Poor West Irian!
Poor West Irian!
I am serious; I have a dream that one day I can see and taste
the snow of Irian Jaya. Maybe it tastes different than the snow
in Norway or in Holland or in Japan. I really do not know and I
have not met anybody who has that silly idea.
As an Indonesian, there is reason to be proud of the fact that
Irian Jaya is like part of a continent. It is rich in minerals
and the ideal transportation means is the aircraft though the
local population are content with a motorboat or with a bamboo
raft to catch fish. Every child knows that the beautiful male and
rather strangely looking and sounding bird of paradise comes from
Papua.
But if one looks back in history, what comes to mind is the
Dutch Indonesian conflict over the sovereignty of the territory
under the supervision of the United Nations. It was in 1956 that
I was involved in efforts at having the territory be placed under
Indonesia's administration. The Dutch ruled this archipelago for
about 350 years until the end of World War II in 1945 when
Indonesia proclaimed its independence on Aug. 17.
The Dutch former colonial administration refused to recognize
Indonesia's claim over what was then called West New Guinea. It
wanted to have the territory separated from the rest of
Indonesia, claiming that it was ethnically different. An
unofficial war of attrition developed between the Dutch who still
occupied the territory and Indonesian army and naval units.
Indonesia dropped guerrilla troops to wage an underground
resistance in the territory. At sea war ships of both parties
engaged in deadly clash. We know that admiral Jos Sudarso
perished in one of the battles in the Arafuru sea.
The part I played was very insignificant through of historic
value to me personally. I was requested by the then ambassador of
Indonesia at the United Nations, Ibu Supeni Pudjobuntoro, to head
the editorship of special weekly magazine in English that catered
for the international audience aimed at popularizing Indonesia's
claim over West Irian. The magazine was called Ampera which stood
for Amanat Penderitaan Rakyat (message of people's suffering).
The Library of Congress in the United States used to send its
representative top get a copy of Ampera. When you were so closely
involved in the past of solving the West New Guinea of Irian Jaya
at the international level as a journalist, understandably you
will be saddened by the latest outbreak of violence in Wamena.
The suffering of the people of West Irian is continuing until
today, regretfully. Now everything is ugly.
GANDHI SUKARDI
Jakarta