Keith Jackson & Friends: PNG ATTITUDE

Australia's Pacific diplomacy needs recalibrating

BY DEREK BRIEN
THE AUSTRALIAN

DISMISSING the current diplomatic standoff between Australia and Vanuatu as a case of "the mouse that roared" is a bad idea.

Neither does it help to view Pacific island countries solely as beneficiaries of Australia's $1 billion aid program. Their strategic significance is only growing.

As the axis of power moves eastward, emerging Asian powers including China, Indonesia and India are demonstrating increasing strategic interest in Australia's backyard.

Within days of expelling the Australian Federal Police, Vanuatu's Prime Minister Sato Kilman welcomed a delegation from Indonesia and offers to provide police and paramilitary training. Within 24 hours of that meeting, a Hercules aircraft loaded with equipment had arrived from Jakarta.

To resolve the current impasse and retain its strong footprint in the region, Australia would do well to recalibrate its relationships in the Pacific.

Australia's Melanesian neighbours Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have more than 1,000 living languages, a cultural make-up more diverse than anywhere else in the world.

Rules of engagement vary greatly from island to island. Islanders know that the way one person says something is not necessarily the way the other person hears it. Its not just what you say, its how you say it. Actions often speak louder than words, and both are always carefully examined. Getting language and approach right is no mean feat.

So it must be a source of great frustration that well-meaning Australian politicians, diplomats and aid workers find themselves labelled "big brother" or "bully".

Equally importantly, it frustrates Pacific leaders and policymakers not to be afforded the same degree of respect bestowed on their international colleagues. No matter how small the country, the prime minister is still the prime minister.

The Pacific is a region in the process of redefining its own identity. Most countries are led by the same ageing generation that won independence. As the biggest donor, Australia has played a significant role in charting the region's development path over the last 30 years.

Yet the discourse on foreign aid remains haunted by guilt, greed, and good intentions. Donors are accused of interference, neo-colonialism and aid conditionality. In some cases, such accusations have been warranted.

In other, the best of intents have been thwarted, often due to the failure to communicate a good idea. But unilaterally imposed solutions rarely gain traction, and for good reason.

Most of us don't like to be told what to do, and we certainly don't like to see our faults paraded in front of others. In a region where pre-independence memories remain fresh, such sentiments are particularly powerful. Stop focusing on corrupt governments, and start thinking about the people who need support fixing things.

In the Pacific, development is a process, not a product. Development partnerships may be forged between countries and institutions, but the interaction and engagement occurs between people. Person-to-person relationships come first and they extend far beyond government offices.

One of the greatest collateral effects of the Pacific seasonal workers scheme is that Pacific islanders not only gain access to temporary job opportunities in Australia, they return home enriched with new friends and exposed to new ideas.

Personal relationships can have far-reaching consequences. The battle for supremacy between China and the US is now playing out on the Pacific stage. As both powers boost their presence across the region, Australia's position is coming under closer scrutiny. Australia may have the deepest pockets now, but new donors are gaining traction.

Pacific leaders who have quietly bemoaned the imbalance in the relationship with Australia are embracing these new opportunities. Chequebook diplomacy it may be, but it comes with lashings of respect.

Kilman was politically compromised and embarrassed when his delegation was diverted and an adviser arrested at Sydney airport. An angry reaction was inevitable, and its fallout threatens to shake the foundation of the relationship between the two countries.

Both sides claim the high moral ground, making a face-saving resolution all the more important. Saving face is integral to the Pacific way and many across the region are watching in anticipation.

A new era of understanding is possible. A little effort and a lot of empathy could reset the relationship from the prevailing lop-sided, aid-centric approach towards mutually beneficial closer integration. Staying on the same track is in no one's interest.

Derek Brien is the executive director of the Pacific Institute of Public Policy, an independent regional think tank based in Vanuatu

West Papua: dog & cuscus cannot share a bed

BY LEONARD FONG ROKA*

THE WEST PAPUAN CONFLICT needs global attention. The conflict is the end product of colonisation by Dutch in West Papua.  Moreover, looking at the conflict, it is very difficult to come up with solutions because of the stranglehold of the Indonesian on West Papua.

The difficulty in solving this issue is that it needs full support from all countries, but given Indonesia’s bilateral relationships, bordering countries such as Australia and Papua New Guinea find it very difficult to intervene. Tensions will escalate if either Australia or Papua New Guinea try to intervene

There is much political chaos in West Papua, crimes against humanity and many people killed, tortured and raped by Indonesian forces in silent genocide. Also, transmigration from Bali, Sulawesi and Java leads to more people coming to West Papua and leads to natives being prisoners in their own land - one of the factors contributing to the conflict.

Another factor is the Indonesian government manipulating local landowners, people who are, in the words of one observer, “becoming marginalized in their own land, due to exploitation, repression, exploitation and genocide” (Ondawame, 2000:21).

West Papuans face a crisis. It is a crisis of a man seeking to preserve his life on the edge of extreme danger; while striving to restore his identity, his power and his status. In the region, it is a similar crisis that the New Caledonians and Bougainvilleans are going through.

The first stage into solving this conflict to halt the Transmigration Program and return the aliens to their origins. This great human rights abuse is ignored by the world.

Then cut off the Bahasa Indonesia language in Papua, which represents a cultural suppression of a people.

Furthermore, the most important initiative of all is to re-visit the 1962 New York Agreement. In this agreement the rights of the Papuans were set out correctly and initially respected. But the Dutch colonisers and Indonesians neglected and abused them.

Democracy was defamed and the people subjugated and their rights obliterated into the smoke screen of rapacious greed.

