BP: Bleeding Papua
Copied below is the latest update from the Free West Papua mailing list, to which you can subscribe here.
FREE WEST PAPUA CAMPAIGN,
Oxford, 11th April 2007
Dear Friends of West Papua,
FWPC has a very clear position on BP’s presence in West Papua: they shouldn’t be there!
BP’s “Tangguh” Natural Gas project is in effect a handler of stolen goods. Indonesia is the armed robber who occupied the West Papuans’ home by force, killed some of its inhabitants, raped its women and tied up the rest. Now the robber is selling off the contents of the home to the highest bidder and, on the condition that they turn a blind eye to the piles of corpses which litter the home, “ever so socially responsible” BP is one of the robber’s willing customers.
One day, sooner than he thinks, the robber will be thrown out of the house and its original owners will return to start re-building their home. THEN, and ONLY THEN, (Independence) THEY, and ONLY THEM (the West Papuan People), can then decide if they still want to sell to the robber’s former customer — BP.
In London next Tuesday, BP will be holding its annual “Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel” (TIAP) meeting. For several years I went inside these meetings in an attempt to get the truth about Indonesia’s illegal occupation of est Papua out in the open. One year I held up a Morning Star flag in front of Indonesia’s former Ambassador to Australia, Sabam Siagian, and said “If I did this inside the BP project area, your soldiers would either arrest me or shoot me!” (Siagian, by the way, is the Indonesian representative on TIAP, who spent a lifetime lying for his country as bloody Suharto’s representative around the world. At one of the meetings, Siagian once arrogantly told me that I wasn’t allowed to call “Papua”, “West Papua” as that is not its “official name”. I told him that ordering people around may be the way the Indonesian government operates, but it’s not going to work with me here in London!” And I continued to call West Papua, “West Papua”!)
2 years ago, I and other colleagues held meetings with BP to discuss the contents (or lack of contents) about what is really happening in West Papua on BP’s website. (See Quotations below) BP listened very politely… and then did precisely nothing.
So now, FWPC will not be inside the meeting listening to speeches about when the West Papuans’ own natural resources will be flowing to customers in California and China, we’ll be outside in the street making as big a noise as ossible to SHAME BP for doing business in West Papua in the middle of a GENOCIDE.
When UK public opinion starts to turn against the multi-nationals for their complicity with the killers, and when they start to feel the pain on the bottom line of their profit & loss accounts, then sooner or later, UK Government policy will change. (Remember Barclays Bank’s close links with apartheid South Africa?)
Visit [here] for the flyer “Bleeding Papua!” we’ll be handing out on Tuesday outside the BP meeting.
PLEASE JOIN US @ a FWPC LONDON DEMO
AGAINST BP in WEST PAPUA!
Tuesday, 17 April 2007 outside Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street,
London. W1G 7LP
8.30am onwards (finishing at about 2.00pm)
Nearest Tube stations; Oxford Circus, Goodge St or Regent’s Park.
If at all possible, please join us for the whole or part of the demo. Your presence really will make a difference. Inside occupied West Papua what we are doing would be impossible. The people inside keep on telling us that they need us on the outside to use the freedom we enjoy (and often take for granted) to take action in ways they cannot do inside. WEST PAPUA NEEDS YOU!
THANK YOU, as always, for all your support and solidarity. The Free West Papua movement here in the UK and worldwide is growing!
Papua Merdeka!
Richard
P.S. Copied below is the official invitation to the BP Tangguh meeting.
Richard Samuelson
Free West Papua Campaign, Oxford, UK
www.freewestpapua.org
FREE WEST PAPUA CAMPAIGN
Quotations No 5:
“…you [Indonesia] started to rip open and destroy our Land. We call our Land our Mother because she gives us everything we need to live. You sold our Mother to British, American & Australian companies like Rio Tinto & BP. You ot rich whilst we West Papuans got poorer, not because we want your kind of riches, but because without our Mother we die”.
Benny Wenda; Open letter to the Indonesian Ambassador in London,
1st December 2006
“Mining corporations have brought nothing to West Papua but increased militarism and environmental destruction.”
OPM leader, Sorong
In December 1994, covered in mud and naked except for the traditional highland penis gourd, Amungme tribal chief Tuarek Narkime walked the long road from his village in Banti up to Tembagapura, the Freeport company town. Confronting Freeport officials, he said simply,
“Gentlemen, I am angry with God. Why has He created such beautiful mountains, valleys and rivers, rich with minerals and placed us – the indigenous peoples – here in this place that attracts so many people from around the world to come, exploit our resources, and kill us?”
“The legacy with the central government is complex”
“Challenges are posed by the operating environment”.
