaucratic, time consuming and therefore life endangering legal migration.
Each party is merely concerned with re-directing the flow away from their respective boundaries. There is no real recognition that this flow is due to migration issues such as reduced opportunity for legal migration combined with labour pressures, economic hardship, civil unrest, and persecution. The need is not for criminal but for migration solutions. The IOM does talk of resettlement and voluntary repatriation, but its counter-trafficking project gets substantial funding from Australia, so it has to concern itself with Australian views. It is senseless for individual states to act independently in the face of this global concern. Asylum seekers cannot call upon their homelands for protection. We cannot allow their plight to be viewed within the framework of individual nation states' interests.
For Australia, the 'boat people' are a hot topic, but they only become one at the moment they arrive in Australia and start affecting Australians. Those who make it that far are the lucky few. We should take a hard look at the asylum seeker situation before reaching Australian shores.
The global refugee flow is having an impact on our region. Australia should translate its global human rights rhetoric into regional action. This would ensure regional cohesion and security. People trafficking and smuggling networks should be destroyed. But criminal solutions should not be used to answer what is essentially a migration issue. Legal migration avenues should be improved. Australian obligations regarding the Refugee Convention should be fulfilled in the Australian spirit. Australia should also not be afraid to use its offshore humanitarian program to assist regional humanitarian migration issues such as the current flow. Regional benefits mean Australian benefits.
Only when nation states recognise that their global obligations transcend borders will people like Mr Daud know that their future is not arbitrarily determined by a political game of 'national interests'.
Anita Roberts (neetalr@yahoo.com) is a law student at the Australian National University, Canberra. She wrote a longer report on this topic while a participant in Acicis, the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (wwwsshe.murdoch.edu.au/acicis/).
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
Aceh will not lie down
A new generation of victims speaks out. Will Indonesia now negotiate?
Lesley McCulloch
Brimob took my husband that day. I haven't seen him since. I pray he is still alive but in my sleep I dream he is dead. He was not a member of GAM and he was a good father.Now what will I do, I have two young children. (Aceh Pidie, 21 September 2000)
The Acehnese people, dispersed throughout their beautiful but remote homeland in the northern tip of Sumatra, have recognised that strength comes in numbers. In November 2000 the first 'Korban' Congress (Kongres Korban Pelanggaran HAM Aceh) was held. The word korban is usually translated victim, but also means blood offering, and sometimes refers more accurately to survivors (for which there is no Indonesian term). They came in any form of motorised transport they could find. Some who set out did not reach their final destination of Banda Aceh. The security forces ensured that terror remained their travelling companion. Friends and relatives paid tribute to those who were killed or 'taken' en route. The mood of the almost 400 who attended the congress over three days was of unity against the government in Jakarta. Long days of deliberation were followed by further strategy and tete a tete sessions into the early morning. The fact that so many had gathered was a success in itself.
The congress dismissed the argument from Jakarta that rogue elements of the military and police were responsible for the continuing violence. 'Someone, somewhere must take responsibility for the actions of a serving military officer,' said Jufri, chairman of the organising committee. The Acehnese are united in their feelings of betrayal by president Gus Dur. The congress passed resolutions calling for a UN monitoring team, for investigation of past human rights abuses, and for a special human rights court to bring to trial those accused.
The horrendous killings, torture, disappearances and rapes during Aceh's period as a Military Operational Area (DOM - Daerah Operasi Militer) 1989-1998 are well known. Since the end of DOM however, the Indonesian government has sought - and largely received - praise in the international arena for progress made towards reform in general and for their willingness to continue to strive for a negotiated settlement in Aceh. At the national level it gained itself the status of 'the world's newest democracy'.
The Aceh Refugee Forum (FPA) reported in December 2000 that there were 4,951 Acehnese refugees in North Sumatra, south of Aceh. Their latest data indicates that number has now risen to 10,972, mostly in Medan and Langkat, putting a severe strain on local resources. In Aceh itself there are almost 40,000 refugees, according to the People's Crisis Centre (PCC), a local non-government organisation.
The climate of fear is such that the mere proximity of security forces to a village often causes families to flee to the forest or farther afield. The degree to which each side is responsible is difficult to assess. No one denies that the Free Aceh Movement GAM has also been in part responsible for refugee flows and violations of human rights. It has often been argued that rumours, encouragement and threats by GAM play a not insignificant role in the refugee situation. However, my first hand experience and extensive interviews with civilians - other than those who attended the congress - suggest that it is the regular sweeping operations by the military and police which are the primary cause of the rise in numbers of internally displaced people.
The security forces under Gus Dur, and under Habibie before him, have continued to act with impunity in Aceh. The Indonesian Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) reported that 'the year 2000 has been the bloodiest in Aceh since before the military occupation which began in 1989'. Throughout 2000, almost 1,000 people died in the violence - half of those during the six months 'humanitarian pause'. The escalating violence, which was the impetus for implementing the pause in June 2000, has not abated.
Yet so far most of the international community has conveniently overlooked the situation in Aceh. As with the refugees, while no one is denying that GAM has contributed to the increasing number of deaths and atrocities, it is the Indonesian security forces that have perpetrated most of these violations. The government's hard line tactics have fuelled separatist demands. The 'new' generation of victims often supports not merely independence, but also GAM.
Dialogue
Swiss-brokered talks following the expiry of the pause in January 2001, while set against this background of on-going violence and verbal hostility by members of the Indonesian government, give hope that a functioning moratorium on violence may at least be a possibility. They concluded with a loose one-month 'provision of understanding', to come into effect immediately.
The latest agreement has only two provisions. The first is that it establishes a 'moratorium on violence' during which time both parties will 'work to substantially revise the security situation'. Second, further talks will include four substantive elements relating to security arrangements, democratic consultations, humanitarian law and human rights, and socio-economic development.
At the time of writing in January 2001, the common ground for any future agreement has yet to be identified. Dr Zaini Abdullah, head of the GAM negotiating team in Switzerland,said in a telephone interview with this author: 'for us the issue is quite simple. We (GAM) are united with the Acehnese people in their desire for independence. The first phase of any meaningful negotiations must be a cessation of violence.' This has proven to be elusive, as both the government and GAM have favoured, at varying times, a security approach to the Aceh dilemma.
Each of the four broad substantive areas constitutes a myriad of issues, and presents a possible hurdle to agreement. When pressed during the interview about such obstacles to progress, Dr Zaini said that GAM has recognised that the process by which the core demand of independence is likely to be achieved may include - by necessity - components to which historically they have been opposed. Zaini cited the following issues as central to the success of any future negotiations. They illustrate GAM's willingness to mix force with diplomacy:
GAM demands - in the first instance - the withdrawal of all non-organic troops from Aceh. The Indonesiangovernment (RI) continues to deploy increasing numbers of troops (now around 30,000). RI demands that all weapons in 'civilian' (GAM) hands must be surrendered.
