David Johnson and Jason MacLeod, Queensland Regional Meeting

Jason MacLeod’s Statement

My name is Jason Graeme McLeod. I work as a researcher, educator and organiser.

On 31 May 2021 I nonviolently blocked the doors of Thales, an arms company located at 17 Sugarmill Rd, Pinkenba. When asked to leave by a Thales manager and police, I politely refused to do so. When I was subsequently arrested by the police I acted in a nonviolent and respectful manner to all parties, including Thales, the police, and other members of the public assembled outside Thales. This statement briefly explains why I did what I did. I ask that the Magistrate take this into consideration when sentencing me.

I decided to block the doors at Thales and refusal to leave because Thales sells weapons, vehicles, and munitions to Indonesia. These arms are used against civilians in West Papua. I took nonviolent action because there are no viable conventional political mechanisms available to ordinary people to solve this problem.

I first went to West Papua in 1991. I have been travelling back and forth ever since. Before COVID I was visiting West Papua and Indonesia as many as five times a year. I have been invited by West Papuans to form a number of different organisations designed to strengthen the capacity of the nonviolent movement for human rights and democracy. One of those organisations is Make West Papua Safe which has been campaigning against Thales. Together with a West Papuan colleague I am a co-founder of that organisation.

I hold a doctorate in International Studies and have taught politics, civil resistance, and community development, at universities in Australia and overseas. In 2015 The University of Queensland Press published my book Merdeka and the Morning Star: civil resistance in West Papua, based on my PhD thesis about the nonviolent struggle for freedom and against the Indonesian state’s occupation of West Papua. As a result of being in relationship, and daily contact, with West Papuan human rights defenders, I am acutely aware of the political and human rights situation in West Papua.

Last year, in January 2020 I received distressing messages and photographs from human rights defenders in the Highlands of West Papua. My informants told me that several rockets had been fired from an Indonesian helicopter at civilians residing in a remote village in the Highlands. Witnesses reported houses and crops being destroyed. Incredibly one of these rockets failed to explode. I have seen the evidence of this rocket attack, including the unexploded ordnance. The attack is also consistent with ongoing and credible reports by Amnesty International Indonesia, Human Rights Watch Indonesia, TAPOL, International Coalition for Papua, and human rights organisations inside West Papua, including ELSHAM and PAHAM, of the ongoing war in Nduga, Intan Jaya and Puncak districts, in the West Papuan highlands.

In the weeks before I blocked the doors of Thales, my colleagues and I traced the rockets back to a Thales factory in Belgium. In the weeks after my arrest we have since discovered that in 2014 the Indonesian government purchased 12 Airbus/Eurocopeter Fennec helicopters, fitted with what I believe are rocket launchers equipped to launch Thales /FZ68 rockets, the same rockets that exploded in Ugimba village in January 2020. We also discovered that Bushmaster combat vehicles sold to Pindad, a state-owned arms company in Indonesia, are rebranded as Sanca but made under licence by Thales. The Bushmaster vehicles are manufactured in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. Dozens of these vehicles were visible at the factory in Pinkenba on 31 May 2021.

We have tried talking to Thales but dialogue has, so far, failed. Despite this we will continue to try to talk to Thales. Our nonviolent action, this court case and the media around the court case, are a continuation of our attempts at, and commitment to, dialogue. For more than twenty years we have also been meeting with politicians, diplomats, and senior public servants. In fact, on 5 July 2021, Make West Papua Safe briefed Federal Members of Parliament about the human rights situation in West Papua.

I am acutely aware of the failure of conventional politics to address this problem. The Australian government, for instance, is a signatory to the Arms Trade Treaty. Under the terms of the ATT, states are not meant to sell or transfer weapons where there is a chance these could be used to facilitate crimes and human rights abuses. Article Six of the Treaty specifies when a state should deny permission for an arms sale, including when a state has knowledge of “crimes against humanity” and “attacks directed against civilians”. These are all situations which have routinely occurred in West Papua for decades. The West Papua Council of Churches even goes as far as saying genocide is occurring against the Nduga people and others indigenous peoples in the Highlands. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) suggests that such weapons sales violate both the Geneva Conventions and international human rights laws:

Under the Geneva Conventions and customary IHL (International Humanitarian Law), all States have an obligation to ensure respect for IHL. The ICRC takes the view that this entails a responsibility to make every effort to ensure that the arms and ammunition they transfer do not end up in the hands of persons who are likely to use them to violate IHL. The ATT reflects this responsibility in two ways. First, it prohibits a State from transferring conventional arms, as well as parts, components and ammunition for them, if it knows that they would be used to commit genocide, crimes against humanity, or certain war crimes. Second, even where a State does not have such knowledge, the ATT requires it to a) assess the potential that a serious violation of IHL or international human rights law could be facilitated or committed with the arms or items to be exported, and b) not authorise the export of the items in question when there is an overriding risk of these violations happening.

At the time of my arrest I was requesting the police investigate the role of Thales acting in possible breach of Australia’s obligations under the ATT in relation to the sale of arms to Indonesia which have been used against West Papuan citizens. Unfortunately, the Australian government, has made no move to ban weapons sales to Indonesia. Moreover, there is no indication or expectation that they will do so. Since 2006, the Australian government, and the opposition, have been silent when it comes to finding nonviolent solutions to addressing the root political causes of conflict in West Papua. Liberal National Party and the Australian Labor Party politicians routinely cite the Lombok Treaty, which has become the Indonesian government’s gag order for Australian politicians concerned about the plight of West Papuans, as the reason why they won’t comment about Indonesian state violence in West Papua.

West Papuans are my neighbours. They are friends, they are family, and they are colleagues. I have worked alongside West Papuans for more than thirty years. The simple and inescapable fact is that when Thales’ weapons and vehicles arrive in West Papua they are used to harm, and in some instances, kill West Papuans. Given the failure of dialogue and given the failure of conventional political processes to protect our neighbours, I have no other choice but to engage in determined, disciplined, and strategic nonviolent action to prevent further violence by people using weapons, vehicles and munitions made by Thales. It is vital we stand up for West Papua like we did for East Timor.

Your Honour, the courts and community take a dim view of those who perpetrate violence. I share that view. I suggest that the violent actions, or actions that condone or enable violence by public and private institutions also need to be countered, condemned and constrained. I willingly submit to the court’s decision on sentencing because I believe that civil institutions and legal processes can serve the common good.

 Jason McLeod, 29 June 2021