Transcript
JOHNNY BLADES: You weren’t by chance on the previous WCC delegation visit to Papua, which I understand was in 1999, right?
PETER PROVE: No, I wasn't. But one of the members of our delegation this time had been also on that visit 20 years ago. In the meantime, there have been a couple of visits by senior leadership of the World Council of Churches to Papua: one in 2012 by the current general secretary of the World Council of Churches, in the context of a visit to Indonesia in general. And there was also, I don't remember the date, but also the previous general secretary of the World Council of Churches also visited popular at some point so… but I think what was unique about this was that I'm told that it's the largest and most diverse international delegation ever visited popular territory since 1969.
JB: So would it be accurate to say that the last WCC team to visit Papua was in ‘99?
PP: I mean, in terms of in terms of a larger delegation, though not as large as this one, yes. The previous delegation visit was in 1999, but in between, there have been at least two visits by the senior leadership by either general secretary of the World Council of Churches, most recently in 2012.
JB: (WCC delegate) Dr Motte said in the statement that some of the same core issues are still prevalent there in Papua. In terms of the human rights problems, they seem to be persistent, don’t they, around the freedom of expression and assembly, and there's a level of violence around them as well?
PP: Yeah, I mean, the World Council of Churches is a member of the International Coalition for Papua through which there is some fairly diligent data collection of reports of human rights violations, and so forth. And the evidence of that data collection seems to indicate that there are fairly stable levels of extrajudicial killings and other gross human rights violations over this period. And so that helps substantiate the impression that we received anecdotally through these visits of a more or less continuing human rights crisis in the region.
JB: And what do you make of Indonesia's sort of response to this? (Indonesia’s) Widodo government says it’s addressing human rights abuses.
PP: I think the starting point for addressing the situation in the region has to be increased access to the territory. And I take it as a very positive sign that our delegation, of the size and diversity that it was, was actually enabled to enter the territory without any constraint or difficulty or harassment of any sort. So I want to acknowledge and appreciate the fact that we were given such access, and I really hope that it's a precedent that encourages more access for others to the territory. I think the increasing militarisation and security approach to the issues or to the situation in Papua has only exacerbated the problems there. There are many accusations and counter-accusations as to who is responsible for specific instances of violence. But I think the military approach to securing and stabilising the territory evidently based upon the sort of data that I'm talking about hasn't worked not in terms of improving the human rights situation in the region. We also appreciate the fact that at least in recent years some some few of the human rights international human rights mechanisms have been able to undertake some some visits to the region. I also very much appreciate the fact that during the previous High Commissioner for Human Rights visit to Indonesia late last year president Jokowi indicated an openness to improving access for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to the territory and I hope that they can be follow up to to those promises.
JB: You mentioned militarisation causing displacement. You've just been up in two areas where people displaced by a pretty heavy military campaign at the moment going on in the Central Highlands and particularly Nduga Regency.
PP: Yeah we met with displaced people from the Nduga area, Both in Wamena and Jayapura, and in particular in Wamena we met with a group of more than 400 children and adolescents who were displaced, and who were being provided with refuge in the compound of the Roman Catholic Church there, including receiving education services from volunteer teachers, unpaid but also from Nduga area, who were there to support them and to continue their education in displacement. And we heard very alarming stories about the circumstances under which they had fled from their territory, including indications of a very strong-armed military response to an earlier incident on the 2nd of December, in which there are various reports but in which up to 21 road construction workers were killed by an armed group of some sort.
JB: You’re talking about the West Papua Liberation Army.
PP: Yeah, there are different reports about who's responsible and different theories, and we're in a position to verify one or the other theory. What we can verify is that we have seen the people in displacement and we can verify a humanitarian situation the crisis that has emerged from the nature of the military and police response in the Indigo area, which according to my understanding is pretty much still in lockdown with little or no access to the territory, and that operations are ongoing and they're likely to continue into next month. And so we are concerned by what we saw and heard from the people in displacement in Wamena especially, but also Jayapura.
JB: Do you think that there may be an issue of semantics… it's called an armed group and criminal group by the authorities but they really are a liberation fighting unit. I'm just wondering, is there a danger of sort of overlooking the obvious here, which is that there is a an independence struggle?