GAM demands at least a vote for independence monitored by international independent observers. Initially this was a demand by SIRA (the Information Centre for Referendum in Aceh), long resisted by GAM, who said it meant dealing with the enemy, but, according to Dr Zaini, GAM are now ready to consider this option if civil society demands it assuming it is a precursor to independence. RI rejects such a vote (though Gus Dur once offered one), and has lobbied hard to prevent international support for GAM.
GAM demands the trial and punishment of those members of the security forces thought to be guilty of human rights violations. RI has convicted some low-ranking soldiers, but the process has stalled due to military obstruction. In January 2001, Komnas HAM announced it was establishing a long-delayed commission to investigate human rights violations in Aceh, and there are some indications of military and police support for it.
GAM demands that profits from natural resources remain in Aceh. However, a degree of flexibility may be possible at least for an initial transition period. The details of RI's 'special autonomy' package on offer to Aceh have still to be fine-tuned. It seems unlikely that RI will agree to give the 80% of natural resource revenues demanded by the Acehnese provincial parliament.
The Indonesian government goes into these negotiations knowing it is dealing with a more politicised Acehnese populace, and also it seems with a more sophisticated GAM. The growing support for civilian mass movements such as the student-led SIRA as well as for GAM reflects this newfound legitimacy. The Indonesian government is divided on how much compromise is appropriate to reach a workable agreement. The pause was always a Gus Dur project, while the military and police favoured a security solution. However, government actors are united in their claim that the loss of resource-rich Aceh would have serious consequences and could lead to the wholesale break-up of Indonesia.
The international community has its own reasons for fearing the disintegration of Indonesia, and is moreover reluctant to get on the wrong side of the world's fourth largest nation-state. There has been almost universal support for the efforts of the Gus Dur administration aimed above everything at preventing the break-up of this vast archipelagic state. The European Union (EU) for example has 'repeatedly stressed its support for a strong, united, democratic and prosperous Indonesia'. Japan, Australia and the US have made similar statements, which reflect concern for upheavals in investment, trade and security. Aceh is located at the entry to the Straits of Malacca, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.
The prospect of a 'domino effect' resulting from an independent Aceh is limited. Yet precisely the fear of 'disintegrasi' is often used both domestically and abroad to garner support, no matter at what cost in lives, for the continued unity of the state. The international community must realise that this cost can be too high, and that in the long term it may not be possible to maintain Indonesia as it exists today.
Lesley McCulloch (mcculloch_lesley2@hotmail.com) is a Research Associate at the Centre for Defence Studies, Kings College, London, and was in Banda Aceh during the congress.
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
Peace journalism in Poso
When reporting ethnic conflict, journalists can make a difference
Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick
Turning gently in the sea breeze which cools the town of Poso in the afternoon, the cover of Tabloid Mal is dominated by a crude cartoon drawing of a round black bomb, its fuse fizzing, and the headline Poso Bomb Mystery. Another local tabloid, Formasi, hanging alongside it from the canvas awning which shades customers browsing at the newspaper stall, is equally incendiary. Poso Reconciliation is Finished, its front page declares, in bright red capitals.
The fall of President Suharto and the repeal of his press laws triggered an explosion of new media. But no sooner was the Ministry of Information removed from the editorial process than Indonesian journalists entered a period of soul-searching about how to combine their new freedoms with a sense of responsibility.
Some coverage of the violence in Poso, in central Sulawesi, over the last two years shows these concerns. Jakarta Post, reporting on the third round of unrest in July of 2000, told its readers 124 people had been arrested for their part in 'communal clashes'. The Detik world web news service reported that a number of soldiers were being questioned, their commanding officer explaining that some had seen their own homes burned in the trouble: 'There are many whose families were murdered. That's why they helped and sided with those of a similar ideology.' Neither mentioned the religious identity of suspects or victims a restraint left over from the New Order, then a matter for the censor, now adopted as a self-denying ordinance for fear of stirring up trouble.
Can journalists in Indonesia help to reduce tensions by being honest about them? In November 2000 a group of reporters arrived in the provincial capital, Palu, in a visit sponsored by the British Council, to experiment with a set of techniques called peace journalism. All journalism is an intervention - peace journalism equips journalists covering conflicts to take an ethical approach. Three weekly magazines were represented, along with a radio station and the new 24-hour Metro TV service, as well as the Antara news agency and four national newspapers.
Kompas correspondent Maria Hartiningsih was clear about her reasons for making the trip: 'What really makes me want to do something with my reporting is that I saw a lot of innocent people become victims in this situation, especially women and childrenI have a spirit to do something to contribute to the reconciliation of this nation.'
Hope
At a rundown sports stadium on the outskirts of Palu which is now home to some 700 refugees, a clattering of carpentry tools interrupts Maria's conversation with a camp official. A group of men erect a makeshift partition to section off space for one of six or more families obliged to share a single room in sweltering conditions.
Not that she intends to wallow in the grief and trauma of the displaced. Though visibly affected by the scene, she explains: 'I want to prevent (violence), so that's why it needs another technique to explore the story, not the hatred of the people, not the emotion, not the anger, but the hope maybe, hope of the people for a new life.'
Further on, she encounters refugees living in very different conditions, thanks to a local grassroots organisation, Bantaya. A group of volunteers have banded together to care for people of either faith who were forced to flee their homes in Poso, some 220 kilometres away over the mountains.
Bantaya has persuaded landowners in Palu to lend fields for these unfortunates to cultivate. Maria is shown immaculately tended crops of black pepper and sweetcorn as well as a chilli harvest ten kilos, enough to fetch thirty thousand rupiah at local prices.
There are clerics, both Muslim and Christian, promoting understanding between their respective sections of the community. Kompas readers will learn about a church congregation working as volunteers, together with Muslim colleagues, to build and clean local mosques, for example.
To tell these stories requires frankness about the interreligious aspect of the 'communal clashes' coyly referred to by other accounts. What would be the point of reporting peace work to heal rifts between followers of different faiths if the rifts themselves were suppressed?
But peace journalism resists explanations for violence in terms of innate or essential enmities between parties the 'ancient hatreds' theory so prevalent in conflict reporting from the Middle East, the Balkans and Indonesia itself. This can make continuing strife seem inevitable, unless communities are segregated and the borders patrolled, which brings its own problems.
The road into Poso is salami-sliced into Muslim and Christian slivers, separated by paramilitary police (Brimob) observation posts at intervals of as little as fifty metres. Yet Maria's story suggests there is no inborn mutual loathing which automatically sets devotees of the two religions at each other's throats. So how did they lapse into a cycle of violence which has seen hundreds killed, three thousand houses burned down and perhaps as many as twenty thousand flee their homes?
The road itself holds a clue. It is part of the Trans-Sulawesi highway connecting the island's main cities a Suharto-era project which has brought the benefits of increased commerce as well as the problems associated with transmigration and development. The Pamona people who originally settled here learned Christianity a century ago from Dutch missionaries. New arrivals, mainly Bugis from Makassar but also a sprinkling of Javanese, tended to be Muslims until the groups attained roughly equal numbers.
