The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 13 | Issue 47 | Number 1 | Article ID 4400 | Nov 23, 2015

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Salvaging Democracy for West Papuans in the Face ofAustralia-Indonesia Obstruction

Camellia Webb-Gannon

Introduction

This article argues that the democratic idealsespoused by Australia and Indonesia fall shortin application to West Papua and WestPapuans, and notes that such shortcomings arelegitimated by mainstream media’s exoticistportrayals of West Papuans, particularly inAustralia. The antidemocratic policies andprocesses of each government with regard toWest Papua actually enable the (by and large)“good” bilateral relations at the state level toremain intact. However, this article contendsthat democracy, as practiced by civil societyactors at the grassroots and digital networklevel in Australia and West Papua, createscracks in the official Australia-Indonesia staterelationship. Australian concerns overIndonesian human rights abuses in West Papuahave traditionally been overlooked at the statelevel in favor of pursuing an amicable bilateralrelationship.

However by forging digital activist networkslocally and internationally—including buildingWest Papuan- indigenous Austral ianpartnerships, West Papuans are participating ina grassroots democratization process withglobal outreach, refusing to be sacrificed onthe altar of regional realpolitik. The articleconcludes with a cautionary account of anapparent attempt by an opportunisticAustralian political movement to hijack WestPapuan democratization for its own ends, athreat West Papuan and Australian civil societyactivists are currently moving to contain.

Map showing West Papua on the island of NewGuinea in relation to Australia and Indonesia.

West Papuans: cannibals or the sacrificed?

Who isn’t fascinated by a cannibal story -particularly one about a cannibal actpurportedly planned in the past decade? In2006, a weekly current affairs television showhosted by a popular Australian network aired aprogram introducing Wawa, a then six-year oldboy its television crew met during a so-calledfirst contact encounter with West Papua’sKorowai people. Wawa, the program alleged,was facing imminent cannibalization by histribe for suspicion of witchcraft. A media fiascofollowed in which the television network and itsmain rival raced to produce a “rescue Wawa”story. The rival’s controversial presenter wasdeported from West Papua for using a touristvisa, and Wawa was eventually taken from hishome by the original network’s Sumatran tourguide to live in Jayapura and, later, Sumatra.

Earlier this year, a staffer of the first-mentioned current affairs program informedme that a follow up story on Wawa and the

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Korowai was being considered. The plan was totake Wawa on a return visit to Korowai land,ask him to compare his new school and city lifewith that of his village of origin, and assesshow Korowai ways of life, including thepractice of cannibalism, had changed since2006.

This program concept i l lustrates theentrenched ignorance that pervades themainstream Australian imaginary of WestPapua and other parts of Melanesia.Anthropologist Rupert Stasch, the world’spreeminent scholar on the social relations ofthe Korowai, visited Wawa’s people after themedia maelstrom and, through conversationwith those who knew Wawa, found out that“there was a predictably wide gulf between therepresentations that had circulated in theinternational media and the boy’s actual historyas understood by his kin and co-villagers (whowere unaware of the media coverage)”1.Further, “almost all persons [Stasch] spokewith said that the exclusive reason the first filmcrew’s guide had been approached by villagersabout taking the orphan to town was so that hewould go to school, become literate inIndonesian, and return as a teacher, nurse, orgovernment official. These numerous personsmatter-of-factly denied […] suggestions that theboy had been rumored to be a witch, or hadbeen in danger of being killed”2.

Wawa in 2006

“First contact” tourism and journalism aresensationalist, essentialist and, with regard tothe Korowai , mis leading – Europeanmissionaries have lived with the Korowai sincethe 1970s and the Korowai are knowing, if farfrom equal, agents in the marketing of their“culture” to outsiders. The removal of childrenfrom their families of origin by Westernjournalists chasing television ratings is ofcourse ethically highly dubious. Yet, despite theinformed criticism directed towards the currentaffairs program after its 2006 West Papuaforay, it has contemplated revisiting the Wawastory. West Papua has, for a long time,threatened the stability of the Australia-Indonesia relationship but Australian citizenshave pressured their government not to let theIndonesian government escape criticism for thecrimes its military forces commit in WestPapua. In portraying West Papuans as less thancivilized, mainstream Australian mediafabrications such as the “Wawa story” serve touphold Indonesia’s ongoing colonial occupationof West Papua. They also support an Australianmedia-military complex—providing a veneer ofjustification for Australian training ofIndonesian security forces,3—which in turn“keeps in check” the “violent” peoples of“Stone Age” Papua. Such portrayals4 feed intoone of two broad narratives that surroundmilitary and government bilateral relationsbetween Australia and Indonesia in which WestPapua is treated by Australia as either a pawnor a liability. In the first narrative, that of“primitive and unpredictable Papuans”, theAustralian public gaze is momentarily avertedfrom the violence of the Indonesian military inWest Papua, and the pressure on the Australiangovernment to hold Indonesia accountable isrelieved. The second narrative will be dealtwith in the remainder of this article.

