Papuans condemned President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s statement, which downplayed the escalating violence in the province and considered the recent deaths from shooting incidents as relatively minor in comparison to conflicts in other parts of the world.
During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Yudhoyono said “the recent
incidents in Papua can be considered small-scale, with a limited number
of casualties” and “they are minor if we compare them to the violence in
the Middle East, where deadly attacks with so many fatalities occur
almost every day”.
Papuan activist John Djonga said the
statements reflected Yudhoyono’s lack of commitment to promote and
protect human rights, an issue that his administration had championed
and promoted to the global community.
“It’s really sad for the
President to disrespect all the victims of recent shootings. Violence is
still painful regardless of how many victims there are. So for me, it
is now clear that the Yudhoyono [administration], and the Indonesian
government in general, have no commitment to upholding justice and
protecting human rights in Papua,” Djonga told The Jakarta Post on
Wednesday.
He said that all the international human rights
covenants promoting human rights that Indonesia had ratified were
useless as the government paid little respect to the lives of its
people.
“Or maybe it’s only the lives of Papuans that don’t deserve the government’s respect,” he said.
Separately,
members of the House of Representatives from Papua, Pasakalis Kossay
and Agustina Basik-basik, called on Yudhoyono to apologize for his
statement.
“The President’s words really hurt Papuans, and the
relatives of all victims, in particular those who have been shot dead in
mysterious circumstances,” said Paskalis, who chairs the Caucus for
Papua at the House.
At least 16 people were killed in the past month alone in mysterious shootings.
The
latest incident claimed the life of 44-year-old Surono, a security
guard and part-time motorcycle taxi driver in Jayapura, who was shot
dead near the campus of Cendrawasih University last Sunday.
The
mysterious shootings in Papua escalated only a few days after the
Indonesian government claimed that “Papua is stable” during the United
Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) quadrennial human rights review
on May 23.
Diplomats in the review session inquired about human
rights violations in Papua and the Indonesian government’s commitment to
releasing Papuan political detainees such as Filep Karma, who was
arrested for flying the flag of the Papuan separatist movement.
Separately,
Law and Human Rights Minister Amir Syamsudin said that authorities had
followed proper procedures in detaining Papuans.
“We have never
detained anybody for expressing their freedom of speech as has been
accused by some parties. The Papuans who were detained, including Filep
Karma, are those who have obviously violated the law on treason.
Therefore, it’s misleading to address them as political detainees,” Amir
told reporters.
Separately, the executive director of human
rights watchdog Imparsial, Poengky Indarti said that treason charges
were highly political and prone to abuse by the government.
“Karma,
and many of his colleagues, was detained for flying the Morning Star
flag, the flag associated with a separatist movement. They are condemned
as separatists, therefore they are political detainees,” Poengky said.