By convention, the local government leader (bupati) would be drawn alternately from one section of the community, then the other. But the road and other developments made the office a valuable bauble in terms of kickbacks and patronage. With the fall of Suharto, the Muslim incumbent, Arif Patanga, challenged the convention by proposing his son Agfar to succeed him. The younger Patanga seems to have set out to turn religious difference into a political weapon to stir up trouble in Poso, with the object of keeping out the Christian candidate.
In the afternoon, the city is full of uniforms local police as well as Brimob, but also a large number of civil servants making their way home from the office. As a main administrative centre, Poso's livelihood depends heavily on public sector jobs. Simultaneous upheavals in both national and local politics were bound to have an unsettling effect.
At around this time, late 1998, a street brawl resulted in a Muslim man being cut in the arm with a knife. Instead of going to the police he rushed into a nearby mosque and called on believers to rouse themselves against the Christians who he blamed for inflicting the wound. The first round of house-burnings, known latterly as 'Poso I', ensued.
This trigger incident, and the background of political unrest, themselves suggest an alternative explanation for violence. A conflict model begins to take shape in which both parties inhabit a number of shared problems. The bupati was appointed from Palu, not elected in Poso, a deficient political system bound to encourage personal rivalry and 'top-doggery'.
Kickbacks from development projects were part of 'KKN', Corruption-Collusion-Nepotism, a flourishing culture under the New Order with its lack of transparency and accountability. These conditions encourage people to form and join groups to safeguard their interests, to stick together with those of their own kind they were one factor propelling the injured man into the arms of his co-religionists instead of taking up his grievance with the authorities.
Shared problems
By illuminating these shared problems, a peace journalist can expand the space to consider shared solutions, outcomes to the conflict which do not require one 'side' to 'win' and the other to 'lose'. As an alternative to apportioning blame, it makes it more logical to think of therapy than revenge or punishment.
About an hour's drive inland from Poso lies the town of Tentena, a Christian stronghold where blame is fixed squarely on the Muslims for 'starting it'. After Poso I, Christians turned the other cheek then that cheek was slapped in Poso II, which justified them in seeking vengeance, we were told.
At Tentena, the mountains of Lore Lindu National Park meet the shoreline of Lake Poso, famed for its wild orchids. But this bejewelled prospect is disfigured by gutted Muslim houses, while others bear a spray-painted cross to ward off the same fate. In caves in the mountains, it is said, leaders of the 'Red Squad' met and plotted Poso III, the Christians' revenge.
This version of events came from a local Christian guide who confidently asserted that Agfar Patanga had got clean away with his role as provocateur, and was now enjoying the comforts of a sinecure in Palu's local administration. Meanwhile, Christian militiamen Domingus Soares and Cornelius Tibo languished in jail proof, he believed, that the justice system could not be trusted, putting the onus on Christians to defend themselves.
Which turned out to be a symptom of another shared problem - a deficient information system. No newspapers were on sale in Tentena. It is doubtful whether townsfolk know even now that Patanga had been committed for trial in Palu.
Rumours flourish. One reporter, Misbah, from Muslim magazine Sabili, heard from refugees at Parigi that Laskar Jihad militiamen were organising and that members came openly to pray at the local mosque. They turned out to be white-robed students from the local pesantren, or religious high school.
In publicising and correcting these misconceptions, journalists themselves can contribute directly to reducing shared problems. Is that the same as the reporter's traditional role of 'reporting the facts'? For Maria Hartiningsih, this will not do. To report is to choose, and the journalist must take responsibility for those choices. The alternative to sensational tabloid headlines must include a positive choice for peace: 'Every journalist has the ideology in here, and me too my ideology is to contribute something for peace, to contribute something for justice,' she says.
Jake Lynch and Annabel McGoldrick led the Peace Journalism trip to Poso for the British Council, organised in conjunction with a Jakarta-based NGO, LSPP, and with funding from the British Embassy. They teach the annual MA module in Peace-building Media at the University of Sydney, and run a website on responsible journalism at http://www.reportingtheworld.org/. For more information about peace journalism in Indonesia, contact Dr Nick Mawdsley (nick.mawdsley@britcoun.or.id).
Groundhog Day
Defence planners wake up and find Asia is (still) a threat
Simon Philpott
Despite the government's claims that the Defence White Paper is a forward looking and innovative document, its vision for the future remains wedded to an assumption that conflict between states is a permanent feature of international political life. It argues that 'changes [in the] dynamic Asia Pacific region could produce a more unstable and threatening strategic situation'. The White Paper is haunted by the twin implications of multiple poles of power in the wake of the Cold War, and the crisis in sovereignty in a region whose anti-colonial nationalism (including its Marxist variant) is under severe internal strain.
Australians find themselves living in a region in which the pitfalls and possibilities of postcolonial identity politics have spilled out of academic books and into day-to-day discourse throughout Southeast Asia. There is little doubt that so called separatists across Southeast Asia are encouraged by the tortured success of the East Timorese. In the wake of the dissolution of the Soviet empire and the Balkans conflagration, the possibility of redrawing national boundaries is today less unthinkable in 'the West', even if it is intolerant of refugees fleeing the conflict the reconfiguration of boundaries often entails. How else are readers to understand references to the likelihood that peace-keeping operations may become more common in the next decade and beyond? And what are readers to make of the remark that in just the next decade, 'governments will consider using the Australian Defence Force in circumstances that we have not envisaged'. Arguably, these comments imply that the evolution of political community may be incomplete in the so-called arc of instability.
The White Paper enshrines a fundamental contradiction: a commitment to the integrity of existing nation-states (especially Indonesia), and an awareness that 'nationalism... remains potent and... an increasingly powerful motivator'. Nationalism may once have been a centripetal force, but currently it exhibits centrifugal tendencies. Thus, despite the veneer of optimism concerning the prospects for peace and prosperity in the region, and while welcoming the growing effectiveness of the United Nations, the White Paper warns that international politics is characterised by the permanent threat of disorder . However, it has little to say about the conceptual future of the nation-state, or about the question of sovereignty (resource sovereignty, indigenous rights), or about the moral and ethical justifications for maintaining colonial boundaries.
The White Paper foreshadows a return to a doctrine of forward defence, and emphasises self-reliance in the context of the US alliance, which remains the centrepiece of Australian security arrangements. Does the Howard government opposition to the emergence of other new states suggest that it now feels it paid a high price (politically and militarily) for its East Timor policies? Paradoxically, defending the national boundary status quo in the wake of East Timor may draw the Australian military further into regional affairs than the White Paper intends. Moreover, the government's habit of trumpeting (white Anglo) Australian values, particularly in the context of its well-executed East Timor intervention, has done little in the way of narrowing differences and building on common strategic perceptions, a stated aim of the White Paper.
