Bush Officials Cover-Up Indonesian Military Role in Murder of U.S. Citizens
April 9th, 2007
Evidence of Indonesian military involvement in the deaths of two American citizens has been suppressed, according to a report released today by Joyo Indonesian News Service and Pantau Foundation. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and other senior administration officials, have been misleading Congress and the public about a 2002 assault near the gold and copper mine of Freeport McMoRan (FCX) in the remote Indonesian province of Papua. The Bush Administration sees Indonesia, the world?s most populous Muslim nation, as a key ally in the Global War on Terrorism.
?It?s sad to see that U.S. terrorism policy has once again sacrificed truth and justice,? said Andreas Harsono, a journalist of the Pantau media group, who co-authored the report.
F.B.I. agents entrapped at least one innocent man, Reverend Isak Onawame, in connection with this murder. Rev. Onawame, an elderly human rights advocate, was detained by the F.B.I. in Papua and delivered to Indonesian custody where he was strip searched, deprived of sleep, and interrogated. On November 7th, 2006, an Indonesian court found Rev. Onawame guilty of supplying attackers with food, based on a false confession extracted during interrogation. Six other men, including Antonius Wamang, who has admitted to participating in the attack, were given sentences of 18 months to life in jail during the same trial.
?By all accounts Wamang?s group only had three guns,? said co-author S. Eben Kirksey, a doctoral candidate at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The report authors obtained a copy of a classified Indonesian ballistics report, which is being released to the public for the first time today. Through microscopic analysis of bullet fragments, this ballistics report concluded that a total of 13 guns were fired at the scene of the crime.
?We?re the first to publicly identify a smoking gun. In fact, we have unearthed evidence of 10 smoking guns,? continued Kirksey. ?There was another group of shooters wielding enormous firepower.? Eyewitnesses, and logs of vehicle traffic through road checkpoints, place Indonesian soldiers at the scene of the crime.
The full text of the report, ?Murder at Mile 63?, and the Indonesian ballistics report, is available, on the websites of the East Timor Action Network (http://www.etan.org/) and TAPOL?-The Indonesian Human Rights Campaign (http://tapol.gn.apc.org/).
Papua puppetry leaves murders unsolved By Gary LaMoshi
DENPASAR, Bali - The United States and Indonesia have gotten their man in the ambush killings of two Americans in Papua three years ago. The arrest of Antonius Wamang, an alleged separatist military commander, is supposed to quell speculation that the Indonesian military was behind the shootings. But in this intercontinental production of wayang kulit - Indonesian shadow puppetry - Wamang may not follow the script.
Wamang has admitted firing shots in the August 31, 2002, attack near Timika on a road to Freeport-McMoRan's vast Grasberg mining complex in otherwise remote Papua (see Indonesia's gold standard, Asia Times Online, September 7, 2002). His lawyer says Wamang told police and others he chose the site after receiving information that Indonesian troops would be there, and he intended to attack them.
Instead, he attacked a van full of teachers and other Grasberg employees returning from a picnic. Three people were killed - an Indonesia teacher and two Americans, school principal Edwin Burgon and teacher Ricky Lynn Spier - and 11 others wounded. Wamang was indicted for murder in the US in June 2004 but eluded security forces and a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) team until last week, though Australian television managed to interview him three months after the indictment.
Masked men Attacking Westerners would have been unprecedented for the separatist Free Papua Organization (OPM, for Organisasi Papua Merdeka), which has waged a low-level insurgency against Indonesian rule for decades in the province that Indonesia annexed in 1969. According to his lawyer, Wamang told police interrogators he saw three masked men in military uniforms firing their weapons at the scene as well. He also repeated his past claim that he received his ammunition for the attack from a high-ranking soldier.
Of course that makes no sense. Why would the military give bullets to a militant planning to attack its soldiers? And why would soldiers fire at employees of a company that acknowledges paying nearly US$20 million from 1998 to 2004 to the military for protection, as well as spending $35 million on housing and equipment for soldiers? It makes sense if this deadly drama is wayang kulit, where the dalang (puppet master) below the stage controls the action of the puppets.
In the weeks before the shooting, Freeport McMoRan reportedly proposed cutting its rich payments to military commanders. Fees for security services, along with business interests - illegal and otherwise - cover about 70% of the budget for the military, known by the acronym TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia). It's been a happy coincidence that for decades low-level insurgencies simmered in Aceh and Papua, where Western companies have extensive resource-extraction facilities needing protection. Despite the small numbers of armed militants, the military was never able to quash these fighters.
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em Investigative reports link the military and Papuan opposition forces, particularly in the 1996 rioting that resulted in $3 million worth of damage at Grasberg and the start of Freeport McMoRan's direct payments to the military.
From one end of the archipelago to the other, for various reasons, TNI has repeatedly encouraged, supplied and supported, sometimes with troops, militants such as those responsible for the massacres in East Timor and the sectarian fighting in Ambon and Central Sulawesi that even conspiracy skeptics such as International Crisis Group director Sidney Jones now recognize as key to the growth of Islamic terrorism in Indonesia (aee Terrorism links in Indonesia point to military, Asia Times Online, October 8, 2004).
