[Onthebarricades] WEST PAPUA News, Dec-Jan 07/08 (part 1 of 2)

[Andy]

*  Flag-raising protest - arrests by Indonesian troops
*  Police shoot protesters complaining about violence
*  West Papuan lawyer arrested for text message critical of government
*  Police shoot protesters "attacking their post"
*  Raising morning star as "act of free choice"
*  Secret filming reveals logging damage
*  Papua scarred by vanishing forests
*  Jayapura languages on brink of extinction
*  Activists say follow the money trail in illegal logging
*  Papua to ban log exports
*  Effectiveness of ban questioned
*  Indonesian military exploits prejudices to stay in Papua

http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s2107157.htm

Last Updated 02/12/2007, 09:28:58Select text size:

Arrests in Indonesia's Papua as flag is raised

More than 20 people were reportedly arrested in Indonesia's Papua as they 
raised the outlawed "Morning Star" separatist flag.

A spokesman for the United Front of West Papuan People's Fight, says the 
group was making the anniversary of their declaration of independence.

Meanwhile, ElShinta radio reports around five hundred Papuan students staged 
a rally in Indonesia's second largest city of Surabaya in East Java in 
support of Papuan independence.

Every December 1, Papuan activists try to raise the outlawed "Morning Star" 
separatist flag to commemorate the independence of Papua.

Indonesia won sovereignty over Papua, formerly a Dutch colony, in 1969 after 
a referendum widely seen as a sham

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iKwWvNB2CQzDiark620uDalC2HPQ

Police free 14 in Papua after independence event
Dec 1, 2007
JAKARTA (AFP) - Police released 14 people they arrested after a ceremony to 
mark the anniversary of West Papua's declaration of independence from 
Indonesia, a report said Sunday.
Another six people detained as the group raised its outlawed "Morning Star" 
separatist flag on Saturday remained in police custody, the Detikcom online 
news portal reported.
Head of the Papua police, Max Donald, said three of those still in custody 
were activists from the Free Papua Organisation (OPM) and they were arrested 
for raising the flag.
The other three were detained for carrying weapons, Donald told Detikcom.
The flag-raising ceremony was held at Kwamki Baru village in Mimika 
district.
Every December 1, Papuan activists try to raise the flag to commemorate the 
independence of Papua.
Indonesia won sovereignty over Papua, formerly a Dutch colony, in 1969 after 
a referendum widely seen as a sham.
Papuans have long accused Indonesia's military of violating human rights in 
the province and complain that the bulk of earnings from its rich natural 
resources flow to Jakarta.
Also on Saturday, about 500 Papuan students held a rally in Indonesia's 
second largest city of Surabaya in East Java in support of Papuan 
independence.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Two-protesters-shot-dead-in-Papua/2007/12/06/1196812831130.html

Two protesters shot dead in Papua
December 6, 2007 - 12:04AM
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Police shot to death two people and seriously injured another after opening 
fire during a protest against tribal violence in Indonesia's Papua province, 
a local police chief said.
The group of protesters, who were mostly women, had marched in front of a 
police station in the town of Tembagapura, demanding authorities tackle a 
series of tribal clashes that have been going on since October.
"I am very sorry for what my subordinates did, shooting the protesters," 
said Godhelp Cornelis Mansnembra, the police chief in the nearest main town 
of Mimika.
He declined to give further comment. Both the dead were women.
The protest happened near housing for workers at the gold and copper mine 
operated by US firm Freeport-McMoran's.
In October, six people were killed in a clash between rival tribes using 
bows and poison arrows near Freeport's mine over jobs and housing.
Mindo Pangaribuan, spokesman for Freeport Indonesia, said the latest 
incident had no impact on the company's activities.
The Freeport mine - believed to have the world's third largest copper 
reserves and one of the biggest gold deposits - has been a frequent source 
of controversy over its environmental impact and the share of revenue going 
to Papuans.

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/indones/articles/20071210.aspx

Violent Protests Against Violence
December 5, 2007: In Papua, demonstrations against tribal violence, mainly 
by women upset at government inability to halt the fighting, turned violent. 
Police shot three of the demonstrators, who were throwing rocks at the 
police. Two of the demonstrators died. Most Indonesians are Malay, while the 
largely tribal peoples of Papua are Melanesian. The two groups do not get 
along, partly because the Malays are better educated and organized. Most of 
the Papuan tribes want more autonomy, or even independence. But the tribes 
have many feuds with each other, which makes it easier for the national 
government to maintain control of the region (which is the western half of 
the island of New Guinea.) There are about 250 tribes in Papua, but some of 
the larger ones are involved in the fighting, which is apparently over 
personal issues, and real estate. These feuds  have caused over a hundred 
casualties this year. The fighting is taking place in remote areas, and the 
police are having a hard time gathering information, much less halting the 
violence.

http://www.survival-international.org/news/2585

West Papuan lawyer arrested for sending text message
8 November 2007
Sabar Iwanggin, a lawyer who defended Papuan students arrested in 2006 after 
demonstrations against the Indonesian regime, has been arrested and 
interrogated by Indonesia's special anti-terrorism police force, Detachment 
88. He has now been moved to police headquarters in Jakarta.

Mr Iwanggin appears to have been charged with receiving and passing on a 
text message, which police say is insulting to Indonesia's President.

