Death toll mounts as Papua hit by bloody unrest

Yahoo – AFP, September 24, 2019

Torched shops and cars line a street in Wamena in Indonesia's Papua province
after deadly rioting (AFP Photo/Vina Rumbewas)

Wamena (Indonesia) (AFP) - More than two dozen people have died in riots in Papua, authorities said Tuesday, sparking calls for an investigation into one of the bloodiest eruptions of violence to hit the restive Indonesian territory in years.

Thousands fled to shelters following an outburst of bloodshed that saw civilians burned alive in buildings set ablaze by protesters, with at least 30 people killed and dozens injured since Monday.

Papua, on the western half of New Guinea island, has been paralysed after weeks of protests fuelled by anger over racism, as well as fresh calls for self-rule in the impoverished territory.

"This is one of the bloodiest days in the past 20 years in Papua," said Usman Hamid, Amnesty International Indonesia's executive director.

"Indonesian authorities must initiate a prompt, impartial, independent and effective investigation," he added.

Some 26 people died in Wamena city where hundreds demonstrated and burned down a government office and other buildings on Monday, authorities said, as images showed burnt-out buildings and charred cars overturned on rubbish-strewn streets.

"Some were burned, some were hacked to death... some were trapped in fires," local military commander Chandra Dianto told AFP.

Most victims were non-Papuans, authorities said, threatening an escalation in violence against migrants from other parts of the Southeast Asian archipelago.

A soldier and three civilians also died in the provincial capital Jayapura, where security forces and stone-throwing protesters clashed Monday.

The soldier was stabbed to death and three students died from rubber bullet wounds, authorities said, without elaborating.

Some 700 people had been rounded up for questioning, with several hundred later released.

'Mostly migrants'

Some 4,000 residents, including mothers and their children and the elderly, sought shelter at military and police posts, government buildings and a local church. Most were migrants.

A destroyed police truck in Wamena, Papua province, after deadly riots in 

Indonesia (AFP Photo/Vina Rumbewas)

"There are local Papuans who helped protect migrants by hiding them in their homes, but when word got out their houses were also targeted," said Yudi, an Indonesian businessman living in Wamena, whose wife left Tuesday for security reasons.

"Wamena is destroyed," he added.

The majority of Papuans are Christian and ethnic Melanesian with few cultural ties to the rest of Muslim-majority Indonesia. Most previous clashes have been between separatists and security forces.

One analyst threw cold water on the idea that migrants may have been targeted in the fires.

"I doubt... that this was intentional, or at least planned," Damien Kingsbury, a professor of international politics at Australia's Deakin University.

Wamena resident Naftali Pawika said renewed violence was driving a wedge between neighbours.

"This conflict is splitting migrants and indigenous Papuans apart," said the 37-year-old Papuan.

Monday's protests in Wamena -- mostly involving high-schoolers -- were reportedly sparked by racist comments made by a teacher, but police have disputed that account as a hoax.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua described Monday's violence as a "massacre" and said that 17 Papuan high school students had been gunned down by Indonesian security forces.

Neither the military nor the separatist movement's claims could be independently verified.

Conflicting accounts are common in Papua and the government appears to have renewed a region-wide Internet service shutdown.

Jakarta has said the riots were meant to draw attention to Papuan independence at this week's UN General Assembly.

A low-level separatist insurgency has simmered for decades in the former Dutch colony after Jakarta took over the mineral-rich region in the 1960s. A US-sponsored vote to stay within the archipelago was widely viewed as rigged.

Weeks of protests broke out across Papua and in other parts of Indonesia after the mid-August arrest and tear-gassing of dozens of Papuan students, who were also racially abused, in the country's second-biggest city, Surabaya.

Rioters torch buildings as chaos erupts again in Indonesia's Papua

Yahoo – AFP, 29 August 2019

Jakarta took control of Papua, a former Dutch colony, in the 1960s after
an independence referendum widely viewed as a sham

Indonesia's Papua plunged into chaos again Thursday as angry protesters torched buildings in its capital after nearly two weeks of riots and demonstrations in the easternmost province of the archipelago.