***

This second narrative presents Indonesia as a“normal”5 country – that is, democratizing, notsubject to military excesses, and accountable to

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the rule of law. The Indonesian governmentfrequently asserts that these apparentattributes also extend to its rule in West Papua.Yet, upon examination, they appear to beobserved more in the breach than otherwise.The Australian government’s willingness to paylip service to Indonesian claims, for the sake ofharmonious relations with Jakarta, silencesWest Papuans’ grievances at the official,bilateral level.

The Australia-Indonesia relationship itself isoften portrayed as one incrementallystrengthening due to Indonesia’s supposedlyincreasing democratization. What is rarelyconsidered, however, is the extent to whichAustralian democratic principles are applied to,and what relationship the democraticcredentials of either government has with, thepolitical plight of West Papuans. Each of theseconcerns has important implications for thecivil societies and governments of bothcountries, as well as their bilateral relationship.Indeed, it appears that it is mutual complicityin the antidemocratic processes being enactedin Indonesia and Australia with regard to WestPapua that tends to strengthen the bilateralrelationship at the state level. Simultaneously,that “good” relationship is threatened by thealternative processes of digital networking andgrassroots democratization which ignore stateborders and bring civil society in Australia andWest Papua closer together.

For example, much has been made ofIndonesia’s democratization since the fall ofSuharto in May 1998, and the implementationof electoral reforms from 1999 onward.However, democratic reforms have had alimited reach in West Papua. For example, in2003, the province of Papua was divided intotwo, “Papua” and “West Papua”, by the centralgovernment, contrary to local wishes andnational law. Local Papuan political parties arebanned6. The Freeport mine (see Figure 3),controlled by an American company that payshuge royalties and taxes to Jakarta, exploits

West Papuan natural resources, wreaks havocon the environment and local communities, yetyields negligible benefits to Papuan people7.

Freeport’s Grasberg mine in West Papua. Imagecredit: Radio New Zealand International

And the Indonesia military operates with nearimpunity in West Papua. In December 2014,four unarmed West Papuan youth were killedand 17 more injured in Paniai when theIndonesian army and police opened fire on agroup of protesters. Although an investigationinto this massacre was opened, it has beencompromised by police involvement. Militaryand police violence has also been a mainstayaround Freeport’s mines in Timika since thecompany began operations in the 1970s assecurity forces vied with each other forlucrative “protection” contracts for thecompany. There is strong evidence suggestingthat security forces also orchestrate violentconflict around the mine (for example,ambushes along the road leading to the mine)and then blame such violence on the guerilla-led Free West Papua movement, legitimatingtheir own presence in the process8.

High hopes were held for democraticimprovements in West Papua when JokoWidodo became Indonesia’s president in 2014.In his most recent visit to the region, Widodoreleased five political prisoners and announced

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that the ban on foreign journalists visiting WestPapua would be lifted. However West Papuanactivists claim that the release of the fiveprisoners, who were required to ask forclemency, was tokenistic since some 500 moreprotesters were subsequently arrested in Mayand June this year9. Papua observers inIndonesia, such as Andreas Harsono of HumanRights Watch, also doubt the President’s powerto carry out a dramatic reversal to thelongstanding international media blackout onWest Papua kept in place by 18 centralgovernment agencies whose permission isrequired to visit the territory and who profitfrom their visa vetting role10. Scholar of Papua,Budi Hernawan, observes that Widodo israpidly losing credibility within his owngovernment. The military is agitating for apresidential decree to mandate control ofpubl ic order by the army and for anamendment to the law that requires such adecree in the first place11. In other words,according to Hernawan, the army is workingtowards bypassing Presidential checks andbalances in order to once more practice,unfettered, the fomentation of conflict thatjustifies its existence in the far reaches ofIndonesia—particularly West Papua12.

Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo

Australian democracy and West Papua

In recent years, as democratic processes have

been rolled out in other parts of Indonesia, theAustralian government has legitimated thecharade that those same processes arereaching West Papua. In fact, Australia hasmaintained a “pragmatic complicity”13 inIndonesia’s treatment of West Papua sinceIndonesia invaded the territory in 1962 (shortlyafter West Papua’s previous colonizers, theDutch East Indies, had made preparations withWest Papuans for an independent West Papua),and has done little to protest the litany ofhuman rights crimes committed by the regime.These include widespread instances of tortureand rape of West Papuans, forced removal fromtraditional lands, environmental devastation,curtailment of civil and political rights,s t a r v a t i o n , a s s a s s i n a t i o n s a n ddisappearances14. Such concerted violence hasstemmed from Indonesian expansionist andresource exploitation endeavors in West Papua,at tempts to eradicate West Papua’sindependence movement (formed in protest toIndonesian occupation and fuelled by ongoingIndonesian violence), and longstanding racismagainst West Papuan people.

In 1962, when West Papua’s future politicalstatus was under negotiation, Australia’sexternal affairs minister Garfield Barwickasserted that it was not in Australia’s strategicinterest to counter Indonesia’s expansionarydesigns on West Papua; Australia would bebetter served forging diplomatic ties with anon-communist Indonesia15. The Australiangovernment therefore supported the US-brokered 1962 New York Agreement thatbequeathed the territory to Jakarta, and thesubsequent rigged 1969 Act of Free Choice thatformalized West Papua’s ongoing annexation byIndonesia.

Despite the fact that West Papua’s status aspart of Indonesia has been contested evers ince, Canberra 's posi t ion has beenunwavering. As recently as 2006 Australia andIndonesia negotiated the Lombok Treaty whichcontained a “Papua Clause” committing the

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Australian government to “not in any mannersupport or participate in activities by anyperson or entity which constitutes a threat tothe stability, sovereignty or territorial integrityof the other Party, including by those who seekto use its territory for encouraging orcommitting such activities, includingseparatism, in the territory of the otherParty”16. Signing this agreement signalled theAustralian government’s willingness to curtailthe democratic freedom of its own citizens tosupport persons involved in West Papua’sindependence struggle; this, in order to assureIndonesia of its unconditional recognition ofIndonesian sovereignty over West Papua.

When Mako Tabun i , a Wes t Papuanindependence activist, was murdered in thestreet in Jayapura in 2012, eyewitnesses and,later, Australian investigative journalists,asserted that the murder was committed by thepartly Austral ian funded and trainedIndonesian anti -terror pol ice squad,Detachment 8817. The following year three WestPapuan men climbed the walls of the Australianconsulate in Bali immediately prior to ananticipated visit by Australian Prime MinisterTony Abbott, seeking refuge and calling for therelease of political prisoners in West Papua.Australian academic Clinton Fernandes, whowas on the telephone to the consulate at thetime of the incident, overheard an Australianvoice threatening to bring in the Indonesianmilitary and police to remove the Papuan men.The latter were forced to flee the consulate,fearful for their lives18.

In the aftermath of this incident Abbott statedhis desire to convey "in flashing neon lights"that attempts to “grandstand” againstIndonesia by involving Australia were "notwelcome". Asserting, as Australian leadersregularly do, that Australia respectedIndonesia’s territorial integrity andsovereignty, Abbott added, following the lead ofIndonesian leaders, that “the situation in WestPapua was ‘getting better, not worse’”19.

The combined efforts of the Indonesian andAustralian governments to whitewash ongoingbrutalities in West Papua are under constantpressure, however. Moreover, since mostAustralian statements regarding relations withIndonesia are prefaced with references to theAustralian national interest, Indonesia knowsAustralian policy on West Papua is strategicallyand, at times, legally contingent. Indeed,precedents exist for Australian support ofhuman rights and self-determination incontested Indonesian territories. In addition toAustralia’s about face from support forIndonesian sovereignty in East Timor in 1999to rejecting it, Australia also recognized 43West Papuans who arrived in Australia in 2006as legitimate asylum seekers and granted themtemporary protection visas, prompting Jakartato recall its ambassador from Canberra inprotest.

