The Causes of the Emergence of Free Papua Movement in the Eastern Indonesia - Intoduction to Political Science Semester Assignment IRs IC UMY 09

The Causes of the Emergence of

Free Papua Movement in the Eastern Indonesia

By:

Gigih Shofa Uzaman (2009 0510 058)

International Class of International Relations

Muhammadiyah University of Yogyakarta

Abstract

Free Papua Movement or Organisasi Papua Merdeka (Bahasa Indonesian) is separatist movement in the eastern provinces on Indonesia. This organization has started its movement at the early time of unification of Papua into Indonesia; Free Papua Movement wants to make Papua as an independent state and claims Jakarta’s authority as a colonizer. At the very beginning of its movement, it has been using violence and military threat to Indonesia but General Suharto was successful to put it down. [1]

After the reign of Suharto ended; Free Papua Movement has emerged to the surface of Indonesian politics to gain independent from it. They have been through many ways, such as; demonstration, terrorism and military threat. Recently, Free Papua Movement gains many followers from the indigenous people of Papua and started intensive military confrontation to Indonesian army. [2]

In this paper, the writer wrote a brief history of Papua and the four main causes why the OPM was justifying themselves to resist and fight for their independent. The writer also wrote the conclusion on how OPM have been resisting making the entire western Papua as independent state from Indonesia.

A Brief History of Papua and Free Papua Movement

The history of Papua is very unique. The word Papua has been defined by many historians and some of them believed that the word Papua came from old Malay version which meant “curly”. The Spaniards who came into that region also gave it a name, Neuva Guinea or Nova Guinea because the indigenous people are black and curly just like the people of Guinea in the West Africa. The Dutch called it as Netherland West Papua. Also the people of Sorong named the region as Iryan or emerging sun light through sea’s clouds and Sukarno popularized it as “ikut Republik Indonesia anti Nederlan” or uniting with the Republic of Indonesian and stand against the Netherland.[3]

In the book of Kertagama by Mpu Prapanca, Onin and Biak belonged to Majapahit authority in Java right before the kingdom of Ternate took over.  Then the kingdom of Ternate took over in 1600s and finally in the early of 18 century, the Dutch took it over from Ternate by defeating them. The Dutch colonizers made it as its colony and divided it into many regions which were led by governors. The central of its government was in Holandia or we know it today is Jayapura.

In 1949, the Netherland acknowledged Indonesia as independent state and also promised to the Papuans to give them independent. Indonesia wanted Papua to be the part of them because the formation of Indonesia based on Dutch colony in South East Asia. Dutch and Indonesia had come into many battles and lost many casualties over the control of Papua and finally Indonesia won the battles and Dutch handed it over in 1962. In order to keep the prestige of the Netherland; they requested Indonesia to make referendum for all Papuans whether they wanted to be the part of Indonesia or part of the Netherland or become independent state. The result of referendum was to unite with Indonesia.

This condition made Papua in chaos because there are three groups of people who had their own groups’ interests. Finally there were some organizations which aimed to gain independent through military separatism and violence; OPM or Free Papua Movement emerged in Papua.

The Causes of the Emergence of Free Papua Movement (OPM)

OPM was formed in 1965 which was led by Oom Nicolas Jouwe and two OPM commanders, Seth Jafeth Roemkorem and Jacob Hendrik Prai, planned to announce Papuan Independence in 1971. On 1 July 1971 Roemkorem and Prai declared a Republic of West Papua, and drafted a constitution.[4] In order to fulfill their goal; they made many terrors and attacks towards Indonesian government authority and military.  Their resistance was caused by several reason, they are:

1.      Willingness to gain independent for its own. One of the three groups really hoped and wanted to gain its independent. Their dream vanished when the Netherland handed over Papua to Indonesia. This group of people gave the strongest offensive towards Jakarta’s authority by spreading terror and military intervention. OPM also tried to take control many important places in Papua such as Jayapura. Their resistance was finally put down by General Suharto and was silent for many decades until the reformation and the fall of General Suharto. [5]

2.      Suharto’s bias economy decisions in Papua also made the indigenous Papuans very angry and wanted to resist. The coming of Freeport and give very little share for Papuans and brought most of the share to Jakarta was the main reason for them to resist in the term of economic case. In the early agreement; the Papuans only got 1% share from 100% profit of Freeport. In that case, the Indonesian government basically has also mistaken by letting the Papuan suffering on their own golden lands. This fact is becoming the main reason for the Papuans today to resist and gain their independent from Jakarta.

3.      Injustice policies in Papua such as low share rate and giving very small amount of national budget allocation to build Papua were viewed as discrimination. People in Java could enjoy many facilities, in contrast with Papua; people were just neglected by the government. The central government did not build many qualified schools in Papua and it could be viewed as discrimination towards certain ethics by the indigenous. The roads in Papua were also very bad and improper despite of its high money contribution to Jakarta. This “massive injustice” was vied by many Papuan as discrimination. So this phenomenon justified them to resist and fight for its independent.

4.      Domination of non-indigenous citizens in many big cities in Papua in many sectors such as; economy, health, business and politics also worsen the condition. The indigenous Papuans believe that they should be in the equal place with other Indonesian citizens. This might also be very significant reason for many indigenous Papuans and due to this phenomenon.  In 1984, groups of OPM launched a massive attack to Jayapura and tried take control of the city. Although this action was put down by the army, it did not stop the hatred and it was also reported that OPM gained more sympathy from the indigenous people.

Conclusion

OPM or Free Papua Movement has been trying to gain independent from Indonesia and made an independent state of Papua. They have been trying to resist from 1965 until today. There are four main reasons to justify themselves to resist, they are:

·         Willingness to build their own state since before the independent of Indonesia.

·         Suharto’s bias economic decision.

·         Unjust policies for Papua.

·         Domination of non-indigenous citizens in many crucial factors.

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[1] Wikipedia.org

[2] Okezone.com

[3] Kaskus.com

[4] West Papua News and Information

[5] Monbiot, George. Poisoned Arrows: An Investigative Journey to the Forbidden Territories of West Papua