More than a thousand demonstrators marched around Jayapura hurling stones and setting fire to shops and an assembly building following a deadly clash in another part of the jungle-clad province, which shares the island with independent Papua New Guinea.

Carrying placards bearing the image of a banned flag, many called for independence from Indonesian rule and an end to racism against the minority group.

Papuans are ethnic Melanesians and have few cultural ties with the rest of Indonesia.

State power company PLN said the violence forced it to cut electricity in parts of Jayapura, a city of about 300,000 people.

"Several public facilities and buildings were damaged by the rioters," said National Police spokesman Dedi Prasetyo.

"Security forces are still trying to control the situation," he added.

The protest comes a day after violence flared in remote Deiyai, where a clash between protesters and Indonesian security forces left at least one soldier and two demonstrators dead, according to officials.

Hundreds of demonstrators marched through Papua's biggest city, 

Jayapura, setting fire to a regional assembly building

The confrontation sparked reports that Indonesia's military -- long accused of committing rights abuses against Papuans during a decades-old separatist insurgency -- had gunned down six protesters.

Authorities denied that claim and said they were attacked by hundreds of Papuans armed with machetes and traditional bows-and-arrows.

Some 300 extra personnel had been sent to Deiyai to restore order, officials said Thursday, after Jakarta deployed more than 1,200 police and military members to Papua last week.

'Smouldering anger'

The accounts of what happened in Deiyai could not be independently verified.

Conflicting reports are common in Papua, where independence supporters and the military frequently blame each other for violence.

The government in Jakarta also an ordered Internet blackout since last week, making confirming and sharing information difficult.

Riots and demonstrations have broken out in Papua since mid-August with buildings torched and street battles between police and protesters.

The unrest appears to have been triggered by the arrest this month of dozens of Papuan students in Java, who were also racially abused.

Police in riot gear stormed a dormitory in the city of Surabaya to force out students accused of destroying an Indonesian flag, as a group of protesters shouted racial slurs at them, calling them "monkeys" and "dogs".

Emigre Papuans living in the Indonesian capital protested in front of the 

presidential palace in solidarity with disturbances back home

One person suspected of organising the protest against the Papuan students in Surabaya had been named a criminal suspect, while a half dozen police officers have also been temporarily suspended pending an investigation.

Jakarta took control of Papua, a former Dutch colony, in the 1960s after an independence referendum widely viewed as a sham.

Despite a push to develop its infrastructure, many Papuans say they're treated like second-class citizens and have not received a fair share of vast mineral wealth in a region home to the world's biggest gold mine.

"This is the culmination of years of assuming that roads and money were the keys to addressing Papuan grievances," said Sidney Jones, director of Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC).

"The accusations of racism came on top of what was already smouldering anger," she added.

Jakarta took control of Papua, a former Dutch colony, in the 1960s after an independence referendum widely viewed as a sham

Hundreds of demonstrators marched through Papua's biggest city, Jayapura, setting fire to a regional assembly building

Emigre Papuans living in the Indonesian capital protested in front of the presidential palace in solidarity with disturbances back home.

The 'richest black nation': Papua New Guinea sets audacious goal

Yahoo – AFP, June 16, 2019

Violent crime and corruption are endemic in Papua New Guinea, reliable electricity
is rare, and population centres are isolated (AFP Photo/ARIS MESSINIS)

Papua New Guinea's new prime minister has an ambitious -- cynics would say far-fetched -- objective of turning one of the world's poorest countries into the "richest black nation" on earth in just a decade.

If national economies were like football teams, then Papua New Guinea would be near the bottom of the table struggling to avoid a relegation dogfight.

Violent crime and corruption are endemic, reliable electricity is rare, and population centres sit like isolated city-states, surrounded by trackless jungle and mountain ridges that soar into the equatorial sky.

As rich as Papua New Guinea is in culture, language and beauty, it is the 153rd most developed country in the world out of 189, according to the United Nations -- doing slightly better than Syria, marginally worse than Myanmar.

New prime minister James Marape wants to change that. He has promised that within ten years his compatriots will live in "the richest black Christian nation" in the world.

That is not going to be easy. The current titleholder is the highly industrialised economy of Trinidad and Tobago, where the average resident earns around 833% more than Papua New Guinea.

