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Case Study: WEST PAPUA
- In West Papua people need permission to move around in areas
where the Indonesian military operate. This can include leaving
their villages to tend their crops. If people are found without
permission they risk being viewed as rebels and could be killed.
- Papuan leaders have been forbidden to leave the country.
Analysis
New Guinea is the world's second largest island and is made up of
the independent state of Papua New Guinea in the east and the province
of Irian Jaya (West Papua) in the west, a former Dutch colony that
joined Indonesia in 1969.
The Nduga and Amungme of West Papua are highland
peoples who survive by shifting cultivation and hunting. Because
of military restrictions, they cannot travel to tend their crops
or head into the forest to hunt without the risk of being shot and
consequently have no way to feed themselves.
For indigenous Papuans like these the recent history
of the province has been far from happy. They have suffered the
invasion of their tribal lands by developers and migrants from other
islands while their natural resources are removed to Jakarta.
The clash of the old and new is exemplified by
the siting of the advanced Freeport Indonesia gold and copper mine
in a mountainous area populated by indigenous tribes.
Since 1977, the Indonesian army has mounted an
anti-guerrilla operation against the Free Papua Movement, the OPM,
resulting in thousands of deaths.
As a result, hundreds have fled in fear, many of
them subsequently dying of starvation and disease. The International
Committee of the Red Cross reports that more than half of the tribal
people in the area are suffering from malnutrition and almost all
have malaria, a disease previously rare in this region.
Recently the tribal leaders of West Papua declared
independence from Indonesia. However, Indonesian President Abdurrahman
Wahid rejected the declaration and talks on autonomy, which commenced
after the election, have been suspended.
The islanders right to freedom of movement remains
a key and unresolved issue.
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