In summary, nationhood is the only way out for West Papuans for as, a Kieta peoples’ proverb goes, ‘A dog and a cuscus cannot share a bed’.

* Prepared with fellow PNG Studies Year 2 students at Divine Word University Ronald Kalang, Dulcie Moab, Rachel Rekeken, Erin Malona

West Papua – still suffering under ‘the big wink’

BY JASON BROWN
ISLANDS BUSINESS

NUCLEAR TESTS ARE HELD IN NEVADA. Demonstrators riot against the Vietnam War. Shadows gather on a grassy knoll. And Indonesian paratroopers waft down onto the western half of a vast island, marked out on their maps as “Irian Barat”. In 1962, the world’s newest colonial force, Indonesia, is busy invading Western New Guinea.

Event surrounding that year remains murky, involving a CIA coup, hand-in-hand with big business interests in the US political system, namely Freeport, still earning billions in profit each year.

Not consulted; the people of Papua, their future decided on a far-away street in Dallas as a presidential limousine cruises past a book repository.

“When Kennedy was killed, a military dictatorship was installed and paid off” in Indonesia, says Lisa Pease, an author on the assassination and its impact around the world, “so that the interests of businesses like Freeport are given higher priority than any demands of the natives whose resources are still being pillaged.”

Fifty years after the paratroopers first land, the world’s biggest Asian invasion continues to pillage Papua at vast volumes.

Still under armed force, an estimated 750,000 people from Indonesia now live in the western half of Papua, part of a gigantic “transmigration” program, funded with the help of the World Bank.

Nearly three million Indonesians make up a dominant majority in urban centres and take up nearly all of the town jobs.

But a flood of migrants are only a small part of a bigger tsunami of social and environmental damage, including 230,000 tons of waste a day from the world’s richest copper and gold mine, at Grasberg.

Mining there generated US$6 billion in sales for 2010 alone, including $4 billion in operating profits.

“2010 was an outstanding year for our company,” reads the Freeport annual report on the company website. “After successfully managing through one of the most severe economic downturns in history, we achieved in 2010 the best financial results in our company’s history.”

Indonesia gets around a billion in taxes and proceeds from a 9% stake in the mine, a find so vast early surveyors nicknamed the area “Copper Mountain”. Some 91% is held by a US company called Freeport through interests in Australia and Indonesia.

Their contracts include the right to mine some 27,000 acres and explore a further 413,000 acres.

Grasberg is also lauded in company literature as the world’s cheapest mine. Last year, however, miners went on strike, costing the company millions. High by Asian standards, the average pay of $1.50 an hour reflects generally tiny returns for the local economy.

Call for action over attack on plane in Papua

PACIFIC FREEDOM FORUM

PACIFIC MEDIA WATCHDOGS are keen to see Indonesian police investigate the plane attack in Indonesia's Papua province last Sunday which killed Leiron Kegoya, a 35 year old journalist.

Kegoya, a journalist for the Papua Pos and Pasifik Pos Dail was on assignment to cover local elections in the provincial capital Jayapura, which borders Papua New Guinea.

He was a passenger in a Twin Otter plane touching down at Mulia Airport when shooters opened fire. He died from a bullet wound to his neck.

The pilot, co-pilot and a mother and her 4-year-old son were injured in the attack, which saw the aircraft veer off the runway and crash into the terminal building.

"The circumstances of this attack highlight the situation in which journalists must do their work, and we join our colleagues in Indonesia and the International Federation of Journalists in urging police to ensure the perpetrators behind this horrible act are brought to justice," said PFF chair Titi Gabi.

"The safety and security of civilians including journalists rests on the ability of Police and law enforcers, and is especially critical during election periods and when reporting from dangerous or unstable locations."

"We ask that Papua's police and Indonesia's leadership ensure this investigation not taper into silence, but that those responsible can be identified and brought to justice," said co chair Monica Miller.

Pacific plan means new regionalism in the making

BY WERNER COHILL

THE PACIFIC PLAN MARKS A NEW BEGINNING in the concept of regionalism in the Pacific.  Now in its seventh year of implementation, there have been progressive reports outlining the achievements tabled annually by the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.

This plan was developed out of a review of the Forum organisation in 2003 by the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) and was later tabled in 2004 during a special Leaders Retreat in Auckland (New Zealand).  It was aimed at strengthening regional cooperation and integration in the Pacific. 

From this narrow goal of strengthening regional cooperation and integration, there were four areas that this plan aimed to achieve.  They include stimulating economic growth and encouraging sustainable development, promoting and encouraging good governance, and security for the Pacific Island Countries.

During the 36th Forum meeting in Madang in 2005, the Pacific Plan was officially endorsed by the Pacific Leaders for a period of ten years.

In endorsing the plan, the Forum Members agreed to note in particular the need to firstly, increase trade in the region under the already established economic arrangements like South Pacific Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation Agreements (SPARTECA), Pacific Island Countries Trade Agreements (PICTA) and Pacific Agreements on Closer Economic Relations (PACER) with other non-forum trading partners and to also increase the regional technical and vocational education training. 

Secondly to improve regional immigration policies so as to address the issue of labour mobility and at the same time seek international funding for sustainable development, biodiversity and environmental protection and climate change in the region. 

Thirdly, to provide assistance to the Smaller Island States for the implementation of the Pacific Plan and noting with appreciation additional resources contributed by Australia and New Zealand as regional leaders.

All these measures espoused the making of a new regionalism in the Pacific.  This new regionalism is different from the way regional cooperation was developed and understood in the past.  The old regionalism was a child of colonialism. 

