Widespread police operations have been underway since March this year in the district of Manokwari in the Bird's Head region of West Papua, following armed attacks on two logging companies. In the second of these incidents, five Brimob officers were killed. Retribution against the population has led to many civilian casualties and thousands of villagers fleeing to nearby forests. The area has been sealed off as sweepings continue undetected by outside observers.
Events in Manokwari district have been a matter of deep concern for human rights organisations in West Papua and church activists from the GKI, because of the intensity of sweepings and operations conducted since April by the police force, backed up by the notorious crack police unit, Brimob and the Indonesian army, TNI.
The intensity of the response by the security forces is also related to plans by the British petroleum company, BP, to exploit huge gas reserves in and around Bintuni Bay which lies close by, to the west of Manokwari district. The governor of Irian Jaya, Salossa, has warned that security disturbances in Manokwari must not be allowed to obstruct the progress of the BP project. (Cendrawasih Pos, 19 June)
Dispute with logging company
Earlier this year, local people were in dispute with one of the many logging companies operating in the sub-district of Wasior in the southern part of Manokwari district over unsatisfactory compensation for their trees and ancestral land taken over by the concessionaire. Then, on 31 March, the base camp of the company, PT Dharma Mukti Persada (DMP), was attacked by an armed gang and three company employees were killed. Although this was almost certainly the work of a unit of the OPM's armed wing, the TPN, the security forces used the incident as the justification for bolstering their presence in the area, sending in reinforcements from the notorious crack force of the police, Brimob.
As so often happens, the local population bore the brunt of the crackdown. The police conducted sweepings in the area, entered villages and started shooting. Hundreds of terrified villagers fled into the forests, to avoid more acts of violence and intimidation. Alarming reports began to reach human rights groups in Jayapura about the catastrophe unfolding in Wasior.
Since most of the inhabitants in Wasior sub-district are members of the GKI, one of the leading Protestant churches in West Papua, the church decided to set up a Pastoral Team to go and investigate the alarming developments and do what they could to give succour to their flock. However, the local police chief refused to allow the Team to enter the sub-district and it was forced to return to Jayapura.
In late April, a group of 22 villagers from Nabire, which lies to the east, set out on a journey to visit a sacred site in Wasior. On their way home about ten days later, they were intercepted by a unit of Brimob troops who opened fire for no apparent reason as the group had shown no signs of wanting to resist the troops. Six of the men were shot dead and the other 16 who survived by taking shelter in the hold of a vessel which was to have taken them back home by sea, were all arrested. The detainees were beaten and tortured as they were being transported to the town of Manokwari, in the north. The two most gravely wounded detainees were transferred to a hospital in Jayapura while the other fourteen have been held in detention in Manokwari.
Flag-raising incident
Yet another incident occurred when the security forces in Manokwari town pulled down the Morning Star, the West Papuan flag, which had been unfurled on 1 May in the grounds of the home of the local Papuan leader, Bernadus Mandachan. The troops opened fire on the flag-raisers when they refused to lower the flag, injuring seven men and arresting twenty. Two of the five who have been held in detention are likely to face charges, along with others whom the police suspect of being involved in the flag-raising.
Brimob members killed
As the sweepings continued in Wasior sub-district, another logging company was the target of an armed attack on 13 June. Five Brimob members and a company employee were killed. These Brimob troops had been brought into the area after the attack on 31 March to provide greater protection to logging company premises.
When members of the security forces are slain, the fury of their officers knows no bounds and Wasior has become the target of yet more operations, sweepings and intimidation. An even larger area has been sealed off, stretching in the south from Fak-Fak in the west to Nabire in the east. A number of people living in the vicinity of the logging company have been rounded up and transported to Manokwari to be interrogated about the 13 June incident. The security forces have also appointed informers in all the villages, under orders to produce the men who killed the Brimob officers.
To make matters worse, two Belgian television journalists disappeared in Puncak Jaya, to the south of Wasior. It soon became apparent that they had been abducted by a local OPM group and the Belgian authorities became involved in negotiations to secure the men's release. As we went to press, it was announced that two church leaders had agreed to negotiate with the abductors to secure their release.
Human rights activists are facing tremendous problems responding to the situation in Manokwari district. Lawyers sent from Jayapura to assist the many people now in detention there have been hampered in their work and their lives even threatened by police officers, in total disregard of the right of detainees to have the assistance of legal counsel during interrogation. A human rights volunteer working in Nabire who had drawn attention to a number of mysterious murders in the town, was summoned for interrogation by the police in a clear attempt to hamper his investigations. This was how the police responded to a plea from ELS-HAM to the police to investigate the killings.
The terrible retribution being visited on the population of Wasior is bound to have dire consequences for economic and social conditions, especially if villagers are forced to abandon their villages for any length of time and are prevented from tending their gardens or hunting and fishing. This could replicate the disastrous events that overcame villagers in Timika, in the south of West Papua in 1996, when the security forces imposed a clampdown, following the release of four British scientists who had been held captive by the OPM for five months. Later investigations revealed that more than two hundred villagers died, mostly of starvation and lack of medical care, after abandoning their homes. If these security measures continue unabated, the people of Wasior and the Manokwari district are likely to have a very hard time for months to come, while more trials can be expected to take place.