Citizen Media and Civil Resistance in West Papua
ENDANGERED JOURNALISTS
When news did start to trickle out about the massacre the Indonesian authori-
ties could not hide all the bodies. Instead they claimed that the corpses were from
the 17 July 1998 tsunami, the epicentre of which was off Aitape on the north
coast of Papua New Guinea, more than 700 kilometres from Biak. However, the
bodies that washed ashore did not wash up elsewhere in West Papua. One wit-
ness described a cadaver clothed in a Golkar shirt (an Indonesian political party).
Another said the Morning Star flag could be seen, painted on the victim's chest.
Papuans call it Bloody Biak (Biak Berdarah), the 'Biak Massacre' in English
and it was not the only mass killing that has taken place in West Papua. Many
questions remain unanswered about it. Although human rights investigators
from ELSHAM, the Institute for the Study and Advocacy of Human Rights
in West Papua, visited Biak a week later and interviewed survivors and wit-
nesses they were not able to conduct their work openly. Their detailed 69-page
report, 'Graves without Names; Names without Graves' (ELSHAM, 1999) is
the most comprehensive information we have but it remains, because of the
circumstances then and now-incomplete. Human Rights Watch (1998) also
sent an undercover reporter but still there are substantial gaps. Further evidence,
compiled during The Biak Massacre Citizens Tribunal that took place in Sydney
fifteen years after the massacre, includes testimony from survivors, witnesses,
journalists and investigators.
It is the Biak Massacre, its horror, the colluding silence in the domestic and
international press; the complicity of Western powers who continue to train and
arm the Indonesian military and police; the opportunistic avarice of the foreign
corporations who exploit Papuan resources, giving nothing but crumbs in return;
and the determination of Papuans to resist the occupation that sharpens Papuan
resistance.
Papuan Spring
The fact that the post-Suharto state responded so decisively with the Biak Mas-
sacre was a rude awakening to those moderate West Papuan leaders who hoped
that human rights violations and repression in West Papua would end with the
demise of Suharto and his New Order.
After a series of discussions with high-ranking Indonesian politicians and
bureaucrats, known as the Jakarta Informal Meetings, a team of 100 people
(called Team 100) were invited to Jakarta for a special meeting with the then
Indonesian President BJ Habibie in February 1999. The purpose of the meeting
was to discuss West Papuan grievances and a process of resolution. Prior to the
meeting with Habibie, the West Papuan activists decided to limit discussion to
problems related to development. However, emboldened by the knowledge that
several members of the US Congress had sent a letter to Habibie and his most
powerful opponent, Amien Rais, calling for dialogue on the political status of
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