West Papua Information Kit

Papua and Australia have been inhabited for some fifty or more thousand years. For thousands of years Papuan people enjoyed good health and lives, farming, huntering, fishing and trading without need of destroying their homelands.

Although the Dutch in competition with other nineteenth century European powers drew lines across their charts of Papua's coastlines declaring ownership of the western half of Papua, there was little plundering and few conflicts in comparasion to the Indonesian occupation. Accounts tell that Dutch colleges in Papua by the 1930s were also rising local awareness of international hostilities, a concern possibly inspired by Japan's capture of Korea in 1910 and 1937 invasion of China. And so several years later when Japan invaded Papua, in western Papua there was little surprise or submission to the brutal abuse demands from 1942 to 1944. For the first time America found Japanese soldiers surrendering and a Pacific people happy to help the liberation of more islands.

Overseas in 1945 the Dutch signed into the UN Charter, in 1946 they undertook to honour the obligation to assist the 'East Indies' to self-government but unable to resist international pressure to recognise Sukarno in 1949 as self-declared President of one of the sixteen states of the United States of Indonesia, the Dutch bore witness to Sukarno by force and intimidation capture the fifteen weaker states and declared the entire USI in July 1950 to be part of his Republic of Indonesia. Five months later the Netherlands conceded it had no further responsibility for Indonesia but was responsible for helping West Papua in accord with the UN Charter article 73; see General Assembly resolution 448.

By the late 1950s the Dutch had began assembling electoral rolls and advising the more remote towns of the forthcoming national elections of January 1961. A New Guinea Council was elected and assumed office on 5 April 1961 and tasked to draft new laws regarding national resources as well as acting as a primary upper House for future Dutch bills.

Around 17 to 18 October 1961 American newspapers began publishing news of a secret proposal for America to orchestrate the trading of the people of West Papua to Indonesia; and on the evening of 18 October 1962 the New Guinea Council held an emergency night session drafting a manifesto and symbols if independence & nationhood asking the people of West New Guinea to unite as one people and a free nationto be known as West Papua.

On 1st December 1961 the Dutch at ceremonies across West Papua raised the Morning Star flag as the new antheme was played.

Transmigration is a term Indonesia uses to describe its colonial policy of exporting its own population from Asia to a colony like West Papua in the Pacific to slowly eliminate the colonised cultures and people. How many hundreds of thousands of people have been killed by the Indonesian military is not known, but that the Melanesian population of Western Papua is now a quarter or less of the Eastern side of the island is certain.

The population chart presented here suggests that from 1966 to 2000 PNG Melanesian population enjoy an average population growth of 4.47% while West Papua's growth was 1.4% or a quarter of PNG's. Given the Indonesian government transferring of nearly a million people from Asia to this Pacific island during the same period; there is an apparant willingness by the successive Indonesian governments to see the elimination of Papuan populations and cultures. The Indonesian failure to support indigenous languages further supports an apparant willingness to continue a genocidal policy. See genocide for further detail

West Papuan cultures

Although it is not possible to establish reliable data about the surival of various groups during a colonial occupation such as Indonesia's, an Indonesian Prof Aris Ananta has published his account in 2016 of "Statistics on Ethnic Diversity in the Land of Papua, Indonesia"

Some of the otherwise well known cultural and tribal groups include the:

Renown for their mountain home land which has been exevacted by the Freeport McMoRan corporation for its gold and copper, the Amungme now purportedly number some 17,000 forced to live around Timika and other sites approved by the mine cmpany and Indonesian government.

Of the north eastern Bird's Head.

Of the southern lowlands east of the Kamoro and Timika areas. Renown for woodcarving and warrior traditions the Asmat manage nearly 2 million hectre of tidal mangrove and lowland rainforest lands with a population still around 70,000.

Of the central Bird's Head.

The island of Biak is home of a language and sea faring culture share by some 30,000 people across Biak and neighbouring smaller islands. Involunatry host to a major Indonesian militay air base.

Are stewarts of the Baliem Valley

Of the Paniai (Wissel) Lakes west of the original Amungme homelands but north of Timika and stetching westwards the area is affected by Indonesian tapeworm infection with some 150,000 survivors.

A small tribe north of the mountains incentral Papua that achieved notoriety due to a book by Sabine Kuegler, and another by Jared Diamond.

Originally guarding lowlands south of Timika stretching perhaps 280km west along the southern coast and lowlands, there are thought to be some 18,000 Kamoro.

Guard highlands north east of the Baliem Valley.

Of the Paniai regency purportedly some 28,000. Visited by Tim Flannery in 1995.

An Asmat people.

Live throughout Yalimo east of the Baliem Valley, estimated population 49,000