Eben Kirksey

Cosmos/Bios/Polis Panel at the AAA meetings

2011-11-08T08:01:00.000-08:00

Cosmos/Bios/Polis
Organizer: Eben Kirksey

Thursday, November 17, 2011: 10:15-12:00
Panel at the American Anthropological Association
Montreal Convention Center 511B (Palais des congrès de Montréal)

10:15 Biopolitical Thought and Neo-Vitalism
Cary Wolfe (Rice University)

10:30 From Rhizome to Banyan
Eben Kirksey (CUNY Graduate Center)

10:45 Fabricating Relations In Peru’s Digital Innovation Networks
Anita Say Chan (Illinois--Urbana Champaign)

11:00 Towards a Subalternist Cosmopolitics
Matthew C Watson (North Carolina State University)

11:15 Living Logics Beyond the Human: Thoughts from an Amazonian Forest
Eduardo Kohn (McGill)

11:30 Matei Candea (University of Durham)

11:45 Dorion Sagan (Independent Scholar)

This panel will explore the challenges of building common worlds—with former enemies who might become allies, with technological networks, with other species—while remaining open to surprises from the unknown. If the promise of a perpetual peace from Kantian citizens of the cosmos no longer rings true, then what are the prospects of Isabelle Stengers' cosmopolitical proposal? Cosmopolitics presences “the question of possible nonhierarchical modes of coexistence among the ensemble of inventions of non-equivalence, among the diverging values and obligations through which the entangled existences that compose it are affirmed.” Giving resonance to the unknown cosmos beyond our fragile constructions, this panel will reckon with how common cosmopolitical worlds are created when many players work together, tooth and nail. Thinking within the constraints imposed by the unknown, we will bring cosmos together with bios, the biographical life that concerns the polis. Appreciating the foolishness of human exceptionalism, this panel will follow Donna Haraway to explore contact zones where the outcome, where who is in the world, is at stake. Working to get past the thanatological drift in contemporary biopolitical thought, speakers will probe the attractions and limitations of the search for an affirmative biopolitics. Being polite, or political in common worlds, where multiple species meet, may require discomforting intra-actions with newly recognized subaltern subjects.

Indonesian President Open to Dialog with Amnesty International

2011-10-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

Last week Amnesty International issued this statement: "Amnesty International calls for the immediate and unconditional release of at least fourteen people who are currently being detained and interrogated by the police in Papua."

Several thousand people representing various tribes from all over Papua attended the Third Papuan People’s congress from 17- 19 October 2011. Organisers had informed the Jayapura police of the gathering as required by law. At the peaceful gathering, participants reportedly raised the prohibited Morning Star flag, a symbol of Papuan independence, and made declarations of independence. During the period of the congress there was a build up of an estimated 500 military and police personnel surrounding the venue.

On the afternoon of 19 October 2011, the final day of the congress, military and police units approached the venue and started firing shots into the air to break up the peaceful gathering. This caused widespread panic among the participants who began to flee. As they fled, police units from the Jayapura City police station and the regional police headquarters fired tear gas and then arbitrarily arrested an estimated 300 hundred participants.

Police and military officers allegedly beat participants with their pistols, rattan canes and batons during the arrest. The bodies of two participants, Melkias Kadepa, a student, and Yakobus Samonsabra, were found near the area of the congress with bullet wounds."

In response to this statement by Amnesty (read the full statement here) the President of Indonesia told the press that he was open to dialog with human rights NGOs:

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono asked the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Djoko Suyanto to explain the position of the government of Indonesia to the Amnesty International-regarding problems in Papua. The president made this response to allegations by Amnesty about human rights violations and demands political prisoners be released.

"I hope that Minister Suyanto will act as a coordinator with the relevant officials to engage in dialogue with Amnesty International. Explain the basic position and policy of our approach. Thus, there will be no misunderstanding, misconception, or other matters that are not necessary the case," the president said when opening the meeting plenary cabinet at the State Secretariat Jakarta, Thursday, October 27, 2011.

The president said Indonesia is an open and democratic country with a policy that could be accounted for. If there is an error on the part of the military and police officers, the law will be enforced. Similarly, if an error or a violation was made by others.

"For the sake of justice must also be enforced, and (given) the same legal sanction. The law must also be enforced, security must also be kept. It's very clear and in a variety of occasions when I met with many world leaders, I explained all this," he said.

Matter of government policy, the president compared Indonesia's actions with the hundreds of people in New York who were detained by local authorities for shutting down streets with demonstrations, and riots that also occurred in England some time ago. Detention of people because they act against the law, is happening around the world.

Because Indonesia is also a state governed by law, the President requested this position be explained to non-governmental organizations and nongovernmental organizations. "I hope what I have to say, is that this could be communicated to Amnesty International and other NGOs. Dialog with us, Indonesia is very open to discussing these allegations," he said.

This is a quick translation I did of this article. The original, in Indonesian, is here.

