Understanding what is happening in Indonesian New Guinea is very tough, because it is very difficult, often impossible, for reporters to get in there to do their work of reporting to the World on events.
Reporters who do manage to enter Indonesian New Guinea may find themselves intimidated and abused by the police and military, even when they are themselves Indonesian.
That Indonesia keeps a high bamboo wall erected around their New Guinea territory should be enough to say that they have much to hide.
With a huge military presence in New Guinea, seeking to crush West Papuan aspirations for freedom and protect Indonesian migrants now out-numbering indigenous Papuans, we have every right to wonder exactly what Indonesia has to hide.
A heavily armed Indonesian military is hardly troubled by indigenous West Papuans with bows and arrows, where every incident could be met with a heavily armed response, whether raising the West Papuan independence flag, or holding a congress to discuss the basic human right of self-determination.
If West Papuans fight back, the response is all the more lethal, brutal and absolute.
In this way, since Indonesia commenced its Washington-sanctioned invasion of New Guinea in 1963, the indigenous Papuans have been steadily bull-dozed through their land, making way for Indonesian migrants to fill the vacuum and continue the drive to completely crush West Papuan identity.
In the process, the marginalised melanesian West Papuans are a diminishing presence in their own land, crushed beneath the Indonesian military bull-dozers in a steady but sure, slow-motion genocide.
Should the United States lose its military punch in the region due to changing geopolitical circumstances and the rise of China, which would be a natural ally of Indonesia, will the Indonesian military bull-dozers simply keep pushing east into Papua New Guinea and even south into Australia?
If the Australian Government lives in fear of Indonesia’s future expansion, this may help to explain the Government’s mouse-like silence over reporters being locked our of Indonesian New Guinea, who would report on the reality of the slow-motion genocide happening over decades.
In 1942 Australia met the Japanese invasion of New Guinea on the Kokoda Track and fought back.
In 1962 Australia surrendered New Guinea to an Indonesian invasion, even though the Government had been working officially with the Dutch toward the independence of the whole island of New Guinea since 1957, with many Australians on the ground in West Papua.
Australians celebrated the raising of the Morning Star flag in 1961, with the Dutch and West Papuans, when independence was a shining star in our north.
Clearly, Australians did their work too well, as the star of freedom still burns brightly in the hearts of West Papuans, even as Indonesia’s military bull-dozer crushes indigenous blood and bone into the mud of New Guinea.
In 1942 the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels were celebrated, when Papuans helped Australian diggers fight an invasion.
What changed in a generation to cause Australia to surrender in New Guinea and allow a slow-motion genocide to be unleashed across our north?
Following is one of the hundreds of stories seeping out of West Papuan, despite the bamboo curtain that keeps reporters out and the World from knowing the truth,
TNI troops burn down churches and villages in Puncak Jaya
by West Papua Media 4 December 2011
According to credible local sources in Puncak Jaya, Indonesian troops razed a civilian village while conducting a massive offensive against National Liberation Army guerrillas of Goliat Tabuni.
Undercover local human right sources have claimed that at 15.30 local time on 3 December, that two platoons from the “Coconut” brigade of Gegana Brimob anti-terrorist police, set fire to a church, houses, and guard houses in the village of Wandenggobak.
Brimob Gegana is a specialised highly mobile bomb and anti-terrorist unit that receives funding, arming and training by the Australian Government, and is trained by the Australian Federal Police at the joint Australia-Indonesian Jakarta Centre for Law Enforcement Cooperation. Standard weaponry used by Gegana include the AusSteyr rifle, manufactured by Australian Defence Industries. It is not known if the flamethrowers used to burn down the church were amongst those supplied by Australia.
The church burning against civilians occurred as reprisal for an attack by Tabuni that left two Brimob officers dead earlier in the day. Gegana Brimob police officers Bripda Ferly and Bripda Eko were killed, with Bripda Syukur being treated for minor thigh grazing.
Civilian casualties have been reported, though not verified at this stage. It is not known if villagers were in any of the buildings, or seeking shelter in the church at the time it was razed by Indonesian police.
These reports are based on contact with two regular and established credible sources. The usual standard for claiming fact verification for West Papua Media is our three independent source rule, but we are still awaiting further detailed reports from the area. Papuan, Indonesian and international journalists have been banned from the area in Puncak Jaya where the offensive is occurring which has been informally declared as a Military Operations Area (Daerah Operasi Militer/ DOM)
The offensive has allegedly started after the guerrilla forces of Tabuni allegedly launched attacks on military targets on December 1, after a massive nonviolent flagraising ceremony in Tingginambut.
However, other credible sources in Wamena have sent appeals saying that Tabuni is close by Wamena. “After General Tabuni started war on December 1 … Our international highlanders are feeling deeply traumatised … ordinary people are starting to arm themselves with traditional weapons on the streets”, a translated SMS message sent to West Papua Media early on December 4 claimed.
The situation is tense at time of writing. Please stay tuned for further developments.
