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Author: melanesianews

Free West Papua is Free Melanesia, News and Information Updates on and from Melanesia

Chief General Mathias Wenda: Turut Berdukacita Sedalam-Dalamnya

Panglima Tertinggi West Papua Army (WPA), Chief. Gen. Laliguragan Mathias Wenda TURUT BERDUKACITA yang dalam atas terpanggilnya ke dua Pemimpin bangsa dalam bulan ini Oktober 2022, yaitu;

1. Almarhum, Tn. Jonah Wenda, pimpinan Komite Legislatif ULMWP, Pemerintah Sementara West Papua,

2. Almarhumah Ny. Leoni Tanggahma

Jasa perjuangan dan pengorbanan demi memperjuangkan cita-cita bangsa West Papua akan dikenang oleh rakyat bangsa Papua.

Dari rimba raya New Guinea saya bersama seluruh Staf Markas Pusat Pertahanan Komando Tertinggi West Papua Army merenungkan dan mencucurkan air mata atas pengabdian dan kinerja yang sangat baik dari kedua tokoh Pemimpin Papua Merdeka tersebut.

Perjuangan dalam menentang Kolonial Indonesia dan semangat api Revolusi yersebut akan dinikmati oleh rakyat dan generasi West Papua. Kedua Pemimpin bangsa telah pergi mendahului kita, namun saya percaya seribu generasi West Papua akan bangkit untuk meneruskan tongkat stafet yang telah ditinggalkan.

“Berbahagialah orang-orang mati yang mati dalam Tuhan, sejak sekarang ini, sungguh kata Roh, supaya mereka boleh beristirahat dari jerih lelah mereka, karena segala perbuatan mereka menyertai mereka” Wahyu 14:13.

Di keluarkan di: MPP WPA
pada tanggal: 12 October 2022

Panglima,

Signed

Laligurangan Mathias Wenda Chief General

BRN. A. DF: 00107676

#RIP#LeonieTanggahma#JonahWenda#ProvisionalGovernment#ULMWP#WestPapua#Commander#WestPapuaArmy

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Happy 47th Anniversary Papua New Guinea!

As Papua New Guinea is entering into her 47th anniversary of independence, West Papua Army (western New Guinea Army) hereby would like to say

HAPPY 47th ANNIVERSARY to Papua New Guinea and her peoples

16 September 1975 – 16 September 2022

Let us fight for our remaining colonized land of ours, on the western side of our island, until it is free from Indonesian colonialism.

Then we will all of us who live in our New Guinea Island, will jointly, celebrate our full and complete independence as a people, a country and a land.

Happy Papua New Guinea! Free West Papua! Free Melanesia!

Yours sincerely,

Amunggut Tabi, Gen. WPA 
BRN: A.DF 018676

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R.I.P. JOHN JAMBUANE

We have lost an elder. He was a Freedom fighter. He was a member of the Papuan Volunteer Corp (PVK).

When the Dutch left West Papua in 1962 he chose to join the West Papuan resistance movement (OPM). He was one the few ones who lead the Papuan offensive to destroy the Indonesian military headquarter in Arfai in 1965.

He has been committed ever since to Free West Papua from the Indonesian colonialism. As a civilian he has been involved in recruitment of young Papuan freedom fighters for many years. In 1984 he decided to rejoin with the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPN).

When I was 8/9 years old, I saw him in Black Wara (Black Water) refugee camp. Can still remember the images, him and all the other military uncles sitting and talking and making plans. They called their group or detachment ‘SONEK’ (Sobat Nekad, the desparate ones, friends longing for freedom).

That is how I will remember him. Don’t worry we will finish what you have started. West Papua will be free.

Araaa……Marandan bebye.

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ANCIENT LORE REVEALS HOW WARRIORS MANIPULATED THEIR ENEMY’S SENSES IN BATTLE

From whistling arrows and trumpeting elephants to battle cries and eerie horns, ancient soldiers used sound to frighten and confuse their enemies.

AS IF THE tumultuous din of battle is not horrendous enough, over the ages, humans have discovered plenty of ways to exploit sound in warfare. I found an astonishing variety of ancient acoustic weapons while researching my book Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Unconventional Warfare in the Ancient World. Deploying sound in war has evolved over millennia, from natural animal sounds and music to today’s advanced sonic devices.

CALLING A JIG AMID BATTLE

In antiquity, cavalry horses were trained to endure the piercing pipe music that led armies to battle. But a clever reversal of this training could spell victory.

In the seventh century B.C., the Kardians of Thrace, who lived in what is now northwest Turkey, were renowned for their cavalry. For entertainment, the mounted soldiers taught their horses to dance to pipes played at drinking parties. Rearing up and pawing the air, the horses kept time to the lively music.

