2010 - Volume 13 Number 6
Papua’s abundant natural resources have made it another focus of the ‘resource curse’ – the curse of being resource rich. Significant natural resources often give rise to power struggles to control them and Papua is no exception. The Grasberg mine operated by Freeport-McMoRan and the Indonesian Government is the largest above ground copper mine in the world, but there is a protracted conflict in the area bounded by the mine.
Imparsial, the Indonesian human rights monitor maintains that violence in Papua often targets human rights activists, whom the Indonesian military presume to be members of separatist groups. Although torture of radical students and separatist sympathisers by security forces was no longer in practice, there were ‘still rights violations, arbitrary arrests and detention of Papuans voicing their opinions, especially the young.’
Countries such as Australia and New Zealand use the approach of ‘quiet diplomacy’ which amounts ‘to polite and ineffective representations on human rights’. Australia and New Zealand are also complicit in providing military training to many of the officers who have breached human rights in Papua. They continue to be complicit in resource exploitation.