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Batik Irian:
Imprints of Indonesian Papua
Michael Benedict Cookson
A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
at The Australian National University
May 2008
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This thesis is the original work of the author
unless otherwise acknowledged.
Michael B. Cookson
Division of Pacific and Asian History
Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies
The Australian National University.
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Abstract
This thesis addresses a wide variety of representations of Indonesian Papua and their
relationship to tradition, socio-cultural change, new technologies, and political
institutions. Attending to dominant stereotypes of ‘Papuan’ and ‘Indonesian’ identities,
the thesis probes some of the more salient practices by which Papua is produced, by
means of an interpretative analysis of three distinct realms of representation. Postage
stamps depicting Papua are brought together for the first time in a case study that
challenges both the ambition of the state to represent Papua as well as Papuan
assumptions about the nature and extent of Indonesian hegemony. A second case study
assembles an original history of Papua through maps. Key themes in the cartographic
history of the territory are considered in the light of their implications for the capacity of
the state to control internal and external influence over Papua. The relationship of
community to the built environment is the focus of the third case study, which examines
aspects of the history of the architecture (broadly defined) of Papua and the extent to
which this history embodies and illuminates the nature of relations between state and
civil society in the province(s). The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of
contemporary challenges for the state and civil society in Indonesian Papua and some
tentative suggestions for ways in which new modes of research and expanded
opportunities for Papuan self-expression might assist in transcending the present sociopolitical impasse in the region.
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Acknowledgements
I recognise the contribution of my family to this endeavour… [text removed]
All researchers rely in various ways on the generosity of friends and strangers. My
thesis has benefited immeasurably from the knowledge and insights of many people.
These interactions, correspondences and conversations have often brought the
unexpected gift of making friends of strangers. I am grateful for such precious gifts. I
also appreciate the financial support I received for my research through an Australian
Postgraduate Research Award (APRA) and from the Australian National University
with fieldwork funding from the Division of Pacific and Asian History, RSPAS, ANU.
I acknowledge the unstinting support of Dr Chris Ballard to this thesis project. A chance
meeting with Chris in Papua in 1997 re-ignited my desire to complete a PhD program I had
begun years before at Monash University. I was privileged to commence a PhD at the ANU
with Chris as my supervisor in late 2000 (a story which continues in Chapter 1).
I had already undertaken fieldwork and travelled extensively in Papua prior to
commencing my PhD at ANU. Many of the people with whom I spoke, worked,
interviewed and befriended at that time have been consequential to the formulation of
my research interests. Others I met later have been of similar significance in shaping
aspects of this thesis - although few of these conversations or interviews are relied on as
source material for this final document. In Papua, I am grateful for discussions with
and/or the assistance and support of many individuals, including: Frans Wospakrik,
Frans Wanggai, Johsz Mansoben, August Rumansara, Agus Alua, John Rumbiak, Theo
van den Broek, Bishop (ret.) Alfonse Sowada OSC, Br. Virgil Pietermeier OSC, Yuven
Biakai, Rosa Moiwend, Donatus Moiwend, Fr. Frans Lieshout OFM, Decky Rumaropen,
Don Flassy, Wolas Krenak, Enos Rumansara, Mintje Roembiak, Max Mirino, the Late
Michael Rumbiak, Reinard Gobai, Tommy Wakum, Micha Runsumbre, the Late Sam
Kapisa, Max Mahuse, Fr. Neles Tebay OFM, Sue O’Farrell, Michelle Bowe, Frank
Momberg, Charlie Heatubun, Roberth Mandosir, Yohanis Bonay, the Late Yafeth
Yelemaken, Nico Haluk, Jeremias, Constant and Matheus Asso, Hanifa and Halifa,
Akiko Tsuru, Paula Makabory, and staff at Elsham Papua, SKP Jayapura, WWF Sahul,
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Conservation International, Yayasan Bethesda, YPMD, YPLHC, YALI, LPPMA,
ALDP, P3W, TMF, Yapsel, YLBHI Papua, BPS Papua, Investment Board of Papua,
Wasantaranet Jayapura, Kantor Pos (Bagian Filateli) Jayapura.
In Papua and elsewhere, I have benefited from the friendship, encouragement and
intellectual stimulation of: Robyn Roper, Diana Glazebrook, Robert and Sarah Hewat,
Trish McEwan, John and Pip Moore, Rudi Hauter, Anton Suebu, the Rev. Benny Giay,
Edai Hansen, Br. Budi Hernawan OFM, Agus Sumule, Hidayat Alhamid, Musa
Sombuk, Tomi, Hans Magal, Titin Arobaya, Muridan Widjojo, Astri Wright, Todd
Harple, Kim Kok, Johanna Rumere, Kal Muller, Manuel Boissière, Jen Robinson, Lucy
Mitchell, Brigham Golden, Ketut Deddy Muliastra, Anne Casson, Pierre de
Vallombreuse, Leslie Butt, George Aditjondro and Dave Mercer.
At ANU the insights of Phillip Taylor and Rupert Stasch were particularly significant in
framing my thesis. Jaap Timmer has been a great friend, constant in his support of my
research, my collecting and my work with Papuaweb. The thesis has also benefited
considerably from the close reading and criticism of Robert Cribb. In Canberra, I am
also grateful for the collegiality, enthusiasms and encouragement of Robin Hide, Cathy
Robinson, Margaret Jolly, John Braithwaite, Fr. Jeremy Clarke SJ, Tom Goodman,
Noah McCormick, Jamie Greenbaum, Geremie Barmé, Ashwin Raj, John Ballard, Ron
May, Jamie Mackie, Mike Bourke, Geoff Hope, Colin Filer, Hank Nelson, Vicki Luker,
Paul d’Arcy, Bronwen Douglas, Keiko Tamura, Doug Porter, Chris Manning, Ed
Aspinall, Greg Rawlings, Ana Dragojlovic, Sabine Hess, Peter Elder, John Ondawame,
Rex Rumakiek, the Late Wim Zonggonau, Chris Penders, Dennis Puniard. Many others
in PAH and the cataCoombs have enriched my time at ANU and I am particularly
thankful to Dorothy McIntosh, Oanh Collins, Marion Weeks, Jude Shanahan, Sue Rider,
and Coombs Computing, Cartography, Mailroom, Tearoom, and de Nachtwacht. My
thanks to Maxine McArthur for proofreading the final document.
In The Netherlands, EU (and elsewhere), I am grateful to many people who generously
supported my research through interviews, conversations, correspondences and
friendship: Miekee Kijne, the Late Br. Henk Blom OFM, Jac Hoogerbrugge, the Late Fr.
Alfons van Nunen OFM, Pim Schoorl, Francis Gouda, Rogier Smeele, Sina Emde,
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Gerry van Klinken, Jeroen Overweel, At Ipenburg, Mirjam Korse, Anton Ploeg,
Gosewijn van Beek, Oridek Ap, Theys Goldschmidt, Roy Villevoye, Paulien van der
Zee, Nine Elenbaas, Dvora Yanow, Koen de Jager, Ineke de Vries, Anna d’Albertis,
Feije Duim, Karen Jacobs, Anna-Karina Hermkens, Astrid de Hontheim, Wim Vink,
Han Dijkstra, Leo Vosse and others.
I am appreciative for the assistance of staff and for the collections and/or research
ambiance at the Perpustakaan National Propinsi Papua, Kotaraja; Archief Nationaal, den
Haag; Biblioteek Nationaal, den Haag; Gemente Archief, Amsterdam; Oostindische
Huis, Universiteit van Amsterdam; KITLV, Leiden; National Library of Australian
(especially Ibu Tieke Atikah) and the ANU Library network.
I must also acknowledge the role of www.papuaweb.org, my de facto research
assistant... and my nemesis (see Chapter 1): for interminable periods of absence from
my research work, for a (virtual) thesis treasure trove, and for numerous enriching
correspondences with fellow Papua researchers over much of the past decade (see
http://www.papuaweb.org/info/_thanks.html). These many and varied interactions
helped prevent my studies becoming too isolated, as did thesis breaks enjoyed at Prima
Garden (Abe and Kota, Jayapura), the Coffee Company (Oldachterburgwal, xxx), and
Tilleys Devine (Lyneham, Canberra). Anne Lamont helped me move through the thesis
Bird by Bird and Michael Ende in the final weeks to see my thesis story in perspective.
Dear friends, old and new, have been wonderful through this journey. Some I have already
mentioned, others I thank now: Stu, Sallie, Cal, Suse, Kes, Sime, Fuzz, Kate, Ally, Teresa,
Sean, Amo, Chicko, Marianne, Lib, Lu, Jo, Ken, Ben, Timmy, Hel, Dom, Pete, Jacq, Jacob,
Lorrae, Renee, Barbara, Gary, Mem (Tessa and Sebastian)… the Hendriks Clan, Carolyn
and Baci…
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This thesis is dedicated to those who have found themselves…
Out on the road somewhere wandering, with no destination
anywhere in sight, almost forgetting why they set out in the first
place, yet still unable to turn back, because they honestly believe
that the shortest distance between two points just may not be a
straight line.
My Dinner with André
Wallace Shawn and André Gregory
(1981:11-12)
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Table of Contents
Statement of originality .................................................................................................iii
Abstract............................................................................................................................v
Acknowledgements........................................................................................................vii
Table of Contents .........................................................................................................xiii
List of Figures ...............................................................................................................xv
CHAPTER 1: An Open Field.........................................................................................1
What am I doing here?...................................................................................................2
Research pragmatics ......................................................................................................6
Seeing Papua as an Open Field....................................................................................12
Outline of thesis ...........................................................................................................18
A note on the need for a note on terminology .............................................................21
CHAPTER 2: Pathologies of the Present....................................................................27
“Towards a New Papua”: embracing essentialism? ....................................................28
A Papuan Hydra? .........................................................................................................45
“Old Papua”: into the breach of canonical history ......................................................54
CHAPTER 3: Posting Papua: the stamp of the state ................................................59
Indonesian Minis .........................................................................................................59
Through the Looking Glass .........................................................................................62
Colonial continuities and discontinuities.....................................................................69
Independence issues: authors and authority ................................................................74
Imagery of Integration .................................................................................................77
Integrated imagery .......................................................................................................97
The nature of icons ....................................................................................................107
Icons of nature ...........................................................................................................116
New orders.................................................................................................................121
In the Post? ................................................................................................................128
Conclusion .................................................................................................................132
CHAPTER 4: Circumscribing Papua: tracing maps of the past............................137
Surveying the field.....................................................................................................138
Papua, a natural history?............................................................................................145
Second nature: “knowing” boundaries and territories ...............................................159
“Irian is a Giant Machine” .........................................................................................177
The Locked World of Irian Jaya ................................................................................191
Placing Papuans and Papuan places...........................................................................204
“Obscured by clouds” ................................................................................................221
Conclusion .................................................................................................................232
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CHAPTER 5: Constructing Papua: an architecture of community ...................... 237
Foundations ............................................................................................................... 237
Architects of Salvation: replacing the rumah adat..................................................... 242
Architects of Salvation: reforming the village........................................................... 254
Architectures of Authority......................................................................................... 263
The art of ‘belonging’: Papua(ns) presented ............................................................. 282
The Art of Belonging: Asmat ancestors .................................................................... 292
“A church born in Papua…”: opus and final act ....................................................... 300
“A church born in Papua…”: Papuan Archangels..................................................... 311
Shadows in the cave: the nature of Papuan architecture?.......................................... 319
Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 333
CHAPTER 6: Imprinting Indonesian Papua ........................................................... 337
“Dari Merauke sampai Sabang” ................................................................................ 337
Revolution and involution ................................................................................. 339
Bringing the empire back home......................................................................... 343
Phantom geographies......................................................................................... 347
“If I were an Indonesian…” (after Suwardi) ............................................................. 349
Signifying Papua................................................................................................ 353
Citizens of Indonesian Papua ............................................................................ 359
Edifying Papua .......................................................................................................... 365
Regionalism ....................................................................................................... 365
Remembering..................................................................................................... 369
Restitution and Reconciliation........................................................................... 373
“Papuans in the Cosmos” .......................................................................................... 376
CHAPTER 7: Coda: Wearing Batik Irian ............................................................... 381
BIBILOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................... 395
APPENDICES (separate volume)
Appendix 1: Images for Chapter 1
Appendix 2: Images for Chapter 2
Appendix 3: Glossary of Stamp Terms
List of Stamps Related to Papua
Images for Chapter 3 (Stamps)
Appendix 4: Notes on Maps of Papua
Images for Chapter 4 (Maps)
Appendix 5: Images for Chapter 5 (Architecture)
Appendix 6: Images for Chapter 6
Appendix 7: Images for Chapter 7
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List of Figures
Figure 1- 1: “Batik Irian” in detail .............................................................................................. 11
Figure 2-1: “The position of Indonesia…” (Chief Onarek vs a Citizen of Indonesia) .............. 32
Figure 2-2: “Konspirasi Politik Papua (Pasca Dialog Nasional 26 Pebruary 1999)” ................ 49
Figure 3-1: Stamp Museum and Children’s Palace, TMII (1989) .............................................. 60
Figure 3-2: Learning to “look a little closer” .............................................................................. 62
Figure 3-3: “Seratus Tahun Prangko Indonesia 1864-1964” (1 April 1964) .............................. 66
Figure 3-4: “Les Peuples des Indes Neerlandaises” (Gedenkboek 1931:47).............................. 70
Figure 3-5: “Pakaian Adat Nusantara” (2000)............................................................................ 72
Figure 3-6: “Great Japan Imperial Post” (1944) ......................................................................... 73
Figure 3-7: Soekarno and Washington (1949)............................................................................ 75
Figure 3-8: MacArthur salutes the Republic of South Maluku (1950) ....................................... 76
Figure 3-9: “West Irian is a territory of the Republic of Indonesia!” (1959).............................. 79
Figure 3-10: “Vluchtelingenhulp” (1960)................................................................................... 80
Figure 3-11: “Hari Dharma Samudera” (1974)........................................................................... 82
Figure 3-12: “Peta Operasi Djayawidjaya”................................................................................. 83
Figure 3-13: UNTEA era letter to USA (14 March 1963) .......................................................... 84
Figure 3-14: “United Nations Temporary Executive Authority” (1963) ................................... 85
Figure 3-15: “Tugu Pembebasan Irian Barat” (1963) ................................................................. 86
Figure 3-16: “Merah Putih from Sabang to Merauke” (1963).................................................... 87
Figure 3-17: “The First Liberation Flight to West Irian” (1963) ............................................... 89
Figure 3-18: “Hari Kesaktian Pantjasila” (FDC, 1 Oct. 1968) ................................................... 91
Figure 3-19: “Setia pada Ikrar 9 Mei 1964” (1968).................................................................... 91
Figure 3-20: “Pertahankan tanah dan bangsa kita” ..................................................................... 93
Figure 3-21: A “Prodigal Son” of West Irian surrenders to President Suharto........................... 95
Figure 3-22: “Lindungilah Margasatwa” (1959)......................................................................... 99
Figure 3-23: Netherlands New Guinea definitives (1954-58)..................................................... 99
Figure 3-24: “Irian Barat” overprints (1963) ............................................................................ 102
Figure 3-25: “Flowers and animals of West Irian” (1968) ....................................................... 104
Figure 3-26: Parrot and Bird of Paradise (1970)....................................................................... 105
Figure 3-27: Coat of Arms of the Province of Irian Jaya (1981) .............................................. 107
Figure 3-28: Twelve-Wired Bird of Paradise and Matoa (1994) .............................................. 108
Figure 3-29: “Cinta Flora dan Fauna” (1994)........................................................................... 109
Figure 3-30: Goura cristata set on “home-made” First Flight cover (1959) ............................. 110
Figure 3-31: Mambruk victoria (Bank of Indonesia 1984)....................................................... 111
Figure 3-32: Kodam XVII Tjenderawasih as Trikora (1964) ................................................... 113
Figure 3-33: Kodam XVII Trikora as Cenderawasih (1985) .................................................... 114
Figure 3-34: “Bird of Paradise in Papuan Culture” advertisement ........................................... 116
Figure 3-35: “Sang Merah Putih” dari Puncak Jaya ke Puncak Everest (1998) ....................... 117
Figure 3-36: “High Mountains” of Indonesia (Soekarno 1952:44-45) ..................................... 118
Figure 3-37: “Kapitan Pattimura” 1000 rupiah note (2001) ..................................................... 121
Figure 3-38: “Dialogue between Community, Dialogue among Civilisations” (2001) ............ 123
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Figure 3-39: “Alat Komunikasi Modern” (2002) ...................................................................... 124
Figure 3-40: “Indonesia Indah: Busana Tradisional” (1998) .................................................... 125
Figure 3-41: “Bulan & Sagu di Ibuanari” (2005) ...................................................................... 126
Figure 3-42: “Penemuan Spesies Baru di Papua” (2006).......................................................... 127
Figure 3-43: “O.P.M.” overprints (1978) .................................................................................. 129
Figure 3-44: Bintang Kejora personlijk postzegel (2003) ......................................................... 131
Figure 4-1: “Novae Guineae: Forma en Situs”.......................................................................... 138
Figure 4-2: “Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea” 1:100,000 map index ............................................... 140
Figure 4-3: Collingridge’s Bird of New Guinea (1906) ............................................................ 144
Figure 4-4: “Nova Ginea” (Torres 1606) .................................................................................. 145
Figure 4-5: “Oceanica o quinta parte del mondo” (Stucchi 1830) ............................................ 146
Figure 4-6: “Carte pour l’intelligence du mémoire de M. le Capitaine D’Urville…”............... 148
Figure 4-7: “Eastern Archipelago to illustrate Mr. W. Earle’s Paper 1845” ............................. 149
Figure 4-8: “The Continents of the world tell their own impassive and irrefutable story” ....... 152
Figure 4-9: “Map 5” .................................................................................................................. 153
Figure 4-10: “Too many lines…”.............................................................................................. 155
Figure 4-11: “Papuan Language Stocks: Western New Guinea Area” ..................................... 156
Figure 4-12: “Weltkarte vom Jahre 1569” ................................................................................ 158
Figure 4-13: “An old Papuan examines the portrait of H.R.H. Princess Beatrix”..................... 159
Figure 4-14: Fly River boundary (1895) ................................................................................... 161
Figure 4-15: “Kaart III, Overzicht van het Grensgebied” ......................................................... 162
Figure 4-16: “Plaquette, de Indonesische archipel, met op de plaats van Deli een saffier” ...... 163
Figure 4-17: “If only there could be some kind of machine…” ................................................ 165
Figure 4-18: “Vijfde Zuid Pacific Conferentie, Pago Pago 1962” FDC ................................... 170
Figure 4-19: “50th Anniversary Djuanda Declaration” (1957-2007)........................................ 171
Figure 4- 20: “The Nusantara Islands as one unit …”............................................................... 173
Figure 4-21: “West Irian, Indonesia” ........................................................................................ 174
Figure 4-22: “Irian is a Giant Machine”.................................................................................... 177
Figure 4- 23: “Operasi ‘Koteka’” .............................................................................................. 178
Figure 4-24: “Location of general resource studies and soil surveys used by RePPProT” ....... 179
Figure 4-25: “Protected areas and transmigration sites in the Merauke area”........................... 183
Figure 4-26: “Irian Jaya punya ‘sapi’, tetapi siapa yang memerah ‘susu’–nya?” ..................... 186
Figure 4-27: “Suku-suku sekitar pertambangan PTFI” (1996).................................................. 187