Aceh and Papua
Aceh and Papua (Irian Jaya) are complex problems for this and any subsequent Indonesian government with democratic pretensions. In neither case do demands for independence look likely to dissipate, and Papuan activists may have a case in international law for separation from Indonesia given the deeply flawed Act of Free Choice (1969). While a defence White Paper may not be the place to canvass alternatives for the future of Aceh and Papua, defence and diplomacy are acknowledged there as opposite sides of the same foreign policy coin.
The dead bat of opposition to change not only diminishes the 'Australian values' of adherence to democratic procedures, tolerance and respect for human rights, but also implies acceptance of the fact of political repression in the present in preference to the potential for bloodshed that the Australian government believes will accompany Papuan independence.There is a contradiction in simultaneously seeking political disengagement from Indonesia's internal problems while seeking to develop a sense of regional security with a state whose defence forces have inadvertently nourished the fissiparous tendencies so clearly evident in Aceh and Papua.
John Howard has made much political capital out of playing a populist tune, so it is interesting that the Community Consultation Team reports that 'the public' supports increased expenditure on military affairs which 'contrasts sharply with the views of some academics and bureaucrats'. Whilst it would be wrong to overstate the importance of the consultation to the overall tenor of the White Paper and the proposals it outlines, the report presents the government with an anxious public ready to bear increased defence expenditure because of 'heightened instability' and 'unpredictability' in the region.
However, if the Hobart public consultation is anything to go by, overwhelmingly attended by white, middle aged or older males and conducted in a suburban Returned and Services Leagues club, the views gathered by the process are unrepresentative of contemporary Australian society.There is a good case for taking such meetings into schools and universities, to gauge the views of those who will be paying for defence expenditure long after many of those at the Hobart meeting have expired.
It was profoundly disappointing to hear 'Asia' so willingly constructed as an enduring threat to Australian security. Can it simply be assumed that younger Australians, a far more diverse group than was the case two generations ago, share the old white fear of invasion from Asia? After all, for a significant minority of Australians, the threatening sea of instability of the White Paper is a rather more domesticated setting of personal origins and extended family.
'Traditional' interstate tensions remain visible between India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, and the Koreas. But much of Asia's postcolonial history foreshadows twenty-first century problems: intrastate conflicts involving ideology, ethnicity, religion, economic inequality and forced dispossession of resources and land. Whilst the White Paper anticipates more regular deployment of Australian forces in multilateral, UN led missions, its twentieth century assumptions about international politics continue the long standing tradition of constructing Asia as Australia's security bnoire.
In indicating that Australia 'would be concerned about major internal challenges that threatened the stability and cohesion of... Indonesia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, East Timor and the island countries of the Southwest Pacific', the White Paper vainly attempts to place the legacy of colonialism at the end of history. 'We' may not like it, but the consequences of European and Asian colonialism remain integral to regional politics. Idealising the world as it is not the answer to current and future challenges. As the White Paper observes, international politics offers few guarantees, but a genuinely forward-looking and innovative document would not so readily link change with fear. To do this is to remain in the cultural loop of assuming that no matter what happens in Asia, it is a threat to Australia's security.
Simon Philpott (Simon.Philpott@utas.edu.au) teaches at the University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia. 'Groundhog Day' is a 1993 film about a man who keeps reliving the same day.
Inside Indonesia 66: April-June 2001
The new conservatives
Golkar and PDIP parliamentarians join forces to pull down Gus Dur
Gerry van Klinken
Gus Dur's supporters say New Order remnants are making a comeback. They are only partly right. The group of so-called 'cowboys' who are bringing him down are a new generation of politicians. They are young, well off, and say they hate corruption. They quite enjoyed the New Order, but they didn't like Suharto and don't like to be seen in public with soldiers. They may represent the beginnings of a new conservative alliance that will one day push aside the Suharto-era structures, and create new ones.
The most striking feature of this emerging alliance is its cross-party character, which belies all the symbolism of the 1999 election. Voters then thought of Golkar as the New Order bad guys, and Megawati's PDIP as the great hope for popular democracy. But Gus Dur is today being tackled at the knees by a group of Golkar and PDIP politicians for whom the 1999 symbols mean nothing, and who get along very well together.
Behind the major players - Abdurrahman Wahid (nicknamed Gus Dur), Megawati Sukarnoputri, and Golkar chief Akbar Tanjung - stand a host of often faceless party activists. These in turn represent groups that have long struggled for power within their own parties. The rebirth of Golkar after the fall of Suharto, in particular, is the result of a dramatic internal upheaval with dozens of key actors.
In the dying days of the Suharto regime, a dissident group within Golkar stood up against Suharto, and afterwards against Habibie too. They carried on a banner of internal reform unfurled in the late 1980s. Clustering around Harmoko first, then around Akbar Tanjung, they faced threats of expulsion. But in the end, fears that Golkar might lose the election helped them to prevail. They succeeded by turning it into a more conventional political party, cutting formal links with the military and the bureaucracy, building links with business, talking a lot about the rule of law - but all without apologising for a shady past.
The most dynamic figure of this new Golkar generation is Ade Komaruddin. Aged 35, he comes from an upper middle class family and runs a hotel in Jakarta, which he uses for political meetings. He is a former student activist with the Islamic Students Association HMI. The association has worked hard since the mid-1980s to influence national politics. Nearly half the last Suharto parliament consisted of former HMI members - in all the parties. Akbar Tanjung is one of many former HMI members who keep in touch through the alumni association KAHMI.
Behind Megawati Sukarnoputri stand similar factions. On one side is a group, led by her husband and major business figure Taufik Kiemas, who want her to stick with the Gus Dur alliance, presumably because it is a working arrangement, and moreover the symbolism is right. On the other is a group led by wealthy businessman Arifin Panigoro, who have long wanted her to dump a Gus Dur they see as incompetent, and set up shop with the Golkar that brought Indonesia prosperity for three decades. 'And hang the symbolism', this second group might say.
A key operative for the Arifin Panigoro faction is Zulvan Lindan. He comes from Aceh, but has long lived in Jakarta, where he headed the HMI in the early 1980s. Within two months of the June 1999 election, which pitted the PDIP against Golkar as light is pitted against darkness, he helped bring Megawati and Akbar Tanjung together at one table to explore the possibility of a coalition.
The 'cowboys', initially a group of twelve friends, are nationalists. Both Ade Komaruddin and Zulvan Lindan have said unsympathetic things about the East Timorese, Papuans and Acehnese. They belong to a new generation of young parliamentarians who, a Kompas survey showed, don't like federalism, fear 'communism', believe in the need for martial law powers, and think society remains 'immature'. They also seem to have forgotten the language of social justice. But they are not so easily bought and have made damaging revelations about money politics in parliament.
Topple Gus Dur
The group began to meet intensively but secretly from about May 2000 to try to topple Gus Dur. Some meetings may have involved military generals. They wanted a coalition between Golkar and PDIP to replace the shaky one that put Gus Dur in place.
