West Papuans are Indigenous people, easily ignored, their natural resources exploited, their homes and cultures destroyed, hundreds tortured, hundreds of thousands killed. Our media reports endlessly about genocide in remote Xinjiang but not about genocide in neighbouring West Papua. Why?
Not far from Australian shores, a colonial-type genocide prompts silence. Commercial and military interests plus preoccupation with a global virus ensure that colonisation continues, and human rights are ignored. Who cares?
On December 1 2020, from his exiled home in the UK, Indigenous leader Benny Wenda announced a Papuan provisional government and insisted his people take over their territory and no longer bow to Indonesian rule.
Sixty years earlier in Jayapura, an elected Papuan Council raised their Morning Star flag. At the end of 2020, Wenda reminisced,
‘We do not have the freedom to raise our flag, if we do, we’ll be killed or imprisoned… We are treated like animals and endure apartheid like military occupation. Almost every day people are arrested without reason, tortured and killed at the hands of Indonesian forces.’
In frustration that decades of effort to achieve independence or autonomy had failed, Wenda recalls a history of colonization beginning in 1962 when Netherlands New Guinea was transferred to Indonesia. That possession was compounded in the 1969 Act of Free Choice when the Indonesian military selected 1,025 men and women to vote for the integration of West Papua into Indonesia.
As a warning that Indonesian takeover would be enforced, the Brigadier in charge of the ‘free choice’ vote, threatened anyone who did not vote for integration ‘would have their accursed tongues cut out.’ In response to Wenda’s 2020 declaration, the Indonesian government says that anyone attempting to separate themselves from Indonesia will be met with ‘firm actions’, including mass arrests.
Slow-moving Genocide
‘Firm actions’ is an understatement disguise of a history of abuse. A citizens’ tribunal held in Sydney in 1998 reported on hundreds of Papuans murdered on Biak Island. Violence to suppress any signs of pro-independence activities was documented in a subsequent report from the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University, ‘Anatomy of an Occupation: the Indonesian Military in West Papua.’
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch confirmed the Sydney findings and a corresponding conclusion from Griffith University researchers that in the previous 50 years, the killing of half a million West Papuans amounted to ‘a slow-moving genocide’.
Violence in Indonesian military operations also forces people to flee their villages, go into hiding and in many cases starve to death. A political prisoner has described bombings, shootings, kidnapping, murder, forced disappearances, detention, imprisonment, torture, rape, theft of domestic livestock, destruction of crops and vegetable gardens, burning homes to the ground, burning churches, killing by poisoning of food and water.
The veracity of this prisoner’s account was confirmed by the conventional state technique of denying that cruelties occur so they may continue. In a holier than thou, pure as the driven snow stance, the Indonesian Embassy in the UK says, ‘We categorically reject allegations concerning genocide’ and despite evidence that West Papuans’ rights to freedom of speech and assembly are suppressed, Jakarta insists that promotion and protection of human rights remain an important feature of Indonesian government.
The Indonesian government perceived East Timor as only a pebble in a shoe which they could afford to lose, but West Papua is one fifth of the Indonesian land mass and one of the richest provinces. A poetic tribute, Colonial Edge, to a brave West Papuan freedom fighter, the late Otto Ondawame, pictured why corporations feed greedily from his country’s natural resources.
Your country looks so rich,
I’ll take whatever I need
…my big overseas friends
don’t want to be weaned off
their attraction to gold, oil, copper,
your land and labour, fish and trees.’
Other features of Colonisation
Racist stigmatizing of Indigenous peoples also explains a non-remorseful exploitation of land and people. In 1969, President Suharto proposed to transfer 200,000 children of ‘backward and primitive Papuans still living in the stone age’ to Indonesia for education. From nationalist Indonesian perspectives and apparently in the minds of soldiers facing threats from the West Papuan OPM forces (Organisasi Papua Merdeka), local people can be removed, tortured, and killed.
Fear permeates life in West Papua and is another catalyst for murder. In 2008, following OPM fighters’ killing Indonesian road workers, large scale military operations polarized police and soldiers against Papuans and vice versa.
Colonization by fear is also pursued by flooding an invaded country with people of different ethnic background and religion. In the 1970s, Indigenous Papuans represented more than 90% of the population but are now under 50%. Motivated by jobs in palm oil development and the logging industry, Javanese migrants are Asian and Muslim, Indigenous Papuans Melanesian and mostly Christian.
Islamization of West Papua has become a variant of the colonization virus. Research reports record the trafficking of West Papuan children to hardline Islamic schools in Jakarta, and locals express alarm about the presence of radicalized Muslim organizations such as Hizb ut-Tahir.
Consistent with the policy of all colonizers, Indonesia claims that economic development brings economic prosperity, but major developments such as the Trans-Papua Highway have cut through significant areas of land and biodiversity. They also destroy villages and forests, a source of Indigenous peoples’ livelihoods.
