Ferry docks at Jayapura | Music | 00:00 |
| VATSIKOPOULOS: Twice a week in the Papuan capital of Jayapura an inter island ferry docks, spilling out its human cargo. | 00:11 |
Passengers disembark | Music | 00:20 |
| VATSIKOPOULOS: The passengers are ethnic Papuans, and Indonesian transmigrants who’ve made this province their home. You won’t find many foreigners disembarking – and no journalists – it took us months and many permits later to get here, so paranoid are the authorities. | 00:28 |
| After four decades of Indonesian rule, transmigrants dominate the coastal cities, they also dominate the economy, the police and the military. Yet, half of all indigenous Papuans have never been to school and most remain on the margins of society. | 00:53 |
Moon/Seaside village | Music | 01: |
| VATSIKOPOULOS: They’ve become vulnerable to an epidemic that has already infected up to three per cent of the population, and set to double in future. | 01:21 |
Mourners |
| 01:34 |
| VATSIKOPOULOS: They’re mourning for their friend and neighbour, Yarmin Wenda. He died this morning of AIDS. | 01:48 |
David on phone/ Funeral preparations | DAVID ON PHONE: Banda, can we start the funeral as soon as possible? VATSIKOPOULOS: AIDS worker David Wambrauw met him a few weeks ago, and today he’s organising his funeral. Once every month, he and his staff- reach into their own pockets to buy coffins, crosses and graves, because people like Yarmin Wenda come to them when it’s too late. | 02:01 |
Pastor | PASTOR: Your servant has been called by God. | 02:37 |
Mourners | VATSIKOPOULOS: And God may soon be calling on five of Yarmin Wenda’s friends – they’re also HIV positive. Field workers fear there will be many, many others. HIV/AIDS is more prevalent here than anywhere outside of Africa. | 02:44 |
| DAVID: In 2001 it was low, the people who were positive - | 03:06 |
David | but now, almost every week my staff see people who are positive. | 03:11 |
Coffin being loaded into van | Maybe a week ago my staff tested healthy people and 5 of them were positive. | 03:27 |
| VATSIKOPOULOS: In the darkness Yarmin Wenda is being laid to rest. At least he knew his killer – he contracted HIV/AIDS by having unprotected sex, in a culture where men have multiple sexual partners. But many others have died undiagnosed and uncounted. | 03:41 |
Constant | CONSTANT: I believe that the situation is critical. Because of silence and lack of openness. | 04:05 |
Yarmin’s burial | Music | 04:10 |
| VATSIKOPOULOS: For every four people infected in Papua – three, like Yarmin Wenda -- are indigenous. And in a place as tense and sensitive as this, everything -- even health, becomes infected by politics. | 04:14 |
Market | Indonesia took control of Papua in 1969 under a UN brokered but flawed referendum. A policy of transmigration then began in earnest, culturally and socially transforming the province. Now that HIV AIDS has arrived, and hit the indigenous population the hardest, some Papuan leaders are alleging the virus was deliberately introduced to decimate the Papuan population. | 04:34 |
Agus meet and greet | Agus Alua is a respected Papuan leader. His predecessor, Theuys Eluway, was assassinated by Indonesian special forces. He says HIV/AIDS, is just the latest strategy of Indonesia’s to destroy his people, once the overwhelming majority, reduced through time to 66%. AGUS: We have put this issue | 05:09 |
Agus. Super: Papuan People’s Assembly | as the genocide reality here in West Papua. VATSIKOPOULOS: Can you explain further what you mean by genocide? | 05:35 |
AGUS: We have some experience and indications that a lot of Papuans are dying anywhere because of the incidence of HIV/AIDS. This is a kind of business because behind all of this we have, illegal logging, illegal mining, illegal fishing, all of this. And all this business is to bring prostitute women into Papua. | 05:45 | |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: So who organises the prostitution in these remote areas? AGUS: It cannot survive without any support by military or police. Never. | 06:20 |
Constant at seminar | VATSIKOPOULOS: Agus Alua has no evidence of genocide by HIV/AIDS – and only a handful of other Papuan leaders agree with him. | 06:35 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | Constant Karma, a former deputy governor of Papua – and now heading the AIDS Commission here, is not one of them. | 06:45 |