Figure 4-28: “Institut Pertambangan Nemangkawi” ................................................................ 189
Figure 4-29: “Zur Carstensz-Pyramide”.................................................................................... 191
Figure 4-30: “Areas closed to tourism…” (1997) ..................................................................... 195
Figure 4-31: “Perwilayahan Pariwisata” ................................................................................... 196
Figure 4-32: “UNCLAS OSINT Papua Province TNI-POLRI deployments” .......................... 198
Figure 4-33: The “West Papua” Map ........................................................................................ 200
Figure 4-34: “Your world today… Our region” ....................................................................... 202
Figure 4-35: “Kawasan Teluk Bintuni di Indonesia” ................................................................ 205
Figure 4-36: “A letter from Rev. Socratez Sofyan Yoman”...................................................... 209
Figure 4-37: “Letter to the Indonesian Embassy, London, 22 July 2005” ................................ 210
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Figure 4- 38: Shifting the burden (triptych).............................................................................. 213
Figure 4-39: “West Papua” (Map by John Waddingham) ........................................................ 215
Figure 4-40: “From the dark shone the light…” (circa 1998)................................................... 217
Figure 4-41: “Make Papua a Zone of Peace for you and me” T-shirt....................................... 218
Figure 4-42: “Puncak Jaya, Indonesia”..................................................................................... 222
Figure 4-43: Resource concessions in the Lorentz World Heritage Site .................................. 226
Figure 4-44: “Batas administrasi baru untuk propinsi-propinsi Papua” ................................... 228
Figure 4-45: The Provinces and districts of Papua and West Papua (2008) ............................. 229
Figure 4-46: “Wilayah Administratif Provinsi-Provinsi Papua Pasca Sinkronisasi”................ 230
Figure 4-47: “Perjanjian Mansinam, 20 Pebruari 2007”........................................................... 231
Figure 5-1: “Verdeeling der bevolking en de woningtypen...” ................................................. 239
Figure 5-2: “Dengan nama Tuhan kami menginjak tanah ini” ................................................. 242
Figure 5-3: “Ottow dan Geissler: Rasul Papua” ....................................................................... 244
Figure 5-4: “Village de Kouaoui au Havre Dorey, Nelle Guinee” ........................................... 246
Figure 5-5: “A village built on piles in a Swiss Lake” ............................................................. 247
Figure 5-6: “Façade et details de la maison sacree a Dorey” (1828) ........................................ 248
Figure 5-7: “Afbeelding van de Roemsram te Doreh” (1858).................................................. 249
Figure 5-8: “Lahairoi”............................................................................................................... 252
Figure 5-9: “Onze eerste missiestatie te Merauke” (1905) ....................................................... 255
Figure 5-10: “Doorpstraat voorheen en thans” ......................................................................... 259
Figure 5-11: “Doop van 1200 Papoea’s tegelijk in juli 1951...”............................................... 260
Figure 5-12: “Schild-motieven bij de Autoe-Bevolking in het Digoel-Gebeid” (c.1914) ........ 262
Figure 5-13: “Makam Pahlawan Perintis Kemerdekaan” ......................................................... 266
Figure 5-14: “Monumen di Taman Makam Pahlawan Perintis Kemerdekaan”........................ 267
Figure 5-15: “De Gouden Stad” (in circulation from 1953-1963) ............................................ 268
Figure 5-16: “Irian Barat: Pembangunan Suku Mukoko”......................................................... 271
Figure 5-17: “Vogelvlucht-perspectief Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea Raad te Hollandia” .......... 272
Figure 5-18: A political structure - never developed (1961)..................................................... 274
Figure 5-19: Nieuw Guinea Raad locations (1961) .................................................................. 276
Figure 5-20: “Nieuw-Guinea Raad 1961” ................................................................................ 277
Figure 5-21: Kotabaru (October 1962) ..................................................................................... 278
Figure 5-22: “Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah Papua (DPRD Papua)” ............................... 279
Figure 5-23: “Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah, Propinsi Daerah Tingkat I Irian Jaya” ....... 281
Figure 5-24: An Indies cultural rijstaffel served in Paris (1931) .............................................. 283
Figure 5-25: “Papoea in krijgskleeding, Z. Nieuw Guinea” ..................................................... 285
Figure 5-26: “Wij versieren onze huizen met motieven uit eigen land” (1958) ....................... 287
Figure 5-27: “Een man maakt een sepikmasker bij een kiosk in Hollandia”........................... 288
Figure 5-28: “1e Jaarmarkt Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea” (1959) .............................................. 289
Figure 5-29: “Potong, Lipat, dan Tempel - Rumah Adat...”..................................................... 291
Figure 5-30: “Ibu Tien Soeharto, pemrakarsa pembangunan Museum Asmat TMII”.............. 293
Figure 5-31: “Ukiran Kayu Irian Barat” 1970 .......................................................................... 294
Figure 5-32: Dioceses in Papua and West Papua (April 2008)................................................. 295
Figure 5-33: “Asmat Ceremonial House [or jeu], Atjs Village, Irian Jaya” (1985) ................. 297
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Figure 5-34: “Keunikanmu, Kebanggaanku, Asmat West Papua”............................................ 298
Figure 5-35: The Church at Sawa-Erma (2001) ........................................................................ 299
Figure 5-36: “APO Ruangan Sosial” (1980) ............................................................................. 303
Figure 5-37: “Mols” .................................................................................................................. 304
Figure 5-38: “Gereja Katolik di Arso” (1999)........................................................................... 305
Figure 5-39: “Kathedraal Noordwijk, Hollandia” (1956).......................................................... 307
Figure 5-40: “Katedral Kristus Raja, Jayapura” (1990) ............................................................ 309
Figure 5-41: Interior of the Cathedral of Christ the King, Jayapura (1990).............................. 310
Figure 5-42: Michael, a Papuan Archangel, beats a ‘dragon’ skin tifa (2001).......................... 312
Figure 5-43: St Francis of Assisi... in Papua (1980).................................................................. 314
Figure 5-44: Jesus before Pontius Pilate (1990)........................................................................ 316
Figure 5-45: “Your flock hears Your voice” ............................................................................. 317
Figure 5-46: “Goa Maria” (Sentani 2007)................................................................................. 318
Figure 5-47: “Grotto/Goa Santa Maria, Wamena, Irian Jaya, Indonesia” (c.1996) .................. 319
Figure 5-48: Graven Images: Ottow and Geissler Memorial, Kwawi...................................... 321
Figure 5-49: “Archangel in the form of a Javanese prince” ...................................................... 324
Figure 5-50: “Cornerstones…?” Remnants of the DPRD Manokwari (2001) .......................... 325
Figure 5-51: “New Town will offer its residents and visitors…” (1994).................................. 327
Figure 5-52: “Dies Natalis Pertama Unipa” (2001)................................................................... 329
Figure 5-53: Rum sram, Papua Pavilion, TMII (2007) ............................................................. 330
Figure 5-54: Rum sram in the TMII complex ........................................................................... 330
Figure 5-55: “Katedral Kristus Raja, Jayapura (pasca renovasi, 2001)” ................................... 332
Figure 6-1: “Buatlah Irian Barat satu zamrud jang indah” ........................................................ 338
Figure 6-2: Kerajinan ‘M’......................................................................................................... 355
Figure 6-3: Symbols circulated at Congress2000...................................................................... 356
Figure 6-4: Kabupaten Manokwari, Propinsi Papua Barat, WPNGNC Logo ........................... 358
Figure 6-5: Governor Solossa at the “Papua 2000 Festival” ..................................................... 362
Figure 6-6: “Events and Stimuli for [conflict in] Papua” .......................................................... 373
Figure 6-7: “Ikatan Mahasiswa Pegunungan Tengah – IMPT – Manokwari Papua” ............... 378
Figure 7-1: “Papua… the Real Thing” ...................................................................................... 388
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– CHAPTER 1 –
An Open Field
In early November 2000, I flew to the central highlands of Indonesian Papua (the
western half of the Island of New Guinea).1 At the airport in Wamena I was met by a
friend of five years. Tomi was an older man from the local Dani tribe.2 On past visits,
he was calmer, more measured. On this occasion he urged me to follow him to his
nearby village. We took a circuitous route. Once in the safety of his house he pressed a
small blue book into my hand. I had seen the book in the provincial capital of Jayapura
only days before. I told him I could get a copy of the book myself. He insisted I take
his copy, and stated repeatedly, “I already know it.”
I did not “know it”. I gave the book a cursory look in the dim light of his house. It had
an intriguing title – Towards a New Papua: principle thoughts for the Emancipation of
the Papuan People (Menuju Papua Baru: Beberapa pokok pikiran sekitar Emansipasi
Orang Papua, henceforth MPB) – and was written by a Papuan, the Reverend Benny
Giay, PhD (Giay 2001). I did not have long to consider the book. Tomi was
uncharacteristically anxious that day and he did not want me to stay long. I put the
book in my backpack and I was soon on my way. As I walked back into town, alone, I
reflected on our discussion of the bloody ethnic violence that had occurred a few weeks
ago in Wamena (see Tim Kemanusiaan Wamena 2001). My thoughts then drifted to the
book in my bag and to the awkward moment I had with police at the airport earlier that
day. Tensions remained high in Wamena and the security forces appeared suspicious of
all foreigners. I found myself then – as now – asking a familiar question.
What am I doing here?
I consider my experiences of research in Papua to be a barometer of the broader
political and cultural challenges in the province in the immediate post-Suharto (May
1
A note on terminology for Papua, Irian and Indonesian Papua is included at the end of this chapter.
Where necessary in this thesis, the identity of certain informants is suppressed (either at their request or
at my discretion). This measure is intended to protect these individuals, but additional detail of
interviews and correspondence may be made available in confidence to thesis examiners if required.
2
1
1998) period. I allude briefly to these experiences in an effort to be forthright and selfreflexive about key transformations that have shaped my research questions,
frameworks and methodologies. Part of this reflection makes mention of events
elsewhere in Indonesia vital to an appreciation of the context of my research project.
I first visited Papua in 1994 while researching forestry practices across the island of
New Guinea as a postgraduate at Monash University. At that time the Indonesian
security apparatus maintained a firm hold over the province (as it had for more than
three decades) in an attempt to suppress popular dissent and the low-level guerrilla
insurgency by the Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka, OPM). Despite
its authoritarian practices, President Suharto’s “New Order” government enjoyed the
succour of the international community and accolades for its economic achievements
from leading analysts at various institutions, including the Australian National
University (ANU).3 Papua, although at the periphery of Indonesia, also appeared to be
benefiting from development infrastructure and economic initiatives linked to the
government’s “security through prosperity” and “Go East” policies in the region.
My early research afforded me the rather unusual opportunity to conduct fieldwork in
both Papua and Papua New Guinea. I returned regularly to Papua on visits for
fieldwork and for my own interest: twice in 1995, twice in 1996, then again in 1997 and
1998. I based myself in Jayapura (often with friends) and travelled extensively
throughout the province. I visited government agencies, saw tourist sites, spent time in
the offices of non-government organisations, met activists, religious leaders and cultural
figures, attended state and church-sponsored festivals, witnessed demonstrations and
spent a month trekking from the central highlands to the south coast. Each visit brought
experiences which stimulated new research questions and reflections. My trips were
always short as I travelled on two month tourist visas – then a common practice among
Australian academics working in Papua or other Indonesian provinces where official
approval for research was unlikely or cumbersome. I was in Jayapura in May-June
1998 when economic collapse and popular discontent culminated in the resignation of
3
Suharto died on 27 January 2008. Almost all the mainstream newspaper obituaries were highly critical
of his 32-year rule of Indonesia (see http://www.etan.org/et2008/1january/26/27sobits.htm#ExIndonesian%20Dictator%20Suharto%20Dies) For an annotated obituary of Suharto with documents
which indicate support for his regime by various United States administrations, see Simpson (2008).
2
President Suharto and the end of his New Order government. There was a widespread
sense among Papuans I knew and met during this time that they now had the
opportunity for popular protest. By early July, the Morning Star (Bintang Kejora) flag
symbolising the independent nation of West Papua was raised at demonstrations in
almost all major towns in the province and in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.4
Papuan protesters had misapprehended the reach of the reformation movement
underway elsewhere in the archipelago. In the few short months since Suharto’s
resignation little had changed for the security forces in Papua and their response to proindependence dissent was characteristically harsh. By this time I had left Indonesia but
heard many distressing reports of demonstrators across the province being arrested,
beaten and shot.5 The speed and intensity of the protest movement and the extreme
response of security forces drew the attention of Indonesian’s media and that of
Suharto’s successor, President B.J. Habibie. On 22 July 1998, the government
announced that a Fact Finding Mission consisting of members of the Indonesian
National Assembly (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR) would be sent to Papua to
determine the causes of Papuan discontent. After consultation with Papuan elites,
including religious and traditional leaders, a National Dialogue process was initiated in
which a Team of 100 Papuans (Team100) would have a series of meetings with the
government in Jakarta (see Chapter 2).
At their first and only meeting with the President (26 February, 1999), Team100
presented a unanimous declaration asserting the desire of the Papuan people for an
independent state (Alua 2002b:50-56; HRW 2000). The President was equally
emphatic in his rejection of their demand for independence. Instead, he insisted, they
should return to Papua to reflect on – and change – their position.6 The subsequent
4
For more on these flag-raisings and background to events in Indonesian Papua during this period, see
Alua (2002b, 2002c, 2002d; HRW 2000; van den Broek and Szalay 2001; and the Socio-Political notes
(http://www.hampapua.org/skp/indexb.html) and Memoria Passionis series
(http://www.hampapua.org/skp/index.html) of the Catholic Church Office of Justice and Peace for the
diocese of Jayapura (Sekretariat Keadilan dan Perdamaian, SKP)).
5
While there were protests in most major towns across Papua in early July, in Biak the lethal force used
by the security forces (6 July) resulted in an unknown number of Papuan deaths. This incident received
widespread international media attention after it was reported by two Australian aid workers on the island
and came to be known as the ‘Biak massacre’. It prompted government action in Indonesia as discussed
later in this chapter (see HRW 1998; Rutherford 1999).
6
Detail of the meeting is recounted by T100 delegates in Alua (2002b:68-76).
3
stages planned for this National Dialogue were then cancelled (HRW 2000). Upon their
return to Papua in early March, Team100 members began to “socialise”
(mengsosialisasi) the result of this meeting with their constituent communities in a
manner consistent with the President’s edict. Their efforts, however, were soon
hamstrung by Papua’s Police Chief who on 17 April 1999 banned the further
dissemination of information related to the failed National Dialogue process (Alua
2002b:88-92; SKP 1999; HRW 2000; Fitzsimons 2000). Yet, although it ended
abruptly, the Team100 meeting marked a watershed in Papuan relations with the
Indonesian state as it was the first time since the Indonesian administrative take-over of
“West Irian” in 1963 that the government had formally acknowledged the grievances of
indigenous Papuans and endorsed a mechanism of popular representation through which
ethnic Papuans could be brought into dialogue with Jakarta.
Two further processes in 2000, a “Great Consultation” (Musyawarah Besar,
Mubes2000) followed by a “Second Papuan Congress” (Congress2000) brought
indigenous representatives from across the province together in Jayapura to discuss their
future vis-à-vis Indonesia (see Chapter 2). I was not in Papua at the time of
Congress2000 (29 May – 4 June 2000) but the event was widely reported in the
mainstream Indonesian media. One reason for this media attention was the controversy
over the political and financial support given to the Congress by Indonesia’s new
President Abdurrahman Wahid (“Gus Dur”).7 These mass gatherings resulted in the
election of a Papuan Presidium Council (Presidium Dewan Papua, PDP) to prosecute
the declaration by Congress2000 participants to the sovereign nation of “West Papua”
with its own flag and anthem; a claim made at an earlier Congress in the same town
(then Hollandia) in November 1961.8 At Congress2000, Giay’s MPB was distributed
among the 500 delegates and thousands of enthusiastic observers. The initial print run
of 3000 copies disappeared among the crowd within a few days. Giay had written the
book with the hope it would help frame discussion at Congress2000 (see Chapter 2)9
and it was this book that my friend Tomi had given me in Wamena in late 2000.
7
Gus Dur donated 1 billion rupiah, a third of the total cost of Congress2000 (see Tebay 2000).
Declaration made on 4 June 2000 (online at http://westpapuaaction.buz.org/CONGRESSRESOLUTION-4-6-2000.htm).
9
In late 2001, I met The Reverend Benny Giay for the first time in his home in Sentani to discuss the
possibility of translating his book and making it available on the website www.papuaweb.org. He agreed,
but later expressed reticence at having the text translated and made available in English without the
8
4
Giay’s book was risky and radical even amid the reformation (Reformasi) euphoria that
was sweeping Indonesia. MPB called for a complete transformation of the Papuan
worldview; for a new understanding of the way Papuans saw themselves, their
relationship to the Indonesian state and their identity as an indigenous people (see
Chapter 2). His choice of title, Towards a New Papua…, seemed to capture perfectly
the mood I sensed in Papua in late 2000. Many of the people I met during this time –
established friends and new acquaintances in civil society organisations (CSOs,
including religious groups) and government – seemed to share this sense of a “New
Papua” in the making. The preoccupation with possibility was palpable. Others,
including many recent migrants to Papua, felt exclusion, frustration and growing
trepidation at this new phenomenon. Anticipation, expectation and uncertainty
pervaded streets, cafes, offices and homes across the province, paralysing many
government and non-government agencies alike. The barometric pressure was rising
but few Papuans, it seemed, were dispassionate enough to comprehend the
consequences for Papua policy of Gus Dur’s loss of influence and the appointment (by
mid-2001) of Megawati Sukarnoputri as Indonesia’s new president.
I was cautiously optimistic on my return to Papua in October 2000 that the winds of
Reformasi which had blown new hope into the lives of so many Indonesians might also
bring fresh possibilities for foreign researchers. I had just enrolled in a PhD program at
ANU and anticipated that access to regions like Papua might become easier in the postSuharto era. Despite my past reliance on tourist visas for Papua I was eager to receive
government approval for my research. My study of the emergence of and role(s) for
CSOs in Papua was an issue consistent with the spirit of reformation. Moreover, I
believed questions relating to mechanisms of popular participation were of particular
significance for communities wearied by authoritarian rule. However my experiences in
Papua in late 2000 directly challenged this research agenda. I was struck by the extent
of Papuan involvement in political and socio-cultural life since May-June 1998 (my last
visit to Papua); an efflorescence among civil society actors in Papua not apparent from
mainstream media reports about Papua.
opportunity to first revise MPB. He noted the haste with which he had written the book (to be ready for
Congress2000) and his desire to develop the book’s themes in a revised edition.
5
Research pragmatics
Back in Canberra in early 2001, reflections on my recent time in Papua brought
significant changes to my research project. It was clear to me that the National
Dialogue process, Congress2000 and publications like Giay’s MPB were of profound
importance to many Papuans. I now sought to shift my research trajectory in a direction
that I hoped would be of greater immediate relevance to people living in Papua. Giay’s
book proposed frameworks for his “New Papua” (see Chapter 2), but the book
tantalised me for a different reason. It implied the existence of another Papua – an ‘old
Papua’. By mid-2001, I had reformulated my research into an interview-based project
to inquire into what people living in Papua understood as Papua(n), that is, an
ethnography of ‘Papuanness’. Past experience had tempered my naïevety about access
to Papua and I knew that my re-direction was, in the new political climate, more
sensitive than my earlier research proposal. But I was engaged in a parallel project that
I hoped would help smooth my visa approval process.
Much of my research during the 1990s had been stymied by a chronic lack of access to
up-to-date, credible and timely information about Papua and its peoples. Conversations
and correspondence with colleagues made clear the extent of the problem for
researchers both inside and outside Papua. My appreciation of how this lack of source
materials constrained research possibilities grew with my knowledge of the published
and archival documents relevant to Papua and related ongoing studies by local and
foreign university students and academics, CSO workers, aid agencies, government
departments and multinational companies in Papua. The mismatch of resources
available to researchers within Papua was of particular concern. In late 2001 I returned
to Indonesia with two clear objectives. The first was to help establish the “Papuaweb
Project”, a collaborative research network between the ANU and the two state
universities in the province, the University of Papua (Universitas Negeri Papua, Unipa)
and the Bird of Paradise University (Universitas Negeri Cenderawasih, Uncen). My
second objective was to explore the possibility of obtaining a permit for my PhD
research with the direct sponsorship of one of these two universities. At that time a new
suite of government reforms for Papua appeared likely to increase my chances of
obtaining visa approval.