Answering the Who Cares Question
In answer to the who cares question, Australia and Papua New Guinea walk a tightrope between at one end respect for the Melanesians of West Papua and at the other a need to effect alliances with Indonesia.
Peter O’Neill the former Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, supported Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua but recognized political risks if he failed to say anything about human rights violations.
Australia ducks and weaves as though wanting to appear principled without challenging Indonesian sovereignty or emphasizing West Papuans’ rights to self-determination. In 2006, in recognition of the importance of Indonesia to its own security interests, Australia signed the Lombok Treaty to respect Indonesian sovereignty and not support separatist movements.
Behind the shadow of Covid 19, and aware that information would fuel West Papuan protests and international criticism, the Indonesian government cuts the internet, forbids foreign journalists and refuses to allow any investigation by the UN Human Rights Commission.
Instead of principled reaction to evidence of carnage in West Papua, inhumanity is being taken for granted; and in his poem When Evil-Doing Comes Like Falling Rain, the poet playwright Bertolt Brecht explained indifference to such atrocities.
When Evil-Doing comes like falling rain, nobody calls out ‘stop’.
When crimes begin to pile up, they become invisible.
When sufferings become unendurable, the cries are no longer heard.
The virus of racist-based colonization persists and needs a vaccine, such as a language for humanity, to ensure only respectful, life-enhancing alliances with Indigenous people. In such language, Australia can respond to Benny Wenda’s judgment, ‘In West Papua, the whole essence of our humanity is being reduced to nothing.’
A post-Covid world should promote value in far more than West Papuan gold and gas. An Indigenous people have shown courage in resisting brutalities and could teach others of their Melanesian traditions in ending conflicts through reconciliation.
In respect for a common humanity, it is not too late for the Australian and Indonesian government to acknowledge the violence of colonization and to concede that a socially just future depends on adherence to the rights of self-determination for all Indigenous peoples, in particular West Papuans.
Stuart Rees AM is Professor Emeritus at the University of Sydney & recipient of the Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize.
Comments
23 responses to “Colonial-type genocide in West Papua: living in constant fear”
My question is a simple one. I wish its answer were as simple.
Stuart Rees has informed us of West Papuan/Indonesian dynamics. I am grateful. But who can prescribe a workable – a sustainable -solution?
P & I has many outstanding contributors, some with deep diplomatic experience at the highest levels. I wait in hope for a P & I discussion on how Australia can better advance the human concerns of West Papuans despite the geo-political strategic and massive potential interests of Indonesia.
Indon is one of the empires. China, India are the largest. They are failed states, relying upon force. Those who have the power, abuse it, ripping out resources, while relying on taxes to pay for that. Their plunder ends up in tax havens.
Aceh 2004, was an example of the USA taking out democracy and dishonouring a ceasefire. Indonesian oil. We all benefit from this.
We should help to dismantle these empires and free up Africa as well. But it will require a far greater catastrophe than a ‘pandemic’ …. interesting times ahead
Thank you Stuart for keeping the WP struggle for its rightful independence in the public square. Australia never ducks and weaves around principles when trade with Indonesia is so lucrative; it does the déjà vu crawl on its morally gutless belly for Indonesian business that we saw with Timor-Leste. Let’s be those who do care by regularly demanding Australia support WP freedom .. politicians’ emails and phone numbers are very accessible.
We keep quiet because the Indonesians can point the finger straight back at us. We have nothing constructive to say to them. We have not faced up to to our failure in PNG, and our failure to achieve reconciliation with our own native people. We left Port Moresby one of the murder capitals of the word, and Bougainville in a state of civil war. We have left our native people in misery. The majority of Indonesians may be corrupt, ignorant exploiters but we are no better. Indonesian exceptionalism and Australian exceptionalism are the same. Nationalism breeds intellectual dishonesty in both places.
If our better people got together with theirs in the appropriate UN body that deals calmly and constructively with the formidable problems of interaction between developed cultures and formerly isolated cultures, we might actually get somewhere.
Spot on! Until we get our Australian house in order, it will be nothing but rank hypocrisy if we start pointing fingers at the Indonesians. And given Indonesia’s suspicions ever since Australia’s ‘assistance’ in the East Timorese struggle, even the best of Australian intentions will fall on deaf Indonesian ears.
Indonesia is expected to be the world’s 4th or 5th largest economy by 2045. With many Chinese Belt & Road infrastructure projects already occurring across Indonesia, the chances are it will become a huge economy.
Yet another scary prospect for the Morrison/Dutton colonial outpost here, which is only a stone’s throw away!
Thank you Stuart for this important essay. West Papua is the elephant in Australia’s living room. West Papuan leaders got a better reception in London from Jeremy Corbyn than they have received in Australia. I would like to think that our general public’s sympathy would lie with the West Papuan people, if we knew more about what is going on
Thank you for this outstanding article. To our country’s shame we have deserted these people.
