Published On:Tuesday, 7 July 2015
Posted by Unknown
We Never Forget The Biak Massacre
We never forget the Biak Massacre. On 6th July 1998 the Indonesian
government tortured and murdered hundreds of West Papuan people.
Many of those in custody were subsequently raped and mutilated in
horrific circumstances and the security personnel responsible for the
attack have never been held accountable.
“My family and others
were directed down to the harbour … We followed the other families with
our hands up over our heads. You could feel the bullets starting to fly
over our heads … I could see so many children who had been killed. They
were shot on the wharf. They died right there.”
“Then I saw a man
[a soldier] showing me a little knife, the one that you use to shave,
and he said ‘we are going to use this to cut off your vagina, from above
and below and from the left to the right’. A lit candle was penetrated
inside me, they cut off my clitoris and they raped me."
“I saw a little girl and they raped her and she died,”
Still today the Indonesian government publicly denies it ever happened.
The Indonesian governments official explanation is that all of the dead
bodies were caused by a tsunami in Papua New Guinea.
Scores of unarmed civilians were tortured and killed and their bodies
dumped at sea in a massacre by Indonesian security forces in West Papua
15 years ago, a “citizens' tribunal” held in Sydney has found.
On
6 July 1998, West Papuans demonstrating for independence on the island
of Biak were murdered in a co-ordinated attack by the Indonesian
military and police and a large number were detained, according to the
findings of the Biak Massacre Citizens' Tribunal.
Many of those
in custody were subsequently raped and mutilated in horrific
circumstances and the security personnel responsible for the attack have
never been held accountable, the tribunal heard.
The citizens’
tribunal was held this year at the University of Sydney on the 15th
anniversary of the incident. The event was conducted in the manner of a
coroner’s inquest before presiding jurists John Dowd and Keith Suter,
with former NSW director of public prosecutions Nick Cowdery as counsel
assisting.
The co-ordinator of the event, Jim Elmslie, said much of the testimony heard by the tribunal was “incredibly shocking”.
“The viciousness with which [the attack] was carried out has left me
shocked. And it’s clear that it’s not just one sick person doing this,
it’s a system,” he said.
The alleged incident occurred several
days after the raising of the banned morning star flag by West Papuan
political prisoner Filep Karma, which was attended by dozens of
demonstrators. The attack was well planned by Indonesian security forces
and local and regional officials were also involved, the tribunal
heard.
One anonymous witness told the hearing: “The army and
police were everywhere. Bullets were raining down. The sky was on fire.
We could hear them shooting people.”
Another testified via video:
“My family and others were directed down to the harbour … We followed
the other families with our hands up over our heads. You could feel the
bullets starting to fly over our heads … I could see so many children
who had been killed. They were shot on the wharf. They died right
there.”
Navy ships were used to dump the bodies at sea, the
tribunal heard. Ferry Marisan, the director of the human rights
organisation Elsham Papua, told the hearing that fishermen later found
the bodies offshore.
“The bodies were mutilated. Some of them lost their legs or their genitals were not there,” he said.
Other witnesses told of being tortured and sexually abused in custody in the days and weeks following the attack.
One victim described being stripped naked in a room with other women and girls.
“Then I saw a man [a soldier] showing me a little knife, the one that
you use to shave, and he said ‘we are going to use this to cut off your
vagina, from above and below and from the left to the right’. A lit
candle was penetrated inside me, they cut off my clitoris and they raped
me.
“I saw a little girl and they raped her and she died,” she told the tribunal.
Out of the 12 women in detention “eight women were killed and four of us stayed alive”, she said.
Elmslie told Guardian Australia the purpose of the tribunal was to create an official record of the atrocity.
“The Biak massacre is widely known in anecdotal terms in West Papua as
being a really severe event but it’s not acknowledged officially at all –
certainly not by the Indonesian government,” he said.
“It’s rare
that a situation in West Papua is definitively investigated – you often
have lots of rumours or just stories that can be denied. We thought if
we could establish, to a large degree of accuracy, the details of one
event, it would be powerful and useful.
“By exposing that one event you expose the broader pattern of Indonesian occupation,” he said.
The tribunal found that the Indonesian government had attempted to play
down the seriousness of the actions of the Indonesian security forces
in Biak and had not punished those responsible.
It recommended
that the Indonesian government be presented with the evidence and
findings of the tribunal, that an investigation into the massacre be
carried out by an independent prosecutor and that “criminal proceedings
be instituted against such persons as may be found to have committed
crimes and crimes against humanity”.
The Australian government,
which is “responsible for training military and naval officers of
Indonesia”, should also be provided with the evidence before the
tribunal and should “pressure the government of Indonesia to commence
appropriate investigations and criminal proceedings”, the report notes.
Dowd told Guardian Australia that this was the first time to his
knowledge that such an event had been held in Australia and that while a
citizens’ tribunal had no legal power “it’s a very useful vehicle to
make sure these issues are not hidden under a carpet”.
“The
publicity of things like this makes it less likely that this sort of
thing will happen again. We can’t undo the atrocity that occurred, but
it sends a message to [the Indonesian] government … that they may not do
it again.”
The tribunal was hosted by the Centre for Peace Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney.
Source : free west papua campaign
