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Communist Party of Australia
https://cpa.org.au/guardian/issue-2146/west-papua-calling/
1) West Papua calling
The United Liberation Movement for West Papua provisional government interim president Benny Wenda warns that since Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto took office last October his coming marks the return of “the ghost of Suharto,” the brutal dictator who ruled over the nation for three decades.
Wenda, an exiled West Papuan leader, says that Indonesian forces are carrying out ethnic cleansing in multiple regencies, as thousands of West Papuans were being forced out of their villages and into the bush by soldiers.
The entire regency of Oksop has been emptied, with over 1,200 West Papuans displaced since an escalation began in Nduga regency in 2018.
Prabowo coming to office has a particular foreboding for West Papuans, who have been occupied by Indonesia since 1963. Over his military career – which spanned from 1970 to 1998 and saw rise him to the position of general, as well as mainly serving in Kopassus (special forces) – the current president allegedly perpetrated multiple alleged atrocities across Timor Leste and West Papua.
According to Wenda, the incumbent Indonesian president can “never clean the blood from his hands for his crimes as a general in West Papua and East Timor.” Wenda made it clear that Prabowo’s acts since taking office reveal that he is set on “creating a new regime of brutality” in Papua.
ENHANCING THE OCCUPATION
“Foreign governments should not be fooled by Prabowo’s PR campaign,” Wenda said. “He is desperately seeking international legitimacy through his international tour, empty environmental pledges and the amnesty offered to various prisoners, including eighteen West Papuans and the remaining imprisoned members of the Bali Nine.”
Former Indonesian president Suharto ruled over the Southeast Asian nation with an iron fist from 1965 until 1998.
Wenda maintains that the proof Prabowo is something of a reincarnation of Suharto is that he’s set about forging “mass displacement, increased militarisation” and “increased deforestation” in the Melanesian region of West Papua. He’s restarted the transmigration program of the Suharto days, which involves Indonesians being moved to West Papua to populate the region.
Indonesia’s initial transmigration program resulted in West Papuans, who made up 96 per cent of the population in 1971, only comprising 49 per cent in their own homelands at that current time.
Wenda considers the “occupation was entering a new phase,” when former Indonesian president Joko Widodo split the region of West Papua into five provinces in mid-2022. The West Papuan leader advises that Prabowo is set to establish separate military commands in each province, which will provide “a new, more thorough and far-reaching system of occupation.”
West Papua was previously split into two regions, which the West Papuan people did not recognise, as these and the current five provinces are actually Indonesian administrative zones.
“By establishing new administrative divisions, Indonesia creates the pretext for new military posts and checkpoints,” Wenda argues. “The result is the deployment of thousands more soldiers, curfews, arbitrary arrests and human rights abuses. West Papua is under martial law.”
ECOCIDE
Prabowo paid his first official visit to West Papua as president last November, visiting the Merauke district in South Papua province, which is the site of the world’s largest deforestation project, with clearing beginning in mid-2024. Merauke will eventually have two million deforested hectares turned into giant sugarcane plantations, via the destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands.
Five consortiums, including Indonesian and foreign companies, are involved. Despite promises that the megaproject would not harm existing forests, these areas are being torn down regardless. Part of this deforestation includes razing of forest previously declared protected by the government.
A similar program was established in Merauke district in 2011, by Widodo’s predecessor president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who established rice and sugarcane plantations in the region, aiming to turn it into a “future breadbasket for Indonesia.” However, the plan was a failure, and the project was rather used as a cover to establish hazardous palm oil and pulpwood plantations.
“It is not a coincidence Prabowo has announced a new transmigration program at the same time as their ecocidal deforestation regime intensifies,” Wenda said. “These twin agenda represent the two sides of Indonesian colonialism in West Papua: exploitation and settlement.”
Wenda added that Jakarta is only interested in West Papuan land and resources. Indonesia has killed at least half a million West Papuans since 1963. While the occupying nation is funding other projects with the profits it’s been making on West Papuan palm oil, gold and natural gas, the West Papuan provinces are the poorest in the Southeast Asian nation.
BACKGROUND
When Indonesia gained its independence after centuries of Dutch colonialism Australian waterside workers and seamen played a significant role: they prevented the return to Indonesia of a Dutch military force which had intended to re-occupy the archipelago. This saved the Indonesians from a war of independence that would have followed akin to that fought by the Vietnamese people against re-colonisation by the French.
The first independent Indonesian government was formed by those who had fought against the Japanese occupation during WW2, and was led by President Soekarno. In the immediate post-independence years the Communist Party of Indonesia grew rapidly. These were also the years during which the world-wide sweep of the national liberation movement liberated colonies of Britain, France, the Netherlands, and other European imperialist countries.
In Australia, Prime Minister Menzies was proclaiming the “yellow peril” and the “domino theory” by which one country after another would fall to communist revolution. Australia’s interventions, under the US umbrella, in Korea and Vietnam were the application of these anti-communist cold war pretexts.