Skilts, I agree with you. But I find it a contradictory position for P&I where most posters think Taiwan should knuckle under and accept Chinese dominion. And say we should learn to be more diplomatic and not tug the tiger’s tail. Well, here we are with Indonesia, not tugging the tiger’s tail. Are we not behaving with diplomatic wisdom by the pro-China posters’ lights? But don’t get cross – I am totally on your side.
Just one question Barney, if ROC had won the Chinese civil war would Taiwan have been the ONE China and that being so that mainland China accept Taiwan’s dominion?
Not taking sides just want your opinion.
Fair question, Albert. My answer would be the same: it should be up to the people. If Taiwan were ruling by force against an unwilling population that would be as wrong as if China does it (as it has announced to be its intention). But I don’t think the principle varies with population size. If Taiwan had 1.3 billion people and mainland China 25 million, it would still be wrong to forcibly take over the mainland if the mainland Chinese wanted to keep their communist regime.
Barney, Taiwan has only ever been a dream like Hong Kong, it simply has been a place where Kuomintang could escape to and after WWII when it was given back to China by the US, it was to a single party with a single leader, the Kuomintang(KMT) and Chiang-Kai-shek(CKS) respectively. When CKS lost the civil war it was then always going to go into the hands of the PRC which was also a single party with one leader. During CKS’s time he never allowed Taiwan to become a democracy, and when it did finally come, it was not until 1996 when the people got their first vote.
If you think CKS was some how a better man and more worthy as China’s leader then I suggest you look into how he used the early communist sympathisers more than once in disposing the Qing Dynasty, then once again in combining with KMT forces to fight off the warlords like Yuan Shikai who filled Sun Yat Sen’s political vacuum, and then again to repel the Japanese.
When he had achieved his goal of conquering the warlords he simply ordered the mass murders of thousands of those he had deemed communists, 6,000 died in Shanghai alone, and many more were slaughtered in other mainland Chinese cities. He displayed the kind of loyalty you would get from Donald Trump.
Not only did he do mass killings, but also moved his Kuomintang soldiers into Myanmar where with the help of the CIA, carried out major opium, heroin, and gun running operations to fund and supply his army with more weapons, which was always financially supported by the US.
All of this is on record if you want to do the research.
The problem as I see it is ROC still want to be the sole legitimate government of China, not just settle with Taiwan, while the PRC claim they are. That’s what they say.
I suggest you consider the study, no less from Havard University and linked here, that demonstrates in mainland China that “95.5 percent of respondents were either “relatively satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with Beijing.” In other words satisfied with the CCP and Xi Jinping. I will mention Teow Ti Loon here because he brought my attention to the study.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/07/long-term-survey-reveals-chinese-government-satisfaction/
Now just consider, and imagine as with any democratic country, China decided to put this to an election. PRC verses ROC. Who should rule? Two parties standing for election with PRC Chinese and ROC Taiwanese all originating from mainland China. Especially when some in Taiwan don’t necessarily differentiate between the PRC over ROC in terms of what government they would accept. Do you think 23.78 million ROC supporters in Taiwan (an exaggeration) would win over the 95.5% of the mainland Chinese population vote at 1.35 billion voters? That’s what a democratic vote would do. I really don’t think ROC would win, as the KMT did not win in mainland China either.
The only thing that really makes the difference is the space of water between Taiwan and Mainland. How do you think things would have gone if Taiwan had been a peninsula and not an island?
Several good points there, George, especially the peninsula. And I certainly don’t esteem one leader over the other – as I’ve said many times, my sole concern is the Taiwanese now. I am aware of that study, but I think it is tainted by the close censorship of the PRC, who tell the Chinese over and over how lucky they are, and make sure they can’t find out otherwise. Nor do I accept that Taiwan has pretensions to rule the mainland. Maybe in 1949, but not for a long time.
But my reference to Taiwan (I couldn’t help myself) distracts from my main point. Is it not contradictory to criticise our lack of tact with China and our use of tact with Indonesia? Are we not displaying the sort of wisdom in the latter that posters here advocate for the former? My own position, as you know, is that we should look to see how we can help in both countries.
Well given that the poll was done by the Americans at Harvard University who are legitimate academics that are mindful that responses may carry some inhibitions, or fears, they would have found ways to get the most accurate picture. That can be done through good methodology. I will try to see if there is a full report somewhere that explains how they did it. You would think however that since it was America and not China that did the poll, then they might be wanting to point out any inaccuracies that could have altered the result, especially if respondents were acting under any sense of duress.
