Menurut pengamat LIPI Muridan Widjojo, laporan jumlah korban pembunuhan, penganiayaan dan pelanggaran HAM lainnya di Papua selama ini terlalu dibesar-besarkan dan tidaklah tepat. Komentar beliau adalah tanggapan dari keputusan Komnas HAM untuk menginvestigasi kasus-kasus pelanggaran HAM yang dilakukan oleh TNI/Militer sejak tahun 1963. Beliau tidak menyanggah adanya pelecehan HAM oleh aparat, hanya mempertanyakan ketepatan perkiraan jumlah korban selama ini.
“Indonesian state security apparatus are responsible to the human rights abuses and crimes against humanity in Papua. What I criticise is the overestimation of the numbers, hundreds of thousands… for me, we need more valid data to make the estimation of the numbers.”
International Crisis Group telah menerbitkan laporan terbarunya mengenai Papua. Dalam laporan ini, organisasi pencegah konflik tersebut mengkhawatirkan meningkatnya konflik antara Muslim dan Kristen di Papua. Bahaya utama datangnya dari kelompok-kelompok garis keras baik yang beragama Islam maupun Kristen yang tidak bisa mentolerir agama lain. Ditambah dengan tingginya tingkat pendatang dari wilayah Indonesia lainnya, masalah ini perlu segera ditangani agar tidak terjadi bentrok kekerasan.
The Manokwari drama, played out over more than two years, illustrates some of the changes. It started in 2005, when Christians mobilised to prevent an Islamic centre and mosque from being built on the place where German missionaries brought Christianity to Papua in the mid-nineteenth century. Muslim anger went beyond Papua; many Indonesian Muslims, newly conscious of the history of Muslim traders in the area, saw Islam as Papua’s original religion and found the rejection of the mosque intolerable. Local church leaders, seeing the reaction, believed they needed to strengthen Manokwari’s Christian identity and in 2007 drafted a regulation for the local parliament that would have infused the local goverment with Christian values and symbols and discriminated against Muslims in the process. It was never enacted but generated a furore in Muslim communities across Indonesia and increased the sense of siege on both sides. It remains to be seen how a new draft that began to be circulated in late May 2008 will be greeted.
Salah satu anjuran ICG adalah untuk organisasi-organisasi rekonsiliasi (seperti Majelis Muslim Papua) agar meningkatkan keikutsertaannya, dan bagi rakyat Papua untuk mendukung usaha-usaha perdamaian.
Where the risk of conflict is high, indigenous Papuan Muslims, largely concentrated in the Bird’s Head region of north western Papua, can play a bridging role, particularly through a new organisation, Majelis Muslim Papua. This organisation is both firmly committed to universal Islamic values and deeply rooted in Papuan culture and traditions. They have a demonstrated capacity to cool communal tensions, working with their Christian counterparts. But the indigenous Muslim community is being divided, too, as more and more have opportunties to study Islam outside Papua and come home with ideas that are at odds with traditional practices. It would be in the interests of all concerned to support a network of state Islamic institutes in Papua that could produce a corps of indigenous religious scholars and reinforce the moderation long characteristic of Papuan Muslims.
Tentara Indonesia telah memulai operasi “sweeping” yang mentargetkan desa-desa di wilayah pegunungan Papua tengah, dengan sasaran utama simpatisan-simpatisan kemerdekaan Papua.
Beberapa pimpinan keagamaan Papua mengunjungi AS bulan Mei yang lalu untuk mengabarkan berita mengenai pelecehan HAM dan pencemaran lingkungan hidup di Papua.
Komisi Penyiksaan PBB mengkawatirkan nasib warga-warga desa yang ditergetkan oleh operasi “sweeping” TNI diatas. (Lihat entri blog mengenai laporan khusus Al Jazeera di bawah)
Laporan Amnesty International tahun ini mencatat lebih seringnya aktifis-aktifis HAM di Papua menjadi target oleh militer dan polisi.
Seorang pejabat gereja yang melaporkan kegiatan TNI untuk memaksa warga Papua agar menerima pembukaan tambang nikel, menderita gangguan ancaman dan intimidasi.
Jakarta Post menerbitkan wawancara dengan aktifis HAM dan lingukungan hidup Siti Maimunah, mengenai kegiatan pertambangan dan dampak lingkungan/HAM-nya. Menurut beliau, rehabilitasi post-pertambangan yang biayanya mahal membuat perusahaan-perusahaan pertambangan di negara maju mengalihkan kegiatannya ke negara-negara berkembang yang haus investasi asing.
It’s a fallacy to compare the Indonesian mining industry with that of the U.S., Canada or Australia.
Mining developments in those countries have been made in parallel with improvements of human resources, while mining in Indonesia was “primitively managed”, she said.
“Most (mining companies in Indonesia) produce only half-finished materials … so this country is essentially a dredging site for foreign companies.”
Mining in other countries is largely conducted to satisfy public need, while most of the energy and mineral resources in Indonesia was for export, she said.
Berikut adalah foto satelit diatas lokasi operasi pertambangan PT Freeport. Terlihat jelas puncak gunung Ertsberg yang telah dikeruk oleh PTFI sehingga menjadi lubang yang besar.
In June last year, Meage, a resident of the small town of Wamena in the highlands of Papua, was locked up in the house of a local military officer after being accused of stealing the equivalent of $30.
“They pulled out my nails and started to burn my body with a candle. My genitals and tongue were severely burned,” he says.
These claims have never been officially investigated, but are nevertheless fuelling many Papuan’s desire for independence.
Menurut laporan Radio New Zealand International, status pengamat untuk Papua Barat di majelis permusyawaratan Melanesia yang selama ini diperjuangkan oleh Vanuatu kemarin ditentang oleh Papua New Guinea. Menurut menteri luar negeri PNG, negaranya tidak ingin ikut campur dengan masalah Papua Barat yang diakui oleh PNG sebagai satu propinsi Indonesia.
“The issue of Papua for PNG, that is an issue we don’t consider as an issue that should be brought into the MSG. It’s something that is an internal issue that has a lot of ramifications, implications on it. So we would wish that it should not figure as part of the MSG discussion.”
