RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Archival tape -- Crowd:

“West Papua! Freedom! West Papua!”

RUBY:

Since 2018, West Papuan separatists have engaged in a violent conflict with Indonesian security forces, as part of a long-running battle for independence.

Archival tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“Indonesian soldiers on the offensive against what they call criminal gangs in the remote Papua province.”

RUBY:

The West Papuan campaign for independence stretches back decades, but recent crackdowns by Indonesian forces on human rights and press freedom have led to escalating tensions.

Archival tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“Gunfire and chaos erupts on the streets of Wamena.”

RUBY:

The independence movement now relies heavily on activists disseminating news of what’s happening on the ground. But some of those activists are now being targeted. Today on 7am, Zach Szumer on the woman who fought back, and by doing so became an enemy of the state.

RUBY:

Zach, can you tell me a little bit about your interest in doing this story?

ZACH:

Sure, so I moved to Indonesia in 2014, shortly after Jokowi had won the election, and I started working as a sub-editor at the major English language newspaper, The Jakarta Post. And through doing that, I became aware of Veronica because it was hard to really know about West Papua without being aware of Veronica. And then maybe only a few months ago, someone mentioned to me, ‘oh, did you know she's in Australia?’ I was like, ‘what?’ And they were like, ‘yeah she did a Masters there and she's like in exile’.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“I’m Veronica Koman, I’m an Indonesian human rights lawyer.”

ZACH:

So Veronica Koman grew up in Jakarta, Indonesia's capital...

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“I’ve been raised in a conservative Chinese ethnic minority family, which means that we were raised to be not getting in any trouble. I used to be very nationalistic, particularly when I was in high school. I have a tattoo of Indonesia on my wrist, the philosophy is that Indonesia is running through my veins.”

ZACH:

She studied law, and she landed her first jobs in one of Indonesia's largest corporate law firms.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“It was actually considered as number one corporate law firm in Indonesia.”

ZACH:

But as it turned out, working for that firm's mining and project division, ended up radicalising her.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“This is not right, is this what you are all doing against the environment and indigenous people? So I crossed to the other side [laughs].”

ZACH:

She left and started working for, it's called Lembaga Bantuan Hukum, which is the Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation, which also functions as a sort of hub of progressive activism in Jakarta and other cities.

Archival tape -- Protest Sounds

ZACH:

What brought Veronica into the West Papua campaign was an incident in 2014, in the Central Highlands regency of Paniai.

Archival tape -- Unidentified Reporter:

“Security forces opened fired on villagers who were performing a traditional dance which is their way of showing anger against the military.”

ZACH:

To put it in context, Paniai incident was only one of many alleged human rights violations that have occurred over the last two decades. A 2018 Amnesty International report recorded that 95 suspected unlawful killings by Indonesian security forces had taken place in West Papua in the previous eight years.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“I was shocked like if that killing happened in Java, the whole country would be outraged. Why was there no outrage even among the activist community?”

ZACH:

Veronica was so shocked by the lack of outrage among her fellow Indonesians that she started to devote herself to the Papuan cause.

RUBY:

Ok, so since then, what has Veronica been doing? What does devoting herself to the cause look like?

ZACH:

She's represented a lot of Papuan activists in court cases where they've been accused of things like treason or incitement. But as a political activist, Veronica, I guess, became pretty Twitter famous in Indonesia. I think she's got like ninety-eight thousand followers or something. So she sort of began to regularly post videos and news about events in Papua or like signal-boost posts by other Papuan activists.

Archival tape -- Crowd:

“Papua! Papua! Papua!”

ZACH:

And yeah, she's just a good communicator. She's like witty and acerbic and fearlessly critical of the police and military. And you increasingly saw her videos used in media stories about the protests.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“Raids are targeting only indigenous papuans… are happening almost on a daily basis.”

ZACH:

Her posts have been instrumental in breaking a number of cases that have led to sort of international outrage. So I guess you could say that she acted as a sort of conduit for information that Papuans share with her and then she shares with a wider audience.

Archival tape -- Indigenous woman sings at protest.

RUBY:

So it was this approach that brought Veronica to the attention of Indonesian authorities… Was there a particular trigger for that?

ZACH:

So the incident happened on the eve of Indonesian Independence Day in 2019. A flagpole which was flying Indonesia's national flag was discovered wrenched down outside a Papuan student dormitory in East Java. And a crowd of local residents, some sort of nationalist and Islamic organisations and even a few military and police personnel surrounded the building, yelling racial slurs like ‘monkeys go back to Papua’ and a long sort of stand-off occurred and the crowd grew. There were reports of police firing and tear gas. Veronica posted a series of tweets. She was basically live tweeting information about the confrontation. And it triggered a month of massive protests all throughout the archipelago. The government buildings and the prison were burnt down in Papua.

