Source:  www.assistnews.net

Date:  2008-04-30

- a call for attention to the plight of the West Papuans

By Elizabeth Kendal
World Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (WEA RLC)
Special to ASSIST News Service

AUSTRALIA (ANS) -- When Indonesia declared its independence from Holland in 1949, the Dutch insisted that West Papua (West or Dutch New Guinea) not be considered part of Indonesia as the Papuans were Melanesian and predominantly Christian, while the Indonesians were Malay and Asian and predominantly Muslim. So the Dutch remained in the hotly contested territory, preparing the people for independence. The Dutch era was marked by openness and the Papuans, who were evangelised mostly by Australian and American pioneer missionaries courtesy Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) USA, turned from shamanism, headhunting, cannibalism and internecine tribal war to Christ.

In 1961 a West Papuan Council was elected, a flag was designed and a national anthem composed. Indonesia was furious and responded with an invasion. The United Nations intervened to prevent war. But these were also Cold War days. The Soviets had brokered an arms deal with Indonesia and so America, determined to secure geo-strategic Indonesia in the Western sphere of influence, trumped the Soviets by brokering a comparable arms deal and secretly offering to help Indonesia secure control of West Papua. (Note: The giant US-owned corporation, Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc., had discovered gold in West Papua in 1960.)

In New York in August 1962, the US, on behalf of Indonesia, brokered an agreement with the Netherlands by which the territory's administration would be transferred to a UN temporary authority (UNTEA) until 1 May 1963. Control of West Papua would then be handed over to Indonesia on the understanding that a plebiscite would be held before the end of 1969 allowing the Papuans to vote for or against separation fr om Indonesia. Thus the Indonesians had six years to win the hearts and minds of the Papuans.

On 1 May 1963, upon assuming administrative control of West Papua, Indonesia disbanded the elected West Papuan Council, burned West Papuan flags and banned the West Papuan national anthem. An era of colonisation, violent repression, exploitation, murder, racism and human rights abuses (including torture) at the hands of the corrupt Indonesian military (TNI) had begun. The plebiscite was totally rigged and West Papua (Irian Jaya) was formally annexed by Indonesia on 17 September 1969. (Note: Indonesia sold Freeport the rights to mine in West Papua in 1967 -- two years before annexation.)

The intensity of repression and the rate of colonisation have escalated dramatically since Indonesia lost control of East Timor in 1999. Furthermore, the Islamic revival of the past two decades has added a religious dimension to the Papuans' plight, with Islamists regarding West Papua as dar-al-Islam (house of Islam) and pursuing its full Islamis ation. The Laskar Jihad has been set up in West Papua since 2000 and when the jihad in the Moluccas ended, the out-of-work jihadists flooded into West Papua.

The Papuans will soon be a minority in their own land. They are facing genocide due to TNI abuses, Indonesian government policies and international commercial interests. The Papuans have been sacrificed to genocide for the sake of geopolitics, 'peace' and profits. The Church must be their voice.

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY FOR --

• God to bless greatly all West Papuan pastors and Christian leaders with words of faith, grace and wisdom as they stand before their congregations, in the midst of their communities, in the presence of their persecutors and in the halls of their colonial masters.
  
  
• all the innocent Papuans, including many Christians and even some pastors, who are suffering in Indonesian prisons, or who bear the hardships and wounds of TNI brutality. May the Holy Spirit draw each one closer to God, and may th ey know justice.
  
  
• God to awaken the conscience of the Church and the world to the plight of the West Papuans.

'Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke? . . . and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?' (From Isaiah 58:6-8 NIV)