Human rights workers are at a loss to understand why thirty anti-terrorism 
police were used to arrest one man for forwarding a text message.

Mr Iwanggin works with the respected human rights organisation, Elsham West 
Papua. Elsham staff have been repeatedly intimidated and have received death 
threats. Survival remains concerned for the safety of Sabar Iwanggin whilst 
in police custody, and for the safety of others who stand up for the rights 
of the tribal peoples of West Papua.
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/news/stories/s2106911.htm

'Warning shot' kills woman in Indonesia's Papua

Police in Indonesia's Papua say a woman was killed when officers fired 
warning shots after angry villagers threw rocks at their post.

Papua's police spokesman says a group of women arrived at a police post 
early Friday asking them not to stop a planned tribal war.

As the brigade police refused to give a permit to their plan, the women got 
angry and threw stones against the police post.

The police then opened fire with warning shots but two women were hit.


http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailgeneral.asp?fileid=20071201101854&irec=26

Indonesian police fatally shoot villager on remote Papua province
JAKARTA (AP): Police officers opened fire on a crowd attacking their post on 
Indonesia's remote Papua province Friday, killing one villager and wounding 
another, a local police chief said.
The violence followed a police order to clear land disputed by two opposing 
tribes, police Maj. Gen. Max Aer said.
"It was normal procedures to fire warning shots because the assailants 
threatened" the lives of the police officers, he said.
The confrontation was in the village of Banti, about 100 kilometers from a 
major mine operated by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. Police said they 
were increasing security at the site to prevent violence from spreading.
Tribes in the area - 3,200 kilometers northeast of Jakarta - have a history 
of bad relations. Feuds can last for several weeks and normally only end 
when the number of victims from either side is equal.
Papua, a vast and impoverished rural farming region, is also home to a small 
separatist army that is seeking independence for its people who are 
ethnically and religiously distinct from the main Indonesian population. 
(**)

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6719

West Papua: raising the Morning Star in an 'Act of Free Choice'
By Joe Collins - posted Wednesday, 5 December 2007Sign Up for free e-mail 
updates!