Presenting the John Rumbiak Human Rights Defender Award

2011-07-07T17:43:00.000-07:00

On July 7th, 2011, Eben presented the John Rumbiak Human Rights Defender award to Congressman Eni Faleomavaega on behalf of the West Papua Advocacy Team.

Congressman Eni Faleomavaega from Eben Kirksey on Vimeo.

“I am humbled by this award,” Faleomavaega said. “I do not feel worthy of it, and this is why I have donated the prize money to the Papuan Customary Council (Dewan Adat Papua) in honor of the men, women and children of West Papua who are the true heroes.”

John Rumbiak is a renowned champion of human rights who suffered a debilitating stroke in 2005.

Poaching Paige West's "Conservation is Our Government Now"

2011-05-23T17:50:00.000-07:00

A multispecies zeitgeist is sweeping anthropology. A central reference point for this lively conversation is a question that was first posed by Donna Haraway: “what counts as nature, for whom, and at what cost?” Paige West speaks to this question – exploring how the idea of nature was torqued during encounters among New Guinea highlanders, biologists, and other foreign ecophiles.

West illustrates how a hybrid environmental ethics was forged among competing political, economic, and symbolic systems. She offers us intimate portraits of long-distance, interspecies love. Describing photographer David Gillison’s affair with the Bird of Paradise, she unravels a fetish logic that separates particular species from ecosystems and explores how commodification extracts nature from social relations. Chronicling ambivalent emotions – desire, mourning, and anxiety – she opens a window into the affective dimensions of trans-cultural and multispecies contact zones.

Set in the Crater Mountain Wildlife Management Area, a place that was formed amidst countervailing institutional agendas and jockeying by diverse agents, this ethnography attends to how conservation was enacted amidst material and social inequalities. Some residents of Maimafu, a village in the Management Area where West conducted her fieldwork, engaged with environmentalists in hopes of chasing after the elusive idea of development. Even as some men from Maimafu reaped modest benefits from these social relations with foreigners, as they gained access to symbolic capital and modest sums of money, this conservation project initially did not directly benefit many women. It reinforced local regimes of patriarchy.
At a pivotal moment in the book, West describes a Papuan woman named Nanasuanna – one of her trusted interlocutors – who confronted the conservationists. She stood up at a yearly meeting with visiting foreign and Papuan NGO workers, waiting for the assembled men to recognize her turn to speak. After the director of the conservation organization group asked “Wife of Nelson, do you have something to say?”, Nanasuanna began an impassioned speech: “We women are the backbone of the community. We are the backbone of life. You men tell us that we do not know things. You tell us that we know nothing. But we do. We know. We know gardens. We know houses. We know children. We know how to work. We know how to make a net bag… These are the things that make life possible.” This speech marked a watershed event in Maimafu village. Following this encounter, women were given the opportunity to have a formal role in the Crater Mountain Wildlife Management Area. Nanasuanna was thus able to partially articulate her visions of life and livelihood to an institution of environmental governmentality, using outsiders to gain traction within local regimes of social inequality.

The moment of political electricity during Nanasuanna’s speech-in-action at the conservation meeting generated emergent collaborations and novel articulations. Poaching this text – transforming its meaning, turning it to my own ends (Certeau 1998, Matsutake Worlds 2010) – I found Nanasuanna speaking to freedom dreams on the other half of the island of New Guinea, across the border in West Papua. Following an invasion by the Indonesian military in December 1961, indigenous West Papuans have been told that they do not know things – that only outsiders have authoritative knowledge of development, religion, and modernity; that they do not know how to govern themselves. In the face of this symbolic violence, and ongoing state violence, West Papuans are struggling to actualize hybrid ideals about freedom – visions of national independence and dreams of post-national economic justice (Kirksey 2012).

At certain historical junctures, West Papua’s political struggle became an arboreal rhizome of sorts, like the banyan tree – the symbol of a dominant Indonesian political party (Lowe 2011). This movement for justice and rights climbed up and around the architecture of domination – encircling Indonesian institutions, multinational corporations, as well as transnational organizations bent on governmentality and control.

Women form the backbone of human life in New Guinea – both in the independent country of Papua New Guinea and the emerging nation of West Papua. As the nationalist movement in West Papua approached a climax in the early 21st century, as this figural banyan seemed ready to choke off the host tree of Indonesian domination, the women of New Guinea were still maneuvering within pervasive male-dominated institutions, making rhizomorphic articulations.

The emergent connections enabled by Nanasuanna’s speech at the meeting of conservationists, certainly mirror strategies of political engagement used by indigenous West Papuans. Her words also recall Antonio Gramsci’s ideas about the “war of position,” the open-ended struggle that is ever-present in situations of hegemony. Gramsci writes of “molecular changes which in fact progressively modify the pre-existing composition of forces, and hence become the matrix of new changes.”

