Opinion
By Nabila Kartika
AS someone who was born and raised in West Papua, I would like to point out that your recent article titled “Indonesian court jails 7 Papuan activists in treason case” published on June 17 2020, discusses about West Papuan political prisoners. However, strangely missing out of the story is the major event of Jayapura and Wamena riots that caused 37 casualties that happened following these prisoners’ act.
Not just from police investigation, but I and many locals here believe that the riot was deliberately planned to happen exactly one day before the UN General Assembly where a separatist leader was present.
The article also did not clarify the West Papuan separatists’ political manoeuvre to reduce the sentence of these prisoners such as Buchtar Tabuni from the demanded 17 years down to 11 months of prison sentence. Because the article discusses West Papuan prisoners heavily, as if only having separatists as sources, I would like to tell you a brief perspective from someone who has fallen victim to these prisoners. I hope you will also consider taking stories from victims as a way to provide more perspectives for your article.
My parents were born in Makassar, South Sulawesi, who migrated to Papua, and I was born and raised here in Wamena. I am currently studying and living in Wamena, where you can find a mix of modern and traditional life. Here in the city, you can find both traditional markets where you’ll see Papuan mothers sell local produce and at the same time, you can enjoy modern shopping malls, sports stadiums, hotels, and many more. The life here is also colored with a vibrant mixture of migrants from Java, Sumatera, Medan, Sulawesi, and many other regions in
Indonesia. Not only that, but we have people of different religions here such as Moslems and Christians, and we were all living harmoniously side by side for years. But I witnessed how everything can change within a split second.
On September 23, 2019, I still remember clearly I was in my class in the morning, where suddenly everyone in the class heard noises of rocks being thrown. When everyone in the class, including myself, checked what was going on, we realized that most of the windows facing outside the school were already broken. There were people in high school uniforms outside who were throwing rocks at our school and we even saw the national flag in the school’s yard was burned on the ground. Many of us who got a sight of the rioting people outside realized that these people were not from our school due to different uniform emblems.
Some of the students got struck by rocks thrown by the people outside and even some fainted due to shock. The teachers were shouting and telling the students to go to the teachers’ office and some guided us back to our classes to hide from the violent people outside. When I had a glimpse of the outside sky from the broken windows, I saw smoke rising up in the sky. And it was probably just around 9 in the morning. Not long after, some of the teachers’ and students’ family members came to pick them up from school. At that time, we realized that this is not a fight between high school students. This was something else.
Because of the unsafe situation, my father picked me up from school and we ran back to our home. I was really scared but my father told me not to look around the riot and just walk as fast as we can. But when we arrived, we saw violent protesters already throwing rocks at our house. I bursted in tears, fearing for my mother’s life. But then our Papuan neighbor called my father and told us to come to their house. I asked my father, “But what about mother?” in which he responded she is safe at our neighbors’. For the rest of that day, our family took shelter at our Papuan neighbors’ house and prayed to God that the riot would stop. If it weren’t for our Papuan neighbors, maybe my family and I would have been injured or even killed. That was the first time I felt that my life is never going to be safe here in the city where I was born and raised, where I have been living peacefully all my life.
This is the reason why I would like to provide another perspective for your recent article because when discussing the prisoners, their crimes and victims who experienced the aftermath from these prisoners’ action firsthand should be presented as well. I hope you consider our experience that witnessed how this vibrant city turned into bloodbath and destruction by the prisoners to be discussed in your article.
In the Wamena riot, migrants like our family were being targeted by the rioters. It does not matter if some of the migrants like me were born in this city; all migrants were hunted and being attacked. Many local Papuans in Wamena were saving us migrants by hiding us in their homes. Local Papuan leaders also worked together to help protect and hide migrants in churches and police stations. Some of the migrants that were less lucky were trapped and burned to death in their houses and shops that were set on fire by the rioters.
After the riot, many locals in Wamena suspected that the violent rioters were not Wamena residents because the rioters were strangely adults with beards but wearing tight-fitted high school uniforms. After some investigation, these violent ‘high school students’ turned out to be members of the National Committee for West Papua, KNPB, separatist group in disguise who were infiltrating the earlier protest. I also found out that KNPB members were forcing Wamena residents to join the violent riot. This explained why there was a middle school student that was burned because he refused the invitation to protest by KNPB members disguised as students.
Because of these separatists, 33 residents were killed, with the majority of them being migrants; 56 shops, 165 houses, 224 cars, and 150 motorbikes were also burned and destroyed. And a huge wave of 17,000 refugees were also caused by scared residents who wanted to be evacuated out of Wamena. Even a doctor who dedicated 2 years of his life to serve Papua was also killed by the brutality of the rioters. Because of that, local leaders, native Wamena, and even Papuan students apologized to non-Papuans because they were targeted by these separatists’ operations. They also asked the migrants who flee to their respective region to come back to Wamena so we can all have our normal life back.
