@saintfletcher:

And there was never "Inodesian massacre of Chinese". This only exists in your imagination. There was anti-communist purge in 1960s since these godless commies tried to violently overthrow the govt under order of Peking and Moscow, not once but twice. We all know what kinds of slaughterhouse gulags commies will built should Indonesia fell to their hands. Indonesian communist party actually barred ethnic-Chinese from membership, so they escape from the counter-revolution.

There was riots in 1998 due to Chinese monopoly of economy due to preferential treatment they received under Suharto. This is similar with economic-based anti-Chinese riots in Australia in 1850s-60s when Australians were still poor illiterate people. Now, after Suharto fell, anti-native economic discrimination was lifted and no more anti-Chinese violence ever occured since.

LOL, I couldn't care less whether Australians has white, black, red, purple, or magenta-coloured skin. I am merely showing the dark dark history of white racist violence towards other races. You are just angry because I've exposed this uncomfortable truth, particularly the despicable genocide against Aborigines. I know truth hurts, but it must be told :-)

"I don't think Australia should facilitate referenda in West Papua and Arche"

The best solution is for Australia to 100% keep out completely out of Indonesian affairs aka MYOB. BTW, as Papua is already acknowledged as part of Indonesia by two UN resolutions based on the valid 1969 UN-supervised referendum, UN has zero authority over Papua or any other part of Indonesia. ;-)

@Ningtyas:

You can see how these whites always see any attempt by us to reason with them as sign of weakness. You patiently seek to reason with Ludwig, instead this guy treat you with contempt by questioning the right of Indonesia to exist!

And this same guy went nuts when we question the illegal white theft of Aboriginal land! What a perverse hypocrite! It is clear we must never trust Australians. There is no need to have relations with back-stabbing Australians wish ill for our country.

PTBI said on 12 May (above) re my alleged:
"claim that Australia is capable to invade Indonesia, the largest archipelago in the world with 20,000 islands stretchting the distance from Ireland to Iran with 250 million-strong population, is hilarious joke. Even US military, the strongest in the world, failed to defeat Iraq, a small and relatively simple country. Indonesians will easily repluse any Australian invaders, we will make a bloody mincemeat out of Australian soldiers, and our soldiers will make large collections of dead Diggers' ears."

Couple of points. I did not say that we could invade Indonesia. Foolish, futile & fatal, that wd be. I did say Australia's military "electronic warfare capabilities would shut down Indon military communications, thus decapitating TNI from the outset. Our Air Force could remodel central Jakarta; our navy cd close the Malaccca and Sunda straits, sinking the Indon Navy in the process; our Army would probably not even need to fight." I stand by that analysis, which does not involve invasion.

I was appalled by the reference to "large collections of dead Diggers' ears." I know that a New Zealand soldier killed in E. Timor was mutilated in this fashion, allegedly by the "militia" which trashed the country and committed atrocities against the population. Thanks, PTBI, for telling the world that this is a practice of elements in TNI itself. You reveal these elements, who do not even show respect to enemy dead, to be half-civilised barbarians. How wd you like it if TNI dead were each buried with a pork chop? That wd be an equally uncivilised and barbarous thing to do. Have we really come to this?

@ Ludwig,
Indonesians do not allow their parts split off, because they are not yet an imaginary futuristic society who regularly asking provincial people if they like joining or prefer to build a new state.

For citizen like me, freedom for Papuans okays, for Acehneses okays, Sundanese, Buginese, Balinese etc. And you need thousands states in Indo for people to have their freedom totally formalised.

For now, maintaining one shared, established identity "indonesia" is just a lot easy for us, instead of inventing the other ones, that would just create uncertainty in the future. That's why mostly Indonesians are so reluctant to let West Papuans go. Papuans independence probably will motivate other groups to build new states and more, and we only end up with thousands failed states with thousands separatists. And you will see that Java and Javanese will suffer less anarchic periods because they are culturally mature for developing a society, but many places outside Java will suffer constant conflicts due to different indentities and interests and lack of leadership.

