full report here
West Papua Report - October 2009
Summary: Famine continues to kill villagers in a broad swath of the Papuan hinterland. The Government response to the crisis has been to deny that famine is occurring and to provide inadequate assistance to address what it contends is only an outbreak of disease. Respected academics have launched a public discussion of the impact of Indonesia's four-plus decades of control in West Papua and whether its policies there constitute genocide. Papuans continue to call for an internationally mediated, senior-level dialogue with Jakarta about West Papua's past and its future. Demonstrators have urged the release of Papuans arrested for peaceful political dissent. Meanwhile, other activists have been arrested or are facing arrest. An international firm, collaborating with an Indonesian company, has announced plans to transform a vast area of forest near Merauke into wood chips. A South Korean daily has published an account of West Papua's annexation by Indonesia which it describes as a "betrayal" of the Papuans by the international community. Additional evidence has surfaced of the human cost of the Indonesian military's continuing "sweep" operations in the Papuan hinterlands. Confusion reigns in Indonesia's response to months of attacks targeting the operations of PT Freeport and its personnel.
Thank you John for this article. I maintain that the core issue is that West Papua is a COLONY, contrary to global agreements it was traded as a COLONY from the Dutch via the UN to Indonesia for benefit of the USA.
ReplyDeleteThe Freeport corporation began actions in 1959 to claim Papua's gold & copper for itself, Freeport director Robert Lovett in December 1960 told John F Kennedy that the US should appoint McGeorge Bundy over the NSC and it was the NSC which twisted JFKs arm into coercing the Dutch into selling the people of West Papua to Indonesian military occupation and a mining license for Freeport from General Suharto.