West’s writing about the microprocesses of conservation practice in Maimafu village, in concert with her insights about ecofetishism and the commodification of nature, offers a framework for thinking about human agents who enlist particular species in regimes of biopolitical control. This book places conservation squarely within a matrix of ecological forces and social relations. Rather than point toward a utopic future, an imagined moment of naturalcultural harmony, West gives us thick description of molecular changes in the historical present. Perhaps schemes to protect nature in the global south will always be implicated in post-colonial, and neo-imperial, power dynamics. Perhaps ecosystems will always contain unloved others, creatures that escape regimes of cultivation and care (Rose and van Dooren 2011). Nonetheless, West offers visions of modest biocultural hope – la lucha continua with a multifaceted war of position to make conservation projects more just and equitable. Her work has prompted me to rearticulate the question from Donna Haraway that opened this short essay: Which species are protected, for whom, and at what cost?

(Originally published as Kirksey et al, "Poaching at the Multispecies Salon", Kroeber Anthropological Society. 100(1): 129-153.)

Comprehending West Papua

2011-02-25T16:59:00.000-08:00

This is a remote video presentation about Eben's forthcoming book, "Freedom in Entangled Worlds", that he presented at the conference on West Papua organized by the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney in February 2011.

CFP: Call for Poachers

2010-10-19T10:33:00.000-07:00

CFP: CALL FOR POACHERS
Multispecies Salon 3: SWARM

Michel de Certeau speaks of “reading as poaching” in The Practice of Everyday Life. This assertion is part of de Certeau’s larger argumentthat consumption is not a passive act, determined by systems of production. He suggests that reading is a foundational mode of modern consumption, and therefore, of everyday life. In contrast to the “private hunting reserves” cultivated by elite literati, who alone claim rights to inscribe meanings to texts or landscapes, reading as poaching allows one to “convert the text through reading and to ‘run it’ the way one runs traffic lights” (1984: 171-176).

“What does it mean to poach another person’s paper, especially an unpublished one?” ask members of the Matsutake Worlds Research Group. The English word “poach” is related to the French word pocher, to push or poke with a finger or pointed instrument, to pierce. “Poaching is a way of pushing or poking pieces of ones research towards that of another,” suggests the Group, “something of an offering; not an encroachment but a gift.”

We hereby announce an open CFP (Call for Poachers) in association with the Multispecies Salon panel at the upcoming American Anthropological Association meetings (Saturday, November 20th, 1:45 p.m.-5:30 p.m., New Orleans Sheraton, Grand Ballroom A, 5th Floor). Seventeen papers are available for poaching—all orbiting around the emergence of multispecies ethnography, a novel interdisciplinary mode of inquiry.

“Multispecies ethnography asks cultural anthropologists to reengage with biological anthropology,” write event organizers Eben Kirksey and Stefan Helmreich. The papers under discussion explore human entanglements with animals, plants, fungi, and microbes.

Rather than passively listen to conventionally scripted conference presentations, we invite audience members to push or poke the papers on the table, to run them, like traffic lights. We invite the audience to offer up examples from their own research, to “poach” papers like pears, using red wine and honey to intensify and transform the flavor of the fruit.

Become a poacher at the Multispecies Salon 3: SWARM.

Visit our art exhibit!

Multispecies Salon 3: Call for Wild Artists

2010-08-28T11:46:00.000-07:00

The Multispecies Salon 3 will use art to explore human relationships with nature.
Support this project on Kickstarter!

A curatorial collective is reaching out to renowned bioartists, ecoartists, and kinetic artists in New Orleans, across the United States, and around the world. With this call we are also soliciting artifacts and organisms from wild artists: school children, environmental advocates, community organizers, and scholars who do not all have recognizable art credentials. Pushing Joseph Beuys' famous decree--"You are all artists"--beyond human realms we will also frame microbes, insects, and plants as creative agents.

The Multispecies Salon originated in the San Francisco Bay Area where artists have been collaborating with anthropologists to explore human relations with other species. The Salon has orbited around the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA) in San Francisco (in 2008) and San Jose (in 2006). The coming of the AAA to New Orleans, from 17-21 November, prompted us to organize Multispecies Salon 3. Our art exhibit accompanies the emergence of multispecies ethnography, a new mode of anthropological research and writing about how human lives are entangled with animals, plants, fungi, and microbes.

To submit an artifact or artwork to the Multispecies Salon e-mail us an image or a brief description of your piece (200 words or less): Multispecies.Salon@gmail.com. All submissions should fit within one of the three themes described on this website: 1) Life in the Age of Biotechnology, 2) Edible Companions, and 3) Hope in Blasted Landscapes. If you would like to submit a bioart piece, using living matter as your medium, please include an additional statement addressing how the piece should be cared for in the gallery and any public health concerns. Submissions are due on September 1st and participants will be notified by September 15th if their piece is accepted. Opening night will be November 13th, 2010.

Support this project on Kickstarter!

President Obama, What Would Your Mother Say?