The 1st of December was West Papuan National Day or National flag day. 
Forty-six years ago on the December 1, 1961, in the then Dutch colony of 
West New Guinea, the West Papuan flag, or Morning Star, was flown for the 
first time officially beside the Dutch Tricolor. At that ceremony, as the 
Morning Star flag was raised, Dutch and Papuan military and police saluted 
and accompanied by a marine band playing the national anthem, "My Land 
 Papua".
The Dutch were finally about to give the West Papuan people their freedom. 
However, it is one of the great tragedies that at their moment of freedom it 
was cruelly crushed and West Papua was basically handed over to Indonesia in 
1963.
After six years administration of the province, Indonesia held a sham 
referendum called the Act of Free Choice under UN supervision. Only 1,022 
handpicked voters - one representative for approximately every 700 West 
Papuans - were allowed vote, and under coercion, voted to "remain with 
Indonesia". The Papuans call this the "act of no choice".
The policy of the new Labor Government on the issue of West Papua will 
differ little from that of the Howard government. We will still hear the 
mantras from the Department of Foreign Affairs of "we recognise Indonesian 
sovereignty over West Papua" and "we support the autonomy package as the 
best way forward for the West Papuan people".
The government might have changed but the Jakarta lobby still holds sway in 
Canberra. The problem for Canberra is that the West Papuan people disagree. 
West Papua will eventually become one of Australia's biggest foreign policy 
issue.
Historical background
To understand the present conflict in West Papua we must understand its 
history. Like many of the conflicts around the world, the conflict in West 
Papua can trace its origins to the boundaries that were drawn up by the 
former colonial powers in New Guinea.
We could say the modern history of West Papua began when the island was 
partitioned by three Western powers, the Dutch claiming the western half in 
1828, while the Germans and British divided the eastern half into German New 
Guinea in the north and British Papua in the south (1884). Eventually the 
eastern half became the independent nation of Papua New Guinea in 1975.
The Papuan people of Dutch New Guinea (also called Netherlands New Guinea or 
West New Guinea) were to have a different fate. The Republic of Indonesia 
was created in 1949 when the Indonesian people won their struggle for 
independence against their former colonial masters, the Dutch. West New 
Guinea, due to its distinct Melanesian population, was retained as a colony 
by the Dutch and during the 1950s, the Dutch government prepared the 
territory for independence.
However, President Sukarno continued to claim that West New Guinea should be 
part of Indonesia and when his demands were not met, armed conflict ensued 
in 1962.
Under pressure from the United States to come to terms with Indonesia, the 
Dutch agreed to secret negotiations and in August 1962, an agreement was 
concluded in New York between the Netherlands and Indonesia. Under this 
agreement, the Dutch were to leave West New Guinea and transfer sovereignty 
to UNTEA (the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority). After seven 
months the UN transferred power to Indonesia with the provision that a 
referendum be held to determine Papuan preference, for independence or for 
integration with Indonesia.
>From the moment Indonesia took over the administration from UNTEA, the 
oppression of the West Papuan people began.
As to the so-called Act of Free Choice in 1969: a UN official, a retired 
undersecretary-general, who handled the takeover said: "Nobody gave a 
thought to the fact that there were a million people who had their 
fundamental human rights trampled," and "It was just a whitewash. The mood 
at the United Nations was to get rid of this problem as quickly as 
 possible."
The UN accepted the results of this farce but the West Papuan people did 
not. They continue to call for a true act of self determination.
Australian involvement
As to Australia's involvement - originally we supported the Dutch in trying 
to hold onto West New Guinea, as we preferred another colonial power to act 
as a buffer zone between Australia and any potential invader from the north. 
However, once the US decided to back Indonesia, Australia followed suit. In 
fact, Australia actively supported the Indonesian takeover.
At a request from Indonesia two West Papuan leaders, Clemens Runawery and 
Willem Zonggonao, were removed by Australian officials from a plane just 
weeks before the UN supervised vote (in Australia's then colony of PNG). 
They were on their way to the UN in New York carrying testimonies from many 
West Papuan leaders calling for independence. Because of Australia's 
involvement, they never had a chance to plead their case.
Human rights abuses
Since Indonesia took over control of West Papua as many as 100,000 people 
are believed to have lost their lives in the conflict. Those who have 
followed the actions of the Indonesian military in East Timor will not be 
surprised at such a high figure. A report about the activities of the 
Indonesian military (TNI) in East Timor (released in 2006) documents how the 
TNI used napalm, chemical weapons and starvation as a weapon against the 
East Timorese people. Some of the same military that operated in East Timor 
are now in West Papua.
There are ongoing human rights abuses in West Papua and the situation is 
deteriorating. There appears to be a systematic campaign by the military and 
police to intimidate any individual or organisation whom the military and 
police deem to be separatists. For all the talk about Indonesian being a 
democracy the TNI itself has not reformed. Numerous reports, including the 
US State Department's 2005 Human Rights report, support this. The Human 
Rights report states that "Security forces continued to commit unlawful 
killings of rebels, suspected rebels, and civilians in areas of separatist 
activity, where most politically motivated extrajudicial killings also 
occurred".
Flag raisings
The West Papuan people raise their flag as an act of celebration but also as 
a protest against the injustices they suffer under Indonesian rule. Except 
for a small period of openness when President Wahid came to power in October 
1999, the Morning Star flag has been banned.
Two of the most famous West Papuan political prisoners are Filep Karma and 
Yusak Pakage. On December 1, 2004, they were arrested for being part of a 
rally where the Morning Star flag was raised. In May 2005, a court sentenced 
Filep Karma to 15 years in prison and Yusak Pakage to 10 years in prison on 
charges of treason against the state. Amnesty International considers both 
Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage to be prisoners of conscience who have been 
detained solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of 
expression.
Earlier this year eight West Papuans were arrested (later released) at the 
end of a four-day Papuan Tribal Congress meeting in Jayapura. Police made 
the arrests simply because the Morning Star flag was used in the opening 
ceremony by a group of traditional dancers from Manokwari.
The West Papuan people face great challenges: ongoing human rights abuses; 
the exploitation of their natural resources with little or no benefit to 
themselves; the danger of becoming a minority in their own land as the 
result of migrants arriving daily; and a possible HIV-AIDS epidemic.
We all want to have good relations with our neighbours but good relations 
with Jakarta should not be at the expense of the West Papuan people who are 
struggling for their right to self-determination. The majority of the 
Australian people also believe in the same right. A news poll commissioned 
by businessman Ian Melrose, showed that 77 per cent of Australians believe 
that the West Papuan people have a right to self-determination. Hopefully 
the new government will take the issue of West Papua seriously instead of 
just hoping it will disappear.
Australian governments of all persuasions have believed that a stabilised 
region to our north is our best defence. Kevin Rudd gave a talk in July to 
the Lowy Institute on the very subject called Fresh Ideas for Future 
Challenges: A New Approach to Australia's Arc of Instability. In discussing 
Australian-Indonesian relations, however, there was no mention of West 
Papua. Yet it is the Indonesian military that are one of the main 
destabilising factors in West Papua. The activities of the military, their 
involvement in human rights abuses and resource extraction will lead to the 
very instability the government is trying to avoid.
If ever an issue needed "fresh ideas" it's West Papua. A good start for the 
Rudd Government would be not only to raise the abuses being committed by the 
TNI in West Papua with Jakarta, but to also urge the Indonesian Government 
to enter into a dialogue with the West Papuan leadership. This is all the 
West Papuans are asking for: a dialogue to try and solve the many issues of 
concern in the territory.
We know from history that dialogue is the beginning of the political 
resolution of such conflicts. To quote from Nelson Mandela, "One of our 
strongest weapons is dialogue".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2007/11/28/eaindo128.xml

Logging damage revealed by secret filming

By Paul Eccleston
Last Updated: 5:01pm GMT 28/11/2007

Secret filming by villagers has revealed the damage being caused to the 
Indonesian rainforests by uncontrolled logging and palm oil plantations.
·  In pictures: Papua natives learn to use the equipment
·  Watch interviews with tribes: Tears of Mother Mooi | Defenders of the 
Tribal Boundaries
The ancient way of life of natives in Papua is being threatened by the 
wholesale destruction of their forests.

Evidence of logging taken by local people (top) and learning to use the 
equipment
The Indonesian province is inaccessible to outsiders and closed to 
journalists so it was left to the villagers to expose the activities of the 
logging companies.

They were given digital camera equipment and taught how to use it by the 
London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which investigates 
and exposes environmental and wildlife crime, working with the Jakarta-based 
NGO Telapak.

