Lee Jay Walker and John M. Gorrindo

http://www.leejaywalker.wordpress.com

Written by leejayuk

February 5, 2010 at 2:04 pm

PAKISTAN and ongoing Christian persecution

Pakistan and Ongoing Christian Persecution

By Lee Jay Walker
Tokyo Correspondent - THE SEOUL TIMES

Christians in Pakistan

Christians and other minorities in Pakistan continue to face enormous discrimination and persecution, and in extreme cases, but not rare cases, many Christians have been killed by either Muslim mobs or by state sanctioned policies. Therefore, the endless suffering and discrimination in Pakistan must come to light and the international community must put more pressure on the government of Pakistan to act, and to rescind brutal laws.

Pakistan is currently in crisis and much of the current crisis in self induced because it is clear that Pakistan supported radical Sunni Islam in Afghanistan and Kashmir for decades. Now the very same Sunni Islamic radicals who were supported by the security services in Pakistan have decided to turn Pakistan into another radical Sunni Islamic nightmare. Therefore, the ongoing “year zero Islamization” is leading to more hatred and this hatred is also being aimed at all minorities.

Even worse, for Christians, and other minorities like the Ahmadiyya Muslims and Hindus; they are suffering at the hands of radical Sunni Islamists, institutionalized laws which discriminate against minorities, government indifference, police bias, and every day discrimination where individual Muslims can abuse their power.

Emmanuel Y. Mani wrote an article on 11/10/2009 which was published on http://www.asianews.it and he stated that the “Blasphemy laws include Article 295, Sections B and C, and Article 298, Sections A, B and C, of the Pakistan Penal Code. These laws were incorporated into the criminal justice system between 1980 and 1986 by then President of Pakistan Zia-ul-Haq, supposedly to ensure respect for the Prophet Mohammed, his Companions and the Holy Qur‘an. These laws are unique in the contemporary world because they allow dubious charges to be brought against people who have been subjected to extra judicial killings, arson and destruction of their property.”

“From 1986 to October 2009, at least 966 persons were accused under the blasphemy laws, 50% were Muslims, 35% Ahmadis, 13% Christians, 1% Hindus and 1% with no known religious background. At least 33 persons have been killed extra judicially after allegations were made against them; 15 were Muslims, 15 Christians, two Ahmadis and one Hindu.”

This law is not only being used against Christians, Hindus, and Ahmadiyya Muslims, but it is also being used by the dominant Sunni Islamic sect in Pakistan in order to crush all alternative voices or the law is being manipulated on any grounds in order to bypass real justice.

Last year on September 15th a young Christian male called Robert Fanish was found dead in his cell. Of course, the usual mantra was stated and a cover up was started from the start but clearly he had been tortured and victimized. The National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) which is a Catholic-led advocacy group, however, stated that the brutal death of Robert Fanish was an “extra-judicial murder.”

Therefore, in modern day Pakistan this Sunni Islamic madness continues and now they are killing each other in the north of the nation, while causing mayhem in Afghanistan. At the same time, they are killing minority Christians, Shia Muslims and Ahmadiyya Muslims. It is like a state of madness with no end game apart from complete Sunni Islamization and then an internal Sunni Islamic war on the grounds of who is the most radical.

This madness led to 6 Christians being burnt alive last year and numerous other attacks. More recently, we have a 12 year old Christian girl called Shazia Bashir who was raped and tortured to death according to local Christians and advocacy groups.

Shazia Bashir was employed in the household of a wealthy Muslim lawyer and like many poor Christian domestic workers in Pakistan, she suffered abuse, however, her abuse would lead to her death but will justice be done in Pakistan?

A Protestant NGO, Sharing Life Ministry Life (SLMP), gave details about the young Christian girl. They stated that she had been working for eight months and that she had suffered constant stress and had been treated harshly before her death. This applied to ill treatment, verbal abuse and other forms of mistreatment.

SLMP chief coordinator Sohail Johnson commented “….that 99 per cent of Christian girls from poor families are hired by wealthy Muslims, and are often physically, psychologically and sexually abused.” He continued by stating that “In some cases, their employers marry them off to Muslim servants, and forcibly convert them to Islam.”

Sohail Johnson also mentioned about the failings of the government of Pakistan in protecting Christian girls. He states that “These vulnerable Christian girls do not have any state protection. We urge the government to ensure protection of these disadvantaged girls.”

Therefore, in 2009 we heard about Christians being burnt alive in Pakistan and many other cases of violence which was aimed at Christians and other minorities. Sadly, the same pattern is continuing but this time it is the brutal murder of a young Christian girl and many Christians doubt that justice will be done.

In Pakistan it is clear that Christians, Ahmadiyya Muslims, Hindus, and others, face an uphill struggle and death and persecution is never far away. However, what makes the situation worse is that it is not only radical Islamists who are persecuting all minorities but it is also the state apparatus of Pakistan.

The cycle of violence, intimidation, and persecution, can only be imagined from a distance. Yet the daily terror caused by Islamists and the betrayal of the institutions of Pakistan means that this nightmare is ongoing. However, will the international community just “turn a blind eye” or will outside pressure be put on Pakistan?

LEE JAY WALKER

Written by leejayuk

February 5, 2010 at 12:13 am

Dr. Vojin Joksimovich praises Bosnian article by Lee Jay Walker

Tagged with anti-Serbian bias, Clinton and radical islam, Islamists supported by Clinton, media bias over bosnia, media manipulation over bosnia, one sided media over Bosnia, radical islam in bosnia, The other Bosnia, usa gave radical islam a free reign in bosnia, Vojin Joksimovich, vojin joksimovich and the bosnian cover up

Lee Jay Walker’s Bosnia Column - THE SEOUL TIMES

Osama bin Laden

Dear Editor!

I am writing to congratulate you and Mr. Lee Jay Walker on the outstanding column Bosnia and Clinton’s Radical Islamists.

I have written the book: The Revenge of the Prophet: How Clinton and His Predecessors Empowered Radical Islam in which I have offered an explanation for the rise of radical Islam, including 9/11, due to flawed U.S. foreign policies. In the book there is a chapter dealing with the war in Bosnia in which president Clinton allowed Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda to establish the beach head in Europe. Bin Laden has used that opportunity to initiate planning of 9/11.

Mr. Walker has correctly analyzed President Clinton’s involvement in Bosnia siding with the radical Islam against the Christian Serbs, which amounted to supporting the Serbian adversaries in order to win over the Muslim street. He has appropriately referenced the findings of the U.S. congressional committees as well as the recent Sky News report containing gruesome photos of bestial mujahideen crimes over the Serbian civilians.

The U.S. media has played a major role in propagating the Clinton administration lies, which portrayed the Muslims as the victims and the Serbs as the victimizors. This included one the worst hoaxes of our time—the Srebrenica massacre invention which enabled the Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia to indict the Serbian political and military leaders not only for the war crimes but even for the genocide which never took place. Mr. Walker’s investigative reporting helps to establish the truth about what happened in Bosnia.

Respectfully,Dr. Vojin Joksimovich
406, Hidden Hills Ln
Escondido, CA 92029-6827
Vojin Joksimovich

Written by leejayuk

February 2, 2010 at 6:24 pm

Posted in EUROPE, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND GLOBAL NEWS, RELIGIOUS ISSUES

Papuan Fault Lines: Parts I-V (complete)

Papuan Fault Lines:

CONTENTS

Part I- The Lost World Twice Colonized

Part II- Nationalist Dreams

Part III- Perilous Pathways to Special Autonomy

Part IV- Playing into Colonial Hands

Part V- Smoke and Mirrors Surround West Papua’s Cycle of Violence

________________________________________________________

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Papuan Fault Lines- Part I: The Lost World Twice Colonized

By John Gorrindo
Indonesian Correspondent
The Seoul Times

The long list of names Papua has been given over the past one hundred years is testament to the interminable struggle and territorial chaos that has plagued the easternmost part of Indonesia. Under Dutch colonial rule, the territory was called Dutch New Guinea or West New Guinea. Once wrested from the Dutch by the emerging republic of Indonesia some sixteen years after World War II, Indonesia’s founding father and first president Sukarno renamed it Irian Barat (West Irian). After deposing Sukarno in 1965, Indonesia’s second president, Suharto, found Irian Jaya (Victorious Irian) a more glorious name lending itself to a greater sense of Indonesian territorial integrity. With the fall of Suharto’s thirty-two year New Order regime- and with some deference to the Papuan people in mind- a successor to Suharto, Indonesian President Wahid, recast the name to simply Papua. And finally, subsequent to Special Autonomy being granted the region by Jakarta in 2002, some members of the homegrown Papuan nationalist movement finally took matters into their own hands, and in an act of defiance, claimed a name of its own- West Papua.

Though the historically convoluted turmoil in West Papua is well understood and amply documented in international bodies such as the United Nations, academic circles around the world, and inside the state departments of the world’s leading capitals, the island’s agonized peoples have received scant attention or support from the international community. Realpolitik determines the world’s crisis agenda, and since World War II, Papua’s struggle to simply avoid annihilation let alone achieve a small measure of autonomy has yet to be put on anybody’s overburdened triage list.

In part this is a measure of how conflicted the world truly is as full-blown wars and fears of nuclear proliferation have put a vice-like grip on those leading actors who populate the world’s diplomatic stage and captured the attention of everyone else whose mission it is to seek peaceful resolution to the world’s greatest problems. But that doesn’t begin to explain anything about West Papua itself, or its history.

The hands-off policy towards West Papua on behalf of the United Nations as well as world and Southeast Asian regional superpowers has been much to the advantage of Indonesia’s domestic policies, its nationalist economic development, and most ironically even to its emerging democracy. Even though gross human rights violations, economic and racial discrimination, and rampant inequalities significantly characterize Indonesia’s treatment of the indigenous population of Papua’s black, Austro-Melanesians, the world has been content to look the other way, choosing rather to celebrate Indonesia’s vaunted modern progress. It has been a conscious choice on the part of the international community.

The saga surrounding the incorporation of West Papua into greater Indonesia provides a profound lesson for any student of 20th century geopolitics. But prior to opening that Pandora’s box of intrigue any serious investigation has to contemplate a question more fundamental to understanding the current fate of the remote region- how does a scattered population of three hundred ethno-lingual groups living in one of the world’s most intractable wildernesses take the forced journey required to bridge the chasm from the Stone Age to the 21st century in the span of a few decades and survive?

Consider this: Recent scientific expeditions into the remote mountainous interior of West Papua continue to discover still untouched environments where the unique animal life found there are approachable and can actually be handled. The terrestrial fauna experience no fear because they have never even been hunted by a human being. Pictures of biologists cuddling docile giant rats or endemic egg-laying echidnas would otherwise be thought of as having been staged, the animals so-darted with tranquilizers. Then, of course, there is the elusive hunt to photograph the some four dozen or so species of Birds of Paradise and Bowery birds that constitute the most beautiful related collection of winged creatures in the world. “Lost World” is a term often used to describe these only recently chartered wildernesses.

There are equally amazing reports of solitary individuals appearing from out of the swamps or jungles of West Papua who belong to tribes whose existence is still unbeknownst to even the other tribes in the area.

The answer to the survival question of an isolated collection of small tribes in a vast wilderness rich in natural resources lies in the fact that some of those tribes have not been as isolated as one might think. Coastal Papuans have had significant contact over periods of hundreds of years with several European and Asian powers- both in trade and as colonial subjects. They have learned foreign languages, been educated according to Western practice, and have adapted to the ways of invading colonial powers. Tribes of the interior were much more removed from the rest of the world. This profound difference in terms of historical contact with outsiders has created a fault line of its own in the history of Papuan Nationalism.

Geographically, West Papua occupies only the western half of a greater island, its eastern portion being the independent nation of Papua New Guinea (PNG). With no thought given to ethno or geographic boundaries, their shared border lies along the 141st parallel, and virtually splits the island- which is the second largest in the world- in half. Along West Papua’s one thousand meter spine runs the nearly unbroken chain of densely forested mountains known to the locals as the Pegunungan Maoke, or Snow Mountains. The Maoke’s grandest glacial covered palisades are the tallest peaks to be found between the Americas and the Himalayas, some reaching altitudes of over 5,000 meters. Once reaching sea level, the labyrinthine river drainage flowing down the Maoke’s steep southwestern facing escarpment on route to the Arafura Sea deposits its muddy load into vast deltas, creating the largest area of lowland swamps on the planet.

From snow-covered summits to mosquito-ridden swamp, such environmental extremes were considered impenetrable for hundreds of years by European explorers and colonial interlopers. Even though the Dutch had established themselves in the territory nearly four hundred years ago, it was only in few very small port settlements scattered along the coast that served as trading posts to other colonial holdings such as the nearby Malukus to the west. Missionaries and anthropologists made the first foyers into the wilds of Papua, but it wasn’t until the early 20th century that explorations into the interior were organized, and only in 1938 that the now-famous tourist destination of the Baliem Valley, home to the Grand Valley Dani, was first encountered by the Western world. It is in the greater highland areas like the Baliem Valley that to this day the largest percentage of indigenous Papuans still lives.

Indonesia’s proclaimed independence in 1945 nearly coincided with the discovery of the Baliem Valley. West Papua soon found itself caught up in the revolution of decolonization that was sweeping across Africa and Asia, with Indonesia being in the vanguard. The Dutch were finally forced both militarily and by means of international pressure to cede the bulk of their East Indies holding over to the newly formed Indonesian Republic- all except for West Papua. In 1949 at the Hague, Netherlands, the Dutch and Indonesian governments signed The Round Table Council Agreement and as a concession to “Netherlands nationalist feeling,” Indonesia agreed to leave Papua under Dutch occupation. Indonesia continued to fight hard against the provision, though, resurrecting the argument vociferously and to growing effect throughout the 1950’s.