Captured as a boy from Bisaltia in northeastern Greece, a prisoner named Naris heard about the marvelous dancing horses in the Kardian barbershop where he worked. According to the story recounted by the ancient Greek writer Athenaeus, Naris escaped, returned to Bisaltia, and prepared to make war on Kardia.

He had a secret weapon: a piper girl who had also escaped from Kardia. She taught the Bisaltian soldiers songs from Kardian banquets. Naris led his army against the Kardian cavalry and signaled for his pipers to play. Pricking their ears at the familiar tunes, the Kardian horses reared up to dance, throwing off their riders. In the chaos, the Bisaltians crushed the Kardians.

WHEN SQUEALS TERRORIZE LIVING TANKS

Cavalrymen of classical antiquity accustomed their horses to the clash of bronze weapons. But in the fourth century B.C., when Alexander the Great’s successors brought war elephants from India, the animals’ trumpeting threw horses into a frenzy.

Alexander had learned from King Porus during his 326 B.C. Indian campaign that elephants have sensitive hearing and poor eyesight, which makes them averse to unexpected loud, discordant sounds. When Alexander’s scouts reported that elephants were approaching, Porus advised Alexander’s horsemen to grab up pigs and trumpets and ride out to meet them. The shrill sound of the pigs combined with blaring trumpets sent the elephants fleeing.

In 280 B.C., the Romans first encountered war elephants, brought to Italy by Greek King Pyrrhus. The riders in the howdah seats upon their backs created an ear-splitting commotion with drums and clanging spears, causing the Romans and their horses to panic.

But Romans noticed that Pyrrhus’ elephants were unnerved by high-pitched squeals of swine. Like Alexander, the Romans deployed pigs to deflect Pyrrhus’ pachyderms, which contributed to his heavy losses. Later, in 202 B.C., blasts of Roman war trumpets panicked Carthaginian general Hannibal’s war elephants in the Battle of Zama, ending the Second Punic War.

Some commanders tried to obtain an elephant or two to condition their horses before the battle. Perseus of Macedon prepared for a Roman attack with war elephants in 168 B.C. by having artisans build wooden models of elephants on wheels. Pipers inside the huge mock-ups played harsh sounds, acclimating the Macedonian horses to the sight and sound of elephants. But Perseus’ preparations were for naught. Even though the mountainous terrain at the Battle of Pydna got the better of the Romans’ 20 elephants, Rome was victorious.

WAR CRIES AND WAILING WEAPONS

Bloodcurdling war cries are a universal way of striking terror in foes. Maori war chants, the Japanese battle cry “Banzai!” (Long Live the Emperor) in World War II, the Ottomans’ “Vur ha!” (Strike), and the Spanish “Desperta ferro!” (Awaken the iron) are examples. In antiquity, the sound of Greek warriors bellowing “Alala!” while banging swords on bronze shields was likened to hooting owls or a screeching flock of monstrous birds.

The Roman historian Tacitus described the hair-raising effects of the barritus, the war cry of Germanic tribes. The Germans devised a simple technique for intensifying the barritus, which began as a low murmur. The chanting became a roar, then rose to a reverberating crescendo as the men held up their shields in front of their mouths to amplify the thunderous sound.

Another technological invention was the carnyx, the Celtic war trumpet. Romans were awed by the eerie, spine-tingling sounds made by the long bronze tube with a wide bell shaped like the gaping jaws of a fierce dragon, boar, or wolf. The horn’s loud, lugubrious tones “suited the tumult of war,” wrote Diodorus Siculus around 50 B.C. Later, Roman troops used the carnyx themselves.

Another early military sound technology was an arrow that created a fearsome noise. “Whistling” or “screaming” arrows (shaojian) made by the horseback archers of the steppes were described by the Chinese chronicler Sima Qian in about 100 B.C. A small, perforated bone or wood sound chamber — the whistle — was attached to the shaft behind the arrowhead. In battle, the shrieking sound of thousands of whistling arrows terrified enemies and their horses. Screaming arrows have been recovered from archaeological sites in central Asia.

Numerous other technologies to produce booming detonations to disorient and frighten enemies were described in ancient Chinese war manuals. These explosive devices employed gunpowder, invented in China around 850 A.D., reaching Europe about 1250.

SOUND WEAPONS IN THE MODERN ERA

Music was used during World War II to cause stress and anxiety: The Soviet army played Argentine tangos through loudspeakers all night to keep German soldiers awake. U.S. loudspeaker teams blasted deafening rock music (including The Doors, Alice Cooper, and The Clash) day and night during the U.S. siege of Panamanian Gen. Manuel Noriega in 1989. In the 2000s, Americans again deployed aggravating, incessant music in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sound weapons have their uses off the battlefield, too. Shopping centers have borrowed the idea, broadcasting classical symphonies and frequencies registered only by teenage ears to keep young loiterers away. In 2022, Australian police bombarded anti-COVID-19 vaccine protesters with recordings of Barry Manilow songs on repeat to break up the crowd.

