West Papua

[No Skid Marks]

WTF is Indonisia doing there?
I follow these pages on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/freewestpapua/?fref=ts
https://www.facebook.com/Anonymous-Free-West-Papua-Australia-1132115973475074/?fref=ts
and although I don't believe everything I read or see, there's some very conserning stuff going on.
Indonesia don't even have any right to the place. Nor do we or anyone alse to their minerals etc.
250kms from Oz.
So much shit in the world right now.

 

[ForkinGreat]

Indonesia is doing whatever the fuck they want in West Papua. I don't recall much coverage of protests on regular tv or newspapers, if any.

Correct me if wrong, but I believe Australia also has a history throwing their weight around in the region, of essentially "owning" PNG because the country's economy would be toast without Aus 'assistance' dollars, which tends to produce compliant governments, historically anyway.

 

[No Skid Marks]

Oh yeah, Australia has a shit load to answer for. including vested interets.
its 2016, you cant just kill off native people and take their fricken land.
There was a post on one of those two pages saying Indonesia was sending 25000 troups in. Its been removed now it seems. Not sure if its because it wws wrong or removed because it was true.

 

[Brooksy007]

The Indonesian's are there because - SHOCK HORROR - the bloody Americans thought they knew what was best as usual...

Is it just me or does everything they touch turn to sh!te!?

 

[Freediver]

I can't remember off the top of my head what the Freeport mine was worth to Indonesia but it's a huge amount and without it Australia would have a completely broke country on it's doorstep. The Freeport mine is one of the most profitable in the world.

 

[pink poodle]

John Pilfer would tell you it all goes back to Sukarno's rise to power and the genocide against "communism" in the area, as a means of furthering foreign capital interests in the region.

 

[schred]

John Pilfer would tell you it all goes back to Sukarno's rise to power and the genocide against "communism" in the area, as a means of furthering foreign capital interests in the region.

I read Hidden Agendas as an innocent enough teenager, whoops. Nearly did my head in.

He's copped a lot of flak for embellishing the truth here and there (hence the expression, to pilgerise) but even if you said he's on the money 70% of the time, it's pretty terrifying. And hardly any of it makes MSM, presumably too destabilising if the sheeple knew what was going on around them.

 

[johnny]

Pilger really is to be taken with great reservations. There's a very clear history there, the Dutch controlled it and Jakarta believed that everything that was part of the colony should be part of the republic. There was a significant shitfight for it and Sukarno was arming up for conflict when the Dutch refused to concede.

Those were different times as the world corrected after WWII and decolonized. Today Australia has a very chaotic and unstable PNG to our north (think fragile state with huge crime and corruption, ungoverned spaces, serious biohazards and many other challenges) and then increase it by orders of magnitude if Jakarta pulled out.

I'm not speaking in right or wrongs or should and should nots, I don't have an opinion either way. I'm just saying what the current situation is.

 

[Calvin27]

East Timor part 2.

 

[johnny]

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-08/shooting-on-papua-new-guinea-university-campus/7489416

 

[stirk]

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-08/shooting-on-papua-new-guinea-university-campus/7489416

Holy fek, you did say it was chaotic and unstable!

Sounds like the police are a personal militias for the Prime minister.

 

[pink poodle]

I read Hidden Agendas as an innocent enough teenager, whoops. Nearly did my head in.

He's copped a lot of flak for embellishing the truth here and there (hence the expression, to pilgerise) but even if you said he's on the money 70% of the time, it's pretty terrifying. And hardly any of it makes MSM, presumably too destabilising if the sheeple knew what was going on around them.

The extreme capitalist agenda would want you to believe that Pilager was full of it. Like most history telling it is biased by his perspective, that just happens to be contradictory to the ideals of freedom Murdoch wants us to hold.

As for PNG unstable and corrupt seems to suit us well. Resource rich and regulation low...

 

[johnny]

Actually, Pilger HAS been caught out bullshitting. I doubt anyone would claim me to be a Murdoch-esque rightist but I've read two of his books and it's not difficult to see how questionable he can be.

The absolute LAST thing Australia wants PNG to be is unregulated and chaotic. Instability and insecurity ripples outward and no country ever wants a fragile state sitting along side them.

 

[Xavo.au]

Instability and insecurity ripples outward and no country ever wants a fragile state sitting along side them.

