Bush Officials Cover-Up Murder of U.S. Citizens

PRESS RELEASE

Bush Officials Cover-Up Indonesian Military Role in Murder of U.S. Citizens

Embargoed for April 9th, 2007*

Evidence of Indonesian military involvement in the deaths of two American citizens has been suppressed, according to a report released today by Joyo Indonesian News Service and Pantau Foundation. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and other senior administration officials, have been misleading Congress and the public about a 2002 assault near the gold and copper mine of Freeport McMoRan (FCX) in the remote Indonesian province of Papua. The Bush Administration sees Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, as a key ally in the Global War on Terrorism.

“It’s sad to see that U.S. terrorism policy has once again sacrificed truth and justice,” said Andreas Harsono, a journalist of the Pantau media group, who co-authored the report.

F.B.I. agents entrapped at least one innocent man, Reverend Isak Onawame, in connection with this murder. Rev. Onawame, an elderly human rights advocate, was detained by the F.B.I. in Papua and delivered to Indonesian custody where he was strip searched, deprived of sleep, and interrogated. On November 7th, 2006, an Indonesian court found Rev. Onawame guilty of supplying attackers with food, based on a false confession extracted during interrogation. Six other men, including Antonius Wamang, who has admitted to participating in the attack, were given sentences of 18 months to life in jail during the same trial.

“By all accounts Wamang’s group only had three guns,” said co-author S. Eben Kirksey, a doctoral candidate at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The report authors obtained a copy of a classified Indonesian ballistics report, which is being released to the public for the first time today. Through microscopic analysis of bullet fragments, this ballistics report concluded that a total of 13 guns were fired at the scene of the crime.

“We’re the first to publicly identify a smoking gun. In fact, we have unearthed evidence of 10 smoking guns,” continued Kirksey. “There was another group of shooters wielding enormous firepower.” Eyewitnesses, and logs of vehicle traffic through road checkpoints, place Indonesian soldiers at the scene of the crime.

The full text of the report, “Murder at Mile 63”, and the Indonesian ballistics report, will be available as of April 9th, 2007, on the websites of the East Timor Action Network (http://www.etan.org/ ) and TAPOL—-The Indonesian Human Rights Campaign (http://tapol.gn.apc.org/ ).

PR ends

For further information contact Paula Makabory in Australia on +61402547517. Paula Makabory worked for Els-ham Papua as a Human Rights investigator in the Timika/ Tembagapura area up to March 2006. Paula Makabory has first hand personal experience on the ground with the case and was in direct contact with the accused persons up to the time of their arrests and assisted the initial work of the FBI investigators assigned to the case.

Sent by Matthew Jamieson Institute for Papuan Advocacy & Human Rights PO box 1805, Byron bay NSW 2481 Australia Matthew @ hr.minihub.org

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