The two conservation groups have been working with tribal communities in 
Papua to help them protect their forests from unsustainable exploitation and 
illegal logging.
A series of films released simultaneously in London and Jakarta, show the 
scale of destruction being caused to the forests which the villagers rely on 
almost entirely for food and shelter.
One was shot by the Mooi people who live in the Sorong regency of West 
Papua. It shows the relationship between the Mooi and their dependence on 
the forest lands and features undercover filming of logging.
Once a stretch of forest has been stripped bare it is replaced with palm oil 
plantations but in the process much of the wildlife - pigs, deer and birds 
which the villagers rely on for food - is driven out.
advertisement
The film questions whether the logging began even before a licence was 
granted for 32,000 hectares of Mooi land to be turned over for plantation in 
2006.
The film shows workers clearing the ancient forests with chain saws before 
bulldozers move in to level it for palm trees to be planted.
Mooi women in the film say the destruction of vast swathes of their forest 
make it more difficult for them to continue with their traditional weaving 
crafts making household items and sleeping mats from tree bark.
And tribal hunters say they now have to travel great distances to find game 
where previously it was abundant in their forests.
Another film shot in the Prafi plain, in the Arfak region of Manokwari 
regency in West Papua Province tells of the consequences of state-sponsored 
palm oil plantations.
Senior community figures were sent by the government to Medan in Sumatra in 
1982 to bring oil palm back to their area. The film shows the consequences 
to local people who lose their rights to the land and see it destroyed.
Promises that palm oil would sustain them for generations fail to 
materialise and the plantations fall into neglect as they become 
unprofitable.

Native Papuans are shown how to make films
Villagers tell in the film how their rivers have been polluted by discharges 
of undiluted palm oil from a factory and how they develop rashes when they 
wash in it.
Ananias Muid, one of the villagers sent to learn about palm oil admits he 
now regrets the communities' involvement with it.
Paul Redman, who has worked on projects for EIA in Indonesia for five years, 
said: "These are the voices of local people, the voices of the forest - 
explaining the issues that directly affect them and their lives.
"They are films made by Papuans, about Papua - they are the real thing. They 
were researched, written and filmed by them."
Some of the film-makers' identities have been kept secret because of 
security concerns. "These people have worked extremely hard to bring these 
films together, sometimes at great personal risk.
"For example, one film-maker waited for four days in the forest to get 
footage of illegal loggers. Logging is a multi-million pound industry which 
impacts upon where they live.
"For them, the forest is their supermarket - when it is gone they have 
nothing and no access to any income either.
"They want these stories to be told and these stories have to be told - 
without their land, they have no hope."

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gNymsizfKgAYVlni_MF7uE0X9dng

Indonesia's Papua scarred by vanishing forests
Dec 1, 2007
JAKARTA (AFP) - Twenty-five years ago, Papuan tribal leader Ananias Muit was 
sent from his jungle home to Indonesia's Sumatra island by the local 
government to learn about lucrative palm oil, and bring it back.
A new short film, "Defenders of the Tribal Boundaries", tells how the 
arrival of a state-owned plantation company soon afterwards devastated 
Muit's community in the Arfak mountains of Papua's Bird's Head region.
"'Give us the land and we will give the money to plant,' they said. 'We will 
bring a palm oil plantation,'" Muit says, repeating the government's 
promise.
Instead, the forests were cleared, but factory effluent polluted the local 
river, making the water supply unusable.
"The promise was sweet, but now it is bitter," he laments.
"We were not compensated for our land or even thanked. Now we are really 
suffering, and we regret it."
The film, one of four locally-made shorts that highlight the shocking impact 
of deforestation in remote Papua, will be featured at a UN climate change 
conference on the Indonesian resort island of Bali, which begins next week.
The 10-minute clips, shot by aid workers using handheld digital cameras over 
the past three months, demonstrate the impact expanding palm oil plantations 
and other destructive logging is having on local communities.
Indonesia is losing its forests at the world's fastest rate, with some two 
million hectares (4.9 million acres) disappearing each year, according to 
environmental watchdog Greenpeace.
Up to 80 percent of logging in Indonesia is estimated to be illegal -- due 
to a lack of political will to crack down as well as negligible law 
enforcement -- but the films demonstrate that even legal logging has 
far-reaching and negative consequences.
In "Tears of Mother Mooi", the people of Sorong issue an impassioned call to 
the government to revoke the licenses of two palm oil companies operating on 
their ancestral land.
Startling images of the devastated remnants of formerly forested areas, 
clear-cut for plantations, hammer home their plea.
Ronny Dimara, a resident in the community and director of Triton, a local 
non-governmental organisation that produced the film, said most of the 
footage had to be recorded secretly.
Much of Papua is closely monitored by Indonesia's military, who stand 
accused by activists of human rights abuses. Journalists require special 
permission from the Jakarta government to visit the region.
"We played the film in front of about 20 tribal leaders and they said the 
problem (of the two companies) needed to be addressed soon," Dimara told a 
press briefing in Jakarta after the films were screened.
"Early next year we will meet again in a bigger group to decide whether we 
still want the companies in our area."
The third film, "Gaharu: Disaster or Blessing?", shows how the profitable 
agarwood industry -- known locally as gaharu -- has brought a myriad of 
social problems to one Papuan district.
Father Dicky Ogi, who leads an organisation working to offer locals better 
education, said that along with higher incomes came gambling, prostitution 
and the spread of HIV/AIDS.
"Education is key, so the people can judge the benefits of selling their 
land," he told reporters.
The final piece, "Destiny... My Land", explores how external investors 
exploited the forests of a local community that had previously lived off the 
land for generations.
"These films may be local stories but they are very relevant to the national 
and the international level, so we urge people to watch these films," said 
Jago Wadley from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), an 
independent campaigning organisation that helped the local groups produce 
the films.

http://www.freewestpapua.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=423&Itemid=2

Jayapura's Coastal Languages On The Brink of Extinction

'The widespread use of Bahasa Indonesia has not only sped up
development in the province, but also killed off local languages.

