“The US Embassy had officially informed the Indonesian government … an unspecified number of B-2 bombers flew from Darwin over to Ujung Pandang where the Indonesian Air Forced based Hawk 19s and F-16s …,” “… the HMAS Stephenson launched two of its 20 Mark 48 ADCAP torpedoes directly into Kampung Mas Port, where the Indonesian warship KRI Yos Sudarso was anchored.”
The dire-sounding passages come from Kerry B. Collison’s latest political thriller “Rockefeller and the Demise of Ibu Pertiwi,” a history-based fictional account of how Australia and Indonesia come to blows over the question of a UN-sponsored referendum in West Papua and Papua, which will determine whether the two provinces remain in the unitary state of Indonesia or secede to form an independent country.
While the main storyline revolves around West Papuan activism, its leaders, Indonesian politics and international geopolitics, the book like any good TV show today, incorporates a few sub-plots, one of which is the 1961 mysterious disappearance of Michael C. Rockefeller, heir to the family’s fortune, off the southern coast of Papua, hence the title.
The Rockefeller theme offers the reader escapade into historical sleuthing as the book seeks to explain an event that remains a mystery of our time, simultaneously weaving it into the West Papuan narrative seamlessly …
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Johannes Nugroho, The Southeast Asian Times
