Why West Papua Matters Today

Across the world today, many political and social movements deserve our attention and support. In the Asia-Pacific region alone, a small score of groups struggle against ongoing forms of colonialism. As guest editors of this issue, however, we have honed in on the work of one particular people and the struggle against one particular colonial story: the case of West Papua. West Papua is at a critical point in its history, and we urge you to explore this issue for the insights offered on past events and current efforts by the Papuan scholars, Papuan activists and international activists and scholars whose voices fill these pages.

Many of you will be familiar with what happened in East Timor over the past two and a half decades. The illegal annexation by Indonesia of a nation on the cusp of self-determination; the violent military occupation of the land; and the courageous struggle of supporters internally and internationally: all contributed to East Timor's slow move towards independence. But as many of you no doubt also know, there are other cases within Indonesia where territories have been colonized and West Papua is the best known of these but where there has as yet been no legal, binding decisions made at an international level to investigate and possibly end colonization of these territories.

For us, West Papuan claims of Indonesian colonization have merit because of clear cultural and historical precedents. First, West Papua's 253 indigenous groups are ethnically and linguistically distinct from most other Indonesians. Papuans are Melanesians, and have more in common culturally with their neighbours to the east, in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, than they do with their Malay-Indonesian rulers to the west. Second, West Papua was on its own path to self-determination when it was derailed by an Indonesian take-over in the 1960s. When Indonesia gained independence from the Dutch in 1949, only West Papua remained as the Dutch East Indies' last colony.

Even though Papuan leaders worked throughout the 1950s for self-determination, their efforts were scuttled by international politicians who, in a series of feints and sleights of hand, allowed West Papua to be handed over to Indonesia in 1962-3. The one possible avenue out from this deal for West Papua was a 1969 vote wherein they were going to be allowed to choose between Indonesian rule and independence in 1969. But this 1969 "Act of Free Choice", better known nowadays as the "Act of No Choice," was no fair vote. It was less an expression of Papuan self-determination than window dressing which allowed the United Nations to ratify Indonesian possession of West Papua. The Indonesian president soon renamed the province Irian Jaya. But for Papuans (and a growing number of Indonesians, including the country's new president), the name West Papua, or Papua, has long been the name they use to describe their land.

As guest editors, we come to this project with backgrounds in the history of West Papua's annexation, and in field research in Papuan communities. However, our aim is to turn this issue over to those who have been critically involved in environmental issues, human rights documentation, historical analyses, and political and international activism.

We have asked Octavianus Mote, a journalist who has lobbied within Indonesia, to outline the history of West Papua. Viktor Kaisiepo, a Papuan refugee and indigenous rights activist, describes the nature of the political movements that have grown in response to half a century of Indonesian colonization. And John Saltford, a historian, fleshes out these accounts with a detailed description of the UN's cynical role in the flawed 1969 "Act of Free Choice."

Other pressing issues that also demand Papuan energy and commitment include human rights abuses and environmental threats. John Rumbiak is one of West Papua's best known human rights activists. He speaks here on how much of a challenge it has been to organize a safe, and effective, system of documentation for recording human rights abuses in West Papua. Tamsin Kaneen and Kate Fibiger, in their study of Papuan women and the military, provide ample evidence of the need for more people like John Rumbiak who can go to work documenting the seemingly systematic abuse of rights. Denise Leith and John Tabak describe the complex ecological systems of West Papua, and the specific threats to them posed by Freeport McMoRan. Freeport operates the world's largest gold mine, at the center of the mountain range that spans the length of the island. The "mountain of gold" that is the Grasberg mining concession has created, as Leith documents, conditions for an ecological disaster of mammoth proportions.

West Papuan political activism does not exist in a vacuum. Carmel Budiardjo's analysis here draws on her four decades of experience to show that West Papua still remains subject to the vagaries of Indonesian politics. Indonesian elites reject the very thought of Papuan "separatism," but Papuans are equally distrustful of Indonesian offers of "autonomy." Jacob Rumbiak's (no relation to John) immensely entertaining life story, which we profile here, shows not only to what extent Indonesian policy can shape Papuan lives, but also suggests why Papuans might react to Indonesian offers of help with feelings of mistrust.

There is a great deal of creative energy at play in contemporary Papua, and we have represented only a small portion of it here. There are scores of passionate actors whose names are not at all known: people in remote areas training to be human rights monitors, for instance, or volunteers at newly-founded organizations in countries across the world who lobby for West Papuan rights. More and more information is available on what used to be a forgotten land. More and more opportunities exist for those who want to make a difference.

What to do about West Papua? We can all look to the ideas expressed by the writers here, to the examples of Papuans and other advocates. We can draw on the resource list in this magazine to enhance awareness internationally. And we can listen to the Papuan voice for what is needed and what can be done.