Jayapura, Jubi – Two activist groups have urged the central government to settle cases of human right violations in Papua.
The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS) in Papua and Bersatu Untuk Kebenaran (BUK/Unite for Truth) said the government of President Joko Widodo must have the courage to take the initiative to address the cases.
BUK Coordinator Peneas Lokbere said today is the day to commemorate victims of violence and human right violations.
“For example the case of Wasior, I thought we had a progress in handling the case but the execution is stagnant by the Indonesian State Attorney as well as the several cases occurred in Wamena in 2001, Biak in 1998, and Paniai in 2014,” Lokbere told reporters in Abepura on Tuesday (24/3/2015).
He further said BUK and KontraS also asked the governor and Papua Legislative Council to promote the evaluation on security approach that recently occurred in Papua raising the state of violence against Papuan people.
In addition, both organizations asked the Military Commander and Papua Police Chief to immediately discontinue the repressive approaches by officers as well as to promote the enforcement of law and human right in Papua by taking their officers who frequently involved in many violence in Papua.
Meanwhile, KontraS Papua Coordinator Olga Hamadi said until now actually many human right violations are committed by State against its citizens. In particular for Papua, there is no significant change to refer to the last case of recent case such as Paniai case, which was occurred in Desember 2014.
“We saw the officers are still executing the repressive approach against its citizens. So it’s important to us to give them alert as a form of our collective responsibility,” she said.
She further said especially for today, BUK and KontraS recalled the commitment of Jokowi’s government in his campaign to resolve the human violation right in Indonesia.
“That’s him (Widodo) who said he would be more focused to solve the human right violation cases. But we saw he has no courage to solve the cases in Papua or outside of Papua,” she reminded Jokowi to accomplish his promise in solving the human right violation cases.
She said the civil authority in Papua is also weak in responding many cases related to violence by State. “They (civil authority) have no courage to speak. But we think it’s important to remind them to immediately evaluate what was happening in Papua. They always use the military approach. Whenever they encounter a problem, they must assign the police to handle it. So, where is the civil authority? It seems there is no other way while we knew Papuan people had trauma with the military approach. So it couldn’t be applied in Papua,” she said. (Arnold Belau/rom)
