The information in this file was recently published in FREEDOM - the fortnightly anarchist journal published by FREEDOM PRESS: FREEDOM PRESS (IN ANGEL ALLEY) 84B WHITECHAPEL HIGH STREET, LONDON E1 7QX GREAT BRITAIN Do write for a sample copy or for a copy of our booklist of publications. We will be putting more of this information out so watch this spot... FOCUS ON... IRIAN JAYA  Thanks largely to the activities and writings of groups and dissidents in the west, the tragedy perpetrated by the Indonesian state in East Timor is now more widely known about. Voices which were too long in the wilderness like Noam Chomsky and John Pilger can now be heard and groups like Swords into Ploughshares, ARROW and No Hawks to Indonesia continue to draw attention to the blood on the hands of the British state. Hopefully such campaigns will continue but it is necessary for the full spotlight to be turned on this area where other crimes are also being committed. Indeed the story of East Timor, which started in 1975 when the Portuguese moved out and the Indonesians began their illegal occupation, is predated by the violation of Irian Jaya by some 12 years when the Dutch handed it over to the Indonesians. Today the story continues despite continuing resistance from the Free Papua Movement or OPM which has been struggling against the Indonesian military machine for over thirty years. Here, on the western side of Papua, the Indonesians have welcomed foreign firms who have come to mine the gold and copper as well as to log the forests. At the same time they have been bringing in Javanese migrants to help disperse the population of one of the most densely populated countries in the world. The aim is threefold: firstly to seek further living space secondly to swamp what is seen as a backward culture or as the Indonesian Prime Minister at the time of handover put it to, 'bring them down from the trees' and thirdly exploitation of the areas mineral resources. THE DESTRUCTION OF A CULTURE In the eyes of the Indonesians the one million Papuas are inferior beings. Clearly their style of dress (grass skirts, penis gourds) is unacceptable and has to go but so will their physical appearance. Whilst clothing may be discarded the latter aspect will take a little longer. Sukarno, the nationalist leader who ruled Indonesia before being toppled by the CIA was not to be dissuaded though: 'I can change a human race by intermarriage between the races... in a few generations hence there will be only a single Indonesian race from Sabang in Samatra to Merauke in the south of West Irian'. This racist ideology is still in vogue today: the new superman will, in the words of a former governor, resemble more the Javanese: 'a new generation of people without curly hair, sowing the seeds for greater beauty'. To achieve their aim of quelling the local population the Indonesians have opportunistically used the Protestant missionaries. The missionaries have successfully converted hundreds over the 30 years of Indonesian rule largely through The Mission Fellowship (TMF) the umbrella for six Protestant organisations with 1,500 stations run by 270 missionaries. They have convinced the Papuas to renounce their 'animist heresies' by means of a strategy which has served them well. They head off from base to an unexplored region carrying with them cowries - the seashells which are abundant on the coasts and serve as currency on the higher plateaus. After some days walk and having made contact with the local the community the missionaries select what they consider to be the most welcoming village to clear a site which can be used as a landing strip (and incidentally in the process introducing enough cowries to introduce hyperinflation and destroy the local monetary system). Once the landing strip is built the Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF), a branch of the TMF, can go into action. The Papuas are impressed by the metal birds which bring clothes, radios, plastic dolls etc. and when they learn that they come from people with a God ready to adopt them they are eager for more. But, once the TMF have got their foot in the door, instead of all the presents its rules and regulations time. The culture is dismantled and the way is opened for the Indonesian administration to set up camp. It is now clear why a country which is 85% Muslim and so concerned with cultural purity should tolerate the presence of Christian missionaries: the missionaries do the armies work. The airstrips are used to launch the process of 'transmigration' from Java and the general encroachment of the Indonesians. Today at least a third of the population is no longer indigenous and given that the authorities no longer need the missionaries for the past year they have stopped renewing their visas. AGAINST THE ODDS: RESISTANCE TO THE MILITARY The army has more efficient strategies of dealing with those who resist than the missionaries one of offering western material goods. The Free Papua Movement (OPM) appeared in 1965 two years after the Netherlands transferred sovereignty to Indonesia. Since then a small guerrilla army has managed to survive the onslaught of the Indonesian army. The OPM's structure reflects the society that spawned it and has very little hierarchy. Regional commanders are many and due to lack of co-ordination their effectiveness is relative. The movement has however shown itself capable of uniting an ethnically diverse community behind a single common objective and enjoys popular support. Also, what would be called in the west a 'cell like' structure ensures that 'leaders' cannot be taken out. These factors help to explain why the resistance has successfully continued for so long. But with their spears and bows and arrows they are little match for the Indonesians, one of the biggest and best equipped armies in the world. Figure one gives some perspective of the size of the army compared to other states in the region.  (Fig. 1) Indeed the Indonesian army is a very profitable 'investment opportunity' for its supporters in the west and Britain in particular. Indonesia is one of British Aerospace's biggest customers and its second biggest overseas military export market after Saudi Arabia. The British State doesn't care. In the context of the situation in East Timor, Alan Clarke, the minister for 'defence procurement' under the Thatcher regime, approved the sale of ground attack aircraft to Indonesia, valued at more than 500mn. When questioned about what they were to be used for he said, 'I don't really fill my mind much with what one set of foreigners is doing to another'. He makes Pontius Pilate look angelic. Perhaps to an extent one can sympathise with Mr Clark. Who wants to fill their minds with the slaughter of the tens of thousands of Papuans that have suffered at the hands of the Indonesian army? Who wants to think about the systematic rapings, torture and the imprisonments without trial? Who wants to think about the resisters who, as in East Timor, have been dumped from helicopters at sea in sacks and, more obscenely the village leaders who have been decapitated with villagers being forced to drink their blood ? Who wants to think about the pregnant women who have been killed by having a stick rammed up their anus? None of us want particularly to think about such things but neither do we want to be a party to it in the way the British state so clearly does. The Indonesians couldn't do it on their own. There are war criminals in this country too. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY. There has been some discussion in Freedom recently about nationalism and nation-states. It's hard sometimes to see where the nation state becomes an Empire. If the answer lies in the indivisibility of nationality one would be pushed to come up with a good example of a nation state. The nation states of the EU for example are almost invariably comprised of more than one nationality but we don't call them Empires unless we are 'extreme' Basque nationalists for example. Perhaps we're just being polite. Or perhaps the imperial definition must be related to size. If this is the criteria Indonesia must come up to scratch. It is in extent about the size of Western Europe from the Russian border to the Atlantic. Granted 80% of this is water but this has never proved a deterrent to imperialists. About 10% of its 3000 islands are inhabited attesting to a wide range of cultural diversity. Speaking of the Banda islands located between Ceram and Timor, prior to the arrival of the Europeans, Keay has said: A peculiarity of the Banda islands at the beginning of the seventeenth century was that thanks to their isolation they owed allegiance to no one. Moreover, the Bandanese recognised no supreme sultan of their own. Instead authority rested with village councils presided over by orang kaya or headman. In the best tradition of south-east Asian adat (consensus) each village or island was in fact a self-governing and fairly democratic republic. Such social structures have still not fully been killed off and remnants can be found in Irian Jaya. Such democratic tendencies are however not to be tolerated particularly when the area is of interest to the global market. Because apart from the imperialistic angle the Indonesians are unwilling to cede a territory which is so economically productive. In 1973 the American group Freeport opened one of the world's most productive gold and copper mines in Irian Jaya. It provides jobs for hundreds of ex patriot Americans, Australians and Koreans and is the biggest economic asset the Indonesians have, contributing substantially to state revenue whilst lining the pockets of the Javanese families who support the presidency. Only some 30 million dollars are reinvested in the region annually against the 35 billion that were earned in 1992. The company employs less than 10% of local people. Administrative business and agribusiness posts are occupied by Indonesians from Java which, with 110,000,000 inhabitants in an area about the size of England, is continuing to export its population at the expense of the Papuas. The Javanese are settled in rainforest areas where rice fields are planted for them and the indigenous people are pushed off their land. Their resistance is inspiring and deserves more attention in the west. Quoted in New Internationalist No 116 Information taken from Le Monde Diplomatique July 1994 Interviewed by John Pilger The Guardian 12th February 1994 The Guardian 7th January 1994 The Honorable Company John Keay (Harper Collins 1991)