Constant | CONSTANT: It’s not the military. But HIV/AIDS was brought in by traders and fishermen - not the military, not any rogue elements. | 06:54 |
Sunset | Music | 07:08 |
Merauke port | VATSIKOPOULOS: Merauke, the southern port city, gazes across the Arafura sea, where Thai fishermen regularly trawl the waters. And in 1992, they had sex with local prostitutes. When they’d finished, they’d left behind Papua’s first recognised cases of HIV/AIDS. | 07:24 |
Nafsiah M’boi at condom workshop | Dr Nafsiah M’boi heads the Indonesian AIDS Commission. The wife of a former governor of East Timor, she’s come from Jakarta to help out. The free condoms they’ve been sending are just not being used. | 07:47 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | NAFSIAH M’BOI: The men won’t wear condoms and it’s not because they are religious. They don’t want to wear condoms. It’s because they’re after pleasure – isn’t that so? | 08:09 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: She also knows that men can be unfaithful, so she’s pushing the female condom as first line of defence. | 08:21 |
Demonstration | NAFSIAH M’BOI: The way you use it is the same. You bend it like so. Then you put it into the vagina. You can squat like this. VATSIKOPOULOS: She says women must act to protect themselves in a culture that has always practised high risk sex. | 08:30 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | NAFSIAH M’BOI: This is what happens. It’s like this. And then this is how it should be. Now when you’re finished, that’s right this comes out and this stays inside. Is that clear? | 08:51 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | NAFSIAH M’BOI: There is a history of high prevalence of sexually transmitted infection in Papua. Even during the Dutch colonial times, | 09:06 |
M’Boi Super: Indonesian National AIDS Commission | two times there was a big outbreak of sexually transmitted diseases. Some tribes were almost wiped out. So it’s not that this is something new. | 09: |
Merauke red light area/Brothels | Music | 09:34 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: Merauke has one of the highest sex worker infection rates in Indonesia. In Yobar, the red light district, the advertising in the brothels is all about safe sex. | 09:49 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | Music | 10:00 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: Condom use is compulsory according to the brothel madam, who says she goes around and checks that they’ve been used. | 10:05 |
Karaoke bar | And as for the girls, well, the local government has made testing compulsory. | 10:20 |
Madam | MADAM: They have check ups every month and blood tests every 3 months. If they’re infected they aren’t allowed to work. So here, you can say that the girls are 100% clean. If they are sick they’re not allowed to work. | 10:26 |
Helen with Madam | VATSIKOPOULOS: So what happens if you find that a girl is HIV positive, where does she go to work? | 10:49 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | MADAM: Actually I’ve never heard of anyone getting infected while she was working. | 10:56 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: Tati Mama, is either lying to us or unaware of what’s going on under her own roof. When she’s gone, we secretly | 11:03 |
Helen with Lola | interview a sex worker she’d recruited from Java. Let’s call her Lola. Lola is HIV positive – and still on the job. | 11:13 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | LOLA: I’ve been working here for a long time, but I’ve been infected for about a year. VATSIKOPOULOS: When you have a customer do you tell them that you’re HIV positive? LOLA: I don’t tell them about it, but I make every client use a condom. VATSIKOPOULOS: And if the customer says no, I don’t want you to use a condom, I’ll give you some more money, what do you say? LOLA: If that happens I refuse. | 11:23 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: Health officials had better hope she’s telling the truth – because this is the regulated sex industry. the one they think they have under control. | 12:04 |
Travelling in car to Domande | Music | 12:15 |
