Editor’s note: the following two speeches were given in a House of Lords debate on the human rights situation in West Papua, on 26 February 2008. The full debate can be read here.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth: My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to raise an issue that is of such life and death significance to the suffering people of West Papua.
When I go round to our local shops, I almost invariably carry over my shoulder a handmade bag. On this bag is a star against a red background with some blue and white stripes. If I shopped in West Papua with that bag, I would immediately be labelled a separatist and treated with brutality, as a woman was recently who was found making such a bag. Similarly, on 1 December last year, seven West Papuans were arrested for raising this morning star flag in the Catholic Church compound at Kwamki Baru village. Again, when the editor of a West Papuan newspaper was asked what would happen to him if he called for independence, he said quite simply, “Go to jail. Go to jail”. Perhaps this total lack of freedom—the freedom of the press and the freedom to form political parties—does indeed fall into the category of what the Minister said on 13 November last year were abuses,
“of a relatively small kind”,—[Official Report, 13/11/07; col. 346.]
even though we regard such freedoms as fundamental to the life of this country.
I wonder about torture. Two hundred and forty two cases of torture have been recorded in the past nine years in West Papua. All are well documented and set out in the recent report of Franciscans International. As that report put it:
“Torture is regarded by Indonesian security services as one of the most effective methods to obtain forced confessions and instil a climate of fear and is conducted repeatedly and systematically. Torture in Papua is also used strategically as a means to control the whole community”.
If this is still regarded as abuse “of a relatively small kind”, will the Minister say how many more cases of torture have to be recorded before it is admitted that there are abuses of a very grave kind indeed—abuses that the Government need to address with great seriousness and urgency?
This systematic brutality is of course all in support of the 1969 “act of no choice”. On 14 January this year, the Minister in the other place wrote to a Member describing the act in these words:
“A group of 1,000 Papuan representatives, who were given the responsibility to make the choice on behalf of the Papuan people, voted to remain part of Indonesia”.
The bland disingenuousness of that statement is almost unbelievable. Let us remind ourselves of the facts. Suharto sent this clear order to his military forces in West Papua: “See that the” act “on West Irian’s“—that is Papua’s—
“future status will yield a clear pronouncement in favour of Indonesia”.
The forces were duly obedient. As Brigadier-General Ali Murtopo put it to those selected to take part in the so-called “act of free choice” on August 1969:
“This is what will happen to anyone who votes against Indonesia. Their accursed tongues will be torn out. Their full mouths will be wrenched open. Upon them will fall the vengeance of the Indonesia people. I myself will shoot them on the spot”.
So it was that the then Minister in this House, the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, referring to this on 13 December 2004, said that,
“1,000 handpicked representatives … were largely coerced into declaring for inclusion in Indonesia”.—[Official Report, 13/12/04; col. 1084.]
Later, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, described the 1969 process as “extremely flawed”. Will the Minister therefore say, in the light of the recent letter from the Minister in the other place, whether the Government are now back-tracking from the truth which they previously admitted? The acknowledgement of the truth of the 1969 travesty by the British Government has been one of the few crumbs of comfort offered to the suffering West Papuan people in recent years. Is even that crumb of truth now to be snatched away?
If all this is not serious enough, I have yet to come to the most devastating fact of all. In 1971, there were 887,000 Papuan people and 36,000 Asian Indonesians in West Papua, so even after eight years of Indonesian control, Papuans comprised 96 per cent of the population. On the basis of the latest figures, it is estimated that in 2005 Papuans comprised 59 per cent of the population and others 41 per cent. On present trends, by 2030 Papuans will comprise only 15.6 per cent and non-Papuans 84.8 per cent. These figures speak for themselves. Papuans are becoming a minority in their own country. Juan Mendes, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, described West Papua as being among those countries whose populations were “at risk of extinction”.
The most decisive statement to date on the subject of genocide in West Papua has come from the Allard K Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, which published a paper in 2005 entitled Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control. It said:
“Although no single act or set of acts can be said to have constituted genocide, per se, and although the required intent cannot be as readily inferred as it was in the cases of the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide, there can be little doubt that the Indonesian government has engaged in a systematic pattern of acts that has resulted in harm to—and indeed the destruction of—a substantial part of the indigenous population of West Papua. The inevitability of this result was readily obvious, and the government has taken no active measures to contravene it. According to current understanding of the Genocide Convention, including its interpretation in the jurisprudence of the ad hoc international criminal tribunals, such a pattern of actions and inactions—of acts and omissions—supports the conclusion that the Indonesian government has acted with the necessary intent to find that it has perpetrated genocide against the people of West Papua”.
