Press Release

Work for Your Land,

LET US SAVE PEOPLE AND THE LAND OF PAPUA

On 13 September 2007, UN General Assembly adopted declaration on rights of indegenous peoples. This becomes an historic day and victory for indegenous people as each year on 13 September it will be remembered as an international human rights day for the indigenous people of the world. In her press statement on 13 September 2007, General assembly president, Haya Al Khalifa, states clearly, “This marks an historic achievement for more than 370 indegenous peoples worldwide. The General assembly today adopted the declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the result of more than two decades of consultations and dialog among governments and indigenous peoples from all regions.”

In the same historic moment, Ms. Vicky Tauli-Corpus, chairperson of the UN Permanent Forum on Indegenous issues, said, “The 13th of September 2007 will be remembered as an international human rights day for the Indigenous Peoples of the world, a day that the United Nations and its Member States, together with Indigenous Peoples, reconciled with past painful histories and decided to march into the future on the path of human rights,”.

Papua Customary Council (DAP) as part of indigenous people along with all peoples worldwide proudly and actively celebrate the 3rd anniverasary of this international day on the rights of indigenous peoples. This year celebration carries a theme, “Let Us Save Indigenous Papuans and The Land.” This theme has been made into a “Letter of Appeal made by general chairperson of DAP, No. 001/KETUM-DAP/IX/2009, on “Saving The Land and Indigenous Papuans, Nation of Papua, Melanesian Race, Negroid Race which today the number of the population is only 1,2 million as result of systematic creeping genocide; and from this tragedy we are moving toward a new Papua.

The appeal for Saving The Land and People of Papua consists of 8 parts: Save The Land of Papua, Save People of Papua from Creeping Genocide, Save People from their behaviour leading to Creeping Genocide, Save Natural Resources, Save Forest, Save Traditional Villages, Save and prepare the future of Papua and appeal to solve problems in which Papuans have experienced, are experiencing and will experience.

In this historical moment, as the general chairperson of DAP, I would like to remind and call for the attention of all indegenous Papuans that:

1. The future of Papua is in the hand of all Papuans. The death of so many Papuans appear so obvious in front of our eyes as result of poverty, malnourished, famine, disease, arbitraty arrest, killing and shooting. When looking at the rate of Papua population growth, there is a sharp population decline. For example, in 1969, the period of the act of free choice was held, the number of Papua population was 800,000 and by 2007, it was only 1,2 million Papuans. Comparing to the neighbour country, PNG (Papua New Guinea), by 1975, the year of their independence, the population of PNG is 700,000 and by 2007, their population increased to 7 million people. This shows a very sharp and rapid decline of Papua population growth. Reacting to this situation, we stress out that since Papua became part of Indonesia, there is a strong indication of creeping genocide against Papuans. This indication is supported by the fact that military has conducted operation, called annihilation operation, since 1 May 1963-1998 and the atrocity such as arbitraty killing, arrest, kidnapping, disappearance and detention and psychological destruction by stigmatizing Papuans as separatist and supporters of Papua Freedom Movement (TPN/OPM) still take place.

Furthermore, Papuans are also systematically killed by being poisoned through food and drinks, rapid distribution of alcohol beverages, and HIV/AIDS. This makes the existence of Papuans is in danger and threatened to be extinct. A paper presented by Dr. Jim Elmslie in conference organized by Indonesia Solidarity in association with West Papua Project (CPACS), 9-10 August 2007 in Sidney, notes that the population of non-Papuans by 2020 will increase to 70.8% out of the total 6.7 million and more alarming is by 2030 Papuans will comprise just 15.2% of a total population of 15.6 million, while non-Papuans will number 13.2 million or 84.8%. In other words, the ratio between indigenous Papuans and non-Papuans by 2030 would be 1:6.5. Looking at this demographic disaster, we call for all indigenous Papuans to save life and prevent any systematic acts to destroy the existence of Papuans.

2. Excessive natural resources exploitations continue to occur in Papua. Indigenous Papuans die on their abundance of natural resources while the capitalists and big investors are dancing on the bones and blood of indigenous Papuans who struggle for their rights. The excessive mining (copper and gold) exploitation by Freeport in Tembagapura-Timika and LNG by British Petroleum in Babo Bintuni and in Sorong as well as forest destruction through legal and illegal logging are indisputable fact that keeps hauting Papua.

3. In the philosophy of indigenous Papuans, land is perceived as their mother who gives birth, food, and life. Therefore, land is the community’s property not the private’s and individual’s property. For Papua, land has not only economic values but also faith or religious values. It is a belief (particularly in Christian faith) that land belongs to God entrusted to all nations with their respective boundaries to support their existence (See old testament, particularly in Number chapter 19:13 and 27:17). Therefore, the land should not be released for housing, oil palm, industry bussiness but should be protected for the future of indigenous Papuans. In other words, the land should not be sold but just lease or contract to the investors.

4. Economically, indigenous Papuans is being marginalized. Almost all central places in Papua are dominated and occupied by non-Papuans (migrants). They build big malls, house and shops everywhere. As a result, indigenous Papuans no longer have proper places to live; and this automatically leads to Papuan’s marginalization.

5. With the rapid growth of development, no attention from government and all related parties to preserve traditional villages with its all traditional systems and government structure. This traditional values are becoming neglected and slowly disappear.

6. Right to life and freedom of expression are threatened and severly restricted. Government through law enforcers including military and police continuously silence and restrict the rights and freedom of expression against indigenous Papuans. Meanwhile, the law enforcer apparatus do not seriously listen and take into account the demand and the aspiration of indigenous Papuans. The case of Opinus Tabuni who were shot on 9 August 2009 in Wamena after celebrating International Day of Indigenous people shows this lack of commitment. Until now, the perpetrator has not been announced to the public and brought to court. Likewise, numbers of human rights violations continue to occur but no obvious commitment from government to solve these abuses.

As these situations raise concern for indigenous people, I, as the general chairperson of DAP, would like to state our position that:

1. All indigenous Papuans should hold hand in hand to create a sense of togetherness to save our people and our land from any systematic acts leading to extinction and destruction

2. All indigenous Papuans to be aware that we all are under one nation, the nation of Papua and one race, melanesian race and negroid race in pacific and not belong to Indonesia which is Malay race from Yunan Cambodia

3. The government of Indonesia, US, Dutch and UN should hold international dialog or administer a referendum to resolve Papua’s problems and save indigenous people from humanitarian crisis and a threat of appearing extinction and annihilation

Jayapura, Port Numbay

13 September 2009

GENERAL CHAIRPERSON OF DAP

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