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Traditional welcome | VATSIKOPOULOS: It’s a three hour drive from Merauke to Domande village. Home to 250 members of the Marind tribe. They’ve organised a traditional welcome, because visitors don’t come here often. Neither do they get much in the way of health services here. | 12:28 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | Village elder, Paulinus Ndinken says health educators first came here four years ago to warn them of the dangers of the deadly disease. But he still doesn’t know very much about it. | 12:55 |
Paulinus | PAULINAS: People have died but we can’t be sure that they died of AIDS. They may have died of another disease, but we’ve never been given any clear information, by a medical doctor. People like us don’t know what AIDS is. | 13:15 |
Villagers | VATSIKOPOULOS: Not one person here has been tested for HIV, and they have no idea where to get condoms. NAFSIAH M’BOI: We have not been able to reach them with appropriate health services and all that, but the men | 13:45 |
M’Boi. Super: | can walk down to Timika, they can walk down to Merauke etcetera, have fun, get infected and then go back to their families. | 14:00 |
Night time Jayapura Imbi Park | Music | 14:09 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: It’s a Saturday night in Jayapura’s Imbi Park. This is the secret sex industry, where services are provided in cars, alleyways and the beach. Most of the girls are indigenous, and few are full time. They’re here because they have no alternative. | 14:26 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | Hiding in the shadows is Erni, she’s troubled and illiterate, the daughter of transmigrants. She’s already had two clients this week making just enough to feed her 3 children. Erni is also HIV positive. | 14:46 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: Do you tell your clients you are HIV positive? | 15:05 |
Erni | ERNI: I can’t be bothered. I’m embarrassed. I won’t get any money. VATSIKOPOULOS: Do you ever use condoms? ERNI: I don’t want to. VATSIKOPOULOS: Does it not worry you that you could be passing this on to other people? ERNI: Let them get it. | 15:11 |
Photo of Emil/ Wilhemina cooks | VATSIKOPOULOS: That’s probably how Emil Deda got it. He was a security guard, who often worked away in Timika, near the Freeport gold and copper mine. And he didn’t tell his wife Wilhemina Sawaki that he went to brothels. | 15:41 |
Wilhemina | WILHEMINA: Maybe he was afraid I’d get angry -- there’d be a fight. So he kept it secret. But he didn’t know he was positive. It was only after he got sick and had a test that he realised what he’d done up there. Being with another woman had led him to become infected. | 15:58 |
Wilhemina at family meal | VATSIKOPOULOS: Wilhemina Sawaki is now HIV positive. And part of a disturbing development – there are now more HIV positive housewives than infected prostitutes. | 16:22 |
Wilhemina | WILHEMINA Of course at first we both despaired and wanted to kill ourselves… VATSIKOPOULOS: Her husband died of AIDS two months ago. | 16:35 |
Wilhemina with son | And he fits the profile of the typical carrier of the virus -- from the brothel into the family home. | 16:47 |
Constant | CONSTANT: Yeah, the experts say mobile men with money. | 16:56 |
Jayapura red light district | Music | 17:01 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: It’s a week night in Sentani, Jayapura’s red light district, and the Kijangs are virtually bumper to bumper. That’s the 4 wheel drive favoured by public servants. They’ve got money, and a third of them regularly buy sex. | 17:09 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | Music | 17:24 |
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<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: More money began flowing to them after 2001, when Jakarta granted Papua special autonomy. And as the money and developers flowed to remote areas, so did prostitution. Fertile ground for the spread of HIV. | 17:31 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | Music | 17:48 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | CONSTANT: First there’s a flow of sex workers moving from one province to another. | 17:53 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | Music | 18:03 |
Constant | CONSTANT: Also Papuans are highly mobile. They can come and go as they please. They leave Papua and can have sex outside. Mobile men with money. | 18:14 |