There have been other hints that Canberra'scontinued acquiescence over West Papua hasits limits. After allegations emerged in 2013that Australia had been spying on Indonesianofficials, and Indonesia responded bythreatening to cease cooperation on managing“people smuggling”, Abbott reminded Jakartathat Australia had attempted to dissuadeAustralian-based West Papuan activists fromtraveling by boat to West Papua, effectivelyimplying that Australian support for Indonesiansovereignty over West Papua was tied tocooperation from Indonesia on issues ofAustralian national concern20.

All of this demonstrates that, at a state level,both Australia and Indonesia are willing toexaggerate the bona fides of Indonesiandemocracy in West Papua and collude to coverup direct violations of democracy and humanrights in the territory. As a result neithercountry is acting altruistically with regard toWest Papua. Indonesia is vested financially inoccupying West Papua, and Australia is vestedfinancially in appeasing Indonesia and thuscondoning its occupation of West Papua21.

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Nevertheless, there is hope that significantshifts in Australia’s approach to West Papuamight be possible. At present though, itappears that the strength of Australia-Indonesia ties in relation to West Papua is ininverse proportion to the degree of democracyand human rights respect afforded WestPapuans and their Australian supporters.

Grassroots democracy and digital networks

By contrast, transformative democratization, inessence coordinated purposeful action by andfor the affected people, is occurring atgrassroots activist and digital network levels,linking West Papuan, other Melanesian, andAustralian civil society communities insolidarity against state-centric oppressiveconcepts of sovereignty. This is expressed in aburgeoning genre of West Papua independencemusic being created by West Papuans and theirMelanesian and Australian supporters anddistributed digitally via YouTube, Soundcloud,iTunes, Bluetooth and SD cards through everexpanding digital networks22. While evidentlythe digital revolution has not impacted allpopulations equally, it has had the effect ofspreading music, foundational to Melanesiancosmology and the life force of West Papua’sindependence movement23 widely and liftingthe regional profile of the West Papuanstruggle. Moreover, social media has alsoelevated the perceived urgency of the strugglein mainstream Australia and internationally,propelling the circulation of mobile phonevideos such as those depicting the torture ofWest Papuans24, and attracting the interventionof internet activist hacker group Anonymous onbehalf of West Papuans25.

A grass roots activist movement—recognizing ashared history between indigenous Papuansand indigenous Australians of settler colonialviolence and cohabitation of the prehistoriccontinent Sahul (a Pleistocene era landmassthat included mainland Australia, Tasmania,New Guinea, Seram and possibly the island of

Timor)—has emerged over the past two years,most dynamically in the initiative of the WestPapua Freedom Flotilla26. This project hasinvolved two maritime missions, with WestPapuan and Aboriginal activists usingAboriginal “passports” and West Papuan“visas” in an effort to carry water from LakeEyre to West Papua—a form of nonviolentdirect action highlighting West Papua’s violentoccupation and symbolizing Oceanic indigenousarticulations.

Freedom Flotilla poster featuring West Papuan,Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags

Two other events are notable with regard toWest Papuan-oriented activism in Australia. InApril 2014 an office opened in Perth to carryout the work of Oxford-based West Papuanrefugee and independence activist BennyWenda and his Free West Papua campaign27.

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Soon after, in June 2014, the author attendedthe opening of the Federal Republic of WestPapua’s Department of Foreign AffairsImmigration and Trade office headed up byForeign Minister, Jacob Rumbiak, a formerWest Papuan political prisoner living in exile inMelbourne. The office was located in anarchitecturally slick, eco-friendly complex inMelbourne’s central business district and itsopening was officiated by various localgovernment officials, indigenous Australianleaders, and a university representative. Bothof these of f ices were establ ished incontravention of the Lombok Treaty and remainin operation, demonstrating that grassroots,people-led movements can thrive in theinterstices of top down, anti-democratic power.

Supporters of the West Papuan rightsmovement in Australia include artists,academics, people of faith, lawyers andenvironmental and indigenous rights activistswho are often loosely aligned with the severalcity-based Australia West Papua Associationsand who work in tandem through thesenetworks. In July 2013, the West Papua Projectat The University of Sydney produced a citizenstribunal, the first of its kind in Australia,weighing evidence and hearing testimoniesfrom survivors of the 1998 Biak Massacre inwhich Indonesian security forces murdered upto 200 West Papuans peacefully demonstratingon the West Papuan island of Biak28.