PP: Yeah, I mean, it's very clear from everybody we spoke to in Papua, all the indigenous Papuans that we spoke to that, indeed, there is very much an unresolved issue regarding their position, their situation in their own land. We were, amongst other things, concerned to hear that through the processes of transmigration and demographic growth, indigenous Papuans have now been relegated to a minority in their own homeland, they are less than 50 percent of the total population and the current population of the territory. Also, what we were very concerned by is that… because of course during the 1999 visit, one of the issues that was picked up was very much this issue or the need for a dialogue about self determination for the Papuan people. And in the meantime, the Special Autonomy Law was introduced in 2001 to provide for certain institutions and processes that might apply to that, that that issue. But everybody we spoke to on the partner from among the problems while during our visit indicated very strongly that special autonomy has not worked, isn't working for them, and certainly is not working in the areas that they most concerned about in terms of their future position in their own territory. So most Papuans we spoke to regarded special autonomy as a failure or at least as being substantially and implemented in terms of securing their interests. So there is definitely a strong sense of an unfulfilled aspiration said with regard to their own position and their own land.
JB: So would you say, on a whole from the Papuans you spoke to, is the issue of human rights abuses on an equal sort of standing with the self determination issue?
PP: I think the two things are interconnected. I think the failure to resolve this long standing issue of persistence human rights violations of a relatively gross nature can only lead to a situation in which more people see independence is the only path forward if they cannot secure their own lives and livelihoods within the current political configuration I think that's a logical consequence.
JB: And of course you would have noticed that the huge infrastructure drive that the Indonesian government is in Papua, where there are some big projects: the Trans-Papua Highway, a rail concept, energy stuff. Is there a sense that that is making some sort of impact?
PP: There is certainly very much increased development and infrastructure in popular, albeit I think concentrated in certain centres. That was much remarked upon by members of our delegation who had long previous experience of visiting the region or awareness of its circumstances. But what we also heard very strongly from again, almost all purple and counterparts that we met was that the development that's taking place in their territory is not for them, it's for others; and that they are more or less systematically excluded from such development; and that in any event, they do not appreciate the model of development that takes place in their in their territory; that it's a model of development that actually depletes and destroys the natural resources of the territory, in particular the forests, but also other natural resources, minerals and fisheries and so fort. So while at the one hand not receiving or participating in the benefits of that development, the development process is in fact destroying from their point of view the fundamental resources upon which their livelihoods and culture have traditionally depended.
JB: Churches play an important role in Papua. What were your local counterparts telling you about what is required in their view to address some of these core problems?
PP: We actually received a joint appeal from four of the major churches based in Tanah Papua, in which their specific call was for the World Council of Churches and the International Ecumenical Movement to support and promote a comprehensive political dialogue process between the government of Indonesia and the representatives of the Papuan people in order to address all of these issues that are repeatedly and consistently raised as concerns over these many years.
JB: What does the WCC do about that call? Do you pass it on to Indonesia's government or anything like that, what's the result of all this?
PP: Absolutely. That's our firm intent. I mean, in as much as I said that it's not our role to define a particular political configuration for the solution to these problems, we think the only viable path forward to achieving a solution of whatever kind is through a dialogue. And the absence of dialogue certainly can't achieve such a solution. And I think that there are preconditions that have been set on both sides which make dialogue difficult so our appeal to, certainly to the government of Indonesia, but also to all counterparts in this context will be indeed for a comprehensive political dialogue without preconditions on either side.
JB: Do you feel it's a matter of urgency, from what you gather from Papuans?
PP: In so far as I mentioned, we have seen and passed a tipping point in terms of the majority position of the demographic in Papua, then yes, I think it is an urgent matter. And many Papuans have emphasised that urgency to us. And they said, if you leave it another 20 years, or even 10, we may will be extinct in our own land as a people.
JB: You did mention deforestation. That's a huge and growing issue in Papua, isn’t it. Are you seeing evidence of the impacts of that?
PP: Yeah, sure. I mean, we saw the extent of some of the palm oil plantations, but we also saw the extent of logging operations in the rain forest, of course, we didn't do any sort of, you know, geographic mapping of the extent in the territory, that's not possible for delegation of our kind. But we are aware of the statistics and the concerns at a global level about hotspots for deforestation globally, in particular, in Brazil, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in Indonesia. And within the Indonesian setting, certainly an extensive part of that is forestry operations in logging operations in Papua, as well as the impact of the puppet palm oil industry. So certainly, I think the issue of deforestation amongst the other environmental consequences of current developments in Papua is not only a matter of local or national concern, but genuinely unnatural global concern in so far as the accelerating and extraordinary levels of deforestation are a major driver of climate change.
Peter Prove is director for international affairs at the World Council of Churches. In that capacity he is responsible for a portfolio of activities in the fields of peace, building, human rights, advocacy, disarmament, advocacy, statelessness and children's rights, amongst other things.
