JAKARTA, Indonesia | Amnesty: Indonesian forces behind unlawful killings in Papua
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JAKARTA, Indonesia | Amnesty: Indonesian forces behind unlawful killings in Papua
JAKARTA, Indonesia— Indonesia’s police and military are responsible for at least 95 unlawful killings in the easternmost Papua region since 2008, including targeted slayings of activists, Amnesty International said Monday in a report condemning a near-total absence of justice for the mainly indigenous victims.
In the report based on two years of research, Amnesty said that more than half the victims were either political activists or people taking part in peaceful protests often unrelated to the Papuan independence movement.
It said none of the killings was independently investigated. In about a third of the cases, there was not even an internal investigation. When police or military claimed to have investigated internally, they did not make the findings public.
The killings — nearly one a month for the past eight years — are a “serious blot” on Indonesia’s human rights record, said Usman Hamid, executive director of Amnesty International Indonesia.
“This culture of impunity within the security forces must change, and those responsible for past deaths held to account,” he said.
An independence movement and an armed insurgency have simmered in the formerly Dutch-controlled region since it was annexed by Indonesia in 1963. Indonesian rule has been frequently brutal, and indigenous Papuans, largely shut out of their region’s economy, are poorer, sicker and more likely to die young than people elsewhere in Indonesia.
A majority of the killings documented by Amnesty were the result of unnecessary or excessive use of force during protests and law enforcement operations, it said.
Some occurred in circumstances related to the Papuan independence movement such as raising of the banned “Morning Star” independence flag.
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By Associated Press