July 30, 2010
  
  • Promoting nonviolence and protecting human rights defenders since 1981
PBI Indonesia > About PBI Indonesia > Project history 

History of the Project

The Wamena sub-team facilitates a PPE workshop

 

The Indonesia Project: Ten Years on

This past August, the PBI Indonesia Project commemorated its tenth year of service to the people of Indonesia with celebrations in Wamena, Jayapura and Jakarta. Since 1999, nearly two hundred volunteers from twenty nine countries have served with the IP, providing protective accompaniment and peace education services to 27 Indonesian client NGOs, as well as running countless workshops with various other civil society groups and government organizations. The IP has worked in seven provinces, from the westernmost province of Aceh, to Papua on the far eastern fringe of the Archipelago.

PBI first received requests from Indonesian civil society groups for protective services in 1998 and following a two month exploratory visit, established the PBI East Timor Project in Dili in August of 1999. However later that year, due to widespread violence following the East Timor referendum for independence, the team evacuated to Jakarta, Bali, Flores and West Timor. The IP continued to provide support for client organizations in both East and West Timor, such as TRuK-F and LAP Timoris, until the West Timor sub-team was formally closed in May 2002.

The first year of the new millennium saw the expansion of the IP with the establishment of permanent teams in both Jakarta and Banda Aceh. From Jakarta, PBI could more thoroughly integrate with the international community and the national government of Indonesia. Better integration would lead to better support for PBI clients like Suciwati, who for years has relentlessly sought justice in the case of the 2004 assassination of her husband, human rights defender Munir Sahid Thalib, aboard a Garuda Airlines flight to Amsterdam. Munir’s unresolved case is perhaps the highest profile human rights case in Indonesia.

PBI opened a second Aceh team in Lhokseumawe in 2002, and in the same year ran workshops in Flores and West Timor on conflict resolution and management. By the summer of 2003, when the declaration of Martial law forced the evacuation of both sub-teams to Medan, PBI was serving 7 local NGOs in Aceh. From Medan and Jakarta, PBI worked hard to provide continued support to clients in Aceh, primarily via frequent check in calls to each organization to monitor the safety and situation of clients and the civilian population.

The unspeakable tragedy of the Boxing Day Tsunami, which left 153,000 Acehnese dead and perhaps a million without home or livelihood, added new dimensions and pressing demands to the challenges facing PBI and our clients in Aceh. We were terribly saddened by the loss of some Indonesian colleagues in this disaster, and so hardened our resolve to provide a protective presence for their organizations while they began rebuilding and undertaking the humanitarian and human rights work they were uniquely qualified to do. 

PBI was finally able to return to Aceh in January 2005. Eight months later, the Aceh Peace Agreement was signed in Helsinki. This agreement effectively ended the fighting between GAM and the RI. The agreement also created the Aceh Monitoring Mission (AMM), which was tasked to monitor human rights and the implementation of the terms of peace. The PBI sub-team based in Banda Aceh worked closely with the AMM; monitoring  clients’ security while at the same time building up networks in the province to increase cooperation between local and international bodies working on the peace process, in particular between the AMM and our client organizations.

As the situation in Aceh stabilized PBI received fewer and fewer requests for protective accompaniment from our clients, and so we were able to focus and expand our participatory peace education program. From 2006 onwards, the Aceh sub team ran numerous youth camps, capacity building, peace building, transparency, and gender equality work shops in cooperation with both local and international partners. PBI formally closed the Aceh sub team in 2008 with the consent of our clients. Nevertheless, we continue to stay in close contact and to monitor the peace in Aceh with yearly fieldtrips to the province.

Over the past five years PBI has also had field teams in Papua, one of the most conflict-prone regions in Indonesia. In 2004 ElsHam, a Papuan NGO based in Jayapura, asked to become a PBI client. The following year, after an initial exploratory field trip, PBI established the Jayapura sub team. The sub team began building a security network, socializing with local NGOs and government authorities, and considering the need for another office in Wamena.  PBI quickly decided that another Papuan team based in Wamena was necessary to serve the isolated and vulnerable people of the surrounding Baliem Valley, and so in 2006 PBI created the Wamena sub team.

PBI has worked with a number of clients in Papua, including JAPH&HAM, SKP, Pastor John Djonga, LP3BH, and FOKER on issues ranging from impunity, access to justice, and security sector reform to land rights, natural resources and cultural/traditional rights. Historically, the Jayapura team has tended to focus on protective accompaniment, including regular field trips to many different cities and villages around Papua in support of our clients. On the other hand, the Wamena team has focused on participatory peace education activities in partnership with client and local NGOs.