Papua New Guinea is rich in culture, language and beauty, but is way down
the UN development rankings (AFP Photo/SAEED KHAN)

If the British territory of Bermuda were also included in the rankings, the task would be even more daunting.

Papua New Guinea's economy would have to grow at a world-beating rate of around 30 percent per year, every year for the next ten years just to catch up.

"PNG has never experienced 30 per cent growth in the past; nor has any other country for that matter, at least not for any sustained period of time," said Maholopa Laveil, a lecturer in economics at the University of Papua New Guinea.

To reach his lofty goal, Marape appears to be betting on a surge in gas revenues and more of that cash staying in the country.

He has hinted that he may look to renegotiate a massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) contract with Total and ExxonMobil that would double national production to better benefit the local economy.

He has also promised to stop the export of unprocessed hardwoods and tackle corruption.

But the strategy comes with risks.

New prime minister James Marape has hinted he may look to renegotiate a massive
LNG contract with Total and ExxonMobil (AFP Photo/SAEED KHAN)

Dashed expectations

The World Bank has warned that even before a second LNG project comes online, the economy has "become increasingly concentrated in petroleum and gas-related activities".

That, the bank warned, raises Papua New Guinea's vulnerability to the vagaries of international energy markets and natural disasters -- like the 7.5 magnitude quake that froze production and stalled the economy in 2018.

Even the country's existing PNG LNG project -- which started to flow in 2014 -- has failed to live up to expectations.

It required a controversial public loan worth more than a billion Australian dollars ($700 million) and helped national debt spike.

The project was forecast to increase GDP by over 97 percent, but according to Paul Flanagan -- a former Australian government official who runs the influential PNG Economics blog -- the increase has been closer to six percent.

The World Bank has warned PNG's vulnerability to earthquakes is increasing along 

with its reliance on petrol and gas (AFP Photo/Melvin LEVONGO)

"Overall, the PNG LNG project massively over-promised and then failed to deliver," one of his recent blog posts read. "For household disposable income, the prediction was an 84 percent improvement. The outcome is a decline of 9 percent."

Flanagan believes that regardless of any energy boom, Marape -- a former finance minister -- will need to undertake difficult currency and trade reforms if the country has any hope of growing sustainably.

"Time will tell if the new government will tackle such difficult political economy challenges, challenges that must be addressed to make PNG a much richer black Christian nation," he said.

At least 50 killed by flash floods in Indonesia's Papua

Yahoo – AFP, March 17, 2019

A small aircraft was damaged at Jayapura airport in the flooding (AFP Photo/Handout)

At least 50 people have been killed by flash floods in Indonesia's eastern Papua province, an official said Sunday, as rescuers raced to find more victims of the disaster.

The floods in Sentani, near the provincial capital of Jayapura, were triggered by torrential rain and subsequent landslides on Saturday, and also left 59 people injured.

Dozens of homes were damaged by floodwaters, national disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

"The number of casualties and impact of the disaster will likely increase as search and rescue teams are still trying to reach other affected areas," he added.

"The floods were likely caused by a landslide."

The waters had receded but officials were still trying to evacuate people.

"The joint search and rescue teams are still doing evacuations and not all affected areas have been reached because of fallen trees, rocks, mud and other material," Nugroho said.

Video footage from the scene showed rescuers administering oxygen to a victim who appeared trapped beneath a fallen tree.

Uprooted trees and other debris were strewn across muddy roads, while at Jayapura's small airport a propeller plane lay partly crushed on a runway.

Papua shares a border with independent Papua New Guinea on an island just north of Australia.

Flooding is not uncommon in Indonesia, especially during the rainy season which runs from October to April.

In January, floods and landslides killed at least 70 people on Sulawesi island, while earlier this month hundreds in West Java province were forced to evacuate when torrential rains triggered severe flooding.

The Southeast Asian archipelago of some 17,000 islands is one of the most disaster-prone nations on Earth, straddling the Pacific Ring of Fire, where tectonic plates collide.

Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are common.

In December, the western part of Java island was slammed by a deadly volcano-triggered tsunami that killed about 400 people.