Later, as the Pacific Island Countries began to gain political independence, this old regionalism was assimilated into the post-colonial setting of the Pacific Island Countries.  In this way, regional cooperation was always compromised by the individual national interests of the island countries with little or no effort towards strengthening it.  That is to say, the island countries continue to maintain their bilateral relations over regional interests. 

The old idea of regional cooperation was a cover-up for the island countries to work in isolation and pursue their individual national interests.  That meant that regional cooperation was operating flexibly and there was no overriding need for improving cooperation among the island countries towards addressing the issues of economic growth, sustainable development, good governance and security for the region.

UN's chequered record over West Papua

BY JENNIFER ROBINSON in London
PACIFIC SCOOP

THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE have taken part in rallies across West Papua and in Australia to mark the UN Secretary-General’s visit to Indonesia.

They have called on Ban Ki-moon to revisit United Nations mistakes that led to the denial of West Papuans’ right to self-determination and to assist in resolving ongoing human rights abuses in Papua.

UN peacekeeping was at the top of the agenda of Ban’s visit to Indonesia on Tuesday. West Papua was not, but many argue that it should be.

After all, West Papuans are asking that the UN revisit its first – and flawed – administration of a post-conflict society. Observers hailed the success of the UN administration of East Timor and its successful transition to independence.

But few are aware of the UN’s failure in its first attempt at administration in West Papua more than 40 years earlier. East Timor got a democratic vote. West Papua got a sham vote.

East Timor got independence. West Papua became part of Indonesia – against its will and in breach of its right to self-determination under the UN Charter.

Had the UN properly discharged its mandate back then, West Papuans would have celebrated more than 40 years of independence instead of having endured nearly 50 years of oppression.

In that time, it is estimated that as many as 500,000 Papuans have been killed at the hands of Indonesian security forces. Yale and Sydney Universities report that the situation is approaching genocide.

Papuan activists campaigning for self-determination are routinely arrested and jailed for peacefully expressing their political opinions.

The recent conviction and jailing of the Jayapura Five – including Forkorus Yaboisembut, a Papuan tribal leader – drew international condemnation from lawyers and human rights groups.

Pacific MPs campaign against Indons ‘dirty secret’

RADIO NEW ZEALAND INTERNATIONAL

A NEW ZEALAND MP who is part of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua movement says the growth of the network can help foster change in the troubled Indonesian province.

Parliamentarians from Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand attended the Australia launch of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua outside parliament house in Canberra yesterday.

New Zealand Green Party MP, Katherine Delahunty, believes more regional parliamentarians will start to speak out against ongoing human rights abuses in Papua.

She admits that a lack of international awareness about West Papua in general has helped Indonesia suppress information about the abuses.

“Many MPs, once they have the information and have the information and an understanding of this issue, they recognise that as parliamentarians, there is a responsibility, a regional responsibility, to stand up against the dirtiest little secret in the Pacific region,” Ms Delahunty said.

Thoughts on what 2012 might hold for the Pacific

BY TESS NEWTON CAIN

AS 2012 GETS UNDERWAY, it’s a good time to look ahead and anticipate what some of the key events and issues will be in the Pacific island region during the next twelve months. 

This is not an exhaustive list of predictions and no doubt by the time December comes around there will be plenty to reflect on that has not even been mentioned here, but just to get the ball rolling…

Politics

There is no such thing as a ‘quiet’ year in Pacific politics and that is certainly not going to be the case in 2012.  The political and constitutional contortions in Papua New Guinea that held everyone spellbound at the end of 2011 are yet to be fully resolved, are unlikely to be until the elections in July and possibly may not be even then. 

Elsewhere in Melanesia, Vanuatu is also in an election year with the country going to the polls in November.  Underpinning the minutiae of who’s in, who’s out, who’s (re)aligning with whom continue to be some key issues and debates about the nature of political leadership in these countries and the (possibly) changing relationship between the governed and those who (seek to) govern.

New to the arena is the increasing role of social media as a forum for debate, identifying questions about policy, holding both government and Parliament to account and often rectifying gaps in mainstream media coverage.  

There is no denying that for a growing number of people in the Pacific, the Internet is a primary location for debate, political and otherwise, but it remains the case that this space is not available to the majority of Pacific islanders raising appropriate concern that the conversation is kept as accessible and inclusive as possible.

Economics

It is expected that 2012 will be another year of uneven growth in the region.  The resource-rich countries, most particularly Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea will continue to grow rapidly.  Elsewhere, growth will be much slower. The ADB projects a 2012 growth rate of 1.5% for the Pacific Island region excluding PNG and Timor Leste. This increases to 6% if these two booming economies are included..

Internal relationships

The cautiously welcomed lifting of emergency powers by the interim regime in Fiji on January 7th was a timely reminder of the significance of the situation in Fiji not just as it affects that country but also as it resonates throughout the region.  The Fiji question has proved and will continue to be something of a litmus test at sub-regional and regional levels. 

Whilst 2014 (the date set by the interim regime for national elections) may seem some way off, it is to be expected that starting now a number of key legal, political and geo-political decisions will be made that will form part of the pathway towards 2014.

The structures associated with regionalism and sub-regionalism will continue to develop and change during 2012.  The appointment of a new Director General within the Secretariat of the Melanesian Spearhead Group may well lead to a more robust and vocal approach, not least as this group seeks to accommodate the presence and participation of the newly formalised Polynesian Leaders’ Group. 