"This is a welcome development for Bahasa Indonesia, but not for
local languages. Bahasa Indonesia has threatened the existence
of local languages, especially in urban areas where interactions
with outsiders (non-Papuans) are very intensive," said
Supriyanto Widodo, the head of Jayapura's Language Center.] also: Workers in 
the field of languages tread new territory

The Jakarta Post
Monday, November 05, 2007

Jayapura's coastal languages on the brink of extinction

Angel Flassy , The Jakarta Post, Jayapura

Herman Rumadi Hamadi, 88, could not hide his anguish when asked
about the number of people still speaking the local language in
his village.

"I'm not sure, but I guess there are only six people who can
speak Tobati fluently," said Herman, the tribal chief of Tobati
village on the northern coast of Papua.

"Once the six die, the language will disappear," said Herman,
admitting that he himself was no longer using the language of
his ancestors.

Herman has every reason to worry. The six people who still speak
Tobati are all over 60 years old, while the young are more
fluent in Bahasa Indonesia than in their mother tongue, thanks
to the widespread use of the national language.

That situation has been exacerbated by the fact that more and
more Tobati villagers have opted to move to the provincial
capital of Jayapura where they communicate in Bahasa Indonesia.

"All of Jayapura and Abepura used to be our communal land, but
now our sago plantations have been urbanized and we live
alongside newcomers," said the ondoafi (tribal chief) who lives
in Entrop, Jayapura.

The Kayu Pulau tribe in Jayapura and the Nafri community in
Abepura, too, are being culturally overwhelmed by the pace of
development, forcing them to increasingly abandon their regional
language.

According to Herman, Tobati people have been in contact with the
outside world since the 1600s and by the end of the 1800s, the
Dutch government had made this village an administrative center,
triggering rapid economic growth.

It is no surprise, therefore, that Herman himself has been
speaking Malay since he was a child. Intermarriages with
newcomers have only hastened the desertion of the language.

"Our grandchildren speak Bahasa Indonesia fluently. They seem to
have no roots because even though they are Tobati people they
don't speak the language. How can we perform our customs, dances
and other ceremonies in the Tobati language?" asked the father
of 10, who claimed to be very tough in teaching Tobati language
to his children.

Herman said traditional songs, poems and dances were no longer
performed and Tobati songs, poems and dances showcased in
various arts festivals in Jayapura or other parts of the country
hailed not from Tobati village but from Papua New Guinea or were
contemporary creations of Tobati artists.

"This is really worrisome. If the Tobati language disappears,
our culture will also vanish and we will become strangers in our
own land.

"The fact is many elements of our culture are no longer
practiced. Our grandchildren can no longer sing and dance the
Serme dance, which was usually performed to greet people coming
home from fishing or the Yawo dance and song, which was
performed when people brought new boats from the forest to the
sea because such traditions are no longer practiced," Herman
said.

He said young people in the village preferred to become civil
servants or work in the private sector than to become fisherman.

"The forests where local people used to make boats have turned
into towns," he said.

Articles and dances containing magic vanished with the arrival
of Christianity in Papua. "Traditions, magic and belief in the
spirits of our ancestors have been replaced with Malay hymns,
thus there is a gradual shift away from the use of regional
languages," Herman said.

Herman urges the government to help preserve the language, which
is only spoken by six elderly people.

"If the government could provide compensation for travel
expenses and set up training centers, we would be very eager to
teach this language to the younger generation," said Herman,
adding that with the Tobati people living in different parts of
Jayapura, meeting places were needed for the language courses.

Aksamina Awinero, 41, ondoafi Obed Awinero's child in Nafri
village, shares the same feeling. "We used to speak Nafri to our
children, but when they went to school they spoke Bahasa
Indonesia more than Nafri and now they speak very little Nafri,"
said the mother of seven.

Data issued by the education and culture office in Jayapura
revealed that in 1991 only 800 people in Tobati and Injros
villages were still using the Tobati language, while other
regional languages, Nafri and Kayu Pulau, were spoken by 1,630
and 573 people respectively.

It also showed there were 249 regional languages in the
province, meaning about the same number of tribes. According to
Summer International Linguistics (SIL) in 2004, Papua has 264
languages, with Malay, later known as Bahasa Indonesia, serving
as a bridge through which the hundreds of Papuan languages meet.
Bahasa Indonesia also allows Papuans to communicate, interact
and enter inter-tribe marriages.

The widespread use of Bahasa Indonesia has not only sped up
development in the province, but also killed off local languages.

