Indonesian military accused of American deaths in Papua
Updated
A new report accuses the Indonesian military of being behind the murder of two American schoolteachers and an Indonesian colleague in Papua in 2002. Seven pro-independence Papuans were jailed for the attack, but human rights groups have long accused the military of involvement.
Presenter: Joanna McCarthy
Speaker: Dr Eben Kirksey, Anthropologist, the University of California and author of the report.
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KIRKSEY: In short we found an Indonesian politician who helped plan the attack on two American school teachers in 2002. This has been widely reported in the news that the Indonesian military was involved, but were really the first to identify the probable field agent who actually set up the operation.
McCARTHY: So why would these agents be targeting US civilians in this case?
KIRKSEY: There's a couple of different theories. One is that they were trying to extort money from FreePort McMoRan the largest gold mine in the world that operates in Timika. Another is that the Indonesian miilitary was sort of gunning for funds in the US global war on terror. So one requirement to be on the list of terrorist organisations is to kill Americans, in short it looked like they were setting up Papuan guerillas to be on that list, to try to get them labelled as a terrorist organisation.
McCARTHY: And, you also accused the US Government of participating in a cover up, in fact you name Condoleeza Rice, John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller of covering up the activities of the Indonesian military in this case. What evidence do you have that this was the case?
KIRKSEY: Clearly those officials have misled the American public and the world at large. In Congressional testimony, Dr Rice told the senate that there was no evidence of was Indonesian military involvement. In fact there are plenty of very specific things that were in the hands of the FBI in February, 2005, when she made that statement. John Ashcroft and Robert Mueller issued a press release pointing the finger at the OPM West Papua's guerilla force and in this press release, Mueller and Ashcroft basically fail to mention any of the very credible evidence that points to Indonesia.
McCARTHY: And the Indonesian courts have sentenced seven Papuan villages in this case, including the alleged ring leader, Antonius Wamang, a guerilla fighter in Papua's independence movement. Does this court have credibility?
KIRKSEY: Not really. I mean there are some of those people who are in jail who credibly were at the scene of the crime. Three of the men, including Reverend Isaac Onawame were not even there. They had confessions extracted out of them, after the FBI detained them and handed them to Indonesian authorities. The real flaw was that trial is the failure of them to take any evidence of Indonesian military involvement seriously and quite unsurprisingly because the Indonesian court system as we all know is very different from our own. Basically this was not a trial by jury, this was a prosecutor who was presenting a theory that these Papuan terrorists led the attack, when in fact Antonius Wamang and his friends had very extensive ties with the Indonesian military.
McCARTHY: Do you expect any response from the Indonesian or the American governments to these allegations?
KIRKSEY: In response to an earlier version of our report, the president's office issued a statement saying that this should be brought to trial if there is credible evidence. We have not seen them reinitiate a trial and I think that Indonesia and America would like to see this case slip down the memory hole.