Indonesia’s claim to Papua was based on the legal principle of “Uti possidetis juris”. Originating with Roman law, the principle was picked up again with the 19th century rise of nationalism in Europe and consequently both during the negotiation of the Versailles Treaty after World War I , the Yalta Treaty after World War II (though the Soviet Union did not abide by it), and the formation of the United Nations in 1945. “Uti possidetis” declares that new states would adopt the boundaries of their colonial predecessors. The United Nations helped administer this boundary-shaping principle during the sweeping decolonization that followed directly after World War II. During that revolutionary period which reshaped the geopolitical map of the world order, independence leaders such as Sukarno, Nasser, and Nehru seized upon the principle in their struggles to secure national boundaries for their new nation states.

After the signing of the Round Table Council Agreement, President Sukarno was quick to draw upon this rationale in his repeated calls for the incorporation of Papua. In addition, Sukarno declared Papua as part of Indonesia as historically defined by the sphere of influence established by ancient empires of maritime Java and Sumatra, most importantly those of Srivijaya and Majapahit. Not stopping there, Sukarno added divine justification:

“The Indonesia nation is the totality of all the human beings who, according to geopolitics ordained by God Almighty, live throughout the unity of the entire archipelago of Indonesia from the northern tip of Sumatra to Irian.”

There also existed the geopolitical fear on Indonesia’s part that the Dutch would use Papua as a base from which it would do everything it could to subvert Indonesia’s territorial integrity by sowing seeds of separatism for instance in the nearby Malukan islands, where significant portions of the people were resistant of being incorporated into Indonesia and still held sympathies for the Dutch.

Territorial integrity became Indonesia’s highest priority during the country’s fledgling years. Sukarno never ceased to press the international community on the Papuan issue and made it a centerpiece of his agenda as advanced to all world leaders he contacted. It became evident to the world’s powers that Indonesia was willing to go to war with the Dutch over territorial possession of Papua if the Dutch could not be otherwise persuaded to cede their last holdings in the archipelago.

With the rise of a new global nationalism based on the principle of self-determinism, history was on the side of the Indonesian Republic. The Dutch struggled to hold on to Papua but by the mid-1950’s had quietly self-conceded that it had to choose between handing over Papua to the Indonesians, or help the Papuans to become independent and sovereign. Time was of the essence. Those elite Papuans who had been given education and civil service positions in local Dutch administration were further primed for leadership of a free Papua. But this gesture toward the Papuans was more mercenary than not. First and foremost, the Dutch in no way wished for West Papua to fall into Indonesian hands. There was not unanimity of support for Papuan independence amongst the Dutch themselves, though, as Dutch business interests were fearful of losing their existing and future contracts with the Indonesian government. Indonesia was adverse to the Dutch as colonialists, but hadn’t gone as far as to turn away their investments.

The Netherland’s push to prepare Papuans for self-governance came too little, too late. Cold War politics would intervene to evacuate the Dutch and seal Papua’s fate. In 1961, the Dutch were pressured by the newly elected Kennedy administration of the United States to virtually hand over Papua to the Indonesians. By the time Dutch preparation for Papuan independence had begun in earnest, the Cold War had quickly evolved into a worldwide struggle between the United States and the communist blocs of the Soviet Union and Communist China.

Compounding this was Indonesia’s strategic place in the greater conflict. The geopolitical repercussions had an overriding affect on the Papuan situation. The Kennedy administration was concerned that siding with the colonial Dutch in the struggle over West Papua would alienate President Sukarno, helping to deliver Indonesia into the communist sphere of influence. Kennedy demanded the Dutch take heed to Cold War priorities and fall in line with American foreign policy objectives. A free Papua was not in the offing, Kennedy signaled in a now declassified letter to the Dutch government. Indonesia would declare war over anything less than full incorporation of the vast territory, and Kennedy didn’t want any further destabilization in greater South East Asia than already existed in neighboring Indo China as the Viet Nam war was in its nascent stages.

Isolated internationally and not willing to go to war with Indonesia alone, the Dutch were forced to accede to the U.S. negotiated New York Agreement and became signatories with Indonesia in August of 1962. The agreement transferred responsibility for the territory to Indonesia following a brief transitional period under the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA). The plan also provided for “an ascertainment” of the will of the Papuans on their future political status to be held under UN supervision. Implementation of the plan and the handing over of Papua into co-administrative hands of the Indonesian government was made in May of 1963.

The UN’s position as overseer turned out to be one of inherent political weakness. They were powerless to prevent the sham elections of 1969- ironically known as “Act of Free Choice”- where a small cadre of some one thousand hand-picked Papuans was given the power to choose on behalf of the greater population of Papuan people between self-determination and becoming a part of the Republic of Indonesia. This in lieu of a true plebiscite- and it is reported that those Papuans who actually voted in the “Act of Free Choice” did so at Indonesian gun point. Incredulously, the electoral results were unanimous save one vote in support of incorporation into Indonesia. Even more striking was that no one in the international community- including the United Nations- filed any complaint as per this final and deciding phase of the New York Agreement.

Suharto was Indonesian president during the “Act of Free Choice” elections, and it was his administration that designed, arranged for, and supervised over them. No checks and balances were in put in place as the Indonesians were in full control. Firmly supported in the West for his anti-communist leanings, Suharto was given free license to proceed in West Papua as he so chose. The fate of West Papua was a fait de complet, and the “Act of Free Choice” just so much pro forma protocol whose outcome had been predetermined.

In the form of “Act of Free Choice,” the international community had betrayed the only opportunity Papua has yet to have in becoming an independent state. Not a single nation protested the sham elections. Nor did the UN. And to have the greatest democratic force in the world, the United States, be the determinate factor behind the betrayal fully exacerbated the treachery. Realpolitik had determined the victor and the vanquished.

(NOTE: this article is part one in a series and is to be continued)
________________________________________________________________________
October 2, 2009

Papuan Fault Lines- Pt. II: Nationalist Dreams

By John Gorrindo
Indonesian Correspondent
The Seoul Times

1969’s Act of Free Choice was only the more obvious betrayal suffered by Papuan nationalists. The expectation of self-determination as inspired by the Dutch was in many ways more damaging, for the Papuans were to feed on dreams the Dutch could never materialize.

During the interim between Indonesian independence and the 1962 signing of the New York Agreement, those few Papuan tribes who interacted with their Dutch colonialists in all manner of exchange were put on the fast track headed for Papuan independence. For those West Papuans drawn into the impending but unforeseen historical shift about to transform Papua forever, Dutch support and preparations fueled both a nationalist hope, and maybe more importantly- a nationalist identity. With the notion of a nationalist identity, so arose a Papuan elite as well. Amongst the elite, there wasn’t unanimity as concerns taking up the responsibility for becoming a new nation state. Some Papuan leaders favored incorporation into Indonesia. As such, tribal divides existed. But internal differences between the few coastal peoples caught-up in the independence movement were very different in kind as compared with the dynamics of the coastal versus highland tribal groups. Nonetheless, direct Dutch involvement in making ready a transition to statehood prompted a growing sense of a “Papuan identity” amongst both coastal and some highland tribes.

Midwife to the birth of Papuan Nationalism, the Dutch not only encouraged but nearly charged the West Papuans to politically ready themselves for decolonization. By the time the Act of Free Choice quashed these hopes, several homegrown political organizations had been formed and their plans for independence circulated throughout much of the territory for a decade. Nationalist dreams and aspirations were freely being discussed in Papuan meeting halls as presided over by Papuan-created and controlled political councils.

The First “Papuans”

From the turn of the 20th century until the outbreak of World War II and the Japanese invasion, the territorial administration of what was still known as Dutch New Guinea was composed of three factions- a top echelon of Dutch appointed by the government in the Netherlands, and a mix of both Indonesian and indigenous Papuan civil servants. For decades the Dutch had trained and transferred Indonesians from places such as the nearby Mulukas into Papua to take up administrative duties. As the concerted missionary work that had long been at work in Papua had succeeded in converting and educating select tribes, Papuans themselves began to step forward and take a place in the governance or their own land. These few individuals and their families constituted the first Papuan elite.

But just who were the “Papuan elite” exactly, and what were the ethnic, lingual, and tribal fault lines that distinguished and potentially divided them from other Papuans? Papuans from three areas dominated the group hand picked by the Dutch and who would become the first to receive transfer of power. They originated from the small coastal city of Hollandia (the Dutch’s main territorial administrative center and later renamed Jayapura) and two small islands- Biak and Yapen (including the important town and area of Serui). Both of these offshore islands are located in the northwest, just east of the Bird’s Head peninsula and west of Hollandia. Because of their coastal proximity to Hollandia, all three areas and their inhabitants had long histories of contact with the Dutch and other foreign trade powers, including Asians such as the Chinese and Japanese. A significant number of these people were the sons and daughters of literate parents, had been educated in Dutch schools, were conversant in the Dutch language, had either been converted into Christianity or had had contact with Dutch missionaries, and generally understood much about European ways.

Interestingly, the two islands very much saw the future of Papua differently. Biak was strongly supportive of Papuan independence whereas Serui thought it better to incorporate into the Indonesia republic. Despite this substantial difference, the two groups together embodied those tribes in Papua best suited to participate in Papua’s administration, no matter who would be in control. They saw themselves as important stakeholders, no matter the outcome of the decolonization process. Above and beyond their own fault lines, they acted more in mutual cooperation than not.

After General MacArthur’s 1944 invasion of Hollandia, the Japanese occupation of West Papua came to an end. The Dutch quickly reestablished themselves and their new Dutch Resident, J.P.K. van Eechoud, a former policeman, immediately set to work establishing the special schools for training young Papuans to become teachers, police, nurses, and civil officials. These schools were built mainly in the coastal communities already mentioned. Only 40,000 Papuans inhabited the communities so-effected and that out of a total West Papuan population of 700,000. To insure inclusion, Van Eechoud did his best to seek out young candidates for his training centers from all around the territory “so as to broaden local identities into a Papuan one.” Despite his best recruiting efforts, one-half of all qualified candidates came from the ranks of those very few tribes living along the coast and close to the schools themselves.

Van Eechoud’s students understood the essentially political purpose of his policies. He told them as early as 1945 that they had to study diligently because they were “the new Papuans for a new New Guinea.” The Papuan graduates of Van Eechoud’s schools were in some senses the “first” Papuans as well as the first generation of Papuan nationalists in that they were the ones that began to think of themselves as being members of a broader pan-Papuan society, not merely a member of a particular ethno-linguistic group.

For his dedication to the Papuan people and their aspirations for self-determination, Van Eechoud was revered as a father figure by the Papuans. He was honored by his students with the name “Bapak Papua”- Father of Papua. Van Eechoud may be the sole honoree and occupant of an otherwise empty pantheon of those Dutchman lionized in their lifetime by any significant group of indigenous peoples in the greater archipelago.

Van Eechoud’s mission to prepare West Papuans for ultimate decolonization was fully incorporated into Dutch territorial policy in1952 when the Dutch officially recognized the right of Papuans to self-determination and systematically put the territory on a full-blown independence track. Van Eechoud’s like-minded successor, Th. H. Bot, directed policy towards political objectives. He ordered Dutch officials to recruit Papuans qualified to become potential candidates for representative councils, government advisors, and given a political science education in general. Arrangements were made to send these candidates abroad to Holland and other places as well.

Like Van Eechoud, Bot recognized that the rugged terrain and ethnic diversity of West Papua hadn’t ever allowed for a national awareness amongst the hundreds of tribes, and he moved to address the issue head-on. Along with the educational institutions already set into motion, Bot promoted a Papuan Volunteers Corps (PVC) and the landmark New Guinea Council which was, in effect, the first Papuan deliberative body made up almost exclusively of indigenous Papuans. Bot also believed it necessary that in order for Papuans to establish a national identity, they must come to see themselves belonging to the same peoples as indigenous to the Australian-administered territories, and not to any Malay Indonesian race or ethnicity. This would be a Melanesian identification, belonging to an independent state, but linked in all important ways to the West. A greater geostrategic sense was factored into Bot’s modus operandi. Of paramount importance was to insure not only a free Papua, but a Papuan identity free from any sense of belonging to Indonesia.

These developments irked the Indonesian government to no end, and it stepped up its international protests. After a dozen years of growing tension over West Papuan territory, things came to a head with the election of President John F. Kennedy in November 1960. A change of American administrations provided the catalyst for both a flurry of Dutch diplomatic proposals and insurgencies by the Indonesian military. Aggressions into Papuan territorial land and waters took place in November 1960, September 1961, and most significantly in January 1962 under the new operational name of Mandala headed by Brigadier General Suharto.

The uptick of Indonesian violence in 1961-1962 was the direct result of at least two major events. First, in September 1961 Dutch Foreign Minister Luns presented a proposal to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on West New Guinea’s future. The “Luns Plan” proposed an end to Dutch sovereignty and the establishment of a UN administration in “West New Guinea” to supervise and organize a plebiscite to decide the territory’s final status. In November the proposal came to a UNGA floor vote and passed, but did not garner the two-thirds vote required, so it failed. Indonesia was determined that the vote would not be raised in the UN again.

Second- and even more alarming to President Sukarno- was the growing projected power of newly formed nationalist organizations in West Papua presided over by indigenous Papuans themselves. This was perhaps the most ominous sign for the Indonesians that the Dutch were doing everything possible to make a success of handing over colonial control.

One of the most important of these political groups was the already mentioned West New Guinea Council. The council was just as alarmed by the Luns plan as was Sukarno. As Luns never conferred with the Papuans over his plan, there was resentment given their exclusion from political proposals deeply affecting their future. In rapid response to the proposal, members of West New Guinea Council and another prominent Papuan political organization, PARMA, convened jointly in Hollandia on October 19, 1961. The delegates were drawn from most regions of the territory, they included both Christians and Muslims, and all but one of them was Papuan. They elected seventeen people to form a Komite Nasional Papua. The Komite knew they must be proactive in asserting the Papuan preference for self-determination. They immediately issued a Manifest Politik making demands to the Dutch that Papuan voices be heard in the decolonization process.