If only Wamena was the only city that suffered from these separatists. But I found a sad fact that before Wamena, Jayapura experienced the same fate as separatists organized a riot there too and because of it, four civilians lost their lives, 31 offices, 15 banks, 36 cars, 33 motorbikes, 24 shops, seven police stations, and three vehicle dealers were also burned and destroyed by the rioting masses in Jayapura, causing at least IDR100 billion of loss just to repair 10 offices. And just like the riot in Wamena, the riots in Jayapura were also orchestrated. The Papuan Student Alliance, AMP, was responsible for provoking Papuan students, who were studying outside Papua, to come back to Jayapura for demonstrations that turned into riots (8/19/2019 & 8/29/2019).
Even in a recent online webinar, Papuan human rights lawyer Gustaf Kawer recently acknowledged that the demonstrations on 19 and 29 August 2019 in Jayapura were planned by Ferry Kombo from AMP .
I also came across some online reading where I found that the riot in Wamena (9/23/2019) strangely happened exactly one day before the high-level political forum general debate of 74th UN General Assembly (UNGA) (9/24/2019) where separatist leader Benny Wenda from the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) was present. Furthermore, I found prisoners like Buchtar Tabuni were not only organizing and mobilizing masses to riot, but he is also affiliated with local and overseas separatist groups such as KNPB and ULMWP. Buchtar Tabuni, who held two positions in both KNPB and ULMWP at that time, has the power to organize the masses while overseas he has an agenda to heat up the situation in West Papua so ULMWP leader Benny Wenda that was present at the 74th UNGA the day after the riots occurred can push the UN to discuss the riot.
Does Realnews Magazine think these tremendous effects from these prisoners’ action are not worth mentioning? I feel strongly that all these information are highly suspicious because: (1) previously, AMP planned and provoked the Jayapura riots, and for the Wamena riot (2) migrants were specifically targeted, (3) the rioters are not of Wamena locals, (4) police investigation confirms that KNPB members disguised themselves as students and infiltrated the riot, (5) the riot happened a day before UNGA where separatist leader was present to talk about West Papua, and that (6) prisoner Buchtar Tabuni and his two high position in KNPB and ULMWP. Who else then has the motives to organize the violent riot if not these prisoners for their political advantage ?
Therefore, I find it problematic that the article is using the term ‘political prisoner’ due to the fact that these prisoners committed crimes, therefore should be treated just like other criminal prisoners. It is also troublesome that it was nowhere discussed in the article the crimes or the reason why these prisoners were being detained and processed by law. This led to the portrayal of the prisoners as innocent when they are not. Where in fact, the prisoners were being detained because all of them were involved in organizing an anti-racism protest that led to a series of bloody riots in Jayapura (8/29/2019) and Wamena (9/23/2019), causing 37 people to lose their lives and more than 600 public facilities destroyed. Wouldn’t it be defined as a crime if there is loss of lives and the destruction of public facilities?
During the trials, separatists also used the anti-racism issue as a political manoeuvre to reduce the sentence of these prisoners , such as using the word ‘sentenced’ as seen on prisoner Buchtar Tabuni, framing as if he will be imprisoned for 17 years. This political manoeuvre made it easier for separatists to influence people so they will defend the prisoners and even protest on the street. Where in fact, the 17 years of imprisonment was only an initial prosecutor’s demand that was not yet final because the trial was still ongoing . In the end, Buchtar Tabuni was sentenced to 11 months in prison – significantly lower than the 17 years that prosecutors had asked, even though I think he deserved more time in prison for steering peaceful anti-racism protests into deadly riots in Jayapura and Wamena. Shouldn’t we all watch out for separatists who are steering the anti-racism issue to separatism acts whereas their crimes contradict the value of Papuans’ lives?
The issue being written in the article is a highly sensitive political issue that shouldn’t be written with insufficient data and information. As a prominent online media, Real News Magazine must serve as a reliable, data-driven source of information for the people of West Papua, and the global public in general. I hope to shed some light with this letter and hope that Realnews magazine can provide stories not only from an incomplete and biased one-sided perspective, but both sides of the perspective to give broader context to the readers by also taking the Jayapura and Wamena riots victims’ stories.
**Nabila Kartika wrote to Realnews from West Papua, Indonesia
– June 18, 2020 @ 19:25 GMT |
Tags: Why Indonesian court jailed 7 Papuan activists