But I feel some Australians are so eager to see disintegrated Indonesia, just because failed states competing each other will make them feel more secure, instead of seeing huge, united Indonesia. If this is true, then they are no less racist than their ancestors in their past history, and we are happy to be their enemy.

Jelata

Can you please clarify:

“For citizen like me, freedom for Papuans okays,….”

Are you saying that it would be alright by you if Papuans, or a few significant groups, received independence, just as long as it didn’t trigger other provincial peoples to push harder for independence? You could divide Indonesia into perhaps hundreds. Bearing that in mind, would five or ten independent states be so bad?

It may be better to hold it all together as one state or it may not. If it requires a repressive Suharto-style regime to keep peoples within Indonesia who really don’t want to be there, or to keep some groups from strongly protesting and causing civil strife (or leading to the army causing civil strife - whichever way you want to look at it) then you have a very difficult situation.

Alternatively, as you say, provinces that come under their own rule may not find peace due to power struggles and may risk becoming failed states.

Do you advocate a strong regime with the suppression of uprising or violence by force where necessary, which would probably keep the physical push for secession to a minimum, but which would work to harden some peoples’ resolve to push for secession and thus lead to ongoing unrest…… or do you advocate a minimum of heavy-handed tactics, which will no doubt mean increased uprising from some quarters, but a general increased contentment or tolerance?

It is hellishly difficult and I sympathise with Indonesia. But I feel that a hard and fast dictum of solidarity is not necessarily the right approach. I suggest that the latter option is the better one, and that those provinces that really demand independence be given it…if the separatists really represent the majority of the people, and if they can demonstrate that they can govern themselves and have a healthy trade relationship with Indonesia.

So, I can understand why Indonesia wants to hold on to Papua, quite apart from the farmable land and mineral wealth that exist there. But I will maintain that the Papuans should have the call.

Ludwig
it won't be bad if you learn a bit about Indonesia-Papua history and not making opinion based of half-truth information.
Indonesia is the successor of the Netherland East Indies, and that includes Papua (Western New Guinea). In 1949 there was already a Pro-Indonesian Party founded by Papuans in Papua, named Partai Indonesia Merdeka. Many Papuans were also killed along with other Indonesians to fight the Dutch army in Papua, and they were regarded as "Pejuang Kemerdekaan," (freedom fighter).
You know, when Indonesia enter Papua in 1962, among the first thing Indonesia did was to build a university, that's University of Cendrawasih. Also many Papuan students were sent to many cities in other provinces of Indonesia to get better education and also for jobs.
It's Indonesia who bring the Papuan case to the UN because the Dutch broke it's promise they made in 1949.

Now, you hear many voice that Papuans want independence from Indonesia. But there are a huge numbers of Papuans who want Papua remain in Indonesia, but you don't hear them. You think referendum can be done in a peaceful way, where both sides will be able to live side by side, build their land together and live happily ever after. That's just a fairy tale.

After East Timor, we know better.
There are so many pro-Indonesian East Timorese in West Timor now. They refused the govt offer to be transferred to another island because they still have desire to return to Timor Leste. We hope there will be reconciliation one day in Timor Leste, but now the hope is fading away.
Even East Timorese who fought Indonesia is now divided; the Lorosae and Loromanu become enemy to each other!

Why must divide people into two separate blocks that can never be bridged? That's certainly not our option in Papua.
But you don't care, right? As long as you see Indonesia breaking up, you don't care if so many people would suffer far worse than before.

Right now, probably a majority of native Papuans would support independence if they had the choice. They would see independence as the panacea for all their problems. But it is also true to say that there is no guarantee they would be better off economically. PNG has been independent for over 30 years and has abundant mineral resources, but are they economically better off? That's the question Papuans need to answer. How can they achieve economic progress. But I think we can all agree that the human rights situation needs improvement and that should be the key focus of anyone genuinely wanting to help the Papuan people - not a call for independence.