Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to inform the Senate about a meeting that occurred in parliament yesterday of the Parliamentarians for West Papua Group. We were addressed yesterday by a human rights worker from West Papua who is currently in Australia but who cannot be identified because she is here after finding out that Indonesian authorities had ordered an attack on her life and after her home was raided while her two young children were in that home. She spoke about the situation for students who are hiding in the jungles around Jayapura, the capital of West Papua, fearing retribution from the Indonesian authorities as a result of the recent protests that have occurred at the university in Jayapura.

I spoke to one of those students on the weekend. He is currently staying with relatives—he explained to me that nobody was in the dormitories at the moment. He explained that on Friday there had been helicopters hovering all day and late into the night over the forest area out the back of the university. He indicated that he had received information that there had been shootings from these helicopters into the forests where students were hiding as a result of their fear of retribution. Yesterday we heard from the human rights worker that she understood there were around 200 students still hiding in the jungle, that they were running out of food and that some of them had injuries, including gunshot wounds, that they had not been able to get medical help for.

She also indicated that between five and 10 people who had been in hospital with injuries they had sustained as result of the activities of the protest had been intimidated by the Indonesian authorities whilst they were in hospital. They had now fled the hospital, regardless of their injuries not having been fixed, in order to avoid that intimidation. They are now on the run. The plea from her yesterday was for the Indonesian authorities to guarantee not to harm these students so that they can come out of the jungle and get the help they need.

We also heard from Reverend John Barr from the Uniting Church, who was in West Papua earlier this month. He was saying that church and human rights groups in West Papua are trying to get food and medical support together for these students. But, because it is so difficult to get it into the jungles, it is hard for them to know how useful and effective their assistance can be. This request to guarantee the lives of these students is something that the Australian government could and should be making to the Indonesian government. The human rights worker also asked that there be a request for international monitoring to ensure that any guarantee provided by the Indonesian government about these students’ lives could be adhered to. She asked for international monitoring to ensure that it was adhered to.

She also talked about the security sweeping of students and other people in Jayapura by Indonesian authorities which is continuing in the aftermath of these protests. She spoke about the way in which vehicles are being stopped, houses are being searched, and people are being searched and questioned. She said that people were being asked whether they were highlanders or from coastal areas. If they were highlanders they were being held and interrogated for longer.

There have been a number of reports in the Australian media about the number of students who may have been shot or killed as a result of the protests and the retaliation that has followed in Jayapura in West Papua. It is very difficult to get accurate information about the injuries and deaths because the Indonesian police and military are stopping people from having access to those students who are at the back of the university or being held in some of the hospitals. She told us the specifics of the death of one student who had been nearby when the protests had occurred on the 16th of this month. He was a student at the university and he gained his income by selling newspapers. This was what he was doing at an area not too far away from but not directly involved in where the protests were. She described the way in which he had been taken into custody by the police. His stomach had been slit open and his intestines had poured out. She described how he was then taken to a local health clinic, but his life was not able to be saved.

Many people in Australia have already seen the footage taken by Indonesian television stations of the Indonesian police shooting at students during these protests. When those kinds of atrocities are happening in the land of our near neighbours, we must speak out for peace and nonviolence. Australians in the community are increasingly speaking out against these atrocities, but we need to hear our government also speaking out on our behalf. If we wish to maintain the role that we can and should play in our region as a defender of human rights, now is the time to be calling on the Indonesian government to ensure that all of their representatives in West Papua uphold the human rights of the West Papuan people.