2010-06-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

President Obama turned his back on Indonesia recently — canceling his visit there for the second time this year. His mother, Ann Soetoro, was a cultural anthropologist who spent much of her adult life helping economically-marginalized people of Indonesia. If she were still alive, she might well be disappointed in her son.

As President Obama turns his attention to the oil spill in the Gulf, the U.S. Congress is reminding him of other important issues in a seemingly remote corner of Indonesia. A resolution introduced by Rep. Patrick Kennedy (H.Res. 1355) calls attention to the human rights problems in West Papua, the half of New Guinea that was invaded by Indonesia in 1962.

In the President’s autobiography, Dreams from My Father, he recalls a conversation with Lolo Soetoro, his step-father who had just returned home after a tour of duty with the Indonesian military in West Papua. Obama asked his step-father: “Have you ever seen a man killed?” Lolo responded affirmatively, recounting the bloody death of “weak” men.

Ann Soetoro never spoke out publicly about Indonesian atrocities in West Papua, but she divorced her husband shortly after he came back from the frontlines of this war.

Papuan intellectuals and political activists, kin of the “weak” men killed by Lolo Soetoro, have read Obama’s autobiography with keen interest. They still embrace the message of hope from the Presidential campaign and the slogan, “Yes We Can.”

At a moment when many Americans are questioning whether Obama will be able to fulfill his campaign promises, when everyone is wondering if he can reign in the hubris of the corporate executives who produced the disaster in the Gulf, it is worth considering these enduring hopes in West Papua.

Perhaps it is time for those of us who were drawn in by the slogan “Yes We Can” to remind the President that grassroots political movements still have power.

Many people, including some anthropologists, do not know the difference between West Papua* and Papua New Guinea. The subject of several classic anthropology books — from Margaret Mead’s Growing Up in New Guinea to Marilyn Strathern’s Gender of the Gift — the independent nation of Papua New Guinea is familiar to almost anyone who has taken an introductory anthropology class. Indonesia is also well known among academics who study culture or politics. Cultural anthropologist Clifford Geertz told us tales of Balinese cockfights and Javanese religious systems, and political scientist Benedict Anderson famously wrote about imagined communities and power in Indonesia.

At the edge of national and scholarly boundaries, West Papua, in contrast, falls through the cracks.

Anthropologists and scholars in allied disciplines should join human rights advocates and others in noticing West Papua. Amnesty International is currently working with Representative Kennedy’s office to pass his Resolution which calls attention to many pressing problems:

“Whereas Amnesty International has identified numerous prisoners of conscience in Indonesian prisons, among them Papuans such as Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage, imprisoned for peaceful political protests including the display of the ‘‘morning star’’ flag which has historic, cultural, and political meaning for Papuans…

“Whereas a Human Rights Watch report on June 5, 2009, noted ‘‘torture and abuse of prisoners in jails in Papua is rampant’’;

“and Whereas prominent Indonesian leaders have called for a national dialogue and Papuan leaders have called for an internationally-mediated dialogue to address long-standing grievances in Papua and West Papua.”

If passed, this Resolution would give President Obama some issues of substance to talk about with Indonesian leaders once he does make a return trip to Southeast Asia. Resolutions are non-binding acts that convey the sentiments of Congress.

Amnesty International, and the other human rights groups advocating for this resolution, are up against powerful forces. Transnational companies have been lobbying for stronger military ties with Indonesia. The same company that brought us the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, BP, has a huge natural gas field in West Papua called Tangguh.

Starting this year, BP is scheduled to start shipping super-cooled gas from this site (liquid natural gas or LNG) to North America where it will be piped into the homes of millions in California, Oregon and other westerns states.

BP has been a major donor to the U.S.-Indonesia Society, an organization committed to educating congressional staff and administration officials about the “importance of the United States-Indonesia relationship.” The U.S.-Indonesia Society is also supported by Freeport McMoRan, a company that operates one of the world’s largest gold and copper mines in West Papua.

The American public is starting to reign in the irresponsible behavior of companies like BP that have created domestic disasters. American must also reckon with the foreign entanglements of the companies supplying the U.S. natural resources and should question the politicians who have led the United States into a series of environmental catastrophes and debacles on foreign soil.

Who the official cosponsors of Kennedy’s Resolution on West Papua are is public knowledge.

If your representative hasn’t yet signed on, call the House switchboard: (202) 224-3121. Ask to speak with your representative’s office. Once you get through to the office of your congressman or congresswoman, identify yourself as a “constituent” and ask to speak with the staff person responsible for international affairs or human rights. Once you have that person on the phone (or, more likely, are transferred to their voice mail), identify yourself by name, where you live or the place you work, and say “Please support H.Res. 1355 from Patrick Kennedy’s office about political prisoners in West Papua.” Sometimes the person you end up talking to will want to chat, but often they will be brief.

Or, you can click through to this Amnesty International action center.

