West Papua Transmigration Program (Islamization)

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Permalink Reply by Netcon on February 11, 2010 at 10:09

Shouldn't the UN intervene as this breaches their charter on the rights of indigenous peoples?
http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/en/drip.html
I guess I shouldn't hold my breath.

Article 3
Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
Article 8
1. Indigenous peoples and individuals have the right not to be subjected to forced assimilation or destruction of their culture.

Permalink Reply by shiva on February 11, 2010 at 16:26

Netcon said:

I guess I shouldn't hold my breath. .

In 1942, the northern coast of West New Guinea and the nearby islands were occupied by Japan. Allied forces expelled the Japanese in 1944, and with Papuan approval, the United States constructed a headquarters for Gen. Douglas MacArthur at Hollandia (now Jayapura) and over twenty US bases and hospitals intended as a staging point for operations taking of the Philippines.

West New Guinean farms supplied food for the half million US troops. Papuan men went into battle to carry the wounded, acted as guides and translators, and provided a range of services, from construction work and carpentry to serving as machine shop workers and mechanics.

The Dutch retained possession of West New Guinea from 1945, but upon reaching Java 4,000 km (2,490 mi) west they did not find similar levels of support from the population of Java. Indonesian leaders Mohammad Hatta and Sukarno had declared independence weeks before and claimed all Dutch possessions should become part of the United States of Indonesia.

The dispute continued until the Round Table Conference, which was held from August to October 1949 at the Hague. Unable to reach a compromise on the matter of West New Guinea, the conference closed with the parties agreeing to discuss the West New Guinea issue within one year.

In December 1950 the United Nations requested the Special Committee on Decolonization to accept transmission of information regarding the territory in accord with Article 73 of the Charter of the United Nations. Article 73 constituted formal recognition of the territory's right to independence and the Netherlands obligation to assist.

After repeated Indonesian claims to possession of Dutch New Guinea, the Netherlands invited Indonesia to present its claim before an International Court of Law. Indonesia declined the offer. Concerned by Indonesian insurgencies beginning in 1950, the Netherlands accelerated its education and technical programs in preparation for independence. A naval academy was opened in 1956, and Papuan troops and naval cadets began service by 1957.

By 1959, Papuans were nurses, dental surgeons, draftsmen, architects, telephone repairmen, and radio and power technicians, cultivating a range of experimental commercial crops and serving as police, forestry and meteorological staff.

This progress towards self-government was documented in reports prepared for the United Nations from 1950 to 1961.
Local Council elections were held and Papuan representatives elected from 1955. On 6 March 1959 the New York Times published an article revealing the Dutch government had discovered alluvial gold flowing into the Arafura Sea and were searching for the gold's mountain source.

In 1959, Freeport Sulphur approached the Dutch East Borneo company for partnership. An agreement signed in January 1960 to lodge a Dutch claim for the Timika area as a copper deposit did not inform the government about the gold or known extent of the copper deposit.

Election of a national parliament began on 9 January 1961 in fifteen electoral districts with direct voting in Manokwari and Hollandia to select 26 Councillors, of whom 16 were elected, 12 appointed, 23 were Papuan, and one female Councillors. The Councillors were sworn in by Governor Platteel on 1 April 1961, and the Council took office on 5 April 1961.

The inauguration was attended by officials from Australia, Britain, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and members of the South Pacific Commission; a large Australian delegation was headed by Mr Hasluck MP and included Sir Alistair McMullan, President of Australian Senate.

The United States declined the invitation to attend the inauguration.

After news that the Hague was considering a United States plan to trade the territory to United Nations administration, Papuan Councillors met for six hours in the New Guinea Council building on 19 October 1961 to elect a National Committee which drafted a Manifesto for Independence & Self-government, a National flag (Morning Star), State Seal, selected a national anthem ("Hai Tanahkoe Papua" / "Oh My Land Papua"), and called for the people to be known as Papuans.

The New Guinea Council voted unanimous support of these proposals on 30 October 1961, and on the 31st October 1961 presented the Morning Star flag and Manifesto to Governor Platteel who said (translated) "Never before has the oneness of the Council been put forward so strongly." The Dutch recognized the flag and anthem on November 18, 1961 , and these ordinances came into effect on December 1, 1961.

Permalink Reply by Alan Lake on February 11, 2010 at 16:49

The more we find out about the UN and the so-called 'humanitarian' NGOs, the worse it gets.

