Observing Timor's Parliamentary Election

UPDATE: The President has announced that the Parliamentary election will take place on Saturday, July 7

Join, support ETAN observers

Dear Friends,

ETAN will be observing the Timor-Leste's coming parliamentary election in Timor-Leste. We hope you will join and support us.

Civil society organizations in Timor-Leste have invited ETAN to support an election process which is transparent, free and fair. Based on our two decades of experience, we have been asked to facilitate an international delegation of trained, non-partisan observers to witness and report on the parliamentary election: its preparation, campaigns, voting, and counting through the announcement and aftermath of the results. We will focus on more than just the mechanics of the vote. Too often, democracy is narrowly equated with elections. We are acting in solidarity with the people of Timor-Leste to strengthen the breadth of its democracy. 

President Jose Ramos-Horta welcomed ETAN's initiative writing "The presence of ETAN and its allies will be invaluable," adding:

"It is... essential for ETAN to use its skills and experience to send trained, sensitive non-partisan observers for our 2012 national elections, which will build and strengthen our young democracy... ETAN's commitment, solidarity and experience are unparalleled."

In 1999, ETAN played a key role in organizing the largest international observer delegation to Timor's historic independence referendum. ETAN has been present at every Timor-Leste election since. In 2007, ETAN was critical to the formation and leadership of the Solidarity Observer Mission for East Timor (SOMET), a grassroots project of five international NGOs and six non-partisan groups in Timor-Leste which brought together international and Timorese observers for the country's first national election. 

The exact date for the parliamentary election will not be announced until after a new President is elected, it is likely to be during the last week in June or in early July.

We are writing to urge you consider joining ETAN's Solidarity Observer Project as a volunteer observer. If you can't come, we urge you to support this and other important ETAN projects with a donation. (Make a donation via Paypal here or go to http://etan.org/etan/donate.htm for how to make a U.S. tax-deductible donation or details on how to donate by mail.)

We need observers before election day to observe the preparations and campaign period. The bulk of observers are needed for the weeks immediately preceding and following the voting. Depending upon the actual election date, that period could extend into mid to late July. An ongoing team will do follow-up reporting, evaluation, and closing of the project during July-August. ETAN will help find housing for volunteers coming from outside Timor-Leste, but we are asking our observers to cover their own expenses, including international travel, visas, food, and a contribution toward the housing cost.

To apply to be an ETAN Observer, please send us a note of your interest to etanobserver@gmail.com; then download and return the Application Questionnaire: Word file, PDF file. Please read it thoroughly before completing it; it includes estimated costs of participation and other requirements. Please use additional pages as necessary to complete the Application Questionnaire, and return it to etanobserver@gmail.com by Monday, APRIL 30, 2012.

You can find the Code of Conduct for project participant and other important forms at http://etan.org/news/2012/observer2012.htm. Please note that, by returning the Application Questionnaire, you are affirming your intent, should you be accepted by the project to sign and agree to the Code of Conduct and the Release of Liability, and that you understand that you will be asked either to bring these signed documents with you when you come to Timor-Leste, or will sign them in the presence of project staff upon your arrival; and to bring with you to Timor-Leste the signed Medical Release form.

We are in urgent need of funds to cover this project's costs and make it a success. Please make a contribution today! If you have ideas about potential funding sources? please share them with us!

Please contact us, if you have any questions or concerns.

Thank you for your support!

In solidarity,

John M. Miller, National Coordinator
Elice Higginbotham, Solidarity Observer Project Coordinator
East Timor and Indonesia Action Network

Make a donation via Paypal here

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How to Donate 

You can donate safely by credit card through ETAN's website: http://etan.org/etan/donate.htm Or you can mail your donation. To support ETAN's political advocacy work, write a check made out to "ETAN." For ETAN's educational efforts, tax-deductible donations of over $50 can be made out to "A.J. Muste Memorial Institute/ETAN." Please mail your donations to: East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), PO Box 21873, Brooklyn, NY 11202-1873.

Thank you for your support!

West Papua Report April 2012 - repressing dissent, oppose U.S. copter sale, soldiers not services

Read the April 2012 West Papua Report here 


Summary: 
An Indonesian court has sentenced five senior Papuans to three years imprisonment following their conviction on "treason" charges. They fell victim to the same undemocratic law employed against more than 90 Papuans and Malukans for their peaceful dissent in recent years. The five were charged for their central role in the October 16-19, 2011 "Third Papuan National Congress," a peaceful assertion of Papuans' right to self-determination that came under brutal assault by Indonesian security forces. In a statement, WPAT calls for an end to that law which was developed during Dutch colonial times, was employed by the dictator Suharto, and now has no place in a democratic Indonesia. 

Banners at protest in Jayapura. West Papua Media

Thousands of Papuans took to the streets in West Papua and elsewhere on the occasion of the visit to Indonesia of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. The largely peaceful demonstrations called for a special referendum to at last allow Papuans a genuine act of self-determination. 