I would also say that the view painted by the West is that Chinese under the current CCP are so repressed that they fearful of saying anything. That is simply not true, it is not Stalinism in China. Chinese are a lot freer to say many things, but it is only when they go public and mount a campaign against the government, or are discovered to be spies, that they come under the gaze of the government. The CCP does not have absolute power either, given that 92 million members of the communist party have a fair say in how the country should be run from their respective levels which can involve legitimate criticism. Chinese cities also experience a fair degree of autonomy. While there are many laws, it is rare that they are enacted on. We can see that just by prison populations that are miniscule as a percentage of the population, compared to countries like the USA. China with a population of just under 1.4 billion, has around 1.7 million in its gaols, while the US with a population of 328 million has 2.1 million in its gaols. The question should also be asked as to why the US, ‘the land of the free’ has the largest population of prisoners in the world by far.
While Xi Jinping has been blamed for increases in security by Western countries, the very same countries during the same period have also become far more security conscious and have inflicted their populations with far more technological methods of scrutiny both in the US and here in Australia. The last 7 years of Liberal government is testimony to that, and people like Dutton have already wanted facial recognition cameras be used. Our internet activity and phone conversations can now be monitored, and security cameras are everywhere, even in our schools. Of course there are trade offs for that, with security cameras often revealing perpetrators of crime, but in other ways we see them as robbing us of our personal privacies and freedoms.
Yes, since the early 1990s a number of models have been suggested as to how Taiwan could see its status in conjunction with mainland China, and those are not necessarily about ROC ruling China over the PRC, but at the same time the ROC Constitution still claims Taiwan, China, Mongolia, and the entire South China Sea as its territory.
Barney, I just want to take you up on your point about “we should look to see how we can help in both countries”.
I don’t doubt your sincerity but in the context of America, and how it runs the world, I should have fallen over the chair reading your comment.
Jerry Roberts on another topic mentioned Michael Hudson, author of “Super Imperialism”. Here is his book:
https://libcom.org/files/Michael%20Hudson%20-%20Super%20Imperialism%20-%20New%20Edition_%20The%20Origin%20and%20Fundamentals%20of%20U.S.%20World%20Dominance%20(2003).compressed.pdf
The ENTIRE point of the American imperial enterprise is to do the complete opposite of ‘helping’! Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan and Hong Kong are China’s soft underbellies. And all 4 are fantastic opportunities for the US to throw spanners into the works! And of course, the most economical way is to generate ‘new truths’ for the world to consume.
Don’t take my word for it. If you would only watch some of Michael Hudson’s YouTube videos, you will see what I mean.
So I say to you, your wanting to “help” Taiwan is absolutely naive. That is not how the world works. At least not according to our current hegemon. Endless wars and foreign interference are more like their cup of tea. (And tough luck, Australia. There’s a rope around our hip… we will be dragged along wherever the destination…).
This is what I appreciate with P&I’s comment section, getting healthy historic information that we never hear about because it challenges mainstream media propaganda, thank you heaps, George.
Thank you Dr Vlazna.
You have very well understood my principal aim here, and that is to fill that void of history and geopolitics we never get from MS media, and the omissions that paint certain pictures to often bolster cases for war or inflicting pain on other countries. In Australia many people know very little about Chinese history, and China in general, nor do they know much about the Western political players in the Sino region that in many cases have been there as an effect for hundreds of years.
I believe history supplies the ‘why’ as to how we got to where we are now, and it is a very useful tool for mediation between different viewpoints. It also follows that any attempt to understand a different culture and language beyond one’s own is a positive.
In these days of divisive politics and increased nationalism, that sometimes manifests as a sad form of mistaken patriotism, I think learning more about other cultures, and the commonalities and anthropological constants we share with them, is a good starting point to heal division and fragmentation, when it is obvious in the world a this time, we need to unite if we are to survive.
Barney I am not advocating a military confrontation with our Indonesian friends. I am only pointing out Morrison’s double standard. Morrison has the moral standards of a milkman delivering to a frustrated wife of a Port Kembla shift worker. Andy for those clowns who claim I am an agent of Beijing I have just been banned from commenting on Global Times!!!!
Ah those cunning Chinese! They are just trying to give you credibility, Skilts. 🙂
Where is Biggles when i need him to vouch for my Beijing bona fides? He is as useful as a hip pocket on a pair of underpants.
“Morrison has the moral standards of a milkman delivering to a frustrated wife of a Port Kembla shift worker.”
Brilliant! (No matter how we might otherwise diverge.)
Barney our only heated disagreement maybe over the superiority of Christian brass band music over that other anaemic stuff.
My father, a conductor, in his later years took charge of a brass band as a hobby. He loved it, and so did they because he made so many arrangements for brass band. One of my brothers is trying to make them available for free, but it’s taking time. My father was decidedly anti-religion, by the way – actually, it’s probably fairer to say it was utterly irrelevant to him. He never thought about it.
Barney we are brothers in arms. Wonderful. Thank your brother on behalf of an old brass enthusiast.