We Say - 3
We Say - 3
‘While Indonesia declares its desire to be a friend of Pacific Islanders and an important development partner, the appearance of the new embassy in Suva, where the Pacific Islands Forum’s secretariat is located, is the establishment of a bridgehead for keeping island governments adorned with West Papua blinkers’
At the opening in Suva, in August, of an Indonesia embassy, that country’s visiting deputy foreign minister laid stress on what he said was the South Pacific’s historic relationship with the Indonesian Islands. It was much earlier than any contact with colonising Europeans, he remarked.
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Quite right. There is little doubt that the first settlers of the Pacific Islands came via at least some of the islands of what is now Indonesia. But if that is offered as justification of Indonesia’s shameful, brutal and exploitive rule of the western half of New Guinea, and the shameful acquiescence of that rule by the Pacific Islands Forum, then it would be a great surprise if the majority of Pacific Islanders accepted it as being so.
West Papua was stolen by Indonesia in 1963 using a mock referendum run with the connivance of the United Nations, prodded by that constantly self-promoting defender of democracy, the United States, which then had its own reason for cozying up to the Indonesian dictatorship. The United States continues to support Indonesia’s squalid rule while railing at Iraq’s current style of government.
Many Papuans, quite likely tens of thousands, perhaps many more, have been murdered by the Indonesians using one pretext or another.
West Papuan clans have had their land plundered and occupied by settlers from Indonesia, foreign loggers and mining companies. Sometimes they are able to strike back, although at the cost of reprisals.
Pressured by Australia and Papua New Guinea, both afraid of offending their 220 million Indonesian neighbours, the Forum now annually dutifully squeaks its recognition of the Indonesian regime in West Papua, and tries to ignore the indigenous Melanesian population’s fight for independence.
It did so again at the annual meeting it held at Suva in August, with also a timid plea that the Indonesians conduct themselves a little less brazenly and brutally, so as not to give the Forum cause for noticing what is going on there. Representatives of West Papua’s independence and human rights activists were present in Suva to lobby their case, which at present looks to be a hopeless one.
The Forum’s response was to award ‘special observer status’ to another victim of Indonesian brutality, East Timor, a country well within the geographical, cultural and historical ambit of Indonesia, but now, ironically with the support of the United Nations and Australia, a free nation. East Timor hopes to join the Forum as a full member. Should the Forum, without a blush, accept this proposition while ignoring the plight of West Papuans, it will abase itself.
Indonesia has just given West Papua a degree of autonomy. But reports persistently present a picture of this step as being a ploy behind which the plunder and rape of the territory continues.
The Suva embassy’s opening was an occasion for offers of technical and other help for the Pacific Islands. There is no doubt that Indonesia’s development experiences and its dynamic business and industrial communities, are pools from which the Pacific Islands could draw considerable benefits. They should do so with caution.
Indonesia is grappling with immense political, social and other difficulties of its own. There is speculation that this spectacular assembly of islands might splinter into several smaller countries.
That would be unfortunate for the security of the South East Asian region and would be bound to have appalling human consequences for Indonesia’s ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse citizens. It is not something that should be hoped for, but unfortunately at this time in history, it appears to be West Papua’s only hope of freedom from wrongful rule.
While Indonesia declares its desire to be a friend of Pacific Islanders and an important development partner, the appearance of the new embassy in Suva, where the Pacific Islands Forum’s secretariat is located, is the establishment of a bridgehead for keeping island governments adorned with West Papua blinkers.
Australia and Papua New Guinea’s attitude towards the West Papua issue is understandable. The Forum’s other members naturally wish to do what they can to support their two colleagues in their dilemma. But at the very least, the Forum should insist that Indonesia accepts, without restraint, regular visits to West Papua by a Forum delegation, similar to that which observes political and other progress in New Caledonia, as this French territory moves slowly, but steadily, towards independence. Such an unrestrained presence in West Papua would be helpful in restraining some of Indonesia’s excesses there.