6
Throughout 2001, a process was underway in Jakarta and Jayapura to create a Special
Autonomy (Otonomi Khusus, Otsus) Bill for Papua. Otsus drafts canvassed a wide
array of possibilities,10 particularly with respect to the extent of power and budgetary
discretion that might be conceded by Jakarta to local administrators in Papua. In Papua,
a special team under the authority of Governor Jaap Solossa was actively engaged in
developing and promoting its own Otsus drafts, which emphasised the importance of
addressing the specific concerns of ethnic Papuans in the legislation as a way of
ensuring popular support for – and acceptance of – the policy package. I had been in
Papua for almost two months before the Otsus bill was approved by the Indonesian
Parliament (21 November 2001). In Papua, even among my more moderate Papuan
friends, the bill was met with cynicism and derision. Many Papuans rejected the new
legislation outright. On paper the final Otsus bill included remarkable concessions for
the province and its peoples, but in Papua it had been overshadowed by the trauma of
recent events.
On 10 November 2001, less than two weeks before Otsus was written into law, Theys
Hilo Eluay, flamboyant chairman of the PDP, was assassinated in Jayapura.11 The
shock news of his murder broke the euphoric spell created by Congress2000. His death
was an ignominious affair, involving a dinner with – and subsequent ambush and
execution by – members of Indonesia’s notorious Special Forces (Komando Pasukan
Khusus, Kopassus). His funeral, by contrast, was a dignified and moving tribute to a
tribal leader and former Indonesian politician ‘turned’ Papuan independence leader (see
Chapter 2). Eluay was a controversial figure but his apparent martyrdom for Papuan
independence strengthened solidarity among many indigenous Papuans and also elicited
sympathy from some non-indigenous peoples resident in Papua. The selection of the
main soccer field in Sentani as the site for the new Papuan “National Heroes Cemetery”
10
While published accounts of these various drafts are scant (see Sumule 2003a, 2003b, 2003c), almost a
dozen draft versions of this legislation were circulated in Jakarta and Papua during 2001.
11
Eluay was kidnapped on 10th November and discovered the following day in his vehicle which had
been dumped near the PNG border. His driver (and personal bodyguard) was not found with him and has
been missing, presumed dead, ever since. For a brief account of Eluay’s life and death, see Ipenburg
(2002) and for more on his political aspirations (and those of others) for Papua, see Karoba’s book,
published within weeks of Eluay’s death (Karoba et al. 2001). Giay’s book (2003), apparently banned by
local officials in Papua, offers a more considered chronology of events preceding and following Eluay’s
assassination.
7
(Taman Makam Pahlawan) poignantly signified an end of play for his PDP
independence campaign (see Chapter 6). In Papua at this time, my presence among a
reported 20,000 mourners at Eluay’s funeral did not go unnoticed. In the days that
followed, I received several visits by Indonesian police and intelligence officers at my
hotel in Jayapura as the atmosphere in the city turned decidedly sombre. Reformasi in
Papua – and the so-called “Papuan Spring” – was over.12
Eluay’s assassination effectively undermined whatever political capital or goodwill the
Special Autonomy process had garnered. Moreover, Eluay’s death saw startling
revelations in the mainstream Indonesian media of a top secret plan formulated by the
Indonesian security forces to adopt covert means of dealing with Papuan separatism (see
Chapter 2). Optimistic proposals that Otsus might even have enabled local government
officials in Papua to bypass Jakarta and establish their own relationships with foreign
governments, CSOs and researchers, now seemed absurd. The security apparatus – or
elements of it – had moved decisively to repress popular dissent and separatist activity.
By the end of 2001 the inconsistent but relatively liberal responses of police and
military to Papuan dissent which had characterised much of the Reformasi period in
Papua were repudiated by President Megawati in favour of a return to the heavy-handed
security practices of the Suharto era. With these developments, gradually and
reluctantly, I began to concede that I might not obtain any formal visa approval for my
research work.13
My subsequent visa applications in 2002 and 2003 for access to Papua experienced
extended delays. My application in 2002 was for a permit to conduct research work in
12
Van den Broek and Szalay (2001:91) are generally credited with coining the phrase and argue that the
‘spring’ started in August 1998 (following the Habibie government’s shock at the July 1998 Biak
flagraising) and ended in December 2000 with crackdowns by the security forces, charges of subversion
against five members of the PDP and subsequent brutal military operations in 2001 (such as the Wasior
operation on the Wandamen peninsula, see Amnesty International 2002b). However, the process of
negotiating Papuan special autonomy clearly indicated a willingness from Jakarta to engage with Papuan
aspirations in a way not seen since the Special Autonomy Law for Papua was passed in November 2001.
Similarly, although members of the PDP were imprisoned in late 2000, I suggest that for many Papuans
(and non-Papuan observers) the clearest signal this political space had closed was the assassination of
Theys Eluay (see also Chauvel 2001c).
13
Attempts to limit research on Papua are linked directly to the role of the Indonesian security forces.
Barnes (2000:230) notes that “research permission from the Indonesian authorities… is absolutely
indispensable for research lasting more than a few weeks…. The problem lies not with the Indonesian
Institute of Science, who are courteous and cooperative, but with the fact that such applications have to be
vetted by the Internal Security Service (Bakin [now Badan Intelijen Negara, BIN]) who can be extremely
slow….”
8
collaboration with the University of Papua. After months of waiting, I was informally
warned by a friend at the Indonesian Embassy (Kedutaan Besar Republik Indonesia,
KBRI) in Canberra that my visa application would be unsuccessful. I took this advice
to withdraw my application rather than have it officially declined. My hope was that
the political climate would improve somewhat over the next 12 months – within a
timeframe that would still make fieldwork for my PhD feasible. In 2003 I applied to
visit Papua for a three-day period to contribute to a workshop on HIV/AIDS in Papua.
This visa application and my participation in this workshop were sponsored by the
HIV/AIDS Prevention and Care Project for Indonesia (IHPCP), a joint initiative of the
Indonesian National AIDS Commission, the Indonesian Ministry of Health and the
Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID). My visa application,
although presented to the Embassy in Canberra in a timely fashion, was again delayed
for months “pending approval from Jakarta”. On several occasions I met staff at KBRI
Canberra to indicate my willingness to discuss any concerns related to my visa
application, but these efforts proved fruitless.14 On the eve of the HIV/AIDS workshop
my visa was still not approved despite the best efforts of the workshop sponsors in
Jakarta and Papua. At this point I again withdrew my visa application for Papua as it
was indicated to me that a declined visa application was tantamount to being
‘blacklisted’ from future visits to Indonesia.
In late 2003 I made a decision, in consultation with my supervisor at ANU, Chris
Ballard, to make no further attempts to gain field access to Indonesian Papua for the
duration of my candidature. I was well aware that research work conducted without
appropriate visa approval could put my informants at risk.15 Such an approach might
also be considered contrary to the ethical research practices endorsed by the ANU.16
14
During 2002-2005, numerous colleagues experienced similar problems with research permits to
Indonesia and several were blacklisted and even deported from the country. Such restrictions were
particular acute for students and academics with interest in the restive provinces of Papua and Aceh (and
more recently for parts of Maluku and central Sulawesi). Such difficulties of access persist today for
researchers, journalists, church workers, development workers and NGO activists wanting to visit or work
in Papua (see Chapter 4).
15
For a useful discussion on this issue as it relates to research in Papua, see Butt (1998:41-47). On the
related issue of how officials and informants experience foreign researchers see, for example, Rutherford
(1997:103-105) and Timmer (2000:14-15).
16
Under Section 1 “Principles of Ethical Research” see the sub-sections 1.7 and 1.9 related to consent of
research subjects; see also Section 17 “Research involving deception of participants, concealment or
covert observation” in the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Research Involving Humans (see
http://www.nhmrc.gov.au/publications/synopses/e35syn.htm accessed 070207).
9
Recent terrorist attacks in Indonesia added to institutional concerns about, and
impediments to, field research in Indonesia.17 My prominent role in the Papuaweb triuniversities cooperative network also obliged me to refrain from actions which might
abuse the trust of my academic counterparts in Papua or jeopardise the long-term
objectives of the project. My decision not to pursue fieldwork in Papua was doubly
disappointing due to the growing interest, both within Papua and abroad, in the internet
component of the Papuaweb Project.
Papuaweb’s chief organ, the website www.papuaweb.org, has been an adjunct to my
research work since 2001. The initial framework and focus of the website emerged
from discussions with my supervisor and consultative meetings I held with the Rectors,
various academics and technical staff at Unipa and Uncen during in late 2001. Website
content reflected the research priorities established by the tri-university collaboration
and featured materials relevant to Papua solicited from colleagues in Papua, Indonesia
and abroad (subject to copyright and other considerations). Many of the other
documents I obtained for the website traced my voyages of discovery in libraries,
archives and private collections in Indonesia, Australia and The Netherlands (during an
extended period of residence in 2005 and 2006). My frustration at effectively being
denied access to Papua found expression through my determination to contribute to free,
‘open access’ resources about Papua via the project website.18 At some point
www.papuaweb.org passed from a minor thesis diversion to an obsession –
accompanied by an insatiable desire to collect all things ‘Papua(n)’.19 This bower-bird
approach suggested new categories for collecting and new opportunities for research.
Papua was appearing to me with myriad forms and faces.
17
There were also concerns among a number of Australian universities related to the Australian
Department of Foreign Affairs travel advisory warnings for Indonesia (particularly following the Bali
bombing of 12 October 2002). It was considered prudent by ANU and other universities at this time to
oblige students to terminate their studies and/or fieldwork and return to Australia even if they had
appropriate visas for research and study in Indonesia.
18
While mindful of other materials available via the world-wide-web (see Cookson 2001 and Cookson
2008) and of the possibilities for collaboration with colleagues engaged in parallel projects, such as
PACE in The Netherlands (see www.pace.nl).
19
While there are already more than 3,000 files (and nearly 100,000 pages of documentation and
hundreds of images) related to Papua on www.papuaweb.org, many documents and other materials which
I have assembled for the project remain to be prepared in a web-based format.
10
Batik Irian: a short history of a shirt
Figure 1 - 1: “Batik Irian” in detail
The batik shirt, its imagery, innovations, institutional associations, and significance to cultural
practice, exemplify core themes of this thesis. It is made by the ancient Javanese process of lost
wax dyeing, known as batik. The repetitive black pattern of this particular shirt is constructed
through the juxtaposition of several key motifs, including a stylised man in a seated position and a
spiral tusk-like image. These two motifs are frequently depicted on the large carved ceremonial
bijs poles of the Asmat people who inhabit the southern swamps of Papua. The fabric also features
a stylised dragon and design elements adapted from the Dyak of Kalimantan. In this way, the
ancestral imagery of these peoples is appropriated and re-presented in the Papuan provincial capital
of Jayapura, in Jakarta, Canberra and elsewhere.
I purchased this shirt in 1995, when I first visited a now defunct batik factory in Waena, on the
outskirts of Jayapura. At that time, the operation was barely viable. Originally established with
funding from the United Nations through the Joint Development Fund for Irian Jaya (JDF), this
project sought to bring the technology of batik fabric printing to Irian, adapted to local designs and
motifs. The “Batik JDF” factory struggled for more than a decade, often poorly managed and
critically under-resourced. By the late 1990s it had faltered and what could be salvaged was sold
off to meet JDF debts. Yet today the transformations introduced through this socio-cultural and
economic innovation are stronger than ever.
The Batik JDF legacy expanded rapidly over the past decade for two key reasons. The first is a
Suharto-era regulation which still obliges regional bureaucrats in Indonesia to wear “regional
dress” on a regular basis (not to be confused with an earlier government program aimed at defining
a ‘traditional’ provincial dress, or pakaian adat, discussed in Chapter 3). The second is the
availability of cheap Irian-styled batik cloth and clothes from Java. Today, Irian-styled batik
garments are worn throughout the province(s) by Papuans and non-Papuans alike and have become
a key regional symbol of Papuan pride and pride in Papua. However, the origins of Batik Irian, its
importance in authoring and legitimating new modalities of dress, media and commerce for the
expression of traditional motifs, as well as the economic dependencies necessary for its
proliferation have yet to be considered critically. Apparent ambivalences to the genealogies
embodied in such representations of Indonesian Papua and their importance to contemporary
political and cultural debates concerning the region motivate my thesis inquiry.
11
Seeing Papua as an Open Field
My red Batik Irian shirt is a well-worn example of how Papua is manifested in – and
taken to – remarkable places. 20 This shirt is emblematic of the ways in which the
subjective, socio-cultural and technological fabrics of life in Indonesian Papua are
woven together. Papua, old and new, is complicated. It is not defined by a single issue,
symbol, or moment, even though its presence may be evoked or asserted through the
use of popular icons, such as the Morning Star flag (Bintang Kejora) or the Bird of
Paradise (Cenderawasih). Papua is a multiply-constituted and interpreted entity, at
times confused, opaque and contradictory in character – something akin to the Bali
described by James Boon (1990:ix):
What has come to be called Balinese culture is a multiply authored invention, a
historical formation, an enactment, a political construct, a shifting paradox, an
ongoing translation, an emblem, a trademark, a non-consensual negotiation of
contrastive identity, and more…
My intention in this thesis is not to attempt to define Papua or Papuan culture. On the
contrary, it is to expand the possibilities of how Papua might be constituted – based on
three novel case studies. The key epistemological premise of my study follows a
growing trend in social research which understands culture as “... not so much a set of
things, but a process – a set of practices” (Hall 1997:2).
My research addresses the ways in which the cultural practice or process of ‘Papua’
coalesces around issues of identity, agency and representation. My approach to this
nexus echoes Foster’s endorsement of a narrative framework that “deflects... definite
and essential” notions of identity (in his study of national identity) in favour of
“ethnographic variation” (Foster 2002:5-6). Instead of assertions of authenticity, this
premise shifts focus to the means and mechanisms by which contemporary Papua or
Papuanness is apprehended. It also provides an important counterpoint to archetypal
ethnographic research in which subjects are legible and studies intelligible by virtue of
their attachment to specific field locations.
20
Irian is the term used for Indonesian Papua in the period 1962-2000, the period in which this style of
batik was developed. In vernacular usage, the phrase “Batik in a Papuan style” (batik khas Papua) is also
common, but Batik Irian is the term used in government publications about the batik project and in recent
academic work (see Roper 1999, Hermkens 2007).
12
In an open field the focus of research inquiry is no longer geographically predetermined
or constrained by other ethnographic norms and priorities (such as kinship or
reciprocity). Marcus (1995:96) has characterised this as “multi-sited” ethnography,
which seeks:
...to examine the circulation of cultural meanings, objects, and identities in
diffuse time-space. This mode defines for itself an object of study that cannot be
accounted for ethnographically by remaining focused on a single site of
intensive investigation.
The need for such innovation is increasingly apparent in anthropology and other social
research (e.g. Appadurai 1996) but brings new challenges as meta-level theoretical
frameworks reveal limits to their explanatory power and relevance (Marcus 1995:95).
Similarly, the study of these pathways of the particular – of peoples, things, metaphors,
conflicts, and the like – transgress traditional disciplinary fields.
Recent ethnographic texts have helped frame this thesis21 as have popular and public
culture studies.22 My approach is also indebted to cultural studies,23 particularly the
pioneering work of Bernard Smith (1969; 1992), who understood the Antipodes “as a
relation not as [a] place” (Beilharz 1997:xiv, emphasis in original). His bold
interpretations of Pacific imagery through European and indigenous imaginings were
propelled by a research endeavour of immediate relevance to my own (Smith, quoted in
Beilharz 1997:14):
We need an etymology and semantics of the visual image as vigorous as that of
the word: to grasp the role of the mixed image in conveying information, in
rhetoric, in persuasion, in the expression of feelings and the ways in which
images may be conjoined with words.
This purpose, which parallels the corpus of art history and aesthetics, is apparent in the
work of Pacific scholars who follow in the wake of Smith’s intellectual voyages.24 It is
also foundational to the emerging ‘field’ of visual culture.25 Such readings, together
with self-reflexive (Hall 2002:1-22; Gouda 1995:11-38; Dove 1999) and
21
Thomas 1991; Spyer 2000; Foster 2002; Rutherford 2003; Tsing 2005; Kirsch 2006.
Fabian 1996, 1998; Lutz and Collins 1993; Wright 1994; Mulder 2000; Strassler 2005; MacGregor
2007; also Morris-Suzuki’s (2005) discussion of historiography and popular/public media.
23
Said 1978; Mitchell 1991; Thongchai Winichakul 1997; Mrázek 2002.
24
Douglas 1999; Thomas and Losche 1999; Thomas, Cole and Douglas 2005.
25
Berger 1972; Tufte 1990; Mirzoeff 1999; Barnard 2001; Sturken and Cartwright 2001; Mitchell 2002,
2005; Bird and Davis 2005.
22
13
methodologically explicit works (Yanow 2000; Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2006) have
inspired my research and convinced me of the merits of an interpretative, inductive and
inter-disciplinary approach to my case material.
The ‘artefacts’ of Papua considered in this thesis include maps, postage stamps, art and
architecture. The treatment of these artefacts in the case studies suggest how these and
similar objects may illuminate processes of culture, representation and identity
formation.26 For this reason, the case studies are focused less on the technical or
institutional context(s) of the production of these artefacts (cf. Sinclair 1985, 2001) than
on their importance as media of exchange in a representational system (a language)
through which Papua may be discerned and experienced. All of these artefacts create
and exchange meaning through their deployment in practice: how they are interpreted,
their use(s), and the claims made for what they represent. With practice some acquire
sufficient weight to stand for (or signify) Papua and come to constrain (or discipline)
processes of representation, thereby restricting alternatives of what (and how) Papua
may be.27 Such cultural processes conform to Foucault’s notion of discourses as
“practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak” (Foucault 1972:49).
In this way a discourse of Papua (a discursive practice) is expected to proscribe the
scope and possibilities of how Papua may be envisioned and experienced collectively;
signifiers (metaphors) for Papua may be taken as their signified (Papua and/or Papuans).
This constructivist epistemology is broadly consistent with the way some Papuans
(Kaisiepo 1994:42-43, my translation, emphasis in original) characterise their own
culture:
Anthropology experts from The Netherlands who have conducted research in
Irian Jaya commonly acknowledge that the primary cultural feature of the
communities of this region is their diversity or rich variety.
With this in mind, we find it difficult to identify a specific ‘Irian culture’. When
we understand culture as the accumulated experience of mankind which
develops into a shared frame of reference, this becomes the guide to the
character and the behaviour of that community.
26
This is consistent with Mitchell’s (2002) “showing seeing” approach to visual culture (in which he
adapts the popular school children’s game “show and tell” into a heuristic device for understanding
processes of “seeing”).
27
Smith reflects on this phenomenon in the second edition of his 1960 classic: “use of the term ‘European
Vision’ declared a belief in a cognitive theory of perception: that seeing is conditioned by knowing”
(Smith 1985:vii).
14
The power – in the sense of influence or control – inherent in the discursive practice of
Papuan culture and the shared frame(s) of reference through which cultural artefacts are
apprehended are critical to an understanding of what is at stake in such representations.
An interesting parallel to this Papuan perspective on cultural practice is offered as an
aside in a Human Rights Watch report on Papua (HRW:2000, footnote 44), which
discusses responses of the security forces to Papuan Team100 members attempting the
“socialisation” of their meeting with President Habibie when they returned to Papua
(discussed further in Chapter 2):
…mensosialisasi, literally “socialization,” is a neologism that emerged
nationally in the early 1990s, apparently in the context of central government
efforts to respond to growing demands for democratic reform. Putatively a sign
of increasing democratization, it is used most often to refer to government
informational or public relations campaigns, which usually include open public
meetings before policies are implemented. It is also now commonly used by
citizens’ groups… to refer to their own grassroots efforts to disseminate
politically significant information and elicit feedback or public approval. The
term carries the connotation of “informal public exchange” present in the
English root word “socialize,” but, at least as used by some government officials,
it also appears at times to carry something of the connotation of “imprinting of
conventional understanding,” present, for example, in the notion that children
are “socialized” by schooling.
There is, however, an important distinction to be made between reflecting on cultural
practice and the practice of culture. Neither concern is puerile wordplay or mere
abstraction, as Fischer (1999:473) observes:
Ironically, as many Western scholars have turned to constructivist theories to
explain new ethnic movements and forms of identity politics, the subjects of
their studies have begun to embrace a form of essentialism to justify their
political legitimacy.