The ONLY mention of Indonesia’s 43 year long genocidal occupation of West Papua on BP’s webpages, “Papua Overview”: [here]
& “The Tangguh LNG Project in Papua”: [here (.pdf)]
The Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel (TIAP) and BP invite you to join us for a discussion on developments at the Tangguh LNG project during the past year. The meeting will be held in London on Tuesday, 17 April 2007 at Asia House, 63 New Cavendish Street, London. W1G 7LP. Registration and refreshments will be available beginning 9:30am and the meeting will commence at 10am prompt, finishing with an informal lunch at around 2.30pm.
TIAP Chairman Senator George Mitchell, together with Panel members, Lord Hannay, Reverend Herman Saud and Ambassador Sabam Siagian, will summarise TIAP’s Fifth Report on Tangguh to BP. In addition BP will provide summary of the project’s status and its progress over the year. There will be an opportunity for all participants to question both the Panel and BP and to raise any concerns about any aspect of the project.
As in previous years, to ensure that we cover the areas of greatest concern and interest, we would welcome any suggestions and comments you have in advance by 10 April. TIAP’s Fifth Annual Report, which follows the Panel’s visit in November 2006, as well as BP’s response, will be made available in advance of the meeting at the end of March. Further information on the project can be found at: www.bp.com/indonesia
If you are able to attend the London meeting on 17 April, please respond to Valerie Ellis-Boyle (boylvl@bp.com), or by telephone on 020 7496 4912, by Friday 13th April. For any questions relating to the purpose and content of the event please contact Matthew Taylor on 020 7496 4931.
Senator George Mitchell
Chairman, Tangguh Independent Advisory PanelJohn Mingé
Strategic Performance Unit Leader, Asia PacificMatthew Taylor
Manager, Corporate Responsibility (London)
Unfortunately, I can’t make it to the protest, but if anyone can it’s certainly a worthy cause. Foreign multinationals have been raping West Papua of its resources for decades, and in doing so are complicit in the ongoing genocide of the West Papuan people. Human rights groups estimate that approx. 100,000 people have been killed in the course of the 40-year occupation, and a 2003 Yale Law School report (.pdf) concluded that “the historical and contemporary evidence…strongly suggests that the Indonesian government has committed proscribed acts with the intent to destroy the West Papuans as such, in violation of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”.
Such facts are rarely reported in the mainstream press, because the attempted annihilation of the West Papuan people has been perpetrated by a firm Western (and British) ally. Indeed, it was conducted primarily using British and American-sold weapons. The genocide of the West Papuan people therefore constitutes what veteran media analyst Edward S. Herman calls an “unworthy genocide“- such genocides, carried out by Western or client states, “receive little attention or indignation and are not labelled genocides, even where the scale of killings greatly exceeds those so designated, obviously based on political utility.”
The Freeport mining corporation, which operates Grasberg, the world’s largest gold deposit and third-largest open-cut copper mine, has paid millions of dollars to the TNI (Indonesia’s gangster army, whose special forces – the Kopassus – are described by John Pilger as “among the world’s most seasoned terrorists”) to provide “security” for the mines. In practice, this largely amounts to a protection racket, with members of the TNI attacking Freeport workers and then blaming it on the OPM (the West Papuan resistance, often armed with nothing more than bows and arrows) in an attempt to extract money from multinationals in exchange for “protection”. Moreover, Freeport pays billions of dollars every year to the Indonesian government in taxes and royalties, representing one of its single biggest sources of revenue . It is companies like Freeport and BP that make the continued oppression and occupation of the West Papuan people so profitable for Indonesia (the Indonesian government has a 9% stake in PT Freeport Indonesia, which operates the Grasberg mine). A joint statement by 12 human rights organisations in March 2003 concluded,
“The payment of money by Freeport to the armed forces and the fact that the armed forces have been able to make use of transnational facilities when violating human rights and committing violence means that the transnationals are themselves directly involved in and contribute towards this violence and these abuses.”
BP is slightly better in that it aims to only employ local Papuans for security, though whether this is really feasible is another matter – the Indonesian academic Dr. George Aditjondro, for example, has argued that it is impossible for any company to do business in Indonesia without some links to either the police or the military. BP’s website claims, in relation to its Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project in West Papua, that,
“BP believes that business can be a force for good.”
In reality, a coalition of NGOs and human rights activists, including 300 people and organisations from within West Papua itself, signed a letter in June 2005 slamming BP’s human rights practices in West Papua. “BP claims to have human rights policies”, it said, “but they are constantly violating the rights of the local indigenous people.” In any case, the principle should be clear: the only authority BP has obtained to refine and process West Papuan natural resources is that of an illegitimate, occupying, genocidal regime, and that really is no authority at all. In George Monbiot’s words,
“[T]here is no representative Papuan assembly with the power to decide whether or not the project should go ahead, and on what terms. BP derives its authority to act from an occupying power in the midst of an attempted genocide.”
