Cameron Walker
Imagine being thrown in a filthy prison, where your cell mates mysteriously disappear’ overnight, just for waving your country’s flag. For many years this was a reality for my West Papuan friend Fransiskus Kandam.
To understand Fransiskus’ intriguing story it helps to know a little bit about the tragic story of his homeland, West Papua.
West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea (Papua New Guinea is the eastern half). The Dutch formally colonised West Papua in the nineteenth century. In the early 1960s they decided it was time for Papua to become an independent country, free to rule itself.
But in 1962, the Indonesian military invaded West Papua, seeking to claim it as part of Indonesia. The United Nations said Indonesia had to hold a vote to see if the Papuan people wanted to join Indonesia or become independent. West Papuans who supported independence were ruthlessly repressed by the Indonesian military. For example, in the village of Ifar Besar, 300 Papuan independence supporters were murdered. Papuans complained to UN officials, journalists and diplomats about how the military was treating them. An armed resistance movement, known as the OPM (Free Papua Organisation) was set up.
Most Papuan people wanted independence so the Indonesian military rigged the vote to ensure Papua became Indonesian. Just 1025 Papuan tribal leaders were picked out of a population of 1.5 million to vote — at gunpoint — on whether to join Indonesia or become independent. Not surprisingly they all voted in Indonesia’s favour. Since then, human rights groups estimate that at least 100,000 Papuans have been killed by the Indonesian military. Serious human rights abuses, such as murder, beatings, torture and rape, occur on a near daily basis.
West Papua’s vast natural resources, such as gold, copper and timber have been ruthlessly exploited by multinational corporations, such as the American mining giant Freeport, without any regard for the environment or the people whose villages have been displaced as a result of these activities. The corporations pay protection money’ to the Indonesian military to keep angry locals away from their operations.
Growing Up In Occupied Territory
When Fransiskus was growing up, his parents didn’t tell him about the Indonesian military or Papua’s history. “It was a forbidden issue” he says. His parents were scared that if he knew the truth he would join the resistance and put himself in danger. Once he started university, Fransiskus found out about what the Indonesian military was doing to his homeland. Without informing his parents, he started taking part in opposing the Indonesian military by raising awareness about human rights and environmental issues.
On December 1, 1989, a day Papuans mark as their unofficial independence day, he attended a celebration with 10,000 others, where a Papuan flag was illegally raised. Thirteen days later he was arrested and declared a subversive’. He was placed in a prison in Java Indonesia, along with other Papuan students and political prisoners from East Timor, which at that stage was also brutally occupied by the Indonesian military. Conditions in the prison were very bad. Papuan prisoners would disappear as often as the prison guards changed. Their families would never see them again.
Standing Up For Human Rights
Following his release from prison in 1997, Fransiskus continued to raise awareness around human rights and environmental issues as he did before his arrest. In 2001 Fransiskus and a friend were going to travel to Oxford University in Britain to study human rights. As they were about to leave his friend accidentally left some articles about West Papua in the back of a taxi. The taxi driver told the authorities and they were thrown in prison for five months without charge.
Indonesia’s government was using the post-9/11 climate as an excuse to label West Papuan human rights campaigners as terrorists’. With legal aid from a friend he sought political asylum in Australia and has since been granted permanent residence. In his new home of Adelaide he has joined up with other human rights activists to campaign for the rights of his people.
One day he dreams his homeland will finally be free.
This article was written as part of the Global Focus a collaborative project of Tearaway Magazine and the Global Education Centre. It was first published in Tearaway magazine and is reprinted here with their permission.
Tags: Activism, human rights, indigenous, invasion, military, prision, West Papua