Also last year, the city of Palu in Sulawesi was rocked by a quake-tsunami disaster that killed thousands, while hundreds of others died in a series of quakes that hit the holiday island of Lombok, next to Bali.

Flash floods in Indonesia's eastern Papua province have killed at least 77 people pic.twitter.com/e0Wtls7R7X

— AFP news agency (@AFP) 18 maart 2019

Lost in translation: Papua New Guinea wins the language Olympics

Yahoo – AFP, Andrew BEATTY, 15 November 2018

Papua New Guinea is a linguist's paradise with one in 10 of the world's
languages found here

If you are travelling to Papua New Guinea, you don't need to pack a phrasebook, you need to bring an entire library. With 841 living tongues and a colourful creole lingua franca, this Pacific nation is the undisputed world champion of linguistic diversity.

From Pii in the mist-cloaked highlands to Toaripi on the shores of the gleaming Coral Sea, Papua New Guinea is a linguist's paradise with one in 10 of the world's languages found here.

The number of speakers of individual languages can range from a handful of people in the jungle -- not much more than an extended family -- to millions spread across provinces and terrains.

Experts point to the country's relatively weak central government, deep valleys, almost impenetrable vegetation and roughly 600 islands to explain why a country of eight million people and smaller than Spain has such a bounty of languages, when 46 million Spaniards -- for all practical purposes -- make do with a dozen or so.

Many of these diverse tongues have developed undisturbed over tens of thousands of years, making Papua New Guinea something of a linguistic Galapagos.

To get by day-to-day, Papua New Guineans typically speak three to five languages, and understand many more dialects.

But ironically they can sometimes struggle to render a simple sentence in one language into their mother tongue -- particularly when discussing numbers over 10 or when rural-based languages are deployed to describe life in the big city.

When asked to say "there are more than 800 languages in Papua New Guinea" in Vula'a -- which has a couple of thousand speakers in the central province -- Port Moresby office worker Sonia Pegi has to call her dad just to make sure she has it right.

Graphic charting social indicators for Papua New Guinea, venue

 for the APEC summit

'Pidgin English'

The country's most widely spoken language is pidgin English or Tok Pisin, although this being Papua New Guinea, Tok Pisin only claimed its lingua franca status after beating out a pretender in the form of semi-creole Austronesian language Hiri Motu.

Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu and English are the country's three official languages.

"Tok Pisin is derived 80-85 percent from English," said Jenny Homerang who is starting a pidgin language course at the Australian National University in Canberra. "But you also have bits of German and bits of Portuguese."

In fact, Tok Pisin is something of a linguistic sponge, soaking up words from languages as distant as Taiwanese and Zulu, which dominates the southeastern corner of Africa.

Suspected sorcerers -- who in Papua New Guinea can often be the victims of extreme violence -- are referred to as "sangoma", a word familiar to anyone living in Johannesburg or Durban.

Tok Pisin is also a deeply expressive language: you can 'bagarap' your car in an accident, or relieve yourself in the 'sithaus'.

But sometimes things get lost in translation. 'Ol' means 'they', not 'all', which can confuse a first-time visitor.

Similarly, 'lukim yu bihan' is not an instruction to turn around, but a way of saying 'goodbye'.

Poverty in paradise: The dark side of Indonesia's new tourism hope

Yahoo – AFP, Kiki Siregar, September 22, 2017

A tableau of white sandy beaches, colourful coral reefs and turquoise water, the
 islands of Raja Ampat are set to be Indonesia's next tourism hotspot -- but locals
fear the government is failing both them and the environment in its development
push (AFP Photo/GOH CHAI HIN)

Raja Ampat (Indonesia) (AFP) - A tableau of white sandy beaches, colourful coral reefs and turquoise water, the islands of Raja Ampat are set to be Indonesia's next tourism hotspot -- but locals fear the government is failing both them and the environment in its development push.

Stretching across 67,000 square kilometres in Indonesia’s far east, the picture-perfect islands might be as close to paradise as visitors can find.

"It’s amazing. We’ve been to millions of islands and I would say it’s the most beautiful one," Canadian Angelika Redweik-Leung said at a lookout above the Pianemo island group.