However, what will (hopefully) be the most interesting and significant outcome of these developments will be an impetus within the Pacific Islands Forum to re-engage with its stakeholders and provide vibrant and effective leadership to the region as a whole.

Academic condemns media coverage of West Papua

A MEDIA ACADEMIC specialising in Asia-Pacific affairs has condemned New Zealand news coverage on West Papua and other Melanesian issues at a journalism education conference in Adelaide this week.

Professor David Robie, director of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre, presented a paper which included a scathing criticism of NZ media coverage about the Freeport mine strike and brutal crushing of a peaceful Papuan People’s Congress by Indonesian security forces with the loss of up to six lives in October.

“The barriers to free reporting are perhaps a contributing factor to the almost negligible reporting in New Zealand news media of West Papuan issues, apart from occasional snippets about the Freeport mine,” he said at the annual Journalism Education Association of Australia conference.

“A major exception has been Radio New Zealand International, which with very limited resources compared with its Radio Australia cousins, doggedly provides coverage on the legacy of armed struggle in West Papua and Bougainville.

“A major problem is that for the international community the issue of West Papua is ‘settled’ and it is accepted as being an internal problem for the Indonesian authorities rather than an issue of ‘decolonisation’.

Although the so-called 1969 Act of Free Choice had been a “stage-managed sham” by Indonesia after it had invaded the former Netherlands colony bordering Papua New Guinea and was widely condemned as an “Act of No Choice”, most media in Australia, NZ and the Pacific currently virtually ignored the issue, he said.

It was left to international news media agencies to report on developments in West Papua – often from at a distance and their reports failed to gain much traction in the media of the region.

“It is shameful that the NZ and regional news media fail to cover the ongoing human rights atrocities and disturbances with the seriousness they deserve," he said.

“The ongoing West Papua crisis is a greater threat to Pacific security than the Fiji issue.”

Source: Pacific Media Watch, 5 December

Are resource conflicts on the border inevitable?

BY TAVURVUR

IT WAS INTERESTING TO READ last week in the Jakarta Post that the Indonesian government has voiced its concern about Papua New Guinea’s burgeoning mineral exploration and production capabilities.

More specifically, the concern raised was focused on the proximity of a number of PNG energy and mineral projects which are being developed close to the Indonesian – PNG border.

Widjajono Partowidagdo, Indonesia’s deputy minister for energy and mineral resources, voiced his concern after satellite photos showing that Indonesia’s Papua Province has huge oil and gas reserves – and that very little progress had been made over the past 22 years to develop the area due to various constraints.

He went on to say:

Moreover, there are [oil and gas] blocks located on the border area with Papua New Guinea. That country started production activities in blocks located on the border area long ago. If we don’t move fast, our oil reserves can be absorbed intentionally or unintentionally by them.

The largest of these oil and gas blocks that spread across both sides of the border is the Warim PSC which covers about 9,480 square miles (on the Indonesian side).

The Warim PSC was signed in May 1987, and is owned by US-based ConocoPhillips (80%) and Santos (20%).

ConocoPhillips is the operator of the block but has been restricted in developing the area due to the Indonesian government declaring the area a protected forest reserve in 1989 – a roadblock which will be adjusted in the nearby future.

What’s interesting for Indonesia and PNG is that there are corporations which currently have commercial interests on both sides of the border.

For example, Santos has non-operating interests in PNG – these include the PNG LNG Project (17.7%) and Hides field, and oil production from SE Gobe.  Santos also has operated interests in the undeveloped Barikewa gas field.

Accusations and examples of neighbouring states stealing each others resources aren’t new.

Saddam Hussein’s decision to attack Kuwait was based on the premise that Kuwait was stealing Iraqi oil through slant drilling.

Resource conflicts have dominated much of Africa’s recent past history; and more recently, the South Ossetia War has once again highlighted the high demand the world holds oil and gas in, and the extent nations will go to in order to protect their interests.

The Indonesian deputy minister’s observation is one worth taking note of – and one which PNG’s recently appointed Ambassador to Indonesia, Commodore Peter Ilau, should be wary of.

Source: Tubuans and Dukduks, 19 November

Planning to catch the next wave from the Pacific

BY PAUL OATES

SOME OLD HANDS with Pacific experience have been predicting for some time that the island populations will be looking to emigrate sometime soon.

Ever expanding populations and apparently shrinking shorelines require dramatic solutions.  Pacific nations have a strong history of sea travel.  And this once perhaps presented a solution to overpopulation

But the more recent exponential expansion of some island populations appears to far exceed the availability of arable land and food resources.

“The Australian government needs to focus on migration planning now before Pacific Island nation people are forced to flee their homes to avoid disaster,” says Professor Jane McAdam.

Professor McAdam is Director of the International Refugee and Migration Law Project at the University of NSW and she said this to AAP.

She went on to say that Australia should start planning for future influxes of Pacific islanders and, in turn, allow these people to start planning.

This would prevent an inevitable panic at the last moment and allow a more staged emigration.

Australian policy has traditionally concentrated on aid programs for the Pacific.  Maybe a change in the emphasis of Australian foreign policy is due.

Future boatloads of asylum seekers will need to be officially and legally organised, rather than leaving the process up to criminal elements. This will help prevent further loss of life and also preserve some of the wealth of those who plan to emigrate.

It might also improve Australia’s standing in the Pacific.

West Papua ‘biggest threat’ to Pacific media freedom

THE KILLING and abduction of journalists in Indonesian-occupied West Papua has been highlighted in a special new report on Pacific media freedom over the past year by Pacific Journalism Review.

“By far the most serious case of media freedom violations in the Pacific is in West Papua—far from international scrutiny,” says the journal in an editorial.