At the end of May 2000, Ade Komaruddin presented Akbar Tanjung with a petition signed by 277 parliamentarians, from almost all parties, asking that the house question the president about his decision to sack two cabinet ministers in April. This led on 20 July 2000 to a stormy session, in which the president dismissed the questioning as unconstitutional.
Within a few days, Komaruddin made his next move. He handed Akbar Tanjung another petition, again signed by parliamentarians from most parties, to pursue the president on the so-called 'Buloggate' case, in which Gus Dur's aides allegedly took money from the state logistics agency. Since tickling the till of state agencies is standard practice, Akbar worried that Golkar would also be tainted by an expose, but he gave in, suddenly looking old beside the young Turks.
At the August 2000 MPR session, Ade Komaruddin and his mates hatched a plan to make Gus Dur divest day-to-day powers to his vice president Megawati. They wanted Gus Dur to be a constitutional head of state, 'like the Queen of England', with Megawati as head of government. Gus Dur agreed, but reneged once the MPR had dispersed.
On 5 September, parliament established a special committee (pansus) to investigate Buloggate and another problem they called Bruneigate, in which the Sultan of Brunei gave Gus Dur money to help the Acehnese. Ade Komaruddin was one of its key members. 'We have struck the hammer to call the president,' he said. He kept the committee in the headlines constantly since then.
In late November 2000, Ade Komaruddin used his trademark technique of the signature campaign once more to persuade the house to go down the road of a censure letter (a 'memorandum') that could result in the president's impeachment. For effect, Gus Dur's sins in this letter were multiplied. Zulvan Lindan, spokesperson for Ade's group, said Gus Dur had promoted separatism by allowing the Papuan flag to fly, had proposed to lift the ban on communism, had failed to prosecute Suharto for corruption, had replaced several key officials and ministers without consulting parliament, and had failed to divest powers to Megawati.
The memorandum came down on 1 February 2001. It led immediately to widespread popular protests around East Java, Gus Dur's political home base. At the time of writing (mid-February), Ade Komaruddin was at the heart of moves to call a special session of the MPR, at which a new president would replace Gus Dur.
What are we to make of all this? Much as they appreciate Gus Dur's democratic instincts, democracy activists will be advised to look less at personalities than at structures. Ever since its birth in 1945, Indonesia has had a strongly presidential system of government, with all important decisions made at the top. This system lent itself to authoritarianism and the abuse of power. But after the events of recent years, Indonesia no longer knows if it has a presidential or a parliamentary system. The parliamentarianism of Ade Komaruddin and his friends is actually preferable to a presidentialism wedded to the authoritarian 1945 constitution. But these new conservatives are out of touch with the popular mood, and their disgust of corruption is too selective to be convincing. This shows that the political parties themselves remain undemocratic too. Above all, it shows that authoritarian structures tend to reproduce themselves.
Gerry van Klinken (editor@insideindonesia.org) edits 'Inside Indonesia'.
Inside Indonesia 66: Apr - Jun 2001
Papua on the Net
Not as remote as you might think...
Mike Cookson
English language resources online for Papua have developed in curious and constrained ways since Inside Indonesia's first report 'Irian Jaya on the Net' in Oct-Dec 1999 (see edition #60 atwww.insideindonesia.org). The proliferation of print media in Papua and the growing use of email, newsgroups and the world wide web within Papua has seen the creation of several useful websites in Papua, almost all in Indonesian and all accessible through an excellent Jayapura (Port Numbay) based internet portal (www.infopapua.com). Almost all the other websites listed here are located in North America, Europe, Australia or New Zealand.
Newsgroups are one of the least expensive and most efficient ways to source information about Papua from the internet. Kabar-Irian maintains several moderated newsgroups available in English and Indonesian as daily postings or in a digest format (see www.kabar-irian.com for details). The two most popular unmoderated (unedited) news or 'chat' groups (both with around 200 subscribers) are the West Papua News list (formerly reg.westpapua, now at www.topica.com/lists/WestPapua) and Kabar-L (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irianjaya). It is easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to these newsgroups and they don't forward your email to advertisers for spamming (junk mail). If you want more than the daily news, the following is a selection of the best Papua-related websites across the political spectrum.
Art, culture and tourism. Asmat art is the most widely known art form of Papua. The Crosier Missionaries have sponsored it for decades (www.asmat.org/default.asp) and others have collected it for as long (www.asmat.de/asmat-eng/index.htm). See more Asmat art at www.asmatart.net, Sentani barkcloth at www.artasiapacific.com/articles/maro/fn.html and a large (if at times unspecific) collection of Papua images at www.dinnissen.org. Search engines will turn up more, including tourist sites like: www.baliem.com, www.balimart.com/irian (very clear), www.irianjaya.de, www.papua-adventures.com/index.html, www.mountainmadness.com/gallery/carstenz/carstenz08.htm and travelogues like Where is Evan (www.whereisevan.com/indonesia00-3.html). The Biak Tourism Office is well worth a visit (www.infobiaknumfor.com) and you can combine an interest in culture, tourism and Christian missions at Eduventure (www.eduventure.net).
Mega projects. Reflecting the importance of its public profile and its massive financial resources, Freeport Indonesia offers one of the most comprehensive Papua-related sites on the web (www.fcx.com). An extensive Freeport bibliography (to 1998) is at http://rspas.anu.edu.au/rmap/Pages/Textonline/Biblio_ij.html. Use local search engines for information on BP Amoco's huge Tangguh development (www.bp.com/index.asp) or Inco's exploration program (www.inco.com), or check some pages about the pending Mamberamo project (www.geocities.com/TheTropics/Island/4175 and http://home.snafu.de/watchin/Mamberamo.htm). Project Underground (www.moles.org), the Real History Archive (www.realhistoryarchives.com/collections/hidden/freeport.htm) and The Mineral Policy Institute (www.mpi.org.au) have news and critical commentary about some of these developments.
Concerned for the welfare, environment and human rights of Papuan communities? Down to Earth (www.gn.apc.org/dte), Tapol (www.gn.apc.org/tapol) and Inside Indonesia (you're reading it!) include Papua in their online newsletters, while Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org), Survival International (www.survival.org.uk), the Robert F Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights (www.rfkmemorial.org/center/pro_act.htm) and the International Crisis Group (www.intl-crisis-group.org) have detailed reports available on Papua. The Kemala network (www.bsp-kemala.or.id) has useful information about NGOs already working on these issues in Papua, while the West Papua Project aims to build peace initiatives there (www.arts.usyd.edu.au/arts/departs/cpacs/wppmain.html).
Papua solidarity groups typically rely on voluntary support to promote the cause of Papuan self-determination and are often unfettered by institutional affiliations. One of the oldest, the Australia West Papua Association offers the West Papua Information Kit online (www.cs.utexas.edu/users/cline/papua/core.htm, while Bob Boyer's Papua page on this server has disappeared). Others include the West Papua Action Group (www.westpapuaaction.buz.org), the Oxford Papuan Rights Campaign (www.westpapua.org), the Cambridge Peace Initiative (West Papua subgroup at www.campeace.org/westpapua.html), International Action for West Papua (www.koteka.net), Friends of People Close to Nature (www.fpcn-global.org with amazing photos) and www.angelfire.com/journal/issues/irian.html.