The recent development of weaponized sound energy is more ominous, often intended for civilian crowd control. Military scientists in the United States, Israel, China, and Russia have unveiled “nonlethal” high-decibel and pulsating high- and low-frequency armaments designed to assault the senses. Examples include hand-held or tank-mounted magnetic, acoustic devices, sonic-vibration cannons, and long-range acoustic devices, first used by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2004 and later by police against citizen protests in New York and Missouri.

Since 2016, American diplomats in Cuba, Russia, China, and elsewhere have experienced “Havana syndrome,” associated with mysterious neurological and brain injuries thought to be inflicted by unknown high-powered microwave or targeted sonic energy systems. Sound wave transmitters are not only psychologically toxic but can cause pain and dizziness, burns, irreversible damage to inner ears, and possibly neurological and internal injuries.

Since antiquity, human creativity in weaponizing devastating noise to confuse and overwhelm adversaries has progressed from intimidation to the infliction of physical injury.

This article was originally published on The Conversation by Adrienne Mayor at Stanford University. Read the original article here.

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Upacara HUT Proklamasi Kemerdekaan West Papua di MPP West Papua Army

Peringati HUT Proklamasi Pemerintahan Revolusi Negara Republik West Papua (Republic of West Papua), Panglima Komando West Papua Army Pimpin Upacara Pengibaran Bendera

#WPANews | Memperingati Hari Ulang Tahun (HUT) proklamasi pemerintahan revolusi negara Republik West Papua 1 Juli 1971, pada hari ini Jumat, 1 Juli 2022 — dipimpin Panglima Komando Tentara West Papua atau “West Papua Army ”, Chief. Gen. Mathias Wenda menggelar upacara pengibaran bendera di MPP West Papua (Markas Pusat Pertahanan), rimba New Guinea.

1 Juli 1971 — 1 Juli 2022 (51 tahun)

#1Juli#1Juli1971#WestPapua#Commander#WestPapuaArmy#ProvisionalGovernment#RepublicOfWestPapua#RepublikWestPapua#NegaraRepublikWestPapua#FreeWestPapua#WelcomeUNHC🇺🇳#HumanitarianCrisis#HumanRightsAbuses#PIF#ACP#UnitedNation#OHRCHR#UNHRC

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Sekjend WPA: Selamat HUT Kabinet 12 dan Komando WPA

Dari Markas Pusat Pertahanan (MPP) West Papua Army (WPA), dengan ini disampaikan kepada

  1. Para Kepala Staff West Papua Army;
  2. Para Panglima Komando Pertahanan Daerah West Papua Army;
  3. Prajurit Angkatan Bersenjata West Papua Army di medan tempur;
  4. Rakyat bangsa Papua di manapun Anda berada.

agar merayakan HUT (Hari Ulang Tahun:

  1. Pembentukan 12 Kabinet Pemerintahan Sementara West Papua (1 Mei 2021 – 1 Mei 2022);
  2. Penyatuan Komando West Papua Army (1 Mei 2018 – 1 Mei 2022), dan
  3. Pengangkatan Panglima Komando West Papua Army (1 Mei 2021 – 1 Mei 2022

dan selanjutnya disampaikan kepada semua pihak untuk mendukung segala kebijakan Pemerintah Sementara West Papua United Liberation Movement for West Papua di bawah kepemimpinan Interim-President Honourable Benny Wenda.

Atas nama Panglima Komando West Papua Army, Chief Gen. Mathias Wenda, surat ini ditanda-tangani dan dikeluarkan oleh Gen. Amunggut Tabi, Sekretais-jenderal WPA.

Disampaikan pula bahwa akan dilangsungkan Upacara Militer dalam rangka HUT West Papua Army di Markas Pusat Pertahanan WPA di Yako, Vanimo, Sandaun, Papua New Guinea.

30-04-hut01may2022Download
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Terjadi Kontak Senjata di Distrik Bayabiru, Paniai

KOMNASTPNPBNews

Terjadi Kontak Senjata Di Distrik Bayabiru itu murni tindakan TPNPB Kodap XIII KEGEPANIPO PANIAI. Batalyon IV Piyamodide Telah Berasil Tembak Satu Anggota BRIMOB Juga Bakar POS Brimob kilo 99 bayebiru.

Laporan Manajemen Markas Pusat KOMNAS TPNPB-OPM per 20 Maret 2022

Manajemen Markas Pusat KOMNAS TPNPB-OPM telah terima laporan resmi Dari Pimpinan TPNPB Batalyon IV Piyamodide Letnan 1 Ugiitoyai Yumai bahwa mereka telah melakukan Kontak Senjata Dan Berhasil Tembak Satu Anggota BRIMOB.Di kilo 99 bayebiru.