The 39-page report on the state of media freedom in the Pacific in 2011 notes that in August, in particular, “sustained repression has also hit the news media and journalists”.

At least two journalists have been killed in West Papua, five abducted and 18 assaulted in the past year.

West Papua has replaced Fiji as the most urgent media freedom issue in the region, says the journal. The report has been published just as regional protests have been voiced over the brutal suppression of a strike at the giant Freeport copper mine in the past week in which at least one person was reported shot dead.

Ten West Papuan activists were arrested by Indonesian authorities in Jayapura last week for being in possession of material that featured the banned West Papuan Morning Star flag of independence.

Poengky Indarti, executive director of the Indonesian human rights monitor Imparsial, said recently: “Freedoms of expression, association and assembly are routinely violated in Papua, which seriously fuels tensions. Besides, gross human rights abuses, such as acts of torture, remain unaccounted for.”

This free media research report, compiled by Pacific Media Watch contributing editor Alex Perrottet and Pacific Media Centre director Dr David Robie with a team of contributors, including West Papua Media editor Nick Chesterfield, is the most comprehensive and robust media freedom dossier on the region published in recent years.

“The state of Pacific media freedom is fragile in the wake of serious setbacks, notably in Fiji, with sustained pressure from a military backed regime, and in Vanuatu, where blatant intimidation has continued with near impunity,” says the report.

“Apart from Fiji, which has a systemic and targeted regime of censorship, most other countries are attempting to free themselves from stifling restrictions on the press.

“Coupled with governments that are sluggish to introduce freedom of the information legislation and ensure region-wide constitutional rights to free speech are protected, there are limited media councils and advocacy bodies with few resources to effectively lobby their governments.

“Those that do, run the risk of inviting backlashes by government figures who have a poor appreciation of the role of independent media.”

Source: Pacific Journalism Review, 13 October
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1110/S00170/west-papua-biggest-threat-to-pacific-media-freedom.htm

Media summit rescheduled after PNG infighting

PAPUA NEW GUINEA has pulled out of hosting the biennial media summit next month after internal wrangles within its media association.

The Pacific region’s main media body, the Pacific Islands News Association, will now host the second Pacific Media Summit in Fiji next March.

PINA has been at loggerheads with other media groups since its management refused to speak out about media censorship by the Fiji military regime.

PINA president, Moses Stevens, says he believes holding the summit in Fiji will help promote a return to normal media relations.

“We would like [the Fiji media] to be working together for the betterment of the society and media freedom in Fiji,” he said.

“This is why we want to bring the summit to Fiji, to raise our flag there. And we still believe Fiji can turn around and things can come back to normal.

“We are aware of everything that is going on but we are not running away from the situation. We want to be engaging with them.”

Mr Stevens says if countries boycott the summit because of the venue that is up to them

Source: Radio New Zealand International, 29 September
http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=63426

West Papua: a long history of grim exploitation

BY N A J TAYLOR

CONTROL OF West Papua has proved a lucrative business deal for the Indonesians.

Two years prior to the Act of Free Choice - coincidentally on the same day the plight of Papua was raised in the House of Lords - Freeport signed a contract of work with the Suharto government entitling a jointly owned company, PT Freeport Indonesia, full rights to the Ertsberg mine.

In return, Indonesia would derive significant tax revenues and fees as well as a minority 9.36% shareholding. Without the authority to do so, Indonesia nevertheless cut itself into a deal that sold large tracts of West Papua to the US company, intent on sifting it for copper and gold.

Although Ertsberg fulfilled its promise, as production slowed in the mid-1980s Freeport-Indonesia began to explore surrounding mountains and ridges for other reserves.

As is often the case, the best place to establish a new mine is next to another. Sure enough, significant copper and gold reserves were located at Grasberg only a couple of miles southwest of Ertsberg.

Grasberg has the largest recoverable reserves of copper and gold in the world. It's also Indonesia's economic beachhead.

Observing the Grasberg mine via Google Earth, one sees a scar like no other: Located about 4,000 meters above sea level, open-pit mining has bored a hole through the top of the mountain more than 1 km wide.

What they're digging for is more than $40 billion worth of copper and gold. Every day the operation discharges 230,000 tons of tailings into the Aghawagon River. This process is expected to continue for up to six more years, at which point exploration will go underground until there's no value left. Freeport estimates that will occur by 2041.

The operation is so large that it has shifted the borders of the adjacent Lorenz National Park. Listed as a World Heritage site by the UNESCO in 1999, the park is "the only protected area in the world to incorporate a continuous, intact transect from snowcap to tropical marine environment, including extensive lowland wetlands".

For the Amungme and Kamoro indigenes, corporate imperialism had replaced European colonialism.

The social and economic condition of the indigenous Amungme and Kamoro poses fundamental human rights concerns.

Although Freeport-Indonesia directly or indirectly employs a large number of West Papuans and is regularly Indonesia's biggest taxpayer, in 2005, the World Bank found that Papua remained the poorest province in Indonesia.

With a marked rise in military personnel and foreign staff has come a number of social issues, including alcohol abuse and prostitution such that Papua now has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in Indonesia.

Indonesian control of West Papua has been characterised by the ongoing and disproportionate repression of largely peaceful opposition.

 

Forum highlights strategic importance of Pacific

BY DIANE CORDEMANS & SHAR ADAMS

THE ATTENDANCE of a high level US delegation at last week's 40th Pacific Island Forum in Auckland has marked a new engagement in the region – and China’s increasing influence in the Pacific is credited with much of the renewed interest.