S'cuse my ignorance here, but do you mean this in a Italy/Greece perspective with all the asylum seekers making the trip?

 

[johnny]

Not too sure what you mean but what I mean is that if you have instability in one space it will radiate instability outward. That usually takes form of criminal groups using the space for drug manufacturing or as transit points for weapons/people/drug smuggling. Health and bio security problems arise easily and can easily spread to neighboring regions. Weak governance usually means weak security forces and easy pickings for external actors. Uncontrolled people movement is also an issue that ties into all of the above.

Somalia and Afghanistan are two very good examples of this as is Bougainville/Solomon islands.

 

[pink poodle]

Actually, Pilger HAS been caught out bullshitting. I doubt anyone would claim me to be a Murdoch-esque rightist but I've read two of his books and it's not difficult to see how questionable he can be.

The absolute LAST thing Australia wants PNG to be is unregulated and chaotic. Instability and insecurity ripples outward and no country ever wants a fragile state sitting along side them.

Finally johnny's true identity is revealed...Rupert! He may not be academic, but it is refreshing to hear a different view, bs or not. The amount of right wing bs that Australians swallow as truth is always astounding. Just today I had a university lecturer telling me that Gough Whitlam practically ruined the country with stupid things like free education. This fellow had of course received free tertiary education thanks to Gough...

I don't mean we would love PNG or West Papua to fall into a Syria type scenario. For one we would need to find a new place to detain the asylum-seekers housed there currently. Civil war and population displacement so close to home would be quite troublesome, not just because of our mining interests. I meant to say we wouldn't want them to become more stable, independent and free from corruption. It would make it too difficult to pillage their highlands and poison their rivers, issues like Ok Tedi...or to keep wages so low. How does a country with so much exploitation of gold yield so little wealth for the nation and it's workers? Do we mind that there is a neighbour so close yielding some Australian companies strong returns through mining, yet they have such abominable heath issues (such as an AIDS epidemic that is supposedly spreading to the Torres Strait via the easy island hop)? Yet these issues aren't really about West Papua and Indonesia.

Can Australia risk upsetting Indonesia again by supporting an independence movement in West Papua? I don't think Indonesia would let it go as easily as they did East Timor.

Remember the guys that paddled their dug out from West Papua during the Howard years?

Warning...slightly leftist version or West Papua history.
http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2013-10-28/rollo-west-papua-complicity/5049204

 

[pink poodle]

Not too sure what you mean but what I mean is that if you have instability in one space it will radiate instability outward. That usually takes form of criminal groups using the space for drug manufacturing or as transit points for weapons/people/drug smuggling. Health and bio security problems arise easily and can easily spread to neighboring regions. Weak governance usually means weak security forces and easy pickings for external actors. Uncontrolled people movement is also an issue that ties into all of the above.

Somalia and Afghanistan are two very good examples of this as is Bougainville/Solomon islands.

And it wouldn't be too hard to steal military weapons, jump in a pt or fishing boat and drive to Australia. There would be plenty of toxic waste on hand as well. Suddenly you have ~10 loose units with automatic weapons and a dirty bomb in Darwin or somewhere in northern Qld...which wouldn't be too pretty. Or a mine filled with Australian workers is captured and all the expatriate workers put to the sword. Or an Australian refugee conctration camp overrun...and so on. Not a bunch of nice outcomes.

 

[johnny]

Civil war and population displacement so close to home would be quite troublesome, not just because of our mining interests. I meant to say we wouldn't want them to become more stable, independent and free from corruption. It would make it too difficult to pillage their highlands and poison their rivers, issues like Ok Tedi...or to keep wages so low. How does a country with so much exploitation of gold yield so little wealth for the nation and it's workers? Do we mind that there is a neighbour so close yielding some Australian companies strong returns through mining, yet they have such abominable heath issues (such as an AIDS epidemic that is supposedly spreading to the Torres Strait via the easy island hop)? Yet these issues aren't really about West Papua and Indonesia.

Can Australia risk upsetting Indonesia again by supporting an independence movement in West Papua? I don't think Indonesia would let it go as easily as they did East Timor.

