Abbott warns West Papuan activists

TONY Abbott has issued a stern warning to West Papuan activists, declaring he would not allow Australia to become “a platform to grandstand against Indonesia”.

The Prime Minister’s comments come as Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said three West Papuan activists who made a series of political demands at the Australian consulate in Bali left the building voluntarily in a taxi.

Speaking at the APEC summit, Mr Abbott said he wanted to stress “in flashing neon lights” that Australia’s relationship with Indonesia was strong and people seeking to grandstand against the country were “not welcome”.

“We have a very strong relationship with Indonesia and we are not going to give people a platform to grandstand against Indonesia — I want that to be absolutely crystal clear,” he said.

Mr Abbott said Australia respected the territorial integrity of Indonesia, and claimed the situation in West Papua was “getting better, not worse”.

Ms Bishop dismissed suggestions by the Greens that Australian officials threatened to hand three West Papuans over to the police. “I understand that the three men left voluntarily, that there were no threats made at any time,” she told The Australian.

She said the three men delivered a letter to the Australian consulate, spoke with the consul-general, and then telephoned a friend to collect them. She said when the friend could not be reached, they phoned for a taxi.

“I am advised that the consul-general did not make any threats at any time,” Ms Bishop said.

Source: The Australian

Breakthrough imminent in Indonesia: O’Neill’s plan to defuse standoff over West Papua

By Rowan Callick === A breakthrough may be on the way for one of the most intractable conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region. Relations between Indonesia and the Melanesian nations, led by Papua New Guinea, have remained awkward ever since the Dutch withdrew from “Netherlands New Guinea,” and the Pacific islands became independent states.

The plight of “West Papua” as it is often called, has prevented Indonesia, the biggest and closest country in South-East Asia, from building the links that might otherwise have been expected, with the island countries to its east—even since it became a liberal democracy 15 years ago.

But, the PNG government, led by Prime Minister Peter O’Neill, has recently launched an initiative aimed at defusing the stand-off over West Papua, building the economy of the centre of New Guinea island, and gaining diplomatic spin-offs.

The western half of New Guinea island comprises two Indonesian provinces: Papua, whose capital is Jayapura, and West Papua, whose capital is Manokwari. It has a 750-km mostly mountainous and often in the past fraught and dangerous border with PNG.

In 2001, the area now covered by the two provinces was declared autonomous with 80 percent of its tax receipts to be retained for local use. But this process has remained only partially complete compared with the more successful governance situation in Aceh, at the other end of the Indonesian archipelago.

O’Neill, who led a delegation to Jakarta for talks with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said: “West Papua has been a sticky issue for PNG and the western Pacific for quite some time. Our role is to open up discussions.

Genuine desire
“We feel the government of Indonesia has a genuine desire to ensure issues relating to West Papua are managed in a mutually beneficial manner. For the first time in our bilateral discussions, we were able to discuss this openly with the Indonesian government,” said PM O’Neill.

He said he is convinced that Yudhoyono now wishes to withdraw military presence from West Papua, and allow for more autonomy through economic empowerment of the people.

“We feel this is a good opening for us to engage with the Indonesian government so we can participate in the improvement of the lives of Melanesian people there and of our own people along the border. Our officials are now engaged meaningfully in establishing the cooperation we agreed,” he said.

PNG’s Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato elaborated on the deal that was informally struck: “The Indonesian president will adopt a softer approach to West Papuan issues, allowing them greater autonomy.”

As an indicator of this, official representatives will participate in the Melanesian Festival of Arts and Culture to be hosted by PNG next year.

He said Indonesia would allow Papua New Guinea communities near the border to draw on its excess hydro power capacity with state-owned enterprise PNG Power buying electricity for its grid from Indonesia, and that the two countries would jointly explore for oil and gas in highly prospective targets that straddle the border.

Indonesia, Pato said, would fund an ambitious paved highway from Merauke on its side of the border in the south, to PNG’s Wewak on the northern coast.

The countries’ leaders signed a total of 11 MOUs during O’Neill’s visit, after which Pato and his Indonesian counterpart Marty Natalegawa began to chart an implementation course.

Extradition treaty
They agreed on an extradition treaty—which may ensure that Indonesian businessman fugitive Joko Chandra—wanted for corruption and who obtained PNG citizenship under a process that is being challenged legally—returns to face charges.

Another agreement under final negotiation, will permit planes to fly from Nadi, Fiji, through Honiara in Solomon Islands, then Port Moresby, and on to Bali.