The Manifest asked that the Netherlands New Guinea be renamed West Papua, and it called for the immediate use of Papuan national symbols alongside the Dutch ones. As addressed to the New Guinea Council and the government of the Netherlands, the core of the document stated:

“On the basis of the desire of our people for independence, we urge through the mediation of the Komite Nasional and our popular representative body, the New Guinea Council, that the governments of Netherlands New Guinea and the Netherlands take action to ensure that, as of November 1st, our flag be flown beside the Netherlands flag; our national anthem, Hai Tanahku Papua, be sung along with the Wilhelmus; the name of our land become West Papua; the name of our people become Papuan.

On this basis we the Papuan people demand to obtain our own place among the other free peoples and nations. In addition, we, the Papuan people, wish to contribute to the maintenance of the freedom of the world.”

The Manifest asked that the Netherlands New Guinea be renamed West Papua. The Manifest Politik was the first assertion of the Papuan demand to establish a new nation state.

But the raising of what would be known as the “Morning Star” flag did not mean that the Komite Nasional intended to declare the actual transfer of sovereignty. To that symbolic end, the flag was to be flown not alone but alongside the Dutch tricolors. So too, the decision to raise the flag was not unanimously supported. Some council members were concerned that ordinary Papuans would interpret a flag-raising as a declaration of independence and were not in support. Neither did the Manifest demand nor declare outright independence- only that Papuans be given a voice in the terms of decolonization.

Raising of the Morning Star Flag

The first raising of the flag was organized by the Komite Nasional and took place in front of the New Guinea Council building in Hollandia on December 1, 1961. Flag raising ceremonies took place throughout the territory as well. There was substantial interest shown by the Papuan people both in areas of strong support (such as Biak) or where support for Indonesia had deep roots (Serui & Yapen).

Sukarno’s retaliation was swift. On December 19, 1961 and less than three weeks after the flag-raising, he gave his important TRIKORA speech (peoples’ triple command). It called for the total mobilization of the Indonesian people to “liberate” West Irian. Quickly following he ordered Suharto to organize Operasi Mandala and begin a new wave of military insurgencies.

This wave of insurgencies was in total a military failure. The first assault of Operasi Mandala occurred on January 15, 1962. Having disembarked from Jakarta and consisting of four torpedo boats and one hundred fifteen insurgents, the group was intercepted by Dutch in the Arafura Sea and more than half were killed including the operational commander, Commodore Yous Sudarso, Deputy Chief of the Indonesian naval staff. Known as the Battle of Arafura Sea, this insurgency was the third consecutive attack against the Dutch in West Papua to fail miserably since the September previous.

Sukarno’s military aggression constituted both a tactical failure and strategic success to the extent it signaled the international community Indonesian willingness to engage the Dutch in all-out war over the Papuan question.

The United Nations and the Kennedy administration were soon to respond all to Indonesia’s liking.

(NOTE: This article is part of a series. Part III is soon to follow)
________________________________________________________________________
October 15, 2009

Papuan Fault Lines- Pt. III: Perilous Path to Special Autonomy

By John Gorrindo
Indonesian Correspondent
The Seoul Times

In the wake of World War II’s ashes Indonesia rose like a Phoenix, blazing forth in the vanguard of the new world order that emerged. It established itself as the first major colony to throw off its age-old yoke of servitude and in many cases, slavery. In doing so Indonesia inspired and became a leader amongst a fast growing number of new, non-aligned nations, most of which like Indonesia had been former European colonies. With the coming of the 1950’s, countries like India and Egypt with large population and ancient cultures now stood together with Indonesia as new and vital members of the international community.

Indonesia’s brand of nationalism was rooted in a five point philosophy embodied in a state ideology called the Pancasila. Core to defining the new republic’s secular nationalism was the Pancasila’s ethos of Bhinneka Tunggal Ika (Unity in Diversity) which acknowledged and celebrated the archipelago’s multicultural and pluralistic nature. The founding fathers believed that for the nation to succeed, Indonesia had to at once embrace its ethno-linguistic and religious diversity but at the same time seek to unify its vast array of constituent populations.

Insurrections and separatist movements that continually threatened Indonesia’s first quarter century of existence reflected the country’s vast regional differences in terms of ethnicity, language, religion, customary traditions (adat), geographical displacement, and historical ties to former Dutch rule. Though most parts of Indonesia participated in the independence movement, some regions were much less enthusiastic about the prospects of an Indonesian Republic than were others.

Indonesia’s struggle for suzerainty was first and foremost spearheaded in Java. Not everyone under the former territorial control of the Dutch was confident that rule in mainly Javanese hands as centralized in that more highly developed island would benefit them. The fear of Javanese hegemony was a deal breaker at times for even entire regions, such as the Malukus.

In the case of all those peoples subject to the Dutch in what was then called Western New Guinea, there existed split allegiances and significant disagreement as to who should rule the territory. This made the region no different than the neighboring Malukus. What did set West New Guinea apart in terms of common experience was the fact that very few of the island’s peoples- whether indigenous Melanesian or émigrés from outside- ever did participate in the Indonesian revolution.

Indonesia’s shrewd diplomatic persistence that played one Cold War faction off the other resulted in its successful wresting of control over Western New Guinea, or what Sukarno would rename Irian. In that victory of territorial dispute, Indonesia faced the long term responsibility to both develop and assimilate respectively the vast wilderness tract and its population of over three hundred ethno-lingual groups.

Four decades after assuming power in West Papua, Indonesia has fallen very short in terms of both these vital missions. And particularly for the thirty years Suharto’s new order prevailed, an isolate cloud both obscured any transparency as to visible progress to the outside world and hid the brutal repression visited upon many of the Papuan people.

There exists in many cases a gaping black hole as to what actually happened to the peoples of West Papua between “The Act of Free Choice” in 1969 and the passing of a Special Autonomy law in 2001. Even most hard line Indonesian authorities past and present would likely agree to the following observations, though:

1. The OPM, or Operasi Papua Merdeka, was formed in 1964 and began a sustained campaign of armed struggle against Indonesian security forces for an independent Papua.

2. After two decades of often violent resistance to Indonesian rule, Papua was declared a “daerah militer” (militarized region), and Indonesian security forces were given even greater authority to plan and execute military attacks against those Papuan groups considered treasonous, rebellious, armed, or otherwise threatening and dangerous. Military reprisals were taken against not only alleged freedom fighters but often by extension their home villages and families.

3. Human rights abuses committed by Indonesian security forces- including illegal detention, torture, murder (often indiscriminant and including women and children), rape, extra-judicial killing, and wholesale destruction of villages- have been widely documented since West Papua’s incorporation in Indonesia in May 1963. Legally they amount at least to a collective case of Crimes Against Humanity as defined by the United Nations in its landmark Law of Genocide (1948). That these large scale crimes have been committed with impunity and absence of accountability is even admitted to- at least in part- by the Indonesian government itself. President Megawati’s official apology to the Papuan people for abuses made it clear that many of the allegations made by numerous human rights groups such as Amnesty International, TAPOL, and the United Nations Commission on Human Rights were at least in part true.

4. Through powers of eminent domain the Indonesian state appropriated land from indigenous groups without honoring or considering customary land laws and traditions that had been in effect for in many cases, thousands of years. The mineral, gas, and logging rights of large tracts of government appropriated land have been leased to mainly foreign development interest. A fair return of revenues on profits was never distributed to local peoples. As in the case of the Freeport Mine, some tribal groups- much like many American Indians- were displaced entirely off their land and resettled in unsuitable and often unhealthy surroundings. Unfair compensation for natural resource extraction was a key negotiated term in the Special Autonomy law of 2001.

5. The rush to develop West Papua economically benefited only the Jakarta power elite, the Indonesian security forces stationed in West Papua, a small administrative Papuan elite in place, foreign business interests, and to some degree, transmigration populations. Leading indicators measuring quality of life for the vast majority of the one million indigenous Melanesian Papuans have in many cases suffered a reversal. This includes levels of income, health, nutrition, education, and job opportunity. On the whole, the original peoples of Papua have been discriminated against and treated as second class citizens. There has been very limited attempt to prepare them for assimilation as Indonesian citizens.

6. Irresponsible development leading to environmental degradation- especially in the forms of mining, logging, and palm oil plantation development- has been an ongoing reality of life in West Papua. For example, many countries- including China, several in Europe and the U.S.- have glutted themselves on cheap and rare Papuan lumber without giving proper attention to certifying whether forestry yields have been legal or not.

7. Unaccountability for the trillions of lost rupiahs in developmental funds the central government has poured into West Papua is due to negligence, cronyism, patronage, and corruption. Papuans themselves have participated in such activities, including elected officials.

8. Almost all humanitarian aid and monitoring organizations have been barred from entrance into West Papua. This includes the foreign press, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and the International Red Cross.

One historical twist of Indonesia’s sixty-four year existence as a nation is that its inherent fragility when combined with its recent emergence as a democratic state has served to often shield it from human rights accountability in West Papua. Neither the United Nations nor most democratic nations around the world were eager to hold Indonesia’s feet to the fire on human rights when the country was attempting to throw off its militarism in favor of democratic principles. While a collective blind eye had been cast towards West Papua, East Timor was able to escape the same fate. But given twenty-five years of tacit U.S. support for Indonesia’s militarism in Timor it is doubtful the East Timorese could have gained international recognition and gain independence without the intervention of Australian troops which helped document the horrible civilian casualties and create a bridge of access for UN inspectors. Active international response made all the difference in East Timor.

As real politik gave greater priority to the Cold War between the Free World and the Sino-Soviet bloc rather than the nationalist struggle of West Papua during the years of negotiation leading to the 1962 New York Agreement, the West Papuan cause has continued to suffer low international recognition. Overshadowing has been the rise of democracy in greater Indonesia.

Internationally, with the Cold War having become an historical footnote, Indonesia could no longer take advantage and draw upon knee-jerk support from world powers such as the United States. Suharto’s fervent anti-communism was no longer a calling card that served as a blank check for military and economic aid from former Cold War allies. Indonesia’s rapid economic development had been made possible by a real politik that no loner existed. Once this modus operandi had been made void, the very foundation of New Order political economics shattered, the rupiah crashed, and a radical reformation was given birth. Suharto along with his New Order policies had run their historical course- or at least so it seemed.

State disintegration appeared on the brink as separatist struggles in Aceh, the Malukus, West Papua, and East Timor coincided with an economic-political crisis that toppled Suharto in 1998. In the face of these tumultuous events, the international community has been careful to help shepherd Indonesia’s turn to democratic governance and has participated in brokering agreements as successful in Aceh and East Timor. This includes forbearance of Indonesia’s human rights record on the part of the UN, and aid or loans of various types from the U.S., the IMF, and the World Bank.

Under great international pressure during the wake of Suharto’s fall, Indonesia conceded to East Timorese independence and suffered its first real blow to its self-perceived territorial integrity. Post-Suharto, the sudden democratic opening provided an unprecedented political space which was quickly crowded with long-suppressed demands from a bewildering array of interest groups from around Indonesia.

President Habibie, Suharto’s immediate and short-lived successor, ushered in this era of sudden liberalization as the Indonesian government felt compelled to redress many grievances on the part of not only limited interest groups but entire regions of the nation. In many cases good faith, successful efforts were made to initialize democratization in Indonesia. Aceh and West Papua were of special concern as both provinces had long standing histories of disaffection and armed independence struggle against the Indonesian state.

The fall of Suharto meant the fall of some key New Order policies- at least temporarily. The harsh repression Suharto used to counter separatism in both Aceh and West Papua had only served to further polarize- creating growing body counts and exacerbating hostilities. Shaken by the loss of a twenty-five year old war in East Timor, Indonesia’s government began to contemplate more peaceful alternatives in both Aceh and West Papua. The loss of East Timor resurrected Jakarta’s greatest fear- balkanization of the archipelago. With little show for it, military means had unilaterally failed, having left some 200,000 dead in East Timor (most of them civilian), 35,000 fatalities in Aceh, and undetermined thousands swept away in West Papuan violence. For the first time in its short history, a shell-shocked Indonesia began to show signs of shirking off a uniform militarist approach to regional separatism as it finally began mounting peace initiatives through diplomacy.

Following Suharto, the three brief presidencies of Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), and Megawati Sukarnoputri struggled with pacification of separatist forces within the country and Special Autonomy was offered both Aceh and West Papua. The 2004 tsunami dealt such large scale destruction that Acehnese separatists and the Indonesian government were mutually compelled to come to terms. The implementation of that agreement has moved forward in significant degree satisfactorily for the Acehnese. During Megawati’s presidency, the West Papuans were handed their own version of Special Autonomy, known as the OTUS agreement of 2001.

In principle and on paper, OTUS initially held out great hope. The main provisions as follows coincide in most part to the list of grievances already previously enumerated:

1. Revenue Sharing: Seventy to eighty percent of revenues generated from natural resource extraction will be given back to the province.

2. A truth and reconciliation process will be established in order to clarify the grievances surrounding West Papua’s incorporation into the state of Indonesia.

3. The Indonesian government will establish special courts and a provincial rights commission to review human rights policies and grievances.

4. The Indonesian government will recognize customary land rights as practiced by the Papuans and oblige land use operators to negotiate terms of use with traditional landowners.

5. Comprised of adat communities, women’s organizations, and religious institutions in equal number to be representatively elected, OTUS mandates the establishment of the Papuan People’s Assembly (MRP). MRP will be legally granted the power to review and hold veto authority over the selection of candidates for governor as well as reviewing government policy that effect indigenous communities.

Ethnic and indigenous rights were finally given official recognition by Jakarta, but Indonesia was not willing to concede maintaining a strong security apparatus in the province. Most pro-independence activities were still to be considered illegal if not treasonous. This included seditious acts such as raising the Morning Glory flag.

Jakarta also conceded the need for creating new Papuan institutions which would better involve discrete Papuan interests, including intellectuals, political officials, and even some activists.