The Indonesian military has never been heldaccountable for this massacre, and notableAustralian legal personalities, concernedacademics from institutions across Australia,and other activists cooperated in an effort tobring a degree of justice and closure to thevictims even in the absence of a legal remedy.In March 2015, several of the tribunal team ledby Justice John Dowd and academic EbenKirksey presented the evidence brief to Liberal,Labor and Greens party politicians in federalparliament and met with a favorable tripartisanreception, further evidence that small

initiatives can reach the halls of power, if notyet the decision-making chambers.

Australian academics—some of whom areaffiliated with the West Papua Project at TheUniversity of Sydney—have also been involvedwith West Papuan efforts to make their politicalpresence known in the Melanesian region,assisting the United Liberation Movement forWest Papua (ULMWP) to develop its latestsubmission for membership to the MelanesianSpearhead Group (MSG). The MSG, a politicalbloc comprised of the four Melanesiancountries – Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, theSolomon Islands, and Fiji—was formed in 1986,in part to lobby France for New Caledonianindependence. As such, the indigenous Kanakindependence party, the Kanak and SocialistNational Liberation Front (French: Front deLibération Nationale Kanak et Socialiste,FLNKS), has been an integral member of theMSG from its inception. And West Papua hasfor several years sought membership on thesame basis. A limited victory was celebrated inJune 2015 by West Papuans and theirsupporters when West Papua was grantedobserver status in the MSG, although at thesame meeting Indonesia was granted associatemembership, a higher level, which somewhatdampened West Papuans’ celebrations.

These community-initiated activities of WestPapuans in Australia, and of Australiansworking in solidarity with them, demonstratethat steps toward positive change in WestPapua are being pushed from the bottom uprather than the top down. These actions inAustralia and West Papua suggest possibilitiesfor a brighter, more democratic future for WestPapuans, in spite of Indonesian and Australiangovernment efforts to stymie them.

Reclaim Australia and the Free West PapuaParty

A sobering phenomenon has recently cast ashadow over the usually progressive Australia-West Papua solidarity movement. A political

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party calling itself the Free West Papua Partyhas been launched from Perth29, which appearsto be capitalizing on the Free West PapuaCampaign “brand” created by dynamic WestPapuan activist Benny Wenda. The partycombines anti-Islamic ideology and unrealisticgoals,30 claiming to possess “the potential toquickly free West Papua through the nextFederal Election”31. In July 2015 its leaderdelivered a speech at an ultra-nationalistReclaim Australia rally purporting to supportWest Papuan freedom in an era of Islamization.Campaigning for West Papua at such eventsconveys the impression that the fight for theindependence of West Papua is primarilyreligious (i.e. a Christian versus Muslimstruggle), which it is not, although at times itdoes assume a religio-cultural tone. In fact,many West Papuans, including someindependence leaders, are Muslim32. BothAustralian supporters of West Papuan rightsand West Papuans residing in Australia havemoved quickly to distance themselves from theFree West Papua Party and its ideologicaltenets and implications33.

Further, indigenous Australians are protestingagainst the Reclaim Australia movement34. Ifwhat Reclaim Australia supporters are reallytrying to do is “reclaim” Australia for a majority“caucasian [sic] and Christian”35 population(and those with “assimilationist” aspirations),then it hardly seems appropriate for anAustralian political party to drag indigenousWest Papuans into the movement. Finally, aspreviously mentioned, indigenous WestPapuans and indigenous Australians arealready working together in a dynamicmovement to recognise indigenous sovereigntyin their respective lands with the FreedomFlotilla initiative. This is an internallyorganized, organic movement that represents apositive reclamation and an indication, amongothers (for example the progress made withinthe MSG, the tabl ing of West Papuangrievances at the Pacific Islands Forum36, andthe rise of Pacific-wide solidarity for West

Papua37) that the West Papuan independencemovement is garnering increasing internationalawareness.