In Papua, where political volatilities and claims for agency and identity are hotly
contested, this tension is of great significance. It is one thing to ‘learn’ about Papua, but
quite another to claim a degree of responsibility for ‘writing’ about Papua – about
aspects related to the representation, agency and identity of Papuans and their Papua as
well as ‘Indonesian’ and (other) ‘foreign’ perspectives on Papua.
Since independence in 1949, Indonesian state officials have routinely sought to
dominate the discursive spaces for the practice of Papuan culture, as they have for
15
Indonesian culture more generally.28 In this respect their actions differ little from those
of the former Dutch colonial government in the territory. One of the key discursive
practices employed by the New Order state (1965-1998) was a rhetoric that emphasised
its own legitimacy through its identification of ‘anti-government’ activities (and actors)
in Papua (see McRae 2000, 2002; Kirksey 2002, 2003). This rhetorical predilection
persists today in spite of nominal recognition by the state of peculiarly Papuan
grievances.29 Many pro-independence Papuans (and others in solidarity with their
cause), however, frame the situation rather differently. The shock expressed by
Javanese writer, Goenawan Mohamad (2003:6), at the depth of Papuan sentiment,
despite his status as one of the most strident critics of the New Order regime, is
instructive:
… I went to Wamena, a beautiful but listless, cheerless frontier-town in West
Papua. Disguised myself, oddly, as a Jesuit, I met with a group of people jailed
and tortured by the police – people, some of them are educated members of the
local community, whose only crime was trying to hoist their flag, their Papuan
flag, next to the red-and-white, the national flag, my flag, on a day they wanted
to commemorate. Talking to them in a small, quiet, Wamena prison, I noticed
how strong was their belief in what they were doing, a belief uttered in the thick
of their low-voiced expressions of rage, a rage that called their ‘them’
‘Indonesia’ [sic], instead of ‘the government’.
In Wamena, Goenawan Mohamad found Indonesia essentialised through a particular
discourse which distinguished Papuans and Papua from the rest of the archipelago. He
attributes this ‘othering’ of Indonesia(ns) to the processes of exclusion that Papuans
have felt in Indonesia – that they do not share in the myth or the power of Indonesia
(Mohamad 2003:6-7). This is a fundamental impulse for West Papuan nationalism – a
community imagined as both primordial and modern (Mote and Rutherford 2001,
Chauvel 2005; cf. Anderson 1991, Smith 1986, Balzar 1999). Its themes centre on latecolonial disenchantment (with the transfer of the territory from The Netherlands to
Indonesia) and alienation, on shared experiences of popular and guerrilla resistance,
cultural and racial incongruities, ‘collective’ memories of suffering (memoria passionis)
and disdain for Indonesian governance (see Chapter 2). Papuan nationalism may be
consciously imagined or invented (after Anderson 1983; Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983)
28
See, for example, Cribb and Brown 1996; Ricklefs 2001. Bouchier and Hadiz (2003) manage to
reframe (but not escape) this dominance of state perspectives by adopting a thematic approach to
Indonesian historiography.
29
Exemplified by the concessions granted under the Papua Special Autonomy legislation (UU 21/2001).
16
as well as strategically essentialised (Spivak 1988), but the existence of ‘Papua’ and of
the right of Papuans to determine both Papua and their future in it is an intrinsic belief
among many Papuans. My friend Tomi gave me his copy of Giay’s Towards a New
Papua in the hope that I too might come to appreciate and understand – “to know” – this
conviction.
Giay recognises that Papuan nationalism arises, in part, from a struggle against neocolonial control and oppression and that it is constrained, in part, by this very genealogy
(after Fanon). Although at times masked by appeals to populist nationalist rhetoric,
Giay’s Menuju Papua Baru is a call for a decolonisation of the Papuan mindset that
echoes Nandy’s “loss and recovery of self under colonialism” (Nandy 1983).30 Giay’s
project, unlike many other critiques of modern Papua, does not prescribe independence
as ‘the solution’ to the ‘problems’ of modern Papua (see Chapter 2). Its ambitious aim,
however, does demand a better appreciation of the discursive formations that have
shaped Papua and the limits in practice of such discourse(s); not just a more nuanced
understanding of what Papua means, but also of how it means. Fundamental to this
understanding, and to my rationale for explorations at the periphery of debates on
Papuan nationalism, is the crucial recognition that meaning is eternally mutable.
Smith (1969, 1992) reframes our understanding of the Pacific and its peoples by
considering how European ‘imagining’ prefigured a Pacific of its own artifice.
Similarly Thomas (1994) writes of ambivalences in colonial encounters and how the
material culture of Pacific peoples is recontextualised (by tourists, museum collections
and displays) – that “objects are not what they were made to be but what they have
become.”31 These works expand the possibilities for what might be considered
Papua(n). They also offer important cautionary insights to my treatment of such
‘artefacts’ by challenging assumptions of hegemonic authority in (colonial) cultural
30
Giay recalls the words of the prominent Papuan tribal leader Tom Beanal (who replaced Theys Eluay as
Head of the PDP in 2001) who claims that Papuan history begins with a new awareness among Papuans
of their shared struggle for independence, with a recognition of their oppression, and with the realisation
that they alone are the subject of (and thereby responsible for) their emancipation struggle (see Giay
2001:12-14). Giay is also strongly influenced by his reading of Franz Fanon (1961), first discussed with
reference to Papua by Aditjondro (1994). For a useful overview of Giay’s thinking on West Papua
nationalism and identity see Kjar (2002).
31
He continues “This is to contradict a pervasive identification in museum research and material culture
studies which stabilizes the identity of a thing in its fixed and founded material form…” (Thomas 1991:45).
17
practice (Thomas 1994; Dixon 2001). Moreover, they foreshadow the assertion and
reinsertion of local agency into accounts of colonial ethnography, culture and history.32
Yet while such studies effectively contest colonial (cultural) hegemony, their
implications have yet to be absorbed by many post-colonial governments – and many of
the administered peoples – in the region. It is to the elucidation of these insights in the
context of Indonesian Papua that my thesis gives its fullest attention – in pursuit of
‘Papua’.
Outline of thesis
My fieldwork and research experiences with Papua have led me to explore the concept
of Papua as if it were An Open Field (Chapter 1). My inductive research methodology
relies heavily on an interpretative approach to a diverse and disparate assemblage of
source materials. Its main concern is with how Papua moves from abstract idea into
popular culture; with how its constituent elements are constituted. This preoccupation
with the grammar of signifiers of Papua (as part of the practice of Papua) enables me to
skirt around propositions of “what Papua is” to reveal more of the nature of how it is
and how it means – that is, how Papua makes its meaning. A determination of what
constitutes the ‘real’ Papua is not part of this schema, although claims to authority in
these processes of cultural production are crucial to the analysis that follows, as it is this
authority that renders Papua legible. These findings have important implications for
how ‘Papua’ is deployed and understood in contemporary debates.
Pathologies of the Present (Chapter 2) overviews recent developments in Papua and
the implications of these for Papuan perceptions of the Indonesian state. I suggest that
much of the current socio-political impasse in Papua today results from Papuan
presumptions about state hegemony and from the ideological attachment of the
Indonesian state, particularly agents of its security apparatus, to practices that assume
unassailable influence, control and authority for the state. These positions are
challenged in turn through studies of ‘artefacts’ of Papua: maps, postage stamps,
architecture and art. The case studies also offer valuable insights to a broader set of
32
See, for example, Douglas (1999, 2003) on “indigenous countersigns”; Kerr (1999) on local
appropriation and re-contextualisation of colonial imagery; and White (2005) on the indigenous
inscription (tattooing) of European explorers and colonialists.
18
thesis questions about cultural production and agency: “How is Papua constituted; by
whom, for what purpose, through what processes, and to what effect?”
Posting Papua (Chapter 3) considers representations of Indonesian Papua in postage
stamps as a means of interpreting state-sanctioned cultural and political imagery.
Depicting key events in the history of modern Papua, this critical reading of the
grammar and imagery of Dutch and Indonesian postage stamps reveals key insights into
the complexities and constraints of state agency and efficacy. The case study
demonstrates that the Indonesian postage stamp should not be dismissed as idle
imagining or mere propaganda. The evidence here does not support the projection of
hegemonic government authority and influence. On the contrary, this case material
reveals the nuanced – and at times contradictory – preoccupations with continuity,
prestige, autonomy and self-reflexive vanity of a government agency determined to
impress itself upon a domestic and international audience. Considered chronologically
and thematically, as they might be in a collector’s album, these stamps challenge the
presumption of the state to hegemonic power over political and cultural practice in
Indonesia. Finally, depictions of Papua in stamps reveal the extent to which ‘official’
discourses both define what is included in and excluded from representations of Papua.
Circumscribing Papua (Chapter 4) is a history of mapping in the region with a
particular focus on cartographic iterations of Papua – the tracing and retracing of the
territory by various individual and institutional actors. The case study is the first
historical survey of maps related to western New Guinea, although it does not attempt to
review all available cartographic material. Its key contribution is its demonstration that
while the Dutch colonial state defined the boundaries of Papua the modern Indonesian
state does not have the authority to prescribe how these territories are depicted. The
sheer breadth and diversity of cartographic imaginaries of Papua make it impossible for
the Indonesian state to control these representations. Moreover, growing international
commercial and political interdependences, increasingly vociferous calls from within
Papua and remarkable new developments in remote sensing technologies (i.e. satellite
imagery), challenge established government restrictions on physical access and control
of the territory as well as flows of information about Papua and its peoples. Finally, the
case study demonstrates how state narratives of the past themselves project phantom
19
cartographies that challenge the state’s own authority to re-inscribe the cartographic
present and future of the territory.
Constructing Papua (Chapter 5) has involved a wide variety of changes in the human
environment. This case study considers, for the first time, some of the subtle and
conspicuous changes in the architecture that have structured social spaces in Papua and
explores how such changes, together with innovations in architectural embellishment
and art, have affected – and come to stand for – Papuan community. The exploration of
these processes focuses on the authority of both Christian churches and state institutions
in the de-contextualisation and re-contextualisation of elements of ‘tradition’ in their
efforts to promote Papuan ‘community’. These processes continue to be highly
differentiated across Papua, reflecting diversity in indigenous cultural practices (past
and present) and in the range of local responses to change. Particular attention is given
the importance of networks of patronage and the processes by which regional cultural
practices have come to be identified as Papuan.
Imprints of Indonesian Papua (Chapter 6) considers the implications of the three case
studies which all demonstrate that the influence, control and authority of the state is far
from hegemonic. The position of the state as arbiter of Papua’s territorial and
cartographic boundaries is challenged by practices of representation which reify Papua
as a discrete political and cultural entity. Similarly, the hegemonic impulse inherent in
iconic representations of Papua by the state fail to transcend the history, idiosyncrasies
and vagaries of the institution that projects these images, the post office. Finally, the
possibilities for the edification of community through architecture and art is considered
as is the importance of moral authority in processes of regionalism and reconciliation in
Papua.
Wearing Irian Batik (Chapter 7) briefly reflects on my experiences of researching
Papua and on writing and speaking for others. It also considers the broader implications
of the study and suggests research directions for the future.
20
A note on the need for a note on terminology
Of necessity almost all recent books and theses on Indonesian Papua include a note on
terminology.33 Since the Dutch formalised their claim to the territory (see Chapter 4) it
has been known by the following names: Netherlands/Dutch New Guinea (Nederlands
Nieuw-Guinea), West Irian (Irian Barat), West Papua (Papua Barat), West New
Guinea, Irian Jaya, Papua and West Irian Jaya (Irian Jaya Barat) and most recently
Papua and West Papua (Papua Barat). The name West Papua or Papua Barat (first
used in 1961, see Chapter 3) was particularly controversial from 1961-2000 and its use
effectively banned by Suharto’s New Order government as it signified the movement
for an independent nation of West Papua (see Wospakrik in Raweyai, 2002:v-vii). The
relatively straightforward nomenclature that existed since 1973 of Irian Jaya or West
Papua (Papua Barat) – that is, Indonesian controlled Irian Jaya or an independent
nation of West Papua as envisioned by pro-separatist Papuans and their supporters – has
been replaced by a profusion of possible terms and a corresponding proliferation of
political positions.
On 1 January 2000, Indonesian President Gus Dur renamed Irian Jaya as Papua. In
January 2003, Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri issued a presidential decree
(Inpres 1/2003) effectively re-activating an existing law (UU 45/1999) to divide the
province of Papua into three. This policy was extremely unpopular in Papua as it was
widely seen as a deliberate attempt by the state to undermine pan-Papuan solidarity (and
in particular the coherence of a campaign for an independent West Papua). Riots forced
the postponement of Central Irian Jaya (Irian Jaya Tenggah) one of the new provinces
delineated in Law 45 of 1999 and a legal challenge by the Papuan Provincial Legislature
33
Historically, the term Papua is more commonly associated with the claim to the British of a protectorate
(and colony) in the southeast of the island of New Guinea asserted in the Erskine Proclamation of 1884
(see van der Veur 1964b:10-12). The claim to German New Guinea, the northern half of the east of the
island in the Schutzbrief of 1885 concluded the colonial demarkation of the island (van der Veur
1996b:14-17). Administration of the British Protectorate of Papua was assumed by the Commonwealth
of Australia in 1906, and at the start of World War I, Australia assumed control of German New Guinea
which remained under Australian military control until 1920. The Covenant of the League of Nations
(part of the Treaty of Versailles concluded 10 January 1920), German New Guinea was established as a
mandated trust territory administered by Australia. At the conclusion of World War II, and under the
United Nations Charter, Australia assumed administrative control of the trust territories of Papua and
New Guinea. In 1949, Australia established a joint administration over the Territories of Papua and New
Guinea and in 1971 these two trust territories were renamed Papua New Guinea. The former trust
territory became the independent nation of Papua New Guinea on 16 September 1975 (see Denoon 2005).
21
(Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah, DPRD Papua) led to an eventual compromise
determined by the Supreme Court of Indonesia in November 2004 (018/PUU-I/2003).
The old province of Papua remained divided in two; the eastern division retained the
name Papua and the western division assumed the name West Irian Jaya (Irian Jaya
Barat, as per UU45/1999). On 18 April 2007, an Indonesian government decision (PP
24/2007) changed West Irian Jaya province to the province of West Papua (Papua
Barat), effectively appropriating the name for the territory in use by pro-independence
Papuans and their supporters. While this rationalisation of nomenclature relates
logically to the geography of the two provinces, it was also clearly intended to
neutralise the politically charged use of “West Papua” by pro-independence Papuans
and their supporters. This has not happened. The territory formerly known as Irian
Jaya, then Papua and now Papua and West Papua, remains an integral political, cultural
and geographic entity for “West Papuan” nationalists, as it does for many other
stakeholders (as demonstrated in the case studies that follow).
The bewildering history of naming and renaming the province and the political and
cultural connotations attached to these names are elaborated upon elsewhere (Meyer
1882, Netherlands-Indonesia Committee on New Guinea 1950c:8-9, Syamsuddin 1975,
Gelpke 1993, Ploeg 2002). While recognising that these terms are not synonymous
(historically, politically or culturally), for pragmatic reasons I have chosen to use the
term “Papua” throughout this thesis (unless it is essential for purposes of clarity to do
otherwise). This effectively re-unites the contemporary provinces of Papua and West
Papua but will, hopefully, minimise confusion for the reader. It is a regrettable gloss of
both past and present historical and political realities, but it is not my only concern with
terminology.
The ontological proposition that Papua is a coherent geographical, political, and/or
cultural category poses a fundamental dilemma for this thesis. All of the terms
discussed above evoke a territorial integrity which this thesis is intended to render as
suspect. In practice this ontological challenge is insurmountable. Even as I this address
some of the presumptions that underpin this entity the very trajectory of this thesis,
paradoxically, reifies and validates the category ‘Papua’. This challenge of an
appropriate nomenclature is just one of the pathologies of the present apparent in
22
contemporary Papua. The chapters that follow trace the origins of this pathology and its
relationship to the current impasse in relations between Papuans, the Indonesian state
and an international community, who all share a concern for Papua and its future.
*****
23
24
The general form of propositions is:
This is how things are.
– That is the kind of proposition one repeats to oneself countless times.
One thinks that one is tracing the outline of the thing’s nature over and over again,
and one is merely tracing round the frame through which we look at it.
A ‘picture’ held us captive. And we could not get outside it,
for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably.
Philosophical Investigations
Ludwig Wittgenstein
PI §114-115
25
26
– CHAPTER 2 –
Pathologies of the Present
pathology (n.) A set of pathological features or processes considered collectively; the typical
manifestation or behaviour of a disease; an individual pathological condition…
pathological (n.) colloq. (of a person) exhibiting a quality or trait to a degree considered
extreme or psychologically unhealthy; (of a quality) possessed or manifested to such a degree.1
This chapter considers several pathologies related to Indonesian Papua. The first is the
popular presumption that the Indonesian state, acting as a coherent and cohesive entity,
largely succeeds in its aims to achieve and maintain cultural and political hegemony in
Papua. This ambition was apparent in the practices of the New Order regime and has
been a root cause of repression, marginalisation and exploitation in Papua since the
mid-1960s. However, the claim that the state is actually able to achieve and maintain
hegemonic control in Papua tends to exaggerate the extent of state influence and the
efficacy with which it can exercise its authority. This position, typically promulgated
by pro-independence Papuans, repudiates both the agency and legitimacy of Papuans to
cultivate a socio-cultural and political life of their own under Indonesian rule.
Indonesian intransigence with respect to certain forms of Papuan self-expression makes
this a frustrating dynamic for all Papuans, regardless of their political position vis-à-vis
integration with Indonesia. The presumption of state hegemony and the denial of
Papuan agency under Indonesia poses an impasse for Papuan society that is paralleled,
somewhat perversely, by a second pathology.
Attempts to control and define socio-cultural and political life in Papua are legitimated
by the state’s association of most spontaneous or robust Papuan cultural and political
expression with pro-independence sentiment. This assumption is based, to a significant
extent, on the experiences of the state in imposing its authority in Papua for almost five
decades. It is also directly related to the ideals and anxieties of Indonesian nationalism.
The assumption (and the practices it underpins) is paradoxical and pathological as it
contradicts the regional identity prescribed for Papua by the state and denies the
1
All definitions in this thesis are taken from the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary
(http://www.oed.com).
27
possibility of socio-cultural expression by Papuans unfettered by politics. It also
foments a paranoia towards Papuan identity manifest in an undercurrent of mistrust and
suspicion among security forces, government officials, and Indonesian society in
general of Papuans and of all but the most closely state-sanctioned forms of Papuan
identity.
Taken together, these two pathologies fuel simplistic stereotypes of ‘Papua(n)’ and
‘Indonesia(n)’ which further elide the complexities of socio-cultural and political life in
Indonesian Papua. The Papua-Indonesia dichotomy, frequently deployed by proPapuan and pro-Indonesian nationalists alike, eliminates common ground and variously
exaggerates and diminishes the contributions of myriad local, national and foreign
actors to the discursive practices that constitute Indonesian Papua. Several
manifestations of these pathologies are considered here, following a brief review of
their origins in Papuan historical consciousness (including collective experiences of
Indonesian governance) and in the ideological foundations of the Indonesian state. An
alternative reading of this predicament is proposed in which elements of the visual
culture of Indonesian Papua are reframed, reconstituted and reappraised for insights
which may help to transcend these pathologies in the future.
“Towards a New Papua”: embracing essentialism?
In early 2000 the Reverend Benny Giay, Ph.D. wrote Towards a New Papua: principle
thoughts for the Emancipation of the Papuan People (MPB) as a discussion document
for Congress2000 (30 May – 4 June). MPB was a challenge by Giay to his fellow
Papuans “to become aware of, critique, debate, and address the themes [of his book] and
come up with concrete steps by which Papuans could emancipate themselves from their
collective burdens” (Giay 2001a:vi).2 Giay’s book was, in effect, an attempt to address
pathologies in the dynamic of Papuan self-expression under Indonesia. MPB
incorporated the demands of the Team100 (the 100 Papuans who met with President
Habibie on 26 February 1999) as well as the priorities established through Mubes2000
(24-26 February 2000) – the ‘rectification’ of history, the setting of a Papuan political
2
Giay (in Kjar 2002:1) notes that the ideas for this book emerged from discussions with fellow members
of the PDP as well as “ordinary people” in Papua.
