Indonesia's dictator Suharto (who was put into power by the US) annexed West Papua in the 60's on behalf of US corporations. Indigenous groups united together to form the Free Papua Movement (OPM) and wage a guerilla war of resistance. The resistance is ongoing and most of West Papua (which is basically a colony) and PNG (which is basically a banana republic) want reunification
> The resistance is ongoing and most of West Papua
I'm unsure if that's an accurate description. I would say it is more accurate to say that West Papua is being genocided. Indigenous West Papuans are being genocided by settlers from Java. More than 500,000 West Papuans have been killed according to estimates by indigenous groups. It is hard to verify since Javanese settlers (Prabowo is Javanese) control the army and no media or journalists, and not even Indonesians are allowed to enter West Papua. This year, thousands of excavators were shipped on barges into West Papua. Western corporations like Freeport McMoran are complicit. It is horrific to see videos that have come out. There is one which I saw, I still get nightmares. It is an indigenous Papuan man being skinned alive in a drum of water. The name that was spread was Defianus Kogoya. It is so sad... West Papua was one of the most beautiful places on this planet with inland seawater lakes that had non-venomous jellyfish in Misool. Cave systems with handprints said to pre-date the Toba erruption. All of this being destroyed.
> I would say it is more accurate to say that West Papua is being genocided
I can just add it has been going on for a while in recent history and noone talks about it.
Gives you opportunity to think how deeply flawed our media is.
“The media” are simply a mouthpiece for the ultra-wealthy. Basically their propaganda arm.
I obviously think this is an oversimplification but I've also slowly come to believe this is basically accurate. Reading the history of the Guatemala coup that the US did and the role the NYTimes played in it is very convincing evidence for this view
Save the orangutans? or sell more Oreos? Hmmm
Our media mostly talks about things we have something to do with.
Defianus Kogoya: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Gome_torture_scandal
A few years ago I got to accompany a small group of friends to an isolated tiny village on the southern coast of SW Papua, and I swam with the jellyfish in one of the inland saltwater lakes you’re describing! That trip still remains the coolest place I’ve ever been.
> and no media or journalists, and not even Indonesians are allowed to enter West Papua.
Uh, no? There's an active tourism industry particularly around the Baliem Valley and the Raja Ampat islands. You can fly into any of the larger cities without a permit, and while travel in the interior does require permits (surat jalan), these are usually readily granted.
This is not to dismiss the scale of state violence against the OPM and any civilians caught in the net, but Papua is hardly a hermetically sealed off North Korea.
> Papua is hardly a hermetically sealed off North Korea.
We're talking about West Papua. Not Papua New Guinea. The Western half of the island is occupied by the Prabowo regime. The Prabowo regime enforces strict limitations on international journalists, human rights monitors, and foreign researchers trying to enter the region. Indonesian authorities have consistently restricted or delayed official access to West Papua for high-level United Nations representatives, including requests from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. All of this is done with full knowledge by collaborating companies like Blackrock (owner of Freeport McMoran) that massive human rights abuses, we're talking about at a level greater than that in the middle east is actively being committed there.
Wow. Really? This sounds terrible.
I am shocked it’s not reported about in Western media.
> I am shocked it’s not reported about in Western media.
Average american already has their hands full (slash "their brain full") with local matters - family, friends, community. It's hard enough to get attention to spare to turn to national matters, much less stuff that happens on the other side of the world in non-allied poor countries.
western media has a habit of not reporting on atrocities they are complicit in. When the genocide in Indonesia happened (where as many as 2 million were killed) they presented it as liberation from communist sympathizers. Union workers, and people of certain ethnicities or religions that were seen as sympathetic to communism were all put to death. Goodyear Tire company, just 2 decades after the Holocaust, was using labor from death camps for its rubber manufacturing. US corporations in general had a lot to gain from the genocide
There are lots of atrocities all over the world that western media just ignores flat out. But they do hyper focus on one or two specific cases for their political agenda.
Hell, then love self flagellating about how they themselves (the west) are the worst people on earth, which is also a political agenda and is only convincing if you ignore pretty much all of human history and large parts of the current day reality elsewhere in the world.
It's so ironic that your first paragraph is an example of your second.
Both paragraphs are criticisms of western media, I’m not sure I follow your point
Paradise Broadcasting also made an incredible documentary[0] on the bombing of OPM by the Indonesian government. The follow up videos are great as well.
[0]: https://youtu.be/65_DgLwjePA
Carved open whole mountains: https://imgsrv2.voi.id/kn25_PwLY-AF-WW29WhOyKglpuHx95_W7T90y...
In regards to Suharto, it seems the 1965 coup attempt that got him into power was a surprise even to the US embassy in Jakarta, but of course they welcomed it, considering the previous president (Sukarno) was anti-imperialist and was flirting with the 3rd largest communist party in the world (after USSR's and China's).
Somewhat relatedly, a documentary moviemaker realized what was behind the curtain of Indonesian society and said "it's as if I had wandered into Germany 40 years after the Holocaust only to find the Nazis still in power.". He made a documentary following a man who was sanctioned by the Suharto regime to kill a lot of "communists" in 1960's Indonesia: The Act of Killing (available at e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TDeEObjR9Q ).
A review:
> Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing is a challenging documentary. It is not only difficult to watch, but it also probes into one of the most grotesque aspects of human nature: the capacity for self-delusion in the face of horrific atrocities. This isn’t a film about history, facts, or statistics; it’s about the memories of the men who killed, the stories they tell themselves, and how they continue to live with the horrors they’ve inflicted on others. The film’s power lies in its ability to take the viewer beyond a surface-level understanding of evil and into the psychological abyss of those who have committed atrocities—and seemingly moved on with their lives.
From: https://docthisway.com/2024/09/23/the-act-of-killing-review/
A book 'The Jakarta Method' by Vincent Bevis is a great exploration of those events and similar cases of deliberate destruction of the independent third world.
> netsharc 51 minute ago
> This video is no longer available because the YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated.
Someone's quick on the draw this morning
Oops. Admittedly I copy/pasted the 2nd half of my comment.
This one works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKoP2PnU60s (but according to https://tools.watannetwork.com/blocked in Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, and United States)
Blocked.
I hear 'The Act of Killing' is an amazing film. But I am not sure if I can bring myself to watch it.
It's maybe not as bad as you might think. People reminiscing about killing rather than footage of it.
Still sounds horrible.
The link is down. Did anyone from here report the movie?
This one works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QKoP2PnU60s
Sorry, I copy/pasted half my reply from an old comment.
Still doesn’t work
Shrugs. Works for me.
Sorry YouTube regional-based DRM (presumably) is fucking you. Director's name and documentary title is available, you're going to need to search it for yourself.
Worked for me
> Suharto (who was put into power by the US)
Suharto was responsible for his own rise. He took money and intel from wherever he liked and was basically an independent & ruthless strongman. Neither he nor other Indonesians need to be infantilized by lazy neocolonial narratives.
The coup was literally armed and equipped by the US. The US provided intelligence, made the plan, did the homework. They even gave them list of targets. Wherever you wanna draw the line, no one would seriously deny that he could've gained power without the US.
The US' strategy to use a proxy to commit heinous crimes against humanity is named after this event. It's called the Jakarta Method.
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