West Papua Information Kit

West Papuan Genocide

genocide \gen"o*cide\ n.
The systematic killing of a racial or cultural group; such as, the Nazi genocide of Jews being conducted in Germany and Poland during World War II.
Genocide
Genocide became a crime described by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide ( copy ) adopted by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 260 (III) A on 9 December 1948.

As noted by various United States communications the Indonesian forces on arrival in West Papua began dismantling the nation's infrastructure for sale in Jakarta. The efforts to dismantle West Papua's cultures and eliminate its people then began taking a darker course, as documented in the Yale Law School study "Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control" (copy) this report explains how the Indonesian Massacres and Extrajudicial Killings of West Papuans; Torture, Disappearance, and Detention of Papuans; Violence and Rape against West Papuan Women; Resource Exploitation, Relocation and Destruction, Forced Labor, and the infamous Transmigration Program replacement of the Papuan race by Indonesian settlers; satisfy not only one but four of the five means of genocide described in Article 2 of the Convention.

The ongoing human rights abuses under the regimes of Indonesian Presidents Megawati and Yudhoyono has also been documented by the US Dept. of State Human Rights Reports.

Below are some of the human rights abuses commited by the Indonesian forces. These incidents and others like them formed the basis for the determination of West Papua being the scene of an on-going program of genocide being conducted against the native Papuan populations by the Indonesian government or its agents. The legal definition and grounds for this determination are documented in "Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control", a paper prepared for the Indonesian Human Rights Network by the Allard K Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic, Yale Law School. Unlike the newspaper usage of the term for instances such as mass murder, the legal definition being used also requires the creation of a larger environment and suppression of legal and other human rights processes, which this study determines is the case in West Papua. It is unfortunate that certain foreign corporations have been profiting from this genocide and have activily lobbied Washington to 1) support TNI occupation and repression of West Papua, and 2) prevent the US Congress questions.

Some of the Indonesian Human Rights Abuses
committed in West Papua since 1962

These reports are from external documents listed at the bottom of this page, or from external documents indicated on the individual listing.