One goal of the warming of relations, Pato said, was to prevent any resurgence of asylum-seekers from the Indonesian side of the border. About 8,000 refugees remain in PNG, living in camps in Western province run by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees following earlier conflicts, many of them seeking refuge more than 25 years ago.

The discussions between PNG and Indonesia have led to the latter inviting the foreign ministers of the four Melanesian states — Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji, as well as PNG, who form the “Melanesian Spearhead Group” (MSG) — to visit its Papua and West Papua provinces.

O’Neill flew for talks with Yudhoyono instead of attending an MSG leaders’ meeting held at the same time in New Caledonia.

While PNG is helping to usher its fellow Melanesians in towards better relations with Indonesia, Indonesia in return is backing Port Moresby’s membership of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN).

ASEAN has 10 members at present — and PNG feels it is entitled to join it because it has such a long land border with the group’s largest state.

Indonesia is also backing PNG’s bid to host the 2018 summit of the APEC forum — which would bring the American and Russian presidents, among other leaders, to Port Moresby — which will be decided at the next summit in Bali in October.

“It’s important for us to have such a relationship with Indonesia,” said Pato — who points out that in previous years, tensions not only unresolved but not even fully discussed about West Papua had prevented the full development of positive, mutually beneficial arrangements between the countries.

Now a joint committee of ministers from the countries has been formed to tackle the details and ensure the MOUs are implemented, he said — starting with the joint economic projects.

Source: Islands Business

Abbott’s task with Indonesia not as easy as it looks

Analysis by: Michael Bachelard === Tony Abbott has backed away from his pledge to visit Indonesia in his first week in office but the promise stands to make it his first overseas destination as prime minister.

The meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum will be held in Nusa Dua, Bali, early next month, so if he also travels to Jakarta before that, he’ll be going twice to the country in his first month in office. His visit, or visits, will be watched closely.

But without Abbott having lifted a finger, economic circumstances have done him one big favour. In response to a current account scare and the plunge of the rupiah, Indonesia’s new finance manager has removed the quota on beef imports in the name of economic stimulus.

The short-lived Australian ban on live exports in 2011, followed by the nationalistic assertion in Indonesia that it could be self-sufficient in beef by 2014, conspired both to damage the Northern Territory cattle industry and send Indonesian beef prices soaring. Abbott used it ruthlessly to hurt Labor.

Indonesia’s quiet abandonment of that policy during Australia’s election campaign has cleared one issue off the bilateral table but Abbott cannot expect the rest of his demands of Indonesia to be settled so easily.

On asylum seekers particularly, he has raised hackles. His boat-buying policy has been labelled “crazy”, with senior MP Mahfudz Siddiq saying this week that it was clear Abbott “doesn’t understand diplomacy or bilateral co-operation”.

His “turn back the boats” policy is also deeply unpopular right up to the presidential office.

This is a question of sovereignty and national pride on both sides of the ocean.

When Australia’s navy turns the first boat around under Operation Sovereign Borders – and it becomes the responsibility of Indonesia’s anaemic search and rescue capability – or limps back to an already bursting immigration detention system, expect Indonesian civil society and politics to object loudly about Australian chauvinism.

At Abbott’s back, though, are the expectations he himself has raised.

Former Liberal foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer, for example, has argued that Australia should earn respect in Jakarta by muscling up.

“If John Howard had rung me and asked if he should sign a joint communique with Indonesia saying we would never act unilaterally to protect our borders, I would have told him it would be a sell-out of our national interest,” Downer wrote in July. “It would be weak and fawning. You don’t win respect signing documents like that. But that’s hypothetical. Howard, a patriot if ever there were one, wouldn’t have countenanced signing such a document.”

Abbott is known in Indonesia as Howard’s political offspring. That is not an unalloyed positive. Castigated first as George Bush’s “deputy sheriff,” Howard did develop a good relationship with Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono personally, and Indonesia generally, after the first Bali bombing in 2002, sealing it with a billion-dollar donation after the Aceh disaster in 2004. But he is still widely blamed for “masterminding” the separation of East Timor.

Meanwhile, Abbott will turn up in Indonesia promising, for the sake of domestic politics, a huge cut to foreign aid – $4.5 billion out over the next four years. The fact that this is likely to hit Indonesia hardest – it is our biggest aid recipient – has already been noted in Jakarta. A Jakarta Post opinion story on Monday said of aid: “The future looks bleak.”

