archive

ETAN Condemns U.S. Plan to Get Back in Bed with Indonesia's Kopassus Killers (22 Jul 2010)
ETAN - The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) today condemned the Obama administration's decision to resume engagement with Indonesia's notorious Kopassus special forces. "Slipping back into bed with Kopassus is a betrayal of the brutal unit's many victims in Timor-Leste, West Papua and throughout Indonesia. It will lead to more people to suffer abuses."

Indonesia: US Resumes Military Assistance to Abusive Force - Obama Administration Lifts Ban Despite Military’s Lack of Reform, Accountability (22 Jul 2010)
Human Rights Watch - The Obama administration's decision to lift a more than decade-long ban on US military assistance to Indonesia's abusive special forces seriously undermines its commitment to promoting respect for human rights in Indonesia and weakens US standards for military cooperation globally, Human Rights Watch said today. The US secretary of defense, Robert Gates, announced a limited program of engagement with the elite force, Komando Pasukan Khusus (Kopassus), while in Jakarta today.

A Mediating Hand to Pull Papua Back From the Edge (22 Jul 2010)
Jakarta Globe - The need for an international mediator in the case of Papuan autonomy has been frequently raised, most recently two weeks ago when thousands of Papuans rallied in Jayapura to demand a referendum to determine their own fate . A number of civil society organizations support the idea of outside engagement to bring the problems in Papua to a peaceful and sustainable end. The Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) has even suggested that Jakarta “put aside paranoia of foreign parties and no longer use nationalist sentiment as pretext.”

Govt eyes Papua as pulp and paper production base (21 Jul 2010)
The Jakarta Post - The Industry Ministry said Tuesday that the government planned to expand the pulp and paper industry to eastern Indonesia, including Papua, because of its vast tracts of forest. “Currently, only western Indonesia has pulp and paper factories,” Industry Minister MS Hidayat said after opening the April Technology Center (ATC) in Pelalawan, Riau.

Autonomy law ‘needs reconstruction’ (19 Jul 2010)
The Jakarta Post - The 2001 Special Autonomy Law on Papua needs to be redefined because it is not in accordance with administrative development and accommodate to Papuan people’s need anymore, a forum reveals. The redefinition of the special autonomy, or what Yusak Reba, a lecturer at Cendrawasih University, calls “reconstruction”, is required to facilitate the acceleration of the people’s welfare.