Don't Ever Dream Of Freedom
While the international community and much of the world's media has been focused on the so-called "Arab Spring" and on events transpiring across the Middle East, they seem to have turned a blind eye to South East Asia and in particular on West Papua and the plight of the West Papuan's.
There was hope that with President Obama's visit last month, that the United States would take a tougher stance on Indonesia's brutal human rights abuses in West Papua but sadly the people of West Papua are coming to the bitter realization that their cries for freedom and self-determination have fallen on deaf ears.
The only crime of the West Papuan's has been to peacefully raise their national flag and declare independence from Indonesia and for that they have and continue to suffer the wrath of the Indonesian government.
There was a time when the United States supported the West Papuans and their right to self-determination, but it would seem no more.
Less than a month ago this is what Hillary Clinton had to say...
There was hope that with President Obama's visit last month, that the United States would take a tougher stance on Indonesia's brutal human rights abuses in West Papua but sadly the people of West Papua are coming to the bitter realization that their cries for freedom and self-determination have fallen on deaf ears.
The only crime of the West Papuan's has been to peacefully raise their national flag and declare independence from Indonesia and for that they have and continue to suffer the wrath of the Indonesian government.
There was a time when the United States supported the West Papuans and their right to self-determination, but it would seem no more.
Less than a month ago this is what Hillary Clinton had to say...
"There needs to be continuing dialogue and political reforms in order to meet the legitimate needs of the Papua people, and we will be raising that again directly and encouraging that kind of approach....[sic]"
Take a look at the video above, this is how Indonesia deals with the West Papuans. The comments in the video regarding the pig sty deserve a closer examination and give a glimpse into the mindset of the Indonesian soldiers who see the West Papuans, the majority of which are Christians, as infidels.
For the Indonesians, the separatist conflict in West Papua has little to do with state sovereignty and more so to do with religious strife.
The West Papuans deserve more than noncommittal gobbledygook from America. They deserve freedom.
Obama: Throwing Papua Under the Bus
2 comments:
It's a bit oversimplified if you look at Papua as a 'religious strife'. The Indonesian military in Papua are in itself a mixed bunch of both Muslims, Christians and (Balinese) Hindus.
The minoritization of the Papuan peoples is a result of totalitarian high-modernism development models (Rostowism propagated by the World Bank since the 1960s) forcibly imposed through oligarchic imperialism (Jakarta) and shifting global geopolitical interests (esp. the US since the 1950s).
You're naive at best. Indonesia was tolerant under Suharto but since his fall there has been a marked movement toward a more militant islam. (http://www.ipcs.org/article/southeast-asia/indonesia-islamisation-or-terrorization-1141.html)as well as an ecouragement of islamization in predominantly Christian islands.
http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=19069
The government has also encouraged islamic immigration into predominantly Christian areas and begun to countenance persecution of minority islamic sects.
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