Permalink Reply by shiva on February 11, 2010 at 16:55

At the US White House a proposal to have the Netherlands trade West New Guinea to Indonesia was opposed by the Bureau of European Affairs who viewed this "would simply trade white for brown colonialism"; but from April 1961 Robert Komer and McGeorge Bundy promoted a plan to have the United Nations give the transfer an outward appearance of legitimacy. Though reluctant, John Kennedy was told the transfer of the territory was the only means to prevent Indonesia turning to Soviet aid


The Morning Star, flag of West Papua, was designed by the New Guinea Council in 1961. Its display is prohibited in Indonesia.

The Morning Star flag was raised next to the Dutch tricolour on December 1, 1961, an act which Papuan independence supporters celebrate each year at flag raising ceremonies. National Committee Chairman Mr Inury said: "My Dear compatriots, you are looking at the symbol of our unity and our desire to take our place among the nations of the world. As long as we are not really united we shall not be free. To be united means to work hard for the good of our country, now, until the day that we shall be independent, and further from that day on."

On January 2, 1962, Indonesia, which had made seven known insurgency attempts since 1950, now created the Mandala Command headed by Brig. General Suharto to coordinate military efforts for the territory. Two previous insurgencies, Pasukan Gerilya 100 (November 1960) and Pasukan Gerilya 200 (September 1961), were followed by Pasukan Gerilya 300 with 115 insurgents leaving Jakarta on four Jaguar class torpedo boats (January 15), intercepted in the Aru Sea the lead boat was sunk and 51 survivors were picked up after Commodore Yos Sudarso went down with his boat.

Continuing US efforts to have the Netherlands secretly negotiate the transfer of the territory to Indonesian administration eventually succeeded in creating the "New York Agreement" signed in August 1962. The Australian government, which previously had been a firm supporter of Papuan independence, also reversed its policy to support incorporation with Indonesia.

The agreement, ratified in the UN on September 21, 1962, stipulated that authority would transfer to a United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) on 1 October 1962, and that once UNTEA had informed the public of the terms of the Agreement had the option to transfer administration of the territory to Indonesia after May 1, 1963, until such time as an "Act of Free Choice" could determine the will of the people. Under Article 18 of the Agreement "all adults, male and female, not foreign nationals" were to be allowed to vote in an Act "in accordance with international practice".

On May 1, 1963, UNTEA transferred total administration of West New Guinea to the Republic of Indonesia. The capital Hollandia was renamed Kota Baru for the transfer to Indonesian administration and on 5 September 1963, West Irian was declared a "quarantine territory" with Foreign Minister Subandrio administrating visitor permits.

Although United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2504 did acknowledge that an event called Act of Free Choice took place, neither the General Assembly nor International Court of Justice gave their opinion about the event, nor did they claim the Act to have been any form of self determination.

Although the United Nations representative Ambassador Fernando Ortiz-Sanz was unable to get Indonesia to allow a "one-man, one-vote" within the territory, the Indonesian authorities declared that there was a unanimous vote against independence. However, participants and other observers question the conduct and legitimacy of the process.

It is widely reported that just 1000 local officials (appointed by the Indonesian government) were allowed by the Indonesian military to vote, in direct contravention of Article 18 of the New York Agreement which stated "The eligibility of all adults, male and female, not foreign nationals to participate in the act of self-determination to be carried out in accordance with international practice".

As such the vote was not an expression of self-determination. Men who were selected for the vote subsequently testified that they had been blackmailed and threatened at gunpoint into voting against independence with threats of violence against their families and communities.

Although Indonesia denies these allegations, recently released United States government correspondence indicates that the pro-Indonesian outcome was effectively agreed in advance between Indonesia and the U.S

Since the 1960s, consistent reports have filtered out of the territory of government suppression and terrorism, including murder, political assassination, imprisonment, torture, and aerial bombardments. The Indonesian government disbanded the New Guinea Council and forbade the use of the West Papua flag or the singing of the national anthem. There has been considerable resistance to Indonesian integration and occupation, both through civil disobedience (such as Morning Star flag raising ceremonies) and via the formation of the Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM, or Free Papua Movement) in 1965.

The movement's military arm is the TPN, or Liberation Army of Free Papua. Estimates vary on the death toll, with wild variation in the number claimed dead. A Sydney University academic has estimated more than 100,000 Papuans, one sixteenth of the population, have died as a result of government-sponsored violence against West Papuans, while others had previously specified much higher death tolls.

After General Suharto replaced Sukarno as President of Indonesia, Freeport Sulphur was the first foreign company awarded a mining license, a 30 year license to mine the Tembagapura region of Papua for gold and copper.

In 1969, General Sarwo Edhi Wibowo oversaw the Indonesian conduct of the widely criticized "Act of Free Choice." Prior to the vote, the Indonesian military rounded up and detained for one month a large group of Papuan tribal leaders. The Papuans were daily threatened with death at gunpoint if the entire group did not vote to continue Indonesian rule.