But seven years after the signing into law of the OTUS agreement, few concerned observers in Jakarta, Papua or the greater international community consider the thrust of OTUS to have made any substantial beneficial difference in West Papuan’s lives. Many of the same grievances are on the table, especially concerning fair compensation for natural resource development and human rights.

In Part IV of this series, a closer look at current conditions inside West Papua as referenced by the OTUS agreement will be explored.

(NOTE: This article is part of a series. Part IV is soon to follow)
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December 5, 2009

Papuan Fault Lines: Part IV- Playing into Colonial Hands

By John Gorrindo
Indonesian Correspondent
The Seoul Times

Both inter-tribal fault lines and Papuan mythologies have helped played a determining role in creating the modern predicament that has befallen the West Papuan peoples today.

As history reveals, few factors have determined current conditions in West Papua more profoundly than the demographic fact that hundreds of individual tribal groups constitute the past and present population profile of the indigenous peoples. From an outside point of view, this has made Papua an object of endless anthropological fascination for Western anthropologists, art collectors and foreign travelers, but has also made the Papuans vulnerable to divide and conquer strategies used to exploit by two waves of colonial intervention- first Dutch, then Indonesian.

This is not to blame the “victims”, so to speak, as the subjugation of an entire land and its people is an incomparable fault. But it is clear that during the five hundred year period of European exploration and worldwide colonization many examples arise where those peoples who suffered from foreign intervention contributed to their own downfall due to the exploitation they themselves practiced in their own land. There’s abundant evidence of this in the case of West Papua.

This is neither a view point nor a subject line that will garner much sympathy with those who support the West Papuan cause of 2009. But the lessons of history must be understood and heeded lest the tragedies that befell past generations be needlessly repeated. Though nothing less than amiable relations between tribes may well prevail across West Papua today, it can in no way be of any harm nor be any less true to say that solidarity amongst an oppressed people can only be as strong and the good relations they foster within their own ranks.

What has compounded the present day plight for the West Papuans is the historically documented fact that many Papuan tribes routinely violated the welfare of their own neighbors, who were often related through inter-tribal marriage. Human trafficking was especially rampant. For example, in the 17th century, coastal tribes of the Bird’s Head peninsula periodically raided their inland neighbors, kidnapping groups of people, many of whom would be traded to foreigners offshore as slaves in exchange for valued objects such as ambergris, tortoise shell, and the famous “kain timur” (a highly sought after kind of cloth). (Coastal tribes considered themselves superior to their inland neighbors, and it may still be common for inter-tribal marriages between the two groups to be referred to as “marrying up” or “marrying down”) The slaves would become the property of traders who sailed to Papua most often from neighboring Malukan ports, such as in nearby Ceram. Once the slaves had been transported by ship back into the Malukus, they would often be sold to the Dutch who were in constant need of slave labor across the breadth of their growing empire which stretched west from the “East Indies” to South Africa.

The raiding culture as practiced by some Papuan tribes served as one headwater of the slave trade network that spanned from the western shores of Papua, across the Banda Sea, westward to Bali and Batavia, Jawa (Jakarta, Java); up through the Melaka straits and then crossing the breadth of the Indian Ocean to Africa. This network was just one part of the greater mosaic of world wide human trafficking that was perhaps the most vicious trademark activity of the colonial age. Originally a slave trade system commanded by the Malukan sultanates of Tidore and Ternate and encompassing the Maluku Islands and parts of today’s West Papua, the rise of Dutch power in the early 17th century so capitalized and expanded it into a vast, intercontinental network.

Once the Dutch penetrated and took charge of the Malukan slave network, apart from its victims, all parties involved found the terms amenable enough to maintain the trafficking for more than two centuries. How long the network existed before the 17th century is not clearly understood, but it certainly existed as a well-established business long before the Dutch arrived.

Important to the survival of this system included the following: the raiding culture of participating Papuan tribes allowed for a rather problem-free, ready supply of fresh slaves on the supply end, and as for the demand, the Dutch cleverly attached themselves to the Malukan sultanates as terminus consumers. Most remarkable is that the “Dutch” we speak of were not part of the country’s government or military per se, but consisted of a sole, private organization, called the VOC (Vereenigde Osst-Indische Compagnie) who was granted license by the Dutch government to create profitable trade in the East Indies, inspired initially by the value placed by the European market on the spices found in the Malukus. Nutmeg and cloves were at the time worth more than their weight in gold. But the Dutch were interested in slaves as well, and both slaves and spices were in abundantly available in the Malukus, making it the most potentially lucrative trade network in the world during the early 17th century.

Debatably the Dutch could be considered the earliest practitioners of modern day capitalism and international capitalist trade. They wisely attached themselves to and utilized the Malukan network as they found it, pandering to the powers that commanded it and using its intermediary agents rather than destroying what was already well-organized and starting from scratch. The VOC itself could be understood also to be an economic device leveraged by the Dutch power elite that acted indirectly on behalf of the Dutch monarchy vis-à-vis company stockholders. It was a collusion of political and economic interests not unlike the international power bases of politics and trade found in the 21st century.

A “pure” economic ambition in the East Indies was considered a “clean” way to proceed. It was free of the complicating factor of religious conversion which the Catholic colonial powers of Portugal and Spain judged core to their own colonial missions. Initially, the VOC had no interest in “civilizing” their East Indies contacts through religious conversions, and proselytizing arms of the Dutch religious community held relatively little sway with the organization in its early carnation. Compare that with the Spanish, for example, which were driven to convert as many “heathens” as they could. The power and interests vested in the Spanish monarchy could not be separated from that of the Catholic church, and when it came to the rationale for establishing colonies, conversion was as important to the church as economic gain was to the crown. The VOC’s board of governors was much less interested in God than they were money. In their inception, we see an early example of almost pure economic enterprise, nearly devoid of moral or religious ambitions. It was all about making money for the company and its stockholders.

These observations are germane to understanding why the VOC experienced success in the Malukan-Papuan slave-spice trade network. Their business ploy was simple- make a deal with the existing powers that be, and do everything possible to cultivate and sustain that relationship. In the early 17th century, the controllers of spice and slaves was vested in a collection of major and minor sultanates as found across the Malukus, with the sultans of the twin islands of Ternate and Tidore having unrivalled influence. Their religious qualifications as per their ranking in the new order of Islamic power sweeping across the Malay Archipelago were kowtowed to by the region’s other sultanates. The sultans of Tidore and Ternate made a calculated risk by allowing the VOC access into their slave-spice trade network. The Europeans were newcomers and possessed demonstrable military might, but the profits to be made through Dutch participation were just too fantastic to overlook. Besides, it the Dutch were not given the nod, they could very easily employ their naval power in order to enforce their will, just as the Portuguese and Spanish had done in the previous century.

However purely economic VOC’s nascent modus operandi, it was not long before military and religious ambitions interceded and claimed stake. As a result, many Malukan lives were overturned, most tragically in the spice-rich Banda islands where a VOC captain ordered the mass slaughter of most of the small island’s inhabitants due to their “lack of cooperation.”

A snap-shot from this narrow window of time provides an historical demarcation of the early modern age for East Indonesia as well as a baseline for which to explore future relations between all the major players in the trade network. It was a crucial period which allows access into understanding the vulnerabilities of West Papua and what would become of its land and peoples.

East Indonesian trade networks also reveal that many tribes of the Papuan northwest were actively engaged with outsiders, especially with the peoples of the East Malukus, and long before the arrival of Europeans. Many people labor under the false notion that Papuans existed in isolation from the rest of the world until the 20th century, but this applies to mainly tribes inhabiting the island’s more remote interior. (It must be said in passing, though, that the majority population of indigenous peoples have most likely always lived in the interior, and still do)

As a consequence of geography, one result finds fault lines to exist between the coastal and interior tribes, as well as between tribes of the north and south. Coastal tribes were active in regional trade networks, and so benefited economically and technologically (such as their access to metals and cloth) whereas more-inland tribes were relatively isolated and often suffered due to the raids upon their villages from their coastal neighbors.

But how were the “New Guinea” tribes perceived by the Dutch before they finally established an encampment on coastal Papua itself in 1828? The Dutch held a more-or-less collective prejudice against the tribal groups as a whole. To the Dutch, similarities between tribes were more striking than the differences. Dutch records as held in the huge archives in the Netherlands include numerous written records of Dutch depictions of the “natives.” The earliest reports of contact with Papuan tribes detail are chilling. Murderous response by Papuan coastal tribes to early Dutch landings along the northern and southwestern coasts burnished indelible attitudes into the sea farers from Northern Europe. The image was simple and unambiguous- across the board, the Papuans were stereotyped as fundamentally blood thirsty, warlike, and unapproachable barbarians who universally practiced head hunting and cannibalism.

In the late 19th century some sixty-five years after the fall and disappearance of the VOC and pure capital enterprise, the so-called liberal policies of the Dutch government started to make inroads into parts of West Papua, especially through the agencies of missionaries, both Protestant and Catholic. Outside of some exceptions such as greater North Sulawesi, the Dutch had come to the game of proselytizing and religious conversion comparatively late in the colonial game, especially in comparison to the most famous of the East Indies missionary vanguard- the Jesuits- as headed by the passionate Spanish-Basque Father Xavier who had worked his mission with great success from the Philippines as far southeast as the Eastern Malukus. The Jesuits were active as early as the late 15th century with Magellan’s landmark landing in the Philippines, more than three hundred and fifty years before the first European missionary ever set foot on Papuan soil.

Modern Papua, at least in terms of outside influence, began with the efforts of two Dutch missionaries, Ottow and Geissler, who established Papua’s first Christian mission on Doreh Bay in 1855. What success they had in spreading their faith amongst the local tribes came mainly by coupling trade opportunities with the word of Christ. From the first, Dutch missions used a carrot-and-stick approach with the Papuans. For the Papuans, committing to- or rather agreeing to a “religious conversion” had economic benefits here on earth. Securing an afterlife was an afterthought.

Ottow and Geissler’s early tenure didn’t last long, but their establishment of a first mission was a watershed event. Not only was Christianity introduced into the vast cultural landscape of the huge island, but Europeans quickly discovered how to leverage power and influence over the Papuan peoples by offering economic incentives to convert. But another, more serendipitous phenomena factored in as well.

The appearance of white, Protestant pastors preaching salvation through Jesus Christ and his second coming resonated with many Papuan tribes, but not in ways the missionaries could first understand. How remarkable that on similar mythological grounds a decided edge would be given white-skinned invaders when making initial advances in places as far removed as the Aztec capitol in the 16th century and Papua’s Bird’s Head Peninsula in the 19th. Cortez’s appearance as conquistador astride a white horse at the gates of Tenochtitlan, capitol of the Aztec civilization had been predicted by Aztec myth. Montezuma, the Aztec ruler, saw in Cortez the return of Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, who was according to myth believed to have left central Mexico for the Yucatan in the 10th century, but was believed to ultimately return and reclaim the highest status of authority. The arrival of Cortez reinforced the Aztec myth-history that “descendents of Quetzalcoatl would come and conquer this land, perpetuating an ongoing cycle of creation and destruction amongst the Aztec peoples; of invasion and assimilation.” For some Papuans, the arrival of the white man signified the return of their long departed ancestors, returning from the land of the dead. The return also signaled apocalyptic change. The first wave of Dutch missionaries and the anthropologists that soon followed discovered many Papuan to hold strong millenarian beliefs. The Christian second coming and the reordering of the world to follow- promising a heaven on earth- was a concept easily transferrable to the Papuans mythology. Again creation myth and prophesy was being fulfilled.

The vast array of manufactured objects accompanying the Dutch held great sway over the Papuans. Many felt that their ancestors had created these objects in far away places and that they were truly meant to fall into the living descendants’ own hands. But the general attraction foreign objects held for Papuans is no surprise as the tribal raiders exchanged their human captives most favorably for “kain timur,” a cloth made in the Malukus, the material and manufacturing technology of which wasn’t available in Papua. The cloth held such value that it was worthy the price of payment for a Papuan bride, and it that bride was from another area, access to that area’s land and its resources was given the groom and his clan. Tribes could expand their territorial reach, access to women, and natural resources merely through possession of a bolt of cloth. The powers and riches spices and gold afforded the European was no less equal to that of “kain timur” for many coastal Papuans.

The Dutch began to fathom the parallels of belief found in Papuan versus Christian mythologies, and at the same time calculate the relative value held by an array of commodities that they possessed and the Papuans desired. Beginning with Ottow and Geissler, the Dutch integrated these two vital aspects of comparison and advanced them on one front. Christian and Papuan second comings seemed closely related versions of the same grand story; kain timur could be considered equivalent to the value and prestige found in gold; dowries were not so different than brides payment; and slave trading didn’t seem to much offend anyone. These cultural currencies and the fair trade exchanges implied would take the Dutch sixty years to successfully exploit after establishment of the first mission in 1855. By the beginning of World War I, a key Papuan tribe, the Biaks, had been “pacified” and the Dutch first established a government post on Papuan soil in 1915.

Dutch liberal policies of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were much in favor of treating colonial subjects “humanely,” and this included the process of “civilizing” them through religious conversion. This was a far cry from Dutch colonialism as especially practiced in Java, and reforms were due in part due to Dutch public response that repulsed at the horrors of Java’s cultivation system. Dutch interests purely interested in control of Papua for geo-political reasons amongst others saw the missionary movement as the coat cloth to which they could hold on to accomplish their goals.

These further historical observations just do begin to explain how colonial power was initially leveraged against the Papuans vis-à-vis Papuan cultural beliefs and customs, but certainly omits some many important aspects of pan cultural practices common to most Papuan tribes, including the Big Man leadership system; exchange systems for maintaining social cohesion and development of Big Men; black magic and death-dealing lethal powers (lait and suangi); male initiation (such with the former practice of Wuon), and forms of social egalitarianism that are radically different from anything practiced in Western culture.