28
agenda and the consolidation of Papuan political structures and organisations (see
Chapter 1). It also surveyed a range of other issues of immediate concern to Papuans
including a memory of collective suffering among Papuans (memoria passionis),3 an
agenda for non-violent protest based on a moral movement for peaceful change, a
program of affirmative action in Papua (Papuanisasi), the need to promote and protect
Papuan indigenous rights in accordance with international norms and instruments, and
the importance of placing Papuans at the centre of their history and of all future
initiatives in their homeland.
Giay’s MPB resonated with a broad Papuan readership through its rhetorical framing of
Papuan experiences in contradistinction to that of ‘Indonesia(ns)’. Intended to provoke
his Papuan audience into reflexive self-actualisation, the emancipatory spirit of Giay’s
text is often overwhelmed by the emphatic voices of his Papuan interlocutors and their
narratives of Papuanness vis-à-vis Indonesianness.4 In MPB Giay juxtaposed these
insertions with scenarios for possible Papuan futures. His speculative approach may
have confounded government censure but it was also easily misapprehended,
particularly in the immediate post-Suharto period. Statements which might have
challenged the collective consciousness of fellow Papuans could also easily be read as
an endorsement of pro-Papuan nationalism. Consider, for example, his inclusion of a
statement by Mrs Agu Iwanggin, Deputy Secretary of the Synod of the Evangelical
Christian Church of Papua (Gereja Kristen Indonesia Papua, GKI Papua), the largest
church in Papua, before the fact-finding mission of the Indonesian National Assembly
(DPR) in August 1998 (Giay 2001a: 4-5, my translation).5
3
The idea of memoria passionis in Papua was developed in later editions of MPB. Giay (2001a)
attributes the use of the term to the work of Br J. Budi Hernawan ofm and Theo P.A. van den Broek (see
Hernawan and van den Broek 1999, 2001) of the Secretariate of Justice and Peace of the Diocese of
Jayapura, Papua (Sekretariat Keadilan dan Perdamaian, SKP).
4
I disagree with Kjar (2002:71) who concludes that “Giay gives no answers as to what a Papuan identity
might be.” Giay’s deliberate rhetorical reliance on the voices of “ordinary people”, that is ordinary
Papuans, reveals a great deal about how he envisions the “New Papua”. This viewpoint also contrasts
with Giay (2001c) which was prepared by Gerry van Klinken, then Editor of Inside Indonesia, from
extracts in MPB and a telephone interview with Giay (Klinken, pers. comm. June 2001). Klinken’s use of
statements by interlocutors in MPB does, as I have just argued, reflect something of Giay’s own
worldview, but it only partially reflects the intention of MPB. These nuances are not clear in either Kjar’s
and Klinken’s account of MPB and Giay’s work.
5
The DPR delegation was sent to Papua by President Habibie in the aftermath of widespread proindependence flag-raising demonstrations across the province in early July 1998 (see Rutherford 1999)
and instructed to seek out the cause(s) of the desire among Papuans for independence (see Chapter 1).
29
The root of the problem of the demand for Papuan independence is God – because
God created people who are different. Papuans are different from Javanese and
other peoples/nations [bangsa]. He gave Papuans the Land of Papua as their
home with sago and sweet potato for their staples. Penis gourds and loincloths are
their clothes. They have curly hair and the colour of their skin is black. Papuans
are Papuan it is not possible to make them Javanese or Sumatran, and vice versa.
Javanese were given the land of Java. Tofu and tempeh are their foods. Their
skin is pale and their hair is straight. The principal problem in this conflict is the
conscious and surreptitious effort made by the Indonesian administration to force
Papuans to think, talk, present themselves and be culturally conditioned
[berperabadan] as if they were Javanese (or Sumaterans) which actually conflicts
with the order and plan of God’s creation. The result is the birth of this conflict...
Giay’s account of this exchange does not concern itself with whether Iwanggin’s sense
of divine order – of pre-ordained and primordial ‘Papuanness’ and ‘Indonesianness’
(albeit Javanese or Sumatran) – was taken seriously by the DPR mission.6 Yet such
sttements could easily be read by many Papuans as an affirmation of a Papuan
primordial identity.7 Field observations (see Chapter 1) and anecdotal reports suggest
that MPB was very popular among many Papuans at this time. A testimony by Amelia
Jigibalom of her period of imprisonment, gives a sense of her regard for MPB: “While
in prison I read the Bible and Menuju Papua Baru (Towards a New Papua). I discussed
Menuju Papua Baru with other prisoners” (Amelia Jigibalom in Farhardian 2007:15,
emphasis in original).8 The cultural and political themes dealt with in Giay’s MPB still
resonate with Papuans today, reflecting a long-standing alienation of Papuans from the
broader nation-building project of Indonesia.
The idea that ‘Papuans’ are fundamentally different to ‘Indonesians’ is not new, but it is
resurgent. It can be traced to early European contact with the region, particularly in the
accounts of nineteenth century explorers and naturalists (Giay and Ballard 2003; Ballard
in press; see also Chapter 4). This distinction was of relatively little significance to the
Dutch colonial administration in the archipelago until the end of World War Two
6
The findings of the DPR Team were summarised in a newspaper report at the time (see “Gafur: Bahaya
Laten OPM Masih Ada di Irian Jaya” Media Indonesia, August 3, 1998).
7
Such perspectives are not uncommon among Papuans. See, for example, the interview with Nellie
Yawan in Nichols (2007:54), one of the 43 West Papuans who sought political asylum in Australia in
early 2006, who asserts that “West Papua is a land set apart by God...”.
8
Amelia Jigibalom was one of the members of the PDP panel for Jayawijaya imprisoned for not giving
evidence about Papuan involvement in the October 2000 reprisals attacks in Wamena by local Dani
(discussed later in this chapter).
30
(WWII) and the proclamation of Indonesian independence on 17 August 1945.9 The
first emphatic indication that this distinction was becoming official policy was the
exclusion by The Netherlands of its New Guinea colony from the State of Eastern
Indonesia (Negara Indonesia Timur) − and thereby the United States of Indonesia
(Republik Indonesia Serikat, RIS) − at the Denpasar conference in December 1946. The
unique status of Netherlands New Guinea was reaffirmed by the Round Table
Conference (RTC) negotiations and asserted through a special provision in the Charter
of Transfer of Sovereignty (CTS) which exempted West New Guinea from being
transferred into the Union as it had “not been possible to reconcile the views of the
parties with respect to New Guinea”.10 It was for this reason (CTS, excerpt from Article
2, see Netherlands 1949):
that the status quo of the residency of New Guinea shall be maintained with the
stipulation that within a year from the date of transfer of sovereignty to the
Republic of the United States of Indonesia the question of the political status of
New Guinea be determined through negotiations between the Republic of the
United States of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
In May of 1950, less than one year after the conclusion of the RTC, President Soekarno
declared the unilateral withdrawal of the Republic from the Netherlands-Indonesia
Union although negotiation over the future of the territory continued until late 1950 (see
Netherlands-Indonesia Committee on New Guinea 1950a-d).
From 1949 until 1962, The Netherlands and Indonesia sought to essentialise or
caricature ‘Papua’ and ‘Indonesia’ for their own propaganda purposes.11 From 19491963 the Indonesian state refused to recognise the authority of The Netherlands over
9
Although at the very margins of the Indonesian nationalist’s struggle for independence (1945-49),
occasional incidents in West New Guinea related to the war of independence did occur (see Chauvel
2003a:7-15). It might also be argued that the roots of the distinction between “Papuans” and
“Indonesians” can be traced to incipient forms of Papuan nationalism articled through local messianic
movements (pre-WWII) and the rejection of external authority by Papuans. See, for example, Penders
(2002:104-134) and the argument for a pre-contact Papuan Christian identity and its zenith in the preWWII “national” resistance movement of Koreri in Rizzo (2004) – cf. Penders (2002:104-106). In such
accounts, messianic movements are taken to be a distinguishing feature of “Papuan” communities which
may constitute a form of proto-nationalism. In the context of the current discussion, however, I consider
the rise of the Papuan/Indonesian distinction to follow the political advocacy by key Dutch officials and
politicians to retain the territory and accelerated development of the territory in the immediate post-WWII
period. See Penders (2002:87-104) for the particular role played by Governor van Eechoud in the
creation of this Papua-Indonesia distinction.
10
Penders (2002:83) notes that members of the Indonesian Union made it clear that they would reject the
RTC agreement if New Guinea were given a separate status as a UN Trusteeship.
11
Indonesian nationalists would set this date at 1945, the year of their proclamation of independence
(which was assumed to apply to the entire colony of the Dutch East Indies).
31
West New Guinea and stressed the historical and natural continuities across the
archipelago. The Dutch, for their part, sought to dissociate West New Guinea from
‘Indonesia’ on the basis of the distinct socio-cultural, political and racial characteristics
of its native peoples.12 This claim essentially reversed the integrationist logic by which
the Dutch had incorporated West New Guinea into their East Indies colony prior to
WWII. These tensions are encapsulated in juxtapositions such as “The Position of
Indonesia...” (Figure 2-1) from a Dutch propaganda publication circa 1955 and
elaborated in the case studies that follow (Chapters 2, 3 and 4).
13
Figure 2-1: “The position of Indonesia…” (Chief Onarek vs a Citizen of Indonesia)
(Netherlands Information Bureau c.1956:15)
12
The Netherlands questioned whether the native “population of the territory itself could in a democratic
way express the wish whether or not it wanted to be a part of Indonesia…“ and while the question could
be put “in respect of some less developed territories in Indonesia… in New Guinea [however] a separate
border-territory was concerned, with a population which, racially, linguistically and culturally cannot be
considered to belong to the Indonesians, standing moreover originally on a much more pirimitive level
than any other people in Indonesia” (Netherlands-Indonesia Committee on New Guinea 1950b:5).
13
The picture captions on this page read: “I am Clan Chief Onarek, a Papuan and leader of my tribe...”
(top) and “I am a citizen of the Republic of the United States of Indonesia...” (bottom) (Netherlands
Information Bureau c.1956:15). Such contrasting imagery is also presented in a School Atlas for
Netherlands New Guinea (Eggink 1956:10) which was a standard text across the colony. A more extreme
set of juxtapositions along these lines appeared recently in a special West Papua edition of the New
Internationalist magazine (Issue No.344, April 2002). Titled “Dividing Opinions”, the first of this series
of five ‘Papua’ – ‘Indonesia’ sets, juxtaposes a photograph of a Dani tribal chief with one of Tommy
Suharto on his wedding day in traditional Javanese wedding attire. The web-version of this article crops
from view images of these “Indonesian” opposites (see http://www.newint.org/issue344/dividing.htm) .
32
The intense politicisation of Papua vis-à-vis Indonesia did not abate with a Papuan
declaration of independence on 1 December 1961 (at the “First Papuan Congress” in
Netherlands New Guinea)14 or when the dispute between these two nations was
eventually resolved by international arbitration and a United Nations Transitional
Executive Authority (UNTEA) in 1962-63 (see Chapter 3). The often brutal
suppression of dissent by the Indonesian administration in Papua since 1963, together
with highly prescriptive state sanctions on politics and historiography, has helped to
perpetuate this divide. Texts approved by the administration frequently elided and
effaced local experience through their zealous assertion of a national (Indonesian) past
rooted in pre-colonial glory, colonial oppression, popular revolution and post-colonial
triumphalism (see Adam 2005). The state also aimed to control the political space for
Papuan culture through state-sanctioned cultural programs that were often stilted and
contrived. Spontaneous expressions of pan-Papuan culture thought to threaten the
authority of the state were curbed, or dealt with summarily as in the infamous case of
the murder of Arnold Ap and Edie Mofu and the flight of their popular performance
group Mambesak and others like the Black Brothers into exile in neighbouring Papua
New Guinea (see Aditjondro 2000; Di Suvero 1984; Glazebrook 2004). The collapse of
Suharto’s New Order regime in May 1998, however, opened new political spaces to
critique the practices of the regime – including its control over the production of
Indonesian history.
Reflecting new freedoms of expression as well as decades of overbearing state ideology
(see Bertrand 2007:17-24) and local experiences of authoritarian repression, recent
critiques from Papua are characteristically pro-Papuan and essentialist. Many Papuans
today reinvigorate the pro-’Indonesia’ and pro-’Papua’ schism of the past by infusing a
Papuan presence into the Indonesian present (see also Chapter 6). The most prominent
examples of such insertions include: demands for the recognition of the 1961
declaration of the independent state of West Papua with its official name, flag, anthem,
‘national’ bird and territory (i.e. the boundaries of the entire territory of the former
Netherlands New Guinea), calls to evaluate the history and legitimacy of Papua’s
‘transfer’ to Indonesia from 1962-69, accounts of injustice under Indonesian authority,
14
For an account of the debate leading to this declaration, see Griapon (2007).
33
assertions of fundamental rights as well as Papuan socio-cultural, political and racial
difference vis-à-vis Indonesia(ns).
Administrative concessions introduced in Papua since the end of the Suharto era,
notably a Special Autonomy package in 2001, are putatively intended to address these
issues.15 However, the poor implementation of the Autonomy Bill and its contravention
by subsequent legislation (related to the division of the province) have further
undermined any popular legitimacy the Special Autonomy process might have afforded
the administration in the territory. The apparent reticence of the administration to
address key areas such as human rights, the impunity of its security forces, and its
inconsistent policy approach in Papua, have not impressed critics within Papua or
elsewhere in Indonesia (see SKP, Imparsial et al. 2007; Pokja Papua 2006). Similarly,
irredentist claims by Indonesia at an international level of the ‘restoration’ of Papua into
the Republic (rhetoric characteristic of the Soekarno and Suharto era) have failed to
mollify foreign critics of Indonesian governance in Papua.16 The marginalisation of
Papuan perspectives in recent official and populist publications in Indonesia has merely
strengthened calls within Papua for the inscription into official history of a ‘Papuan’
history of integration with the Republic.
On 24 July 1998, the first Reformasi era group advocating a radical revision of the
history of Indonesian Papua was formed in Jayapura. The Forum for the Reconciliation
of Irian Jaya Society (Foreri) was also central to the National Dialogue process
established between Papuan leaders and the central government (see Chapter 1). Foreri
promoted itself as a forum for Papuans to voice their grievances and concerns. The
organisation shared the sense of moral purpose and divine authority evident in
Iwanggin’s speech (above). The group’s catch-phrase, “Anyone who Resists History
will be Crushed by History” appeared obtuse. It was, in fact, a veiled reference to the
15
For an overview of the context of Special Autonomy and other measures recommended to address the
situation in Papua at the time, see Richard Chauvel’s report for the International Crisis Group (ICG
2001).
16
For example, see Indonesia. Deplu (1998); Subandrio (2001); Indonesia. PMRI-UN (2001); Indonesia.
PMRI-UN (2003); Indonesia. Deplu (2005). See Chapter 6 for a brief discussion of international concern
at the policies of the Indonesian state in Papua.
34
Parable of the Vineyard (Luke 20:9-18).17 The intention behind Foreri’s adaptation is
apparent from its Biblical context (Luke 20:17-19):
17. But he looked at them and said, “What then does this text mean: ‘The stone
that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’?
18. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; and it will crush
anyone on whom it falls.”
19. When the scribes and chief priests realized that he had told this parable
against them, they wanted to lay hands on him at that very hour, but they feared
the people.
The importance of this Biblical allusion is the central role envisaged by Foreri for
Papuan Churches to challenge the moral authority of the state (as Jesus did in this
parable). The “stone the builders rejected”, which “has become the cornerstone” is a
metaphor for the place of Christianity and Christian churches in Papua (see also Chapter
5). This reference would be apparent to most clergy and some congregational members
in Papua. Papua’s various Christian communities were strongly represented in Foreri’s
first (and only) declaration with signatories including leaders of the three main churches
in the province, as well as influential Papuan civil and traditional leaders like Theys
Eluay and Tom Beanal, and representatives of Papuan women’s and youth/student
groups.18 Yet although the Christian churches were mindful of the importance of
Papuan demands for the revision of official history, restorative justice and reconciliation
(see Foreri 1998:23-24), in the immediate post-Suharto period inter-denominational
cooperation among Christian churches in Papua was still nascent.19 Foreri suffered a
loss of influence and prestige after the collapse of the National Dialogue process20 and
by mid-2000 it was usurped by – and morphed into – the Papuan Presidium Council.
17
All Biblical references in this thesis are taken from the New Standard Revised Version Bible
(http://bible.oremus.org).
18
The principal signatories to the Foreri Declaration of July 24, 1998 include: Rev. Herman Saud (Chair
of the GKI Synod in Irian Jaya), Bishop Leo Laba Ladjar, OFM (Bishop of Jayapura), Rev. Dr. Benny
Giay (on behalf of the Irian Jaya regional chair of the GKII), Theys H. Eluay (Traditional Leader of the
Sentani tribal group), Tom Beanal (Traditional Leader of the Amungme tribal group), Selviana
Sanggenafa (Women’s Group); Yusan Yeblo (Women’s Group), Gerson Abrauw (Student
representative), Maria Korano (Student representative), Marthinus Werimon (Student representative). (A
copy of this Declaration is in the collection of the author).
19
Inter-denominational cooperation in Papua was common during the New Order period in the provision
of mission aviation services by groups like MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) and AMA (Associated
Mission Aviation) as well as in the work of coordinating groups like Yayasan Bethesda (in the
distribution of medicines and health services) and TMF (The Mission Fellowship) in providing logistical
support for smaller missions/denominations in the territory. Christian churches were, however, relatively
reluctant to be drawn into the political arena in Papua (although in the early 1990s church advocates were
instrumental in establishing the first human rights monitoring and oversight in the territory).
20
Cf. the “aspirational vision” for Foreri at the end of its first year (Ramadey 2005:69-70).
35
The need to ‘straighten-out’ or ‘rectify’ Papua’s history (meluruskan sejarah Papua)
was a key priority for Foreri and a guiding theme at Mubes2000 and Congress2000
(Alua 2002c, 2002d; see also Chauvel 2001). This stemmed from the conviction among
Papuan leaders of the importance of a historical narrative that unambiguously placed
Papuans at the centre of their history. This imperative is incipient in accounts of the
guerrilla and nationalist struggle against Indonesia by several Papuan authors (Djopari
1993; Pigay 2000; Raweyai 2002).21 It is also evident in the self-consciously partisan
and brazenly essentialist Papuan histories written and published in Indonesia since 1998
(e.g. Karoba, Gebze et al. 2002). Yet this project, as conceptualised through the
Mubes2000 and Congress2000 processes (Alua 2002c, 2002d; Ijie 2003), is reminiscent
of the authoritarian impulse of the New Order – to create a single, authoritative and
immutable historical narrative. It is evident, somewhat paradoxically, in the efforts of
the Papuan Presidium Council (Presidium Dewan Papua, PDP) to create its own official
history of Papua with volumes such as: “West Papua: from one [nation’s] lap to the lap
of another” (A brief chronology, Alua 2002a), “Reject the sovereignty of West Papua,
return home and reflect [on what you have asked for]” (Team100/National Dialogue,
Alua 2002b), (Mubes2000, Alua 2002c ), “Come! Let us rectify the History of West
Papua” (Congress2000, Alua 2002d), “Involvement of the United Nations in the Act of
Free Choice in West Irian 1968-69” (Alua 2002e, translation of Saltford 2000b). Giay’s
MPB is different in emphasis and experientially-based, suggesting a very different
approach to the rectification of Papuan history.
According to Kjar (2002) Giay conceptualises Papuan history as structured around three
distinct themes: an official history (writing Papua into the Indonesian nation), a
negating discourse (writing Papua out of Indonesia) and a moral discourse. He
recognises that myths of history are promulgated and perpetuated by the state – that “the
historical reality formulated and defended by the rulers of the nation, is essentially an
orchestrated [engineered] reality” (Giay 2001a:vi, my translation). Moreover, while
asserting that there is no absolute truth, Giay recognises the “submission of the truth of
the powerless” to the dominant “truths” of the state (Giay 2001a:36, my translation).
