Citizen Media and Civil Resistance in West Papua
ENDANGERED JOURNALISTS
We condemn outright the illegal transfer of sovereignty of the Papuan
people from the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the Republic of Indonesia
via the United Nations [that] concluded on 1st of May 1963. The transfer
is deemed illegal as we, the very people directly affected by the decision,
have never been consulted nor given any opportunity to have any say what-
soever through our national legislature, The Papuan National Council, the
mandated body in existence at the time that should have ultimately been
responsible for determining the political destiny of the Papuan people.
The Presidium's goal was a third party-mediated dialogue on the political status
of West Papua. Unfortunately for the PDP, the space for dialogue with Jakarta
had clearly closed after the meeting with Habibie. There was no longer a credi-
ble nonviolent movement in West Papua that could compel Jakarta to sit at the
table. Moreover, in the wake of 'losing' East Timor, renewed nationalist vigour
in Indonesia functioned to harden the Indonesian government's position. The
chance of dialogue with Jakarta, when the opening bid was independence, was
clearly non-existent.
However, the formation of the PDP also acted as a catalyst for third party
support, dramatically raising the profile of the struggle, leading to renewed grass-
roots movement building work in Europe, North America, Australia, Aotearoa/
New Zealand and to a lesser extent the Pacific. In the face of a persistent and
disciplined nonviolent movement and growing international support that exposed
human rights violations by the Indonesian state and questioned Jakarta's legiti-
macy in West Papua, the Indonesian government, eager to maintain its newfound
reformist image, found it increasingly difficult to justify repression and military
operations in the way that it had been able to do in the past.
The Indonesian state's strategy to reassert its control in West Papua, after
losing ground to the PDP, was made clear in a leaked letter entitled 'Rencana
Operasi Pengkondisian Wilayah dan Pembangunan Jaringan Kommunikasi
dalam Menyikapi arah Politik Irian Jaya untuk Merdeka dan Melepaskan Diri
dari Negri Kesatuan Republik Indonesia' ('Operational Plan for Changing Con-
ditions in the Territory and the Establishment of a Communications Network in
Dealing with the Direction of Political Developments in Irian Jaya in Favour of
Independence and Demanding Separatism from Indonesia'). The letter outlined
a carrot-and-stick approach that included decapitating the West Papuan leader-
ship, military operations to eradicate separatism, establishing pro-Indonesian
militias, and improving social welfare.
Collapse of Special Autonomy and return to repression
The carrot to complement the Indonesian government's stick was first Special Au-
tonomy, then administrative division, pemekaran, a policy ironically translated as
'expansion' and sometimes as 'flourishing'. On paper Special Autonomy was a far-
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