west papua

[merdeka]

does this forum support independence for west papua? I do but I have no idea what I can do about it. I signed a peition and donated some money, I also emailed my mp but this seems futile. Nobody knows or cares about the occuption because journalists are not allowed to enter west papua.

100 000 people have been killed, Indonesia is killing indigenous people, destroying their culture and replacing them with indonesian immigrants, stealing their land, destroying their environment with mining, logging and food estates which only benefit indonesian settlers not indigenous people. I'm maori from new zealand, what is happening right now is exactly what happened to us 100 years ago and to indigenous autralians and americans.


Right now in Puncak Jaya, Indonesian soldiers are hunting Free Papua Movement (OPM) activists by burning villages and raping and pillaging and killing innocent people. They say the freedom fighters have to surrender by June 28, the army said that after 28 June 2010, everybody in the area will be killed in a 'scorch the earth' policy. but the people are trapped, they can leave their villages and hide in the bush but the army won't let them leave the region.

Obama is supposed to visit indonesia this month and he plans to resume U.S. support with the Indonesian Special Forces Kopassus, even though they are responsibe for human rights violations in papua and east timor

more information:


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so I guess you can google it.


The international community has to act now. Any ideas??

[Q]

does this forum support independence for west papua?
"The forum" has no political opinions whatsoever regarding the world. It is just that, a forum in which discussion takes place, among far-leftists.


I do but I have no idea what I can do about it. I signed a peition and donated some money, I also emailed my mp but this seems futile. Nobody knows or cares about the occuption because journalists are not allowed to enter west papua.
I must say I'm a bit ignorant on the situation. Do you have some good resources on this?


Right now in Puncak Jaya, Indonesian soldiers are hunting Free Papua Movement (OPM) activists by burning villages and raping and pillaging and killing innocent people. They say the freedom fighters have to surrender by June 28, the army said that after 28 June 2010, everybody in the area will be killed in a 'scorch the earth' policy. but the people are trapped, they can leave their villages and hide in the bush but the army won't let them leave the region.
Well, fuck. That's amazingly atrocious. How did things lead up to this point?


more information:


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so I guess you can google it.
Fair enough. Do you know some good site names?

[merdeka]

hello, the link I wanted to post was to a website called etan their latest report June 2010 has information about Obama's visit and kopassus.

there is an english website called freewestpapua and a lot of videos on youtube.

Indonesia inherited West Papua from Holland, the occupation is legal according to the un because 1000 people were forced at gunpoint to vote for occupation. since then they've been fighting for independence, but not successfully. Indonesia started this new rampage last month because they say opm killed 2 indonesian soldiers but that might not be true, it is difficult to find out anything. Before this happened opm said they would renounce armed struggle and try a propaganda war instead, their only hope is international pressure. I don't know what is going to happen after June 28, there is apparently secret diplomatic pressure to extend the deadline but not to end the occupation.

I am kind of ignorant about the issue, I'm trying to find out more. Maybe other people on this website know something! :-)

[Dimentio]

Indonesia has been doing this since the 1970's. It was only when the situation spiraled out of their control that they were forced to leave East Timor for example. West Papua should preferably be unified with East Papua.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

I must say I'm a bit ignorant on the situation. Do you have some good resources on this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papua_Conflict

More sources than usual for a wiki entry.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

This is the latest coverage I've seen in the mainstream press:

http://www.economist.com/node/16274331

Papua: Indonesia's last frontier

THE hotel provides free mosquito repellent and closes its pool bar before dusk to prevent guests from contracting malaria. The former Sheraton still offers the best accommodation in Indonesia’s little-visited province of Papua, catering mainly to employees of its owner, Freeport-McMoRan, an American mining giant. Freeport protects its staff from more than malaria. Since July 2009 a spate of mysterious shootings along the road linking the hotel in Timika to the huge Grasberg mine up in the mountains has killed one employee, a security guard and a policeman and wounded scores of others. Workers are now shuttled from Timika to the mine by helicopter.
Before the pool bar closes, a jolly crowd of Freeport employees have their beers stored in a cool box. They take it to one of the—mostly dry—seafood restaurants in town. As in the rest of Papua, all formal businesses are run by Indonesian migrants who are predominantly Muslim. The mainly Christian Papuans sit on the pavements outside selling betel nuts and fruit.
“We are not given licences to run a business,” says a young Papuan independence activist who does not want to be named. He sits in a car with two bearded guerrilla fighters of the West Papua Revolutionary Army, the militant wing of the Free Papua Movement (OPM). For more than 40 years the OPM has fought a low-intensity war to break away from Indonesia. Partly because of restrictions on reporting it, this is one of the world’s least-known conflicts. It is getting harder to keep secret.
Unlike its independent neighbour, Papua New Guinea, which occupies the eastern half of the vast island, the western part used to be a Dutch colony. During the cold war the United Nations said there should be a plebiscite to let Papuans decide their future. But Indonesians, the Papuans say, forced roughly 1,000 Papuan leaders at gunpoint to vote unanimously for integration into their country. This “act of free will” has been contested ever since.


