Aisake Casimira

What if I tell you that more than 4,000 years ago a group of slaves would be freed from the oppression and slavery of an empire? What if I had told you in the 1950s that the Berlin Wall would fall 4 decades later and, thus, reunited East and West Germany? What if I had told you in the 1960s that South Africa would, one day in the 1990s, get rid of the oppression, racial segregation and fear of apartheid? What were once yearnings for freedom did came true decades later. Now, what if I tell you that West Papua will one day be free from Indonesia’s oppression and slavery?

Indonesia colonised West Papua in 1969, after a sham ballot on independence in which only a handful of West Papuans were allowed to vote. It was once a Dutch colony. In 1961, the West Papuans held a congress to discuss independence but the newly independent Republic of Indonesia asserted its claim over the island. Subsequently, conflict broke out between Indonesia, the Netherlands and the West Papuans. The United Nations (UN), then, sponsored a treaty known as the New York agreement, aimed at ending the conflict in 1962. Subsequently, in 1963, Indonesia was appointed as West Papua’s temporary administrator (without consultation and consent of the West Papuans). Since this infamous UN sponsored political scam, as some saw it today, there have been acts of terror, torture and disappearance done to the people of West Papua.

Some of the latest incidences reported by the Guardian Australia newspaper included:

• ln October 2011, a civilian gathering that discussed issues of self-determination at the Third Papuan People's Congress, was violently quashed by Indonesian forces. Six people were killed and dozens more injured;
• ln December 2013, a demonstration resulted in the death of a civilian and others injured when Indonesian police opened fire and beat activists during a demonstration in the West Papuan capital of Jayapura in the week before.
• In the same week, Amnesty International called for an investigation into reports that 28 political activists who were arrested at the rally had injuries consistent with being beaten in custody;
• ln February 2014, the Guardian Australia reported on a military operation with the following headline: “West Papuans 'beaten and had guns held to head' in military operation.” It was alleged that the villagers were rounded up to be interrogated on their connection with the attack on a military post and to the OMP (the Papua Freedom Movement).
• In January 2014, it was reported that the Indonesian government was finalising the draft revision of the “Special Papua Autonomy Law” which Jakarta said it was also aimed at quelling the OMP movement.

Australia and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) countries (with the exception of Vanuatu) with their economic, security and political interests with Indonesia are more concerned about strengthening their bilateral and multilateral ties with Indonesia, then pressuring Indonesia on West Papua’s claim to political self-determination (even when they know about the killings, the detentions and torture). If West Papua’s close neighbours do not act even on moral grounds (let along being a Melanesian brother in the case of the MSG countries), what then is the future for West Papua’s desire for political freedom?

Forget about the UN who created the mess in the first place and is currently showing no sign of resolving it, the most likely impetus for action will have to come from the religious and civil society organisations (CSOs) in West Papua, the region and around the world. There are CSOs and individual groups in Australia and Vanuatu that are doing their best to raise awareness on the oppression of the West Papuans in their own countries. Others - academics, university students, etc., in other countries in the region - have and continue to raise concern on the oppression of West Papua among their peers. These actions of solidarity and concern matter a great deal for they speak of hope; they speak of a shared human aspiration for basic human decency and values of freedom, justice and equity.

But they also speak of an age long battle between two visions of the world. Is it possible to imagine another world that is not determined by “empire” or its protégés of today seen in the form of colonial masters and neo-liberal economic? Is it possible to come away from “empire”? Is it impossible not to? Is it possible, then, that one day West Papua will be free? What if I tell that it is indeed possible?

A group of slaves believed it was not so more than 4,000 years ago until a man named Moses (one of their own) came along and convinced them to believe it was so. And so the story went on to record that it did happened. Political freedom can either be “freely granted” by the master or forcefully gained. For this group of slaves, it was the latter at the cost of human lives but the beginning of a new vision construct. For the master, it was a very difficult to let this group of slaves go free. The master had to be forced to do so through a series of “natural strategies” and culminated in the mass killing of babies who were not marked as belonging to this group of slaves. But the story did not begin with the man named Moses. It began with the parent of this group of slaves. It went like this: the children, in their oppression, cried out for freedom and their parent heard their cry, saw what was happening, moved with compassion and decided to act. The point is that the journey into political freedom cannot happen unless there is an acknowledgment of a situation of oppression and un-free. One other point was that none of the neighbouring nations offered to negotiate the political freedom for their group of slaves.

For decades, the people of West Papua cried out and while some (mostly individuals and civil society groups) in the region and around the world heard it, were moved and responded, many others, most notably the governments, especially their closest neighbours, heard it but responded with political expediency and regarded it as an opportunity for political trade-offs with the master.

