From: tapol@gn.apc.org (Tapol) Subject: TAPOL: WP, Military blamed as thousands die

The following article will appeared in the forthcoming issue of TAPOL Bulletin, No 146, April 1998

West Papua Military blamed as thousands die of hunger Aid workers believe that thousands of people have died in West Papua because of the prolonged drought, many in remote areas inaccessible to relief providers. Aid workers have blamed the military for contributing to the scale of the disaster. Many have died in the region east of Timika and the Freeport mine where the military presence has prevented church officials from entering the region.

The people of West Papua are suffering from a calamity that is almost genocidal in scale with thousands dying from starvation and related diseases. Although until now the drought has been blamed for the disaster, it is becoming clear that Indonesian troops have compelled malnourished villagers to move to low-lying districts exposing them to malaria to which they have no resistance. After many months of confusion about the true cause and extent of the disaster, a number of reports suddenly became available in late March, revealing that foreign aid workers who have visited the territory feel that they can no longer remain silent.

According to one report on 25 March, foreign aid workers said that most of those who died were highland tribespeople who have succumbed to malnutrition or hunger-related diseases. An official of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Ferenc Meyer, said after returning to Jakarta: `There would be villages of 200 inhabitants, with thirty dead in one month.' He said that the total number of dead will never be known because some areas could only be monitored from the air but there was nowhere nearby to land and check the residents.'

Another aid worker said the official death toll, now standing at around 650, covered only those in major centres and not in the hundreds of remote highland villages where most of the 420,000 of central Irian Jaya (West Papua) (West Papua) live. [AFX-Asia, 25 March]

Army remove villagers to loot resources Foreign aid workers who refused to be named told AFP in Jakarta that the army had contributed to the scale of the disastrous drought which has killed thousands. They said that villagers were terrified of soldiers because of years of intimidation and harassment and have been forced to leave their traditional highland homes for malarial lowlands.

`The military wants the gold, the timber and other natural resources up there so they move the villagers to low-lying areas,' said one top-ranking foreign aid official in Jakarta. `Moving them from these areas also makes it easier to secure the area and to find the OMP (the Free Papua Movement). But apart from losing their traditional land, they have no resistance to malaria so when they go to the low areas they get sick and die.' Other officials said starving villagers who also suffered malaria were too scared to venture into the dry and sometimes burning forests in search of food.

`They think the soldiers will mistake them for OPM and shoot them,' another aid worker said. [AFP, Jakarta, 26 March]

One of the areas most severely affected by the famine is the south-east region of Jayawijaya district in the vicinity of Geselama which is where the hostage crisis was played out in the first half of 1996. The area is known to be heavily occupied by Indonesian troops who have been conducting operations in an attempt to capture Kelly Kwalik, commander of the OPM, the Free Papua Movement. For some time, TAPOL has been hearing of serious food shortages and killings in the area, but until now has complied with a request to keep the information confidential.

One of the two Protestant churches in the province, the GKI, has been trying for months without success to gain access to the region. In October the Church wrote to the National Human Rights Commission asking their help to persuade the authorities in Jakarta, including the military, to grant them access. As far as we know, a response has not been forthcoming. Villagers in Bella, Alama, Geselama and Mapnduma are believed to be suffering from lack of food and drinking water; scores have already died.

While the local churches many of whose congregants live in the area have been kept out, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been given access and has opened an office in Timika, just south of the gigantic Freeport/Rio Tinto copper-and-gold mine.

A report issued in February by the usually cautious ICRC and the Indonesian Red Cross, makes the point that the area targeted by the ICRC-PMI relief team `is still under strict security surveillance by the Indonesian army. In fact, the army is the only governmental structure in the area.'

The ICRC report says that its team has so far covered nineteen villages with a population of 18,000. It describes the health and nutritional situation as
`dramatic' and needing immediate attention. The main causes of death are malaria and upper respiratory tract infections, precipitated by severe malnutrition.. Villages already visited indicated a malaria-positive prevalence of between 90 and 100 per cent.