West Papua is a small country a long way away. Indonesia is a big player with which we have major trade deals. West Papua is rich in natural resources, and major international companies such as BP, Rio Tinto and BAE Systems, among others, are active in utilising them.
There are those who think that if only they stall long enough the problem will go away, solved by demography if nothing else. But I should like to assure the Government and reassure the West Papuan people that this issue will not be dropped and already momentum is gathering round the world. Recently two US congressmen, Donald Payne and Eni Faleomavaega, have taken up the issue with the UN Secretary-General. They were particularly concerned with the way that human rights defenders were harassed after the visit of Mrs Jilani, the UN special envoy, last year.
Mrs Jilani concluded that a climate of fear prevails in West Papua, which has been borne out by the way in which those who sought to contact her have been singled out for special intimidation. The human rights abuses in West Papua are very grave and I ask the Government to pursue that issue with very great seriousness, conviction and urgency. In particular, human rights defenders need special protection, so I would ask the Minister to work for an international presence in West Papua to ensure that those who are raising human rights issues can do so without the present fear of intimidation, torture and death.
——
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, the House is indebted, not for the first time, to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for calling attention to this tragic situation. This is not the first occasion on which we have discussed the appalling events in West Papua. Sadly, our debates have failed to lead to any improvement for the people of West Papua, or, apparently, to impress on our Government the magnitude of the suffering. The last occasion on which we spared a thought for this situation was on 13 November 2007, when the noble and right reverend Lord asked a Starred Question. My noble friend Lord Malloch-Brown replied with an undisguised candour that the Government do not propose to raise the matter in the Security Council and do not support Papuan independence.
We have not been privy to the Government’s reasoning which led to that conclusion, but if there are two propositions which defy reputation they are, first, that if they were permitted to express a view, the overwhelming majority of the population would choose independence. As the noble and right reverend Lord has said, the so-called act of free choice was a blatantly transparent charade. We know that the American ambassador reported at that time that 85 to 90 per cent of the population were in sympathy with the Free Papua Movement. Secondly, West Papua passes all the tests in international law for a right to the free choice of its own destiny. I shall not weary your Lordships by repeating what I said on that issue on 8 January 2007.
However, the subject of today’s debate is not about the right of self-determination, but about the consequences of leaving West Papuans to the mercy of a brutal, alien regime. During our exchanges on 13 November, my noble friend stated as the Government’s view that, while they are concerned by continuing human rights abuses in Papua, they believe that they are,
“of a relatively small kind”.—[Official Report, 13/11/07; col. 346.]
That is hardly the impression which emerges from what we have just heard from the noble and right reverend Lord.
It is hardly the impression that emerges from the 2007 annual report of Amnesty International, which records that the torture and ill treatment of detainees is widespread, and we recall of course that many detainees are imprisoned for peaceful protests. The report continues that prison conditions fall short of international standards. It speaks of extra-judicial executions and records that in 2007, there were at least six occasions when security forces opened fire on civilians. It tells us that the perpetrators appear to enjoy immunity.
Nor did my noble friend’s characterisation of the human rights infringements accord with the recent Human Rights Watch country summary on Indonesia, which said that, in West Papua, peaceful political activists continue to be classified as “separatists”, which is a criminal offence. The report speaks of village “sweeping operations” carried out with great brutality by the army, the police and paramilitary units. It mentioned too that the regional military commander appointed in 2007, Colonel Siagian, was indicted by the United Nations for crimes against humanity in East Timor.
The Government’s view was not supported by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva last August, which commented that at last Indonesia had complied with its reporting obligations under the convention. The report—six years overdue—refrained from commenting that this road-to-Damascus conversion may be connected with Indonesia’s ambition to be re-elected to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The report adds that Indonesia has still not implemented the convention in its domestic legislation.
Nor is the Government’s assessment in accordance with the report by Franciscans International, which notes that,
“in the Province of West Papua, the steadfast pattern of human rights violations, including torture, repression of the freedom of expression, unfair trials, arbitrary detention and the denial of social, economic and cultural rights, have created a culture of fear and have resulted in a stagnated development, which has made Papua the least developed province of Indonesia”.
