For nearly 30 years, the West Papuan war of resistance against the military government of Indonesia had went on. West Papua was proclaimed an Indonesian province and renamed Irian Jaya by the Dutch. From 1973 until 1975, the year of Papua New Guinea’s independence, the Indonesian military stepped up its activity against the West Papuan people. Many West Papuans joined the Organisasi Papua Merdeka, the fighting wing of the resistance. Although Indonesia has consistently maintained that the OPM is not a threat, the might of its army has been deployed since the occupation of the conceited army to destroy its movement. Villages were destroyed as the army was on searched for OPM members.
In 1984, after Indonesia deployed their military all over Papua, more than 10,000 West Papuans crossed the border to seek refuge in Papua New Guinea. There were wars over natural resources from both sides that resulted death upon many Papuans at that time. West Papua Promised Land space for over-populated Java, but it also contained exploitable material wealth- minerals and forests. |
After nearly seven years isolated in rainforest camps, refugees grew weak with little sign of change, forced out of their own country by the military government of Indonesia, an embarrassment to a unfortunate Papua New Guinea consumed by economic and political problems, unwanted by any third country, and aware that, environmentally, the region cannot sustain them.
They persist in their belief that one day, some day, the Indonesian state will allow them to return to their homeland and attain their goal of self-determination. The island of New Guinea and the surrounding seas, too, are resource rich. On the other side of the border, West Papua, Indonesia did not pretend on negotiating with traditional landowners. They are thrown off the land, destined to become refugees or to be shot or forced, like the Asmat, into slave labor for the Indonesians.
They persist in their belief that one day, some day, the Indonesian state will allow them to return to their homeland and attain their goal of self-determination. The island of New Guinea and the surrounding seas, too, are resource rich. On the other side of the border, West Papua, Indonesia did not pretend on negotiating with traditional landowners. They are thrown off the land, destined to become refugees or to be shot or forced, like the Asmat, into slave labor for the Indonesians.