A Slow-Motion Genocide: Indonesian Rule in West Papua

A Slow-Motion Genocide: Indonesian Rule in West Papua

Jim Elmslie and Camellia Webb-Gannon argue that Indonesian rule in West Papua amounts to a “slow-motion” genocide under the 1948 UN Genocide Convention. They show that West Papuans form a distinct national, ethnic and religious group and that at least four of the acts listed in the Convention have been committed against them: killings, serious bodily and mental harm, conditions of life designed to destroy the group and the forcible transfer of children. Their central claim is that intent, which an earlier Yale Law School study could not establish, can be shown.

The authors describe Indonesian control since 1962 and 1963 as a military occupation in which Papuans who support independence are treated as the enemy. Their evidence includes estimates that up to 500,000 Papuans have died under Indonesian rule, the 1977 military campaign in the central highlands, the 1998 Biak massacre and Budi Hernawan’s documentation of 431 cases of torture between 1963 and 2010, as well as widespread sexual violence, infant mortality far higher among indigenous Papuans than among settlers, and reports of children taken to religious schools in Java. They read official statements, including a transmigration minister’s remarks in 1985, as evidence of intent.

They conclude that genocidal acts have been committed intentionally since the start of Indonesian rule, and that because the internet now makes them harder to hide, Indonesia and the states that signed the Genocide Convention will face growing pressure to respond.

Full article

Read the full article on the Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity

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