4-12-06, 9:45 am
Showing its true colours, the Howard Government has offered to help Indonesia prevent refugees fleeing West Papua. Recently 42 West Papuan separatists reached the Northern Territory by boat. The Australian Government is certainly not keen on accepting applications for asylum from independence-minded Melanesians. Nonetheless, on March 23, it granted temporary asylum to these applicants who clearly met legal criteria and received considerable publicity and public support.
This caused a diplomatic uproar. The Indonesian President indignantly claimed that the asylum seekers were just economic refugees. Indonesia withdrew its Ambassador and refused to attend a joint military conference.
When the Howard Government received news of the imminent arrival of more West Papuan refugees, it hastily repeated its recognition of Indonesia's claim to West Papua. It also offered to help Indonesia patrol the West Papua coast, to intercept other refugees.
The Government is now considering discussing individual applications for asylum from West Papuans with the Indonesian Government and passing special legislation to prevent acceptance of applications for refugee status from other West Papuans. Both initiatives would constitute a potential breach of Australia's obligations under the United Nations Convention on Refugees.
Despite the obvious similarities, Howard has claimed that West Papua's case is quite different to that of East Timor and that Indonesia's respect for human rights has improved. He warned West Papuan independence supporters to back off, and raised the spectre of terrorism if Indonesia were thwarted over the West Papua issue.
The Government also claims that Papua chose annexation by Indonesia after the Dutch colonial government withdrew. In fact, in the appalling 1969 'Act of Free Choice', occupying Indonesian military forces rounded up and detained some 1,054 tribal elders (out of an indigenous population of some 700,000), and threatened them at gunpoint into voting for annexation. The UN observers on hand only witnessed some 200 people vote before departing.
The US, Australia and other Western nations supported the annexation because of West Papua's immense natural wealth, and because of fears that if they did not, Indonesia would align with the socialist nations. The indigenous Papuans have been living with the horrendous consequences of that 'Act of Free Choice' ever since.
The US-based corporation Freeport-McMoRan's massive West Papua gold and copper mine, established in 1967, is one of the largest in the world. However, hardly any of its massive profits have been passed on to local indigenous people, many of whom have been forced to migrate to lowland regions, where their numbers have declined because of malaria. The Indonesian Government now proposes to move another 2,000 people.
Each year around 110,000 tonnes of mining waste are dumped into the now biologically-dead Aykwa River and its surrounding barren landscape.
The Indonesian military rules West Papua ruthlessly through its special enforcement unit Kopassus, and sometimes, it is said, with the assistance of Freeport-MacMoRan employees. Thousands have been forcibly relocated, beaten, raped, tortured or jailed without trial, have had their homes or gardens destroyed, or have had to flee to the jungle. Some 100,000 people have died as a result of the occupation. Native practices, languages and livelihoods have been suppressed.
The Indonesian Government has encouraged the mass migration of pro-Jakarta Javanese migrants to West Papua. It has also focused on indigenous West Papuans in its family planning program, which is well funded compared to its other barely existing health measures. There has been widespread distribution to indigenous women of progestagen-only contraceptives, identified by the World Health Organisation as presenting the highest potential for interaction with HIV, the incidence of which tripled in West Papua between 1990 and 1995.
The birth rate of indigenous West Papuans has fallen by 80 percent in some areas. The infant mortality rate estimate ranges between 70 to a staggering 200 per 1,000 births (compared to Indonesia's rate of 33), while the maternal mortality rate in the most heavily-populated rural districts is 4.5 per 1000 births (Indonesia 2.3).
Gonorrhoea is widespread. Chlamidia, a major cause of female infertility but easily treated by antibiotics, has been allowed to spread unchecked. The average life expectancy of indigenous women is 50.3 years.
In short, Howard wants us to support what has been accurately described by the West Papua OPM Revolutionary Council as 'a slow and insidious racial and cultural holocaust happening now in West Papua'.
From The Guardian
