Pressure on West Papuans Increases

Last month, Human Rights Monitor released its annual report, stating that pressure on Papuans had intensified since the inauguration of Indonesia’s new president Prabowo Subianto in October last year. 

Already the former military general has created more opportunities for the exploitation of land and resources by the military forces and associated investors in the territory. 

During more than 60 years of occupation, the military and its personnel have benefitted financially from timber, mining and other extractive businesses.

Investors have also bought more land that will be used for government projects, like the food security project that will turn more than one million hectares of rainforest and savannah grassland into rice fields in the Merauke Regency (county) while dislocating the Malind people.

Human Rights Monitor reported that by December 2024, over 85,000 Papuans were internally displaced following clashes with the military and police.  In addition the police continued to restrict protests, intimidate and attack activists, journalists and human rights defenders.

During 2024, 44 civilians were killed and 37 injured during armed clashes.  There were 135 armed attacks during the year, a new record.  Human Rights Monitor reiterated concern about the way security forces can act with impunity, reporting 17 extrajudicial killings and 53 people subjected to torture with little investigation. 

Indonesia was also failing basic rights to education and healthcare. 

Last month thousands of Papuan students took to the streets to protest a new free school lunch programme organised by the government. 

Security forces responded with violence in places like Jayapura (the largest city in Papua) and Nagire on the northern coast.  Police arbitrarily arrested 78 students and attacked at least six students who participated in the peaceful rallies.

The Papuan students said they wanted better schools and a Papuan education system, free from military interference. 

Schools dominated by indigenous Papuans are overcrowded.  Teachers in these schools are poorly trained and teach the Indonesian curriculum which does not meet the aspirations of Papuans seeking the return of their land and culture.  The military are increasingly active in schools, bringing in teachers from other parts of Indonesia rather than training Papuans.  Some of these teachers are only present in the classroom for the few weeks before school exams, denying students the opportunity to learn.

Students living in the poorest Highland Papuan province have the lowest attendance.  The population is 97% Papuan and the rugged terrain, lack of resources and ongoing conflict means many children miss out on this basic human right.  Worst off are those living in the Nduga Regency where New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens was held for 19 months by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB).    Indonesia is planning to cut down enormous areas of rainforest in the region to make way for extensive palm oil plantations.  Papuans are opposing this destruction of their lands, livelihoods and traditions.

The Indonesian government has resumed transmigration policies, settling people from other areas of the archipelago with extra incentives. 

The Grasberg mine is one of the world’s most important sources of gold and copper, but the tailings are causing harm to the people of the Western Highlands.  The controversial mine is run by PT Freeport Indonesia.

In 2017, 70% or 1.8 million Papuans signed a petition calling for independence. 

Indonesia invaded the newly independent nation in December 1961 and was given control on May 1, 1963. 

Last October the World Council of Churches(WCC) hosted a side event to the 57th meeting of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council.  In opening the meeting, the WCC’s Peter Prove said that he thought it was “the worst and longest standing human rights and humanitarian crisis that most people have never heard of...  It's not an accident; it's a deliberate consequence of the lack of access that Indonesia allows for representatives of the international community to the territory.”

“People who fight to protect their forests and ancestral lands are met with oppressive actions from the military.  Civil society is criminalised, arrested, jailed, and hit with treason charges from the security apparatus,” said West Papuan lawyer, Leonardo Ijie.