Assembled troops and two Western observers acted as witnesses to the public vote; however, the Western observers left after witnessing the first two hundred (of 1,054) votes for integration. Concerned over Communism in South East Asia, and with an eye toward extracting Papua's vast mineral wealth, the US and other Western powers ignored protests over the circumstances surrounding the vote

The process was deemed to have been an "Act of Free Choice" in accordance with the United Nations requirements, and Indonesia formally annexed the territory in August. Dissenters mockingly called it the "Act of No Choice" or "Act Free of Choice."

In 1971, construction of the world's largest copper and gold mine (also the world's largest open cut mine) began. Under an Indonesian agreement signed in 1967 (two years before the "Act of Free Choice"), the US company Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc. obtained a 30-year exclusive mining license from Suharto in (dating from the mine's opening in 1973).

The pact was extended in 1991 by another 30 years. After 1988 with the opening of the Grasberg mine it became the biggest gold mine and lowest extraction-price copper mine in the world. Locals made several violent attempts to dissuade the mine owners, including sabotage of a pipeline that July, but order was quickly restored.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the Indonesian state accelerated its transmigration program, under which tens of thousands of Javanese and Sumatran migrants were resettled to Papua. Prior to Indonesian rule, the non-indigenous Asian population was estimated at 16,600; while the Papuan population were a mix of Roman Catholics, Protestants and animists following tribal religions.

Critics suspect that the transmigration program's purpose was to tip the balance of the province's population from the heavily Melanesian Papuans toward western Indonesians, thus further consolidating Indonesian control. The transmigration program officially ended in the late 1990s, although so-called "spontaneous migration" by western Indonesians voluntarily relocating to provinces such as Papua seeking economic opportunity has increased and remains at high levels.

A separatist congress in 2000 again calling for independence resulted in a military crackdown on independence supporters. In 2001, a now-majority Islamic population was given limited autonomy. An August 2001, US State Department travel warning advised "all travel by US and other foreign government officials to Aceh, Papua and the Moluccas (provinces of North Maluku and Maluku) has been restricted by the Indonesian government".

In January 2006, 43 refugees in a traditional canoe landed on the coast of Australia with a banner stating the Indonesian military was carrying out a genocide in Papua. They were transported to an Australian immigration detention facility on Christmas Island, 2,600 km (1,400 nmi) north-west of Perth, and 360 km (190 nmi) south of the western head of Java.

On March 23, 2006, the Australian government granted temporary protection visas to 42 of the 43 having determined all 43 were bonafide refugees. A day later Indonesia recalled its ambassador to Australia. A number of expatriate Papuans currently campaign for independence in Australia, the United Kingdom and other countries, and call for international support for their campaigns. Their claims, which sometimes include allegations of historic or present genocide, are strongly challenged by Indonesia, and Papuan independence is not supported by any recognised government except that of Vanuatu.

Permalink Reply by shiva on February 12, 2010 at 9:30

DEMAS
Half-spirit, half-human folk who live — or lived — on paradisiacal Earth. Their number includes DARVI and DIWA-ZIB

The DEMAS invented all sorts of things and life was idyllic. Until they discovered fire.

Of course, they just had to play with it, until it got out of control and even the mountains caught alight. DARVI, a top Dema, sent rain, but it wasn't working properly due to technical glitches.

But he managed to grab a great chunk of land and heave it into the sea, along with a load of scorched animals. This is why crabs are red and herons have red legs. Indeed anything with red markings dates back to those scorching days.

The chunk of earth is now the island of New Guinea, and the DEMAS are a lot more careful

DIWA-ZIB:
One of the DEMAS, he's spirit of the Head Hunt
As he needs to keep a clear head, and two heads are not better than one when you need to focus on the one you are about to lop off, he is firmly in favor of Alcoholics Anonymous.

DUDUGERA:

Sun God with a grudge He got picked on as a kid, what with his mum having frolicked with a Godly Dolphin and him being born from her leg where Godly scales had brushed it. (What kind of frolic is that? Ed). So he grew up with a chip on his shoulder, vowed he was going to burn everything, and leapt into the sky to become the sun. His mum was just in time to throw clouds of lime into the sky to prevent him from burning everything to a crisp.

The crocodile plays a prominent part in many of the myths of creation of Papua New Guinea. For example, some Kiwaians believe that their "father" was a crocodile. The myth tells how a being called Ipila carved a human figure out of wood and brought it to life by painting the face with sago milk. First the eyes opened, then the nostrils quivered and the "man" made a noise like a crocodile. His name was Nugu and he was not satisfied until Ipila made three more men as companions for him.