TPNPB Dibawah Komando Komandan Batalyon IV Piyamodide Letnan 1 Ugiitoyai Yumai juga mengklaim bahwa mereka Berhasil bakar POS Brimob, Di lokasi Kilo 99 bayebiru Kontak Senjata Yang telah terjadi.

Silakan ikuti laporan resmi TPNPB Batalyon IV Piyamo Yang dikeluarkan oleh Komandan Batalyon IV Piyamodide dibawah ini.

Tgl:19/03/2022 Batalyon IV Piyamodide

Dibawah Pimpinan Letnan 1 Ugitoyai Yumai berhasil tembak mati satu anggota Brimob Di Daerah Distrik bayebiru Dan Kabupaten Paniai, tepatnya Di Mayabiru. Kontak Senjata terjadi pukul 18:00 sore hari dan baku tembak tersebut masih berlangsung.

Dalam Kontak Senjata ini di pihak TPNPB-OPM tidak ada Yang korban, namun di pihak TNI-POLRI ada satu korban anggota Brimob.

Yang Bertanggungjawab langsung Dalam serangan ini adalah Pasukan TPNPB dibawah Pimpinan

UGITOYAI YUMAI, yaitu

Batalyon IV PIYAMODIDE Dibahwa KODAP XIII KEGEPANIPO. PANIAI

Perlu ketahui Bahwa TPNPB Kodap XIII Kegepanipo Paniai Telah di lakukan Batalyon IV Piyamodide..

Demikian Manajemen Markas Pusat KOMNAS TPNPB-OPM, Bertanggungjawab atas siaran pers ini:

Oleh Jubir KOMNAS TPNPB-OPM Sebby Sambom,

Panglima Tertinggi KOMNAS TPNPB OPM

Mayjen GEN GOLIAT NAMAN TABUNI.

Panglima Daerah TPNPB OPM

KODAP XIII Bridjen :MATIUS GOBAI.

Sekian dan terimah kasih.

,,,Hidup tpnpb.

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Anum Siregar: Kalau ingin sejahterakan orang Papua, jangan pakai pendekatankeamanan

Papua No.1 News Portal / Hengky Yeimo / 14 hours ago

Papua No. 1 News Portal | Jubi

Jayapura, Jubi – Direktur Aliansi Demokrasi untuk Papua, Latifah Anum Siregar mempertanyakan dalil pemerintah bahwa pemekaran provinsi di Tanah Papua dilakukan untuk menyejahterakan masyarakat. Siregar menegaskan jika pemerintah ingin menyejahterakan Orang Asli Papua, pemerintah harus berhenti memakai pendekatan keamanan dan pengiriman militer untuk menyelesaikan masalah Papua.

Hal itu dinyatakan Latifah Anum Siregar selaku pembicara dalam diskusi daring Papua Strategic Policy Forum #11 bertema “Pemekaran Papua Untuk Siapa?” yang diselenggarakan Gugus Tugas Papua Universitas Gadjah Mada pada Kamis (24/2/2022). Siregar menyatakan wacana pemekaran provinsi di Tanah Papua muncul pasca gelombang protes atas insiden rasisme terhadap mahasiswa Papua di Surabaya pada 2019. Wacana pemekaran provinsi untuk membentuk lima provinsi baru di Tanah Papua itu dilontarkan para tokoh yang bertemu Presiden Joko Widodo pada 10 September 2019.

Lontaran para tokoh yang bertemu Jokowi itu kemudian direspon oleh Menteri Koordinator Politik, Hukum, dan Keamanan, Mahmud MD. “Mahmud MD mengatakan bahwa untuk mempertimbangkan [kepentingan] strategis nasional dalam rangka mengokohkan NKRI, dan untuk percepatan pembangunan kesejahteraan masyarakat, serta melihat citra positif Indonesia di mata internasional,” kata Siregar.

Baca juga: DPR RI sudah siapkan Naskah Akademik pemekaran provinsi di Tanah Papua

Siregar mempertanyakan dalil kesejahteraan yang dijadikan alasan rencana pemekaran provinsi di Tanah Papua. “Kalau pemerintah bilang masalah kesejahteraan, maka jangan melakukan pendekatan kemanan. Ini jug menajdi soal. Pemerintah harus melibatkan masyarakat Papua, bicara masalah-masalah konflik [terkait Hak] Sipil Politik [dan Hak] Ekonomi, Sosial Budaya untuk diakomodir dalam undang-undang. Karena masyarakat Papua atau representative OAP tidak dilibatkan saya menilai ini ada danya motif politik,” kata Siregar.

