Barack Obama meeting with President Yudhoyono of Indonesia.
Today five indigenous leaders in West Papua, the half
of New Guinea
under Indonesian rule, were charged with “treason.” Hours ago they were each sentenced to three
years in prison for peacefully protesting the government. Barack Obama raised the issue of human rights
in West Papua last November when he met with President Yudhoyono of Indonesia. It is time for the President to once again
raise his voice to support human rights in this seemingly remote territory.
Obama’s interest West Papua stems, in part, from
personal experiences growing up in Indonesia with his mother, Ann
Dunham Soetoro, a cultural anthropologist.
In his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, he recalls a
conversation with his step-father, Lolo Soetoro, 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.
West Papuan intellectuals and political activists, kin of the “weak” men
killed by Lolo Soetoro, have read Obama’s autobiography with keen
interest. Even as many Americans have
lost hope in their President, many West Papuans
still embrace the message from the 2008 campaign, “Yes We Can.”
Taking inspiration from the people of Tunisia who
rose up to depose President Ben Ali last year, and the populist spirit that
spread out from Tunisia with the Arab Spring, West Papuans are harboring
seemingly impossible dreams. After 50
years of living under a brutal Indonesian military occupation, West Papuans are hoping to reach a peaceful political solution
to this conflict.
Forkorus Yaboisembut moments before he was arrested.
One West Papuan leader, Forkorus Yaboisembut, remains
hopeful against all odds. He was
detained last October, moments after being elected President during the Papuan
People’s Congress, and is among the men who were convicted today for “treason.” Thousands rallied behind him, demanding
independence from Indonesia,
at this event that was peaceful by all accounts. As the Congress was
concluding, the delegates were surrounded by some 500 Indonesian police and
military personnel with a cordon of armored cars. Scores of my friends, people who I know from
working as a cultural anthropologist in West Papua,
were in the crowd. I had a sleepless
night as I monitored Facebook and text messages from the other side of the
world, following the developments in real time. Markus Haluk, the leader
of a Papuan youth group, sent a text message saying “in these next few moments
we might see a massacre and a bloodbath.”
Videos circulating on YouTube show Indonesian troops
firing assault rifles into a crowd from armored personnel carriers, while
others pistol whip and kick delegates.
Unarmed civilians desperately tried to clamber into their cars while
uniformed police officers and plain clothes thugs beat them. In 1998 I witnessed a massacre in West Papua that killed upwards of 150 civilians, so I
feared the worst.
When the dead were counted from
the violent crackdown at the Papuan People’s Congress, I was relieved to learn
that the carnage was minor by local standards.
Human Rights Watch concluded that three civilians were shot dead by
Indonesian police on October 19th, 2011. Over 300 delegates to the Papuan People’s
Congress were initially detained by Indonesian security forces. On the heels of these arbitrary detentions,
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton voiced alarm. She said that the United
States has “very directly raised our concerns about the
violence and the abuse of human rights” in West Papua.
Most of the delegates to the Papuan
People’s Congress were quickly released, except for five leaders who were
charged with inciting rebellion. Forkorus
Yaboisembut is among these five, along with Edison Waromi, the newly elected Prime
Minister. Today they joined upwards of
90 West Papuans in Indonesian jails who have
been identified by Amnesty International as prisoners of conscience.
Indonesia is the fourth largest
country in the world. The United States regards Indonesia as a “Strategic Partner”
and has considerable influence in the country’s political, economic, and
strategic affairs. Clearly tales of Indonesia’s ongoing war in West
Papua troubled Barack Obama as a young man. Now, as an adult, he is in a position to
support the “weak” power of non-violent resistance with a few carefully chosen
words. President Obama should join
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch in calling for the unconditional
release of West Papuan political prisoners.
* * *
Eben Kirksey earned his Ph.D. from the University of California-Santa Cruz and
is currently a Mellon Fellow at the CUNY
Graduate Center
in New York City.
His first book, “Freedom in EntangledWorlds: West Papua and the Architecture ofGlobal Power”, will be published by Duke University Press on March 30th, 2012.