Government security forces are also believed to smuggle arms to militants. That's a two-way win: the military makes money on the sales and on the additional security needed for protection against the fighters. That makes Wamang's story of bullets and masked men more credible.
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Seon Ferguson
2007-04-10 22:03:51 EST
I'm not surprised the Australian government covered up the deaths of reporters murdered by the Indonesian army. Plus there's no oil in Indonesia so why play problem reaction solution over it?
Daeron
2007-04-11 08:07:56 EST
seon ferguson wrote: > there's no oil in > Indonesia so why play problem reaction solution over it?
Although Java does not have any oil or natural resources; it has military. In Asia Sumatra & Borneo have oil & minerals Outside Asia East Timore has oil & West Papua has gold, copper, gas, etc.
Mobil & Chevron found West Papua had gold & copper in 1936, when the Papuans discovered there was local gold & began searching for it, John Rockefeller II had his Freeport Sulphur company begin working on the Ertsberg & Grasberg mines ;
When Indonesia's military proved unable to seize West Papua itself, McGeorge Bundy & Robert Komer inside the White House told Kennedy that the only way to save America from communism was to force the Netherlands to sign the New York Agreement selling West Papua to Indonesia.
Seon Ferguson
2007-04-12 02:38:34 EST
"Daeron" <name@domain.tld> wrote in message news:2713430.mNKVlQsnmq@minds.org... > seon ferguson wrote: >> there's no oil in >> Indonesia so why play problem reaction solution over it? > > Although Java does not have any oil or natural resources; it has military. > In Asia > Sumatra & Borneo have oil & minerals > Outside Asia > East Timore has oil & West Papua has gold, copper, gas, etc. > > Mobil & Chevron found West Papua had gold & copper in 1936, > when the Papuans discovered there was local gold & began searching for > it, > John Rockefeller II had his Freeport Sulphur company begin working on > the > Ertsberg & Grasberg mines ; > > When Indonesia's military proved unable to seize West Papua itself, > McGeorge Bundy & Robert Komer inside the White House told Kennedy that > the only way to save America from communism was to force the Netherlands > to > sign the New York Agreement selling West Papua to Indonesia. > I didn't know that, interesting. Now I know why people want to free West Papua and our leaders let that movement get oppressed. We both know Bush doesn't care if some reporters are murdered. Unless of course it will help the interests of him and his neocon buddies and the propaganda.
Daeron
2007-04-12 08:32:31 EST
seon ferguson wrote: > "Daeron" <name@domain.tld> wrote in message > news:2713430.mNKVlQsnmq@minds.org... >> seon ferguson wrote: >>> there's no oil in >>> Indonesia so why play problem reaction solution over it? >> >> Although Java does not have any oil or natural resources; it has >> military. >> In Asia >> Sumatra & Borneo have oil & minerals >> Outside Asia >> East Timore has oil & West Papua has gold, copper, gas, etc. >> >> Mobil & Chevron found West Papua had gold & copper in 1936, >> when the Papuans discovered there was local gold & began searching for >> it, >> John Rockefeller II had his Freeport Sulphur company begin working on >> the Ertsberg & Grasberg mines ; >> >> When Indonesia's military proved unable to seize West Papua itself, >> McGeorge Bundy & Robert Komer inside the White House told Kennedy that >> the only way to save America from communism was to force the Netherlands >> to sign the New York Agreement selling West Papua to Indonesia. >> > I didn't know that, interesting. Now I know why people want to free West > Papua and our leaders let that movement get oppressed. We both know Bush > doesn't care if some reporters are murdered. Unless of course it will help > the interests of him and his neocon buddies and the propaganda.
Bechtel services all the US companies in Indonesia & does a lot of other Indonesian work also paid for with colonial profits ; it is head of the "US Indonesia Society" lobby and together I understand they were George Bush's top corporate sponsors for the election in 2000.
GW began in Jan/2001 campaigning for the US to lift its bans on the TNI military ; after 9/11 he claimed it was because America had to prove it had Islamic friends. From 1999-Oct/2002 Laskar Jihad was burning down over two hundred Churches, killed over 8,000 Christian Melanesians, and drove some 70 to 90 thousand fleeing from their homes and islands in Ambon and the Moluccas Islands. In Oct/2002 Laskar Jihad moved to West Papua and began operations there.
Back in 2002 the Indonesian Intelligence Chief admitted al Qaeda and Laskar Jihad cams were both operating and cross training their operatives. According to this http://news.sbs.com.au/dateline/index.php?page=transcript&dte=2005-03-16&headlineid=940 video report smuggled out of West Papua and aired in March 2005, the Laskar Jihad leaders were still claiming to be in regular contact and coordinating their activities with the leaders of al Qaeda.
Regarding the Neocon buddies, there seems to be grounds for asking how much gold Freeport & Bechtel are really digging up - a perfect source for covert funds. For full info on West Papua you can use http://wpik.org as a good starting point.