Siregar juga mengkritik proses revisi Undang-undang Nomor 21 Tahun 2001 tentang Otonomi Khusus Papua (UU Otsus Papua) menjadi Undang-undang Nomor 2 Tahun 2021 tentang Perubahan Kedua atas Undang-Undang Nomor 21 Tahun 2001 tentang Otonomi Khusus bagi Provinsi Papua (UU Revisi UU Otsus Papua). Ia menilai revisi yang menghapuskan syarat persetujuan Majelis Rakyat Papua dan DPR Papua untuk melakukan pemekaran provinsi di Tanah Papua dalam Pasal 76 UU Otsus Papua dilakukan tanpa memperhatikan aspirasi Orang Asli Papua.

Siregar menilai penyusunan Naskah Akademik maupun penyiapan draft rancangan undang-undang pemekaran provinsi di Tanah Papua pun tidak melibatkan Orang Asli Papua. Ia mengingatkan, penyusunan draft rancangan undang-undang serta Naskah Akademik yang mengabaikan aspirasi orang Papua itu akan berdampak di kemudian hari, tidak hanya dalam pendekatan kesejaterahan, tapi juga kepada kualitas pembangunan.

Baca juga: Wali Kota Sorong: Pemekaran provinsi di Tanah Papua jangan dilihat dari sisi negatif

“Perencanaan pemekaran di [Provinsi] Papua itu bebeda dengan rencana pemekaran [Provinsi Papua Barat untuk membentuk] Provinsi [Papua] Barat Daya. Saya pikir proses [pembentukan Provinsi Papua] Barat Daya sangat cepat dan sesuai dengan amanah UU Otsus Papua, melalui inisiatif Majelis Rakyat Papua Barat dan DPR Papua Barat [sebagaimana diatur] Pasal 76, [dibahas bersama-sama] pemerintah dan DPR Papua Barat, dan Majelis Rakyat Papua Barat,” kata Siregar.

Akan tetapi, rencana pembentukan sejumlah provinsi baru di Provinsi Papua belum pernah mendapatkan persetujuan dari Majelis Rakyat Papua (MRP) dan DPR Papua. “Perencanaan pemekaran dilaksanakan sejalan dengan pernyataan Menteri Dalam Negeri dan Menteri Koordinator Politik, Hukum, dan Keamanan, karena MRP dan DPR Papua tidak dilibatkan. Itu juga bisa berdampak buruk,” kata Siregar.

Siregar menyatakan pendekatan untuk menjalankan proses pemekaran provinsi di Provinsi Papua sangat sentralistik. Proses itu bisa dijalankan karena pemerintah dan DPR RI mengubah ketentuan Pasal 76 dalam UU Otsus Papua yang lama.

Baca juga: MRP: Pemekaran akan membunuh orang asli Papua

“Pemekaran itu sangat  sentralistis, perubahan UU Otsus Papua itu sangat jelas, sangat [sentralistik]. Pemaparan Ketua Komisi II DPR RI, Ahmad Doli Kurnia Tandjung menjelaskan pemerintah pusat sudah siap mengangkat inisitif DPR RI, tanpa melibatkan masyarakat. Itu semangat sentralistik,” katanya.

Siregar menyatakan, pemekaran provinsi di Provinsi Papua disebut-sebut untuk tujuan kesejahteraan. Seharusnya, demikian menurut Siregar, DPR RI menyerap aspirasi Orang Asli Papua, dan usulan pemekaran harus dari masyarakata akar rumput.

“Orang Papua harus dilibatkan dalam membuat peraturan. Ajak orang Papua bicara untuk membuat undang-undang. Jangan pemerintah dan DPR RI yang membuat undang undang tanpa melibatkan MRP dan DPR Papua. Pemekaran itu murni produk Jakarta, bukan lagi [aspirasi] orang Papua,” katanya.

Baca juga: KNPB: Pemekaran adalah strategi memecah belah orang Papua

Sebelumnya, dalam diskusi daring bertajuk “ Media Briefing: Hak-hak Orang Asli Papua dan Polemik Pemekaran Provinsi Papua” yang dilaksanakan Public Virtue Research Institute pada Rabu (23/02/2022), Wakil Ketua I Majelis Rakyat Papua, Yoel Luiz Mulait menyatakan revisi UU Otsus Papua telah membuat kekhususan Otonomi Khusus Papua hilang. Mulait menjelaskan ada 24 wewenang khusus yang diatur UU Otsus Papua yang lama, namun hanya ada empat wewenang yang dijalankan.