  • 1966: Rev. Koibut stripped naked and forced to simulate masturbation in front of his family
  • 1966-67: Aerial bombing of Arfak Mountain homelands
  • Jan-Mar 1967: Aerial bombing of Ayamaru and Teminabuan homelands
  • 1967: Mr Permenas Frits Awom, laid down his arms during amnesty, put on boat for 6hr trip from Manokwari to Biak, boat returned 2 hours later without Permenas.
  • 1967: Operasi Tumpas (operation obliteration). 1,500 killed in Ayamaru, Teminabuan and Inanuatan villages.
  • 1967-1968: Mr Godfried Mirino, member of New Guinea Council taken from his home by unknown persons, never seen since
  • Apr 1969: Aerial bombing of Wissel Lake District (Paniai and Enarotali area); 14,000 survivors escape into the jungle.
  • May 1969: Mr Penehas Torey, member of New Guinea Council taken by military from his home in Jayapura was never seen again. Moses Werror (now in exile) was last person to have seen him.
  • May 1970: Massacre of many women and children by Indonesian troops. Eighty witnesses reported seeing one woman gutted, her unborn baby removed & dissected on ground, the baby's aunt was then pack-raped.
  • Jun 1971: Mr Henk de Mari reported that 55 men from two villages in North Biak were forced to dig their own graves before being shot. Published in Dutch daily De Telegraaf Oct 1974.
  • Unknown: 500 Papuan corpses found in jungle Lereh District, south west of Sentani Airport, Jayapura region.
  • 1974: In North Biak, 45 Papuans killed, names and ages known.
  • 1975: In Biak, at least 41 people from Arwam and Rumbin villages were killed.
  • 1977: Aerial bombing of Akimuga (Freeport McMoRan Inc. mine area).
  • 1977-78: Rev. Father Tettoroo (Dutch catholic) forced by ABRI to eat human penis and cut off an OPM fighter shot dead in Paniai Wissel Lake District
  • 1977-78: Aerial bombing of Baliem Valley.
  • Mar 1978: Four women from Piramid village as sex slaves for one month before dry battery acid stuffed into vaginas and returned to village. Performed by ABRI Unit 752, 753 and Police under command of Colonel Albert Dieng.
  • Apr 1978: Six unidentifiable bodies were discovered in the Dosai district of Jayapura.
  • May 1978: Five OPM (Organisasi Papua Merdeka) leaders surrender to save the village they were caught in. They are beaten to death with red hot iron bars and their bodies thrown into a pit latrine. The 125 villagers were then machine gunned as suspected OPM sympathizers.
  • Jun 1978: 14 corpses found shot, West of Sentani Airport, Jayapura region.
  • Jun 1978: 6 women pack-raped, shot, and then had their vaginas stuffed with sweet potato leaves and red berries after death following suspicion of collaboration with OPM. Babuma Village, Kelila District, Jayawijaya.
  • Jul 1978: 122 people (116 mean, six women) fled into jungle with ABRI (Indonesian "red beret" military) in pursuit. The villagers were captured, had their hands and feet bound, were weighted and bagged, then dumped at sea. Merauke area.
  • Sep 1979: Mr Izack Samuel Fatahan, Musician and businessman who had attempted asylum in PNG to join his family, went hunting with a Captain Coreles, Mr Fatahan never returned.
  • Unknown: North Biak, 12 people shot after receiving permission to leave camp to collect sago for a village feast.
  • 1981: 10 killed, 58 disappear without trace. Paniai Region.
  • Jun-Aug 1981: Operasi Sapuh bersih (Operation Clean Sweep), populations of Ampas-Waris and Batte-Arso villages bayoneted and left.
  • Sep-Dec 1981: estimated 13,000 killed in the central highlands.
  • Jul 1984: Naval, air, and ground troop assult of Nagasawa/Ormo Kecil village, 200 dead.
  • Unknown: Naval shelling of Taronta, Takar, and Masi-Masi coastal villages; suvivors fled towards Jayapura; under Dutch in 1950 each village had 1500 to 2000 population.
  • mid 1985: 2,500 killed in Paniai area of Wissel Lake district, including 115 from Iwandoga and Kugapa villages massacred by troops 24/6/1985; 10 people, the village, food gardens, and livestock of Epomani village, Obano Sub-district; 15 people, village, and livestock of Ikopo village Monemane district; and 517 people, 12 villages, food gardens, and live-stock of Monemane.
  • 1986-87: 34 known persons shot, Paniai/Wissel Lake District.
  • Dec 1994: Christmas day, civilian Mr Nogogamakme Mem (31) shot in the back while hiding near church, he feared the soldiers guarding the entrance
  • Dec 1994: civilian Mr Wendi Tabuni (23) stabbed in abdomen and shot in head; body dumped in river gorge on the Tembagapura.
  • Jul 1998: Troops shoot 150 sleeping under West Papuan flag for four hours before hauling other residents from homes for torture and rape before dumping bodies at sea by naval gunships. Initial reports,Later details
  • 2000 Prison, Torture and Murder in Jayapura for illegal journalism
  • Nov 2001: Papua Praesidium Council Chairman, Chief Theys Eluay is kidnapped and murdered. New reports
  • Oct 2002: tour guide abducted by Kopassus (Indonesian Special Forces) at Sentani (Jayapura's airport), kept in small room at Kopassus HQ and fed only salt water for 14 days while tortured. With deep, barely healed bayonet scars cross his back where he was sliced, he says his interrogators accused him of having links with the Free Papua Movement, OPM. That as they were doing this, they said, "You cannot get independence. During 2003, 2004 we will kill all Papuan leaders for independence." From Sydney Newspaper Mar 2003
  • Mar 2003: Thom Beanal successor to Theys Eluay, says, "We are getting used to the intimidation now. We get SMS (phone messages) all the time saying that we will be killed."Newspaper
  • May 2003: up to 10 highland villages were burned and at least 20 people were killed by Jemaah Islamiah or Laskar Jihad groups. News, talk.

External links
"Man's inhumanity to man is not only perpetrated by the vitriolic actions of those who are bad,
it is also perpetrated by vitiating inaction of those who are good"
- Martin Luther King.
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