No I wasn't aware of the history of Indonesian imperialism in West Papua - the western half of New Guinea - till now. Peter Tatchell tells the story at CiF.
Comments
Just a guess but the US and Australia were getting into the whole Domino Theory/Vietnam thing at about the time the UN gift wrapped West Papua. I'm sure that US Pres. Nixon was counting on Indonesia's anti-communist government, led by Suharto, for support and wasn't about to alienate him.
Who else was there to speak out?
This timeline http://www.gimonca.com/sejarah/sejarah10.shtml is very helpful in understanding why the West, starting in '66, owed Indonesia's Suharto.
(sorry, I meant to include the link in my earlier post.)
This part from the article is interesting: "Sadly, the anti-imperialist left will not be joining us [at a demonstration against Indonesia's occupation]. They don't support the West Papuan freedom struggle. The Indonesian killers are the wrong race, the wrong nationality and the wrong religion. In other words, they are not white Christian American killers."
Just a guess but the US and Australia were getting into the whole Domino Theory/Vietnam thing at about the time the UN gift wrapped West Papua. I'm sure that US Pres. Nixon was counting on Indonesia's anti-communist government, led by Suharto, for support and wasn't about to alienate him.
Who else was there to speak out?
Posted by: DaninVan | December 01, 2006 at 07:56 AM
This timeline http://www.gimonca.com/sejarah/sejarah10.shtml is very helpful in understanding why the West, starting in '66, owed Indonesia's Suharto.
(sorry, I meant to include the link in my earlier post.)
Posted by: DaninVan | December 01, 2006 at 08:04 AM
This part from the article is interesting: "Sadly, the anti-imperialist left will not be joining us [at a demonstration against Indonesia's occupation]. They don't support the West Papuan freedom struggle. The Indonesian killers are the wrong race, the wrong nationality and the wrong religion. In other words, they are not white Christian American killers."
Posted by: Dom | December 01, 2006 at 02:45 PM