(Incidentally, the “Context: Indonesia” page (.pdf) on BP’s website should instantly demolish any pretensions it has to “corporate social responsibility” – read it yourself and marvel at the historical whitewash. The only “context” that matters for BP, it seems, is the “rapid economic expansion” achieved by Gen. Suharto. His genocide of 200,000 East Timorese, a third of the population, goes unmentioned.)
Recently, around 400 West Papuans demanding the right to sift for gold in Grasberg’s polluted tailings staged a five-day blockade of the mine, risking possible torture and death. The action was taken in response to the shooting of five West Papuans, dubbed “illegal miners”, by Freeport security officers and Indonesian police. The protest ended successfully – Freeport was forced to back down and allow the miners to continue prospecting through the waste trailings. It is these courageous acts of resistance and defiance we should be supporting. BP, together with the British government, are doing the precise opposite, by actively cooperating with and facilitating the occupation.
I think it’s worthwhile protesting any company cooperating with injustice and human rights abuse, both as a matter of principle and publicity, but it is worth mentioning that amoral corporate entities like BP will always do what they’re allowed to do, in the interests of maximising profits. It is the job of government to legislate business – expecting BP to voluntarily forego the huge profits West Papua’s natural resources represent because of concerns about human rights is unrealistic. The government should enforce a ban on business engagement with Indonesia until it ends the occupation and respects the West Papuan right to self-determination, or at the very least until the human rights abuses stop. Currently, despite officially conceding the illegitimacy of the 1969 “Act of Free Choice” for the first time in December 2004, it remains British policy to respect Indonesian “territorial integrity” (and to sell arms to the Indonesian regime). It is this cold contempt for basic human rights that, above all else, we must work hard to oppose.
(For a more in-depth look at the situation in West Papua, see here).
Filed under: Activism, Media, News and politics, UK, West Papua | 5 Comments
Tags: BP, corporations
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The parallel is often made between apartheid South Africa and zionist Israel, but I don’t think it really applies. Organising a large-scale, visible boycott of Israel without being slapped down as an anti-semite would be close to impossible, and I don’t see it acheiving much beyond hardening their resolve and perhaps further increasing the flow of US aid.
In the case of West Papua I think there is more hope. Organisations like BP are very much a part of the ongoing abuses in West Papua, and our governments’ resolve to ignore it. If, through protests and awareness campaigns, we can make it politically and ultimately economically unviable to participate in the genocide they can change their ways, for as you said the predatory corporations are not evil, merely amoral.
In his book Collapse, Jared Diamond compares mining operations in West Papua with those in Papua New Guinea. There have been some appallingly destructive operations on both sides, but recently large scale operations on the New Guinea side have become much more environmentally responsible. He is particularly impressed by Chevron’s Kutubu oil field, which “functions as by far the largest and rigourously controlled national park in Papua New Guinea.
Chevron are no more or less evil than BP. They are simply trying to avert a major public relations disaster and preempt any eventual government regulations. BP take no such care with West Papua because they don’t have to. The Indonesian government helps oppress the people, and the Western media turn a huge collective blind eye. Who’s going to defend the West Papuans and their mother?
This campaign is important then not just for the sake of showing dissent, but because it might actually make a difference. As opposed to, say, Live Earth.
Yeah – I think effective pressure on Israel will have to come from the state level and, realistically, will have to come from the U.S. A large scale, public boycott from within the Jewish community would also do a lot, but it ain’t gonna happen.
I support the campaign totally – I just wanted to say that I think the main focus of dissent should probably remain on government.
Interesting. In case anyone else was trying to find it, the link which goes over the history is this one. Some dismiss this sort of long term occupation by saying things like, “And should we give North America back to the Indians too?” (with an implied ‘no’ of course), but it seems to me that an appropriate cut off point, if you have to choose one, would be the end of world war two, the creation of the United Nations and the signing by almost all the nations of the world of that document and others which recognise that the subjection of one people by another through war is invalid, that war is to be outlawed and that people have a right to govern their own affairs.
At the moment tracing the “cut off” back to approximately 1945-1950 also has the advantage that in any specific case of war or occupation there will still be some if not many alive who were witnesses to the event, the direct victims still alive today.
Yeah – I suppose that seems reasonable. Certainly, there has to be some cut-off point, and the formation of the UN (and the accompanying UN Charter) would seem to be a reasonable candidate (although the principle that the resort to war except in self-defence is wrong pre-dates the UN – see the Charter of the League of Nations, for example).