More than 90 international organizations have called on the U.S. Congress to block sale of Apache helicopters. They would significantly expand the capacity of Indonesian security forces to conduct "sweep operations" that have devastated rural Papuan villagers. 


A recent book and a commentary by a Papuan legislator have underscored the Indonesian governments persistent failure to bring essential services to rural Papuans. WPAT observes that for many rural Papuans the face of the Indonesian government is not that of a teacher, doctor or nurse but rather, that of a solider, policeman or intelligence agent.
 
Back issues of West Papua Report

Fax campaign for Indonesia political prisoner

Amnesty International has launched a "faxjam" calling for the release of Johan Teterissa, a teacher, serving 15 years in prison for taking part in a peaceful protest in Maluku, Indonesia. Teterissa (also spelled Teterisa) was arrested in June 2007 for his part in a peaceful protest during which the banned "Benang Raja: flag – a symbol of Maluku independence – was raised in front of Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. He was tortured by police and continues to suffer from internal injuries as a result.

More background on Tetrisa and other Indonesia political prisoners can be found here (PDF) from Human Rights Watch.


There are an estimated 90 prisoners of conscience in Indonesia.
Send your fax to Indonesia's Minister of Justice via Amnesty's website here


see also Beaten, tortured, and imprisoned after raising a flag by Josef Benedict, Indonesia Campaigner, Amnesty International

Groups Urge U.S. Not to Sell Attack Helicopters to Indonesia

Ninety organizations today urged the U.S. government and Congress not to provide deadly attack helicopters to Indonesia. Indonesia has announced that it plans to buy eight AH-64 Apache attack helicopters from the United States.

Apache helicopter

The groups warned that the helicopters will escalate conflicts in Indonesia, especially in the rebellious region of West Papua: "Providing these helicopters would pose a direct threat to Papuan civilians."

The Indonesian military (TNI) regularly conducts "sweep operations," involving attacks on villages where innocent villagers are forced from their homes. The groups write that "Papuan civilians either flee the attacks to neighboring villages or into the surrounding forests where many die or face starvation, cut off from access to their gardens, shelter, and medical care." Sweep operations are now underway in the Central Highlands region of West Papua.

The letter was organized by the U.S.-based East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) and the West Papua Advocacy Team and signed by human rights, religious, indigenous rights, disarmament and other organizations based in 14 countries.

see full media release and letter with complete list of signers here: http://www.etan.org/news/2012/03helicop.htm

ETAN and WPAT on death of Rep. Donald Payne

[ETAN is deeply appreciative of Rep. Payne's efforts on behalf of East Timorese, West Papuan and Indonesian people during his service in Congress. We mourn his passing. In addition to his actions on behalf of West Papua, Rep. Payne was supportive of ETAN's efforts to support self-determination for the now independent Timor-Leste and to restrict U.S. security assistance to Indonesia in order to support human rights and justice. - John M. Miller, National Coordinator.]

West Papua Advocacy Team on Rep. Donald Payne 1934-2012

March 10, 2012 - The West Papua Advocacy Team deeply regrets the passing of Representative Donald Payne (D-NJ), one of the greatest champions of West Papuan human rights in the U.S. Congress. Working closely with Congressmember Eni Faleomavaega (D-AS), Representative Payne regularly appealed to the Indonesian Government to end repression in West Papua and urged the United States government to use its significant influence with the Indonesian government to encourage an end to the systematic human rights violations by the Indonesian security forces targeting West Papuans.

Representative Payne used his important role in the U.S. House of Representatives' international affairs committee and his leading role in the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus to advocate for Papuan rights. The following recalls only part of that impressive record of human rights advocacy:

In December 2005, as ranking member of the House International Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights & International Operations, Payne joined Congressmember Faleomavaega to call on African nations to request the United Nations to review the "Act of Free Choice," the widely discredited subterfuge through which the Indonesian government, then led by the dictator Suharto, forcibly annexed West Papua. The "Act" was "noted" by the United Nations in 1969. The call for African nations to initiate a review of the fraudulent "Act" was a follow up to a March 2005 Congressional petition organized by Reps. Faleomavaega and Payne and addressed to then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. That petition called for a review of the "Act."

In March 2008, Faleomavaega and Payne called on the Indonesian government to end restrictions on access to West Papua by international observers. That message also noted the failure of the Indonesian Government's "Special Autonomy" policy, then five years old, to address the fundamental needs in West Papua.

In a November 18, 2011 appeal published in the Jakarta Post, Faleomavaega and Payne urged the Indonesian Government to end "systematic abuse in West Papua."

In a formal statement on the loss of his long time friend and ally Congressmember Faleomavaega said of Representative Payne: "He advocated for and on behalf of the people of West Papua and many other unrepresented peoples across the globe and throughout America. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him well."

WPAT joins in mourning the loss of this consistent friend of the Papuans and of all those suffering repression and denial of their democratic rights.

see also 

• The West Papua Report (monthly)
• Congressional Action and Statements

Additional links to Rep. Payne's work on West Papua, Indonesia and East Timor.