The responses that human rights advocates are calling for today is pathetically small compared to the scale of the problem. Making your voice heard is one step toward addressing U.S. entanglements and misadventures in a seemingly remote corner of the world.

S. Eben Kirksey is a cultural anthropologist who earned his Ph.D. at the University of California at Santa Cruz. Freedom in Entangled Worlds, his forthcoming book, published by Duke University Press, explores the social and political dynamics of West Papua’s independence movement from 1998 till 2008.

*In 1961 a council of indigenous New Guinea intellectuals declared that their land, then known as Netherlands New Guinea, would henceforth be known as West Papua. Indonesia. Weeks after this declaration, Indonesia invaded and named their newly acquired territory Irian Jaya. Now this place is officially known as the Indonesian Provinces of West Papua and Papua—though many indigenous people? continue to use the name West Papua to refer to the entire territory.

The Multispecies Meal

2010-01-08T13:31:00.000-08:00

The Multispecies Meal
@ the Society for Cultural Anthropology meetings in Santa Fe
May 7-8, 2010

Artists, anthropologists, and significant others came together to break bread at The Multispecies Salon, a special off-site event at the 2008 meetings of AAA in San Francisco. We shared food in an exercise of being and becoming with Donna Haraway’s companion species. A bestiary of agencies, kinds of relatings, come together in companion species. “Companion comes from the Latin cum panis, ‘with bread,’” she writes. During our meal we ate sourdough bread while Jake Metcalf told us about a microbial culture that crossed the Oregon Trail and then propagated itself on the internet. Acorn mush was prepared by Linda Noel, a Native American poet who told us that she always left some acorns behind “for the deer.”

Artisanal cheeses from nearby Cowgirl Creamery featuring organic milk and ambient as well as freeze-dried microbes from earth, air, and lab, were provided by Heather Paxson. She told us about what she calls “microbiopolitics”, the ways that human systems of ethics and governance bear on the doings of microorganisms.

Other items on our table involved small-scale relationships of mutual care as well as mutual violence. Geographer Jake Kosek had just collected fresh honey from his own beehive and was sporting a swollen hand from a fresh sting. While we sipped dandelion root tea, performance artist Caitlin Berrigan asked that we give blood to a dandelion plant, providing much needed nutrients. The violence was asymmetrical to be sure—bee stings and finger pricks are not equivalent to the large-scale robbery of a hive’s resources, or the uprooting of a plant. Still, this minor violence to human bodies was a reminder that the entangled relations among companion species are often fraught.

Eating a meal in an art gallery turned mundane routine into an opportunity for rumination and reflection. In trying to swallow the products of multispecies labor relations and nested ecological becomings, more than one gallery goer experienced indigestion. The fermented smell of sourdough yeast lingered on the palate, mixing with the bitter taste of dandelion tea and acorn mush.

We will host another multispecies meal at the 2010 meetings of the Society for Cultural Anthropology in Santa Fe. This will be a poster session, of sorts, where people can informally talk about their work and break bread together. People who are already participating in formal paper presentations are welcome to submit their edible organisms for consideration. Entrants should be prepared to bring enough food to share with audience members.

To be included in the session proposal, entrants should simply submit a title for their project by Monday, January 11th, 2010 at noon EST. Address all entries and queries to S. Eben Kirksey (skirksey@pitt.edu). Late entrants will be considered up until the SCA meetings in May.

More information about the Multispecies Salon: http://www.skyhighway.com/~multispecies/

Dialog in West Papua

2009-11-09T10:51:00.000-08:00

Today Rep. Eni Faleomavaega and Rep. Donald Payne joined Papuan leaders and Indonesian intellectuals in calling for dialog in West Papua. In a letter to the President of Indonesia, they wrote: “A national dialogue would present an opportunity to resolve important issues in West Papua long viewed with concern by Members of Congress and the international community. These include human rights abuses, demographic shifts leaving many Papuans as minorities in their own land, limits on freedom of speech and peaceful assembly, restrictions on the free movement of Papuans within Indonesia, and constraints on international journalists, researchers, and those in nongovernmental organizations seeking to visit or work in West Papua.”

“It is our sincere hope that you will establish an internationally-mediated commission to initiate a dialogue bringing together nationally-respected leaders of your government and of West Papua. We believe this is the moment to begin such a process. A serious national dialogue will enhance the welfare of the people of West Papua, demonstrate Indonesia’s commitment to democracy and justice for all its citizens, and enhance your country’s growing stature on the global stage,” the letter concludes.

Faleomavaega and Payne both are members of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the U.S. House of Representatives. Faleomavaega is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, and Payne is the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health.

Indonesia's Military Investigates Itself--Again

2009-07-15T00:19:00.000-07:00

Today George Aditjondro, an Indonesian sociologist and public intellectual, suggested that the Indonesian military staged a series of ambush murders last weekend at the Freeport McMoRan gold and copper mine. Aditjondro told the Associated Press: "Whenever they (security forces) feel they do not receive enough 'protection fee' then they orchestrate an attack to show Freeport how vulnerable they are and increase protection fees."

