“I am convinced now that many Australians indeed would be happy to see Indonesia disintegrated. Maybe they think Indonesia is like a cake, it can be sliced into -maybe 8 to 10 slices!”

Ningtyas, it seems to me that you are rather desperately trying to convince yourself of this. You WANT to believe the worst! Yes?

You have conceded that the broad-sweeping really strong views that you attributed to Australia in your first post on this thread are indeed held by only a very tiny minority, if at all in Australia.

But you are still thinking in that polarised manner. Australia, the Australian Government, the Australian people, the small section of the populace who care about human rights in West Papua or in Indonesia, the racist minority, even the tiny anti-Indonesian minority….. none of them want to see Indonesia split into multiple nations. Where do you get the idea that they do?

Just because I have raised it for neutral debate on this forum, and Henry Thornton mentioned it in one article, doesn’t mean anyone supports the notion.

I share saintfletcher’s deep concern about the treatment of Aborigines in the 19th century and indeed today. But there is absolutely nothing hypocritical about that concern and concern for human rights in West Papua. In fact you would surely fully expect people who are concerned about humanitarian issues in Papua to be repulsed by Australia’s record.

To call Australia or Australians who care about this stuff hypocritical is just plain wrong, unintelligent and quite frankly, a deliberate perversion of the debate.

PTBI sits right at the whacked-out extremists end of the spectrum. You have acknowledged that he is too extreme. For goodness sake don’t move your position towards his. Strive to keep a level head.

@ ludwig
For me papuans independence is ok. Doesnt it ok for you the Aborigines get their independence? Doesnt it ok for the Aborigines to see white Australians in their independence? Ha ha im no nationalist. Lets divide australians to states, lets divide indonesian to states. States are nothing. Life is everything.

I dont care about Papuans minerals. I dont eat minerals. It this rumour is true, it was our gov and US gov once has signed an evil contract about Papua. It was a sin.

I hope our gov will soon close the mining and make referendum or whatever to make a better Papua. That possibility is open given present situation in Indo. But wait, independece may not good for papua like rogindon said.

What I hope is just all struggles must be held in peaceful manner. No need of violences, shooten guirellas or murdered policemen or dead soldiers. Wanna help? Send doctors, teachers, universities to Papua, not activists. And send doctors and teachers to the Aborigines too, not activists. Most of papuans are peaceful persons and not criminals and not refugees and not activists

Ludwig,
"However in Papua the repatriation of Javanese and other transmigrants and the relocation of the rest to other parts of Indonesia would not be all that difficult, if it came to the crunch."

How many internally dicplaced people you have in your country that you can say that? And Java is an overpopulated island; even dangerous zones around active volcanoes are heavily populated. So, it'd be difficult for Australia but easy for Indonesia, huh?

"And further, can you tell me why it would be so bad if Indonesia did break up into about ten nations?"
It's like questioning me; why it would be so bad if I have my wounded legs amputated? And you are not in favour of the dismembering of my body...

"Clarification of my last post. Paragraph seven should read as a question: “Why would Indonesia fight so hard…….?” "

Nice try. You think contemptuous remarks can be made neutral by adding the question mark?
No. It only changes them into contemptuous questions.

"Ningtyas, it seems to me that you are rather desperately trying to convince yourself of this. You WANT to believe the worst! Yes?
You have conceded that the broad-sweeping really strong views that you attributed to Australia in your first post on this thread are indeed held by only a very tiny minority, if at all in Australia."

Reading Australians views on this forum and the news and browsing internet in the past few days make me realize that it's not as tiny as you try to picture it. And their position against Indonesia is far worse than I previously thought.

"I say, hold the referendum."
Excuse me, why should we listen to you? Who are you?

That's from me.
Maybe you can learn from saintfletcher. He's is able to listen to others in this thread.

@PTBI,
"You patiently seek to reason with Ludwig, instead this guy treat you with contempt by questioning the right of Indonesia to exist!"

