West Papua Con't.

More about above picture here.

I've reposted a comment from yesterday's post on West Papua.

Hi,
The causes of genocide in West Papua are complex but are not so different to the genocide of Indigenous people in Australia, Canada, New Zealand or the US. Fundamentally the cause is that West Papua is home to an Indigenous culture that is 50,000 years old while the land is very resource rich. International Companies (mainly from the US, UK, Australia and Japan) support an Indonesian military fiefdom in Papua that due to weak governance in Jakarta is able to continue to implement Suharto era policies. Western Governments (especially Holland, Australia and the US) have a long history of ignoring the human rights of the Papuans to appease Indonesian regimes and support multinational extraction of Papuan resources while the Indigenous Papuans live in abject poverty on a par with the worst economies in Africa. Conservatively 100,000 Papuans have been murdered by the Indonesian security forces since 1963, but the figure is most likely much higher (the approx current pop of Indigenous Papuans is about 900,000).
Many Indonesians get angry with Westerners who speak out about human rights in Papua and point to the treatment of Indigenous people in our own countries. While this has some rhetorical value it becomes fairly empty when the high incidences of killings, arbitary detentions and suppression of Separatist activists.
Indonesia itself is suffering from weak institutions and is considered the 5th most corrupt country in the World which has led to Corruption, Collusion and Nepotism at all levels of government leading to extreme maldevelopment in Papua. In the post-Suharto period reformasi was the catch-cry and the Papuans also benefitted from this political change. However since the Bush Administration's push for the 'War on Terror' the rather fragile democracy in Indonesia has been strangled by Western support and funding of the Indonesian security forces (TNI) having disasterous consequences for the Papuans and civil society in Indonesia.
The Indonesian security forces often falsely claim the Australia is really behind the unrest in Papua and wish to steal Papua from Indonesia to garner support from the Indonesian population to continue their repressive policies in the province which enables them to increase their profits in the region - the Indonesian security forces receive 70% of their annual budget from outside of government coffers- usually from security forces businesses, both legal and illegal.
Americans can support Papua by supporting strong opponents of TNI oppression in Papua like Congressman Eni Faleomaveaga, who is currently Chair-person of the Congressional Foreign Affairs sub-Committee on Asia and the Pacific and encourage him to continue his work in revealing the genocide in Papua. Also by encouraging the Congress to questiuon the current administrations strong support and funding of the TNI.
Thirdly, Americans can question the legitimacy of the Indonesian ban on International journalist and Human Rights NGOs from entering Papua.

It's good to learn more about human rights in West Papua. I spent some time yesterday learning more about it. 100,000 (some estimate 200,000) aboriginal people have been killed in West Papua over the last 40 years. How could this happen without us knowing about it? Maybe because that's "only" about 2500 people a year? Not enough to hit the radar of the mainstream media. Maybe because they are "undeveloped stone age" people" (although I'd think that would catch the attention of a journalist). It's likely no one in the USA has ever heard of Congressman Eni Faleomavaega. He is the congressional delegate from American Samoa, one of the many American territories. While Rep. Faleomavaega can cast a vote on committees, he cannot vote on bills in congress (thus he probably has little support from a powerful lobby).

Rep. Faleomavaega does have the support of the Congressional Black Caucus as indicated by this press release in 2005. I wonder how much support Rep. Faleomavaega has from Pres. Bush? And yes, Pres. Bush is aware of the situation in West Papua (and here). I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for Pres. Bush to speak out against human rights violations by Indonesia in West Papua. He can't. He doesn't have the moral capital.