Indonesian officials today announced that the Indonesian military would join the police in investigating the killings of last weekend.

If recent history can serve as any guide, the Indonesian military will not be able to pull off a credible investigation. In December 2002, when the police fingered military shooters in a similar attack, General Endriartono Sutarto, then the head of Indonesia's Armed Forces, dispatched a fact finding team to the crime scene. This team, led by Brigadier General Hendarji, conducted what they called a "reconstruction."

The purported aim of this reconstruction was to assess the accuracy of eyewitnesses testimony placing Indonesian soldiers with the Kopassus Special Forces at the crime scene. In short, the reconstruction conducted on 28 December, 2002, in Timika was a sham. Crime scene eye witnesses and human rights observers reported that they were intimidated during the exercise. The military publicly exonerated themselves after this reconstruction, saying that the eyewitnesses had "lied."

If Indonesian military personnel are among the likely suspects in the latest round of murders, then they should not participate in the investigation.

To read the interview with George Aditjondro see: Anthony Deutch, "Security Suspected in Indonesia Gold Mine Killings," The Associated Press, 15 July 2009.

To learn more about the December 2002 "reconstruction" by the Indonesian military see pages 188-189 of: KIRKSEY, S. E. & A. HARSONO. 2008. "Criminal Collaborations: Antonius Wamang and the Indonesian Military in Timika", South East Asia Research, 16 (2): 165-197.

Indonesia's Police and Military at Open War

2009-07-13T23:51:00.000-07:00

Timika, a city in West Papua, has become a site where an open war over money, involving the Indonesian military (TNI) and the police (POLRI), is taking place. In 2008 the U.S. mining giant Freeport McMoRan paid $8 million in support costs to security forces, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Last year $1.6 million of this money went to "allowances" for TNI and POLRI officers despite a 2007 Ministerial decree handing over all security for "vital national projects" (provit) to POLRI.

TNI had financial incentive to stage the attack last weekend that left Drew Grant, an Australian national, dead. A disturbance would show that POLRI was doing a poor job at providing security for this national project. At the same time POLRI is now in a situation, much like they were with the 2002 attacks that killed three teachers in Timika, where it is in their best interest to pursue evidence of TNI involvement in the ambush. The battle between TNI and POLRI in Timika is a microcosm for a war between these two institutions on a national level. Very lucrative security contracts at other vital national projects, like BP's Tangguh project in Bintuni Bay, are at stake.

The jury is still out about who conducted the attacks over the weekend. Allegations and denials are flying from all possible corners. If investigators identify marksmen, my first questions will be: Where did they get their guns? and Who trained them?

For more details of the $1.8 million "monthly allowance" see: Aubrey Belford (2009) "US Mining Giant Still Paying Indonesian Military", AFP, 23 March.

For details on Freeport's $8 million in broader "support costs" for some 1,850 Indonesian police and soldiers see: "DJ US Giant Freeport McMoran Still Paying Indonesia Military", Dow Jones Commodities News select via Comtex, 22 March 2009.

Déjà vu in Timika

2009-07-12T20:55:00.000-07:00

preliminary thoughts about a new ambush murder

When Papuans are murdered by Indonesia’s security forces, which has been happening with a predictable regularity ever since I began paying serious attention in 1998, the international community rarely takes notice. When whites are killed, the world starts to care.

Two days ago Drew Grant, a 29-year-old Australian national, was shot five times with what police investigators are calling “military-style weapons” along the heavily guarded road leading to Freeport McMoRan’s gold mine in West Papua. Yesterday an Indonesian security officer was also shot. A 2002 attack on the same road left one Indonesian and two U.S. schoolteachers dead. Ballistics evidence and eye-witness testimony point to an Indonesian military role in the ambush murder from seven years ago. Reading media reports published in the last few days, and talking to a couple of friends who are tracking the case on the ground, I have experienced an uncanny feeling of déjà vu.

Over the weekend there were also two Indonesian civilians murdered in the highland town of Wamena: a Javanese and a Papuan. A separate shooting, also on Saturday, took place on Yapen Island, off West Papua's north coast. Last week four Papuans were killed in the remote Mamberamo region by Indonesia’s Densus 88 unit, crack troops that recieve training from the U.S. government. Of all this recent violence, only the death of the Australian has captured the attention of major media outlets.

A “sniper” carried out the attack that killed the Australian mining employee this weekend, in the words of Indonesian national police inspector-general Nanan Sukarna. A similarly skilled marksman was at work in 2002. The first four shots that killed the two U.S. teachers, were distinct, methodical, and fatal. A group of Papuans were jailed for the 2002 attack. But, prosecutors did not muster evidence that any of the men had the technical skills to precisely target passengers in a moving vehicle.