The Dutch foothold as first forged by missionaries in the 1850’s did not foment widespread grievance amongst the coastal Papuans, but as Dutch administrative apparatus followed in the wake, the Papuans were soon aggrieved by an imposed system of governance totally foreign- that of western-style bureaucracy and governmental hierarchy. Such a control and command style was one example of a cultural artifact very importantly not shared by most of Papuan tribes and the Dutch. In part due to this, the Dutch first deemed the native peoples incapable of learning how to hold any kind of administrative or civil service post, and given the inadequate population of available Dutch personnel, Indonesian Malays from distant places such as Jakarta were imported to serve as the first generation of Papuan civil servants in the embryonic regional bureaucracy after World War I. Part of the reforms instituted in Dutch colonial rule included the preening of Indonesian elites from Java as well as other parts of Indonesia, whose Western educated sons-and-daughters had been afforded the education and language skills necessary to take on administrative responsibilities within the Dutch system.

The establishment of government posts in West Papua in the early years following World War I is the second snap shot in time which again signals an historically important demarcation- that of a second, or Indonesian colonial wave. The Indonesianization of Papua had begun, and the Dutch had unwittingly provided for it- even in terms of trained personnel.

As described in a previous part of this Papuan historical series, the Dutch would eventually find it in their interest to hasten the human resource development of select Papuan tribes- especially those of the Biak-Numfor area- for populating civil service posts, but it was too little, too late as the end of World War II spelled the end of a five hundred year colonial spree by Europeans with the Javanese positioned to take their place as neo-colonialists in West Papua.

By the time Indonesia had officially taken over from the Dutch in the May of 1963, a great well of grievance and enmity for the Javanese civil servant class had already stuck and metastasized in the collective Papuan craw. Indonesian bureaucrats serving as Dutch minions had for decades already demonstrated a clear discriminatory attitude toward the Papuan peoples. As feces runs downhill, so too whatever inferiority the Javanese experienced in relation to their Dutch superiors they heaped with value-added excess atop the heads of the Papuans. Many of the Dutch believed the Papuans to be uncivilized and barbarian, but they didn’t necessarily express such beliefs in verbally abusive terms. It was more the case as mentioned: The Dutch were motivated to change the conditions they believed kept the Papuans trapped in such a perpetuated state of “non-development.” In that sense, they were pitied.

The Indonesians on the other hand, felt no responsibility for the Papuan’s future as they were colonial subjects themselves, and freely called the native peoples “animals” to their faces. As many Indonesian administrators were Muslim, the fact their “Papuan charge” were thought of as semi-naked creatures who regularly consumed a diet of pork exacerbated the downward spiral of Indonesian-Papuan relations.

It was clearly a dark portent of things to come.

This is Part IV of a multi-part series on West Papua. Part V will appear as published in The Seoul Times online edition in the near future.
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January 26, 2010

Papuan Fault Lines- Part V:
Smoke and Mirrors Surround West Papua’s Cycle of Violence

By John Gorrindo
Indonesian Correspondent
The Seoul Times

Three events in the last several weeks both embody the nature of West Papua’s cycle of separatist violence and contribute to its perpetuation. The narrative is all too familiar.

First, on December 17th, 2009, Indonesia’s National Police announced that they had shot and killed Kelly Kwalik, the leader of an armed faction of the pro-independence Free Papua Movement, better known as the OPM (Operasi Papua Merdeka). The news release claimed that the police “had no option” but to shoot Kwalik who purportedly resisted arrest during a police house raid in Timika, Papua.

Kwalik was wanted for involvement in a 2002 ambush of a convoy of buses that killed a U.S. national near the Freeport gold and copper mine, long a symbol of both Indonesian and foreign capitalist hegemony over the human rights and economic interests of the indigenous West Papuan peoples. Police said Kwalik was also “believed” to have been behind a string of armed attacks in the Freeport area that left eight people dead, three of them foreigners, between June and November of 2009.

Andreas Anggaibak, a fellow West Papuan and former chair of the 1999-2004 Mimika District Legislative Council- and not a politician who favors armed struggle as do some factions of the OPM- denied these accusations.

Many West Papuans, in fact, believe that either Indonesian security forces or disgruntled Freeport mine security personnel orchestrated many of these ongoing sniper attacks on Freeport mining personnel in order to fabricate misplaced blame onto the OPM, thus legitimizing continued raids and violence against the armed group and their supporters at the hands of such Indonesian security forces such as Kopassus, Brimob, the National Police, and TNI (the Indonesian army).

An official commendation and celebration party thrown for the fifty National Police who participated in the Kwalik house raid and killing riled Timika’s indigenous population, many of them members of the Amungme tribe that has been forced off there land by the Freeport mining development started back in the early part of Suharto’s reign.

Within just a span of a few days this past week, two more events helped to exacerbate Timika’s already raw nerves. First, Major General Hotma Marbun was appointed to the Military Command for the Kodam-XVII Cenderawasih region of West Papua. A long-time Special Forces (Kopassus) officer, Marbun has a twenty-five year history of having participated in some of the bloodiest operations known in both East Timor and West Papua, particularly during the 1980’s. His rise to regional command is both feared and protested by many West Papuans and West Papuan observers who see Kopassus’ dark security role in the region given that much more sway.

Lastly, and almost in synchrony with Major General Hotma Marbun’s appointment, yet another ambush left six wounded near the U.S. company Freeport McMoRan’s gold and copper mine. Three policeman and three mine workers were either shot or otherwise hurt subsequent to a sniper attack on a convoy of buses and land cruisers heading to the coastal city of Timika from out of the mountains where the Grasberg mine is located.

Again, this news release came from the offices of the National Police. The perpetrators have yet to be found, and the attack is no less mysterious as compared to the many other shootings that have occurred over several years.

But to many, the National Police give the appearance of having taken the law into their own hand as per the killing of Kwalik. They claim he resisted arrest, though his killing is naturally suspected by some to have been extra-judicial in nature. Extra-judicial killings as perpetrated by Indonesian security forces have been common in West Papua for decades, and the green light given police raiding parties is a well-entrenched way of doing dirty business in the war against West Papuan separatism. Kwalik’s killing was not just another trademark brutality common to Indonesian security policy, but a bloody reminder of who really rules in West Papua.

That Kwalik’s killing was quickly followed by this week’s Freeport mine ambush provides Indonesian hardliners with vindication for their often violent response to their adversaries. They can easily justify their brutal tactics in the West Papuan separatist war by citing Freeport mining ambushes to be retaliatory in nature, and most likely committed by Kwalik’s OPM followers. This rationale has served Indonesia’s security forces well for decades, and most in the Indonesian government as well as the Indonesian public seem satisfied with the need for strong security measures. There are many hot-button issues bubbling along in Jakarta’s current mix of political yeast, but West Papua ranks low on the list.

This smoke and mirrors game of “whodunit” that surrounds two armed opponents baiting and goading each other into a cycle of never ending violent response is ironically similar to the West Papuan tit-for-tat history of tribal raids and so-called “ritual warfare” between neighboring clans and ethnic groups that has often been the subject of many anthropological studies as widely distributed around the world since the 1960’s.

But the comparison abruptly ends there as the West Papuan armed resistance is utterly overmatched by the number and power of Indonesian security forces, and there is nothing ritualistic in a purported 100,000 West Papuans having lost their lives to Indonesian-inflicted violence since the day the region was handed over by the Dutch. And many pro-West Papuan independence supporters believe that Indonesia has no interest in truly developing the human resources and infrastructure of West Papua, no matter how much funding floods the region. According to this conventional wisdom, what Jakarta’s elite really has in mind is to use West Papua as a huge reservoir of natural resource extraction and allow Indonesian security forces a run of the region in order to keep the resources flowing in export without interruption, all the while taking their cut.

The vested capitalist interests- both foreign and domestic, and which includes the Indonesian military itself as it runs their own private business enterprise out of West Papua- are the real rulers of the vast island. Without them, the Indonesian government couldn’t manage a lick. The record has shown that Jakarta has thrown trillions of rupiah at West Papuan development, but has failed miserably for the most part- especially in terms of promoting health, education, and general human welfare. The ongoing failure of all political parties involved to find a joint solution to ending West Papuan violence can attribute such failure as to the inability to compete with elite interests, most of which are economic and in command on the ground. The resulting intractability can be compared to other vicious political quagmires more widely publicized- such as found in Israel-Palestinian relations or the decades-long conflict between Tamil rebels and the Sri Lankan government.

Experts on West Papua- many of them Australian academics- disagree on which road to peace best be followed. But most academics and politicians alike- whether Indonesian or otherwise- tend to believe that proper implementation of the already ratified Special autonomy agreement put into place in 2001 is the only real feasible solution to ending brutality and blood letting in West Papua.

Special autonomy agreements have been the center piece of Indonesian governmental policy in Jakarta’s attempt to solve the regional power disputes as found in both Aceh and West Papua. While implementations in Aceh have achieved some stated objectives and brought some stability as based on transparent fair dealing to the region, efforts in West Papua have been less than half-hearted on the part of the Indonesian government and can only be deemed inept and a failure to date.

The tragedy in this lies not only in continue economic disparity and human rights abuses suffered by indigenous West Papuans, but in the diminishing hope that the one and only official instrument ever enacted to address the perennial crisis in West Papua forever stalled can ever be revived. Tragedy it is because there seems non-existent any other viable alternative. And as for the autonomy agreement itself, the political will to full implementation doesn’t currently exist.

In this last of a five part series on Papuan fault lines, what follows is an in-part summary as concerns the complex set of factors contributing to the economic and political status quo in West Papua. All this is back drop to possibly the single most important influence not yet explored in this series- the international community’s present role and response to the West Papuan question- and whether a true internationalization of the issue can help make progress for future peace.

Ironically, there exists substantive agreement both inside and outside of Indonesia as to the root causes of secessionist sympathies and armed struggle in West Papua. When President Megawati Sukarnoputri delivered the West Papuan Special Autonomy agreement (OTUS) in 2001, it was clear that Indonesia’s non-military, government elite had been forced to admit to a multitude of failures in West Papua, if not outright sins. Government inability to incorporate West Papua peacefully and humanely into the republic was manifest. Through the lens of the Special Autonomy agreement a remarkably true-to-life portrait of West Papua’s status emerges, if only because a broad consensus between concerned parties confirms it.

The post-Suharto democratic movement in Indonesia allowed government reformers who came to power the unusual luxury and political license of turning a momentous corner in the republic’s young history. As political proxies, Indonesia’s first generation of democratic leaders could say “mea culpa” on behalf of a deposed Suharto while simultaneously distancing themselves from him; faulting dictatorial rule and policies that proceeded while dedicating itself to reform. The grievous wounds that the first phase of Indonesia’s nationalism and Suharto’s New Order had inflicted on distinct portions of the population had through the shock of social protest economic ruin come to be acknowledged by those in power, and there was promoted a certain political will to redress the most pressing of those grievances. It so happened that regional separatism in Aceh and West Papua were considered top priority.

Core issues that fueled regional separatism were common to both Aceh and West Papua, both conflicts having gained acute immediacy due to a complex of international advocacy groups pressuring Indonesia to right their wrongs. Wrongs don’t achieve critical mass in the realm of moral advocacy without the proper catalyst that raises heightened awareness, and in the case of internationalizing Indonesia’s internal divisions, that “everything” to do with the East Timor independence struggle.

The short and long analysis of East Timor’s road to sovereignty plainly places that tiny country’s fate in the hands of U.S. foreign policy, and offers one more piece of proof of just how powerful U.S. influence still is in regional world matters. Last year’s release of formerly classified U.S. government documents verify that as requested, President Gerald Ford and his secretary of state Henry Kissinger gave Suharto the green light to invade East Timor as transpired in a 1975 meeting between the three leaders in Jakarta. For the next quarter century Indonesia waged a relentless war against one of the poorest and most defenseless populations in the world, hoping to incorporate the eastern half of the greater Timor island after former colonial power Portugal pulled out after some four hundred and sixty years of influence, occupation, or outright colonization.

As officially publicized, rationale for Indonesian intervention was predictably attributed to Indonesia concern over territorial integrity and national security. As Suharto slowly lost the cover the Cold War had provided him as well as grip on power after the 1998 Asian economic crisis, President Clinton with aid from the U.N. suddenly switched the green light to red thus signaling the beginning of the end of Indonesian occupation which soon led to the birth of the Timor L’este nation. Suharto could no longer get away with the free exercise of wanton brutality. The international community would no longer sit by and allow the dictator a free reign of death as exacted against a long-suffering half-island for which everyone suddenly seemed to now have a huge heart.

Under Suharto’s first successor, President Bacharuddin Jusuf Habibie, Indonesia reluctantly agreed in 1999 to a referendum process in East Timor. The vote would be monitored by the United Nations with a peace keeping force on hand, its team internationally composed and armed to ensure a fair and peaceful election. As was the case in the 1969 West Papuan “Act of Free Choice” election, their referendum was to poll the East Timorese as to whether they favored independence or incorporation into Indonesia.

A vast array of international advocacy groups had long supported the East Timorese cause, and their efforts help bear fruit in bringing pressure to bear upon the international community to respond to the horrific human rights violations and alleged war crimes occurring with impunity in East Timor.

West Papua’s own referendum a quarter century previously enjoyed none of the international support that galvanized around beleaguered East Timor which lost some 30% of its population due to war casualties in the protracted conflict. Everything that had conspired to help lift East Timor into a nation state had otherwise worked in opposition in the case of West Papua.

Equivalent in importance to East Timor’s fair elections as mentioned was the sham counterpart of West Papua’s “Act of Free Choice” in 1969. Though some governments and international bodies have raise legal question to the U.N. mandated and monitored process (as forced to the fore by U.S. President John F. Kennedy whose ambition it was to see Papua ceded over to Indonesia), there has been next to no clamor disputing Indonesia’s territorial claims over West Papua. Currently there exists in effect no official support or dedicated forum for redressing West Papuan human rights complaints let alone issues surrounding independence in either the United Nations or amongst any of the international community’s democratic nations. West Papua has long been acknowledged as belonging to Indonesia, and again, United States foreign policy was primarily responsible for cementing that view into place.