I leave it to other noble Lord to comments on the rape of Papua’s mineral wealth, which is now being shared between the Indonesian Government and foreign investors, but not by the Papuan people.
In at least one respect, I sympathise with the Government’s problem. It is not easy in the present state of international law, and in the absence of charter reform, to suggest a simple remedy. Of course, no one would recommend an invasion as anything but a final resort when diplomatic approaches, appeals from human rights organisations and sanctions have failed to provide a solution. But a reference to the Security Council by a Government who carry the international respect of the United Kingdom could be a beginning and could reassure the West Papuan people that someone cares.
I suspect that history will not understand how human suffering on such a scale continued year after year while the world looked on complacently and Governments in more fortunate countries pronounced the atrocities as “of a relatively small kind”. What a pity that we cannot ask the people of West Papua whether they agree.
Editor’s note: the following two speeches were given in a House of Lords debate on the human rights situation in West Papua, on 26 February 2008. The full debate can be read here.
Lord Harries of Pentregarth: My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to raise an issue that is of such life and death significance to the suffering people of West Papua.
When I go round to our local shops, I almost invariably carry over my shoulder a handmade bag. On this bag is a star against a red background with some blue and white stripes. If I shopped in West Papua with that bag, I would immediately be labelled a separatist and treated with brutality, as a woman was recently who was found making such a bag. Similarly, on 1 December last year, seven West Papuans were arrested for raising this morning star flag in the Catholic Church compound at Kwamki Baru village. Again, when the editor of a West Papuan newspaper was asked what would happen to him if he called for independence, he said quite simply, “Go to jail. Go to jail”. Perhaps this total lack of freedom—the freedom of the press and the freedom to form political parties—does indeed fall into the category of what the Minister said on 13 November last year were abuses,
even though we regard such freedoms as fundamental to the life of this country.
I wonder about torture. Two hundred and forty two cases of torture have been recorded in the past nine years in West Papua. All are well documented and set out in the recent report of Franciscans International. As that report put it:
If this is still regarded as abuse “of a relatively small kind”, will the Minister say how many more cases of torture have to be recorded before it is admitted that there are abuses of a very grave kind indeed—abuses that the Government need to address with great seriousness and urgency?
This systematic brutality is of course all in support of the 1969 “act of no choice”. On 14 January this year, the Minister in the other place wrote to a Member describing the act in these words:
The bland disingenuousness of that statement is almost unbelievable. Let us remind ourselves of the facts. Suharto sent this clear order to his military forces in West Papua: “See that the” act “on West Irian’s“—that is Papua’s—
The forces were duly obedient. As Brigadier-General Ali Murtopo put it to those selected to take part in the so-called “act of free choice” on August 1969:
“This is what will happen to anyone who votes against Indonesia. Their accursed tongues will be torn out. Their full mouths will be wrenched open. Upon them will fall the vengeance of the Indonesia people. I myself will shoot them on the spot”.
So it was that the then Minister in this House, the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, referring to this on 13 December 2004, said that,
Later, the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, described the 1969 process as “extremely flawed”. Will the Minister therefore say, in the light of the recent letter from the Minister in the other place, whether the Government are now back-tracking from the truth which they previously admitted? The acknowledgement of the truth of the 1969 travesty by the British Government has been one of the few crumbs of comfort offered to the suffering West Papuan people in recent years. Is even that crumb of truth now to be snatched away?
If all this is not serious enough, I have yet to come to the most devastating fact of all. In 1971, there were 887,000 Papuan people and 36,000 Asian Indonesians in West Papua, so even after eight years of Indonesian control, Papuans comprised 96 per cent of the population. On the basis of the latest figures, it is estimated that in 2005 Papuans comprised 59 per cent of the population and others 41 per cent. On present trends, by 2030 Papuans will comprise only 15.6 per cent and non-Papuans 84.8 per cent. These figures speak for themselves. Papuans are becoming a minority in their own country. Juan Mendes, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, described West Papua as being among those countries whose populations were “at risk of extinction”.
The most decisive statement to date on the subject of genocide in West Papua has come from the Allard K Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School, which published a paper in 2005 entitled Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control. It said:
West Papua is a small country a long way away. Indonesia is a big player with which we have major trade deals. West Papua is rich in natural resources, and major international companies such as BP, Rio Tinto and BAE Systems, among others, are active in utilising them.
