West Papua: Once was Papuan Independence Day, now facing ‘ecocide’, transmigration

Asia Pacific Report

On Papuan Independence Day, the focus is on discussing protests against Indonesia’s transmigration programme, environmental destruction, militarisation, and the struggle for self-determination. Te Ao Māori News reports.

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Tamariki raising the West Papuan independence flag Morning Star - banned by Indonesian authorities - at St Marys Bay, Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau, today. Image: David Robie/Asia Pacific Report.

On 1 December 1961, West Papua’s national flag, known as the Morning Star, was raised for the first time as a declaration of West Papua’s independence from the Netherlands.

Sixty-three years later, West Papua is claimed by and occupied by Indonesia, which has banned the flag, which still carries aspirations for self-determination and liberation.

The flag continues to be raised globally on December 1 each year on what is still called “Papuan Independence Day”.

Protests have been building in West Papua since the new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto announced the revival of the Transmigration Programme to West Papua. (...)

The transmigration programme began before Indonesia gained independence from the Dutch colonial government, intended to reduce “overcrowding” in Java and to provide a workforce for plantations in Sumatra.

After independence ended and under Indonesian rule, the programme expanded and in 1969 transmigration to West Papua was started. (...)

Papuans believe this was to dilute the Indigenous Melanesian population, and to secure the control of their natural resources, to conduct mining, oil and gas extraction and deforestation. (...)

The ecology in West Papua was being damaged by mining, deforestation, and oil and gas extraction, he said. Mote said Indonesia wanted to “wipe them from the land and control their natural resources”. (...)

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Tags: #indonesia #papua #west_papua #human_rights #discrimination #racism #independence #act_of_free_choice #decolonisation #self-determination #Pacific #melanesia #transmigration

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(...) [J]ournalism had moved from being a neutral filter between the popular imagination and the external world. It had taken charge of forging reality itself. (...)

(...) Today, the war on terror is widely accepted as a military and geopolitical failure. But it is still not fully understood as a massive intellectual and moral fiasco: an attempt by the Western media as well as the political class to forge reality itself, which failed catastrophically, but not without embedding cruelty and mendacity deep and enduringly in public life. And partly because this disaster was unacknowledged—editors and writers pushing false narratives, and cheerleading large-scale violence, remained entrenched, and even received promotions—it is being reenacted today in the Western media’s coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza: another war that has ignited a bonfire of international legal and moral norms and deadened and perverted consciences. (...)

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“If It’s Not Racism, What Is It?”

Discrimination and Other Abuses Against Papuans in Indonesia.

Human Rights Watch

(...) The Indigenous Papuan population of Indonesia has long encountered racial discrimination based on their ethnic origin, including from government agencies and institutions, as well as in laws and regulations. Ever since the Netherlands turned over West Papua to the newly independent government of Indonesia following a deeply flawed United Nations resolution in 1969, many Papuans have sought independence – primarily peacefully but also through the force of arms – from Indonesian rule.

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A member of the Papuan Student Alliance (AMP) holds a placard that reads “End racism against Papuan people” in Indonesian during a demonstration to commemorate the 62nd anniversary of the New York Agreement between the Netherlands and Indonesia in Bandung, West Java, August 16, 2024. © 2024 Dimas Rachmatsyah/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock.

The Indonesian government has responded with numerous grave abuses by the government security forces, the isolation of West Papua from the rest of the world, and the arrest, prosecution, and long prison terms for Papuan activists who have peacefully called for independence or other forms of self-determination. The Indonesian authorities have encouraged tens of thousands of non-Papuan families to work and to settle in West Papua, which has driven many Indigenous Papuans from their land.

The resistance of Papuans and many non-Papuans in Indonesia to discrimination took on a new dimension following an August 17, 2019 attack by security forces on a Papuan student dormitory in Surabaya, Indonesia’s second largest city, in which the students were subjected to racial insults. (...)

Human Rights Watch takes no position on claims for independence in Indonesia or in any other country. We support the right of everyone to peacefully express their political views, including for independence, without fear of arrest or other forms of reprisal. The Indonesian government has legitimate security concerns in West Papua stemming from Papuan militant attacks. But these provide no justification for the government’s failure to uphold international human rights and humanitarian law prohibitions against arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and ill-treatment of persons in custody, and unlawful killings.

This report profiles cases of Papuan activists convicted after the Papuan Lives Matter protests, and also describes ongoing human rights violations rooted in racial discrimination, in particular, the right to education and to the highest attainable standard of health. We also documented recent abuses by security forces and Papuan militants during the ongoing conflict. (...)

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Tags: #indonesia #papua #west_papua #human_rights #discrimination #racism #independence #act_of_free_choice #decolonisation #self-determination #Pacific #melanesia

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