Friday 12 December 2014 3:01pm WIB (JoyoNews2)
Time
Yenni Kwok @yennikwok
The death of five high school students in skirmishes with Indonesian soldiers demonstrate the huge task ahead for Jokowi
photo:
A Papuan activist delivers speech at the Hotel Indonesia roundabout in
Jakarta on Dec. 10, 2014, during a protest against the killings of
teenagers in the Papuan town of Enarotali two days earlier Adek
BerryAFP/Getty Images
The
vivid images that emerged from Indonesia’s Papua province this week are
pretty gruesome: teenage boys in school uniforms lie in a pool of
blood, surrounded by shell-shocked residents. They are a grim reminder
of the ongoing human-rights abuses in the country’s easternmost corner,
wracked by a low-level armed separatist movement and heavy-handed
military crackdown for about half-century.
On
Monday, five high school students, aged 17 to 18, died in the town of
Enarotali after security forces allegedly shot at a crowd of about 800
Papuans many of whom were pupils protesting on a soccer field, not
far from the military and police offices. At least 17 civilians were
wounded, including women and children. A sixth victim died on Tuesday,
Papuan media reported.
The
ill-fated protest was sparked by a brawl between troops and local
residents, including children setting up Christmas decorations, shortly
after midnight it ended with a 12-year-old boy being beaten by rifle
butts and stones thrown at the military personnel. The U.N. Office of
High Commissioner for Human Rights, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty
International have since called for an independent investigation into
the deadly shooting.
The
killings raise doubt on the commitment of new Indonesian President Joko
Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi, whose election victory has buoyed
hopes that the world’s largest Muslim majority nation may finally
address rights abuses, self-determination grievances and economic
inequality issues that have long plagued the resource-rich provinces
of Papua and West Papua.
However,
the most recent shooting is “one of hundreds” of rights-abuse cases
documented by HRW over the past 15 years in the Papua region, says
Andreas Harsono, the group’s Indonesia researcher. “None of these have
been resolved. If anyone is ever put on trial, he would be sent to jail
for a few months, but no military men nor policemen have ever been fired
because of human-rights violations in Papua.” Indonesian police and
military have denied involvement in the Monday shooting the army chief
of staff even suggested the Papuan rebels were behind the incident.
Jokowi,
who traveled to Papua and West Papua during parliamentary and
presidential campaign seasons, has shown plenty of goodwill gestures to
the troubled region. In a June visit, the then presidential candidate
told an adoring crowd of his family’s close affinity to the Papuans’
homeland. “My wife was named Iriana because her grandfather was a
teacher who was deployed to the then named Irian Jaya for quite some
time,” he said, referring to the old provincial name of Papua.
Just
weeks after his election victory, Jokowi met with Papuan politicians
and leaders and promised to boost dialogue between Jakarta and the two
provinces. In October, the President made Yohana Yembise his Minister
for Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection, the first Papuan woman
appointed to the Cabinet.
The
Papua region, which has some of the world’s largest copper and gold
mines, is the only remaining area plagued by armed separatist conflicts
in Indonesia. (East Timor voted for independence in 1999 and Aceh rebels
reached a peace deal with Jakarta in 2005.) While the two Papuan
provinces are currently a virtually no-go zone for foreign reporters
two French journalists making a documentary on Papua’s insurgency were
arrested last August, jailed for more than two months and later deported
Jokowi has spoken about lifting media restrictions.
Conversely,
though, Jokowi has been heavily criticized not only for naming a
hard-line retired general, Ryamizard Ryacudu, as Defense Minister, but
also for supporting an increased military presence in the region,
including a plan to establish a new military command. Indonesian rights
activists say the higher number of security forces could trigger even
more violence in Papua.
And
like the Tibetans, Uighurs and Mongolians in China’s periphery regions,
Papuans are also worried of the influx of new migrants into their
homeland a number that is likely to increase if the new Transmigration
Minister could push a migration program to Papua from other islands,
especially the densely populated Java. “It is seen as an attempt to
Indonesianize Papua,” Harsono tells TIME.
One
day after the shooting, in an International Human Rights Day event in
the southern Javanese city of Yogyakarta, Jokowi reiterated his
human-rights commitment. “The government is paying attention and
committed not only to resolve past human-rights abuses but also to
prevent rights violations from being repeated in the future,” he said
That
may be reassuring to some, but Papuans and human-rights activists are
demanding more concrete actions, not just promises, from their new
leader. “After nearly two months in power, nothing has been realized
yet,” Harsono says about Jokowi. “There have been no significant
changes.”
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