Archival tape -- Protest Sounds

ZACH:

The month of unrest, which ended up claiming around 60 civilian lives, was eventually quelled with a massive deployment of security forces and the arrest and indictment of protesters and allies, including Veronica, who was slapped with four separate charges relating to inciting violence, hate speech and broadcasting false information.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“During that time I have to admit I was pretty freaked out, because the government also announced they were going to cancel my passport and freeze my bank account.”

ZACH:

She was in Australia at the time, completing her Masters in Law at ANU in Canberra. and she said, I'm not going to go back. And she's been here ever since.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“My parents had to relocate for a month because the police were looking for me, but I told them at that time, this was bigger than us, people were literally being killed by Indonesian police and military and if we didn’t expose what was happening then the situation on the ground would be even worse.”

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

[Advertisement]

RUBY:

Zach, we’re talking about activist Veronica Koman who is currently living in Australia. What are Indonesian authorities doing and saying about her?

ZACH:

Indonesian authorities have apparently submitted an application to put her on the Interpol red notice list for extradition, but we don't know if their application has been approved because like only a very small proportion of Interpol red notices are made public, like the vast majority of them are just restricted to law enforcement agencies. So, one, we don't know if Interpol have accepted the red notice. And two, the Australian government hasn't made any sort of comments about whether they would comply with the red notice if it exists.

RUBY:

And beyond this alleged interpol notice, what other pressures is Veronica under?

ZACH:

So, Veronica has been the victim of abuse and threatenings online, murder threats, rape threats, she'll just, you know, daily receive messages and comments on social media, smearing her and saying that she's the patsy of foreign interests who want to destabilise Indonesia and plunder its natural resources.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“Initially in the beginning, like hundreds of accounts saying you have blood in your hands and then all these other attacks actually got to me, because you know when you read something for hundreds of times like you just, it just gets into your head.”

ZACH:

And the interesting thing about this is that it's not just abuse that's coming from sort of random nationalists in Indonesia. So late last year, a joint BBC Australian Strategic Policy Institute investigation revealed that media firms were coordinating a network of fake social media accounts to spread pro-government content on Papua and smearing Veronica and other activists. And an investigation by Reuters this year also uncovered a network of pro-government news websites, facilitated and funded by the Indonesian military.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“They really campaign about me and who I am so people do not trust the information that I’m trying to disseminate. And it works! To many, many Indonesians I am this nasty evil provocateur woman.”

RUBY:

And so as this is happening Zach, what is happening in Papua?

ZACH:

I think what's happening at the moment is there is a confluence of political factors leading to this wave of protests in which the Indonesian government is proposing to extend this special autonomy law and December 1 is approaching, which is a date that the independence movement celebrates as Papuan Independence Day. So recently, there's also been protests sparked by several killings, including that of a respected pastor.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“West Papua is so highly militarised right now, Jakarta is sending hundreds of troops to West Papua, but I think it’s because Jakarta is panicking.”

ZACH:

It's been very tense. I think the Indonesian government commissioned a sort of fact-finding team to look into the death of the pastor and assign culpability. And there was so much distrust in Papuan civil society that they created their own fact-finding team. And the two fact-finding teams have returned with different facts and different findings.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“The freedom of expression and assembly in West Papua has always been bad, but I’ve never seen it this bad in recent years, I think this is the worst.”

ZACH:

So, it doesn't seem likely that tensions are going to ease anytime soon.

RUBY:

Given all of this then, what are Veronica’s options? What does she see in her future?

ZACH:

So she plans to keep doing what she's doing and it's going to be easier for her if she's not in jail. So, she's planning to stay in Australia and keep doing it. Members of the Indonesian government and I think the East Java police have gone onto Indonesian television to sort of criticise her and say that she's sort of a coward and hypocritical.

They say it's hypocritical for a lawyer to flee from the legal system she's worked in when it turns on her. But in response, Veronica says that it's actually her career working within the legal system that makes her afraid of it. As she describes it, she doesn't think there's any sort of effective separation of powers there. And the legal system is often used as a political weapon.

Archival tape -- Veronica Koman:

“I have a moral responsibility because I know what's happening there and have access to information so I have to get the information out. The key to combating impunity in West Papua is to expose what's been happening there because no one knows.”

RUBY:

Zach, thank you for your time today.

ZACH:

No worries, thank you.

[Advertisement]

RUBY:

Also in the news today…

The NSW Chief Health officer has said the state has met Queensland’s criteria of 28 days without unlinked community transmission of Covid-19 before the border could re-open.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian said that some state premiers are “making up the advice as we go”. Queensland’s Premier is yet to respond.

And further easing of restrictions have taken place in NSW, with up to 3000 people now allowed to attend an outdoor concert.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See ya tomorrow.