The Leeds Review - Issue #1
It's been fascinating to hear the gap year tales of fellow students who backpacked through South East Asia. But, unusually, even those who spent considerable time on the archipelago of Indonesia seem unaware of what's happening in West Papua, an area of the country you won't find advertised in much of the tourist literature.
When the Dutch left Indonesia and stated that West Papua should form an independent state along with the rest of New Guinea, this was the wish of the West Papuans. However, Indonesia still asserted full control in 1963. And today, in stark contrast to East Timor, where a multinational force intervened to secure the people's independence from the Indonesian-backed militia, the Indonesian government is continuing its cultural and environmental decimation of West Papua. Indonesia has embarked on a vicious policy of forced migration, while shipping in migrants from Java and Sulawesi in order to dilute the distinct identity of the region and solve problems of over-population on the west of the archipelago.
Human rights abuses have been committed which, in a more strategically important country, might have had the US clamouring to liberate the people. After President Kennedy opined that the West Papuans were "living in the Stone Age" and therefore irrelevant, the Indonesians began a programme of torture. Oppression has continued to the present day: last year, as the West Papuans attempted to celebrate their nominal date of independence from the Dutch, the Indonesian forces arrested more than forty protestors, and human rights observers have been threatened with assassination by Kopassus, the Indonesian Special Forces group operating in West Papua.
Aside from the brutalities of Indonesian governance, it is clear that migration and 'development' have damaged West Papua and will continue to do so. Logging projects are gradually denying indigenous groups such as the Kinyum the trees they use to produce food and medicine. Various species of creature and plant, many not even catalogued, are threatened with extinction. Mining, involving American, British and Australian companies, has brought these organisations billions of dollars of revenue, and yet the more beneficial aspects of economic growth, such as healthcare, are simply not present. The trans-migration programme, while exposing Javanese, Sulawesian and West Papuan settlers to unacceptable conditions, also amounts to a destruction of the indigenous cultures.
It is to be hoped that pressure will be exerted upon Indonesia to alter the grievous circumstances in which West Papuans exist. However, this seems unlikely while Western tourists flock to the resorts of Bali but are prevented by complex travel permit regulations from visiting the 'sensitive' regions of West Papua, such as the transmigration camps and new settlements. Most visitors therefore leave with an image of the country that is only partially accurate. It looks as though West Papuan cultures and traditions will be extinct within a few generations, without many of us really noticing they were ever there.
Chris Griffiths Info