Military madness - West Papua / The Military - civil war and military corruption

New Internationalist, April, 2002

One terrible day in the highlands revealed what's at stake for West Papuans -- and the strategy of violent strife being fermented by the Indonesian military, whose local commander tried it out first in nearby East Timor.

As the Morning Star was still on the horizon on 6 October 2000, the Indonesian police in Wamena were using chain saws to fell every flag bearing its name. Two Papuans who got in the way were killed. Word travelled quickly. By the end of the afternoon, 40,000 highland men and women swept into town -- naked and grease-painted, ready for a fight.

Imagine -- wave upon wave of highland men in nothing but feathered head-dresses and long thin penis sheaths made from gourds; highland women with nothing but small grass skirts covering their crotch. They had walked and driven for hours to get there, carrying the only weapons they possessed -- bows and arrows, spears and machetes. By the next day at least 37 were dead and 89 seriously injured.

All this is hard to imagine as I walk down the streets of Wamena now. This small highland town is the stepping-off point for tourists who want to visit the Baliem Valley, which my Lonely Planet guide describes as 'one of the last truly fascinating traditional areas in the world'. There were less than three thousand tourists in 2000 -- but they are making this town into something it was never meant to be. I have arrived in November -- the off-season. Cycle-driven rickshaws (becaks) race up and down the streets without passengers. Men, naked but for their penis gourds, travel into town with woven bracelets and cowry-shell necklaces, setting out their wares in front of empty hostels and hotels. Mounds of uncollected garbage dot the street. A barefoot child wants to hold my hand, befriending me before asking for rupiah. Then an open truck drives by carrying eight armed soldiers.

In a town touting for tourists it is impossible to avoid the military and police. The police are the first to greet you at the airport. They question what you're doing, then try to corner some of the tourist dollars. 'Would you like to buy this map? I have a friend who can rent you a motorcycle.' You cannot travel here without a permit. I had lied to get mine in Jayapura. If I'd told the police why I really wanted to come to Wamena -- to talk about 6 October -- they would have thrown me out of the country.

Thirteen Papuans were killed that day, adding to the widely accepted death toll of 100,000 indigenous people already killed by the Indonesian armed forces. Unofficially, West Papuans will tell you that the death toll is much higher: that more than 800,000 have died. There are presently 15 to 20,000 police and military in West Papua. So, what is the threat posed by Papuans in Wamena?

'It's the raising of our flag -- the Morning Star,' says Amelia Jigibalom. 'All countries in the world have freedom when their flag is flying high.' If the spirit of independence in the hearts of West Papuans is the greatest -- and unseen -- enemy of the Indonesians, the most obvious outward sign of their resistance to Indonesian rule is the raising of the West Papuan flag. Amelia and four other local leaders - Reverend Obed Komba, Murjono Murib, Yafet Yelemaken and Reverend Yudas Meage - have gathered together to tell me about what took place here on 6 October. Obed is one of the 31 Presidium (Executive) members of the Papua Council. The other four are part of the broader decision-making body: panel members of the Papua Council. It's this that has made them the latest military target. Obed starts with the background.

When the Papua Council was formed to unite all West Papuan independence groups in June 2000, Indonesia's then President Wahid said Morning Star flags could be raised until 19 October 2000. But on 1 October in Wamena the head of police in the region, Daniel Suripati, came to Obed's house and told him that he would bring down the flags before then. He showed Obed a letter from Indonesia's police chief, Suroyo Bimantoro, giving the order. Obed told him this would cause conflict. So Obed arranged for another round of negotiations with police to take place on 6 October in Jayapura. Just before that meeting was scheduled to begin, Suripati gave orders for Wamena's flags to be taken down.

Obed's story confirms what I feared: that any independence the Indonesian Government gives may be clawed back by the armed forces. The Government has just passed much-publicized laws to give West Papua greater autonomy. These laws purport to give Papuans more say in government, but they allow the military to remain unregulated and police to be governed at a national level.

In Indonesia, the military are multi-functional. They are supposed to do what all armies do: protect the country from external threats. But they have also had a long-standing place in the social and economic life of the country. So the Generals sit in 38 national parliamentary seats. And the military has extensive corporate interests across Indonesia. West Papua is rich in natural resources. It has the biggest gold mine in the world, rainforests ripe for logging and oil so pure it needs little refining. These industries have proved lucrative sources of legal and illegal profit for the military. From just one entity - Freeport McMoRan's Grasberg gold and copper mine - the military has successfully demanded a one-off payment of $35 million, supplemented by an agreement to pay an annual contribution of $11 million. Most of this has been used to bolster the inadequate military budget for the region, so military accommodation and equipment are better here than elsewhere in Indonesia. But up to a third of this amou nt has gone straight into the pockets of a select group of officers and their subordinates. (1) To protect their lucrative income stream, the Generals have stationed in West Papua at least one member of the armed forces (soldiers and police) for every 170 citizens. To justify this, they support conflicts that only they can quell.