Mystery surrounds how munitions imported for Indonesia’s civilian spies were used in attacks on villages

By Tom Allard and Stanley Widianto

JAKARTA(Reuters) -Nearly 2,500 mortar shells from Serbia purchased for Indonesia’s spy company final yr have been transformed to be air-dropped, and a few have been utilized in assaults on eight villages in Papua, in keeping with a report from an arms monitoring group and photographs supplied to Reuters.

The alleged procurement for the state intelligence company, generally known as BIN, was not disclosed to the parliamentary oversight committee that approves its finances, three members advised Reuters.

The London-based monitoring group, Battle Armament Analysis (CAR), mentioned the mortar rounds have been manufactured by Serbia’s state-owned arms-maker Krusik and later modified to be dropped from the air somewhat than fired from a mortar tube. It mentioned the arms despatched to BIN additionally included 3,000 digital initiators and three timing gadgets usually used to detonate explosives.

The 81mm mortar rounds have been utilized in assaults in October on villages in Papua, an Indonesian province the place a decades-long marketing campaign by armed separatists has accelerated lately, in keeping with CAR, an eyewitness, and human rights investigators engaged on behalf of a number of church teams.

Reuters was not capable of independently affirm sure facets of the CAR report, together with whether or not BIN had acquired the cargo. Reuters additionally couldn’t set up who authorised the acquisition of the munitions or who used them in Papua.

BIN and the Ministry of Defence didn’t reply to requests for remark concerning the buy or use of the mortar shells.

The parliamentary oversight committee is holding a closed listening to subsequent week with BIN, and the weapons buy will probably be mentioned, one committee member mentioned.

Tubagus Hasanuddin, a former basic who additionally sits on the parliamentary committee that oversees BIN, mentioned that the intelligence company can purchase small arms for its brokers’ self defence however that any military-grade weapons “should be for training or coaching functions and never for fight”.

“We have to conduct a listening to first with BIN and examine the explanation. Afterwards we are going to examine the legality,” he mentioned.

Nobody was killed, though properties and a number of other church buildings burned down, in keeping with one witness and investigators working for eight human rights and church teams to doc the assaults.

“It is clear lower that these mortars are offensive weapons that have been utilized in civilian areas,” mentioned Jim Elmslie, convenor of the West Papua Challenge on the College of Wollongong, who submitted CAR’s report back to the UN Human Rights Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner in April. “This can be a breach of humanitarian regulation.”

BIN is a civilian company below the direct authority of Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, extensively generally known as Jokowi. The president’s workplace didn’t reply to a request for remark concerning the buy or use of the weapons.

A spokesman for Indonesia’s navy, Col. Wieng Pranoto, advised Reuters its forces didn’t drop the munitions on the villages. He declined to say whether or not BIN deployed the munitions.

Indonesian regulation requires the navy, police and different authorities businesses to hunt permission from the Ministry of Defence to purchase arms, and requires them to make use of materiel produced by the home defence trade whether it is out there. The nation’s state-owned arms-maker PT Pindad produces mortar rounds, and they’re a part of the armed forces’ arsenal.

A defence ministry supply conversant in the procurement system mentioned the ministry by no means permitted the acquisition or any regulation that might enable BIN to accumulate the munitions.

“It raises questions of why BIN would need them,” this particular person mentioned.

One other member of the parliamentary committee that oversees BIN mentioned he was personally investigating the findings in CAR’s report to find out whether or not there was any wrongdoing. He mentioned he had approached BIN and PT Pindad for an evidence however “discovered numerous big partitions”.

“There should be one thing that may be very, very delicate about it,” he advised Reuters.

PT Pindad’s spokesperson and chief govt’s workplace didn’t reply detailed questions from Reuters about how the mortar rounds have been procured or who used them.

One of many firm’s commissioners, Alexandra Wuhan, declined to debate specifics of the acquisition, however mentioned: “Pindad is obliged and subjected to Indonesia’s legal guidelines, guidelines and laws relating to navy and civilian arms procurements, likewise BIN as the tip person. Pindad can’t be held accountable for the when and the place the arms are utilized by Indonesian authorities. We shouldn’t have such management.”