Keempat kewenangan khusus itu adalah Gubernur dan Wakil Gubernur Papua harus Orang Asli Papua, pembentukan MRP, anggota DPR Papua yang dipilih melalui mekanisme pengangkatan, dan kucuran Dana Otsus Papua. “Yang lainnya, termasuk pembentukan Komisi Kebenaran dan Rekonsiliasi, tidak jalan. Kami berharap pelaksanaan Otsus [membawa] perubahan baik bagi orang Papua. Akan tetapi, dalam pelaksanaan Otsus tidak ada hal yang baru, tidak ada kekhususan bagi orang di tanah Papua,” ujarnya.

Sejumlah 20 kewenangan khusus yang tidak bisa dijalankan itu tidak menjadi bahan evaluasi, dan tidak menjadi fokus revisi UU Otsus Papua. Melalui UU Revisi UU Otsus Papua, pemerintah dan DPR RI justru melonggarkan aturan tentang pemekaran provinsi di Tanah Papua, dengan menghapuskan syarat bahwa pemekaran provinsi harus disetujui MRP dan DPR Papua. (*)

Editor: Aryo Wisanggeni G

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The Ten Stages of Genocide

Genocide is a process that develops in ten stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it. The process is not linear. Stages may occur simultaneously. Logically, later stages must be preceded by earlier stages. But all stages continue to operate throughout the process.

➔ 1. CLASSIFICATION: All cultures have categories to distinguish people into “us and them” by ethnicity, race, religion, or nationality: German and Jew, Hutu and Tutsi. Bipolar societies that lack mixed categories, such as Rwanda and Burundi, are the most likely to have genocide.

 The main preventive measure at this early stage is to develop universalistic institutions that transcend ethnic or racial divisions, that actively promote tolerance and understanding, and that promote classifications that transcend the divisions. The Roman Catholic Church could have played this role in Rwanda, had it not been riven by the same ethnic cleavages as Rwandan society. Promotion of a common language in countries like Tanzania has also promoted transcendent national identity. This search for common ground is vital to early prevention of genocide.

➔ 2. SYMBOLIZATION: We give names or other symbols to the classifications. We name people “Jews” or “Gypsies,” or distinguish them by colors or dress; and apply the symbols to members of groups. Classification and symbolization are universally human and do not necessarily result in genocide unless they lead to dehumanization. When combined with hatred, symbols may be forced upon unwilling members of pariah groups: the yellow star for Jews under Nazi rule, the blue scarf for people from the Eastern Zone in Khmer Rouge Cambodia.

 To combat symbolization, hate symbols can be legally forbidden (swastikas in Germany) as can hate speech. Group marking like gang clothing or tribal scarring can be outlawed, as well. The problem is that legal limitations will fail if unsupported by popular cultural enforcement. Though Hutu and Tutsi were forbidden words in Burundi until the 1980’s, code words replaced them. If widely supported, however, denial of symbolization can be powerful, as it was in Bulgaria, where the government refused to supply enough yellow badges and at least eighty percent of Jews did not wear them, depriving the yellow star of its significance as a Nazi symbol for Jews.

➔ 3. DISCRIMINATION: A dominant group uses law, custom, and political power to deny the rights of other groups. The powerless group may not be accorded full civil rights, voting rights, or even citizenship. The dominant group is driven by an exclusionary ideology that would deprive less powerful groups of their rights. The ideology advocates monopolization or expansion of power by the dominant group. It legitimizes the victimization of weaker groups. Advocates of exclusionary ideologies are often charismatic, expressing resentments of their followers, attracting support from the masses. Examples include the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 in Nazi Germany, which stripped Jews of their German citizenship, and prohibited their employment by the government and by universities. Denial of citizenship to the Rohingya Muslim minority in Burma is a current example.

 Prevention against discrimination means full political empowerment and citizenship rights for all groups in a society. Discrimination on the basis of nationality, ethnicity, race or religion should be outlawed. Individuals should have the right to sue the state, corporations, and other individuals if their rights are violated.

➔ 4. DEHUMANIZATION: One group denies the humanity of the other group. Members of it are equated with animals, vermin, insects or diseases. Dehumanization overcomes the normal human revulsion against murder. At this stage, hate propaganda in print and on hate radios is used to vilify the victim group. The majority group is taught to regard the other group as less than human, and even alien to their society. They are indoctrinated to believe that “We are better off without them.” The powerless group can become so depersonalized that they are actually given numbers rather than names, as Jews were in the death camps. They are equated with filth, impurity, and immorality. Hate speech fills the propaganda of official radio, newspapers, and speeches.

To combat dehumanization, incitement to genocide should not be confused with protected speech. Genocidal societies lack constitutional protection for countervailing speech, and should be treated differently than democracies. Local and international leaders should condemn the use of hate speech and make it culturally unacceptable. Leaders who incite genocide should be banned from international travel and have their foreign finances frozen. Hate radio stations should be jammed or shut down, and hate propaganda banned. Hate crimes and atrocities should be promptly punished.

