Rapacious Indonesian security forces

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australian rights activists on Monday criticised a security pact with Indonesia, telling parliament in a submission that it could help Jakarta brutally put down separatist groups in the archipelago.

The pact, signed on the Indonesian island of Lombok in November, aims to smooth often-prickly ties between the two neighbours and underline Australian support for Jakarta's sovereignty over restive provinces including the Papua region.

But pro-Papuan independence groups and the Australian Civil Liberties Union told the Treaties Committee of the Australian Parliament, which must approve the pact, that parts of the document were at odds with the country's democratic values.

"We cannot dictate to a neighbouring nation, but nor can we hide our colours without diminishing our nation and ourselves as individuals," Civil Liberties Australia chief executive Bill Rowlings said in a submission.

The Australian parliament, he said, should insist on a yearly reporting and monitoring role in Papua, where separatists have waged a low-level insurgency against Jakarta rule for decades.

"Monitoring is required to make sure that the new treaty does not inadvertently provide a paper cover for human rights abuses in Papua, particularly by or under the control of the (Indonesian military)," the submission said.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said last year the pact would lead to stronger anti-terrorism cooperation and joint naval border patrols, as well as joint civilian nuclear research and Australian sales of uranium to Indonesia.

The treaty was agreed following militant bomb attacks in Bali in 2002 and 2005, as well as on Australia's Jakarta Embassy in 2003, which together killed 92 Australians and scores of Indonesian and foreign bystanders.

But the Australia West Papua Association blamed rapacious Indonesian security forces in Papua for instability and warned against plans to boost military training between Australia and Indonesian special forces.

"We believe that any aid or training given to the Indonesian military will only be used to oppress the West Papuan people," the association said, listing rights abuses in the far-flung mineral-rich province.

The new pact was almost scuttled last year when Canberra granted protection visas to 43 Papuan asylum-seekers who claimed persecution at home by Indonesian security forces.

Indonesia tore up a previous defence pact with Canberra seven years ago when Australia led an international peacekeeping force into East Timor to restore order after the territory voted to break from Jakarta.

Rowlings said the new pact, which Canberra has hailed as a model for the region, should contain clauses protecting Australians from the Indonesian death penalty as a group of Australian drug smugglers fight the firing squad on Bali.


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