The Forum > Article Comments > Protecting our national interests? > Comments
Protecting our national interests? : Comments
By Gary Brown, published 5/5/2006The pervasive, self-perpetuating, pro-Jakarta mindset in our international relations bureaucracy has become a canker on the Australian body politic.
- Pages:
-
- 1
- 2
- 3
- Page 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- ...
- 14
- 15
- 16
-
- All
But the process was interrupted when Indonesia, using Russian military equipment, launched a small-scale invasion of West Papua. The United States, worried that Indonesia might have been slipping towards Communism, arranged for a UN-brokered agreement between Dutch and Indonesian governments, which handed West Papua to Indonesia. The UN's condition was that there was to be a UN-supervised referendum, called the "Act of Free Choice."
Or, if you're West Papuan, you might refer to it as the "Act of No Choice."
The vote occurred in 1969 and the "No Choice" name is well deserved.
What happened was that less than one per cent of the population - 1022 tribal elders - were rounded up, and they were basically told to vote for Indonesia or they would have their tongues cut out." Obviously then the vote was unanimous for West Papua remaining with Indonesia.
In the years since Indonesia's occupation of West Papua, there are estimates that around 100,000 people have died due to human rights abuses. The Javanese invaders are raping the environment polluting and if you remember the saying “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.”
It's time for Australia and Australians to get involved, just as we did in East Timor. West Papua's an issue whose time has come. It's the type of situation where people initially might not know too much about it. Some people don't even realise that it's just over 100 kilometres from Australia's shores.
When people do hear about what's happening there, they're often quite shocked that this is something that's going on right on our doorstep. This is an issue that has the potential to ignite huge sectors of the populations to stand up for West Papuans, just as Australians did for the East Timorese.