Indonesia Military Confirms Troops In Papua Torture Footage (GRAPHIC VIDEO)

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Indonesia confirmed Friday that government soldiers could be seen torturing suspected separatists in video posted online. (Scroll down for video)

In a short video, men tied in contorted positions are held down on the ground and questioned. At one point, one man's genitals are burned. Another answers questions while a knife blade is jammed under his nose and occasionally dragged across his face and neck. The perpetrators' faces can't be seen, but a uniform is sometimes visible.

Senior Security Minister Djoko Suyanto said Friday that the abusers were in fact soldiers and that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had launched an investigation. The victims were thought to be from the restive eastern province of Papua.

"A comprehensive investigation of the unprofessional behavior is under way," he told reporters after a Cabinet meeting to discuss the footage, which was posted online and has drawn condemnation from newspapers, legislators and rights groups.

Suyanto said proper action would be taken against any troops involved in torture in accordance with military regulations.

According to the New York-based Human Rights Watch, a metadata analysis indicated the footage was filmed on a cell phone camera on May 30.

Indonesia took over Papua from the Dutch in 1963 and formalized its sovereignty six years later through a stage-managed vote by about 1,000 community leaders.

Human rights groups say more than 100,000 people -- a fifth of the impoverished province's population -- have died as result of military action.

View the footage as published by the Asian Human Rights Commission below (WARNING: contains graphic images):

Comments

[talkingheads]

02:46 AM on 10/25/2010

That is brutal and barbaric ....

[AndrewJ]

09:02 PM on 10/23/2010

The Huffington Post normally checks stories BEFORE publishing, AP clearly publishes whitewash. According the State Department record declassified in 1995, the US "pressed the Netherlands" into trading to people of West Papua to "annexation by Indonesia" and "brown colonialism".

Readers can also check UN resolution 2504 for yourselves, the UN NEVER said anything about "sovereignty" not did it say the Indonesian act was any form of referendum or self-determination. The UN distanced itself with the words "arrangements for the act of free choice were the responsibility of Indonesia".. Why did the UN allow the New York Agreement? Lets just mention that the US seems to have taken the idea to the UN four weeks after the death of Dag Hammarskjold, and that the temporary UN Secretary General was grateful for the suggestion of a $200m bond scheme. It was the Cold-war and life was cheap, especially West Papuan lives.

Little wonder the US Congress request in 2005 for a report on West Papua was removed, and that the Congress letter asking West Papua be made a priority has been quietly disregarded.