What makes you think Australia actually benefits much from mining in PNG? As far as I'm aware these companies wouldn't be paying any or much tax in Australia for those operations or the profits they bring, that would go to the Netherlands and Ireland. I'm not really sure how Australia benefits from a competitor to our own resource sector.

Of course Australia minds that these things are happening, that's my whole point. The risk a fragile state so close poses to Australia is huge and we spend heaps of money trying to assist them in terms of increasing regulation and control (in governance, policing, the judiciary, education, etc. etc.). The relevance that this has to West Papua is that there is a likelihood that West Papua would provide similar risks for Australia if Indonesia pulled out as they did from East Timor. Human rights abuses and so on that are (allegedly) occurring are horrible and offend our sensitivities. But when you're the one making the decisions your often faced with questions such as "Should I do what's morally correct for them but against my national interest or do what's morally correct as a leader of Australia (not West Papua) but not speak out for the values Australia supports?". They're very difficult questions for the people who have to be responsible for the consequences of any decision.

Lastly, no. Indonesia would fight to the death for West Papua. It's important for them in many ways, not least revenue. But Indonesia has a strong fear of being broken apart by foreign powers..., keeping in mind that they've lived under both the Dutch and the Japanese thumb before (and had the Chinese trying to run insurgencies, the CIA supporting a rebellion (google PERMESTA) and the Soviets trying to buy their leader) and are very suspicious of outside influences. They've also experienced secessionist movements in Aceh, East Timor, West Papua, Ambon, etc, etc. So when you are already fragile and suspicious you jump at shadows and get waaaay stabby at anything that looks like a threat and most of all...., kill a chicken to scare the monkey. When one region, like East Timor take the chance, you make sure all the other independence minded regions are watching as you beat the shit out of the East Timorese and burn down all of their homes.

 

[pink poodle]

Do BHP still mine in PNG? Are there many Australians still working in PNG for mining companies (regardless of that companies tax home)? While you and I may not benefit directly from it and our government probably doesn't tax the companies effectively that industry (probably more in the boom era than just now) is something of a significant industry to Australia. As for the competition I believe the 2 nations predominantly operate in different resources.

The last couple of budgets have seen further reductions to our foreign aid programs. My point is that the PNG government likely under regulates and taxes industries (such as mining), resulting in greater risk of disasters in their natural environment, less ability to respond to this quickly/effectively, and that the lower revenue they yield leaves them less enabled to fight the inequities of poverty experienced by their population. In a more stable country, such as Australia, our resources sector is heavily regulated and (I'd say poorly) taxed. These provide safety, security and revenue that we love.

Call me old fashioned, but I still follow that out of touch evils of capital and the global fuck the people conspiracy that lots of people say doesn't exist anymore...the boot stepping down on humanity (or something like that from Orwell...

On the unity of Indonesia, I saw something earlier in a bit of a google frenzy about Indonseian obsession with it dating right back to throwing out the Dutch. They were of the belief that the whole colony was to remain as one.

 

[johnny]

I'm not sure who is in PNG these days and of course countries will support their champions. The point that I make is that the benefit of having an Australian company successfully work in PNG and make say a billion more each year than they otherwise would if there were proper regulation does not even come close to balancing out the risks and costs of having a fragile state - as large as PNG - as a neighbour. It's just such as huge bow to draw and doesn't add up in terms of the national interest.

The problem is usually, and I say usually because I don't know enough about PNG to say they suffer the same problem, that the regulations are there but are not properly implemented. And to suggest that "they" aren't getting all the money out of mining companies and whatnot because they aren't doing it right, I think, is to miss the play. I'm sure they are getting as much out of the foreign investment as they possibly can, but it's ending up in the pockets of the privileged few than in development for the nation as a whole. As you see in my first post, crime and corruption are likely the greatest two man-made problems PNG faces.

You are correct about the way Indonesia saw itself in the 1950s, they felt that the Republic would and should be the sum of all of the Dutch East Indies, hence why they see West Papua as part of Indonesia. If you say it shouldn't be, we must ask why. If you answer that it clearly doesn't look like Indonesia because the people are different, etc. etc. they you would say the same about the Sumatrans as to the Ambonese and the Balinese as to the Kalimantans and the Mulukuans as to the ..., etc. Then you have no country at all but the world's most vast archipelago of microstates and small territories that require aid to exist.

There's no perfect or right and wrong answers, just complexity.