Raja Ampat -- which means Four Kings -- is made up of 1,500 islands and is home to about 1,400 varieties of fish and 600 species of coral -- making it one of the most biodiverse marine habitats on earth.

Indonesia's government is intent on turning the area into a tourism hotspot, building hotels, restaurants and investing in new harbours.

But on a palm-fringed island about two hours boat ride from Raja Ampat's capital Waisai, villagers still live in simple huts that lack electricity and clean water, while the nearest high school is scores of miles away.

Locals in Indonesia's Raja Ampat told AFP they had seen no improvements to their

 lives despite the dramatic rise in visitors. According to government estimates around 

15,000 tourists now come to the area each year -- up from less than 5,000 in 2010

 (AFP Photo/GOH CHAI HIN)

Locals told AFP they had seen no improvements to their lives despite the dramatic rise in visitors. According to government estimates around 15,000 tourists now come to the area each year -- up from less than 5,000 in 2010.

"They've hurt us indigenous people. They took our land, our water and our forest. We feel betrayed," Paul Mayor, chief of the island's Byak Betew tribe, said of the government's tourism drive.

"That's our land, our ocean, which now is a world-class tourist destination, but we've gained nothing from the influx of tourists," he added.

Mayor also criticised authorities for failing to properly protect the area's unique ecosystem, pointing to a catastrophic cruise ship crash in March, which damaged 13,500 square metres of pristine coral reef.

The 4,200-ton Caledonian Sky ran aground near the island of Kri carrying 102 passengers and 79 crew, but half a year later no one has been held accountable.

Raja Ampat -- which means Four Kings in Indonesian --- is made up of 1,500 islands

 and is home to about 1,400 varieties of fish and 600 species of coral -- making it one

 of the most biodiverse marine habitats on earth (AFP Photo/GOH CHAI HIN)

'We are still poor'

Researchers from the University of Papua, who assessed the impact of the accident, said restoring the damaged reef could cost as much as $16.2 million.

The head of tourism for Raja Ampat, Yusdi Lamatenggo, said the company operating the boat -- Noble Caledonia -- will be summoned to appear in court soon but so far they have not accepted responsibility or paid any damages.

In the meantime, he told AFP, steps were being taken to prevent further accidents by establishing clearly demarcated cruise ship routes and world-class harbours.

But the accident has fuelled feelings of mistrust and exclusion often felt by Papua's indigenous Melanesian population. The resource-rich region was annexed by Jakarta in 1969 and most Papuans feel they have not been given an even share of its natural riches.

The military retains heavy influence in the region and regularly stifles dissent.

After taking office in 2014, president Joko Widodo pledged to speed up development in Papua, but many locals insist they have been forgotten.

"There has been no change," Ariel Fakdawer, head of Saukabu village in Raja Ampat told AFP.

"They've hurt us indigenous people. They took our land, our water and our forest. 

We feel betrayed," Paul Mayor, chief of the island's Byak Betew tribe, said of the

government's tourism drive (AFP Photo/GOH CHAI HIN)

"The yearly Raja Ampat festival, for example, attracts thousands of tourists but we gain nothing from that. We are still poor, but the organizers of such festivals, outsiders, they have made a fortune," he added.

Indigenous groups say they need communication satellites, electricity, better infrastructure, and the right to govern themselves by customary law.

"The government never fulfils our needs because they don't understand what we want," chief Mayor said.

"I believe the government has to approach us by bearing in mind our cultural needs. They have to talk to us indigenous people," he insisted.

But not everyone is against the rush to open up Raja Ampat to the world.

Villager Medzke Karoswaf explained: "This is a modern world. We cannot live isolated like in a cave forever. We have to be open-minded. Like it or not, we don’t live alone in this world."

Calls Reemerge for Govt to Take Cultural Approach to Human Rights Issues in Papua

Jakarta Globe, Alin Almanar, October 06, 2016

Villagers of Mamit, a remote village located in mountainous area in Tolikara
district, Papua. (JG Photo/Donny Andhika Mononimbar)

Jakarta. Calls are reemerging for the Indonesian government to take a cultural approach in settling human rights issues in Papua following a concerted voice on the matter during a recent United Nations meeting.

