The federal government will establish a joint team including officials and members of the general public to penetrate the current killings in Papua’s Intan Jaya regency, Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Mahfud MD said on Thursday.
Mahfud included that the group’s members would consist of government authorities, academics as well as religious, community and customary leaders. The team would report its findings to President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo through the coordinating minister.
” The federal government will form [this] joint examination group that can be more unbiased in exploring [the killings], so as not to trigger debate,” Mahfud said throughout a press conference on Thursday.
In the last few weeks, authorities and the press have actually reported several killings in the regency. Mahfud confirmed the deaths of one pastor, one civilian and two Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel, saying that an armed criminal group (KKB) was responsible.
The Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) has alleged that the slain pastor, Yeremia Zanambani, was killed by a TNI soldier. The military has denied that.
Mahfud likewise got in touch with the cops to continue investigating the cases. “We have purchased the cops to continue to reveal these cases in an expert way following the applicable law.”
Mahfud also discussed the recent United Nations General Assembly, where Vanuatu Prime Minister Bob Loughman stated that Jakarta had actually been selective in attending to alleged human rights offenses in Papua and West Papua while abuses continue in the country’s easternmost area.
Mahfud stated Vanuatu’s perseverance with the claims was “no longer intriguing”, claiming that comparable allegations from other countries had been reducing given that 2016.
” For Indonesia, Vanuatu is making things up. […] Vanuatu is not the people of Papua and does not represent individuals of Papua, because Papua is Indonesia and Indonesia is Papua,” he said, including that the federal government would continue police and human rights defense efforts in Papua.
In the UN General Assembly, the 2nd secretary at the Indonesian objective to the UN, Silvany Austin Pasaribu, said countries had to respect other nations ' sovereignty and the concept of noninterference in domestic affairs, mentioning the UN charter.
However, Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid stated that issues of human rights abuse were universal affairs. He added that the event of numerous extrajudicial killings in Papua still painted a bleak picture of human rights security in the region, noting five illegal deaths in the previous three months alone.
” None of the cases of extrajudicial killings have been entirely solved. This is the task for Indonesia,” Usman stated in Wednesday’s statement. “If Indonesia stayed real to its human rights commitment, there would be no crucial concerns from anywhere, from the UN Human Rights Council or from other nations, such as Vanuatu.”
