Globalization

Journalist's death overshadows launch of Papua food project
Press Release by TAPOL and DTE

11 August 2010 - The death of a local journalist has increased concerns about a giant food estate launched today in Merauke, Southeastern Papua by Indonesia's Minister of Agriculture.

TAPOL and Down to Earth, the International Campaign for Ecological Justice in Indonesia are calling for a moratorium on the food project, known as MIFEE (Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate) until independent assessments of the political, economic, socio-cultural, environmental and gender impacts of the project have been undertaken.

The suspicious death of the journalist, Ardiansyah Matra'is, in late July, following threats against him, has been linked to his coverage of this week's local elections for the district head in Merauke.

Dear Friends,

Please help us help humanity by reading and encouraging other adults to read the graphic novel at www.papuanvoices.com. (Does not yet work on mobile phones.)

The Illustrator and I have chosen to release the first three chapters (60 pages) now, given the urgency of the content but also because we can update and add to this "flip book" over time. (Try your scroll wheel to flip pages.)

If you care about disappearing cultures and biodiversity, you can help raise the world's awareness of West Papua by forwarding this appeal to your friends and colleagues, or by letting them know about this through Facebook, Twitter or word-of-mouth.

If you enjoy the beautiful illustrations in this book and you come to appreciate the global significance and dire urgency of its story, please tell others about papuanvoices.com.

The Author

Activists say Papua food estate ‘not the answer’
by Arti Ekawati & Fidelis E. Satriastanti
Jakarta Globe – March 04, 2010

Activists warned on Thursday not to put too much hope in the Merauke food estate, saying it would do little to provide food security or eliminate starvation in Indonesia.

“It will eventually decrease our dependence on [importing] food crops, but it does not automatically reduce famine in our own country. It does not work that way,” said Witoro, the head of a food-crop working group from the Prosperity Village Alliance, which comprises 18 nongovernmental organizations focused on implementing sustainable living in villages across the country.

West Papuans recently announced a foundational consensus on their legal defence and right to declare national sovereignty, thereby asserting their fundamental human rights and ancestral ownership of land. (The consensus has global significance in that West Papua remains on a scale similar to the Amazon in terms of what is being lost - diversity of local species and tribal societies, and the amount of oxygen produced by the "lungs of Asia".)

THE UNTOLD STORY: FOOTAGE FROM THE PAPUAN RAINFOREST

EIA Press Release: 28 November 2007

Unique films are launched today showing the impact of forest exploitation upon the people of Papua, Indonesia.

I was recently sent these two articles, which finally give a rational explanation of what has just ocurred in East Timor. As an activist who spent years supporting independence for East Timor, I find this turn of events disheartening. Certainly this is a lesson to be learned and a caution for West Papua.
Tom

Australian Coup in East Timor's Crisis

By Maryann Keady & John Pilger

>From www.zmag.org

Three years ago, I wrote a piece talking about attempts to oust Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri in East Timor, then a new struggling independent nation. I wrote that I believed the US and Australia were determined to oust the Timorese leader, due to his hardline stance on oil and gas, his determination not to take out international loans, and their desire to see Australia friendly President Xanana Gusmao take power.

Chinese company plans massive timber operation in Papua

Investor: State-owned Chinese company, named as China Light.

Investment: Plan to invest US$1 billion in a timber processing plant and acquiring merbau logs, announced by forestry minister Malam Sambat Kaban in April this year.

Impacts: This plan links the 2008 Olympic Games to stripping Papua's forests of the highly valuable merbau hardwood. Forestry minister Kaban told reporters that the Chinese company needed 800,000 cubic metres of merbau logs (400,000 m3 of processed wood) to construct sports facilities for the 2008 Olympics.

View Freeport McMoran Proposal

New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson, Jr., on behalf of the New York City Pension Funds, today expressed concern regarding the relationship between Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc. and the Indonesian military, as outlined in a new report released by Global Witness.

“We are concerned about the details of Freeport McMoran’s payments to the Indonesian military, which seem to be more extensive and more questionable than previously known,� Thompson said. “We are particularly troubled by Freeport’s continued elusive responses to inquiries into its relationship with the Indonesian military. The trustees are committed to pursue this issue further.�

From Business Week Online "The mining giant's gutsy human-rights audit may set a standard for multinationals"

Freeport-McMoran Copper & Gold Inc. (FCX ) has long been tagged as a human-rights pariah for its close relationship with the repressive Indonesian military. In the mid-1990s, for example, it was linked to horrific acts allegedly committed by the Suharto dictatorship against rebels unhappy about expansion of the company's gold and copper mines on the Indonesian island of Papua. Allegations against the troops included all manner of atrocities, including torturing and murdering protesters, as part of what some critics called a genocidal war against separatists in what was then known as Irian Jaya. Activists accused Freeport of complicity, charging that the New Orleans company's security personnel routinely provided transportation for the Indonesian military.

George Monbiot
The Guardian [UK]
3 May 2005

It all seems a very long way away. But what is happening in an obscure island nation in the south Pacific has now become our business. A few weeks ago BP, the British company that has invested most in "corporate social responsibility", received final approval to start developing a gas field in West Papua, the western half of the island of New Guinea. There is nothing unusual about this: oil and gas companies are opening new fields all the time. What makes this operation interesting is the question of whether BP has any right to be there.

Its case seems, at first sight, clearcut. The licence to operate, BP says, "is granted to us by the Indonesian government which is internationally recognised as the sovereign government of Papua, including by the UK and