Paras Indonesia, May, 24 2006 @ 11:50 pm
43rd Papuan Asylum Seeker Denied Visa
By: Roy Tupai
The Australian government, eager to patch up a diplomatic rift with Indonesia, has
decided not to grant a temporary stay visa to the last member of a boatload of 43
asylum seekers from Papua province.
Australian Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone said Wednesday (24/5/06) the
man's application for asylum was rejected because he has the right to live in a third
country.
The 43 Papuans had arrived at Australia's northern coast in January, claiming they
were fleeing persecution and genocide by the Indonesian military. The Australian
government in March decided to grant visas to 42 of them, triggering a major
diplomatic row with Indonesia.
Vanstone declined to identify the 43rd Papuan, currently being detained on Christmas
island, but Australian media reports identified him as David Wainggai (29), the son of
prominent independence activist Tom Wainggai, who died in Jakarta's Cipinang prison
in 1996 while serving a 20-year sentence for organizing an illegal flag raising event in
1988.
Reports said David could be sent to reside in Japan as his mother is reported to be
originally a Japanese citizen, who was also jailed over the flag raising event and now
lives in Jakarta.
Vanstone said the man could appeal the decision to the Refugee Review Tribunal or
accept the ruling. "If you come to Australia claiming protection and you've got a right
to reside somewhere else, other than the place where you are claiming protection, it's
a reasonable proposition to say well, you should go to the place where you have the
right to reside and pursue the matter, that matter there," she was quoted as saying by
the Australian Associated Press.
The man's lawyers had earlier accused Australia of using him as a pawn to bolster
ties with Indonesia, which recalled its ambassador from Canberra over the visa spat.
The two countries' foreign ministers, Hassan Wirajuda and Alexander Downer, met in
Singapore on May 15 to discuss how to repair ties. A meeting is now being planned
between President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Australian Prime Minister John
Howard.
Indonesia has cautiously welcomed Australia's plan to change its immigration
legislation so that any foreigners arriving illegally by boat would be transferred to
offshore immigration detention centers for processing.
Indonesian legislators this week told Australian Ambassador Bill Farmer they would
be observing how the proposed changes are implemented. Farmer made it clear that
Australia opposes Papua's separatist movement and instead supports the
government's special autonomy package for the province. "We have no interest in
separatism, we oppose separatism," he was quoted as saying by the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation.
Legislator Amris Hassan said Australia's plan to send away asylum seekers looks
good on paper, although there remain some doubts because of Australia's role in
helping East Timor to secede from Indonesia.
Papuans in Indonesia are presently more preoccupied with the twin issues of a
disputed provincial election result and the trial of student activists accused of
vandalizing the Jakarta office of US-based mining company Freeport, which operates
the world's biggest gold mine in Papua.
Election Dispute
About 100 Papuan activists rallied in Jakarta on Wednesday to demand the Home
Affairs Ministry postpone the inauguration of Papua's governor-elect Barnabas Suebu,
who in April was declared winner of the province's first direct gubernatorial election.
Suebu was backed in the election by five political parties, including the country's two
biggest, Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P). He and his
running mate, Golkar legislator Alexander Hessegem, won more than 354,700 votes,
narrowly defeating rival candidate Lukas Enembe and his running mate Airobi Ahmad
Aituarauw, who won more than 333,600 votes. Over 17,000 votes in the election were
deemed invalid.
The activists, from the Papuan Forum for the Defense of Democracy, are supporters of
Enembe. They accused Suebu, his backers and some vote counters of electoral
fraud. They demanded fresh voting in Kurima district, Yahukimo regency, claiming
that votes for Enembe had been counted toward Suebu. They failed to meet with
Home Affairs Minister M. Maruf and plan to stage another rally on Monday.
Freeport Vandalism Trial
Also on Wednesday, 10 Papuan students appeared before South Jakarta District
Court to face criminal charges of vandalizing the office building used by Freeport
Indonesia.
The students had attacked the Plaza 89 building in Kuningan, South Jakarta, in
February to protest what they said was the central government's lack of serious
attention to problems faced by indigenous Papuans, including the right to mine waste
from Freeport's massive Grasberg mine.
Inside the court, the students refused to be named defendants and urged judges to
throw out the case. They said they attended the hearing only as witnesses of the
arbitrary exploitation by capitalists of the Papuan people.
"We came to this session as a form and consequence of our struggle to defend the
Papuan people from suppression carried out by the capitalist company and elements
of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia," student Yan Matuan was quoted as
saying by detikcom online news portal.
He said the incident at Plaza 89 was not a criminal action, but a form of protest
against "excessive injustice" in Papua.
The trial will resume on May 31 for judges to hear the prosecution's response to the
students' demand for the case to be dropped.
Copyright (c) 2005 - PT Laksamana Global International. All rights reserved
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