What can be learned from the split reaction? The two regions of East Timor and West Papua do share some commonalities as they have both been colonized and otherwise oppressed, but their political statuses have varied enough to make all the difference. If for the greater purposes of the best policy negotiable as serves the greatest number of country’s and the highest percentage of the world’s population, the status quo international community deemed it necessary to simply overlook or forget the West Papuan crisis. It just didn’t measure up in importance and intervention was considered a no-win option that would upset world order.

The list of grievances for which West Papua seeks redress is unfortunately all too common in countries around the world- but West Papua doesn’t possess nation-status. As politics is the art of the feasible, the crux of that feasibility balances on a fulcrum of legal accords and treaties all internationally binding. Legal rule as leveraged by the U.N. and the World Court for example has demonstrated at times the ability to impose itself upon conflicts between nation states, but as imposed on internal disputes within a sovereign nation, such legal interventions rarely carry much weight. More often than not it is effectively dismissed as either illegal or unjustified meddling, worthy of scorn and being ignored. In the case of East Timor, it was an in-limbo ex-colony that when freed by the Portuguese eventually choose to become independent before and after a bloody war prompted international intervention as civilian casualties took on terrible proportions. Never having been incorporated into another political unit, East Timor maintained the most powerful of statuses- non-aligned, unincorporated, and seeking to be free. International law best serves independent countries- or those with a good case for achieving such status- and East Timor became a rallying point for worldwide sympathy. Indonesia suffered its one and only major defeat in the face of opposing world opinion. In addition, strong policies concerning decolonization have taken precedence since the formation of the United Nations in 1945, and these policies served East Timor’s cause handsomely, too.

In other words, it is not enough for West Papua as a collection of three Indonesian provinces to complain, for example, that through the power of eminent domain Indonesia has stripped Papuan tribes of their age old customary land rights and handed their land over to multi-national corporations who can exploit it as they see fit while sharing very little of the profits of resource extraction with the natives displaced. In the case of Freeport’s Grasberg mine, one of the Papuan tribes who suffered the greatest displacement was the Amungme- there is some good news here, though, as after decades of demanding reparations from Freeport for polluting their lands with tailings dumped into the watershed as well as being forced to live in swamplands less fit for survival all aspects considered, the Amungme have been able to negotiate some reasonable profit sharing revenues, though not everything they were promised by Freeport has been delivered.

Having said that, neither is it enough to successfully complain in some international court or before some United Nations commission that compensation should be awarded for such internal displacement of tribal members as described nor for damage due to pollution and environmental degradation which endangers their ability to survive according to their traditional habits of hunting, gathering food and raising small crop plots.

In the case of Freeport and the Amungme, the multi-national giant found it in their best public relation’s interest to deal with Amungme directly, but only after years of demands.

And finally, it is apparently not even enough for West Papua to complain to the United Nations that human rights abuses perpetrated by security forces which often double as security for multi-national, foreign investment groups can terrorize and kill indigenous Papua peoples extra-judicially and at will. As the foreign press is barred from entry into West Papua and at times such restrictions have applied to groups such as the International Red Cross, the dearth of verifiable information has resulted in smoke and mirrors that cloud any concerted view into Papua. This condition persists and undermines attempts to “legitimize” human rights complaints.

In practical truth, demographics mostly govern international response to human rights violations. None of the aforementioned grievances hold any weight as in the final analysis, we are talking about the unfair treatment of only a very small fraction of the Indonesian population- less than one percent- and a population often divided within itself as distinguished by ethnicity or tribal association with few ties to friends of political consequence outside the region, and representative of an aboriginal way of life that has outlived its evolutionary purpose and time as concerns most of the developed world.

When John F. Kennedy forced the New York agreement on the Dutch which first ceded control of Papua over to Indonesia in 1961, he said as much about the backwardness and non-consequentiality of the hordes of Papuan cannibal tribes as they were still popularly described at the time. Kennedy’s offensive written remarks as quoted from a letter he personally wrote to the Dutch government in efforts to strong arm them into diplomatic submission are now part of public record as they, too, have been released.

Today, political correctness is more closely adhered to in presidential letters; and multi-culturalism- even in its stone age form- is often a cause célèbre which serves to bind nations together more than divide them. But this is just so much window dressing, as the United States, NATO, and the United Nations could muster legal resolve while intervening in the Serbian-Bosnia-Herzegovina-Kosovo-Montenegro-Croatia debacle during the 1990’s, even though technically speaking, that was an internal conflict occurring within the borders of one sovereign nation, Yugoslavia. The fact that this war was happening in Eastern Europe, involved Europeans, and featured ethnic and religious cleansing had everything to do with the intervention. It is further proof that a double standard exists when it comes to the sensitive question of intervening in a sovereign nation’s internal disputes.

What emerges is that a decision taken by international forces to intervene in a nation’s internal disputes is a matter of international will as opposed to rule of law, and where there is an international will, there is an international way.

This is not to say that foreign intervention in West Papua is a feasible solution or even desirable as concerns even the most adamant of West Papuans freedom fighters. But the armed factions of the OPM and numerous other unarmed and non-violent political organizations run by West Papuan peoples are all well aware that their cause will likely get nowhere without international support. Australia is a key player in the formulation of any peace formula, and heretofore their historical role in the West Papuan struggle presents yet one more entry into a rarefied atmosphere of smoke and mirrors.

Australian-Indonesian relations have been more mutually convivial than not post-East Timor independence, but Australia in particular has had to walk a tight-rope between public opinion at home and Jakarta’s policy as they concern West Papua. Many thousands of very active voices have registered their horror concerning conditions in West Papua- many with religious overtones- and the government at times has had to at least in token respond.

But Australian foreign policy is real politik-driven as regards Indonesia. (In fact, that is almost exclusively true across the international spectrum as effects Indonesia) Indonesia, too, scored a coup of sorts by successfully negotiating with Australia the 2006 Lombok Treaty, a treaty roundly criticized by many human rights organizations for emphasizing security ties, and unquestioned support for the free actions of the respective militaries involved with no mention or status given the monitoring of the Indonesian military’s human rights’ record. In other words, the Indonesian military had gotten Canberra to sign-on to a treaty which assured Australia would keep off their backs and give them free reign in places such as West Papua.

On the other hand, Australia has at times shown distinct sympathy to West Papuan Asylum seekers, even if only in response to complaints from Christian organizations in Australia whose hearts went out to their fellow West Papuan Christians stranded at sea while hoping to escape persecution back home. Canberra has had to rush hat in hand to Jakarta and politely explain to the foreign ministry that when it came to asylum policies international treaties trumped “regional cooperation” as per extradition requests, and that showing asylum seekers all due process was in keeping with being a good international citizen. Indonesia has shown some patience with this point of view as witnessed by their own liberal policies as concerns their treatment of many hundreds of recent asylum seekers from as far away as Afghanistan and Myanmar who have come ashore in boats several times in many parts of Indonesia.

But as for the bigger policy picture, Canberra is in full support of Indonesia’s territorial integrity as so defined, and would likely never jeopardize its strategically important relationship with its neighbor over the West Papuan issue. This is a substantial observation, especially given the fact that however hesitantly, Australia did play a direct role- including interdiction of troops- in helping East Timor realize independence.

This leaves us with what is still the biggest international player in national power brokering, and that is the United States. In preparation for this report, I contacted two U.S. congressmen who in March 2008 co-jointly submitted a letter of concern to the Secretary General of the United Nations as related to human rights abuses as committed by Indonesian security forces against the West Papuan peoples. The two men- Rep. Faleomavaega of American Samoa and Rep. Donald Payne of New Jersey’s 10th congressional district- are amongst the very few elected officials in the entire United States that have gone on record concerning West Papua, and Faleomavaega actually visited West Papua in 2007, only to be treated shoddily, restricted in his movements, and forced to exit West Papua before the pre-arranged time of departure. It was a ghastly diplomatic faux pas which flies in the face of the customary graciousness of Indonesian hospitality. The event got short shrift at best in not only international press, but in the United States as well.

Faleomavaega’s mistreatment illustrates not only Indonesian hyper-sensitivity and contempt for those who question Jakarta’s West Papuan policies, but also how non-existent West Papua is to Washington. It’s light years away from appearing on the radar screen.

The majority of international voices that rally themselves to the West Papuan cause end up siding with a full implementation of the already ratified Special Autonomy treaty. What remains is a group of journalists, academics, environmental rights advocates, human rights concerns, assorted NGO’s, Christian religious organizations, and various sundry other lone voices in the wilderness who bark at the moon collectively, beseeching the world to help free Papua. Their advocacy is steeped in moral conviction, and for that, they are criticized by those more moderate voices whose reasoning answer to real politik values.

After four decades of Indonesian incorporation, a small minority of West Papuans are beginning to materially benefit from the slow implementation of regional development programs as funded by the central government. (These Papuans tend to inhabit the north and north-western coastal areas as the coastal tribes have benefited much more from Indonesianization than have the highlanders who constitute well over half the indigenous population) This is especially visible in terms of education. Young, educated West Papuans are beginning to become mobile and in growing numbers are able to freely move into other areas of Indonesia for such reasons as seeking higher education. It might be said that the Indonesian government is “happy to help” those individuals in West Papua who would become Indonesian so-to-speak, play according to Indonesian rules, and in so doing shed their aboriginal culture. That much can be said for both the social and government contract Jakarta has with the indigenous West Papuans. Some refer to this process of surrendering aspects of one’s cultural heritage as “Javanization.”

But as for those who will not fall into line, we can only expect a perpetuation of the cycle of violence as described in the first part of this article. West Papua is only funded by the Indonesian government- and in all practical terms it doesn’t offer the average West Papuan protection vis-à-vis rule of law. Since incorporation, West Papua has always been run and operated by Indonesian security forces. They answer to no one save their commanders in far too many cases. The cycle of violence in place is still in the military’s interest, as they can justify their presence in disproportionately high numbers, as well as explain away their brutality in accordance to security concerns. So too they can continue to conduct both legal and illegal business in the resource-richest Indonesian province, and double-dip on the side by negotiating lucrative security contracts with foreign interests such as Freeport mines. Without full military reform in Indonesia- which means both full civilian control over the TNI and complete government funding of its budget- West Papua along with many other remote, underdeveloped, and resource-rich locations in the country will suffer accordingly.

And as long as the international community stands by in deference to the order of things in West Papua, don’t hold your breath and expect any change. West Papua’s time in the international spotlight has not yet come; nor does it appear on the horizon.

It is not far afield to see the West Papuan fate- at least culturally- to fall somewhere along a spectrum of inevitable cultural loss that befell their black brothers and sisters in America. Sometimes bargaining for freedom means losing something just as precious in the bargain. At some point in time, black Americans were forced to assimilate, and in doing so, had to bargain away some of their cultural roots- most principally their native languages- in order to enjoy even a modicum of reasonable citizenship status. Doubtless black Americans would have never been afforded freedom if they had chosen to revive their African roots while rejecting their New World surroundings as controlled by whites, even though that possibility became increasingly unlikely with each succeeding generation being that much more cut off from their ancestry.

The West Papuans, though, have a chance to retain much of their culture, though some of it will no doubt disappear. The one thing that they have going for them in that regard is that regional culture is extraordinarily important in Indonesia as a whole. It is vivid in expression and in terms of holding its own, often resistant to homogenization by outside influences. West Papuans will most likely be forced to learn just where their openings for cultural preservation and self-identification lie. The answer will be in part found, however ironic it may sound, in being mobile and mixing with the greater population of the vast Indonesian archipelago.

Written by merah07

January 27, 2010 at 12:53 am

Posted in 1, ASIA, Indonesia, JOHN M. GORRINDO

Tagged with Indonesia, OPM, Papua, Special Autonomy, west papua

Papuan Fault Lines- Part V: Smoke & Mirrors Surround West Papua’s Cycle of Violence

PAPUAN FAULT LINES – Part V: Smoke & amp; Mirrors Surround West Papua’s Cycle of Violence

Written by JOHN M. GORRINDO

The Seoul Times

Three events in the last several weeks both embody the nature of West Papua’s cycle of separatist violence and contribute to its perpetuation. The narrative is all too familiar.

That Kwalik’s killing was quickly followed by this week’s Freeport mine ambush provides Indonesian hardliners with vindication for their often violent response to their adversaries. They can easily justify their brutal tactics in the West Papuan separatist war by citing Freeport mining ambushes to be retaliatory in nature, and most likely committed by Kwalik’s OPM followers. This rationale has served Indonesia’s security forces well for decades, and most in the Indonesian government as well as the Indonesian public seem satisfied with the need for strong security measures. There are many hot-button issues bubbling along in Jakartan current mix of political yeast, but West Papua ranks low on the list.

In the case of Freeport and the Amungme, the multi-national giant found it in their best public relation’s interest to deal with Amungme directly, but only after years of demands.

But as for those who will not fall into line, we can only expect a perpetuation of the cycle of violence as described in the first part of this article. West Papua is only funded by the Indonesian government- and in all practical terms it doesn’t offer the average West Papuan protection vis-à-vis rule of law. Since incorporation, West Papua has always been run and operated by Indonesian security forces. They answer to no one save their commanders in far too many cases. The cycle of violence in place is still in the military’s interest, as they can justify their presence in disproportionately high numbers, as well as explain away their brutality in accordance to security concerns. So too they can continue to conduct both legal and illegal business in the resource-richest Indonesian province, and in double-dip by negotiating lucrative security contracts with foreign interests such as Freeport mines. Without full military reform in Indonesia- which means both full civilian control over the TNI and complete government funding of its budget- West Papua along with many other remote, underdeveloped, and resource-rich locations in the country will suffer accordingly.