21
Djopari’s account of the history of the OPM was initially banned from sale in Papua (see Giay 2002:8)
even though Djopari is considered to be pro-Indonesian in his orientation. It nevertheless focusses
attention on the struggle of the OPM and of Papuans in their own land as well as their place in official
narratives of the nation.
36
To overcome state ‘myths’ in the pursuit of a New Papua, he stresses the importance of
Papuans becoming the subjects and not the objects, of their history. Central to this
process is the recognition of Papuans as “living documents” whose testimonies are as
valid and legitimate as textual sources for defining history (Giay 2001a:1-3). Giay’s
living documents suggest the possibility of a new kind of dynamism in Papuan history,
away from the officially sanctioned ‘objective’ history of the past to a history better able
to reflect the subjective and interpretative nature of the past.22 Kjar notes another key
challenge for Giay’s project to realise a subjective history for Papuans – the need for
reconciliation with “Papuan collaborators” (Kjar 2002:48). This is a core theme of
recent political processes in Papua.
Mubes2000 and later Congress2000 were centred on the “consolidation of a Papuan
political agenda” and improvements “to Papuan leadership and organisational
structures” (see Alua 2002c:64-86). These processes were an essential part of efforts to
create unity among Papuans in pursuit of their ‘collective’ aspirations. In the politically
charged contexts of these meetings, issues of betrayal, revenge and mistrust among
Papuan individuals and political, religious, cultural and ethnic groups were rife. The
successful election of Theys Eluay as the Head of the Papuan Presidium Council (PDP)
demonstrated the commitment among many participants at Congress2000 to practical
(and pragmatic) reconciliation among Papuans. In the 1969 Act of Free Choice
(Pepera), Eluay had voted for integration with Indonesia. Later, under the New Order,
he had been a member of the government’s Golkar party and a member of the
Provincial Parliament of Papua (DPRD Papua). Eluay himself described his
appointment to the PDP as a “Saul to Paul” (Road to Damascus) conversion.23
The importance that Giay and others attach to reconciliation among Papuans and
(Papuan) collaborators – “Papuans with black bodies and curly hair who have the souls
of Indonesians” (Giay cited in Kjar 2002:68) – is revealing of the challenges involved
in building a coherent and cohesive Papuan political movement and the risks of betrayal
inherent in such a process. This stems from a history in which collaborators were
22
As do the possibilities of taking testimonials from “enlightened government officials” (see Giay
2001a:3).
23
For an interesting account of the Eluay’s transformation from government official to independence
activist, see “Paul ke Paulus” (sic) in Giay (2003:125-137). See also Chapter 6 of this thesis.
37
synonymous with intimidation, torture, and death. Giay (2001:15, my translation)
evokes this spectre of Papua’s violent past in MPB when he cites a community leader at
the Mubes2000 meeting in Nabire on 24 February 2000:
Indonesians will never offer a position which is reasonable to Papuans because
while they are Indonesians we are the Papuan people (race and nation). We have
been killed and enslaved and colonised by Indonesians. In ten years time all the
Papuans will be gone, killed by the Indonesian military. For this reason alone, it
is much better if we are independent...
More importantly, this anonymous quote from the Mubes2000 meeting makes it clear
that for some Papuan their experiences under Indonesian authority alone are
justification enough for their independence. These Papuans do not need to wait for a
revisionist history to be written. Their histories of suffering at the hands of Indonesian
military – of family relatives murdered, tortured, intimidated or humiliated – are
immediate and real (Hernawan and van den Broek cited in Giay 2001c:8-9):
These stories have never been written down. But they are passed down from
generation to generation. They all say one thing: ‘They don’t think we are
human’. We are treated not like humans but like objects: objects of policy,
objects of a military operation, objects of economic development, tourist
objects… These things have been happening for decades. This is the real history
of the Papuan people. But they are never taught in the official history lessons at
school. They simply become part of the collective memory of the Papuan nation.
The memories are passed down as a legacy, a legacy of trauma. A theologian
named Johan Baptist Metz once called this kind of history the ‘memoria
passionis’, the memory of suffering. The memoria passionis is like magma.
Hidden from view, it contains an enormous latent energy capable of overturning
existing realities.
Br. Budi Hernawan ofm and Theo van den Broek first use the term memoria passionis
in an article in the weekly newspaper Tifa Irian in 1999 in an account of the disbelief
and disillusionment among Papuans at President Habibie’s decision to cancel the
National Dialogue (Hernawan and Broek 1999). The concept of memoria passionis is
not dissimilar to the Soekarno-era Indonesian nationalist concept of ampera, or a
collective suffering under colonialism.24 Of particular relevance in its application to
Papua is Metz’s notion that the subject of suffering (Chopp 1986):
24
One of Soekarno’s conceits, Ampera (Amanat Penderitaan Rakyat) is intended to evoke the “collective
suffering of the people” (in his Trisakti speech), although commentators suggest there is little to
commend the concept to history (see Kroef 1968; Labrousse 1994). The contraction rose to prominent
when Suharto appropriated the concept and named his new government the Ampera Cabinet (Kabinet
38
... is located in a different history of freedom. Influenced by Walter Benjamin,
Metz argues that history is not the total sum of the actions and the interpretations
of the victors but, rather, the reality of the sufferings of human victims. History
is not, as the Enlightenment told us, a ‘natural’ progression of time; the history
of suffering as the history of freedom provides a new way to understand and
interrupt the timelessness of the Enlightenment.
Hernawan and van den Broek, Giay, and others (such as Erari 2006) have articulated
Metz’s concept of memoria passionis in Papua as a collective memory of suffering. Yet
notions of “a different history of freedom” and a non-teleological view of history (cf.
eschatology), both of which are mentioned in Giay’s MPB, suggest how Papuans might
understand themselves as subjects of suffering which is, to a significant extent,
ahistorical. This has serious implications for the attachment with which Papuans may
adhere to an individual and collective history of suffering – to their memoria passionis.
Events from decades past may be as real and as poignant for Papuans today as when
they first happened. This poses profound questions for how the state apprehends this
collective memory of suffering and by what means (if any) it may reconcile itself with a
community that may hold such ahistorical perceptions of injustice and aggrievance (see
Chapter 6). It poses similar questions for how Papuans themselves deal with their
memoria passionis.
Giay argues that addressing memoria passionis first requires recognition of the “truth of
the powerless”, and then dialogue (between the state and Papuans) based on mutual
respect and understanding, followed by a consistent and incremental program of action
(Giay 2001a:35-38). He believes this is essential if Papuans are to be more than passive
victims of suffering and trauma. Giay offers three iconic struggles as examples of the
ways Papuans may build such a program of change: the emancipatory struggle of
Martin Luther King Jr., the independence struggle of Mahatma Ghandi in India and the
democratic struggle of Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar/Burma (Giay 2001a:39-46). He
advocates moral rectitude and peaceful, non-violent protest in the realisation of a New
Papua, and is emphatic in his rejection of violent, revolutionary change. A similarly
non-violent approach to political and cultural change in Papua was advocated by Theys
Ampera). Widjojo (2005) suggests that any effort by the state to give serious consideration to the concept
of memoria passionis in Papua would “betray Indonesia’s heroes of independence”.
39
Eluay (and other members of the PDP).25 This has also emerged as the key point of
ecumenical agreement among the major churches in Papua since the beginning of
Indonesia’s Reformasi in May 1998 (see Chapter 4).26
A stark alternative to the transformation of trauma by engaging spiritually with
memoria passionis was realised in Wamena in late 2000 where bloody provocation by
the security forces led to violent revenge attacks by highland Papuans in which more
than 30 people died, most of them non-Papuan migrants living in the town and its
hinterland (See HRW 2001; Tim Kemanusiaan Wamena 2001). This remains to date
the most extreme act of retribution against migrant communities in Papua for acts of
violence perpetrated by the state. The incident was widely reported in local Papuan and
Indonesian newspapers and sensationalised in tabloids in Papua and elsewhere in
Indonesia with blood-soaked headlines and depictions of skulls to evoke tribal warriors
intent on inter-ethnic war.27 It also revealed as a veneer the pluralism asserted during
the New Order era (HRW 2001:15, emphasis in original):28
The Wamena violence demonstrates the corrosive effect of the growing Papua
for Papuans sentiment and anti-migrant hostility. The violence invited a
crackdown and heightened military presence in the region, undermining much of
the progress that had been made toward dialogue. According to local people, it
left Papuan-migrant relations severely frayed and at risk of erupting into further
violence. … The Wamena violence was a serious setback for the wider
community. Because the leaders of the rioting have never been caught and
punished, migrants continue to fear for their safety.29 The security forces, widely
seen as the instigator of the entire incident, have been further discredited. And
among ethnic Papuans themselves, the incident has only widened divisions.
25
Indeed, an article appearing in the prominent Indonesia newspaper Sinar Harapan two days after his
assassination, likened Theys to an Indonesia Martin Luther King Jr (see Giay 2003:135-136).
26
See a collection of ecumenical declarations for peace at http://www.hampapua.org/skp/indexd.html.
27
While Jayapura-based tabloids like Papua Express ran blood-soaked headlines like “Dark/Sinister
Wamena” (Wamena Kelam), more moderate and progressive newspapers in Papua ran stories intended to
expose the roots of the conflict in the livelihoods of local Dani (see “Jangan mengorbankan kami” Jubi
16(2) (18-24 Oct 2000)). A Human Rights Watch report on the incident suggests that ethnic violence in
Wamena was greatly exacerbated by of a strategy adopted by the security forces who positioned
themselves in migrants’ houses and from these locations then shot into crowds of demonstrators in the
streets (HRW 2001).
28
See McGibbon’s disingenuously titled Plural Society in Peril, particularly the discussion on ethnic
conflict between Papuans and non-Papuans in the provinces (2004:27-31).
29
It should be noted that the security forces captured and interrogated numerous Papuans in the aftermath
of this event and eventually imprisoned a number of Papuan church and traditional leaders who were not
involved in the violence, but who were T100 members (i.e. had ‘known’ separatist inclinations) and who
refused to identify the ringleaders (see HRW 2001; Farhadian 2007).
40
While frustration, incitement and revenge may have been the immediate causes of the
Wamena attacks, the incident reflected a more profound anxiety among Papuans – a fear
of becoming minorities in their own land.30 Already marginalised by laws which
enabled state control of their lands and resources,31 Papuan labour was also effectively
sidelined by the recruitment practices of government agencies which were often corrupt
and predicated on national examination standards that were culturally biased towards
candidates imbued with an educational curricula centred around the ideology of the
Indonesian state (see Mulder 2000:57-102). Other government policies made the
spontaneous migration of skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled labour to the province
attractive and more expedient for the state and locally-based business than training
Papuan employees (see Aditjondro 1986; Manning and Rumbiak 1989; Bandiyono
1996). The migration of unskilled (agricultural labourers) was guaranteed until the late
1990s by the government-sponsored transmigration program which appropriated
traditional lands and denied Papuans employment opportunities through urban drift
among transmigrants (see Bhakti and Basyar 1994). Compounding disenfranchisement
among Papuan communities were changes that affected all aspects of Papuan life as
well as the physical landscape of the territory (see Chapter 5). This predicament was
characterised as Indonesianisasi, a creeping political, economic, demographic, and
cultural transformation of Papua (Gietzelt 1985), but it was also a product of missionary
activities, tourism and international investment. With no capital, weak networks of
patronage, limited education and skills and a government empowered to appropriate
their landed assets, the economic outlook for many Papuans through much of the New
Order period was bleak.
Papuans for decades have sought to redress this process of Indonesianisasi through their
own processes of Papuanisasi (assertions of their right to situate themselves within
political, cultural, social and economic institutions which express their collective sense
30
This sense is reinforced in towns and cities across Papua as migrant populations in Papua now account
for an estimated 66% of the urban population across the territory (see Resosudarmo, Napitupulu et al. in
press).
31
Under the infamous Article 33 of the Indonesian Constitution (Undang Undang Dasar 1945, UUD
1945) as well as the Basic Agrarian Law of 1960 (UU5/1960). New legislative provisions in the
Reformasi era, including the Special Autonomy Law for Papua (i.e. Chapter XI, Article 43), have brought
considerably changes to state control of land and related provisions for traditional land tenure (see
Tjondronegoro 2003; cf. Ploeg 1999).
41
of being Papuan).32 The restricted political and cultural spaces under the New Order
made such initiatives difficult, but not impossible (as demonstrated in the case studies
that follow). The collapse of the New Order in May 1998 led quickly to demands from
across the country for concessions from Jakarta that would guarantee the devolution of
power to local peoples and their regions. Decentralisation legislation was enacted in
1999 (Laws 22 and 25 of 1999) and a Bill for Papuan Special Autonomy (Otonomi
Khusus, Otsus) was eventually approved by Indonesia’s DPR in November 2001 (see
Chapter 1). Otsus enshrined certain rights of cultural and political expression for
Papuans. It provided for the use of provincial symbols (Otsus, Chapter II) and called
for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Papua (Komisi Kebenaran dan
Rekonsiliasi) to be established to review Papuan history (Otsus, Chapter XII, Article
46). It also required the formation of a Papuan People’s Council (Majelis Rakyat
Papua, MRP) with wide-ranging oversight over socio-cultural and political
developments in the province (Otsus, Chapter V, Articles 19-25; see also PP54/2004 on
the MRP).33
In the seven years since the Bill on Papuan Special Autonomy was passed by
Indonesia’s Parliament (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat, DPR), the Otsus era has delivered
mixed results. The creation of 14 new districts (kabupaten) in 2002 (UU26/2002), the
new province of West Papua34 and the inclusion of an affirmative action policy in the
Presidential Decree for the accelerated development of Papua and West Papua
provinces (Inpres 5/2007), has dramatically increased the opportunities for Papuan
employment in provincial legislatures and bureaucracies. Yet change has been largely
at this elite level and many provisions of Otsus intended to protect and enhance Papuan
traditional, cultural and political rights and freedoms have been stymied by bureaucratic
foot-dragging, fiscal manipulation and new legislation from Jakarta (most recently Law
77 of 2007 on “Provincial Symbols”, see Chapter 6). While certain problems with the
32
The drive for Papuanisasi emerged in the post-WWII period under van Eechoud’s administration of
Netherlands New Guinea. At this time Dutch citizens held the most senior government positions while
many of the lower level positions were filled by non-Papuan staff (migrants or locals). Van Eechoud
sought to remove this ‘second-tier’ colonialism from the territory by training and appointing Papuans to
positions in the bureaucracy, the military, police and other areas of civic life (see Derix 1987; Chauvel
2005). See also Giay (2001a:81-90).
33
This legislation is online in Indonesian and English at: http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/index.html.
34
Although Inpres 1/2003 reactivated Law 45 of 1999 (UU45/1999) to create three new provinces this
plan was scaled back due to popular unrest (see Chapter 1, note on terminology).
42
implementation of Otsus may be accounted for at a provincial level, a profound sense of
disadvantage and disillusionment with the state (especially its security forces) remains
for those Papuans seeking greater cultural freedoms, restorative justice for past
grievances, and reassurances about their future in their own land. In recent years these
concerns have been apparent in claims of Indonesian racism towards Papuans and even
claims of genocide in Papua by the Indonesian state.
In September 2007, Reverend Corinus Berotabui, Chairman of the Evangelical Church
of Papua (GKI Papua) wrote a paper on racial discrimination in Papua (Berotabui
2007). His argument echoes the sentiments of Reverend Benny Giay at a conference in
Jakarta in March 2002 on “State crimes in West Papua and their influence on the sociocultural life of the people of West Papua.” Giay’s paper, “Why are we still [trapped]
within a coconut shell?” (Giay 2002), argues (after Fanon 1961) that Papuans have
come to embody the negative stereotypes and understandings of ‘Papuans’ projected by
Indonesians. Both Giay and Berotabui are concerned with racist projections of Papuans
as ‘black monkeys’ (kera hitam), ‘faithless’ (kafir), ‘primitive’, ‘stupid’ (bodoh) and the
roles that such stereotypes play in the perpetuation of state violence against Papuans.35
Giay’s argument resonate with MPB, which also reflects on how “Papuan selfawareness (pemahaman diri) functions like a pair of glasses. By means of these glasses,
they look at themselves and their historical experience which in turn influences their
history as a group” (Giay 2001a:6, my translation). In his later work, Giay adopts a
similar anecdotal style in his critiques of state efforts to control Papuan freedoms
through the banning of books, restrictions on Christian churches and the renaming of
Papuan lands and landmarks (see Chapter 4). Giay and Berotabui are influential church
leaders in Papua and their anecdotal accounts of an oppressive atmosphere for Papuans
under Indonesia resonate with other prominent Papuan church and community leaders
in Papua (and with the sentiments expressed by Papuans involved in the Team100
National Dialogue, Mubes2000 and Congress2000). Yet the sense of collective
oppression at the core of these claims tends to overlook broader (global) contexts for
socio-cultural and economic disadvantage in Papua which affect Papuan and Indonesian
35
Berotabui (2007:4) makes this assertion in relation to the notorious Abepura case of December 2000
where Papuan students were taken from their dormitories in the middle of the night for interrogation and
subjected to extreme forms of torture at the hands of the security forces. To date no action has been taken
by the state in respect to this case. See Robinson (2002) and the SKP webpage dedicated to this issue at
http://www.hampapua.org/skp/abepura/abepura2.html.
43
alike, although Giay at least recognises the possibility that ‘Indonesians’ themselves
may be similarly trapped by such constructions (Giay 2002:17).
Today Giay’s journey “Towards a New Papua” appears still-born; mired by elite
politics (see Timmer 2005:9-11; ICG 2007), by popular ambivalence towards Special
Autonomy in Papua, by the socio-economic marginalisation and dispossession of
Papuans in their own land and by the continued impunity of the security forces in Papua
(see ICG 2002; HRW 2007a; 2007b; Chauvel 2007:45-48). In this atmosphere of
frustration and political malaise, many Papuans are abandoning their critiques of the
Indonesian state to focus on the demands for recognition of their ‘Papuanness’ based on
distinct racial, cultural and aspirational grounds. Ongoing intimidation by the security
forces36 and the moribund implementation of the Special Autonomy over the past seven
years have left many Papuans exasperated about the possibilities for improvement under
Indonesia. In June 2007, the leaders of all of the major churches in Papua released a
special report (West Papuan Churches 2007:1) stating that
As leaders of churches in West Papua … we are deeply concerned that [the]
Special Autonomy which should have brought solutions to the Papuan people's
problems, has, in fact, failed. We witnessed that the Government of Indonesia did
not seriously, wholly and systematically implement the Special Autonomy law No
21/2001. We have an assumption that two very secret documents of the
Government of Indonesia have influenced and affected the way the Special
Autonomy was inconsequently and inconsistently implemented.37
The church leader’s report concluded that Special Autonomy in Papua had failed and
reiterated calls for a new National Dialogue and for international intervention to help
36
For example, on 18 October 2007, Sabar Olif Iwanggin, an employee of the Papuan human rights group
Elsham, was arrested in Jayapura by members of the elite Detachment88 Indonesia anti-terror squad and
taken to Jakarta for questioning. After almost two months in custody, he was formally charged on
December 13th with insulting the President of Indonesia after receiving and forwarding a derogatory SMS
(text message) even though the message was widely circulated in Papua (and sparked by reports of
Papuans living in Java being poisoned, see INFID (2008) for a verbatim statement of the text message).
Iwanggin’s case was brought to trial and the charges against him dismissed on 21 January 2008 after
more than three months in detention (see the letter to N.Z. Parliamentarians by Marie Leadbeater at
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0711/S00080.htm and an update on the trial issued by the main
Protestant church in Papua (GKI Papua) at
http://www.freewestpapua.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=498&Itemid=35).
37
Signatories included: Revd. Andreas Ayomi, Synod Chairman of Pentecostal Church in West Papua;
Revd. Lipiyus Biniluk, Synod chairman of Christian Evangelical church in West Papua; Revd. Corinus
Berotabui, Synod chairman of Christian Evangelical Church in West Papua; Revd. Socratez Sofyan
Yoman, President of the Fellowships of West Papuan Baptist Churches; Revd. Seblum Karubaba, Synod
Chairman of West Papuan Tabernacle Evangelical church; Father Dr. Neles Tebay, Vice Bishop of
Jayapura - West Papua; Revd. Dr. Benny Giay, Chairman of Justice and Peace commission, West Papuan
Tabernacle Evangelical Church.
