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Papua and the Indonesian Struggle for Independence

Papua, particularly the Digul Region, also played an important part in the national struggle for independence.  It became a symbol of the Indonesian struggle against colonialism. In the late 1920s,  about 823 Indonesians, along with 473 women and children, accused of taking part in an uprising against the colonial government  in various parts of Indonesia, were forced into exile without  trial in Tanah Merah, about 500 kilometers upstream of the  Digul  River.  In those  days the  journey took three days by motorboat  from the  river's mouth  on the  southern shore to an area  less than one square kilometer that was cleared from the surrounding   wild  tropical  jungles  dotted  with  malaria-infested ponds.

Later, Indonesian student leaders such as Sutan Sjahrir and Muhammad Hatta (with whom Soekarno in 1945 proclaimed Indonesia's independence)  found  their  way  to  Tanah  Merah. There,  Hatta wrote his famous book "Alam Pikiran Yunani” (The World  of Greek Thoughts)  in which  he discussed the ideas of freedom and democracy. In some ways, the label "ex-Digulist" had become a "proof" of their struggle for Indonesian independence. All of these have strengthened the emotional ties between Papua and the other Indonesian islands.

The Restoration of West Papua into Indonesia:
1945-1949

After Japan surrendered, the Netherlands returned to Indonesia as part of the allied force deployed in Indonesia. They ignored the fact that the Indonesian people had exercised their right to selt­.determination and were ready to re-impose colonial rule over the Indonesian archipelago. An armed conflict between Indonesia and the Netherlands ensued and it only ended when the parties concluded a peace agreement at The Hague in 1949 in which the Netherlands recognized and accepted tile independence and sovereignty of Indonesia.


Two days after Soekarno and Mohammad Hatta proclaimed Indonesia's independence on August 17, 1945, the Committee for the Preparation of Indonesia's Independence announced the division of  Indonesia into eight provinces: Sumatra, West  Java, Central  Java,  East  Java,  Lesser  Sunda,  Maluku  (Moluccas), Sulawesi :(Celebes) and Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo).  West Papua was part of the Maluku Province, which during the time of the Netherlands Indies was a residency (an administrative unit of the colonial government). Hence, since the very beginning West Papua was never regarded as being separate from the rest of Indonesia.

In his radio address to the nation on August 23, 1945, President Soekarno reiterated that West Papua was part of the new republic. He said: "My people! In Sumatra, in Java, in Borneo, Sulawesi, Lesser Sunda, Moluccas-from Aceh to Merauke!" Undeniably, the territory of the Republic of Indonesia covers the whole of the Netherlands Indies, including West Papua. During this period, the slogan "from Sabang   (the northernmost tip of Sumatra) to Merauke (southernmost town of the Dutch East Indies in the lsland of Papua) was commonly used to describe the nation's territory.


This period also witnessed efforts by the Dutch to artificially separate West Papua from the rest of Netherlands Indies. On July 1946, the Dutch Colonial Government-which had just returned from exile in Australia-sponsored a conference, the so-called Malino Conference, in Makassar, South Sulawesi. The conference was a conscious effort by Lieutenant Governor General H.J. van Mook to circumscribe the weight and scope of the new Republic, by making it only a state in the proposed Unitary. States of   Indonesia along with the States of East Indonesia and Kalimantan. The term "Malinosasi” or "Malinonization" was then' often used among the Republicans to describe this divide et impera policy of the colonial government.

Mr. Frans Kaisiepo, a native Papuan leader appointed by the colonial government to represent Papua,  rejected van Mook's proposed federation and instead delivered his own proposal of changing the   name of the territory from "Nederlands Niew Guinea" into Irian. Irian derived from the native language of Biak Island in Northern Papua, which means "sun rays that disperse sea mists".  It alludes to the "hope" of Biak fishermen at sea to reach Papua Island beyond the horizon.

The colonial government was not happy with Kaisiepo's actions, In the follow-up conference in benpasar on December 1946, a Dutchman was sent to represent the Papuan people, despite repeated appeals by   the Papuan people to the Resident of Papua, Mr. J. van Eechoud. On December 12,.1946 Papuan leaders: Marthen Indey, Corrinus Krey and Nicolas Youwe dispatched a telegram to the Lieutenant   Govemor General stating that West Papua cannot be separated from the Republic of Indonesia.

The Lieutenant Governor General in the meantime quietly sowed the seed of the Dutch's latter claim that Papua was separate from lndonesia by establishing a separate Papua residency from the Residency of Moluccas. This made Papua a "separate" political entity. During subsequent conferences in Pangkal Pinang and in Denpasar, Lieutenant Governor General van  Mook resisted  all efforts to include Papua Island in the State of Eastern Indonesia. Other Indonesian participants overwhelmingly opposed this position.

In the end, however, van Mook  himself  admitted  that  it  was "decidedly, not the intention of the Dutch Government to exclude New Guinea from  Indonesia." Thus started a long· and violent dispute between Indonesia and the Netherlands over the status of West Papua.

Yet, during the series of negotiations between Indonesia and the' Dutch Government that  led to  the  Round Table Conference in December 1949, the Dutch Government acknowledged that Indonesia comprised the entire territory of the Netherlands East Indies, including West Papua. Article 3 of the   Linggardjati Agreement (1947) stated that:

"The United States of Indonesia shall comprise the entire territory of the Netherlands East  Indies."

On January 17, 1948, the Renville Agreement, reached.under the auspices of the United Nations. Good Offices Committee, stated inter alia:

"Sovereignty throughout the Netherlands East Indies is and shall  remain with  the  Kingdom  of the Netherlands until, after a stated interval, the Kingdom of Netherlands transfer its sovereignty to the United States of Indonesia"

Once again, it was explicitly stated that the Netherlands.. East Indies would be replaced by a new sovereign and independent state of Indonesia.