"This is a welcome development for Bahasa Indonesia, but not for
local languages. Bahasa Indonesia has threatened the existence
of local languages, especially in urban areas where interactions
with outsiders (non-Papuans) are very intensive," said
Supriyanto Widodo, the head of Jayapura's Language Center.

The center's 2005 and 2006 research findings gave reason for
concern over the serious condition of the three languages in
Tobati-Injros, Kayu Pulau-Kayu Batu and Nafri.

"We predict that after three generations these three regional
languages will disappear unless local communities themselves and
the government undertake efforts to preserve them," he said.

It also found out that people who still speak local languages
are above 40 years old, with younger generations having only a
passive comprehension of their languages.

Assuming that a generation spans about 20 years, within 60 years
those regional languages will disappear, owing to local people's
limited appreciation of their own languages.

"Nafri has the lowest number of mothers using the language and
this is alarming because mothers spearhead the use and teaching
of regional languages, hence the term mother tongue," Widodo
said.

Widodo also said the perception that the use of regional
languages hampered interactions with "outsiders" had prompted
people to abandon their mother tongue.

"People think using their mother tongue curtails their access to
scientific, social and economic domains," continued Widodo.

The Language Center has documented 180 local languages all over
Papua and West Papua since its establishment in 2002.

"We prioritized the vocabulary of 200 universally used words and
over 1,000 cultural words, making the total entries about 1,600
per village," Widodo said, adding that they excluded standard
grammatical rules.

He also said some regency administrations had documented local
languages. Biak regency, for instance, has produced a dictionary
and grammar books. It also obliges local schools to teach Biak
in schools. Fak-fak regency has funded the publication of Iha
dictionary publication.

With its limited resources, the Jayapura Language Center has
composed the dictionaries of Maybrat/South Sorong, Sentani and
Jayapura languages.

"Our target is to combine these works and publish an Indonesian
regional language map in 2008," Widodo said.

------------------------------------

The Jakarta Post Monday, November 05, 2007

Workers in the field of languages tread new territory

Janika Gelinek , The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Once upon a time, Ungan and Awé decided not to go home after
working in the fields. Instead, they stayed by a river and
goofed around with a dog.

They were sending the dog to and fro over the water when
suddenly stone rain came down, turning them into stones. And
their crime? They did not come home and make fun of a dog.

The story could have been lost had Italian linguist Antonia
Soriente from the Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary
Anthropology in Jakarta not gone and documented Oma Longh and
Lebu' Kulit languages in Malinau and Bulungan regency in Eastern
Kalimantan.

Oma Longh and Lebu' Kulit, in which the story above was
narrated, are just two of the endangered languages in Indonesia,
spoken only by a few thousand people in Malinau and Bulungan.

"When you look at what is happening around you, you see
languages dying on a large scale, especially in the eastern part
of Indonesia such as Papua and the Maluku islands," said Uri
Tadmor of the Jakarta Field Station.

Established in 1999 by Uri Tadmor and David Gil, the Jakarta
Field Station started off by collecting data on child language.
In collaboration with the Jakarta Atma Jaya Catholic University,
it is currently hosting about 25 researchers from Indonesia and
abroad who are studying Indonesian languages from the islands of
West Sumatra all the way to Papua.

Indonesia has around 700 languages, but the widespread use of
Bahasa Indonesia has pushed many of those languages to the brink
of extinction, placing the national language on a par with
English, Spanish and French as "killer" languages.

According to Tadmor, there are many reasons why languages in the
country are facing extinction, including people's low level of
respect for indigenous languages.the speakers themselves don't
attach much importance to their own languages," said Tadmor,
adding that the children of inter-race couples tended to speak
only Bahasa Indonesia.

"Indigenous languages are also not used in the education system,
and thus their survival is neither financially nor politically
supported," Tadmor said.

In theory, any indigenous language can be taught in a state
elementary school. But in reality, schools usually offer only
Javanese, Sundanese and Balinese, and rarely would these be the
primary language of instruction.

"It is totally meaningless to the kids and the kids hate it,"
Tadmor said.

According to Tadmor, there is not much hope the situation will
be reversed as these languages are generally considered not
worth keeping.

"It's a vicious circle. People who speak a small indigenous
language come to look down on their language, because there is
no official recognition of it," said Tadmor, adding that only
non-nationals had come here to work with indigenous communities.

The researchers at the field station are studying how languages
cross, enrich and endanger each other, with many of them
focusing on endangered languages.

"Languages reflect a view of the world. They are an essential
component of the living heritage of humanity, therefore they
belong to the intangible cultural heritage that needs to be
safeguarded," Italian linguist Antonia Soriente said.

"Languages are vehicles of value systems and of cultural
expressions and they constitute a determining factor in the
identity of groups and individuals. They transmit knowledge,
values and collective memory and play an essential role in
cultural vitality."

A book Soriente carefully edited - Mencaleny & Usung Bayung
Marang - a collection of Kenyah stories in Oma Longh and Lebu'
Kulit languagesis a first in more than one sense. Not only have
these stories never been translated into Indonesian or English,
they have not even been written down.

In order to give access to the Kenyah stories of Ungan and Awé
or the clever Mpé and her stupid husband Buzu, Soriente had to
develop a new orthographic system for the entirely oral
languages.

"Linguists are not really social workers. We are not activists
who try to go to the field and say, hey, you need to speak your
language. But we want to raise awareness of linguistic diversity
and give something back to the community and some tools with
which, if they want to, they can help their language to
survive", says Soriente.