Indeed.
They have no idea what Indonesia means for most Indonesians.

@ saintfletcher
Sad to hear your story. Your grandpa will always be a great person for his generations. I think every society has its own diseases and then some of people, would try to cure their diseases so the overwhole culture evolving towards betterment.

As for Indonesia, under military regime we suffered oppression from our own gov. But we dont have race problem here. The oppression were done equally to the Javanese and non Javanese as well, by multirace gov too.

I spent my childhood in a village in central Java. I was among the witnesses of the oppression of our past military regime.

There were many unlucky persons of us, undoubtably Javanese, who had ever been a member of Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Most of them are just un(formally)educated village farmers and most of them even didnt know that their are the member of the party. They were the member of BTI ,a farmer organisation of PKI, that at the time were just like a usual organisation doing propagandas promising to be their defender.

Since 1965, after the political incident that believed as "coupe de etat" from PKI against Sukarno regime, many of them has been jailed or killed or just missing, and the millions survivors and their children and their grand children even suffered endless discrimination, being the second class citizens who were not allowed vote or become goverment staffs and will get dificulties in whatever matter involving government administration .

Sometimes my father, having access to government officials, helped those people by making fake birt letters or any other letters to clean a child from his/her father sin for being "involved" (terlibat) in PKI, so he/she can be a teacher, for example.

Thank god those days were over. After anarchic periods since 1998, now we have a democratic government. The present and future situation in indonesia wont allow a "true" general to be a president, after our long trauma that we will never forget. We are now a democratic country, we are no threat to your national interest too.

I am inclined to agree Jelata – independence for West Papua may not be the best option. Staying with Indonesia may well be the best option.

“….or whatever to make a better Papua.” “What I hope is just all struggles must be held in peaceful manner.” “Wanna help? Send doctors, teachers, universities to Papua, not activists” “Most of papuans are peaceful persons and not criminals and not refugees and not activists”.

Jelata, we have pretty well full agreement.

I also agree that much more should be done for Aborigines. Our Federal indigenous affairs minister is onto it. It has suddenly becomes a very high-profile national issue. I hope that this translates into real action to alleviate some of the awful problems that are suffered in Aboriginal communities. As for independence for Aborigines, I don’t think that would achieve anything in terms of humanitarian or quality of life issues. You could argue that many indigenous communities in northern Australia have effectively had independence all along.

Cheers

PS I find the contrast between your views and those of the other Indonesians on this thread – PTBI and Ningtyas fascinating

rogindon,
"Australians don't necessarily want to break off relations with Indonesia."
I see. In Indonesia it's real. As read in detik.com a while back, Foreign Ministry's spokesman said that severing diplomatic ties was "an option in the table." It was seriously considered by govt, and was pressured by some of the people.
Australia is such a difficult neighbor; helping us one day and endanger us the next day...

As for East Timor, in the end it's a relief for us in Indonesia. Indonesia has many problems, thank god East Timor is longer one of them.
From now on, any unrest or riot in East Timor will concern Australia more than us. I do hope the best. A stable, peaceful and united East Timor will be good not only for East Timorese, but also for West Timorese who have been burdened by East Timorese refugees in 1975 and 1999. I hope mass exodus will never happen again.

Thank you for briefing me about the Jakarta Lobby in DFAT etc. Lol.
I think the problem is more complicated than that.

If anti-Indonesian feeling in Australia is that strong, why don't you press the govt to just cut ties with Indonesia? Being neighbor does not mean we have to have a close relation, especially when the relations is difficult; or dangerous.

@saintfletcher
you know last year Thailand and Malaysia had a row about 131 Thai asylum seekers in Malaysia. The Malaysian govt and media did not even leak their indentities, let alone let them speak against Thailand publicly. The tension did not escalate.
Meanwhile in Australia those Papuans are allowed to speak publicly against Indonesia, to raise their flag etc. It becomes political campaign and that's unacceptable to us.