The streets of Abepura and Sentani in Jayapura regency looked deserted
on Friday, a day after riots erupted in nearby Waena district after the
death of local activist Mako Tabuni.
Traders chose to close their shops along the main roads in both cities for security reasons.
“I
won’t go to the office today. I am afraid a similar incident might
occur. I chose to accompany my kids to school,” said Damaris, a civil
servant at a local administration office.
Meanwhile, Tabuni’s
family collected the activist’s body from the Bhayangkara Police
Hospital, ahead of the burial planned for Saturday in Wamena.
For
Tabuni’s family, his death is not the end of what he had been fighting
for, because whether or not he was murdered, the struggle to free
Papuans from their suffering is not over.
“Although Tabuni was
shot and killed, this is not over. Tabuni was taken, but this does not
reduce anything, as the struggle will continue,” said a family member,
moments before Tabuni’s body was brought home to his family.
The
government has denied that its actions had triggered a series of
violent incidents in Papua, which have so far claimed 17 lives in the
past month.
The government blamed the difficult geography of the
country’s easternmost region and the sensitivity of the issue
surrounding the independence movements.
According to Coordinating
Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Djoko Suyanto, security
officers were not responsible for the killings in several locations in
Papua.
“I really regret such allegations [that the incidents
have been part of military or intelligence operations], including those
suggesting the government has been ignorant and negligent,” he said.
Activists
and experts have condemned the government for ignoring the escalating
violence in Papua and have called for the establishment of an ad hoc
human rights court and a Commission for Truth and Reconciliation (KKR)
to reveal past violations committed by state agents as a way of settling
the ongoing conflict in the province.
“The government must be
consistent in its approach to resolving the conflict in Papua. President
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has ordered an ambivalent approach — he wants a
cultural approach on one hand, but maintains the Police Mobile Brigade
there on the other hand,” National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas
HAM) chairman Ifdhal Kasim said on Friday.
In addition, the
Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) emphasized the urgency of
setting up an ad hoc human rights court and a KKR to gradually resolve
the enduring conflict in Papua.
According to LIPI historian Asvi
Warman, all recent killings in Papua are inseparable from past military
operations that have claimed the lives of many Papuans.
“All of
the abductions, torture, and murder of their fellow Papuans, which took
place during the military operations in the past, abide in their
memories because nothing has been done about any of those cases,” Asvi
told the audience of a discussion on Papua at the Regional
Representatives Council (DPD) on Friday.
He cited the Wasior
massacre, during the 2001 Tumpas (Annihilated) Operation, as an example
of a human rights violation in Papua that the government had yet to
resolve.
Besides Wasior, rights violations had also occurred in
Abepura in 2000, when the Mobile Brigade unit under the Papua Regional
Police was reported to have arrested and tortured students accused of
attacking a police station; and in Wamena in 2004, when the police and
military conducted a brutal raid in search the Free Papua Movement (OPM)
members who allegedly looted a police arsenal.
“We will never
resolve the violence in Papua unless the government humbly admits its
role in the unending conflict there, and sets up an ad hoc human rights
court and a KKR to repair its past wrongdoings,” Asvi said.
Echoing
Asvi, fellow researcher Adriana Elizabeth also urged the House of
Representatives Commission I overseeing defense and foreign affairs to
immediately set up a working committee to thoroughly investigate the
escalating violence in Papua and search for peaceful solutions.
“Leaders
of the Commission have acknowledged the urgency of the working group.
It’s best to start now because we can’t wait any longer. The situation
in Papua is becoming more intense, especially after the police shot dead
Papuan activist Mako Tabuni,” she said.
“Additionally, we also
urge President Yudhoyono to waste no more time and take the initiative
to hold a peace dialogue with representatives from Papua at once,” she
added.