➔ 5. ORGANIZATION: Genocide is always organized, usually by the state, often using militias to provide deniability of state responsibility. (An example is the Sudanese government’s support and arming of the Janjaweed in Darfur.) Sometimes organization is informal (Hindu mobs led by local RSS militants during Indian partition) or decentralized (jihadist terrorist groups.) Special army units or militias are often trained and armed. Arms are purchased by states and militias, often in violation of UN Arms Embargos, to facilitate acts of genocide. States organize secret police to spy on, arrest, torture, and murder people suspected of opposition to political leaders. Special training is given to murderous militias and special army killing units.

 To combat this stage, membership in genocidal militias should be outlawed. Their leaders should be denied visas for foreign travel and their foreign assets frozen. The UN should impose arms embargoes on governments and citizens of countries involved in genocidal massacres, and create commissions to investigate violations, as was done in post-genocide Rwanda, and use national legal systems to prosecute those who violate such embargos.

➔ 6 POLARIZATION: Extremists drive the groups apart. Hate groups broadcast polarizing propaganda. Motivations for targeting a group are indoctrinated through mass media. Laws may forbid intermarriage or social interaction. Extremist terrorism targets moderates, intimidating and silencing the center. Moderates from the perpetrators’ own group are most able to stop genocide, so are the first to be arrested and killed. Leaders in targeted groups are the next to be arrested and murdered. The dominant group passes emergency laws or decrees that grants them total power over the targeted group. The laws erode fundamental civil rights and liberties. Targeted groups are disarmed to make them incapable of self-defense, and to ensure that the dominant group has total control.

 Prevention may mean security protection for moderate leaders or assistance to human rights groups. Assets of extremists may be seized, and visas for international travel denied to them. Coups d’état by extremists should be opposed by international sanctions. Vigorous objections should be raised to disarmament of opposition groups. If necessary they should be armed to defend themselves.

➔ 7. PREPARATION: Plans are made for genocidal killings. National or perpetrator group leaders plan the “Final Solution” to the Jewish, Armenian, Tutsi or other targeted group “question.” They often use euphemisms to cloak their intentions, such as referring to their goals as “ethnic cleansing,” “purification,” or “counter-terrorism.” They build armies, buy weapons and train their troops and militias. They indoctrinate the populace with fear of the victim group. Leaders often claim that “if we don’t kill them, they will kill us,” disguising genocide as self-defense. Acts of genocide are disguised as counter-insurgency if there is an ongoing armed conflict or civil war. There is a sudden increase in inflammatory rhetoric and hate propaganda with the objective of creating fear of the other group. Political processes such as peace accords that threaten the total dominance of the genocidal group or upcoming elections that may cost them their grip on total power may actually trigger genocide.

 Prevention of preparation may include arms embargos and commissions to enforce them. It should include prosecution of incitement and conspiracy to commit genocide, both crimes under Article 3 of the Genocide Convention.

➔ 8. PERSECUTION: Victims are identified and separated out because of their ethnic or religious identity. Death lists are drawn up. In state sponsored genocide, members of victim groups may be forced to wear identifying symbols. Their property is often expropriated. Sometimes they are even segregated into ghettoes, deported into concentration camps, or confined to a famine-struck region and starved. They are deliberately deprived of resources such as water or food in order to slowly destroy them. Programs are implemented to prevent procreation through forced sterilization or abortions. Children are forcibly taken from their parents.

The victim group’s basic human rights become systematically abused through extrajudicial killings, torture and forced displacement. Genocidal massacres begin. They are acts of genocide because they intentionally destroy part of a group. The perpetrators watch for whether such massacres meet any international reaction. If not, they realize that that the international community will again be bystanders and permit another genocide.

 At this stage, a Genocide Emergency must be declared. If the political will of the great powers, regional alliances, or U.N. Security Council or the U.N. General Assembly can be mobilized, armed international intervention should be prepared, or heavy assistance provided to the victim group to prepare for its self-defense. Humanitarian assistance should be organized by the U.N. and private relief groups for the inevitable tide of refugees to come.

➔ 9. EXTERMINATION begins, and quickly becomes the mass killing legally called “genocide.” It is “extermination” to the killers because they do not believe their victims to be fully human. When it is sponsored by the state, the armed forces often work with militias to do the killing. Sometimes the genocide results in revenge killings by groups against each other, creating the downward whirlpool-like cycle of bilateral genocide (as in Burundi). Acts of genocide demonstrate how dehumanized the victims have become. Already dead bodies are dismembered; rape is used as a tool of war to genetically alter and eradicate the other group. Destruction of cultural and religious property is employed to annihilate the group’s existence from history. The era of “total war” began in World War II. Firebombing did not differentiate civilians from non-combatants. The civil wars that broke out after the end of the Cold War have also not differentiated civilians and combatants. They result in widespread war crimes. Mass rapes of women and girls have become a characteristic of all modern genocides. All men of fighting age are murdered in some genocides. In total genocides all the members of the targeted group are exterminated.