Yet despite this forward momentum, WestPapua is in the grip of a serious demographiccrisis. A history of Indonesian state-sponsoredtransmigration and continuous, rapid andspontaneous migration from other parts ofIndonesia to West Papua, coupled with highmortality and morbidity rates for West Papuanscompared with non-Papuans38 has meant thatindigenous West Papuans, since 2010, havebecome a demographic and cultural minority intheir homeland39. Even though many WestPapuans campaign for a referendum onindependence, in statistical terms, if thisbecomes an option for them as it did for theEast Timorese in 1999, it is unlikely to deliverthe resu l t hoped fo r by ind igenousindependence-seekers. The future is likely to bebloody, as West Papuans have demonstratedsince the 1960s that they will not back down,even in the face of military terror, from theirpursuit of independence.

When the Suharto-era general and notoriousstrongman Prabowo Subianto was Widodo’schallenger for the position of Indonesianpresident leading up to the last election,predictions for the status of West Papuansshould his campaign be successful were“apocalyptic”40. Yet Widodo’s apparent inabilityto stand up to pressure from military forceslobbying to sit above civilian authority may stillhave apocalyptic consequences for WestPapuans should the military subsequently begiven freer reign in West Papua. If the result ofincreased militarization in West Papua is ashowdown like that of East Timor’s 1991 SantaCruz massacre in which 250 protesters weremurdered, international civil society pressuremight occasion a multilateral intervention.Although the second of these possible futures isWest Papuans’ most immediate hope forindependence, both are grim. Their mostpromising option, and the one in which most

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efforts are currently being channelled, is thestrengthening of grassroots democraticnetworks and forging of regional solidarity.Time, however, is of the essence. Demographictransition in West Papua is the key challenge.

Conclusion

This article has attempted to demonstrate thatit is important that the Australian public nottake too narrow a view of Australian nationalinterest – the Australian government hasalready made that mistake with regard to WestPapua. Indeed, the Australian governmentshould remember that what it considers to bein its best interest can change dramatically andrather suddenly, as its 1999 intervention intoEast Timor revealed. The Australian publicwould do well to follow the lead of indigenousWest Papuans and indigenous Australians inlobbying the Australian government anddemonstrating to mainstream media thatdemocracy in Indonesia and in Australia shouldnot be solely for the benefit of privilegedethnicities and the already rich. Rather,democracy ought to encompass politico-legalethics and processes that facilitate themeaningful self-determination of each society’smost vulnerable groups. A healthy relationshipbetween the two countries—one that valueddemocracy in each—would acknowledge bothin law and in practice the traditional custodiansof the various territories comprising the twocountries. It would be committed to fosteringpeaceful explorations of self-determinationengaging indigenous peoples as primary actors.It would consider unacceptable the circulationof tired, clichéd and frankly dehumanizingportrayals of West Papuans as cannibals, assubjects for entertainment on Australiantelevision. Given the tragedy of Australia’s ownStolen Generations from indigenous people,further Australian media interventions in thel i fe of Wawa, an already traumatisedindigenous child, should certainly be off limits.

Acknowledgements

Comments by Adam Stott, Peter King andMichael Webb helped to improve an earlierversion of this manuscript, for which I am mostgrateful.

Camellia Webb-Gannon is a Research Fellowwith the Digital Humanities Research Group atWestern Sydney University and is theCoordinator of the West Papua Project at TheUniversity of Sydney. Her PhD in Peace andConflict Studies from The University of Sydneyexamined the dynamics of unity and conflictwithin West Papua's independence movement.Recent research considers the impact of digitaltechnologies and the arts on human rightsadvocacy as well as local interpretations ofMelanesian indigenous rights, Melanesian self-determination movements, and concepts andmechanisms of justice in Oceania.

Recommended citation: Camellia Webb-Gannon, "Salvaging Democracy for WestPapuans in the Face of Australia-IndonesiaObstruction", The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 13,Issue 47, No. 1, November 23, 2015.

Related articles

• Camellia Webb-Gannon and Jim Elmslie, MSGHeadache, West Papuan Heartache?Indonesia's Melanesian Foray

• David Adam Stott, Would An IndependentWest Papua Be A Failing State?

• David Adam Stott, Indonesian Colonisation,Resource Plunder and West Papuan Grievances

Notes

1 R u p e r t S t a s c h , 2 0 1 4 , ‘ P o w e r s o fIncomprehension: Linguistic Otherness,Translators and Political Structure in NewGuinea Tourism Encounters’, Hau Journal ofEthnographic Theory 4:2.

2 Ibid.

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3 Hayden Cooper and Lisa Main, 2012,‘Australia Faces Links to West Papua Torture’,ABC’s 7:30.

