Asia Pacific Report, the Auckland-based independent news and analysis website, has been increasingly targeted by Indonesian trolls over the past three months, involving a spate of “letters to the editor” and social media attacks.
The indigenous people of West Papua have rejected the extension of special autonomy and the planned expansion of new provinces announced by the central government of Indonesia. A special report by a Papuan contributor.
The censored item was purportedly because of “nudity” in a photograph published by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) of a protest in the West Papuan capital Jayapura in August last year during the Papuan Uprising against Indonesian racism and oppression that began in Surabaya, Java.
Pushed into the background by the relentless sad statistics and pandemic doomsday stories around the globe are some other stories in the Pacific that normally struggle to get an airing in mainstream media.
The shooting tragedy at West Papua’s Freeport mine on Monday leaves all New Zealanders with a question – who are the actual shooters in this attack?
“At the beginning of his first term in 2015, President Jokowi released five West Papuan political prisoners … a new hope for West Papua. But now, at the beginning of his second term, there are 57 people awaiting trial for treason, facing life imprisonment. This route will only fuel further conflict,” says human rights lawyer Veronica Koman.
The groundswell of regional support continues to grow in the Pacific – and also globally – for West Papuan self-determination. The latest repression only adds to this momentum.
“Violence on post-Suharto Indonesia, from Aceh to West Papua, from Kalimantan to the Moluccas, is evidence that Java-centric nationalism is unable to distribute power fairly in an imagined Indonesia. It has created unnecessary paranoia and racism among Indonesian migrants in West Papua.” – Andreas Harsono
“This is not a joke: I’m blacklisted by the Indonesian government. Saya termasuk dalam daftar tangkal Indonesia (terjemahan dibawah). I’ve been refused entry to Bali and have been held in a room at Denpasar airport on a couch since midnight… I explained I was on a holiday.”
Two damning and contrasting books about Indonesian colonialism in the Pacific, both by activist participants in Europe and New Zealand, have recently been published. Overall, they are excellent exposes of the harsh repression of the Melanesian people of West Papua and a world that has largely closed a blind eye to to human rights violations.