Reactionary political circles in Australia did not support or welcome the liberation of Indonesia from Dutch colonialism. Neither did they protest when General Suharto, in a bloody military coup that overthrew President Sukarno’s government, seized power during which upwards of one million communists, their friends, families and sympathisers, were murdered by Suharto’s military forces.
Ever since then Indonesia has been largely under the control of right-wing military forces. They invaded and seized control of Timor Leste and in a fraudulent referendum took control of West Papua from the Dutch colonialists. All these events were supported by successive Liberal and Labor governments. The Australian government was the only government in the world to recognise the forcible incorporation of East Timor as part of Indonesia.
It is the consequence of these unprincipled decisions by right-wing political forces in both Indonesia and Australia that are now coming home to roost.
Times have changed. The East Timorese, after a long struggle, liberated themselves from Indonesian colonialism. Eventually the Australian government was forced to give back-handed support for East Timor’s independence. There was widespread support among Australians for the East Timorese struggle just as there is now considerable support for the struggle of the people of West Papua for their independence.
As with most other colonial powers the Dutch were forced to give up their colonies after WW2 as national liberation movements wrested control from the imperialist powers.
For a time the Dutch held on to their West Papuan colony. It was agreed in the early 1960s that Indonesia would assume control of West Papua for a “specified” period after which the Papuan people would be granted the right of self-determination. The UN was to supervise a referendum on this question and a “referendum” was held in 1969.
Even at this time the overwhelming majority of the Papuan people wanted independence so the referendum had to be manipulated. Although the territory had a population of an estimated one million people, only 1,022 persons voted in the referendum and even those who voted had to be terrorised into voting for Indonesian annexation.
This faked referendum was, however, accepted by the UN, and West Papua became a province of Indonesia.
In subsequent years the resistance of the Papuan people steadily increased. Today their struggle has reached a high level, including armed struggle.
For its part, Indonesia has pursued the same methods of military oppression as were used to occupy Timor Leste. The transmigration program is clearly aimed at altering the demographic composition of the population to ensure that, in the future, those of Indonesian ethnic origin will make up the majority of the population.
West Papua is extremely rich in minerals and forest timber. The Freeport McMoran mine on the territory’s north coast is one of the largest gold and copper mines in the world.
COMMUNIST PARTY OF AUSTRALIA RESOLUTION
The following resolution was adopted by the CPA Central Committee executive at its meeting on 27-28 April 2006.
The arrival of 43 refugees from West Papua and the acceptance of 42 as refugees by the Australian government has highlighted the plight of many West Papuan Indigenous people and their long struggle for freedom and independence from Indonesian rule. The 43rd refugee still faces the possibility of deportation back to Indonesia.
The CC Executive of the CPA supports the call of the West Papuan freedom movement for independence and sovereignty and pledges to support them and their call, in whatever way possible. A recent public opinion poll showed that a large majority of the Australian people also support their struggle for independence.
INDEPENDENCE
The CC statement continues:
Their call for independence is justified by the fact that the Indigenous people of West Papua are ethnic Melanesians and that the 1969 referendum, which it was claimed voted for Indonesian sovereignty over the West Papuan territory, was a fraud.
Only a little more than 1,000 votes were cast in this referendum whereas the population of West Papua was, at that time, upwards of one million. The referendum was a travesty yet it was used by the Indonesian and Australian governments and others to justify the incorporation of West Papua as a part of Indonesia. West Papua is also part of the land mass making up the island often called New Guinea.
The fact that the demand for independence runs deeply and is widely supported by the West Papuan people is confirmed by their long struggle for this cause in the course of which many have lost their lives at the hands of the armed forces of Indonesia.
NEW REFERENDUM
The time has come for a new referendum to be held under the auspices of the UN Security Council in which all West Papuan nationals should be entitled to vote and be encouraged to vote. At the time of a new referendum all Indonesian armed forces should be confined to barracks.
We reject the protests of the Indonesian government and their demand that the West Papuan refugees be forcibly repatriated to West Papua where they will face almost certain torture and death at the hands of Indonesian authorities.
We also reject the amendments to the migration laws introduced by the Howard government which are clearly intended to discriminate against West Papuans. Particularly obnoxious is the intention that refugees seeking refuge in Australia may be shipped off to some third country if their application is turned down by the Australian government.*
By this action the Australian government has shown that it will allow the Indonesian government to determine Australia’s migration and refugee policies. Other measures also being taken by the Australian government show that it is willing to collaborate with the armed forces of Indonesia to prevent the arrival in Australia of other West Papuans who seek refuge in Australia.
The fact that West Papua is rich in a number of valuable minerals and that they are being exploited by rapacious corporations is yet another reason to support the struggle of the West Papuans for independence.
We encourage Party organisations to invite representatives of the Papua Freedom Movement (OPM) to address party gatherings on their struggle and help in whatever practical ways that are within the scope of their resources.
