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INFO PAPUA : Political & Diplomacy : Political Loby

Free choice farce in 69 and now!
By PNG : Post Courier Editorial.
Nov 17, 2009, 13:54

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Post Courier Editorial Friday 17 November, 2009
Free choice farce in 69 and now!

THE “Act of Free Choice’’: what a phrase to use to describe the stripping of a whole country of its right to self-determination!

That phrase was the political label used by the then Indonesian regime to suck what was then called West Papua into the web of Jakarta, 40 years ago. A thousand appointed leaders, chosen by the Indonesians, “cast their votes’’ and predictably it went in favour of Jakarta rule.Everybody in the world realised it was jargon to excuse a military-backed takeover of the western half of the Island of New Guinea, as it was and still is known to geographers and historians. Now, belatedly, parts of the developed and developing world are hearing the call of lobbyists to try to unlock some basic human rights for the people left in the vast valleys and mountains of isolated Papua.

Their most recent case to whip Jakarta about is the alleged torture and killing of a community leader, Yawan Wayeni, on August 3.
West Papua or Irian Jaya or Papua as it is now known was the cause celebre of the 60s and 70s, with many prominent commentators and rights activists fighting the battle of words against Indonesia.

It is history now that the protests did little to aid the Papuans and now they are a people very much under the all-constricting control of the Jakarta regime. One of the world’s biggest and longest running mineral ventures, Freeport, is in Papua and is like a country unto itself with the American investment protected vigorously by the country’s military. Now several Papua New Guinea thinkers have taken up the international challenge to highlight the Indonesian military’s way of punishing free thinkers in Papua.

Powes Parkop and Jamie Maxtone-Graham are among the PNG leaders who are willing to sign up and give voice to the campaign.

This will not surprise many. To their denigrators, they are liberals, critics looking for causes. To their fans, they are human rights stalwarts sticking up for the downtrodden.

Don’t expect them to get any real support from the Government. Governments of all varieties for Papua New Guinea since the Canberra team ran us as a colony have all ducked and weaved on this issue. Once in power, politicians tend to bury their principles in a mulch heap of rotting expediency and deals “for the national good’’. Meaning, we don’t want to embarrass our powerful neighbours.

(http://www.postcourier.com.pg/20091117/tuhome.htm)

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