[nasional_list] [ppiindia] Papua puppetry leaves murders unsolved
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- Date: Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:04:44 +0100
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**http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/HA19Ae01.html
2005-01-19
Papua puppetry leaves murders unsolved
By Gary LaMoshi
DENPASAR, Bali - The United States and Indonesia have gotten their man in the
ambush killings of two Americans in Papua three years ago. The arrest of
Antonius Wamang, an alleged separatist military commander, is supposed to quell
speculation that the Indonesian military was behind the shootings. But in this
intercontinental production of wayang kulit - Indonesian shadow puppetry -
Wamang may not follow the script.
Wamang has admitted firing shots in the August 31, 2002, attack near Timika on
a road to Freeport-McMoRan's vast Grasberg mining complex in otherwise remote
Papua (see Indonesia's gold standard, Asia Times Online, September 7, 2002).
His lawyer says Wamang told police and others he chose the site after receiving
information that Indonesian troops would be there, and he intended to attack
them.
Instead, he attacked a van full of teachers and other Grasberg employees
returning from a picnic. Three people were killed - an Indonesia teacher and
two Americans, school principal Edwin Burgon and teacher Ricky Lynn Spier - and
11 others wounded. Wamang was indicted for murder in the US in June 2004 but
eluded security forces and a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team
until last week, though Australian television managed to interview him three
months after the indictment.
Masked men
Attacking Westerners would have been unprecedented for the separatist Free
Papua Organization (OPM, for Organisasi Papua Merdeka), which has waged a
low-level insurgency against Indonesian rule for decades in the province that
Indonesia annexed in 1969. According to his lawyer, Wamang told police
interrogators he saw three masked men in military uniforms firing their weapons
at the scene as well. He also repeated his past claim that he received his
ammunition for the attack from a high-ranking soldier.
Of course that makes no sense. Why would the military give bullets to a
militant planning to attack its soldiers? And why would soldiers fire at
employees of a company that acknowledges paying nearly US$20 million from 1998
to 2004 to the military for protection, as well as spending $35 million on
housing and equipment for soldiers? It makes sense if this deadly drama is
wayang kulit, where the dalang (puppet master) below the stage controls the
action of the puppets.
In the weeks before the shooting, Freeport McMoRan reportedly proposed cutting
its rich payments to military commanders. Fees for security services, along
with business interests - illegal and otherwise - cover about 70% of the budget
for the military, known by the acronym TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia). It's
been a happy coincidence that for decades low-level insurgencies simmered in
Aceh and Papua, where Western companies have extensive resource-extraction
facilities needing protection. Despite the small numbers of armed militants,
the military was never able to quash these fighters.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em
Investigative reports link the military and Papuan opposition forces,
particularly in the 1996 rioting that resulted in $3 million worth of damage at
Grasberg and the start of Freeport McMoRan's direct payments to the military.
From one end of the archipelago to the other, for various reasons, TNI has
repeatedly encouraged, supplied and supported, sometimes with troops, militants
such as those responsible for the massacres in East Timor and the sectarian
fighting in Ambon and Central Sulawesi that even conspiracy skeptics such as
International Crisis Group director Sidney Jones now recognize as key to the
growth of Islamic terrorism in Indonesia (aee Terrorism links in Indonesia
point to military, Asia Times Online, October 8, 2004).
Government security forces are also believed to smuggle arms to militants.
That's a two-way win: the military makes money on the sales and on the
additional security needed for protection against the fighters. That makes
Wamang's story of bullets and masked men more credible.
But that's not the story that the Indonesian and US governments want for this
wayang kulit tale. On Monday in Jakarta, General Sutanto, chief of the national
police, laid out the script. Wamang and his colleagues intended to kill
soldiers, but they weren't ready to fire when a truck full of soldiers passed,
so they unloaded on the next vehicle, mistaking the teachers for troops. Most
importantly, there is no evidence of TNI involvement in the attack.
Either the police or Wamang and his lawyer are not telling the truth. Each side
has strong motives for its story, strong enough to lie. A vigorous criminal
prosecution and defense in an open trial before an impartial judge could
determine which story is true. That's not in the script, though.
Coming to America - not
US officials have spoken about extraditing Wamang for trial in the US, but that
won't happen. The United States and Indonesia have no extradition treaty. If
Indonesia had wanted to let the US have Wamang, or the US had really wanted
him, he'd already be there. FBI agents grabbed Wamang and 11 other men -
ironically, luring them out of hiding with a promise they'd be brought to the
US - then turned them over to Indonesian authorities.
There's precedent for Indonesia allowing the US to have a suspect it wants,
specifically al-Qaeda's Omar al Faruq, seized by Indonesia and handed over to
the US in June 2002. That rendition stirred radical sentiment in Indonesia, the
country with the world's largest Muslim population, where the US-led "war on
terrorism" is often portrayed as a war on Islam. Handing over Wamang would have
no such impact because there's no Islamic link - Papuans are generally animists
or Christians - and the murders resonate more in the US than Indonesia. If
Indonesian authorities were going to let Wamang go, they would have simply told
the FBI to drive him to the airport instead of a police rendezvous.
A trial in Indonesia will avoid a lot of messiness likely in the US, including
close scrutiny of alleged TNI involvement and of Freeport McMoRan's shameful
record not only on payoffs but environmental damage to formerly pristine
wilderness and wetlands. A trial in Indonesia will follow the script for the
conviction of Polycarpus Budihari Priyanto for the in-flight poisoning of Munir
Said Thalib, a leading activist for military accountability for atrocities (see
Arresting decay in Indonesia, Asia Times Online, July 7, 2005).
An independent investigation uncovered documents from Indonesia's National
Intelligence Agency, an arm of the military, outlining plots to kill Munir,
including poisoning on a commercial flight. It also substantiated Polycarpus'
links to the agency, including cell-phone calls between Polycarpus and a top
intelligence official in the days before Munir's murder. Yet the trail so far
has stopped at Polycarpus and a pair of hapless flight attendants.
People power Papua-style
To ensure there are no slip-ups, the suspects have already been spirited to
Jakarta, where they will stand trial thousands of kilometers from Papua.
Papuans staged a noisy demonstration in Jayapura, the provincial capital, after
the suspects were moved. More protests are likely during the trial - Papuans
demonstrated peacefully outside the US Consular Agency in Bali on Wednesday -
but protests in Jakarta are unlikely to evolve into some version of Papuan
people power there, the worst fear of Indonesia and Freeport McMoRan.
Most important, neither side has any reason to seek unpleasant truths about the
murders. Indonesia prefers its story, that OPM killed the teachers by mistake,
as part of its separatist militancy. The administration of US President George
W Bush can cite the arrest and forthcoming conviction to justify its decision
in November to drop its arms embargo against Indonesia and resume full military
ties (see US 'national security' favors Indonesian thugs, Asia Times Online,
December 2, 2005).
The last thing the Bush people want is evidence that TNI, now its partner for
America's national-security interests, had anything to do with killing
Americans. If you think the Bush administration wouldn't put American lives
above poorly conceived strategic goals, then you haven't been paying attention
to the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The US will laud the arrest of Wamang and Indonesia's cooperation in its
catalogue of Indonesia's progress as a democracy. But the case really shows how
little has changed in Indonesia, particularly when it comes to TNI, and how
much has changed in Bush's America - for the worse. Now America is just another
leather puppet on a stick in TNI's wayang kulit.
Gary LaMoshi has worked as a broadcast producer and print writer and editor in
the US and Asia. Longtime editor of investor rights advocate eRaider.com, he's
also a contributor to Slate and Salon.com.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing .)
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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