The two bearded rebels drive around town to evade security forces. “Indonesia might be a democracy, but not for us Papuans,” says one. “They gave us autonomy which is a joke. We are different from those Indonesians. Just look at our skin, our hair, our language, our culture. We have nothing in common with them. We beg President Obama to visit Hollandia when he comes to Indonesia in June to witness the oppression with his own eyes,” says the other, using the colonial name for Papua’s capital, Jayapura. (America’s president is due to visit the country on June 14th.) In the 1960s indigenous Papuans made up almost the whole population of Indonesia’s largest province; since then immigration from the rest of the country has reduced their share to about half.
The two rebels do not want to take responsibility for the shootings along the road to the Grasberg mine, but leave no doubt either about their sympathies or their intentions. “The Indonesian shopkeepers, the soldiers and the staff of Freeport are all our enemies. We want to kill them and the mine should be shut,” they say. “Grasberg makes lots of money but we Papuans get nothing. When we achieve independence, we shall kick out the immigrants and Freeport and merge our country with Papua New Guinea.”
The car draws up in front of the seafood restaurant where the Freeport staff are becoming ever more cheerful, unaware that rebels are watching them. Freeport is the biggest publicly traded copper company in the world, and the Grasberg mine remains its main asset. The complex, the world’s largest combined copper and gold mine, is enormously profitable. It provided $4 billion of Freeport’s operating profit of $6.5 billion in 2009. The mining facilities are protected by around 3,000 soldiers and police which were supported by Freeport with $10m last year, according to the company. In December 2009 the police shot dead Kelly Kwalik, one of the OPM’s senior commanders, whom the police blamed for a series of attacks on Freeport’s operations, a charge he repeatedly denied.
Foreign journalists are restricted in their travel to Papua. Your correspondent was lucky enough to slip through the net. In the towns, it is clear that the guerrillas generally keep a low profile. But in the central highlands they are free to operate more openly. This is their heartland. Anti-Indonesian feelings run high because of the sometimes brutal suppression of the OPM by the army.
A well-hidden rebel camp in the Baliem valley—home to a Stone Age tribe discovered and disturbed by outsiders only in the 1930s—lies a few kilometres from a small army base. The guerrillas conduct military training with villagers who use spears, bows and arrows, all without metal heads. Students with mobile phones and video cameras teach the farmers revolutionary rhetoric. They have lost faith in peaceful means of protest and hope to provoke a bloody confrontation that will push Papua on to the international agenda. So far the government has refused to talk to the fractious OPM. Unless it changes its mind, it risks being unable to prevent the young radicals from kicking off a revolution.

[scarletghoul]

This liberation struggle gets no attention at all in the bourgeois press, both because its a liberation struggle and because it's in a place no one here cares about. But the ethnic cleansing and genocide in that part of the world is covered up and ignored so bad in general, including the genocide of aboriginal Australians and Maoris.

What's interesting reading the Wiki article is that the number of dead is up to ten times higher than the number displaced apparently. .

Victory to the Free Papua Movement

[Saorsa]

Scarletghoul, I responded to your comment about the treatment of Maori and aboriginal oppression in a new thread. (http://www.revleft.com/vb/maori-new-zealand-t136670/index.html)

[merdeka]

So far the government has refused to talk to the fractious OPM. Unless it changes its mind, it risks being unable to prevent the young radicals from kicking off a revolution.
that probably will happen, I don't know what else they can do. Indonesia will never give up West Papua like they gave up East Timor and the west will never force them because we want their natural resources. but I was suprised the mining company is American, I thought they usually care about PR 'greenwashing' or whatever. It is the most environmentally un-friendly mine, the pollution is visible from space!

It's good to see media coverage anyway, Europeans seem to pay more attention than nz and Australia because we trade with Indonesia so we completely ignore it. I don't think most Indonesians even know what their army is doing. I think I'm well-informed but it really makes me wonder what other terrible things are happening that I don't know about! Hopefully Obama will bring American journalists. they really need media attention and public support - or guns!

I watched a really good documentary on youtube by some guys who smuggled in video cameras for locals to record their side of the story. i can't post links but I will try to find it and post the station.

[Hiero]

that probably will happen, I don't know what else they can do. Indonesia will never give up West Papua like they gave up East Timor and the west will never force them because we want their natural resources. but I was suprised the mining company is American, I thought they usually care about PR 'greenwashing' or whatever. It is the most environmentally un-friendly mine, the pollution is visible from space!



That is generally the situation in the third world, where Western owned (whether partly or fully) companies invest in highly dangerous areas and use the most repressive governments to safe gaurd their investments and usually anything goes in these areas. Such as assasinations, rape, torture, murder, massacre.

Capitalism has found the last frontiers. It is usually in places that people in core countries have no idea about, West Papua, regional areas in Pakistan and India, the deep Amazonian areas in Brazil.

I think the best thing for leftists in western countries is to try and publicise and internationalise these struggles. We are entering an era of the soft-capitalism, at least in it's imagery. So companies promoting green policies, indiginous values, productive, modernisation/development and chairty. So Bill Gates talks about everyone in the third world having a laptop. While in these areas the worst atrocities of capitalism occur and there is huge conflict between the indigenous and global capital. And I think this is one of the biggest challenges to made against capitalism, and it can burst it's facade of progress and development.

The other side is it is very hard to do this, as most of the information will be about how much revenue is made in West Papua, and there will be information on how much is returned. The devastation of the local people can only come from people on the ground there, either local organisations or fraternal people who enter the region.

In terms of what they can do, alot of these new frontier areas are really hopeless situation. I attended a seminar by a Brazilian Anthropologist and alot of the indiginous people who are being screwed over by hyrdo-electric daming really have no ability to confront this. They are naturally going to continue to struggle, but I think any progress has to be tied into a world struggle against capitalism.