ARMS PURCHASE

CAR is a Europe-based arms monitor whose purchasers have included the European Union, the United Nations, and the U.S. and British governments.

The organisation analysed photographs of ordnance used within the assaults in Papua and formally requested data on the shells from the Serbian authorities by way of the nation’s mission on the United Nations in New York on Nov. 26.

Serbia’s UN ambassador, Nemanja Stevanovic, supplied a response on Dec. 31 in a “be aware verbale,” a proper diplomatic communique. James Bevan, CAR’s govt director, mentioned the data in that communique shaped the idea of the weapons monitoring group’s report.

CAR declined to share Serbia’s response, citing protocols. Stevanovic, and Serbia’s UN Mission, didn’t reply to a Reuters request to share the be aware verbale.

THE TRANSFER

The report mentioned Serbia confirmed Krusic made the M-72 high-explosive mortar rounds, which have been bought to Serbian arms provider Zenitprom DOO in February 2021 together with the three,000 digital initiators and timing gadgets. The munitions have been then exported by Zenitprom DOO to PT Pindad for BIN, the group says.

On Oct. 6, 2020, initially of the procurement course of, BIN supplied Serbian authorities with end-user certificates No. R-540/X/2020, confirming that they’d be the unique customers of the gadgets within the consignment and that the munitions wouldn’t be transferred or bought to different events with out the permission of the Serbian authorities, the report mentioned. No request to switch the weapons was made earlier than the Papua assault, the Serbian authorities advised CAR, in keeping with the report.

In its report, CAR mentioned Serbia confirmed the lot numbers on the shells utilized in Papua matched these of those bought by BIN.

Some particulars of the report that Reuters was not capable of independently affirm embrace the mortar shells’ matching lot numbers, the switch of the munitions consignment to BIN or whether or not BIN complied with the end-user certificates. Reuters was unable to find out who had modified the mortar rounds or why BIN had bought the timers and igniters.

CAR mentioned BIN had supplied the Serbian authorities with a “supply verification certification,” though Reuters couldn’t independently affirm the weapons had arrived in BIN’s fingers.

An official on the arms-control part of Serbia’s Ministry of Commerce in Belgrade and the nation’s embassy in Jakarta didn’t reply to Reuters’ request for remark. Krusik and Zenitprom DOO didn’t reply to requests for remark.

VILLAGE ATTACKS

An independence insurrection has simmered in resource-rich Papua since 1969, when a United Nations-supervised vote involving solely about 1,025 individuals led to the previous Dutch colony turning into a part of Indonesia.

The safety scenario in Papua has “dramatically deteriorated” since April 2021, when separatists killed the top of BIN’s Papua workplace in an ambush, in keeping with a press release by three U.N. particular rapporteurs in March. Between April and November final yr, they mentioned there have been “surprising abuses” by the federal government. The Indonesian authorities rejected their assertion.

Beginning on Oct. 10, 2021, helicopters and drones fired into and dropped munitions on eight villages within the Kiwirok district for a number of days, in keeping with the eyewitness interviewed by Reuters, human rights investigators and a number of other native church leaders.

“They dropped bombs with drones,” Pastor Yahya Uopmabin advised Reuters, saying he watched the assault from close by mountains, the place many residents had fled. “Locations of worship, homes of residents have been burning.”

Eneko Bahabol, a Papuan investigator working for a consortium of eight human rights and church teams, mentioned 32 mortar rounds have been dropped, together with 5 that did not detonate. Reuters has seen photographs of the unexploded rounds.

The photographs from CAR present the mortar shells carry the markings of the Serbian state-owned arms-maker. Samuel Paunila, head of the ammunition administration advisory workforce on the Geneva Worldwide Centre for Humanitarian Demining, confirmed the mortar rounds had Krusic markings.

(Reporting by Tom Allard and Stanley Widianto. Extra reporting by Michelle Nicholls in New York and Aleksandar Vasovic in Belgrade. Enhancing by Gerry Doyle)