Seven Pacific countries pushed for a resolution of alleged human rights abuses in Indonesia's eastern province during the 71st session of the UN General Assembly in New York two weeks ago. The allegations were rejected by the Indonesian government representative at the meeting.

The Indonesian government promised earlier this year to settle dozens of human rights abuse cases in Papua, but progress in the long-awaited resolution remains unclear. Indonesian Civil Society Circle director Ray Rangkuti said the move could be going nowhere with authorities having constantly taken a repressive approach in dealing with the issues.

"They would never be settled unless there is an assurance that Papuans would not be suppressed in exercising their freedom of expression," he said in Jakarta on Wednesday (05/10).

Rallies in support of the province's independence, which were held in various parts of Indonesia in recent months, have been repressed by authorities. The Free Papua Organization (OPM) has been mounting an insurgency for decades.

"That approach is unnecessary. Even though the issues raised are high-level, the threats are low-level in the context of security," Ray said. "The cycle of violence must be broken."

The OPM has complained that the central government has given resource-rich Papua an unfair share of state wealth after the province became part of Indonesia in 1969.

The administration of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo has been developing several infrastructure projects to boost the economy in Papua, a move Indonesia suggested during the recent UN meeting.

Catholic priest and human rights advocate Benny Susetyo said the efforts would mean nothing to ease the situation in Papua if the government does not approach Papuans culturally.

"The approach needs dialogue and the government should have the willingness to do so, instead of seeing them as a threat," he said. "Physical development without a cultural approach would be useless."

Govt Recognizes Communal Rights of Nine Local Indigenous Communities in Papua

Jakarta Globe, Yeremia Sukoyo, June 24, 2016

Nine communities were noted in the address. (Antara Photo/Andika Wahyu)

Jakarta. Minister of Land and Spatial Planning Ferry Mursyidan Baldan has declared the government's recognition of communal rights of nine indigenous communities in Papua.

The declaration was held at the closing of the 9th Sentani Lake Festival at the province’s Khalkhote region in East Sentani on Thursday (23/06).

“We want to affirm how Jayapura becomes the living space for indigenous communities. No more actions against the living and cultural spaces of indigenous communities,” Ferry said.

The state has supported available space for Papua's indigenous communities so no more people are evicted or forced from their native land, Ferry said.

“On behalf of the country, we affirm that in all Papuan regions, the entire space, mountain, beaches and others are owned by Papua’s indigenous communities. Whoever wishes to take benefits, to develop, should recognize the presence of indigenous communities within."

“There should no longer be the elimination of indigenous communities rights,” Ferry said.

Daniel Toto, head of Jayapura's indigenous communities, has called on the central government to strengthen the practical presence of indigenous communities.

As Dutch FM Visits Indonesia, Human Rights Dilemma Lingers

Jakarta Globe, Bastiaan Scherpen, March 23, 2016

Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Bert Koenders. (Reuters Photo/Jacques Brinon)

Jakarta. Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister Bert Koenders is in Indonesia this week to take part in the Bali Process ministerial conference, but he'll also be looking to cement ties in meetings with key ministers. Because even though there has been significant improvement on the trade front — the Netherlands has became one of the most important investors in the archipelago — Indonesia's relationship with its former colonial ruler remains delicate.

Human rights have long been a key element of Dutch foreign policy and with Indonesia having just made headlines internationally over a series of high-profile statements targeting the country’s LGBT community, no end in sight to problemsin Papua and a group of Moluccan political prisoners still behind bars, it will be difficult for Koenders to not speak out one way or another.

Koenders — who hails from the Labor Party (PvdA), just like the former Dutch development cooperation minister Jan Pronk, famous for slamming the Suharto regime in the early 1990s over its rights record — will have to tread a fine line if he doesn't want to undo all the progress made in recent years.

Fragile relationship

Yohanes Sulaiman, an Indonesian expert on international relations, politics and security affairs, says that as far as Jakarta is concerned, ties with the Dutch are “cordial” at the moment.

“There hasn't been any [bilateral] ruckus about human rights lately,” he told the Jakarta Globe, saying things were different not too long ago. “Remember the Leopard tanks?”