In Wamena, Peace Day holds particular cultural and social importance. Over the past few years, PBI has helped develop and fund events around this celebration, perhaps culminating in 2009’s celebration with a month of peace related activities, discussions, and debates all planned and carried out by local organizers and PBI client organizations. 2009 also saw the formal reopening of the Wamena peace library, which is now run by a local staff. The staff has succeeded in attracting a much wider range of people to the library through an expanded collection of children books, comics, and novels, and a program of activities including handicrafts, beading, short story writing and film screenings.

The Jayapura team throughout its history has provided support for PBI clients with offices all around Papua. In 2007, the Jayapura team visited client SKP in Timika for one week to socialize with local authorities and reassess SKP’s security situation. The following year PBI spent ten days with client organization LP3BH in and around Manokwari, as well as making various other trips with clients to Bituni Bay, Puncak Jaya and Merauke. The Jayapura team made several field trips Meroke and several more to Nabire in 2009 to provide a proactive presence for clients like Emmanual Goo.

No one knows what the future will bring in 2010, but we hope to continue supporting our clients and provide the sort of proactive presence and peace education expertise we are uniquely qualified to give.

Timeline

1998 First concrete requests for protective accompaniment received from Indonesian NGOs
   
April/May 1999 5-person Project Exploration Team to Dili, East Timor
   
August 1999 Official founding of the PBI 'East Timor Project [ETP]'
   
September 1999 East Timor Team evacuated to Jakarta, Bali, Flores, and West Timor due to widespread violence following East Timor referendum for independence
   
January 2000 Establishment of the West Timor Team and the 'Indonesia and East Timor Project [IETP],' including providing protective accompaniment to NGOs working with East Timorese refugees in West Timor
   
April 2000 Exploratory Team to Aceh Province in Sumatra
   
April 2000 First IP peace education workshops, Kupang, West Timor
   
August 2000 Office/house in Jakarta [capital of Indonesia] established
   
September 2000 Evacuation of the West Timor Team following the killing of three UNHCR personnel
   
Oct.-Nov. 2000 The Project monitored and re-assessed the situation in West Timor
   
December 00-March 01 Process of establishing the Aceh Team
   
January 2001 First client in Aceh accepted: humanitarian organization RATA
   
March 2001 Office/house in Banda Aceh [capital of Aceh province] established
   
March 2002 A second [and consequently, final] re-assessment in West Timor completed
   
Dec. 2002 Office/house in Lhokseumawe [North Aceh district] established to support the second PBI Team in Aceh
   
May 2003 Military Operation launched in Aceh, beginning of PBI negotiations with the military
   
July 2003 Withdrawal of Lhokseumawe team, two weeks later, close Banda Aceh team and withdraw from Aceh
   
August 2003 Relocate Aceh team to Medan
   
October 2003 Papua Assessment
   
February - March 2004 IP conducts peace education training for Directorate General of Human Rights Protection and other high level Government of Indonesia staff
   
March 2004 Team deployment to Papua
   
November 2004 Medan team relocates to Jakarta to begin concerted effort for re-entry
   
December 26, 2004 Tsunami hits Aceh, Sri Lanka, India and other coastal regions
   
December 2004 Papua team conducts an assessment in Wamena, the province of Papua
   
January 2005 Aceh Assessment Team travels to Banda Aceh to determine how PBI can provide protection and trauma counseling
   
January 2005 PBI is granted Yayasan status and changes its Indonesian name to Yayasan Bina Perdamaian Internasional Indonesia
   
February 2005 Aceh team reopens an office in Banda Aceh
   
July 2005 PBI opens a new office in Wamena, in the province of Papua
   
July 2005 PBI volunteers provide PA to PBHI in Makassar for Abepura Case
   
January 2006 Aceh PPE Sub-team officially established
   
April 2006 Two Aceh sub-teams integrated
   
May 2006 Papua Participatory Peace Education (PPE) sub-team established
   
May 2007 Papua Participatory Peace Education (PPE) sub-team merged with the Wamena sub-team to become a PPE team in Wamena. The PPE office in Jayapura closed.
   
July 2007 BEO security workshops in Aceh, Jakarta, and Jayapura

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Peace Brigades International Indonesia Project
Yayasan Bina Perdamaian Internasional Indonesia
Jl. Damai Mudal RT 01/19 Sariharjo Ngaglik Sleman, Yogyakarta 55581.
Tel/Fax:+62 274 4463 996
General Email: admin(at)remove-this.pbi-indonesia.org
Volunteer recruitment: recruiting(at)remove-this.pbi-indonesia.org


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