Source: Australian Network News

Transcript

Newscaster:

Australia’s raised hackles in Jakarta over Canberra’s response to an ABC report accusing an Indonesian counter-terrorism unit of human rights violations in West Papua.

Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr has called on Jakarta to investigate the killing of a West Papuan activist, Mako Tabuni, allegedly, by members of a unit called Detachment-88, which has received training and support from the Australian Federal Police.

Jennifer Robinson is an Australian lawyer best known for her role in helping fight efforts by Wikileaks’ Julian Assange to avoid extradition from Britain, but for a decade she’s also been deeply involved in providing legal assistance and advice to West Papuan activists seeking autonomy and, in some cases, independence from Indonesia.

Jennifer Robinson, welcome to the program.

Jennifer Robinson:

Thank you for having me, Jim.

Newscaster:

Let’s start with this: An influential Indonesian legislator has rebuked Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr for seeking an inquiry into the killing of Mako Tabuni. They’re branding him a terrorist, at least the Indonesian legislators are, and accusing Australia of double standards, raising questions about this episode, but then being more than happy when Detachment-88 track down and kill Jihadists and bomb makers in Indonesia.

What do you think about that?

Jennifer Robinson:

There’s absolutely no hypocrisy involved whatsoever, and in fact this is actually very revealing about the Indonesian government’s perception of peaceful West Papuan activists who are speaking out on behalf of their people for self determination.

The Australian government is right to institute an investigation into this, when you have forces designed to be countering terrorism being turned against domestic dissidents and peaceful activists.

In no way can you compare Mako Tabuni to Jihadists. He was a peaceful activist. He was a leader of his people and all he was doing was criticizing the government for their human rights abuse, seeking accountability for that abuse, and putting forward the West Papuans’ desire for self determination. This is not a crime, not in any democratic state, and it’s certainly not terrorism.

Newscaster:

Isn’t this the problem for Australia, it wants to help Indonesia combat Muslim extremism and then it turns out that the people they’re training, Detachment-88, are also using what they’ve learned from Australia in West Papua?

Jennifer Robinson:

It is a difficult problem and one that can be combated, I think, by imposing certain human rights conditionality in the military aid that we provide. If Indonesia is unable to assure our government that the assistance we provide does not contribute to human rights abuses then we shouldn’t be providing it at all.

Newscaster:

But what leverage can Australia really have in Indonesia on this issue given that many Indonesians look at the example of East Timor, Australia’s backflipped there, despite acknowledgements over the years that East Timor was part of Indonesia, and they say that Australia really believes that West Papua should be independent, that it is not Indonesian sovereign territory?

Jennifer Robinson:

Australia is a leader in the Asia-Pacific region, and it is up to Australia, in my view, to take a principled human rights leadership in the region, particularly when we are lobbying for a position on the UN Security Council on the basis of our supposed human rights based foreign policy. I think imposing human rights conditionality is a long way away from advocating for independence.

As a representative of International Lawyers for West Papua we, of course, make the case that West Papua is, indeed, entitled to the right to self determination, a right that was denied to them in 1969, they got a sham vote, they were never given a true and proper opportunity to exercise that right, and we said that they ought to be given the opportunity again to properly exercise that right.

Newscaster:

Julian Assange’s future may still be up in the air, but you’ve not been without success in another extradition case. Tell us a little about the withdrawal of a Interpol red notice against West Papuan independence leader Benny Wenda, who of course is currently in exile in Britain.

Jennifer Robinson:

Benny Wenda is a leader in exile of the West Papuan independence movement. He was, ten years ago, a political prisoner, and later sought refuge in the UK where he was granted political asylum. Almost ten years later the Indonesian government sought an international arrest warrant for his arrest for precisely the same political motivated charges for which he was granted asylum in the United Kingdom.

Ten years ago I worked on his case when he was a political prisoner in Indonesia and I provided the witness statement that supported his asylum application in the UK. So it was of great concern to me that a refugee living abroad could still be persecuted by their home state through the use of the Interpol arrest warrant system, and as it turns out it’s a very common occurrence. We’ve been very fortunate in that two years later, with the help of Fair Trials International, we’ve been able to challenge that politically motivated Interpol arrest notice and it has been taken down.

Newscaster:

And what was it that you learned at the original trial, i think in Jayapura, which enabled the case to be brought, which subsequently led to Interpol withdrawing the red notice?

Jennifer Robinson:

Ten years ago when I was working on Benny’s case I was able to attend his trial. During the course of that trial the prosecution was unable to adduce any reliable evidence that placed Benny at the times and places where they alleged he had been to commit various criminal offenses. They produced witness statements, witness statements that we couldn’t identify those who had made them. They wouldn’t bring them to the court for cross examination and there was widespread accusations and belief amongst the defense team that evidence had, in fact, been fabricated.

So basically the purpose of my statement was to show that in the course of the trial that I sat through and assisted on there was no credible evidence put forward to form the basis of the Interpol arrest notice and indeed the original charges within Indonesia. And also to set out the political background in which the case took place, there were, in fact, secret police documents which showed the police strategy in targeting various independence leaders who have spoken out on behalf of the West Papuan people. And it’s very well known in the history of West Papua that those who dare to stand up and lead their people and to speak out against Indonesian oppression have either been killed, like people like Arnold Ap, and more recently Mako Tabuni, and in Benny’s case, imprisoned for what are their political views.

Newscaster:

You described this as a test case for Interpol. Interpol concluded in withdrawing the red notice that the case had been predominantly political. What implications then do you think this might have for the whole use of red notices by Interpol?

Jennifer Robinson:

Fair Trials International has used Benny’s case, with our help, to become a test case and to become the first case in a longer campaign in seeking to have the Interpol notices internationally that have been sought for dissidents around the world taken down, so his is hopefully the first of many.

But it raises fundamental question about Interpol and the international oversight.

What you have is essentially and international police body, in France, which is not subject to the judicial review of the French courts, but, also, there is no judicial body at the international level through which you can challenge those warrants. All that you have available to you is internal Interpol committees, and, in my view, this is insufficient. There ought to be judicial oversight. Happily, we were successful in this case, and I hope that Benny’s case, and we believe that Benny’s case will become an example for many other refugees and dissidents living around the world that have suffered the persecution that he has as well. But Fair Trials International is currently working on that and are calling for anyone who is in the same situation to get in touch with them so they can help them.

Newscaster:

We better leave it there. Jennifer Robinson, thank you very much indeed.

Jennifer Robinson:

you’re welcome