Indonesian investigators have been quick to admit that the weapons used by the sniper the Australian man this weekend were standard issue for security forces. “It’s clear they (the attackers) were using weapons belonging to the police or the military,” said Major General Ekodanto, the Provincial Chief of Police. But others have been quick to add that these guns may have been stolen.

Papuan guerilla fighters, known by the acronym TPN, have long had access to a handful of “military-style” weapons—namely M16 and SS1 assault rifles. But a long hard look at many of these “freedom fighters” reveals that many are not really TPN, but affiliates of the TNI, the acronym for the Indonesian military. Antonius Wamang, who is currently serving a life sentence for the 2002 attack, was one such figure who mingled with government security forces in Timika’s shadow lands and even traveled with them to Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta. If you like murder mysteries, and feelings of déjà vu, click here:

KIRKSEY, S. E. & A. HARSONO. 2008. "Criminal Collaborations: Antonius Wamang and the Indonesian Military in Timika", South East Asia Research, 16 (2): 165-197.

Op-ed in the Saint Petersburg Times

2009-07-07T10:21:00.000-07:00

http://www.tampabay.com/news/article1016205.ece

St Petersburg Times

Indonesia's bleak record on rights
By Eben Kirksey, Special to the Times

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said improving relations with Indonesia will be a priority of the Obama administration. As Indonesians go to the polls Wednesday to choose a president, this is an excellent time for the United States to press for a fuller investigation of an incident that has been a stumbling block for the two countries: the 2002 ambush that killed two U.S. schoolteachers in Indonesia's remote territory of West Papua.

New documents add a surprising twist to public accounts of the killings. Ballistics reports and eyewitness testimony point to an Indonesian military role in the attack. But declassified State
Department documents reveal that Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the current president of Indonesia who is up for re-election Wednesday, coordinated a coverup. Before Indonesians head to the polls, our elected officials have the opportunity to tell Yudhoyono that the United States is disappointed with his record on transparency and human rights.

The teachers were ambushed about 300 yards from an Indonesian military checkpoint and pinned in their cars during 45 minutes of sporadic gunfire. Two Americans and one Indonesian were murdered and eight other Americans were wounded. The teachers were driving home from a picnic near the gold and copper mine operated by Freeport McMoRan, a U.S. company that employed them to teach at an international school. Police investigators singled out officers in Kopassus, Indonesia's notorious special forces, as the culprits. The motive of these soldiers may well have been a bid for more money. In 2002 Freeport paid the Indonesian military $5.6 million for protection, including $46,000 to a Kopassus soldier placed at the crime scene by witnesses.

After reports of military shooters emerged, Yudhoyono, then political and security minister, took over the inquiry. Initially Yudhoyono blocked an FBI investigation, according to previously secret State Department cables obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. The documents were released online last week. While Yudhoyono stalled, Indonesian military agents intimidated key witnesses and tampered with material evidence.

Despite initial CIA reports linking military shooters to this murder, the Bush administration pushed to renew financing for Indonesia's armed forces. With a population of 240 million, Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic country, was seen as a key ally in the global war on
terror. With vast mineral resources, natural gas reserves and timber, Indonesia was also regarded as an important U.S. trading partner. Nevertheless, a Republican-controlled Congress stonewalled Bush administration attempts to fund training for Indonesian soldiers until they cooperated with the FBI. Justice in this murder case became the most important issue in the bilateral relationship between the United States and Indonesia.

The trail was cold by the time the FBI was allowed in the country. Yudhoyono began to micromanage the investigation, meeting repeatedly with the low-ranking FBI field agents in charge of the case, according to the declassified State Department documents. Initially the FBI investigators were only allowed to interview witnesses in the presence of Indonesian military agents and were given limited access to material evidence.

The scope of the FBI investigation was also limited by Bush's goals in the war on terror. The special agents found a fall guy but tiptoed around evidence connecting him to the Indonesian military. Antonius Wamang, an ethnic Papuan, was eventually indicted by a U.S. grand jury for his role in the attack. He was apprehended in 2006 by the FBI and sentenced to life in Indonesian prison. But Wamang had extensive ties to the Indonesian military, and these ties were not explored in the Indonesian court system.

The impunity in this case speaks to a broader pattern of abuse by the Indonesian military directed at their own people, especially ethnic minorities. Since Yudhoyono began his first term as president in 2004, scores of indigenous Papuans have been killed by government soldiers.
Last month a 13-year-old boy was shot dead. Since April seven young Papuan women have been kidnapped and raped, others killed, and civilian homes burned during a series of police sweeps in West Papua's highlands.

This week Yudhoyono is running in a hotly contested presidential race against other former generals with similarly dismal human rights records. Gen. Wiranto, vice president on the Golkar ticket, has been indicted by the United Nations for crimes against humanity in East Timor. The Democratic Party of Struggle's vice presidential candidate, Gen. Prabowo Subianto, commanded the Kopassus special forces when his subordinates kidnapped and disappeared student activists.