Deputy Secretary of State Thomas Nides led a 50-strong American delegation, which included representatives from the White House, the State Department, Defence, Commerce, and the US Coast Guard.

The delegation followed an earlier visit in June to eight Pacific island states by Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Patrick Walsh, USAID Assistant Administrator Nisha Biswal, and Brigadier General Richard Simcock.

"The President himself has asked us to come to be here to represent the United States," Mr Nide told journalists in Auckland.

Pacific Island forum members also received a high level delegation from China.

Stephen Hoadley, Professor of International Relations and Human Rights at Auckland University, says it is hard to know what China is doing in the region but he believes that with the US bogged down in the Middle East, China is seizing the opportunity to expand its interests in the South Pacific.

Trade between China and the Pacific island nations rose from $180 million in 2001 to $1.5 billion by 2010.  US interest in the South Pacific, however, had waned over the last decade, Professor Hoadley said, as the US began to engage in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The closure of the US Agency for International Development's (USAID) regional office in Suva, emphasised that the US had greater priorities in other parts of the globe.

As the US disengaged, Chinese embassies began to appear in most of the island states and visits from high ranking Chinese indicated that China increasingly views the region as a part of its hemisphere of influence, said Professor Hoadley.

According to Australia's Lowy Institute of International Policy by 2008 China had promised aid in the form of soft loans and grants to the value of $206 million to the region. In the same year USAID aid was only $3.6 million.

Last year's visit by Hillary Clinton to Papua New Guinea and the APEC meeting in New Zealand, and US promises of assistance for security and developmental aid in the region, have signalled a turnaround in America’s geo-political stance.

With China emerging as a power in the Pacific it was not the time for the US to be withdrawing suddenly from the region, Ms Clinton said.

Professor Hoadley believes Beijing has serious intentions in the region and has been “very active in inviting leaders—Bainimarana is a great beneficiary—to Beijing where they get head of state welcome and get to meet high ranking Chinese”.

With the US reopening a USAID office in Port Moresby later this year, Hoadley anticipates an increase in US aid to governments in the South Pacific.

He is concerned that China is playing a “cunning” strategic game in the region.  “My concern is that Chinese are offering what looks like very generous aid gifts and they are not too worried about democracy and human rights,” he said.

“As a consequence Pacific island leaders are being a bit beguiled, dazzled by China, but I personally don't think it will prove to be substantial and China will want something in return in the future”.

Source: Epoch Times, 12 September
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/new-zealand/pacific-island-forum-highlights-strategic-importance-of-the-region-61519.html

Pacific Islands Forum shuns West Papua issue

BY DAVID ROBIE

THE MOST ASTONISHING unreported story at last week’s Pacific Island Forum in Auckland was a remarkable shift by the United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon over West Papua.

And the local media barely noticed. For all the hoo-ha about “converting potential into opportunity” at the predictable annual political talkfest, this was the most dramatic moment.

It was thanks to the probing of a young Papua New Guinean journalist studying in New Zealand who knew the right question to ask. But the significance was lost on local journalists – and even the Pacific and international journalists present.

Secretary-General Moon suggested that the West Papuan issue should be discussed by the Decolonisation Committee of the United Nations General Assembly.

What? Coming in the wake of the Indonesian repression in West Papua throughout August in the face of a wave of unrest by Papuans more determined than ever for self-determination, this was almost unbelievable.

Question: [unclear] With regards to human rights - for more than 42 years, there’s a struggle in West Papua as people seeking their [own] government in the province of West Papua. What is the United Nations stand on that?

BKM: This issue should also be discussed at the Decolonisation Committee of the United Nations General Assembly. And when it comes again, whether you are an independent state or a non-self-governing territory or whatever, the human rights is inalienable and a fundamental principle of the United Nations. We will do all to ensure that people in West Papua, their human rights will be respected.

Question: Does a human rights fact-finding mission has be dispatched to West Papua at some time?

BKM: That is the same answer [to a previous question on Fiji] that should be discussed at the Human Rights Council amongst the member states.
Normally the Secretary General acts on the basis of a mandate given by inter-governmental bodies.

Because journalist Henry Yamo’s question was overshadowed by queries about Fiji, it probably slipped below the media radar. Was it a slip-up that officials were keen to brush aside?

However, NGOs such as the Auckland-based Indonesia Human Rights Committee were quick to seize on the moment. Overnight a media declaration was produced by 15 Australian and NZ NGO signatories with the help of four West Papuans.

They called for the UN Secretary-General to:

appoint a Special Representative to investigate the situation in West Papua – to review the circumstances and outcome of the 1969 ‘Act of Free Choice’, as well as the contemporary situation; and

use his good offices to persuade the Indonesian government to allow free access to West Papua for media representatives from the international community and for non-governmental human rights organisations.

 

Trade Minister says PNG wants active Pacific role

TRADE MINISTER Charles Abel says Papua New Guinea wants to play a more active role in the Pacific region.

While prime minister Peter O’Neill only attended last week’s Pacific Forum leaders summit for a day, minister Charles Abel says that’s not an indication PNG isn’t interested in the Pacific, but was the result of unusual circumstances in domestic politics.

“The prime minister made every effort to come immediately after parliament to come,” Mr Abel said.

“We had our Foreign Affairs Minister representing. It is very, very important to us, and we understand the importance the role PNG plays in this region, being the biggest economy and the biggest country.

“We very much want to raise our profile and to take on the responsibility of that role.”

