West Papua (Irian Jaya)

A month of kotekas and treason 2008-08-30 - 2008-10-04

if you haven't even heard of west papua it's hardly surprising- the country is one of the most remote places on the planet, and as such is one of the most diverse but least reported on. covered in jungle, papua is a land where 4% of the world's languages exist amongst 0.02% of the world's population and a pig or chicken is still the standard gift.

inhabited by papuans for almost 40,000 years, introduced to the west in 1545 by a spaniard, colonised by the dutch, and now under the control of indonesia, papua has had a turbulent history. by 1960, papua had been working hard for many years towards setting up government, national infrastructure, health care and had even raised their own flag. however when papua tried to declare independance from the dutch in 1961 indonesia, working with US and UN interests attempted to claim the territory through the "New York Agreement", which lead ultimately to a vote on independence. in a brutal effort to keep hold of the land indonesian military dictated the only people who could vote would be the tribe leaders, numbering about 1000 as a 'representation' of the population. these leaders were physically and mentally intimidated into producing unanimous support for indonesian control. this regime of violence and opression continued as indonesia introduced javans, sulawesis and other non-ethnic papuans in the area to try and tighten it's grip. the country has remained in this state ever since, unable to advance beyond the oppression. as part of the continuing political struggle, a special autonomy was introduced to the region in 2000 as more an attempt to and quell rising concerns from papuans and others although the measures, including the formation of regional and national governing bodies, were mainly for show.

for a university thesis (not mine) we spent a month researching how special autonomy has affected papuan way of life, economy and governments, hearing many stories along the way about shootings at protests, beatings and intimidation. the story, can be found here, as can an article written by the author of the thesis, published in the university newspaper exeposé.

to support west papuans in their fight or read more visit freewestpapua.org

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from the nikon

of the rants:

of the jaunts: west papua (irian jaya)

The indonesian state of west papua (formerly irian jaya) wants independence. the problem is they're not quite ready

stats in brief

Countries involved: 5 :