44
resolve the intractable issues in the relationship between Government of Indonesia and
“native West Papuans”. The two “very secret” documents referred to in the church
leaders report date from 2000 and 2003 respectively. The first, produced within the
Indonesian State Department (Departemen Dalam Negeri, Depdagri) and is known to
elites in Papua simply as the “Depdagri document” (dokumen Depdagri). The second
document, issued by the Institute for National Defense of the Republic of Indonesia
(Lembaga Ketahanan Nasional Republik Indonesia, Lemhamnas), pertains to the
division of Papua into three distinct provinces (see Chapter 4).
A Papuan Hydra?
On 8 June 2000, a “Special Coordinating Meeting” was conducted in Jakarta to
formulate a security response to Congress2000 (30 May – 4 June) and its declaration of
Papuan independence (see Chapter 1). Convened by Ermaya Suradinata, then Head of
National Unity and Community Protection in the Department of State,38 the meeting
involved key agencies of the Indonesian security apparatus.39 The following day
Suradinata sent a two-page Official Memo (Nota Dinas) summarising the main points
of the meeting to the Indonesian Minister of State (Depdagri 2000a:1-2, my translation):
a. Developments in the socio-political [public] life in Irian Jaya since the Papuan
People’s Congress are growing in intensity. As a consequence, concrete, swift
and appropriate steps must be taken to prevent this [separatist] point of view
spreading from the community in Irian Jaya across the rest of Indonesia.
b. The spread of this [separatist] sentiment is bringing independence euphoria to
communities in rural areas while the Group of Conspirators who want
independence is [becoming] increasingly cohesive and working to socialise the
results of Congress throughout Irian Jaya, to other areas of Indonesia and to the
world community...
38
Kesatuan Bangsa dan Perlindungan Masyarakyat, Departemen Dalam Negeri (Kesbang dan Linmas,
Depdagri).
39
State Intelligence Coordinating Agency (Badan Koordinasi Intelijen Negara, BAKIN), Indonesian
Armed Forces Strategic Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelijen Strategis Tentara Nasional Indonesia,
BAIS TNI), General Staff, Indonesian Army Headquarters (Staf Umum Pengamanan Markas Besar
Angkatan Darat,SPAM MABESAD), Chief of Staff for Territorial Affairs of the Indonesian Armed
Forces (Kepala Staf Territorial Tentara Nasional Indonesia, KASTER TNI), Signals Intelligence
Headquarters, Indonesian Police Forces (Sinyal Intelijen Markas Besar Kepolisian Negara Republik
Indonesia, SINTEL MABES POLRI), Army Strategic Command (Komando Strategis Angkatan Darat,
KOSTRAD) and Special Forces (Komando Pasukan Khusus, KOPASSUS) (Depdagri 2000a:2). The role
of the Regional Executive Conference (Musyawarah Pimpinan Daerah, Muspida), which is typically
dominated by the regional military/security imperatives, is clearly recognised in the “top secret” operation
report which resulted from the second Kesbang dan Linmas Depdagri meeting of 13 June, 2000
(Depdagri 2000b:3).
45
c. Agreement to form a Task Force (Satuan Tugas) to deal with the political
direction of the Irian (Papuan) community who want independence...
d. The objective of this Task Force will be to adapt to the characteristics of the
Irian community, which is dominated by traditional, religious, tribal and other
elements, so that the series of incidents [it orchestrates] appear transparent
(terbuka) even though they are actually Clandestine Operations (Operasi
Clandestine)...
These issues were the basis for a follow-up meeting (on 13 June 2000) in which a major
covert security operation for Papua was formulated by key agencies of the Indonesian
security forces.40 The memo makes it explicit that the directive for this military
operation came directly from Surjadi Soedirdja, the Indonesian Minister of State.41 The
top secret (sangat rahasia) document that resulted from these meetings42 carried the
cumbersome title: Operational plan for territorial conditioning and the expansion of a
communications network to responding to the political direction [in] Irian Jaya (Papua)
for independence and separation from the Unitary State of Indonesia (Depdagri 2000,
my translation).43 The notion of “territorial conditioning” may be understood in the
40
While Suradinata’s initial memo referred exclusively to security agencies, the “implementing agencies”
(instansi pelaksana) enlisted for this operation were (Depdagri 2000b:3): the Indonesian Department of
State (Departemen Dalam Negeri, Depdagri), Department of Defense and Security (Departemen
Pertahanan dan Keamanan, Dephankam), Foreign Affairs (Departemen Luar Negeri, Deplu), National
Police (Kepolisian Republik Indonesia, Polri), Indonesian Army (Tentara Nasional Indonesiai, TNI),
State Intelligence Coordinating Agency (Badan Koordinasi Intelijen Negara, BAKIN), Indonesian
Armed Forces Strategic Intelligence Agency (Badan Intelejen Strategis Tentara Nasional Indonesia,
BAIS TNI), Regional Leaders Conference/Coordination for Papua (Muspida Papua) and other provinces.
41
As a follow-up directive from the Minister (menindaklanjuti petunjuk Bapak Menteri) from an earlier
memo (No. 552/ND/KESBANG/SET/VI/2000) sent by Suradinata’s National Unity and Community
Protection section of Depdagri on 2 June (see Depdagri 2000a:1).
42
Chauvel (2001d) and Chauvel and Bhakti (2004:62 footnote 92) cite this memo (No.
578/CD/KESBANG/D IV/VI/2000) and the Operational Plan as if it were one document entitled Nota
Dinas (the two documents appear to have been leaked together). Suradinata’s memo (dated 9 June),
however, anticipates the formulation of the Operational Plan, suggesting it was prepared for the meeting
of 13 June (Depdagri 2000a:2): “A follow-up meeting to arrange the Operational Plan and Formation of
the Task Force will be conducted on June 13 2000” (Rapat lanjutan untuk penyusunan Rencana Operasi
dan Pembentukan Tim/Satgas akan diadakan pada tanggal 13 Juni 2000). Note: Chauvel did interview
Suradinata in Jakarta in December 2000 and may have ascertained that despite this, the Operational
Plan... was prepared in advance of the 8 June meeting and that Suradinata’s memo was merely a cover
note to accompany the report (Chauvel and Bhakti 2004:62). King (2004:129) differentiates the memo
from the Operational Plan (which he calls the “Konsep document” – konsep appears at the top of the front
page of the report), but, like Chauvel and Bhakti (2004), similarly assumes the documents were both
circulated on 9 June 2000. This point is significant because if the Operational Plan was produced for the
8 June meeting, it is likely Suradinata was the principal author and the document may not reflect a
consensus position among the security agencies involved in these meetings.
43
I have obtained copies of this and other secret documents referred to in this thesis through networks of
concerned activists, bureaucrats and scholars in Indonesia, Australia, the United States, United Kingdom,
Germany, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and The Netherlands. The text of this memo and of the
Operational Plan... is reproduced in Rumbiak Arwan (2005:262-268, without diagrams) and considered
elsewhere (Elsham 2001b; King 2004:129-130; Chauvel and Bhakti 2004).
46
report as a process intended to assure the elicitation of certain desired responses from
the peoples of the territory.44
Suradinata’s memo (Depdagri 2000a) and the so-called “Depdagri Document”
(Depdagri 2000b) outlining a new security operation for Papua, reassert the rhetoric of
risk familiar throughout Indonesia’s post-colonial history – that separatist sentiment
could spiral out of control and imperil the nation. It also makes explicit a fundamental
paradox in the approach of the security forces in Papua, who insist that covert
operations – even when they are intended to destabilise all sectors of society (in Papua)
– are necessary for the ‘stability’ and ‘security’ of the nation. Such strategies have been
routine in Papua for decades.45
By late 2000 the top secret Depdagri Document was leaked to the leading local weekly
in Jayapura – Tifa Papua. Details of the planned security operation appeared to readers
as a secondary news item on page five of Tifa’s 13-18 November edition (No.38, Year
44).46 The low priority given to this story by Tifa’s acting editor47 reveals the anxiety
surrounding the prospect of violent confrontation at the forthcoming independence
celebrations/protests (December 1) and an ambivalence among Tifa readers towards
news of yet another deceit from Jakarta. It was another year before the existence of the
Depdagri Document became widely known in Indonesia, following the media frenzy at
the assassination of Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay in November 2001 (see
44
The deliberate retention of the “k” when the suffix peng- is added to the root word to form
pengkondisian in Indonesian typically denotes an equivalence of meaning with popular English language
usage – “conditional” (cf. King 2004:129).
45
Similar security operations have been formulated (and leaked) for almost the entire period of
Indonesian control in Papua. Sawor (1969:48-51) transcribes a police report from June 26, 1966 which
calls for the forced relocation (to other islands of Indonesia) and indoctrination of Papuans who were
unlikely to accept a pro-Indonesian outcome at the Act of Free Choice (Sawor 1969:50) and for those
Papuans intent on overthrowing (menggulingkan) Indonesian authority to be killed in circumstances that
were deliberately unclear (dengan tjara jang tidak kentara) by security forces from outside the province
so that the local Papuan population did not comprehend the nature of the operation (Sawor 1969:51). A
similar covert security operation was in effect for the duration of the Pepera process in 1969 under the
command of Sarwo Eddie (see Indonesia. Angkatan Darat Komando Daerah Militer XVII Tjenderawasih
1969). Other accounts of military operations in Papua over the past five decades are documented in
official military histories (Indonesia. Kodam XVII Sedjarah Militer 1971; Indonesia. Kodam XVII
Cenderawasih 1973; Indonesia. Kodam VIII Trikora 1991) as well as secondary reports from
investigative journalists (see Osborne 1985; Monbiot 1989) and human rights agencies (see Tapol 1983,
1988; Elsham 2001a).
46
While the report did appear in a section of the newspaper titled “major reports” (laporan utama), it was
not given prominence on the front page or by its position in the first few pages of Tifa.
47
Frans Ohoiwutun, whom I met in Jayapura in late 2000.
47
Chapter 1). In the immediate aftermath of Eluay’s assassination, the Papuan Hydra
diagram appeared in facsimile form on the front cover of the Jayapura tabloid Jubi
(No.18(3), 29 Nov.-5 Dec. 2001).48 Eluay’s place of prominence in the document and
subsequent assassination by members of Indonesian’s Special Operations Forces
(Kopassus) raised the spectre that other Papuans might also be targeted by security
forces in extra-judicial ‘black ops’.49
Among the top secret intelligence material included in the Depdagri Document was a
diagram titled the “Papuan Political Conspiracy...” (Depdagri 2000b: no page
number).50 The diagram, based on the Team100 meeting with President Habibie in
February 1999, attempts to represent visually the nature and extent of the separatist
threat in Papua and the key actors involved. As outlined in the diagram, this
‘conspiracy’ consists of the following clusters (or cells): local and national government
bureaucrats, independence leaders, traditional (tribal) leaders, religious leaders, activists
in non-government organisations (NGOs), entrepreneurs and other elites, youth and
student leaders, intellectuals and former political prisoners (tahanan politik, tapol). Its
author(s) sought to capitalise on the seemingly unambiguous allegiance of Team100
members to the cause of Papuan independence. Their presumption of a concerted
conspiracy, however, belies the spirit of candour invited by the President at the time of
the Team100 meeting as well as the atmospherics surrounding this event (see Chapter
1). It also glosses the enormous diversity among these individuals and the complex
intra- and inter-group dynamics that characterise their daily lives in Papua.
48
Jubi (Jujur Bicara or “Honest/Straight Talk”) at the time was the leading weekly tabloid in competition
with the Dutch era Tifa Papua. The Jubi article (p.9) revealed that the Depdagri document was leaked by
Ori Rahman of Kontras (the Indonesian national human rights organisation) and made the specific claim
that the document was closely (erat) linked to the assassination of Theys Eluay. Jubi’s coverage also
included a facsimile of the first page of the Operational Plan (Jubi 2001:9). By this state mainstream
media elsewhere in Indonesia had picked up the story (see Kompas “Pembunuhan Theys Bagian dari
Sebuah Operasi Tertutup” 23 Nov. 2001).
49
It has also been suggested that Eluay was killed over business deals with the local Kopassus
Commander. This rumour attempts to downplay the significance of the central government in this
operation, most notably the accountability of then Head of National Intelligence Board (Badan Intelijen
Negara, BIN) Hendropriyono and that of then President Megawati Soekarnoputri. It seems likely,
however, that this rumour was circulated to deflect attention from the central government (see Elsham
2001b). Moreover, the political importance of Eluay at this time makes it unlikely that the local Kopassus
commander would have taken such a bold step without some kind of sanction from his military
commanders (or political masters) in Jakarta.
50
“Papuan Political Conspiracy (including individuals and groups) – Post National Dialogue (Team 100
meeting with President Habibie, 26 February 1999)” – Konspirasi Politik Papua (Pasca Dialog Nasional
26 Pebruari 1999).
48
Nonetheless, this diagram – including its list of individuals and the proposition that all
these individuals were (and may still be) involved in a “political conspiracy” for Papuan
independence – was (and may still be considered to be) important intelligence. The
document also helped inform the police operation in Papua in late 2000.51 Given its
wide circulation within the intelligence community and its subsequent leak to an even
broader audience, it is likely that this diagram and the Depdagri document more
generally have been of considerable importance in the formulation of counterinsurgency operations by security forces (and possibly by pro-Indonesia militias) in
Papua since mid-2000.
Figure 2-2: “Konspirasi Politik Papua (Pasca Dialog Nasional 26 Pebruary 1999)”
(Depdagri 2000b, no page number)
51
King (2004:130, emphasis in original) notes that although the Ministry denied ever implementing the
Operational Plan…, “the Papua police (Polda Irja) gave out clear signs that Depdagri’s konsep had
impacted” through their Operation Tuntas Matoa (King translates this as “Operation Finish Off Matoa”,
but tuntas also means “stable and secure”). From my reading of the leaked “top secret” Rencana Operasi
‘Tuntas’ Matoa 2000 document (Id. Polda. Irja 2000b - 86 pages in total), as well as my experiences in
Papua at the time of the operation, the choice of the Javanese word tuntas had a deliberate, if coded,
double meaning. The Matoa operation documents included a historical background to the Papuan
independence struggle as well as a detailed timeline of recent 1999-2000) events related to the movement.
I was in Papua for almost half of the Tuntas Matoa operation (which ran for 90 days from early
November 2000) and was caught up in the extensive traffic jams caused by “random” police searches of
vehicles entering Jayapura. The heavy security presence across the towns of the province may have
reassured some, but the accompanying military exercises, including army drills through the streets of
Jayapura and intimidating fly-overs of the city by Indonesian jet fighters stationed in Biak, all seemed
calculated to intimate the local (Papuan) population. Such activities constituted “reinforcement”
(mantapkan) of Operasi Tuntas Matoa by other branches of the security forces as stated in Section 7.9 of
the Tuntas Matoa Operational Plan (Id. Polda. Irja 2000b:12).
49
The “Papuan Political Conspiracy (after the National Dialogue of 26 February 1999”
(Figure 2-2) diagram affords an important insight into how members of the Indonesian
security forces conceptualise separatists and separatism in Papua and Papuan agency
generally. It names more than 30 prominent Papuans, including several who have died
in suspicious circumstances52 and many others who have reported systematic
intimidation by agents of the Indonesian security forces since the mid-2000 meeting.53
Against the backdrop of past and ongoing repression in Papua, the diagram suggests
itself as a program for counter-insurgency operations in which designated ‘conspirators’
should be monitored, placated and otherwise neutralised (even eliminated). The
separatist threat is understood as multi-faceted but in unison – analogous to the 10headed evil King Dasamuka54 of the Javanese Ramayana, or the Hydra of ancient Greek
mythology. However, it is also apparent from this Depdagri diagram that the nature of
the ‘conspiracy’ remains far from uncertain55 – the impulse supposed to unite these
disparate stakeholders (Papuan and non-ethnically Papuan) and impel them to ‘treason’
literally remains a giant question mark.56
With no clear sense of what or who lies at the core of the “Papuan Political
Conspiracy”, counter-insurgency operations in Papua that merely target these
52
Yusuf Tanawani (16 March 2001), Jaap Solossa, Jhon Mambor (23 March 2003), Beatrix
Koibur/Rumbino (19 July 2005) as well as numerous others not listed in the diagram, including members
of Team100 (HRW 1998; Giay in Farhadian 2007:31), Sam Kapissa (in 2000, see Rutherford 2001b), a
prominent Biak cultural figure and founding member of the 1980s Papuan performance group Mambesak,
and the Dani NGO activist Yafeth Yelemaken (23 June 2002, see United States. Department of State
2002; King 2004:210, footnote70). The 27 December – 2 January, 2002 issue of the Jayapura-based
weekly tabloid Jubi ran a feature edition on “Mysterious deaths of Papuan Independence Leaders” which
included Theys Eluay, Dr Thomas Wainggai, Arnold Ap and Willem Onde (see Jubi 2002:1-10). More
recent examples of rumour and suspicion surrounding the mysterious deaths of Papuans are also
increasingly available on the internet. See Chapter 6 of this thesis on the fate of Governor Jaap Solossa,
another prominent Papuan listed in the Depdagri document.
53
While some of these individuals were subject to intimidation, arrest and even torture in the New Order
period, many have been subjected to ongoing threats in the post-Suharto era. The apparent impunity of
other Papuans listed in the Depdagri document, is attributed to their ‘collaboration’ with pro-Indonesian
authorities (on this point, see the particularly vitriolic attacks from pro-independence The West Papua
New Guinea National Congress, WPNGNC at http://www.wpngnc.org/members.htm). See also Tapol
(2007).
54
This character of Javanese mythology, also known as Rahwana, was an evil king who was eventually
killed by the armies of the monkey King Hanoman (representing the masses). For more on the parallels
between Javanese mythology and modern political allusions and practice see Anderson (1972) and Clark
(2001).
55
The fact that one of the clusters identifies “independence” leaders suggests that “independence” per se
might not be an adequate explanation of what is at the heart of this conspiracy.
56
I have redrawn this diagram from the degraded photocopy I have of the Depdagri document. The
original is included in Appendix 2 and does include some text in the hexagonal box at the core of the
diagram, but this is not sufficiently clear to discern. The question mark, however, is unambiguous.
50
‘conspirators’ appear fated to fail. As the mythical Greek hero Heracles discovered, the
Hydra of Lerna could not be killed by mere decapitation.57 As soon as Heracles had cut
away one head, the Hydra would grow another. Similarly, past experience suggests that
any attempt to remove ‘conspirators’ or their ‘cells’ in Papua is only likely to foment
further discontent.58 Heracles did defeat the Hydra, but only once he understood the
need to treat (cauterise) all of the wounds he inflicted. Given the brutality and impunity
with which state security forces continue to operate in Papua (see ICG 2002; HRW
2007a; HRW 2007b; SKP, Imparsial et al. 2007) the prospect of a similar moment of
intuition still seems remote. Indeed, even if they were able to find appropriate ways to
excise elements of their ‘Papuan Hydra’, the security forces may – eventually – be
forced to recognise that putting an end to separatism in Papua is more than a Heraclean
task.
The Papuan Hydra appears in schematic form in the Depdagri document, but its
presence can also be discerned in other secret reports and is implicit in the operational
practices of the Indonesian security forces in Papua.59 More than a mere inventory of
‘conspirators’ or heuristic device to probe the nature of the ‘conspiracy’, this diagram
may be illustrative of a deeper ontology of power. The Papuan Hydra is premised on
one central source, impelling action by its various constituent agents. The Indonesian
security establishment is similarly premised on an executive authority able to direct all
sectors of society. Assumptions prevalent among government bureaucrats and security
agencies (particularly since the rise of the New Order regime) that political and cultural
hegemony could be achieved and sustained through sanction, intimidation, coercion and
57
It is important to note that neither the “Depdagri document” (Depdagri 2000b) or Suradinata’s Memo
(Depdagri 2000a) make explicit reference to the “decapitation” (as stated in MacLeod 2006, 2007) or the
“execution” of pro-independence leaders (as implied in King 2004:131).