Source: Radio New Zealand International

Australia expands Pacific workers scheme

BY DONALD HOOK

THE AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT says the expansion of its seasonal workers scheme will provide an important economic boost to Pacific Island communities.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced today that Nauru, Samoa, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu had been invited to take part in the scheme.

She said they would join Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Tonga and Vanuatu which already have provided workers for Australian farms.

Nine PNG workers recently spent four months pruning almond trees at Robinvale along the Murray River in Victoria.

Under the pilot program, Pacific islanders go to Australia for four to six months to work for farmers who cannot find enough local labour to meet their seasonal harvest needs.

Ms Gillard, in New Zealand for the Pacific Forum, said more than 500 workers had been recruited so far under special visa conditions. .

“They remit money back home, benefiting their families and broader communities.”

The Australian government has been asked to further expand the scheme to allow Pacific islanders to take temporary jobs in hospitality and tourism.

Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson is supporting the request.

Meanwhile, PNG prime minister Peter O’Neill says his government is prepared to open its doors to labour mobility between Melanesian Spearhead Group countries.

Mr O’Neill said there was a need for more skilled people in PNG.

Under the proposed scheme retired medical personnel, teachers and professionals would be offered jobs in neighbouring Pacific island countries.

NZ seasonal labour scheme rated a big success

BY TABERANNANG KORAUABA

THERE HAVE BEEN strong positives for the Pacific from the New Zealand seasonal labour scheme that has involved more than 7,000 Pacific people since it was introduced by a Labour government in 2007.

The scheme was a response to New Zealand’s need for seasonal labour and it has also met the employment needs of island countries.

New Zealand employers decide where and who to recruit in the Pacific island countries, but the NZ Labour Department regularly visits employers and workers as part of an audit program.

Some countries – such as Kiribati, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu – had worker numbers increased remarkably this year. This was a result of both the marketing by regional governments and growing understanding and friendship between New Zealand employers and the community.

There have been only 72 ‘over-stayers’ since RSE was introduced four years ago.

Delly Bagu, a journalist from Papua New Guinea, the country with the largest population in the Pacific, was surprised to see that there was only six workers from PNG in the scheme. Bagu said there was no agreement between New Zealand and PNG.

Taberannang Korauaba is a Masters in Communication Studies student at AUT University and editor of the Kiribati Independent.

Photo: Pacific seasonal workers in New Zealand

Source: Pacific Scoop, 5 September
http://pacific.scoop.co.nz/2011/09/nz-seasonal-labour-scheme-touted-as-success-for-pacific/?ScoopSrc=scoop_pacific

Call for Fiji to be restored to Pacific Forum

BY MICHAEL FIELD

NINE OF THE Pacific's 16 nations have called for Fiji to have its membership of the Pacific Forum restored.

The call came ahead of this week's Pacific Forum summit in Auckland where New Zealand and Australia face embarrassment, with members set to give Fiji strongman Frank Bainimarama a ringing endorsement - even without him present.

Fiji was suspended from the forum following Bainimarama's failure to restore democracy.

New Zealand prime minister John Key, who will chair the 40th meeting of the Pacific Forum, faces a Melanesian and Micronesian rebellion over his hard line on Bainimarama, who seized power in a military coup in 2006.

Fiji hosted a shadow summit last week and in a communiqué the Papua New Guinea, Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu endorsed Bainimarama's plan to hold off having elections until 2014.

In a significant victory for Bainimarama, PNG prime minister Peter O'Neill endorsed the communiqué.

At the Fiji forum, Pacific leaders said they supported Bainimarama's change plan "as a credible home grown process for positioning Fiji as a modern nation state and to hold parliamentary elections."

They did not specially ask for Fiji to be returned to the forum fold, but in diplomatic language they recalled "the importance of Fiji's continuous engagement with the region and its full participation in regional development initiatives and programs."

In an unusual statement the Pacific leaders also endorsed Fiji's view that the international media do not report Bainimarama's achievements.

They said they "supported the need to publicise and disseminate more and accurate information on the Fiji government's progress..."

This came on top of a leaked US diplomatic cable revealing a top Australian politician saying that "Bainimarama will either be shot or we'll have to do business with him".

Source: Stuff NZ, 4 September

Melanesian economic bloc being considered

BY FELIX CHAUDHARY

MEMBER COUNTRIES of the Melanesian Spearhead Group are investigating the possibility of setting up an economic bloc to foster labour trade between Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Fiji.

Speaking to The Fiji Times at the conclusion of last week’s MSG Leaders meeting in Nadi, Solomon Islands' Foreign Minister Peter Shanel Agovaka [pictured] said the proposed bloc would greatly enhance trade and employment mobility between members.

"We spoke at length about greater cooperation between Melanesian countries through the establishment of the MSG economic bloc, especially in the area of human resources.

“Retired professionals could be employed in countries where there is a serious lack of skilled personnel. This benefits both the donor and recipient countries," he said.

Mr Agovaka said should the economic bloc be established, PNG's LNG project could be the testing ground with skilled workers from Fiji, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and the Solomons being employed to work there.

The MSG leaders summit was held at the conclusion of the second Engaging with the Pacific meeting in Fiji.

Source: The Fiji Times, 5 September
http://www.fijitimes.com/story.aspx?id=179725

Indons dismiss media reports on W Papua

BY ABDUL KHALIK

THE INDONESIAN Military (TNI) has questioned the validity of documents cited in Australian media reports on its sprawling military presence in Papua, saying the reports were sympathetic to Papua’s push for independence.

The documents, Anatomy of Papuan Separatists, were published by Fairfax newspapers on Saturday and claimed residents of the resource-rich province were “easily influenced by separatist ideas” and that armed groups stood “ready for guerrilla war”, but had proof of just one weapon for every 10 men.