4 Other examples (not Australian) of such mediaportrayals of West Papuans include thefollowing: Carl Hoffman, 2014, Savage Harvest:A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism and MichaelRockefeller's Tragic Quest for Primitive Art,Text Publishing; Milt Machlin, 1972, TheSearch for Michael Rockefeller, Putnam;Robert Norton, 2015, ‘Ambushed: Escaping theCannibals of West Papua, Indonesia’, YahooTravel; and Paul Raffaele, 2006, ‘Sleeping withCannibals’, Smithsonian Magazine.

5 Andrew MacIntyre and Douglas E Ramage,2008, ‘Seeing Indonesia as a Normal Country:Implications for Australia’, Australian StrategicPolicy Institute.

6 Jason MacLeod, 2010, ‘Papuan StruggleEnters New Phase’, Open Democracy.

This curtailment of political freedom extendsinto all provinces of Indonesia with theexception of Aceh which alone has been able tosuccessfully lobby (as part of its 2005 peacenegotiations with Jakarta) for the formation ofits own political parties.

7 Freeport is Indonesia’s largest revenuecontributor – in 2014 alone it paid theIndonesian government US$1.5 billion in tax(Nithin Coca, 2015, ‘West Papua: Mining in anOccupation Forgotten by the World’, EqualTimes). It operates the world’s largest goldmine and third largest copper mine in Timika,West Papua, and the untold environmentaldevastation it has wreaked during its tenure inWest Papua prompted the Norwegiangovernment, in 2008, to divest AU$1 billion

from Rio Tinto, Freeport’s partner in WestPapua (Benny Wenda, October 12, 2011,‘Everyone profits from West Papua, except forWest Papuans’, The Guardian). Papuan minersare paid unconscionable wages, the local

peoples – the Amungme and Komoro tribes –have lost ancestral lands of sacred, economic,and social significance, resultant internecineviolence abounds, and the military and policewage an ongoing war over ‘security’ contractsfor the mine (see Coca and Wenda, this note).

8 For an excellent exposition of the politics ofsecurity around Freeport, see Eben Kirksey andAndreas Harsono , 2008 , ‘Cr im ina lCollaborations? Antonius Wamang and theIndonesian Military in Timika,’ South East AsiaResearch 16:2, pp. 165-197.

9 ‘May 2015: While Jokowi Releases Five,Nearly 500 are Arrested’, Papuans BehindBars.

10 Andreas Harsono, June 12, 2015, ‘Jokowi,Human Rights in Indonesia and Peace in WestPapua’, Special Forum hosted by the Centre forPeace and Conflict and the Department ofIndonesian Studies at The University of Sydney.See also Coca, above n. 7.

11 Budi Hernawan, November 3, 2015, ‘The Riseof Pacific Solidarity for West Papua,’ SpecialForum hosted by the Centre for Peace andConflict Studies at The University of Sydney.

12 Ibid.

13 Stuart Rollo, 2013, ‘Ending Our PragmaticComplicity in West Papua’, The Drum.

1 4 See John Wing and Peter King, 2005,‘Genocide in West Papua? The Role of theIndonesian State Apparatus and a CurrentNeeds Assessment of the Papuan People’,Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, TheUniversity of Sydney;

Jim Elmslie and Camellia Webb-Gannon, 2013,‘A Slow-Motion Genocide: Indonesian Rule inWest Papua’, Griffith Journal of Law andHuman Dignity 1:2, pp. 142-166; ElizabethBrundige, Winter King, Priyneha Vahali,Stephen Vladeck and Xiang Yuan, 2004,

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‘Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in WestPapua: Application of the Law of Genocide tothe History of Indonesian Rule’, Allard KLowenstein International Human Rights ClinicYale Law School.

15 Richard Chauvel, 2012, ‘50 Years On,Australia’s Papua Policy Is Still Failing’, InsideStory.

16 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade,2006, ‘Agreement Between the Republic ofIndonesia and Australia on the Framework forSecurity Cooperation (“The Lombok Treaty”)’.

1 7 Hayden Cooper and Lisa Main, 2012,‘Australia Faces Links to West Papua Torture’,ABC’s 7:30.