Indonesian voters have bleak options at the ballot box this week. No matter who is elected, the Obama administration should ensure that the masterminds of the 2002 ambush are brought to justice. The FBI investigation into this case is still officially open and Eric Holder's Justice Department should move forward to bring it to a conclusion. Prosecuting the people who were truly responsible for this attack will help protect U.S. and Indonesian citizens alike from further human rights abuses.

Indonesian President Covered Up Ambush Murder of U.S. Citizens

2009-06-30T18:06:00.000-07:00

Previously secret U.S. State Department documents implicate the President of Indonesia in a probable cover-up of an ambush in West Papua. The documents show Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who is running for reelection on July 8, maneuvering behind the scenes to manage the investigation into the August 2002 murder of three teachers—one Indonesian and two U.S. citizens.

The documents released today add a new twist to a hotly contested Presidential race.

Selections from these documents are published here in seven distinct sections:

1) Response by the State Department and the FBI to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request

2) Initial Reports About Attackers; Yudhoyono Orders a Quick Response

The first State Department reports about the 2002 attack seriously entertained two theories: that the perpetrators were Papuan independence fighters (OPM guerillas) or rogue elements of the Indonesian military. The documents note that the assault took place on a foggy mountain road near a military checkpoint and an Army Strategic Reserve Forces post. Upon learning of the attack, Yudhoyono ordered a quick response to restore security and to investigate the attack.

The U.S. Embassy noted in a cable to Washington: ”Many Papuan groups are calling for an independent investigation led by the U.S. Calls for an independent probe are unrealistic, but we believe that Papua's Police Chief, who enjoys a good reputation with Papuan activists (and U.S.), can conduct a fair investigation.” The Police Chief’s investigation later indicated that the Indonesian military was involved. The FBI subsequently launched a separate probe.

3) Attack Victims Treated in Secrecy at Australian Hospital

The survivors of the assault were airlifted out of Indonesia to a hospital in Townsend, Australia. Here U.S. diplomats, the FBI, Queensland Police, and the Australian Defense Force kept a tight lid on the situation—preventing the victims from speaking with the press and even from contacting family members for the first two days. See: Tom Hyland, “Lost in the Fog," The Age, September 28, 2008.

4) Yudhoyono Assumes Coordinating Role in Investigation

Following police reports of Indonesian military involvement, these documents reveal that Yudhoyono began to play a more active role in managing and influencing the direction of the investigation. Yudhoyono met repeatedly with the FBI field investigators, as well as high-level U.S. diplomats, blocking their initial attempts to gain unmediated access to witnesses and material evidence. This file includes a letter from Yudhoyono to the Charge D'Affaires of the U.S. Embassy where he outlines a strategy for managing the broader political and security aspects of the incident.

5) Commander-In-Chief Concerned About Washington Post Interview

The Washington Post reported in 2002 that senior Indonesian military officers, including armed forces commander General Endriartono Sutarto, had discussed an unspecified operation against Freeport McMoRan before the ambush in Timika. General Sutarto vehemently denied that he or any other top military officers had discussed any operation targeting Freeport. He sued The Washington Post for US$1 billion and demanded an apology from the paper. Several months after this lawsuit was settled out of court, The Washington Post asked to interview Sutarto. This document contains notes from a meeting between the U.S. Ambassador and Commander-in-Chief Sutarto where this interview request was discussed: “Clearly concerned, General Sutarto asked why the Washington Post wanted to interview him, as well as TNI’s Strategic Intelligence Agency (BAIS) and the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) Chiefs regarding the Timika case.” See: Ellen Nakashima and Alan Sipress “Indonesia Military Allegedly Talked of Targeting Mine," The Washington Post, November 3, 2002.

6) Most Important Issue in U.S.-Indonesia Bilateral Relationship

The U.S. Ambassador stressed in a June 2003 meeting with Yudhoyono that justice in the Timika killings was “the most important issue in the bilateral relationship.” During this period, FBI agents were given intermittent access to evidence. Yudhoyono continued to play an active role in coordinating the political aspects of the investigation. Taking an unusual personal interest for someone with a Ministerial level position, Yudhoyono repeatedly met with the FBI case agents — the low-ranking U.S. investigators who were deployed to Timika for field investigations.

7) Attorney General Ashcroft Suppressed Evidence

On June 24, 2005, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller announced that Antonius Wamang, an ethnic Papuan, was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury for the Timika murders. The indictment alleged that Wamang was a “terrorist” who sought independence from Indonesia. Following this announcement, three respected human rights groups and indigenous organizations charged that the U.S. Government suppressed evidence linking Wamang to the Indonesian military. A peer-reviewed article, titled “Criminal Collaborations: Antonius Wamang and the Indonesian Military in Timika," details the nature of these links. The group called for Wamang to be given a fair trial in the U.S., rather than in notoriously corrupt Indonesian courts. See: Eben Kirksey and Andreas Harsono, “Criminal Collaborations," South East Asia Research, vol 16, no 2.