It is not far afield to see the West Papuan fate- at least culturally- to fall somewhere along a spectrum of inevitable cultural loss that befell their black brothers and sisters in America. Sometimes bargaining for freedom means losing something as precious in the bargain. At some point in time, black Americans were forced to assimilate, and in doing so, had to bargain away some of their cultural roots- most principally their native languages- in order to enjoy even a modicum of reasonable citizenship status. Doubtless black Americans would have never been afforded freedom if they had chosen to revive their African roots while rejecting their New World surroundings as controlled by whites, even though that possibility became increasingly unlikely with each succeeding generation being that much more cut off from their ancestry.

The West Papuans, though, have a chance to retain much of their culture, though some of it will no doubt disappear. The one thing that they have going for them in that regard is that regional culture is extraordinarily important in Indonesia as a whole. It is vivid in expression and in terms of holding its own, often resistant to homogenization by outside influences. West Papuans will most likely be forced to learn just where their openings for cultural preservation and self-identification lie. The answer will be in part found, however ironic it may sound, is in being mobile and mixing with the greater population of the vast Indonesian archipelago.

Dortheys Hiyo Eluay- West Papuan leader assassinated in 2001

TURKEY is trying to dictate to Armenia

Turkey Is Trying to Dictate to Armenia

By Lee Jay Walker
Tokyo Correspondent – THE SEOUL TIMES

Turkish military

The passages of time never heal completely when such crimes have been committed and the aggressor refuses to either admit to such barbaric crimes or makes lame excuses all the time. Despite this, Armenia entered talks with Turkey in the hope of solving long held problems and in the need to stabilize the region.

However, leaders in Turkey are still trying to dictate and they are putting pre-conditions down on a conflict which is outside their remit. This applies to the ongoing crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh and the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Yet this issue involves Armenia and Azerbaijan and it is not up to Turkey to decide the fate of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Yes, Turkey, just like the Russian Federation and Iran, and other regional nations and nations who are also concerned about this issue, does have a right to be concerned about regional problems but it must be “an honest broker” and not dictatorial. After all, would Turkey be happy if Armenia stated that Turkey must handover land to the Kurds or return land to the Armenians, Assyrians, and other ethnic groups who were “cleansed” in the early 20th century?

It also must be remembered that Turkish military forces are still based throughout northern Cyprus and this is the problem with Turkey. For it appears that the leaders of Turkey suffer from historical amnesia. Also, nationalism is still a potent force within the major institutions of Turkey.

If we look at the founding father of modern day Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, then it is clear that he himself supported the destruction of Christianity via the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Christian genocide of 1915. Therefore, it is clear that Turkish nationalism and secularism is tainted by its anti-Christian nature and also its anti-Kurdish nature. After all, the nation state of Turkey was about Turkish nationalism and secularism did not protect the religious or ethnic minorities of this diverse nation.

Some people in Turkey play “the religious card” and ply the mantra of Muslim brotherhood. However, this is also hollow because tens of thousands of mainly Muslim Kurds have been killed over the last few decades and many Kurdish villages were also destroyed. Also, the Alevi are a Muslim minority group in Turkey and they also face discrimination and massacres have taken place against them from time to time, for example in 1993 you had the Sivas massacre when radical Sunni Islamists killed many innocent people.

Turning back to recent times the Foreign Minister of Armenia, Eduard Nalbandian, was very frank about the ongoing problem with Turkey. He stated that “Had there been preconditions, we would not have started this process and reached agreements in the first place.” Nalbandian continued by stating that “If one of the parties is creating artificial obstacles, dragging out things, that means it is assuming responsibility for the failure of this process,” and this can be seen to be a tacit warning to Turkey about the ongoing problems involving Armenia and Turkey.

However, the Prime Minister of Turkey, Tayyip Erdogan, stated in October 2009 that “Turkey cannot take a positive step towards Armenia unless Armenia withdraws from Azerbaijani land [...] if that issue is solved our people and our parliament will have a more positive attitude towards this protocol and this process.”

Erdogan also stated that “We will bring the protocol to parliament but parliament has to see the conditions between Azerbaijan and Armenia to decide whether this protocol can be implemented.”

Yet according to Alexander Iskandaryan, director of the Caucasus Media Institute in Yerevan, he makes it clear that “The Turkish side needs to play to its domestic audience. Erdogan and other political figures have made such statements often enough [...] It’s a fact that neither the word Karabakh nor Azerbaijan appears in the documents that were signed.”

Nalbandian also commented in January 2010 that “If Turkey takes a step back, then this will be not only a violation of the agreements with Armenia but will demonstrate that it is not respecting the international community’s opinion, with all resulting consequences and the loss of credibility in the first instance.” He continued by stating that “Armenia, on the other hand, will — let’s not say win — not lose anything that we had before this process.”

Therefore, outside nations need to put more pressure on Turkey in order for “a new chapter” to begin between Armenia and Turkey. The Nagorno-Karabakh issue is indeed serious, however, this dispute is between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the people of Nagorno-Karabakh. Also, the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis must be resolved by all the parties involved and by both regional and global institutions which have a vested interest in solving this complex problem.

However, the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis is a separate issue and Turkey can’t claim otherwise because this issue was outside the signed agreement between Armenia and Turkey.

The genocide of Armenians and other Christians in 1915 is an historical fact and the same applies to massacres which took place before and after this date. Turkey can never erase this history, however, this nation can start “a fresh chapter” which is based on sincerity and genuine friendship with Armenia.

Therefore, do the leaders of Turkey desire friendship and honesty or is nationalism too embedded within the mindset of the political elites of this nation?

LEE JAY WALKER

Tagged with 1915 Christian genocide in Turkey, Alevi are persecuted in Turkey, Armenia and nagorno-karabakh, Erdogan the nationalist, Kurds are persecuted in Turkey, Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, Nalbandian is unhappy with Turkey, radical Sunni Islamists kill Alevi Muslims, Sivas massacre, Tayyip Erdogan appeals to nationalism, Turkey adds preconditions on Armenia, Turkey and rampant nationalism, Turkey is trying to dictate to Armenia, Turkish nationalism

THE SEOUL TIMES

Written by leejayuk

January 21, 2010 at 1:03 pm

Posted in ASIA, EUROPE, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND GLOBAL NEWS

BOSNIA and Clinton’s radical Islamists

Bosnia and Clinton’s Radical Islamists

By Lee Jay Walker
Tokyo Correspondent – THE SEOUL TIMES

Bill Clinton in Bosnia
US President Bill Clinton speaks to U.S. service men and women deployed to Tuzla Air Base, Bosnia and Herzegovina, on Jan. 13, 1996. President Clinton is visiting U.S. service men and women deployed to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Hungary as part of the NATO Implementation Force (IFOR) in Operation Joint Endeavor.

In all wars you have distortions and of course no single ethnic group or religious group is immune from slaughtering others during times of war. Yet the wars in the former Yugoslavia were distorted to the point of national shame, and this national shame applies to so-called democratic leaders, like former US President Bill Clinton, and a host of others, who gave their tacit approval for Islamists to have a free-reign in Bosnia.

During the conflict we had world leaders who were pleading the cause of radical Islam by showing “a gentle side” to the pluralistic Muslims of Bosnia. However, if you scratch under the surface then you will find out that tens of thousands of radical Islamists were allowed to enter Bosnia in order to slaughter innocent Christians.

Yes, many Muslims indeed were very moderate and you had moderates on all sides, however, you had “a hidden darkness” which was not shown to the world. The reasons for this are obvious because it is hard to plead the side of any ethnic or religious group when they are beheading and mutilating innocent Christians. Therefore, you had a major collusion between democrats, radical Islamists, national self interests, secret agencies, the mass media, and others, in order to distort the “real picture.”

Before I go further, I will clearly state now that all sides committed terrible atrocities and no ethnic or religious group is “cleaner than white.” In history, all wars will bring out the “dark forces” in humanity which appears to be embedded within the psyche of many people and of course history runs deep within the veins of injustice and revenge or “a just cause” can lead to mass barbarity beyond our deepest thoughts.

The story of brutal Christian Serbs was highlighted daily during the Bosnian war. After all, you have to dehumanize a whole people in the West in order to enforce long term objectives and it is vital to manipulate the mass media because they are part and parcel of the propaganda machine.

Yet I am going to write about the “hidden hand” of democratic forces that sponsored or gave tacit approval for radical Islamists to slaughter Christians at random. Also, not content with this, the same Bosnian Muslim leadership then gave passports to many radical Islamists after the war.

Sky News has obtained clear and proper evidence of a major cover-up and footages of massacres against Serbian Christians have been seen. According to the investigation and footages which were shown, it is abundantly clear that thousands of radical Islamists from all over the world were given a free-reign in Bosnia.

This free-reign meant that innocent Serbian Christians were to meet terrible and disturbing deaths at the hands of radical Islamists who celebrate openly while cutting the heads off innocent civilians. The same Islamic forces which unleashed September 11th and which stone people to death in order to create “year zero,” were welcomed openly by ex-President Clinton and by people within his administration.

The Republican Policy Committee on January 16, 1997, which can be viewed by clicking onto http://rpc.senate.gov/releases/1997/iran.htm is damning, to say the least.

The House Subcommittee report concludes on page 2 that “The Administration’s Iranian green light policy gave Iran an unprecedented foothold in Europe and has recklessly endangered American lives and US strategic interests.”

” . . . The Iranian presence and influence [in Bosnia] jumped radically in the months following the green light. Iranian elements infiltrated the Bosnian government and established close ties with the current leadership in Bosnia and the next generation of leaders. Iranian Revolutionary Guards accompanied Iranian weapons into Bosnia and soon were integrated in the Bosnian military structure from top to bottom as well as operating in independent units throughout Bosnia. The Iranian intelligence service [VEVAK] ran wild through the area developing intelligence networks, setting up terrorist support systems, recruiting terrorist ’sleeper’ agents and agents of influence, and insinuating itself with the Bosnian political leadership to a remarkable degree. The Iranians effectively annexed large portions of the Bosnian security apparatus [known as the Agency for Information and Documentation (AID)] to act as their intelligence and terrorist surrogates. This extended to the point of jointly planning terrorist activities. The Iranian embassy became the largest in Bosnia and its officers were given unparalleled privileges and access at every level of the Bosnian government.” (Page 201)

The report does not just focus on the role of Iran because you had various interested parties who desired to spread radical Islam in Europe. Of course, the Western mass media went along with the compliant information that they were given and many liberals wouldn’t want to focus on the plight of the Serbian population.

Therefore, it is important to read the report because it highlights the mass injustices of the Bosnian war and how people view what really happened.

“To understand how the Clinton green light would lead to this degree of Iranian influence, it is necessary to remember that the policy was adopted in the context of extensive and growing radical Islamic activity in Bosnia. That is, the Iranians and other Muslim militants had long been active in Bosnia; the American green light was an important political signal to both Sarajevo and the militants that the United States was unable or unwilling to present an obstacle to those activities — and, to a certain extent, was willing to cooperate with them. In short, the Clinton Administration’s policy of facilitating the delivery of arms to the Bosnian Muslims made it the de facto partner of an ongoing international network of governments and organizations pursuing their own agenda in Bosnia: the promotion of Islamic revolution in Europe. That network involves not only Iran but Brunei, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan (a key ally of Iran), and Turkey, together with front groups supposedly pursuing humanitarian and cultural activities.”

The report also highlights how radical Islamists like Osama Bin Laden were allowed to fund and cause untold misery in Bosnia. Yet during the conflict I recall that the Bosnian Muslim led leadership were meant to be democratic and beyond suspicion. However, the opposite was the case and many senior leaders welcomed Islamic fanatics to their cause because in truth they had their own secret agenda.

The report continues by stating that “…….one such group about which details have come to light is the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization which has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. ["How Bosnia's Muslims Dodged Arms Embargo: Relief Agency Brokered Aid From Nations, Radical Groups," Washington Post, 9/22/96; see also "Saudis Funded Weapons For Bosnia, Official Says: $300 Million Program Had U.S. 'Stealth Cooperation'," Washington Post, 2/2/96] TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Bin laden, a wealthy Saudi emigre believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [WP, 9/22/96] (Sheik Rahman, a native of Egypt, is currently in prison in the United States; letter bombs addressed to targets in Washington and London, apparently from Alexandria, Egypt, are believed connected with his case. Bin Laden was a resident in Khartoum, Sudan, until last year; he is now believed to be in Afghanistan, “where he has issued statements calling for attacks on U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf.” [WP, 9/22/96])

Therefore, people should open their eyes to the reality of the war in Bosnia and do their own independent research. Also, if the propaganda machine can distort reality so much then what does this say about the mass media in general?

Another serious issue is that past policies by many different American administrations have supported radical Islam and its agenda since the late 1970s. Only after September 11th were serious questions raised yet it is abundantly clear that short-term goals have not only destroyed the lives of many innocents, but these short term goals have endangered people to the radical Islamic menace.

The world was told about Srebrenica and how Serbian forces slaughtered thousands of Muslims. This crime was and is still highlighted in order to justify Western support in Bosnia and it is also manipulated in order to show “goodness” from “evil.”

Without doubt, thousands of Muslims were killed after Srebrenica fell to Serbian forces but the other Srebrenica is not told. This Srebrenica, and the surrounding region, applies to the murder of over 3,800 Christian Serbs who were killed in many barbaric ways.

I am not talking about 3,800 military men. On the contrary, I am talking about 3,800 Serbian women, children, and elderly people. Many of these innocent Serbian Christians were killed by sledgehammers, flamethrowers, and other barbaric means.

This does not justify anything but you can not judge anything unless the bare facts are given. In truth, tens of thousands of innocents, irrespective if Muslim or Christian, were killed during this brutal war.

However, the role of Clinton and others should be told and in an ideal world they should be made accountable for what they did. This most notably applies to what happened in Bosnia but it also applies to helping radical Islam gain a foothold in parts of Europe and how these actions further inspired Islamists to do September 11th and other barbaric actions.