A wild card in the diplomatic mix is one tiny boat with six people aboard. The Pog, the last vessel of the so-called Freedom Flotilla, set off on Monday morning from far north Queensland en route to West Papua. The Pog carries Amos Wanggai, one of the indigenous Papuan men who deeply disturbed relations between Howard and Indonesia in 2006 by sailing in the opposite direction and successfully seeking asylum in Australia.

West Papua is the poison apple in the bilateral relationship. After that refugee incident, Howard tried to find an antidote with the Lombok treaty of 2006, which guarantees Australian support for Indonesian control over Papua.

However, many Indonesians simply do not believe the words, and think Australia still agitates for the province’s independence, just as it did East Timor’s.

The landing of the Pog, its interception by the Indonesian military, and the possible imprisonment of its sailors may pose an early challenge for Abbott and his likely foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop.

Indonesia’s economy is growing fast. Its military is gearing up. It is flexing its diplomatic muscles as the largest economy in the Association of South East Asian Nations. It is becoming more assertive about its place in the world.

It is also at the end of an electoral cycle. SBY’s term ends next year and he already looks like yesterday’s man. His replacement may not be as sympathetic or measured towards Australia’s needs, and the relationship remains full of potential misunderstandings on both sides.

As prime minister, Abbott cannot any longer pretend that his boats policy is unpopular in Indonesia because Labor spoilt the relationship. He must take responsibility for his own policies and set his own tone with a changing, increasingly confident Indonesia, while projecting an image that allows him to work with whoever replaces SBY.

It’s not an easy task, and it begins soon.

=> Michael Bachelard is Indonesia correspondent for Fairfax Media

Source: The Age

PNG promotes engagement with Indonesia over West Papua

PNG’s PM Peter O’Neill

Papua New Guinea’s Prime Minister Peter O’Neill has called for engagement with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as the way forward for the issue of West Papua.

Attending the Pacific Islands Forum in Majuro this week, the PNG Prime Minister said: “We are generally encouraged by the response that we are getting from the Indonesian government – especially the President – where he has stated to us very clearly that he wanted to engage with us to resolve issues in West Papua, so there is a level of autonomy for the people of West Papua.”

The issue of West Papua was high on the agenda at the June 2013 summit of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) in New Caledonia, where delegations from the Indonesian government and the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL) both addressed the summit plenary.

However the topic of West Papua was not on the Forum agenda in Majuro and there was no mention of human rights concerns in the final Forum communique.

At the time of the MSG Summit, Prime Minister O’Neill and PNG Foreign Minister Rimbink Pato were leading a major delegation to Indonesia.

This week, O’Neill stressed the importance of engagement with Indonesia, given their opposition to independence for the western half of the island of New Guinea, which Jakarta administers as the provinces of Papua and West Papua.

“I want to make it very clear again that any resolutions we may have to come to in respect of West Papua will always include Indonesia,” O’Neill said. “It pays for us to stay engaged with Indonesia.”

The major focus of O’Neill’s June visit to Jakarta was trade and investment, but security issues and border relations were discussed.

“We look forward to working closely with them and also developing joint economic areas with the border area,” O’Neill said. “Some of the vast natural resources we have around the border area we can develop together.”

The PNG Prime Minister said that over time there has been improved dialogue on the issue: “I’m encouraged by the events that are taking place, including the Melanesian Spearhead Group ministers are going to have a tour to West Papua. But I’m also happy that the Indonesian government has asked us, the Papua New Guineans, to resolve some of the issues in West Papua.

As yet, details of the proposed MSG Ministerial Mission to Jakarta and Jayapura have not been finalised. In Majuro, Vanuatu’s Deputy Prime Minister Edward Natapei confirmed to Islands Business that no dates have yet been set for the visit.

For the Vanuatu government led by Prime Minister Moana Carcasses Kalosil, the MSG’s engagement with Jakarta must be conducted together.

The leader of Vanuatu’s delegation in Majuro, Deputy Prime Minister Natapei told Islands Business: “We believe that the MSG should conduct this ministerial mission together, with all of us intact.”

Last month, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Gordon Darcy Lilo made a state visit to Indonesia – the first Solomon Islands leader to visit the South East Asian nation.

In a statement after the visit, the Solomon Islands government said: “Prime Minister Lilo’s recent trip not only produced greater technical cooperation, trade commitments and people-to-people relations, but has been hailed by Indonesia for the country’s ongoing active role in multilateral forums such as the Coral Triangle Initiative, the G7 Plus and also APEC.”

Source: Islands Business