These men refused to learn the things Ipila wanted to teach them and after a while two of them became tired of only eating sago and started to kill animals for food. Almost at once they turned into half-crocodiles.

They then tried to make some of their own kind but they found that they could only make men because Ipila secretly altered their work. It is from these new men that their descendants claim the crocodile as their father. The European interaction with Papua New Guinea was a gradual process and even today there are isolated communities where contact remains minimal. Under these circumstances the way of life of the Papua New Guinea people had been hardly touched by the ways of the Europeans and their mythology continued to reinforce the intricate bond between themselves and nature upon which their survival depended.

The representation of the mythology in the form of tribal art consequently maintained the rich fabric that had been built up over many thousands of years resulting in the tribal art of Papua New Guinea having a unique and lasting inter-relationship with the mythology of the different groups that go to make up the Melanesian society of Papua New Guinea. "The crimes committed against the people of West Papua are some of the most shameful of the past years. The Western powers have much to answer for, and at the very least should use their ample means to bring about the withdrawal of the occupying Indonesian army and termination of the shameful exploitation of resources and destruction of the environment and the lives and societies of the people of West Papua, who have suffered far too much." Noam Chomsky

Permalink Reply by shiva on February 12, 2010 at 9:32

In March 2003 John Rumbiak, West Papua's famous human rights investigator, stated that Papuan culture "will be extinct," within 10 to 20 years if the present rate of assimilation in the region continues.

The Indonesian government states that the special autonomy arrangement specifically addresses the ongoing preservation of Papua culture, and that the transmigration program /Islamization was "designed specifically to help the locals through knowledge transfer". . Yeah yeah, the knowledge that there is only one god,a god that over-rules gods they have worshipped for thousands of years , a god that calls for the destruction of cultures full of magic and colour

A god that calls for the death of these wonderful people A god that that want to cover the beautiful women with this atrocitious garb

Another victim of islam

The koteka, horim, or penis sheath is a phallocrypt or phallocarp traditionally worn by native male inhabitants of some (mainly highland) ethnic groups in western New Guinea to cover their genitals. They are normally made from a dried out gourd, Lagenaria siceraria, although other species, such as Nepenthes mirabilis, are also be used. They are held in place by a small loop of fiber attached to the base of the koteka and placed around the testicles. Many tribes can be identified by the way they wear their koteka. Some wear them pointed straight out, straight up, at an angle, or in other directions. The diameter of the koteka can also be a clue. Contrary to popular belief, there is little correlation between the size or length of the koteka and the social status of the wearer. Kotekas of different sizes serve different purposes: very short kotekas are worn when working and longer and more elaborate kotekas are worn on festive occasions. The koteka is made of a specially grown gourd. Stone weights are tied to the bottom of the gourd to stretch it out as it grows. Curves can be made in it by the use of string to restrain its growth in whatever direction the grower wishes. They can be quite elaborately shaped in this manner. When harvested, the gourd is emptied and dried. It is sometimes waxed with beeswax or native resins. It can be painted, and/or have shells, feathers and other decorations attached to it. It is commonly assumed that there is a sexual display element to wearing the koteka, however, according to the locals, kotekas are worn only to cover themselves. Campaigns by the Indonesian government to suppress the koteka in Papua occurred in the 1970s. The campaigns have been largely unsuccessful in areas such as the Baliem Valley. Offending muzi sensitivities In 1971-1972 the government launched "Operasi Koteka" ("Operation Penis Gourd") which consisted primarily of trying to encourage the people to wear shorts and shirts because such clothes were considered more "modern." But the people did not have changes of clothing, did not have soap, and were unfamiliar with the care of such clothes so the unwashed clothing caused skin diseases. There were also reports of men wearing the shorts as hats and the women using the dresses as carrying bags.

Another unwelcome guest The koran Kissing Pope

Missionaries in the 1950s attempted to alter the local customs by forcing locals to wear shorts. Many of the Dani of the Baliem Valley felt exposed without their kotekas and could be seen wearing shorts with their kotekas sticking out of them. Eventually the missionary effort and the Indonesian government's campaign were abandoned. Nevertheless, western clothing is required in government buildings, and children are required to wear western clothing in school.

Permalink Reply by Alan Lake on February 12, 2010 at 11:07

Good God, Noam Chomsky is right for once!

If we can ever get a 4F demo of the ground, one of the main themes should be Islamic imperialism, genocide and ethnic cleansing. We should talk about the vanished Zorastrians, Hindus, Christians and Buddhists of the past and present. And we should make special protests about this kind of cultural vandalism. We should remind people again about the UN rights of indigenous peoples and plead those rights for ourselves - especially in the light of recent revelations that Nu-labour had a deliberate policy of forced assimilation as a tool of political power.