Mining protests met with massacre

<*> West Papua (known officially in Indonesia as Irian Jaya or West Irian) forms the western half of the island of New Guinea and was forcibly appropriated by Indonesia in 1969, following the so-called Act of Free Choice.

The Freeport mine--with its huge deposits of copper, gold and silver--is owned by the New Orleans-based Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Corporation, while other known shareholders include the Indonesian government, RTZ and German and private interests. RTZ has taken a higher profile in the Freeport minerals project recently and is also buying 40 per cent of Freeport's Contract of Work. The company originally appropriated the land of the Amungme people in 1967, and in 1991 Freeport signed a new contract with Indonesia, adding 2.6 million hectares to its concession area. Already tribal elders have noted the increasing social and cultural fragmentation of their people, and the Ajikwa River is heavily polluted.

Protests against Freeport in the form of uprisings, flag-raising and peaceful demonstrations started in the far east of West Papua in June last year and shifted through the affected area during the rest of the year, culminating with a peaceful demonstration and flag-raising on 25 December in Tembagapura. There had already been clashes between Indonesian forces and the Free Papua Movement (OPM) and many families had fled into the bush for months on end, while the Indonesian army destroyed villages, set up checkpoints and engaged in acts of intimidation against villagers. Overall, 37 people were killed or disappeared. In February, the Indonesian media reported that the government planned to relocate some 2,000 local people over the next three months.

ACFOA made five recommendations, calling on the UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Summary or Arbitrary Executions to visit West Papua to investigate the allegations and the situation of the Freeport area with a view to reporting to the UN Human Rights Commission. ACFOA also recommended that the report be referred to the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations for its consideration and action, and said that the Indonesian Commission for Human Rights should visit the area to conduct a comprehensive investigation of the allegations and the general situation of local communities and that its report be released publicly.

Much criticism of Indonesia focuses on repression in East Timor but Indonesian human rights activists have argued that it is a mistake not to take on other issues in their country, including the military repression in Aceh and the crushing of any vocal resistance to the regime in Jakarta.