Hospital wards | Music | 18:23 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: A degree of self government for Papua has also meant decentralisation of health services, and ironically, this has made it even more difficult to fight the virus. | 18:30 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | Officially Jakarta says the prevalence rate is 15 times the national average. But field workers say that figure is closer to 50 times. | 18:43 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | This woman was infected by her husband, and she has since died, leaving behind three orphans. Papuan leader Agus Alua despairs at the ever increasing death toll. | 18:58 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | AGUS: All of this came, has come from Papuan men. And then after they have sexual relations here and then back to their | 19:14 |
Agus. Super: Agus Alua | home and then also he sleeps with his wife, or like this. So most Papuan women are the victims here. VATSIKOPOULOS: But that’s not genocide, is it? That’s not the Indonesians introducing something deliberately to kill the Papuans, is it? AGUS: Really, that is not the direct plan of genocide. But its indirect because of who arranged all this business anyway? And the Papuan men and women are victims of this business. | 19:24 |
Market | VATSIKOPOULOS: To leaders like Agus Alua, the wounds of the past are so deep, his people so traumatised – that health and politics inevitably merge. | 20:14 |
Security forces in field | Suspicious at the need for a 14,000 strong security force, under special autonomy, he says they’re here to weed out the independence fighters. And HIV/AIDS fits in with this strategy. | 20:24 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | It’s a claim dismissed by Jakarta, though it must be said that soldiers – also being mobile men with money, have so far not been tested for the virus. | 20:41 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | AGUS: The process of delivering diseases or delivering people here in Papua | 20:57 |
Agus | is the best way how we can influence the Papuan people in order til they stop their political aspiration like this. | 21:04 |
M’Boi | NAFSIAH M’BOI: We on our side doing our best to save this nation --not this nation -- to save Papua from the disaster. It’s the best we can do at this moment to prove that yes we do care. Every single Papuan is important to us. | 21:13 |
Church service | Music | 21:38 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: Today, almost every single Papuan knows someone who has died of, or is infected, with HIV/AIDS. Husbands and wives and now tragically – children. | 21:44 |
Samuel at microphone | SAMUEL: Why did God give me a virus that can kill people? VATSIKOPOULOS: Samuel Imbiri was infected at the age of twelve. | 21:58 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | SAMUEL: I thought about it maybe it was because I had sex once, but it was only once. VATSIKOPOULOS: But once is all it takes. | 22:10 |
Samuel | SAMUEL: On the street, there were 10 of us who had HIV/AIDS, they knew what HIV was and they knew they should use condoms to prevent being infected. | 22:23 |
Street scenes | They understand but they want to use condoms, they just want to have sex, they have multiple partners some of them were HIV positive and they wanted to infect other people. | 22:32 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | VATSIKOPOULOS: If attitudes don’t change, if the brakes aren’t put on infection rates soon, Papua will face a social and economic catastrophe in future. | 23:01 |
M’Boi. Super: | NAFSIAH M’BOI: I cannot say I’m confident Helen, but I’m hopeful. We can do the best we can. | 23:13 |
Samuel in church | VATSIKOPOULOS: Samuel Imbiri is now eighteen, and he represents the age group with the highest infection rate. He should be the future of this province, yet he’s living on borrowed time. | 23:19 |
Constant | CONSTANT: I’m worried that could happen if today’s generation isn’t careful, if they don’t listen if they not afraid of HIV danger. | 23:35 |
Samuel in church | VATSIKOPOULOS: Samuel Imbiri is talking, but no-one is listening. SAMUEL: I’ve given them information about condoms and HIV/AIDS but they don’t want to know, | 23:46 |
Samuel | they don’t want to hear all that, so let them keep having sex without using condoms. | 23:58 |
Mourners | Music | 24:04 |
<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> <!--[endif]--> | Reporter : Helen Vatsikopolous Camera: David Martin Producer : Vivien Altman Editor : Stuart Miller Research : Bronwen Reed John Wing | 24:24 |
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