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