 At this stage, only rapid and overwhelming armed intervention can stop genocide. Real safe areas or refugee escape corridors should be established with heavily armed international protection. (An unsafe “safe” area is worse than none at all.) The U.N. Standing High Readiness Brigade, EU Rapid Response Force, or regional forces — should be authorized to act by the U.N. Security Council if the genocide is small. For larger interventions, a multilateral force authorized by the U.N. should intervene. If the U.N. Security Council is paralyzed, regional alliances must act anyway under Chapter VIII of the U.N. Charter or the UN General Assembly should authorize action under the Uniting for Peace Resolution GARes. 330 (1950), which has been used 13 times for such armed intervention. Since 2005, the international responsibility to protect transcends the narrow interests of individual nation states. If strong nations will not provide troops to intervene directly, they should provide the airlift, equipment, and financial means necessary for regional states to intervene.

➔ 10. DENIAL is the final stage that lasts throughout and always follows genocide. It is among the surest indicators of further genocidal massacres. The perpetrators of genocide dig up the mass graves, burn the bodies, try to cover up the evidence and intimidate the witnesses. They deny that they committed any crimes, and often blame what happened on the victims. They block investigations of the crimes, and continue to govern until driven from power by force, when they flee into exile. There they remain with impunity, like Pol Pot or Idi Amin, unless they are captured and a tribunal is established to try them.

 The best response to denial is punishment by an international tribunal or national courts. There the evidence can be heard, and the perpetrators punished. Tribunals like the Yugoslav, Rwanda or Sierra Leone Tribunals, the tribunal to try the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, or the International Criminal Court may not deter the worst genocidal killers. But with the political will to arrest and prosecute them, some may be brought to justice.  When possible, local proceedings should provide forums for hearings of the evidence against perpetrators who were not the main leaders and planners of a genocide, with opportunities for restitution and reconciliation. The Rwandan gaçaça trials are one example. Justice should be accompanied by education in schools and the media about the facts of a genocide, the suffering it caused its victims, the motivations of its perpetrators, and the need for restoration of the rights of its victims.

© 2016 Gregory H. Stanton.

President, Genocide Watch; Research Professor in Genocide Studies and Prevention, School for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University, Arlington,Virginia 22201 USA

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Marape: No place for regionalism in military

 8th January 2022

By CLIFFORD FAIPARIK

THE PNG Defence Force belongs to the whole of Papua New Guinea and not to be dominated by an ethnic group or a region, Prime Minister James Marape says.

“It (PNGDF) is the chief corner stone of our sovereignty in a nation of thousand tribes. From the eastern most part of the country (Autonomous Region Of Bougainville and Milne Bay ) that divides Solomon Island and  PNG,  to the most northern part (Manus )of our Micronesian neighbors, to the western-most part (West Sepik )that divides PNG with West Papua in Indonesia and to the southern part (Western )that divides PNG, Australia and also Indonesia .The  entire of  the sovereignty of our nationhood is embodied in the personality of the  PNGDF as its role to maintain our sovereignty.”

Marape said that during the promotion of Colonel Mark Goina to Major General and the Announcement of his appointment as the new Chief of PNGDF at Murray Barracks in Port Moresby last week. “It is in our constitution that there must have a regional balance in our key constitutional office holders. In this context, in police, we have the Commissioner from New Guinea Island and chief of PNGDF from the Papuan region who earns his stripes on merit. And in the rank and file of the PNGDF, we have qualified military officers from all over the country. And many of our appointments in public office is regionally balanced. “We maintain a harmony to ensure that key constitutional offices holders are regionally balanced. And that is to ensure that the country is always protected as we progress forward.

”Marape said that “Appointments of public office holders is not based on the region you coming from.  But is based on the best man available for that job.  And having consider everything we got Goina as the new chief of PNGDF. Our challenges remain huge in security, tribalism, and now we face a challenge of a part of our country (Autonomous Region of Bougainville) trying to break away from us (PNG). Also election is coming up and you (PNGDF) will support the Police. 

Forgot politics and remain focused on your job.  Marape also acknowledge the outgoing Chief of PNGDF Major General Gilbert Toropo. “For eight years he has stepped up to hold the Force that was under resourced and underfunded. But he has to go and we have appointed him as the High Commissioner to New Zealand. 

Caption: Mark Goina’s wife Mirah pinning the ranks to her husband’s shoulders with the help of the Prime Minister James Marape and Deputy Chief Of Staff Colonel Tim Marsden at the Officers mess at Murray Barracks in Port Moresby last week.

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