By Edmund McWilliams

In July 1998 I was serving as the Political Counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta. Throughout the archipelago, it was a time of turmoil but also of great hope.  In May, the three-decade old Suharto dictatorship had been overthrown by a popular uprising led largely by courageous young people, notably university students, who held massive, largely peaceful demonstrations.  Indonesians were united by the dream of “reformasi,”: a A determination not only to put an end dictatorial rule but also to end corruption in the governing elite; a determination to  as well end as security force abuse of human rights and to secure accountability of those forces for their crimes.

In various parts of the archipelago popular demands reflected grievances particular to the area:  in East Timor people demanded an end to decades of Indonesia’s illegal occupation and repression which extended back to Indonesia’s brutal, illegal invasion of East Timor in 1975.  In Aceh, people sought an end to repression and greater political rights.  In West Papua too, there were increasingly assertive, but peaceful demands for an end to military repression, exploitation and the systematic violation of basic human rights, including the right to self-determination.

In early July, 1998, demonstrators residents in of Biak, a small island off West Papua’s northern coast, organized a large, peaceful demonstration to demand Papuan rights.  On July 1 local people peacefully raised the popular Papuan Morning Star flag to commemorate the anniversary of West Papua’s independence from the Dutch.  There followed several days of celebration and peaceful rallies in Biak.  Papuan demands included the right to vote on their political future. The demonstrations were fueled in part by an unfounded rumor that a UN team was about to visit Biak.

The reaction of Indonesian security forces at Biak was profoundly unlike their response to protest in other parts of the archipelago during and since the May overthrow of the Dictator Suharto.  While security forces had employed brutal force on occasion in confronting peaceful demonstrators, including in Jakarta, for the most part, and especially after the removal of Suharto from office, the military and police had not attacked demonstrators. What transpired in The events in Biak in early July gave clear indication that notwithstanding the removal of the dictator of Suharto, in West Papua Suharto-era repression and brutality was still in force in West Papua.  Those brutal tactics remain the military’s modus operandi to this day. Moreover, military collusion with domestic and foreign corporate interests today is rampant in West Papua as it was during the Suharto era.

At dawn on July 6 security forces, mostly those drawn from the Indonesian naval base on Biak island, attacked the main demonstration on Kota Biak (aka Water Tower Hill) where the Morning Star flag had been raised.  Peaceful demonstrators, many sleeping or in prayer, were gunned down by the Indonesian security forces.  The military personnel loaded the wounded and others onto military vehicles and  then transported them to the nearby naval base.  Approximately 200 of the survivors of the mayhem were then loaded on naval vessels, and taken out to sea.  There the survivors were thrown from the Indonesian naval vessels into the sea.  Many of these victims were still handcuffed; others were stabbed before they were thrown into the water.  For many In the following weeks, bodies of victims from this massacre washed up on the beaches.  Jakarta authorities claimed that these  bodies were victims of a tsunami which had struck Papua New Guinea during this period.  The tsunami claim was not credible,  as the point of the tsunami’s landfall was hundreds of kilometers to the east of Biak.

Information about the Biak massacre reached Jakarta slowly and with little detail. Human Rrights workers and some local journalists were largely prevented from visiting the scene of the massacre and from conducting interviews with survivors and witnesses.  Alerted to the scale of the massacre by Papuan contacts, I sought permission from my Embassy and the Indonesian Government to fly to West Papua. I was  seeking credible first hand accounts of the massacre.  I was not allowed to go to Biak but only to travel as far as to the capital Jayapura (Port Numbay).  A week after the massacre, when the Jayapura-bound Indonesian airlines aircraft flight made a refueling stop in Biak, I got off the plane and did not re-board.  I was able to spend several days in Biak before boarding a return Jakarta-bound flight.

During my brief visit to Biak, a week after the July 6 massacre, I found the entire town traumatized.  There was little activity in the streets, many shops were closed and local people clearly did not want to be seen talking to a foreigner.  I visited Kota Biak hill, scene of the water tower massacre.  The small field around the water tower was bounded on one side by a wall where I had been told I could see evidence of the massacre, including bullet holes and blood.  But the wall had been freshly plastered and painted. An elderly women who observed my search of the scene motioned me to the legs of the water tower.  These revealed many bullet holes approximately chest high.  (The U.S. Defense Attache had earlier told the rest of the Embassy team that the Indonesian military had been forced to fire live ammunition to break up an unruly demonstration at the site but that according to the Attache’s Indonesian military sources, the Indonesian troops had fire above the demonstrators’ heads.)

While I was reluctant to endanger any Biak residents by seeking interviews, I was approached by a few people.  One young man offered to take me to his brother who had been badly beaten in the military assault at Kota Biak Hill.  He had escaped arrest and was in hiding. I chose not to endanger the victim by seeking him out but did briefly interview the few people who approached me on the street including the brother of the man who had been beaten. He told me that bodies of those killed at Kota Biak Hill had been loaded like wood, thrown into military trucks along with wounded survivors.  He said that when the doors of some of the trucks were opened at the base blood flowed from the truck beds onto the ground.

A local Christian pastor whom I had met on an earlier visit spoke with me briefly at his church. He confirmed that bodies had begun to wash up on local beaches, but that military personnel were not would not allowing the bodies to be buried by local people in Christian ceremonies.  Instead the military personnel were took them away and disposing of them.  He noted that some of the bodies were identified by clothing, including political t-shirts distributed by  the Indonesian parties.  He cited this fact as evidence that the bodies had not been victims of the Papua New Guinea tsunami as claimed by the Government. He also noted that many of the victims had their hands bound.

The Indonesian Government has never acknowledged the Biak massacre. No Indonesian military personnel have ever been prosecuted for the crime. The Biak Massacre is strongly reminiscent of the 1991 Dili Santa Cruz massacre in which hundreds of East Timorese were murdered by the Indonesian military during a peaceful march. Those marchers, like the Papuans in Biak who had rallied for their rights, including the right of self-determination, had been inspired to demonstrate by the expectation of a UN mission visit.  The critical difference between the two massacres was that western journalists were on the scene in Dili East Timor to record the assault and tell the international community what had happened.  The West Papuans in Biak suffered and died in silence, their pain obscured then and now by an occupation regime in Jakarta that has drawn a curtain over this and other attrocities.  The international community, including the UN and Jakarta’s allies in Washington and elsewhere, by their silence, have enabled Jakarta  to hide the bitter truth of on-going repression in West Papua.