18 Clinton Fernandes, 2013, ‘West Papuans inthe Consulate’, Right Now: Human Rights inAustralia.

19 Lauren Wilson, October 8, 2013, ‘AbbottWarns West Papuan Activists, The Australian.

20 Michael Bachelard, December 6, 2013, ‘LinesCrossed on Indonesia-Austral ia SpyAgreement’, The Sydney Morning Herald.

21 As mentioned in note 7, the Indonesianeconomy relies heavily on revenue raisedthrough Freeport’s mines in West Papua. In2013, Australia’s two-way trade with Indonesiaamounted to nearly $3.7 billion, and itsinvestment in Indonesia was “$10.9 billion, upfrom $6.2 bil l ion in 2012. Indonesianinvestment in Australia was around $959million in 2013” (Australian GovernmentDepartment of Foreign Affairs and Trade, n.d.,‘Indonesia Country Brief’).

22 Many of these songs have been collated onthe author’s YouTube channel.

23 Julian Smythe, 2013, ‘The Living Symbol ofSong in West Papua: A Soul Force To BeReckoned With’ Indonesia 95.

24 Asian Human Rights Commission, 2010, ‘TheIndonesian Military Ill-treat and TortureIndigenous Papuans'.

25 Papua Merdeka, 2014, ‘Anonymous Messageto the Indonesian Government About WestPapua Genocide’, YouTube.

26 See the Freedom Flotilla website.

27 Free West Papua Campaign, April 25, 2014,‘Free West Papua Campaign to Open NewOffice in Perth, Australia’, Free West PapuaCampaign.

28 See the Biak Massacre Citizens Tribunalwebsite.

29 Free West Papua Perth Australia, May 6,2015, ‘Membership for Free West Papua Party’.

30 Suresh Rajan, July 21, 2015, ‘“There AreMany Causes I Would Die For. There Is Not ASingle Cause I Would Kill For”. MahatmaG a n d h i ” , T h e S t r i n g e r ,http://thestringer.com.au/there-are-many-causes-i-would-die-for-there-is-not-a-single-cause-i-w o u l d - k i l l - f o r - m a h a t m a -gandhi-10650#.VflmKnvffkB.

31 See the “FWPP Response to the West PapuaSolidarity Movement Rejection of ReclaimAustralia Public Statement”.

32 Indigenous West Papuans are predominantlyChristian but a Papuan Muslim minority residesprimarily in the western coastal regions ofWest Papua in Fak Fak, Sorong, andManokwari (cities with a long history of tradewith other parts of Muslim Indonesia), and, to alesser extent, in the eastern cities of Meraukeand Jayapura. Independence leader Thaha AlHamid, originally from Kaimana on the westcoast of West Papua but now residing inJayapura, is Muslim. The number of indigenousMuslim Papuans is difficult to ascertain giventhat Papuan censuses are infrequent andunreliable.

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33 A statement by activists to this effect with thesignatures it has acquired has been posted tothe Australia West Papua Association blog site.

34 Amy McQuire, August 4, 2015, ‘Father of theAboriginal Flag Slams Reclaim Australia for“Idiotic” Appropriation’, New Matilda.

35 See the home page of the Reclaim Australiawebsite.

36 Pacific Beat, September 7, 2015, ‘West PapuaHuman Rights and Climate Change Top PacificIslands Forum Agenda’, ABC News.

37 Examples include protests for West Papuanindependence by New Zealand based activistcollective Oceania Interrupted (view theirwebsite here); the recent launching of a pan-Pacific solidarity group for West Papua byBenny Wenda in London (view his website

here); and calls in October 2015 by Tonga’sprime minister at the United Nations to takeaction on West Papua (ABC News, October 1,2015, ‘Tonga’s Prime Minister Calls on UN toTake Action on West Papua’, ABC News.

38 Susan Rees, Remco van de Pas, DerrickSilove and Moses Kareth, 2008, ‘Health andHuman Security in West Papua’, The MedicalJournal of Australia, 189 (11): 641-643.

3 9 J im E lms l i e , 2010 , ‘Wes t PapuanDemographic Transition and the 2010Indonesian Census: “Slow Motion Genocide” orNot?’ CPACS Working Paper 11/1, Centre forPeace and Conflict Studies, The University ofSydney.

40 Sally White, July 8, 2014, ‘Prabowo an‘Apocalypse’, Jokowi a False Promise: WestPapuans Opt Out’, Crikey.