A number of websites represent the West Papuan independence movement, reflecting ambiguities in the movement's leadership and the strong sense of identity the movement evokes among Papuan exiles and independence activists. Prominent sites include the West Papua Nuigini/ Irian Jaya homepage (www.converge.org.nz/wpapua), an 'informal' Indonesian OPM website (www.geocities.com/opm-irja), the Liberation Army of West Papua's Free Papua Movement (www.geocities.com/wp_tpnopm) and the Diary of the OPM (www.westpapua.org.uk or www.westpapua.net) and www.eco-action.org/opm.
Researchers can assist with some of the intellectual resources necessary for a peaceful, just and secure future in Papua. The internet offers new possibilities for sharing and even repatriating existing research to Papua. Since 1994 Irja.org Inc. has provided a valuable information resource on Papua (www.irja.org). Other useful sites include: http://users.bart.nl/~edcolijn/irian.html, www.sil.org/ethnologue/families/West_Papuan.html, www.bps.go.id (go to the regional offices - Irian Jaya page) and AusAID's training module (http://globaled.ausaid.gov.au/secondary/casestud/indonesia/3/jayawijaya.html). Learn about Dutch research projects in Papua at http://iias.leidenuniv.nl/host/isir/gen and from back issues of Oceania Newsletter (www.kun.nl/cps/index.html#index). PNG research (http://rspas.anu.edu.au/lmp) suggests important future collaborations for researchers on Papua. Finally, Kirksey's homepage (www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/~wolf0983) offers the first free Papua-specific thesis online, while abstracts for other theses on Irian Jaya/ Papua/ West Papua (use all of these whenever you want a complete search) by North American researchers can be viewed or purchased at www.umi.com.
A popular Papuan peace building initiative can be found at www.wpu-fc.faithweb.com/main.html.
Mike Cookson (michael.cookson@anu.edu.au) is researching for a PhD
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
In this issue
Papua is not the Stone Age
Gerry van Klinken
Both Australia and Indonesia are probably about to get new leaders. We hope all the candidates for the top jobs - Megawati, John Howard and Kim Beazley - will read this edition of Inside Indonesia. So for that matter should George W Bush (who said we don't aim high?!). Papua has for too long been a remote, 'primitive' place whose fate is arranged in Jakarta, Canberra, New York and Washington. Today it is far less remote. Papua is all over the worldwide web, as Mike Cookson shows us here. Now is the time to start listening to Papuans themselves. That is the real meaning of self-determination, still one of the key beliefs underpinning the United Nations.
This edition does not take a view on Papuan independence as such. It wants to be a forum for ideas. What it does take a view on is the importance of people. No abstract idea of national sovereignty, or of a gross domestic product, can be more important than the right of ordinary children, women and men to live in peace and dignity.
I think this edition brings those Papuan people into closeup. Not surprisingly, we discover they are human beings who dream of a better future, not unlike humans elsewhere. Once we have 'met' people like John Rumbiak, Tom Beanal or Beatrix Koibur we can no longer talk about 'Stone Age rebels', as so many newspapers still do. We will also find it much less easy to say patronising things about what is advisable, permissible or possible for Papua.
This is about as packed an edition of our little magazine as we have ever managed! So many people contributed so gladly it has been an amazing one to edit. There is a growing Papuan solidarity movement out there, that's for sure. Of course, it would take a book to cover everything. Maybe this one can be a first guide to action.
Gerry van Klinken is the editor of Inside Indonesia
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
The ethnic factor
Christianity, curly hair, and human dignity
Nico Schulte Nordholt
The two phenomena of ethnicity and ethno-nationalism are not restricted to West Papua. All over the archipelago they occur as a consequence of the present power vacuum in the 'centre' after Suharto's 32 years of centralistic and oppressive reign. Everywhere anti-Jakarta and, outside Java, anti-Javanese, sentiments can be noticed. To those who are not Papuan (or Acehnese, or any of the other ethnic groups now talking about seceding from Indonesia), these sentiments often sound dreadfully exclusive. Does this mean Indonesia is now inevitably headed away from earlier ideals of tolerance and diversity, towards narrower concepts of nationhood based on blood and religion?
The Dutch scholar Jan Nederveen Pieterse pointed out that an ethnic discourse is profoundly affected by macro processes such as post Cold War politics. For Indonesia, one can add to this the impact of the Asian economic crisis since 1997, which has led to the present Kristal(total crisis). IMF and World Bank policies such as 'the retreat of the central state', 'decentralisation', 'privatisation' and 'democratisation' are also driving politics in an ethnic direction.
The republic's national slogan of Diversity in Unity (Bhinneka Tunggal Ika) was intended in 1945 to express a unity (persatuan) based on a voluntary choice of belonging to the new republic of Indonesia. At that time there was great appreciation for the vast diversity of the republic. During Suharto's New Order, however, this national slogan shifted towards unity imposed from above (kesatuan). Ethnicity was reduced to folk customs, displayed on well-orchestrated TV performances.
Today the pendulum of ethnic diversity is shifting again, this time towards a kind of ethno-nationalism that causes many observers in and outside Indonesia to fear a complete falling-apart. I will show in a moment that I personally do not think the situation is that bad, but two regions, Aceh and West Papua, may indeed try to separate themselves from the republic.
'Being a christian'
When as a lecturer at a university in Java in the 1970s I first came to know students from what was then still called Irian Jaya, I discovered how diverse they really were. There were tensions especially between coastal and mountain Papuans. Moreover, individualism was deeply rooted. Even within one's own clan, creating co-operation was an uphill battle. But a number of things bound them together. They spoke Indonesian together. They all loved soccer. And 'being a christian' was important to them, especially when they experienced petty racism amidst their overwhelmingly Javanese and Islamic environment. They named the hostel where they lived 'Mansinam', after the small coastal village near Manokwari where the first missionaries landed in the nineteenth century. These things amounted to a Papuan ethnicity, which to them was not 'narrow' but broad and protective.
In the 1980s I helped the main Protestant church in Irian Jaya (GKI Irja) to develop some community development programs. I saw once more how 'being a christian' offered Papuans a new identity, lifting them above their own clan identity. Although separated by many Christian denominations, 'being a christian' gave them a self-respect that resisted the discrimination they experienced from the Indonesian authorities and the armed forces in particular. Even the distinction between Protestant and Catholic, elsewhere the source of much tension, appeared to be of minor interest.
