Claim on W. Irian in 1950s<\/p>\n
This is a response to Mr. B. Ubany's letter published in The
\nJakarta Post on Sept. 4, 1995. I still stand firm by what I said
\nin my previous letter (Aug. 31, 1995) that during the many years
\nIndonesia was conducting a campaign to regain West Irian from
\nDutch control, I never saw any article or letter in the
\nAustralian press or talk on television by the Indonesian Embassy
\nto counter the Australian opposition to our claim. Indeed, what I
\nreiterated above was neither denied nor contradicted by Mr. Ubany
\nin his letter. As for the talks he gave in Perth, Adelaide and
\nHobart or his talk televised on ABC, I am afraid I was not aware
\nof them but, as intimated by Mr. Ubany himself, those talks were
\nnot about West Irian.<\/p>\n
Mr. Ubany did indicate, however, that in view of the strong
\nsupport given by the press and mass media to the Australian
\ngovernment's opposition to the Indonesian claim, the embassy
\nfound it difficult to present its views through the media. But if
\nthis was really the case, why was it that the leading newspaper
\nin Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald, agreed to publish my
\nlong letter on West Irian in 1959, in which I pointed out that
\nWest Irian, being an integral part of the former Dutch East
\nIndies, should now revert to Indonesia as the legal successor
\nstate of the Dutch colony? I also tried in the article to counter
\nsome of the Australian government's arguments about the ethnic
\nand cultural differences between the indigenous peoples of West
\nIrian and those of the rest of Indonesia by stressing that
\nIndonesia was not a homogeneous state ethnically or culturally
\nand never was intended to be so.<\/p>\n
Coming back to Mr. Ubany's letter, I did hear about the
\nshocking incident at the campus of the New South Wales University
\nof Technology in July 1956. I must congratulate Mr. Ubany for his
\nbrave attempt to talk about the Indonesian claim on West Irian in
\nthe face of those wild hecklers specially brought in from
\noutside. Nevertheless, I still believe that a campaign through
\nthe mass media would have been more effective than a direct talk
\nto a relatively small audience.<\/p>\n
MASLI ARMAN<\/p>\n
Jakarta<\/p>", "url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/claim-on-w-irian-in-1950s-1447893297", "image": "" }, "sponsor": "Okusi Associates", "sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com" }