The Dutch government in 2012 was forced to cancel the sale of used Leopard 2 main battle tanks to Indonesia after parliament — including the Labor Party, which was in opposition at the time — voted to reject the deal over concerns about the Indonesian Military (TNI)’s track record on human rights. Indonesia then procured the same type of tanks from Germany.

That low in the relationship between the two countries followed the cancellation of a much-anticipated trip by then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono in 2010. A motion filed by Moluccan activists based in the Netherlands calling for the arrest of the Indonesian leader for alleged human right violations was behind Yudhoyono’s last-minute decision to stay home.

However, under current Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte ties strengthened significantly, especially after an official apology was made in 2013 for a series of massacres carried out by the Dutch military to crush resistance against colonial rule in South Sulawesi after Indonesia's 1945 declaration of independence.

That apology cleared the way for the biggest-ever Dutch trade mission to Indonesia in November 2013, led by Rutte, which now-Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi, who at the time was the Indonesian ambassador to the Netherlands, called "a big success."

After President Joko Widodo took office in 2014 and launched his no-holds-barred anti-drugs campaign, reintroducing executions of drug convicts, Indonesia-Netherlands ties took a plunge, however. Koenders even recalled the ambassador in Jakarta, Rob Swartbol, after Indonesia executed Dutch national Ang Kiem Soei, with Dutch and European Union officials voicing their strong objections to the death penalty.

Foreign direct investment

Rutte, the Dutch PM, is a member of the historically pro-business People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), which wanted to sell the Dutch military’s tanks to Indonesia in 2012 regardless of human rights concerns expressed by opposition parties in parliament. His time at the helm has indeed provided a major boost in Netherlands-Indonesia trade ties.

The Netherlands was the third-biggest investor in Indonesia in the fourth quarter of 2015, data from the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM) shows, after Singapore and Hong Kong but beating Asian powerhouses such as China (without Hong Kong), Japan and South Korea.

Dutch companies poured a total of almost $400 million into 174 Indonesian projects in the last three months of the year, the BKPM says.

For the whole year, investment realization from the Netherlands stood at $1.3 billion, the fourth-highest number after Singapore, Malaysia and Japan.

The Netherlands has also played a key role in the National Capital Integrated Coastal Development (NCICD) project, better known as the Jakarta Sea Wall. Koenders was scheduled to visit Pluit in North Jakarta together with the capital’s governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, or Ahok, to see for himself what is being done in one of Jakarta's lowest-lying and most flood-prone areas.

'Domestic matters'

Separately on Thursday, Koenders was slated to meet with his counterpart Retno, as well as with the coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, Luhut Panjaitan — a key aide to Joko and considered by insiders to be one of the most powerful ministers in the cabinet.

In a press statement released before Koenders' trip, the Dutch Foreign Ministry said the main issues on the bilateral agenda would be “geopolitical developments in countries such as Syria, Iraq and Iran,” cooperation to tackle drug-related problems, “the position of Indonesia in Asia,” and the human rights situation in Indonesia — but first and foremost: trade and how to strengthen ties.

The statement added that Koenders would also be discussing human rights issues and the rule of law with representatives of civil society groups.

It is unlikely however that Indonesian officials will be very keen on discussing such issues with Koenders — or anybody else for that matter — as these are seen as a purely internal affair.

“For Indonesians those issues are domestic matters,” Yohanes told the Globe. “I think the Dutch would raise it, but they won't push it too much.”

If Koenders does publicly raise his human rights concerns, he risks reigniting the debate on past Dutch war crimes committed in the archipelago.

“I think the [Indonesian] government and the military are not that concerned about the massacres,” said Yohanes, who is a lecturer at General Achmad Yani University in Cimahi, near Bandung. “But of course, if the Dutch start talking about human rights, the usual suspects may raise those things again, even though in general, my feeling is that they no longer care.”

“There are some nationalist groups that are still pushing it,” he explained, “but generally they only get the media attention, and are encouraged by the military, if the Dutch are talking about Indonesian human rights abuses.”

Related Article:

Dutch FM: Confront Painful Parts of Indonesia-Netherlands History