Arnold Ap symbolised the severe discrimination most Papuans felt in the 1980s. This well-known Papuan anthropologist was killed by intelligence agents just before Easter 1984, on orders from the Jakarta headquarters. They saw him as the champion of a national liberation movement, and he therefore had to be eliminated. In fact he had only given Papuans back their self-respect, through church liturgy. He was a leader who bridged Papua's deep ethnic diversity. While himself from the coastal area, he equally supported the rights of the mountain people. The environment, and later in the nineties (entirely in Arnold Ap's spirit) human rights, were issues that rose above the ethnic divisions.
When the government announced in August 1983 that 750,000 households of transmigrants would be shipped to Irian Jaya, Papuans soon said: 'We will be no more than servants on our own soil', and: 'They wish to turn our curly hair into straight hair'.
To counter this widespread fear, the GKI Irja church synod thought it important to provide some hope for the future. Hence those plans for programs promising at least some kind of 'survival' as a group with their own identity. During the years that followed not many of those plans were realised. Church organisations did not have enough human capacity. Nevertheless, the churches did offer a shelter in which Papuans could experience their identity.
The churches, alongside several relatively small but influential NGOs, have similarly been vocal about the social cost of mining and forestry from the mid-eighties until today.
Emancipation
After the end of the Suharto regime these protests acquired a political meaning. The call for independence was first expressed openly in 1998. In June 2000, thanks to the tolerant attitude of the Wahid government at that time, a well-organised people's congress officially put forward the demand for independence to the government in Jakarta, although terms and conditions were negotiable.
Does this amount to a Papuan declaration of war on Indonesia, as Papuans dig in to fight for their own state, moreover one that is based on a narrowly racial and religious concept of Papuan ethnicity? I do not think so, at least not yet. Some leading Papuans have told me that in fact their main purpose was to win recognition of their human dignity, as well as full recognition from 'Jakarta' and the rest of the world of the grave injustice done to them by 'the treason of 1969'. In other words, they seemed to imply, their fight was for a better Indonesia rather than a separate Papua.
However, much will depend on how Jakarta now responds. Today, in May 2001, President Wahid is hostage to the Indonesian Armed Forces TNI, while the presidium of the people's congress is in jail. Possibly the present intelligence officers, like their predecessors who liquidated Arnold Ap in 1984, think that by 'decapitating' the leadership of a national movement they can enfeeble it. Meanwhile Wahid's likely successor, Megawati Sukarnoputri, leads a party that in all its statements about the regions beyond Java sounds centralistic and nationalistic rather than sympathetic to diversity. A government she leads may resort to increased repression in Papua.
Repression seemed to work in the eighties, at least at first sight. But now, nearly twenty years later, resistance against injustice is much more widespread. Besides the five leaders in jail, there are many more younger leaders who, in the spirit of Arnold Ap, are ready to stand up for the demands of the people. A policy of repression will only fuel the call for independence. Both within and beyond the church, these new leaders are at the same time rising above the boundaries of their own ethnic and religious groups and presenting themselves as representatives of a self-conscious Papuan nation in the making.
Nevertheless, much about Papuan self-consciousness remains fluid and open to different possibilities. It would be premature to jump to the conclusion that it is becoming a narrow and exclusive Papuan ethno-nationalism, completely rejecting Jakarta and threatening non-Papuans living in Papua with expulsion. Just as Papuan ethnicity has proved generous and inclusive towards Papuans from all over this vast territory, it has the potential to expand and embrace others too.
Nor is the concept of nationalism necessarily exclusive. All over the world, nationalism is 'Janus-faced' - it can be liberating and inclusive, or chauvinistic and exclusive. When nearly all Papuans loudly express the call for 'merdeka', that in itself is not sufficient to know what kind of freedom is envisaged. Does it mean 'emancipation' and 'liberation from injustice' - that is, to be accorded the same respect as all others within the one Indonesian nation? Or does it rather mean 'chauvinism' and 'domination' - that is, by Papuans against non-Papuan 'others', against 'Indonesians' and those who represent them locally, in particular traders and transmigrants?
Papuans who are (aspiring) state officials perhaps intend their call for 'merdeka' to be heard in a narrow ethno-nationalistic sense, meaning they want a state of their own where only Papuan Christians will be citizens. They say this in reaction against a Jakarta they see as the colonial centre. Their history of Dutch colonial rule, de facto, lasted only about fifteen years, but they endured the New Order for more than thirty years. For them, Papua must now coincide with the borders of the province of Irian Jaya as a distinct administrative unit.
It may turn out, however, that provided justice is done to the Papuan population the call for 'merdeka' will by and large be meant as a call for 'emancipation', a call to acknowledge the dignity of Papuan cultures in general, in line with the original Unity in Diversity slogan of the Indonesian nation-state. In my understanding, this interpretation is still the meaning and objective of the new leadership within Papuan civil society. If this leadership does eventually move towards the narrower meaning of 'ethnicity' held today mainly by the Papuan elite, that is towards a sovereign state based on an exclusive Papuan ethnicity, it will be because the domineering and chauvinistic, nationalistic politics of the TNI and of Megawati Sukarnoputri's PDI-P force them in that direction.
Nico Schulte Nordholt (n.g.schultenordholt@tdg.utwente.nl) teaches at the University of Twente, Enschede, in the Netherlands.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
Mama Papua
Beatrix Koibur explains why Christianity is important to Papuan women
Annie Feith
In August 2000, I had the good fortune to meet and interview Beatrix Koibur, one of two women on the Papuan Presidium, the executive body of the Papuan Council. I was researching West Papuan nationalism from a gender perspective. Beatrix is one of the few Papuan women leaders. She was in Brisbane with other presidium members, some of who attended the UN General Assembly the following month.
Beatrix Koibur Rumbino was born on July 10 1939, on Miokbundi, a small island to the east of Biak, and her own outlook reflects the influence of Dutch Protestant missionaries. This remains a strong influence in Papua, despite almost forty years of Indonesian rule. The Dutch are seen as having been a much more benign coloniser than the Indonesians. In some coastal areas such as Biak (from where many prominent nationalists originate), missionary efforts meant that by the late 1940s, most men and growing numbers of women were receiving a formal education. Hence this particular form of Christianity constitutes a strong part of Papuan - Melanesian identity.
In 1953, having completed three years at a Domestic Science Girls School, Beatrix was chosen to go to a missionary teachers college in Serui. As the first woman graduate in 1956, Beatrix was qualified as a primary teacher and Bible study leader. At that time, this was the highest level of education available to Papuan women. From 1963 with Indonesian rule, Beatrix said that it was only within the church that women had the confidence and courage to become leaders. Few government positions went to women, and almost all of those were given to women from Java and other parts of Indonesia, despite the fact that many Papuan women were capable of filling them, particularly those who had graduated from the Domestic Science Girls Schools.
Beatrix was proud of the fact that some women joined the OPM guerilla movement, and she pointed to a 1980 episode in which several women raised the Morning Star flag in Jayapura and were subsequently jailed. Women are now beginning to speak out about military repression, she said. In the past, if they spoke out they would be arrested. My argument that the militarisation of a nationalist movement tends to privilege men and masculinity to the detriment of women seemed not to resonate with Beatrix. Her perception of the Satgas Papua, the militia formed by Papuan nationalist Theys Eluay, was positive. She pointed out that these groups were not armed, but suggested that they may need to become so in the future.