There are those who think that if only they stall long enough the problem will go away, solved by demography if nothing else. But I should like to assure the Government and reassure the West Papuan people that this issue will not be dropped and already momentum is gathering round the world. Recently two US congressmen, Donald Payne and Eni Faleomavaega, have taken up the issue with the UN Secretary-General. They were particularly concerned with the way that human rights defenders were harassed after the visit of Mrs Jilani, the UN special envoy, last year.
Mrs Jilani concluded that a climate of fear prevails in West Papua, which has been borne out by the way in which those who sought to contact her have been singled out for special intimidation. The human rights abuses in West Papua are very grave and I ask the Government to pursue that issue with very great seriousness, conviction and urgency. In particular, human rights defenders need special protection, so I would ask the Minister to work for an international presence in West Papua to ensure that those who are raising human rights issues can do so without the present fear of intimidation, torture and death.
——
Lord Archer of Sandwell: My Lords, the House is indebted, not for the first time, to the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries of Pentregarth, for calling attention to this tragic situation. This is not the first occasion on which we have discussed the appalling events in West Papua. Sadly, our debates have failed to lead to any improvement for the people of West Papua, or, apparently, to impress on our Government the magnitude of the suffering. The last occasion on which we spared a thought for this situation was on 13 November 2007, when the noble and right reverend Lord asked a Starred Question. My noble friend Lord Malloch-Brown replied with an undisguised candour that the Government do not propose to raise the matter in the Security Council and do not support Papuan independence.
We have not been privy to the Government’s reasoning which led to that conclusion, but if there are two propositions which defy reputation they are, first, that if they were permitted to express a view, the overwhelming majority of the population would choose independence. As the noble and right reverend Lord has said, the so-called act of free choice was a blatantly transparent charade. We know that the American ambassador reported at that time that 85 to 90 per cent of the population were in sympathy with the Free Papua Movement. Secondly, West Papua passes all the tests in international law for a right to the free choice of its own destiny. I shall not weary your Lordships by repeating what I said on that issue on 8 January 2007.
However, the subject of today’s debate is not about the right of self-determination, but about the consequences of leaving West Papuans to the mercy of a brutal, alien regime. During our exchanges on 13 November, my noble friend stated as the Government’s view that, while they are concerned by continuing human rights abuses in Papua, they believe that they are,
That is hardly the impression which emerges from what we have just heard from the noble and right reverend Lord.
It is hardly the impression that emerges from the 2007 annual report of Amnesty International, which records that the torture and ill treatment of detainees is widespread, and we recall of course that many detainees are imprisoned for peaceful protests. The report continues that prison conditions fall short of international standards. It speaks of extra-judicial executions and records that in 2007, there were at least six occasions when security forces opened fire on civilians. It tells us that the perpetrators appear to enjoy immunity.
Nor did my noble friend’s characterisation of the human rights infringements accord with the recent Human Rights Watch country summary on Indonesia, which said that, in West Papua, peaceful political activists continue to be classified as “separatists”, which is a criminal offence. The report speaks of village “sweeping operations” carried out with great brutality by the army, the police and paramilitary units. It mentioned too that the regional military commander appointed in 2007, Colonel Siagian, was indicted by the United Nations for crimes against humanity in East Timor.
The Government’s view was not supported by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva last August, which commented that at last Indonesia had complied with its reporting obligations under the convention. The report—six years overdue—refrained from commenting that this road-to-Damascus conversion may be connected with Indonesia’s ambition to be re-elected to the United Nations Human Rights Committee. The report adds that Indonesia has still not implemented the convention in its domestic legislation.
Nor is the Government’s assessment in accordance with the report by Franciscans International, which notes that,
I leave it to other noble Lord to comments on the rape of Papua’s mineral wealth, which is now being shared between the Indonesian Government and foreign investors, but not by the Papuan people.
In at least one respect, I sympathise with the Government’s problem. It is not easy in the present state of international law, and in the absence of charter reform, to suggest a simple remedy. Of course, no one would recommend an invasion as anything but a final resort when diplomatic approaches, appeals from human rights organisations and sanctions have failed to provide a solution. But a reference to the Security Council by a Government who carry the international respect of the United Kingdom could be a beginning and could reassure the West Papuan people that someone cares.
I suspect that history will not understand how human suffering on such a scale continued year after year while the world looked on complacently and Governments in more fortunate countries pronounced the atrocities as “of a relatively small kind”. What a pity that we cannot ask the people of West Papua whether they agree.