The recent trip to Jakarta in January 2014 of the MSG Foreign ministers was one such example. The mission “was meant to discover more about the West Papuan National Coalition for Liberation, which is seeking MSG membership”. But it turned into a mission of economic and security trade-offs. Sure political solutions by governments to a situation of oppression of another government may take its own course, it is often the trade-offs (economic or security interests) that matter in such missions. After all, politicians (elected politicians that is) will consider the assumption that the voters back home will first and foremost vote on what they the politicians have done to improve their own development when casting their votes during elections. Hence, attention to an issue that may have very little practical contribution to their people’s needs back home is not a priority.

At best, such missions, if it is ever genuine, rest entirely on practical bilateral or multilateral considerations rather than on moral concerns. After all, the politicians would reasoned that their task is technical and not to monitor or police the moral conduct of another government. This may be partly true as their primary task is to administer the governance of a nation but blatantly shallow when considering that government policies are based on some moral principles. A glaring example of this moral shallowness is how the Pacific Islands Forum countries regarded the membership of Fiji in PIFs since the coup in 2006 in contrast to Maohi Nui’s submission for its support to be listed in the UN list of countries for decolonisation in 2013. The PIFs, on moral grounds, suspended Fiji from the Forum, but did not offer its support, not even a voice, to the moral claims of Maohi Nui.

Yet, this group of slaves’ journey into political freedom, more than 4,000 years ago, was only the beginning; it was only the first stage to freedom. The second stage is responsibility. it concerns the construct of a worldview that acts both as (a) a reminder that these former slaves were not to wish upon others what was done to them by their former master, and (b) to be a living critique of their former master’s “empire” and all it stood for. To achieve these, this group of former slaves had to undertake a formation journey of 40 years in the wilderness. The guiding principle in this formation experience was: they are not to do to others what was done to them by their colonial masters. It was like a slap in the face for this now freed group of slaves. How can this be? It was as if it asked them to forgive their master’s cruelty and acts of terror and murder. The answer was that if they could not they would eventually do to others what their former master did to them. It also meant that they would continue to live in the framework of “empire” and its view of human life and how it ought to be lived – oppression, slavery, environmental destruction, immorality, etc. That is the challenge for the people of West Papua to wrestle with and to find, within themselves, the strength and the courage to (a) construct a worldview that acts as a protest to the Indonesian framework of how life in West Papua is seen and to be lived; and, (b) not to wish upon the Indonesian people the same treatment dished out to them.

But it is equally a challenge for the region as well. The political freedom of most island states was “gifted” to them, while some had to fight for it like Vanuatu and to some extent, Samoa. For those who shed blood and tears for their political freedom, they would know what it meant to be un-free and under the yoke of oppression. One would expect that these, because of their experience, would be the first to wish freedom upon the people of West Papua, and work intently towards it. Vanuatu had set an example for the region, not because of its claim to be on a higher moral ground, but because it had not forgotten its experience of its struggle for independence; they remembered. The same could not be said of the others in the region. But as Gaston Ash says, “if we want freedom for ourselves, we must also wish it for others”. This is not simply because it is the right thing to do but most importantly because of our experience; that once we were under the rule of another (either exercised through patronage or violence). One would have thought that Fiji would be among the first to wish upon the people of West Papua their political freedom, given its experience after the 2006 coup for greater self-determination in its politics and economic decisions. Sadly, it did not happen. Similar with governments, citizens in the region (aside from individuals and groups who are continually raising concern about West Papua’s self-determination struggle) have this responsibility. The freedom they enjoy today they must also wish it upon the people of West Papua.  If governments do not act, the citizens of the region must take up the cause. This requires a regional coordinated effort among the citizens of the region, let alone the world.

Yet the battle with “empire” today, as the West Papua’s struggle for political freedom from an “empire” like nation in the modern times, is not solely about the political freedom of territories and their people. It is also about the moral terrain – the freedom to conceive of a better world; that a better world, one not prescribed and framed by “empire” or the powerful in this world, is possible. But is it? Most of us live in a world of “empire” subtleties of which its rationales are channelled through advertisements, movies, tastes and uniformity of social and educational expressions such as language, fashion, schools, dress, coffee bars, etc. Others are more direct through economic rationalism such as those promoted by neo-liberal economics in trade, developmental aid, and taxation policies or through slogans such as “there is no alternative” or the mantra that business is the engine of growth. Consider this example, the 2000 State of Human Development report (a UN report),revealed that military spending in the world was $780b and compare that to $30b spent on basic health and nutrition. Or compare the world spending on pet food in Europe and the US of $17b to the combined world spending alone on basic education, and water and sanitation for all of $15b. These statistics tell us about how skewed we are on what ought to be our human priorities. But they also indicate that the values of “empire” are still very much alive today.

Is it conceivable that a freed West Papua is possible? Understanding “empire” in the modern context will help to understand how the citizens of this region will act in solidarity with their brothers and sisters in West Papua. The experience will also help the rest of us in the region to deeply appreciate the freedom that we have and the responsibility to ensure that we do not abuse it. As the MSG foreign ministers prepare to meet at the end at the end of this month, they must seriously consider this grave moral responsibility. As they are politically free, they must, at the same time, strive for the political freedom of West Papua and its people.