The Papua conflict is a very long-running conflict on the western side of the island of New Guinea in Melanesia. This part of New Guinea was once controlled by the Dutch as part of their wide-ranging colonial empire in the neighboring East Indies. However, it did not receive independence along with the rest of Indonesia from Dutch rule in 1949. The Netherlands instead continued to administer Western New Guinea until it too was granted independence in 1962. There were existing tensions between the Papuans and the Dutch prior to independence. These intensified when the Dutch left and bequeathed Western New Guinea to Indonesia. Under Indonesian rule a guerilla conflict began, one which has continued as a low-level conflict for over six decades down to the present day. The Indonesian government has engaged in atrocities during it, including extensive sexual violence. It has also led to periodic flight of thousands of West Papuans from the country. Many have crossed over the border to Papua New Guinea on the eastern side of the island where they live in refugee camps.[1]
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Papua conflict chronology of events
The island of New Guinea lies in Melanesia, a part of the Western Pacific that was remote enough that few European powers were interested in colonizing it during the early modern era. The Dutch had mapped much of the coast of the island by the 1640s during their great period of explorations that saw them discover Australia, New Zealand and Tasmania. It was not until the late nineteenth century that there was a rush by the Dutch, Germany, Britain and France to swallow up as much of Melanesia as quickly as possible. The Dutch secured the western half of New Guinea, establishing bases there at the end of the 1890s, while the Germans and British secured the east of the island, Germany in the north and Britain in the south.[2]
The British transferred their section to Australia during the First World War and the German colony was added to this, so that Australia controlled the entire east of the island down to 1975 when Papua New Guinea became independent. The Dutch retained controlled of West Papua until 1962. It was never hugely developed for its colonial potential and was a burden on the Dutch state. They transferred it to Indonesia under the terms of the New York Agreement of 1962, a country which had already emerged from Dutch colonial rule in the years following the Second World War.[3]
The Papua conflict began almost as soon as Indonesia was granted West Papua. In the first years there were occasional major incidents like the raid on an Indonesian army barracks at Arfal in July 1965, leading to several dozen deaths.[4] Matters built steadily from there before the Indonesian government commenced a major crackdown in 1976, emboldened by having initiated an incendiary campaign to take over East Timor as well in the East Indies after the Portuguese relinquished control of the eastern half of that island in 1975 after the Carnation Revolution back in Portugal itself.[5] An atrocity-laden campaign continued through the late 1970s and into the 1980s. Much of it was unknown to the world until studies in the early twenty-first century revealed that a campaign of mass murder and sexual violence was initiated and continued throughout this period.[6]
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The Papua conflict declined in intensity during the 1990s and 2000s, though there has always been a substratum of violence in what is effectively a security state. For instance, in response to a raid on a government armory at Wamena early in 2003, Indonesian forces relocated thousands of people there. Dozens ended up dead. Since then there have been sporadic attempts at peace negotiations, driven by a united front by many Melanesian and Polynesian states that have condemned Indonesia’s actions on the international stage. Yet there is no roadmap for sustained peace beyond continuing to treat Western New Guinea as a security state.[7]
Extent of migration during and demographic impact of the Papua conflict
The Papua conflict has caused some migration periodically over the years and decades, though not on the same scale as many other twentieth or early twenty-first century crises and wars of its kind. Most of the displaced and refugees have simply crossed over the long border on the middle of the island into Papua New Guinea, a country which was administered by Australia until 1975. The major wave came in the 1980s as the Indonesian government tried to intensively root out Papuan nationalists on the west of the island. An estimated 12,000 people fled into Papua New Guinea at the time. There has continued to be a steady trickle of individuals moving from the west of the island to the east. Sometimes this has only been a few score people in a given year, but over a sixty-plus year conflict this adds up, especially as these refugees start families in Papua New Guinea. There is accordingly a substantial West Papuan community in Papua New Guinea today.[8]
The death toll from the Papua conflict remains a contentious subject. Accurate figures are not provided by the Indonesian government, while the undeveloped nature of the island simply makes accurate reportage difficult. Estimates range from arguing that anywhere between 100,000 and half a million people have died in the fighting and through atrocities on both sides. The peak of this came in the 1970s and 1980s, but the number of deaths has been increasing again in recent years.[9]
See also
Explore more about the Papua conflict
- Analyzing the Papua Conflict at Modern Diplomacy
- The West Papua Conflict and its Consequences at The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies
- Indonesia: Resources and Conflict in Papua at the International Crisis Group
References
- ↑ Ian Bell, Herb Feith and Ron Hatley, The West Papuan Challenge to Indonesian Authority in Irian Jaya: Old Problems, New Possiblities’, in Asian Survey, Vol. 26, No. 5 (May, 1986), pp. 539–556.
- ↑ Jan Pouwer, ‘The Colonisation, Decolonisation and Recolonisation of West New Guinea’, in The Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 34, No. 2, Historical Perspectives on West New Guinea (September, 1999), pp. 157–179.
- ↑ https://www.freewestpapua.org/documents/the-new-york-agreement/
- ↑ https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/11/11/racism-and-repression-west-papua
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/30/east-timor-indonesias-invasion-and-the-long-road-to-independence
- ↑ Johnny Blades, West Papua: The issue that won’t go away for Melanesia (Sydney, 2000).
- ↑ Timo Kivimaki, Initiating a Peace Process in Papua: Actors, Issues, Process and the Role of the International Community (Washington, 2006).
- ↑ https://www.icmc.net/2023/09/21/west-papuans-in-papua-new-guinea/
- ↑ https://theconversation.com/fight-for-freedom-new-research-to-map-violence-in-the-forgotten-conflict-in-west-papua-128058