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Three West Papua Human Rights Organizations Condemn Statement by U.S. Attorney General Over The Killing Of Two Americans at Freeport MineUrge The U.S. Congress To Push For A Full And Impartial InvestigationJOINT PRESS STATEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contacts: Dr. Benny Giay (Elsham Jayapura) ˆ Phn.
+62-(0)815-86237462; THREE WEST PAPUA HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS CONDEMN THE STATEMENT BY THE US ATTORNEY GENERAL OVER THE KILLING OF TWO AMERICANS AT FREEPORT MINE AND URGE THE US CONGRESS TO PUSH FOR A FULL AND IMPARTIAL INVESTIGATION Timika and Jayapura, West Papua, 4 August, 2004 ELSHAM, LEMASA and YAHAMAK, human rights groups in West Papua which extensively assisted the FBI in its investigation of the killing of two Americans at the Freeport mine in August 2002, today expressed their grave concern over the actions of the US Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and called for the US Congress to facilitate a full, impartial investigation. Attorney General Ashcroft is apparently suppressing evidence in the Justice Department's possession, evidence that would be of great interest to the US Congress and the Freeport victims' families. Ashcroft suggested that Anthon Wamang was acting as a member of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) when his group carried out the attack at Freeport; said that he now faced the death penalty, and referred to separatists" who would be hunted down in the forests. By so doing he gives a green light to the Indonesian military (TNI) to go after Papuan dissidents (since the TNI classifies all opponents of their presence in Papua as "separatists"), in spite of the fact that suppressed evidence suggests that the military was behind the ambush. And indeed since the Ashcroft statement our three organizations in Papua have been subjected to a new round of threats and intimidation by the military. Although it is still not clear exactly who was the overall mastermind of this attack, an impartial reading of the facts points as much to the military as to the OPM. Attorney General Ashcroft failed to inform the public and the Congress of three crucial pieces of evidence, all three of which were almost certainly in the possession of the US Justice Department: 1. Though identified simply as an OPM field commander, Anthon in fact lived in the city of Timika where he was a business partner of Kopassus, the Indonesian army special forces. Anthon told our three organizations together with FBI agents that he was in the eaglewood and gold business with Indonesian military personnel. Though Anthon had in fact been in the field at various times with the OPM over the past 22 years, at the time of the attack he was living and working alongside Kopassus, not the OPM. According to its own field manuals and also public statements of its commanders, Kopassus specializes in infiltration and provocation operations. They have done so for years in West Papua, as in East Timor, Aceh and Maluku. Monitors ranging from KomnasHAM (the official Indonesian national human rights commission) to the US State Department to groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have extensively documented the fact that the Indonesian military routinely uses civilians to stage attacks, especially co-opted or coerced members of local rebel or opposition groups. In West Papua such activities have included aiding and guiding dissident rebel factions in kidnapping operations and theft of military weapons. 2. Anthon got his ammunition from the military, not the OPM. Anthon told our organizations and the FBI that he got his ammunition from TNI personnel. He said that the officers he dealt with knew exactly who he was and knew that he was about to carry out an attack in the Freeport concession. Our organizations know that this evidence was in the hands of the FBI since we gave it to them and later had extensive discussions about it with them. The agents acknowledged the validity of these facts and sent ELSHAM an email in March that suggested they were aware of the TNI‚s use of local people for provocation operations. 3. The investigation by the Police Regional West Papua led by a very well respected ex- Police Chief of West Papua Gen. Made Pastika concluded that the TNI was behind the ambush. The police believe that Mr. X (the man who was found dead on 1 September near the ambushed site) was shot the day before and then taken to the ambushed site to "invite" attention from the Police investigators. In fact when the Police conducted the investigation they were fired at few times by the TNI members that based 2 kilo meters away from the ambushed site. Why did Attorney General Ashcroft not mention these crucial facts in his statement? And why did he point the finger away from the military and exclusively towards the OPM instead? Attorney General Ashcroft's actions are especially troubling in the light of three pieces of background information which suggest that the military had a motive for an attack and that the OPM did not. First, for years the Freeport company had been making large cash payments to the military--for instance from 2000 to 2002 Freeport paid US$ 10.7 million to TNI. Yet in July 2002 -- one month before the Freeport attack, and in response to the new US Corporate Fraud Act--Freeport drastically cut back these payments, to the military's great displeasure. Some officers then made statements suggesting that without the military's full protection, the Freeport company might be exposed to unwanted, violent attack. Second, by staging various provocative actions throughout West Papua the TNI has been trying to have the whole West Papuan movement for justice and self-determination, and especially the OPM, designated as a terrorist threat. These efforts, including transfer of Laskar Jihad militants to West Papua and recruiting local Papuans into East Timor-style ŒRed and White‚ militias, as well as pushing for the division of West Papua into several new provinces, have created conflicts and bloodshed amongst the Papuans. This intention by TNI to label the West Papuans as terrorists has been very much motivated by the so-called "war on terror" and the desire of TNI to rebuild military ties with the US government after the IMET program was suspended following the Dilli massacre of 1991. However all these efforts have failed so far as the West Papuans have continued to struggle vigorously for the declaration of West Papua as a zone of peace and for a dialogue with Indonesia to resolve the West Papuan issue peacefully. Third, two months before the Freeport attack Kelly Kwalik, the OPM commander in the southern region, did urge his followers to stage demonstrations at the Freeport site, but he specified in writing that these protests must be nonviolent. The FBI has a copy of Kwalik‚s letter, and Anthon Wamang confirmed to us that Kelly Kwalik told him that no violence should be employed against persons around the Freeport site. Indeed, two weeks before the attack a delegation from our organizations met with Kelly Kwalik, and convinced him to withdraw his plan altogether, arguing that such an action could easily be manipulated by TNI for its own interests. Shortly after Attorney General Ashcroft‚s announcement the TNI leadership publicly stated that US officials had told them that the military had now been cleared of involvement in the Freeport killings, and that the door was therefore open for a resumption of full US military aid to Indonesia. It is on public record that the Bush administration has been pushing for such aid resumption and has only been prevented from doing so by bipartisan opposition in the Congress. It would be regrettable if a decision on this matter and on further adjudication of the Freeport case ends up being premised on faulty information from Attorney General Ashcroft. We call on the US Justice Department and the FBI to now correct the omissions in Attorney General Ashcroft's public statement by releasing a public accounting of Anthon Wamang‚s business partnership with the Indonesian military and the evidence they have on where he got his ammunition. We call on the US Congress, which has already deliberated on this case, to facilitate a full, impartial investigation by calling the Justice Department to account. The Congress should also call for Anthon Wamang and other key figures in the case to be brought safely to the United States. We urge the US government to think before it acts on the matter of resuming full ties with an Indonesian military that has been systematically killing Papuan and other civilians with impunity for many years, and that must still, in all fairness, be considered a leading suspect behind the Freeport case. We also urge the US government to make representations immediately in Papua and Jakarta to ensure the protection of members of ELSHAM, LEMASA and YAHAMAK against military intimidation, since these organizations have cooperated wholeheartedly with the FBI in its Freeport inquiry. (END) -30- see ETAN's U.S.-Indonesia Military Assistance page see Congressional Action on East Timor/Indonesia: Statements, etc. |