When the book was published last year it was first sent to the
communities that had been involved in the project.

"They were quite startled to see that something had emerged,
that their language had been written down and that it was
written next to Bahasa Indonesia and English. They said, `Oh,
now we can study English through our language!'"

During Soriente's visit, the Malinau regent made for the very
first time a speech entirely in the local language of Lebu'
Kulit and people also started using the new orthographic system
to send text messages.

"Suddenly they realized there is no law that says you have to
use only Bahasa Indonesian", Soriente said.

Her colleague Betty Litamahuputty has had similar experiences.
Litamahuputty participates in a team that has intensively
studied the highly endangered languages of the Maluku islands,
among them Kouro, spoken only in five villages on the island of
Seram. Together with linguists from Australia's Monash
University and the local communities, Litamahuputty developed
storybooks in Kouro. Teams were formed among the villagers and
sent out to literally document their language.

"We gave them some cameras and they had to figure out what kind
of event they wanted to document. It was the clove-harvest
season. They were taking pictures of what they thought was
important about the harvest. And then they had to ask the
village people or somebody who knew the language how to say this
or that in Kouro. And then they tried to write it down. In this
way they were able to make their own storybooks bilingual, in
Malay and the local language. And that was to show that by very
simple means they could make their own storybook, which they
could use in school for instance. Just with a notebook, a camera
and a pen you can make a book about whatever you want," said
Litamahuputty.

Furthermore a story in Malay has been developed by project
leader Margaret Florey about a family going in the woods and
working there in a garden, the "garden story". This story has
been "fed" with significant linguistic structures to find out
how speakers from different local communities on Seram island
would translate the same story in their language.

Additionally the linguists made vitality tests in order to see
whether the inhabitants could still communicate in their
language or only knew a few words. As expected it turned out
that in many cases elderly people still had some knowledge of
the language, but only a few people were actually able to have a
conversation in it.

Surprisingly the patterns were the same in Christian and Muslim
villages, such as in Allang and Ruta.

"People always thought indigenous languages were more likely to
be preserved in Muslim villages, but instead they had the same
curve as the Christian villages, where we already know that the
language has died out," said Litamahuputty.

A workbook used in workshops with local communities will be
published next year to demonstrate not only how to learn a
language, but also how to gather information from local speakers
- how to make sentences, how to figure out their structure and
what the grammar might be like.

"Thus, local communities might take the survival of their
language into their own hands," Litamahuputty said.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hG5IuBrovVLTMK2_Eo-CH4QmutCg

Follow the money trail in illegal logging crimes: Indonesian activists
Nov 15, 2007
JAKARTA (AFP) - Indonesian activists are urging authorities here to hunt 
down illegal loggers using anti money-laundering laws, following the shock 
acquittal of a high-profile suspect who has gone on the run.
Indonesia's abysmal record on fighting illegal logging -- no timber baron 
has ever received a substantial jail term here -- is under the spotlight 
ahead of the nation hosting a global climate change conference in December.
Adelin Lis, the head of logging company Keang Nam Development, fled from 
custody earlier this month after a court in North Sumatra found he was not 
guilty of illegal logging charges due to a lack of evidence.
Lis' company was cleared of accusations that it illegally razed prime forest 
in lush North Sumatra province, where some of Indonesia's last remaining 
rainforest tracts provide refuge to elephants and endangered tigers.
The logger had originally been nabbed when he tried to extend his passport 
at the Indonesian embassy in Beijing in 2006. He was described by the 
embassy as being an "environmental destroyer".
Allegations of court officials being bribed in his case have surfaced, 
although prosecutors have said they will appeal, while police have named Lis 
as a suspect in a linked money laundering case.
His lawyers have reportedly said they will present him to police -- who say 
they have issued an Interpol notice to recapture him -- if they promise not 
to jail him.
But in perhaps an ominous sign of the difficulties police may face, 
Indonesia's Attorney General Hendarman Supandji has dismissed efforts so 
far, saying: "This money laundering comes from which crime? This is not 
clear."
Derry Wanta, a member of the Indonesian Working Group on Forest Finance 
(IWGFF) -- an independent lobby group of researchers and activists --  
conceded it would be difficult to get Lis back to court "but not 
impossible".
"It is written in the money laundering law that a suspect can be tried for 
money laundering independent from the prime crime," he told AFP, speaking 
after a meeting of the group over bringing Lis to justice on Thursday.
Indonesia's groundbreaking 2002 anti-money laundering law would be more 
effective in catching the illegal loggers than the conventional criminal 
code, said the IWGFF's Willem Pattinasarany.
"Most of their financial transactions use bank transfers. Unusual banking 
profiles can be easily traced -- ask (suspects) to prove that those 
suspicious transactions are not illegal," Pattinasarany said.
"If there are two crimes indicated to be related, one of them money 
laundering, we think it's best for the money laundering crime to be 
processed first" because it would be a simpler case, he said.
Still, police must carefully do their homework.
A recent case in Indonesia's timber-rich Papua province centred on a local 
police chief receiving large money transfers to his personal account; the 
officer was cleared, and an appeal dismissed, for administrative reasons.
Police said in May that they were becoming increasingly frustrated with the 
number of illegal loggers who were inexplicably being acquitted in Papua.
"There are many cases where police or prosecutors have not formed a tight 
case before going ahead to court. This had caused many cases to be dismissed 
for administrative reasons," Pattinasarany told AFP.
Sadino, a legal expert with the IWGFF, also urged police to be more careful 
in planning all their indictments, as sloppy work meant "usually, the man 
with the chainsaw in the forest gets the blame."
"Forestry crimes are specialty cases -- investigators should be coherent 
from when they start to collect evidence," Sadino said, adding that a single 
discrepancy can mean the whole case gets thrown out.
The Indonesian government had estimated illegal logging costs the country 
about four billion dollars and some 2.8 million hectares of forest cover per 
year over the past decade.