Since late 1998 with reformasi, Beatrix has been called 'Mama Papua'. The title 'Mama' is also used for other outspoken women such as the Amungme leader Yosepha Alomang. For Biak people, powerful women leaders have historical significance. Angganetha Menufandu, for example, preached non-violence as she led a large anti-colonial millenarian movement in the 1940s (Koreri).
Church voice
According to Beatrix, the churches give great strength and hope to Papuans. Church leaders play a pastoral role, but also provide protection and a measure of political access, making possible the monitoring of human rights violations. As in East Timor, the churches have provided one of the few avenues through which Papuans can voice their grievances.
Beatrix Koibur is head of the Women's Christian Association of Indonesia in West Papua. In this position, since reformasi began in 1998, she has felt empowered to speak out. On 6 July 1998 in Biak City on the island of Biak, the Indonesian army opened fire on some two hundred people who were guarding the banned Morning Star flag. Beatrix went to Biak as head of a church team to care for the women and children survivors of the massacres. The naked mutilated bodies she saw horrified her. These massacres were even more shocking in that they took place after Suharto's fall. But they also had an empowering effect.
In the aftermath the three main churches - both Catholic and Protestant - formed the Forum for the Reconciliation of Irian Jaya Society (Foreri). Its aim was to create a 'national dialogue' to pursue political solutions for West Papua. From Foreri came the Team 100, which met President Habibie in February 1999 to demand independence. Beatrix was the only woman on the team.
Beatrix' account highlights the centrality of the Biak massacres of July 1998 as a catalyst in the most recent chapter of Papuan nationalism, and the crucial role played by the churches in it. With regard to gender relations within the movement, Beatrix' comments indicate that whilst Papuan women are actively involved, their engagement is contributive, and does not in general challenge the male-dominated power structures.
Anne Feith (anniefeith@hotmail.com) recently wrote an honour's thesis at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, on women and the West Papuan nationalist struggle.
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
But is it democratic?
Indonesian democrats have mixed feelings about Papua's independence drive
Stanley
To what extent has democratisation at the centre benefited Papua? When Habibie took over from Suharto, Papuans demanded that he give them what he gave East Timor, a choice for autonomy or independence. The new government under president Gus Dur tried to be more accommodating, for example by changing the name from Irian Jaya to Papua and sending home a lot of troops. He even gave a billion rupiah to Theys H Eluay to hold the Papuan People's Congress at the end of May 2000.
But if Gus Dur hoped this would dampen separatist demands he was wrong. The umbrella Papua Presidium Council (PDP) set up a militant Papuan Task Force (Satuan Tugas Papua) in many places. Its original purpose of preventing violence was soon buried under its own brutality towards non-Papuan settlers. These transmigrants are impoverished peasants from Java and Sulawesi and themselves victims of the New Order. Task Force members also demand money from business people and generally act thuggish. PDP leaders, meanwhile, take advantage of Papuan anti-Indonesian emotions in order to get themselves more gifts from the centre, for their personal use.
Unfortunately Papuans who interpreted Gus Dur's sympathy as a readiness to give them an independence option were also wrong. Papua was for Gus Dur just part of the political bargaining to retain power. Under pressure from parliament over alleged corruption, he said that if he was forced to resign, five Indonesian regions would secede - among them Papua.
The separatist issue, in other words, is a game for elites in Papua and in Jakarta. It has no significance for the great mass of Papuans.
As 'ethno-nationalism' grew and the PDP promised independence, economic envy led to clashes between indigenous Papuans and non-Papuan settlers, for example in Wamena in late 2000. Tensions also arose between highland and coastal people, with highlanders accusing coastals of dominating the PDP. Where nationalism should have been a force for democracy, PDP leaders turned it into an anti-democratic one with overtones of racial hatred, also among Papuans themselves.
The PDP leadership tried to accommodate popular feeling by forming the Penis Gourd Brigade (Pasukan Koteka) from Wamena to represent highlanders. Many of them flooded into Jayapura just before 1 December 2000, creating fresh tensions there. Non-Papuan settlers began to arm themselves - encouraged by the police chief. Hoping to prevent more trouble, the security forces took repressive action by arresting some PDP leaders on treason charges and bringing in more troops - a total of 12,000 of them. All this demonstrates a failure of democracy in Papua. Not to mention the many roadblocks and attacks on strategic economic assets.
Amidst this confusion, the media have thrown up many 'instant' leaders who might best be called democracy consumers, while the important figures of a real democracy movement in Papua are overlooked because they refuse to use primordial sentiments. Examples of such genuine democrats are Bishop Herman Munninghoff who fights military human rights abuse in the interior, Rev Herman Saud who campaigns against violence and discrimination, Agustinus Rumansara who works to strengthen civil society, Tom Beanal who pursues human rights violators and supports indigenous empowerment, and John Gluba Gebze who works to create clean government.
Nor do many Papuans get to hear much about important human rights institutions like the Jayapura Legal Aid Institute (LBH), the Papuan NGO Cooperative Forum (Foker LSM Papua) or Elsham Papua. People are as if transfixed by the PDP's promise of independence, even in the absence of a clear agenda to get there.
Suharto
The democratisers are overshadowed by the likes of Theys Eluay, Thaha Al Hamid, Don Flassy and Herman Awom, who in reality merely manipulate group sentiment for their personal ends. Their backgrounds make interesting reading. Theys Eluay was part of the Pepera council in 1969 that voted unanimously in favour of joining Indonesia. He was a provincial parliamentarian for several terms under Suharto. Thaha Al Hamid is a failed student and a failed administrator in a range of non-government organisations (NGOs). For the 1999 elections he campaigned with Adi Sasono on behalf of the Partai Daulat Rakyat, a party seriously stained by corruption allegations. Don Flassy, meanwhile, is the secretary of the provincial planning agency (Bappeda Irian Jaya) who failed to win the governorship.
Papuan nationalism has also turned several OPM guerrillas into popular heroes. What most people don't know is that they have now joined the National Liberation Army (Tentara Pembebasan Nasional, TPN), which has a dubious relationship with the Indonesian army.
So what do Indonesian democracy activists think about Papua? Most are quite ignorant, but some Jakarta NGOs like Elsam and Isai work with local NGOs to strengthen Papuan civil society. There are differences among these Indonesian activists. Older ones want Papuans to join them in a common struggle against injustice everywhere. Younger ones are more open and ready to support anything they feel is good for the Papuan people themselves, including a desire for independence.
Stanley is a journalist and a manager at Isai, the Institute for the Free Flow of Information (isai@isai.or.id).
Inside Indonesia 67: Jul - Sep 2001
More than six decades after being inspired as an undergraduate in Sydney, Ron Witton retraces his Indonesian language teacher's journey back to Suriname