West Papua – A brief history

In the beginning the people of West Papua believe their country was an Eden created by the god, Mansren.

Mansren taught Papuans that if they prayed to the morning star (Venus) then special powers would be released to oust foreigners.

In 1860 Dutch colonisers arrived and claimed the western part of the large island of Papua whilst Germany and Britain divided up the east.

During WWII the Japanese invaded, and the West Papuans reacted violently, raising the morning star flag and creating militias armed by America.

After the Japanese retreated, the Dutch returned in 1945 and promised West Papuan independence. In the 1950s political parties were formed and the morning star flag adopted by the West Papuan parliament.

In 1960 West Papua's Independence Day was set for December 1, 1970. Enraged, Indonesia invaded with paratroops and a large war with the Dutch threatened.

In 1962 the United Nations intervened and peacekeeping troops were brought in to mediate. Indonesia built up its military and when the UN left in 1963 they made Indonesia pledge they would conduct a referendum, the Act of Free Choice, in 1969 to see if the Papuans wanted to remain with Indonesia.

The Indonesian military government outlawed the raising of the morning star flag. A blanket of despair descended over West Papua. Angered militia groups took their flags and guns into the jungle, called themselves the OPM (Organisation to Free West Papua) and fought a vicious guerilla war until 1968.

In 1965, a renowned local collector of songs and stories, Arnold Ap, was killed whilst in military detention for being a threat to the state.

In 1969 the UN and Indonesia held the Act of Free Choice. One thousand and twenty-five men were selected to vote on behalf of 800,000 Papuans. President Suharto warned these men that if they did not vote for Indonesia it would be seen as an act of treason and they would have their tongues cut out. Critics called it the Act of No Choice.

The OPM continued the guerilla war against the Indonesian army for the next three decades. Supporters of West Papua continued to raise the morning star: thousands were jailed or shot on the spot.

Once Indonesia took over, they brutally repressed any Papuan not accepting this "Act of no choice." Uprisings took place in Biak, Jayapura. Timika near the Freeport mine and in the Central mountains. The military response was to systematically exterminate villages.

The number of people killed in the thirty year resistance is believed to exceed 200,000.

Presently, as was the case with east Timor's leader Xanana Gusmao, five leading West Papuan independence advocates including the resistance leader, Chief Theys Eluay, are in prison awaiting trial, probably at the receiving end of torture.

What will we Australians do this time...wait til after the fact?