http://www.pacificmagazine.net/news/2007/12/06/papua-will-ban-log-exports

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/papua-launches-plan-to-save-untouched-forest/2007/12/05/1196812824721.html

Papua Will Ban Log Exports
Thursday: December 06, 2007
 (Sydney Morning Herald)
The Indonesian province of Papua will ban log exports from next monthin a 
bid  to preserve one of the world's largest remaining tracts of untouched 
forests reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu says the global climate change conference 
currently underway in Bali should endorse funding the anti-logging moves, 
due to its effect on reducing global warming.
Suebu plans to present legislation next month withdrawing all licenses, and 
they will only be reissued under strict conditions, he said.
All forest concession holders would have to develop wood processing 
facilities in Papua, and agree to plant five trees for every one they cut.
The "Chinese mafia" operating out of Malaysia and mainland China were 
responsible for rampant illegal logging in Papua, Suebu said. "I think the 
mafia of illegal logging is well organised."

http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=36886

Academic questions whether Papua plan to stop log exports will work
Posted at 07:14 on 06 December, 2007 UTC
An Australian based academic has questioned whether a log export ban in 
Indonesia's Papua region will be effective.
Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu says he will ban all log exports from next 
month, and all forest concession holders would have to develop wood 
processing facilities in Papua.
He says that the Bali climate change conference should endorse funding the 
anti-logging moves, due to its impact on reducing global warming.
But Arief Anshory Yusuf, a research fellow at the Australian National 
University, says previous bans on Indonesia's log exports didn't reduce 
deforestation.
He says the current ban could have the same effect in Papua, with the 
development of the domestic wood processing industry likely to drive 
deforestation rates up.
Mr Yusuf says the the negative impact of the ban would not just be 
environmental but developmental too:
"The development argument said that it would create employment but in fact 
the loss of empoyment frmo the logging sector is a lot more compared to the 
employment created by the wood processing industry, so the net effect is 
still negative".

http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Indonesia-exploiting-Papua-prejudices/2007/12/03/1196530575684.html

Indonesia 'exploiting Papua prejudices'

December 3, 2007 - 9:14PM
Advertisement
Indonesia's military is exploiting prejudices against indigenous Papuans so 
it can remain in the impoverished region, an Australian researcher said.
Victorian University researcher Richard Chauvel said the Indonesian army 
(TNI) retained a stronger presence in Papua's troubled Central Highlands 
than did the local government, with no signs of decreasing.
He called for the role of the security forces in Papua to be clarified.
"Military presence is a legacy there," Chauvel told the Australia Indonesia 
Governance Research Partnership (AIGRP) forum in Jakarta on Monday.
"That's the impression we got ... that the military has influence and 
'meddled in' ... (people) describing the political situations in the 
region."
He said people living in the region were suspicious and very guarded in 
expressing their views.
"The atmosphere is people were really always looking over their shoulder," 
he said.
Troop numbers in Papua have increased in recent years, with the 
International Crisis Group estimating there are 12,000 Indonesian troops in 
Papua, and 2,000 to 2,500 paramilitary police.
The Free Papua Movement has been fighting for an independent Papua since the 
1960s.
In July, Human Rights Watch said that the security forces still killed, 
tortured and raped civilians to curb separatism.
An Indonesian researcher from the Centre for Strategic and International 
Studies (CSIS), Vidhyandika Perkasa, said he was followed when he conducted 
research in the province.
"They followed me everywhere, and shut the electricity off, even took my 
picture with their mobile phone," Perkasa said.
"Maybe (the military intelligence) are scared we are giving influence (to 
the people)."
People were generally more pressured in towns such as Wamena, rather than 
the capital Jayapura.
Chauvel said the reason the military was trying so hard to keep the area 
closed to outsiders and foreigners was they wanted to keep Wamena and the 
rest of Central Highlands as their stronghold.
"I think that's the interest of the military institutions," he said.
"I don't know which one because they have many units, the special forces of 
the Army, (of) the Special Forces (themselves), ... and they all have 
deployment there."
He added the military and some government officials stigmatised the people 
of the Central Highlands as separatists, exploiting this to remain in the 
region.
"By underlining this perception that it is a volatile area, it bears 
conflict, separatists, it is like vindicating the existence of the security 
forces."
A Papuan government source said the military deployment in Papua received 
direct orders from Jakarta, but its activities often clashed with central 
government policies.
"Some people from the Foreign ministry believed they should open Papua more, 
but the military refused," the source said.
The Indonesian government had tried to empower the Papuans, providing them 
with education and new infrastructure, but the problems are complex.
The region has been dogged by a series of bloody incidents in the past 
decade, including killings and kidnappings, but solid numbers are sketchy as 
the area is largely closed to outsiders.