LEE JAY WALKER

Tagged with America supported radical Islam in Bosnia, 　Clinton supported radical Islam in the Balkans, Clinton allowed a free reign for Islamists in bosnia, Clinton smiles while Christians were being slaughtered, media distortions against Serbia, media distortions in Bosnia, Osama Bin Laden and USA shared the same policy in Bosnia, radical Islamists allowed to slaugher christians in Bosnia, Serbians were slaughtered surrounding Srebrenica, Terrorism and USA, the other Srebrenica, USA supported radical Islam, USA supported radical Islam under Clinton

THE SEOUL TIMES

Written by leejayuk

January 20, 2010 at 2:21 am

Posted in EUROPE, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND GLOBAL NEWS, RELIGIOUS ISSUES, TERRORISM

Iraq’s Jewish identity faces extinction

Iraq’s Jewish Identity Faces Extinction

By Lee Jay Walker
Tokyo Correspondent – THE SEOUL TIMES

Ur of the Chaldees in southern Iraq: About 6,200-6,500 years ago there existed a civilization located between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers near the Persian Gulf. The area was known as Mesopotamia and the city was called Ur.

In the West I have read daily accounts about the plight of the Palestinians at the hands of the state of Israel. This article is not about the rights or wrongs of the state of Israel; instead, it is about the forgotten history of the destruction of Judaism in the Middle East outside of the state of Israel.

However, instead of focusing on the entire region I will solely concentrate on the extinction of Judaism and the ending of the Jewish legacy in Iraq. Reut R. Cohen, a journalist and researcher (　www.reutrcohen.com ), states that
“The Iraqi Jewish population once numbered at 150,000 in 1947. Today there are 7 Jews living in Iraq who hide their Jewish identity and live in fear. The community has been totally ethnically cleansed and destroyed.”

This in itself is very alarming and disturbing because we are talking about a community which thrived in this part of the world well before the onset of Islam. Yet even more alarming, is how this tragic story and others are being whitewashed before they have even been told to the general public.

Yes, information about the destruction of Judaism and the Jewish legacy will be widely known in Israel and in certain American circles; but for people like me, brought up in the United Kingdom, I can not recall this brutal and tragic reality. Therefore, I am very grateful to Reut R. Cohen and other distinguished writers who are informing me about a history which is being neglected within the mass media in general.

Also, if we ignore the “ethnic cleansing” of Judaism in Iraq then we are going to enable the ongoing “ethnic cleansing” of other minorities in Iraq. For sadly, in modern day Iraq the endless persecution of Christians, Shabaks, Mandaens, Yazidis, and other minorities, is taking place. Therefore, the destruction of Judaism is important because the ongoing destruction of other minorities is happening and Assyrian Christianity and others are facing the wrath of Islam in modern day Iraq.

Turning back to the Jews of Iraq then I will focus on the article written by Reut R. Cohen who wrote an article called “The Persecution of Jews in Iraq” which was published on her website on January 26, 2009.

In her article she states that the “Iraqi Jews take pride in their distinguished customs till today. The Iraqi Jewish community is among the oldest in the world and has an incredibly rich history of learning and scholarship. Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, was born in Ur of the Chaldees, in southern Iraq. Jews had prospered in what was then Babylonia for 1200 years prior to the Muslim conquest in 634 AD.”

Therefore, we are talking about a community with a rich and cherished history and one which runs deep within the veins of Iraq itself. For just like the Assyrians, we are talking about two ethnic groups which were part and parcel of a great civilization and both ethnic groups have a rich history but both suffered deeply after the Islamic conquests of Iraq.

Today, you only have 7 Jews left in modern day Iraq and apparently they have to hide their Jewish identity because of Islamic intolerance. Meanwhile, Assyrian Christians and other minorities are being persecuted in modern day Iraq and just like the Jewish legacy which is being dismantled brick by brick in Iraq; the Assyrians face the same fate but the world remains mainly silent.

Turning back to history once more the Islamic conquest enforced dhimmitude on all non-Muslims and Christians, Jews, and others, were forced to accept their dhimmi status or face the consequences of slavery or death. Others chose to convert to Islam in order to escape such open discrimination and during harsh times the tax levies on non-Muslims gathered in further converts to Islam because they just wanted to escape their endless misery.

Endless numbers of massacres took place over the centuries against all non-Muslims and much depended on the ruler because despite open discrimination which was based on dhimmitude, it is clear that persecution ebbed and flowed. For example, when the Turks re-conquered Iraq in 1638 it is claimed that around 10% of the Ottoman army was Jewish. However, in time the Ottoman Empire would also lead to brutal times and pogroms and systematic persecution took place against Jews, Christians, and other minorities.

The twentieth century would turn out to be the final nail in the coffin for Jews in Iraq. Reut R. Cohen in her article adds a tragic and sad personal dimension because she states that “My paternal grandfather vividly recalled his experiences living as a Jew in Baghdad and the Farhud in 1941 which took place during the traditional Jewish harvest festival holiday of Shavuot. I learned from my grandfather (pictured on the left with me in 1987) that the Farhud literally translates to “pogrom” or “violent dispossession” in Arabic. This was a Nazi pogrom coordinated with genocidal leaders like the Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini and Rashid Ali. In a two-day period Arab mobs went on a rampage in Baghdad and other cities in Iraq. Nearly 150 Jews were killed and more than 2,000 injured; some 900 Jewish homes were destroyed and looted, and hundreds of Jewish-owned shops were robbed and destroyed.”

Reut R. Cohen continues by stating that older members of her family witnessed harrowing scenes. This applies to pregnant Jewish women being raped and then mutilated. While her great-grandfather had to pretend to be Muslim in order to safeguard his entire family.

She also adds that the British “did not intervene or seem to care about what was happening to the Jewish community.” This also brings back memories of how Western powers ignored the Armenian Christian and Assyrian Christian genocide in 1915 in modern day Turkey. The same period also witnessed the Greek Orthodox tragedy and Syrian Orthodox tragedy because the genocide of Christians in Turkey embroiled the entire Christian community.

In 1950 and 1951 the Iraqi parliament allowed the government of Israel and the Jewish Agency to airlift approximately 110,000 Jews during Operations Ezra and Nehemiah. 18,000 Kurdish Jews were part of these operations and a further number of Jews were smuggled out of Iraq via Iran.

For Jews left behind their dwindling numbers did not help because 11 Jews were hanged in public in 1968 and new anti-Jewish measures were taken. It was abundantly clear by now that the Jews of Iraq were nearing the end and it is now estimated that only 7 Jews remain in modern day Iraq.

However, for some Islamists this is not good enough and now　Ezekiel’s tomb at Kifel is in the process or being completely Islamized under “allegations of renovation.” It would appear, however, that renovation applies to dismantling all Jewish traces and this reminds me of the destruction of all Buddhist monuments in Afghanistan.

The article by Reut R. Cohen also relates with ongoing events today. After all, the tragedy that struck the Jewish community in Iraq is now happening with increasing force against all non-Muslims. Therefore, the rich history of Assyria and Assyrian Christianity is under threat and the same applies to other minorities, notably the Shabaks, Mandaens, and Yazidis.

LEE JAY WALKER

Tagged with Assyrian Christians face persecution in Iraq, dhimmitude in Iraq, dhimmitude in Islam, Ezekiel's tomb faces Islamization, Iraq and the destruction of the Mandaean religion, Iraq's Jewish identity faces extinction, Islamization of Iraq via dhimmitude, Jewish history in Iraq, Jewish pogroms in Iraq, Muslim persecution of Jews in Iraq, Reut R. Cohen, Shabaks and Yazidis suffer enormous persecution, The Jews of Iraq, the remaining 7 Jews of Iraq

THE SEOUL TIMES

Written by leejayuk

January 16, 2010 at 4:47 am

Posted in ASIA, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND GLOBAL NEWS, RELIGIOUS ISSUES

Muslims slaughter Christians in Egypt

Muslims Slaughter Christians in Egypt

By Lee Jay Walker
Tokyo Correspondent – THE SEOUL TIMES

Over half a dozen Coptic Christians were killed and another half dozen were hurt in a Thursday morning drive-by shooting following a Christmas midnight Mass in Nag Hamadi in Upper Egypt.

Another year may have just started but in Egypt the endless persecution of Christians goes on and the endless martyrs who follow the faith of Christianity “shine out” in a world of hatred. However, why does this suffering continue in Egypt and in other parts of the world?

This article is in response to the recent murders of Christians in Egypt and I aim to link the current situation with the bloody history of Egypt and its endless persecution of Christians.

According to popular myth Egypt is a moderate nation and this mainly Muslim nation is meant to be a moderate bastion within the mainly intolerant “Islamic world.” However, while Muslims in this nation highlight the fact that you have thousands of churches, they fail to say why and they gloss over the endless persecution and discrimination within Egypt.

After all, Egypt was mainly Christian before countless Islamic invasions and in time Arabization would limit the role of the Coptic language and colonialization took root over many centuries. The indigenous Christians of Egypt already had a rich Coptic culture and history and the Coptic Christian church was blessed with a strong-minded priesthood.

However, constant Islamic invasions, linguistic colonialization via Arabic, massacres of Christians, and systematic persecution of Christianity via Islamic Sharia law and dhimmitude; meant that Islam would rule supreme.

Of course, not all Muslim rulers were anti-Christian but Coptic Christians always had to rely on the given ruler for protection. Yet, irrespective if the ruler was moderate or anti-Christian, one theme remained the same and this applies to institutionalized discrimination and persecution which is part and parcel of Islam and Islamic Sharia law.

Therefore, from the early conquests and up until today, it is clear that converts from Islam to Christianity face persecution. Yes, Islamic enlightenment in Egypt means that in the past the convert to Christianity would be killed, however, now it is mere prison or persecution or a mixture of both.

Turning back to the reason of this article, I will now focus on recent events in Egypt in 2010. For on January 6 in Nagaa Hamady, which is near Luxor, Muslims killed six Christians and one security guard. They were gunned down on Christmas Eve (Christmas day is January 7 for Coptic Christians and other Orthodox Christians) and clearly the timing was important.

Yet for many Christians in Egypt this is all about the embedded persecution of Christianity in this nation. Therefore the recent massacre is further evidence that Islamic intolerance and systematic persecution is part and parcel of the traditions of Egypt since the first Islamic invasion began.

In recent times you have had many attacks against Christians and this applies to murders, riots against Christians, attacks against Coptic Christian churches, abduction and forced rapes of Christian females, and other insidious forms of discrimination and persecution.

In truth, ever since the first Islamic conquest of Egypt you have had systematic persecution because religious pluralism and freedom of thought does not exist in Islam. Therefore, from the very foundation of Islam in Egypt it was clear that Christians had to pay tax (jizya) in order to be protected and non-payment could mean death, enslavement, or forced conversion.

It is worth mentioning that Mohammed himself stated that Muslims must (Koran 9:29) “Fight those who do not believe in Allah, nor in the latter day, nor do they prohibit what Allah and His Messenger have prohibited, nor follow the religion of truth, out of those who have been given the Book, until they pay the tax in acknowledgment of superiority and they are in a state of subjection.”

Therefore, it is clear that Mohammed understood the power of tax and other draconian laws in order to subdue other faiths. After all, how can other faiths thrive when apostasy from Islam means death?

Prof. Kenneth Cragg sums up the dhimmi system by stating that the “Dhimmi, ‘tolerated minority,’ status under Islam has long made for a pattern of quiescence in ancient, local Christianity around the mosque. Traditional tolerance allowed only a freedom to remain, to teach the faith only within the family, so that adherence became a circumstance of birth, and continuity that of a closed community. There was no freedom to express faith, still less to recruit to it, outside that circle of one’s origin.”

Coptic Christians after the Islamic conquests were therefore faced with a bleak future. After all, if Coptic Christians were forbidden to propagate their faith freely in public then at best they could only survive. Yet this survival meant severe restrictions and systematic persecution, with the consequences of this being an ever diminishing minority and open to public ridicule because of their inferior status in law, education, and other important areas.

Therefore, in 2010 you have many minorities in mainly Muslim societies who are fighting for survival or who face open persecution because of state sanctioned laws which are based on Islamic Sharia law and maintaining massive inequality.

Minority groups who suffer open persecution in the modern world applies to the Baha’is in Iran; the Shabaks, Christians, Mandaens, and Yazidis who face persecution on a daily basis in Iraq; converts to Christianity in Somalia who are being butchered by radical Sunni Islamists; Buddhists in Southern Thailand have also suffered greatly in recent times including Buddhist clerics being beheaded; Hindus also suffer enormously in both Bangladesh and Pakistan; Ahmadiyya Muslims also face severe persecution in Pakistan and in 2009 several Christians were burnt alive in this nation; while Christians also face daily threats in Northern Nigeria and last year three Christian pastors were beheaded and other terrible attacks took place; the list is endless and of course Coptic Christians in Egypt suffer from both state sanctioned discrimination and being threatened by radical Sunni Islamists.

The current situation in Egypt does not look good for Coptic Christians because the “flawed” political system under President Hosni Mubarak means state sanctioned discrimination. However, you also have the fear that radical Islamists could fill the political vacuum and this would add greatly to the woes of the embattled Christian community in Egypt.

Sadly, major political leaders in many Western nations are in appeasement mode and they are not confronting this global menace. However, radical Islam is also growing in the streets of London and Paris, and in other major cities throughout parts of Europe and in other parts of the mainly non-Muslim world.

Therefore, the ongoing silence towards events in Egypt, Iraq, Northern Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Southern Thailand, Somalia, and other mainly Muslim nations; is impacting on other nations because this hatred is spreading wide and far and silence or appeasement isn’t working.

LEE JAY WALKER

THE SEOUL TIMES

Tagged with Christians murdered in Egypt, Coptic Christian persecution in Egypt, Coptic Christians and Islamic intolerance, jizya to state discrimination in Egypt, mohammed supported hatred, ongoing persecution of Christians in Egypt, Sunni Islamic persecution in Egypt, western appeasement of islam is not working

Written by leejayuk

January 15, 2010 at 7:36 am

Posted in AFRICA, INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS AND GLOBAL NEWS, RELIGIOUS ISSUES

In Memoriam- President Gus Dur, 1940-2009