Papua list suggests 'hidden holocaust'

By Chris McCall - Jayapura
Friday 16 November 2001

It is a crude report from one tiny area of West Papua. It lists 614 people who died violent deaths between 1969 and 1998. In the column for "doer", all entries contain the word ABRI, an abbreviation for the Indonesian military.

The report was an initiative in the central Paniai region of West Papua, put together by local people with help from church groups. It is not comprehensive, not independent and needs verification. Many of those involved probably had little education.

But each entry includes a name, an age, a year of death and details of gender, tribe, marital status and village. There are one or two gaps, but too few to be significant. It appears to be a report based on evidence from witnesses.

And it poses a question. If so many died in such a small area, what has happened all over West Papua since the United Nations gave it to Indonesia in 1963? Through fragmentary evidence like this, human rights groups are uncovering evidence of a hidden holocaust, concealed by remoteness, official restrictions and lack of interest by the outside world.

Aloy Renwarin, vice-director of the Papuan human rights lobby Els-Ham, says that there are strong suggestions the total number of victims of Indonesian rule in West Papua may equal or exceed those in East Timor.

In East Timor, human rights groups contend that about 200,000 people died of war, famine and disease between 1975 and 1999, the years Indonesia invaded and finally left. Although really just a best guess, there is reasonable consensus now that the figure roughly reflects the underlying truth.

Mr Renwarin is careful with his information. He admits he does not have the hard data to back up the claim, but the indications are there in documents like the Paniai report.

"The number may be more than in East Timor. It is clearly about the same or even more. But no one works seriously on it," said Mr Renwarin. "Everyone is still scared. An example is Theys' death."

Separatist leader Theys Eluays' flamboyant leadership briefly put his face on newspapers and television screens outside Indonesia, gaining a profile for West Papua it had rarely enjoyed. He was abducted and killed last weekend and will be buried tomorrow, a few hundred metres from Jayapura's airport. He may be the independence movement's first well-known martyr, but many
thousands have preceded him. 

In addition to the confirmed dead, the Paniai report lists 94 women and girls as having been raped by ABRI.