The 19 documents, dating from 2006 to 2009, indicate that Kopassus runs a vast network of spies and informants as part of its campaign to control the region and monitors the activities of foreigners in the region and around the world.

Among the documents was a list of accused separatist supporters, such as Australian journalist Naomi Robson, Australian Greens leader Bob Brown and senior Uniting Church pastor John Barr.

More than 40 US Congress members, including Senate intelligence committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, are also named agitators as are South African anti-apartheid hero Desmond Tutu and Sir Michael Somare.

“We must be careful and question the validity of the reports. There is no such thing as a repressive or militant approach. What we do is always a welfare approach, where we help Papuans have better lives,” TNI spokesman Rear Admiral Iskandar Sitompul told The Jakarta Post.

Source: The Jakarta Post

Under the long arm of Indon intelligence

BY TOM ALLARD

 
IT WOULD seem an unremarkable venture - a group of American tourists visiting a cultural centre in the Papuan town of Abepura.

But to one observer the event (lasting, as he later reported, precisely 35 minutes) was laden with potential significance.

The man in the shadows as the visitors watched a traditional dance was an informant for Indonesia's elite special forces unit, Kopassus. In a subsequent report, he noted that, while the visit had been ''safe and smooth'', there was no room for complacency.

It was a point heartily endorsed by his Kopassus contact, Second Lieutenant Muhammad Zainollah, who alluded, in a report to his own commander, to the risk of foreign tourists ''influencing conditions of Papuan society''.

''Politically, there needs to be a deeper detection of the existence hidden behind it all,'' he warned, ''because of the possibility of a process of deception … such as meetings with pro-independence groups.''

One of hundreds of intelligence briefs from Kopassus intelligence posts in Papua obtained by The Saturday Age - and part of a cache of 19 documents that includes a detailed analysis of the ''anatomy'' of the separatist movement pushing for independence from Indonesia - the note is bizarre, even amusing, but also revealing.

The Indonesian government runs a massive network of spies and informants in Papua, illustrating the level of paranoia in Jakarta about its hold over the resource-rich region in the western half of the island of New Guinea.

Situated in the easternmost reaches of Indonesia's sprawling archipelago, the Papua region is a source of continuing embarrassment for Indonesia - a country that has otherwise made substantial strides as a democratic and economic power.

Despite being granted special autonomy 10 years ago and targeted for accelerated economic development, its indigenous Melanesian people are the country's poorest and many are deeply unhappy with Jakarta's rule and a heavy security presence.

The documents, which date from 2006 to 2009, reveal that independence activists and members of the OPM-TPN, the small armed resistance, are under intense surveillance, but so too are many ordinary Papuans and civic leaders who do not advocate independence but are concerned about the advancement of their people, or are influential in the community.

''Everyone is a separatist until they can prove they are not,'' says Neles Tebay, a pastor and convener of the Papua Peace Network that is promoting dialogue with Jakarta….

''[The troops] are trained to see Papuans as the enemy,'' he adds. ''I'm not saying all the troops are bad but if one group of them is threatening the indigenous people then it creates widespread fear. Also, they are always interrogating people. It's very threatening.''

Photo: Sit-in protesters in Abepura demand referendum over future with Indonesia [West Papua News Info]

Source: The Saturday Age.  Read more at: http://www.smh.com.au/world/under-the-long-arm-of-indonesian-intelligence-20110812-1iqtj.html#ixzz1Ur1fe1QG

The case for West Papuan self–determination

BY BONNY KAIYO

Introduction

THE NATIONAL Resilience Institute (Lemhanas) of Indonesia this week suggested the use of anthropology to better understand Papuan aspirations in order to help the government maintain stability in the unstable area. 

This view holds that anthropology is necessary because there are various tribes and more than 400 languages in Papua. Moreover, anthropologic perspectives are necessary to determine the appropriate manners of raising awareness among Papuans regarding their relationship with the central government, which has granted special autonomy privileges for the provinces of Papua and West Papua.

Behind the notion is the need to invite anthropology experts to study this as part of soft approach to better understanding Papuan aspirations.

In recent years, human rights issues gained ground in current international relations. In international political terms, the right of self-determination is considered a debatable topic. There seems to be an opinion war between the realists and the liberalists who believe in their own principles between states absolute rights and collective human rights.

The former USA President Woodrow Wilson, in his Fourteen Points Article, introduced the concept of National Self-Determination to the world for the first time on 8 January 1918.

One of Wilson’s main purposes was to keep world peace. In his theory, Wilson argued that national self-determination meant societies’ right to administrate their residents. He emphasises the right of communities not the rights of ethnic groups (Lynch 2002).

In his book Rights: a Critical Introduction, Tom Campbell defined self-determination as the right of people to decide their own destiny and how they experience their life (Campbell 2006). Moreover, self-determination means the others should not determine someone’s life because it is universal people’s right (Freeman 1998).

This definition is very broad. So, in my words, I will define self-determination as the right of communities to attain freedom.

Based on the former Yugoslavia experience about the emergence of new countries, the right of self-determination was recognized worldwide as a fundamental right. Internationally, we can find several independence movements, which pursue secession such as in Sudan in the Africa region, Kosovo in the Eastern Europe, and Tibet in the Asia. In Asia, the fight for self-determination in Papuan region of Indonesia is a noticeable case.

After a brief history and definition of self-determination, it is time to address the question of whether self-determination for Papua is a satisfactory alternative resolution. This essay will argue that self-determination for Papua should be considered.