58
The highest profile and best known examples are the assassinations of Arnold Ap (1984) and Theys
Eluay (2000) who have both become martyrs for the West Papuan nationalist movement .
59
For example, on 4 Sept 2007 leaflets were distributed widely throughout Jayapura depicting two
outspoken critics of government policy in Papua, Agus Alua (Head of the Papuan Traditional Council, the
second tier of provincial government under Papuan Special Autonomy) and Reverend Socrates Yoman
(Head of the Baptist Church in Papua) as corrupt, self-serving individuals. This propaganda attack on
Agus Alua came in the wake of his visit to Australia to meet with Australian parliamentarians and attend
a conference in Sydney hosted by the NGO Indonesian Solidarity and involving the Centre for Peace and
Conflict Studies (CPACS) at the University of Sydney and a public forum in Canberra (hosted by
Papuaweb at the ANU). An account of this smear campaign and images of the leaflets claimed to be
distributed by members of the security forces in Papua is given at
http://www.infopapua.org/artman/publisher/printer_1534.shtml and prepared by WP News (a WP activist
newsgroup and website). I received independent confirmation of this leaflet campaign from a trusted
informant in Papua (pers. comm. Oct. 4, 2007).
51
the use of (lethal) force continue to dominate strategic thinking in Indonesia today.
Consider, for example, this statement by Theo Sambuaga, Chairman of the Indonesian
House of Representatives Commission I for Defence and Foreign Affairs in a leading
daily newspaper in Papua on 6 June 2007:60
The National Intelligence Body (BIN) is stepping up its clandestine operation to
counter foreign non-governmental organisations’ [pro-independence] campaign in
Papua… The intelligence operation involves not only local intelligence officials
but also community figures and pro-Indonesian Papuans.
While such a public statement casts doubt over the “clandestine” success of this
operation, the media report demonstrates ongoing support from the civilian government
for the strategies of the security forces in Papua. Moreover, the reassuring tone of this
press release suggests broad popular support in Indonesia for such practices towards
Papua (and Papuans). Many community and religious leaders, activists, academics and
bureaucrats in Papua (ethnically Papuan and non-Papuan) continue to be strident in their
condemnation of the practices of security forces in the province.61 Support from their
counterparts elsewhere in Indonesia is sporadic at best.62 This reveals clear limits to
Indonesia’s impulse for political and security reforms vis-à-vis Papua. Such statements
also demonstrate that influential politicians in Jakarta, together with key military and
police elites, share the conviction that the state can achieve (though paradoxically
struggle to maintain) hegemonic control in Papua through the concerted efforts of the
security apparatus.63
Similarly, the Papuan Hydra is a chimera. It is a creature of conceptual convenience for
a security establishment in which a culture of repression, impunity and vested interest
60
See “Intelligence operation to fight NGOs campaign in Papua” Cenderawasih Pos June 6, 2007 [online
at http://www.cenderawasihpos.com].
61
Indeed some Papuan published critiques have been banned by Jakarta. For example Giay’s book on
Theys Eluay (Giay 2003) was reportedly banned (Cepos 11 Nov., 2003). See Giay (2002:6-10) for a
discussion of books banned under the New Order, including Mampioper’s history of WWII in Jayapura
(see Mampioper 1972).
62
See Pokja Papua (2005) and selected critiques by ‘Indonesian’ commentators in Arwam (2003). See
also Al Rahab (2006) and Romli (2006).
63
Widjojo (www.muridan-papua.blogspot.com 26 June 2007) observes a curious effect of this
assumption - the propensity of pro-government institutes to exclude critical voices (especially those of
Jakarta-based CSOs like Kontras YLBHI, Elsam, Pokja Papua and SNUP (National Solidarity with
Papua) or Papuans (with the notable exception of ‘pro-Indonesia’ Papuans like John Djopari and Jimmy
Ijie from their policy workshops and seminars. He bases his comments on his attendence at a seminar
organised by the Institute for Policy Studies in Jakarta on 21 July 2007 and his experiences at similar
seminars and workshops in the past).
52
are entrenched through years of institutional ‘conditioning’.64 These imperatives were
ubiquitous through the New Order period and have shaped the range of possible
responses to (perceived) security threats in the past in Papua and across the archipelago.
Yet it is increasingly evident that the far-reaching reforms to the Indonesian security
apparatus demanded by a raft of domestic and international actors continue to be slow
and/or stymied. This is most apparent in Papua (and to Papuans), where repression by
the security forces is still seen to be synonymous with the defence of the nation.65 Yet
despite relentless overt and covert operations in Papua over much of the past four
decades by the security forces, the Indonesian state is no closer to ‘defeating’ Papuan
separatism. The key premise of a Hydra-like Papuan conspiracy against ‘Indonesia’ has
legitimated and perpetuated the deployment of crude typologies and cruel actions in
Papua by the security forces. Such practices, however, are not rooted in Papua but in
state efforts to perpetuate key narratives of Indonesian history and nationhood.66
Amiruddin Al Rahab (2006:3-4), a researcher with the Jakarta-based human rights
group Elsam, has recently restated the view that the ideological importance attached by
the Indonesian security forces to the eradication of the OPM in Papua has always been
disproportionate to the threat posed by the organisation as a guerrilla force.67 Al Rahab
(2006:4) attributes this “obsession” to the view by the security apparatus that a Papuan
political identity is a “time bomb left by the Dutch”. This is not a new idea (see
Indonesia. Kodam XVII Sedjarah Militer 1971; Indonesia. Department of Information
64
For example, see Krisna (1995). It is important to note that ever since the Indonesian take-over of West
Irian, the security forces have actively recruited Papuans into the military and police. For this reason, the
notion of “conditioning” is particularly important (not merely an allusion to the Depdagri document).
From personal experience, I am aware that Papuans, when inculcated with the institutional culture of the
military or police, are as liable as any non-Papuan to exceed their authority.
65
Consider, for example, the legal case against those charged with the assassination of Theys Hilo Eluay,
in which even members of the prosecution and The Chief of Staff for Indonesia’s Armed Forces were
reported to have recognised the Kopassus personnel involved as ‘heroes’ for killing a ‘rebel’ (Human
Rights Watch 2007b: 65). Similarly, of the dozens of cases brought to the attention of the government by
human rights and legal aid organisations in Papua and even the government’s own National Commission
for Human Rights (Komisi Nasional Hak Asasi Manusia, Komnasham), which have never been brought
to trial (see ICG 2001; Amnesty International 2002a; HRW 2007a).
66
Clark (2006:8) notes that “nationalism regularly thrives on doom. Apocalypse is one of its modes. No
better time for the making of nations than a time when nations are broken. Out of the shards will be made
the genuine article, and the maker – the breaker – will be the Nation in its true, transfigured guise.”
67
This is a commonsense assertion, but it is worth noting that while Indonesian security forces have often
given the impression they are assiduously working to remove all traces of OPM (more accurately, its
National Liberation Army (Tentara Pembebasan Nasional, TPN)) from Papua, there are numerous
examples where the TNI has been both permissive of and often sponsored a guerrilla presence in certain
parts of the territory – which in turn is used to justify military deployments across Papua (see Osborne
1985; Djopari 1993; McRae 2000; Ondawame 2001; Kirksey 2002, 2003).
53
1976; Chauvel and Bhakti 2004:170; Elson 2007) but the rationale behind it suggests a
security paradigm in which guerrilla and counterinsurgency operations are decisive in
containing the ideas and aspirations circulating among peoples in Papua. In response to
the decline of guerrilla activity in Papua in the post-Suharto era this paradigm also helps
to explain the predisposition of the security forces to launch covert operations against
all sectors of Papuan society. Security practices constrained by such ideological
encumbrances may attenuate the symptoms of discontent in Papua but they will never
attend to the fundamental causes of such dis-ease.
“Old Papua”: into the breach of canonical history
The Old Papua is gripped by an atmosphere of suspicion and fear towards
outsiders. This is because Papua has a traumatic history
.
This statement, by the Reverend Phil Erari in December 2006 (Tagukawi 2006),
provides a Papuan rationale for the Indonesia – Papua schism in the canon of Papuan
political and historical narratives since World War Two. In this schema, the unity and
integrity of the “Old Papua” coalesces around the depradations of the Indonesian (and
earlier Dutch) state, Papuan suffering and Papuan resistance. Yet the move towards a
“New Papua” invites scrutiny of the artifice of the “Old Papua” and consideration of its
role in the Papuan present. Among the various political and socio-cultural histories of
Papua, there are relatively few nuanced accounts which challenge the presumptions of
state authority or the nature of Papuan identity. While there are several influential
polemic accounts of this “Old Papua” by foreign commentators (see Osborne 1985;
Mombiot 1989; Defert 1996; Martinkus 2002) only a few foreign or local authors have
engaged directly with practices of politics in Papua (see Penders 2002; Rutherford
2003; Chauvel 2005). Vlasblom’s recent Papua, a history (2004) is arguably the most
significant contribution to a fresh and nuanced historical narrative of Indonesian Papua.
His lucid journalistic prose incorporates dozens of interviews with prominent Papuans
and Indonesians involved in key events in Papua’s history, mediated by insights and
considerations from long-term expatriate residents of Papua (notably Father Alfons van
Nunen OFM). Yet despite the claims and successes of Vlasblom’s monograph,68
68
Vlasblom’s book has been popular in The Netherlands (with plans for Indonesian and English language
versions of the book). However, claims for the novelty and significance of this book (on the back dust
cover) are generally overstated, as is the extraordinary statement that “With this magisterial work the
54
including his remarkable access to informants and strategic use of archival material, his
account is still constrained by a discursive framework in which ‘Papua’ and ‘Indonesia’
remain conceptually discrete and schismatic.
I believe the key to effectively engaging with the challenges of contemporary Papua is
an understanding of the interplay of relationships, assumptions, myths and ideologies
that are implicit in the canon of Papuan history – in the constructions of ‘Papua’.
Understanding the past and present political, social and cultural experiences of Papuans
is fundamental to such engagements. So too, however, is an understanding of the
presumptions and ideological projections by the Indonesian state that have produced
such phenomena as the ‘Papuan Hydra’. The governments of Indonesia’s nearest
neighbours, especially Australia and Papua New Guinea, as well as the wider
community of nation-states also have vested interests of one sort or another in Papua.
Similarly, growing numbers of individuals and civil society organisations within these
states, including human rights and religious groups, see themselves as key participants
in expanding networks of grassroots activism to promote their ideals and aspirations for
civil society internationally.
Essentialised ideas of ‘Papua’ and ‘Papuans’, the othering of ‘Indonesians’ and the
defence of the nation from the ‘Papuan Hydra’ all too frequently imply monolithic
understandings or projections of cultural and historical processes. This is not to deny
the validity of these perspectives, but merely to observe how these have come about and
what they overlook. The chapters that follow demonstrate the dynamic, highly
contingent and fluid nature of cultural and historical process in the production of Papua.
To do this, I adopt an unconventional approach to the past, engaging with the “trash of
history” (Neumann 1992:7-9):
... bits and pieces of the past that cannot possibly be used to support the notion
that the past leads inevitably to the present or that the present could be fully
deduced from the past… By zooming in on the trash of history we focus on the
disturbing ambiguity of the past, that is, its irrelevance for the emergence of the
present and its potential relevance for our image of a future not necessarily
contained in the present.
author gives the Papuan’s [sic] their history” (Vlasblom 2004: back dust cover, my translation). See also
the review and critique by Timmer (2005a).
55
It is my contention that the embodied histories of material artefacts discussed in the
following chapters – maps, postage stamps, art and architecture – can help illuminate
aspects of practice of ‘Papua’ which may contribute to a better understanding of the
complexities inherent in Papua and Papuan identity. This is a direct, if modest,
challenge to existing propositions and ‘pictures’ of Papua which are now so politicised
and contested that they both frame and capture (after Wittgenstein, frontispiece of
chapter) possibilities for what Papua is and for what it may become in the future.
*****
56
Stamps are the visiting-cards
that the great states leave in a child’s room.
One-Way Street
Walter Benjamin
(1997:94)
57
58
– CHAPTER 3 –
Posting Papua: the stamp of the state
posting – the action of putting up a notice on a post, wall, etc., or of making anything
public by this or similar means; public advertisement by posters; (also) an
advertisement; the dispatching of letters, etc.; the action or process of sending
something by or through the post, conveyance by post; esp. the putting of a letter, etc.,
into the charge of the post office, or into a post office letter box.
This chapter scrutinises claims inherent in the understanding of Papuan nationalists
about the hegemony of the state and its agencies in Papua (see Chapter 2). State
hegemony is explored through a study of the representations of “Papua” on postage
stamps, as depicted by the Post Office as an agent of first the Dutch and then the
Indonesian administrations in Papua. The study demonstrates that the institutions of the
state are fallible, their representations imperfectly rendered, and their means of
informing interpretation limited. Postage stamps, as signifiers of Papua, do not always
convey coherent or consistent messages from the state; they are often ambiguous,
ambivalent and contradictory in both imagery and effect. Similarly, the study
challenges assumptions about the role of the state in the definition and redefinition of
icons and symbols of national and regional resonance.
Indonesian Minis
The modern Indonesian state, particularly since the rise of the New Order in 1966,
assumed cultural hegemony through an official programme of defining regional and
national culture. The term “Minis” deliberately evokes the academic discussions
centred on these New Order policies and practices in relation to the controversial
Indonesian theme park Taman Mini - an important analogue for this and subsequent
case studies.1 Taman Mini is a contraction of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah (TMII) or
"Beautiful Indonesia in Miniature". President Suharto stated at Taman Mini’s opening
in 1975 that the park was intended to embody “…our beautiful and noble national
cultural inheritance” (in Pemberton 1994:154). His aspirations for Taman Mini as a
1
For further academic discussion related to Taman Mini, see Anderson (1990:176-183), Pemberton
(1994:154-161, 166-168, 178-181), Errington (1998:188-227), Robinson (1997) and Chapter 5 of this
thesis.
59
nation-building project resonate with the role proclaimed by his predecessor, President
Soekarno, for the postage stamps of the new Republic of Indonesia:2
For a century the postage stamp has served as an ambassador promoting
friendship between people in different parts of the world and extending the
frontiers of knowledge. As a means of learning geography, history and culture,
it has few rivals.3
Located on a sprawling site on the outskirts of Jakarta, Taman Mini was “inspired” by a
1971 visit by Ibu Tien Suharto to Disneyland in 1971 (hence the Disney-esque Istana
Anak Anak or “Children’s Palace,” Figure 3-1, right). It offers “traditional” buildings,
cultural artefacts and costumed performers – distilled from each of the provinces of the
archipelago. The TMII complex also includes several museums and temporary
exhibition sites.
Figure 3-1: Stamp Museum and Children’s Palace, TMII (1989)4
The Stamp Museum at TMII (Museum Prangko TMII, Figure 3-1, left) exhibits the first
uses of stamps in the Indonesian Republic, technologies of stamp production and
themes such as “environmental conservation, historical events and other important
issues for which community awareness can be raised through stamps.”5 The site also
includes scale reproductions of ancient sites of worship like Borobudur juxtaposed
2
These stamps are discussed later in this chapter. It is noteworthy that most of the first stamp issues of
the new Republic commemorate key events in the Indonesian Revolution (see Baldus 2002:221-232).
3
Extract from a speech by President Soekarno at the opening of "The Indonesian stamps printed in
Vienna" Exhibition at the National Philatelic Museum, Philadelphia in 1950 (in Elsaqat International
Philatelic Center c.2000b:4, my translation, emphasis added.
4
For stamp terminology see the glossary in Appendix 3.
5
(Extract from http://www.tamanmini.com/museum/prangko/ragam/152 accessed 070703, my
translation). The “real” Indonesian Postal Museum is located in Bandung, the headquarters of the
Indonesian Post Office since the colonial era.
60
against modern edifices like the “Fire of Pancasila” Independence Monument (obelisk) even though the “real” monument is located nearby, in downtown Jakarta. The
presence of regional traditional houses (rumah adat), an Asmat Museum and various
cultural performances allows visitors a virtual “tour” of Irian or other “exotic” parts of
the archipelago (see Chapter 5).
Papua has its own provincial Culture Garden (Taman Budaya) Exposition site at Waena,
near the provincial capital of Jayapura (Roper 1999:48-50). “Expo Waena” defines its
own regional representations of provincial culture – through traditional houses, arts and
performances during show time (held annually over a week-long period as part of
Indonesian Independence celebrations on August 17th).6 Expo-Waena both sanctions
and challenges the caricatures of Papua at Taman Mini through its shift in perspective
and change of lens; from a Jakarta-centric and pan-Indonesian overview to a locally
inflected pan-Papuan exposition. Robinson (1997) has explored how such provincial
sites rely on and engage the civic contributions of local stakeholders, including artisans,
academics and entrepreneurs as well as government agents and agencies. No similar
opportunity exists for the local production of postage stamps in Indonesia.7
The Indonesian Post Office, like most postal administrations in the world, is highly
centralised.8 It is authorised to produce stamps and distributes them across the entire
nation. For this reason, representations of “Papua” (and other regions of Indonesia) by
the Post Office and at Taman Mini rely on iconic and abstracted imagery and forms. A
lack of locally or regionally nuanced knowledge may explain whatever verisimilitude
the Post Office or TMII affects through imagery on stamps or replica buildings.9 And
while postage stamps rely on the kind of “compressed” geography found at TMII, their
imagery is often explicit in its political and historical relevance to the nation - unlike the
“apolitical” and “ahistorical” impressions of TMII (see Pemberton 1994:157).
6
The Papua expo at Waena has been an intermittent event since 1998.
The nearest example is the PRISMA stamps discussed later in this chapter.
8
While postal administrations have changed their names through the Dutch colonial and Indonesian
periods, and often had other responsibilities such as telecommunications service provision, I refer to the
postal administration in Papua simply as the Dutch or Indonesian Post Office (see also Appendix 3).
9
For example, Rutherford writes of a visit to Taman Mini by “real” Papuans - Biak Islanders - who
appropriated the strangeness of that “frozen Stone Age” (the Irian Pavilion) by dancing and performing
traditional “wor” songs in the Irian Pavilion (Rutherford 1997b:601-602).
7
61
Taman Mini is a useful point of comparison for this and subsequent case studies as it
lends tangible form to more abstract conceptual issues of representation. The focus for
this chapter, however, is on other minis that condense “defining” moments, modes and
movements across the archipelago into discrete, but significant, spaces.
Through the Looking Glass
Figure 3-2: Learning to “look a little closer”
(from Kijne and Berkel 1953:7)10
Stamps and currency are among the most conspicuous assertions of the power and reach
of the state but their familiarity renders this influence liminal. We may read Benjamin’s
quote (front of chapter) as attending to this paradox; that the visiting cards of “the great
states” are left for children. Yet the use of postage stamps is widespread, particularly in
Indonesia’s rapidly expanding urban centres, much as the Indonesian rupiah is
ubiquitous across the archipelago. These media of exchange derive their legitimacy
from the state and, in turn, legitimate the nation (and thereby the state) to its citizens
(see Foster 1998; 1999). The Universal Postal Union (UPU) and international financial
institutions reinforce the transnational significance of these national instruments even as
they mediate their reach beyond the boundaries of the nation-state.11
10
This illustration is from “healthy and happy”, a Malay language publication which formed part of the
curricula in many primary schools in Netherlands New Guinea in the early 1950s. It depicts a young
Papuan boy being taught to look a little closer at things (first rupiah coins, then pencils, etc) with the aid
of a magnifying glass. He later learns of medical discoveries related to microscopic bacteria, infection
and disease.
11
Founded in 1879, the UPU is the key regulatory body responsible for the international exchange of
postal items (through the 1964 UPU Convention and additional protocols which may be found at
http://www.upu.int/acts). As Altman (1991:9) notes that “for the purposes of postal communication all
62
Stamps and currency are exchanged more frequently and more widely than most other
goods or services.12 As they are used, they circulate specific imagery that may establish
or reinforce iconic cultural and/or political representations of the nation.13 Yet the
imagery deployed on Dutch and Indonesian postage stamps and currencies also reveals
trends in the way the highly centralised agencies of these administrations envisage their
relations to “Papua” (and other regions of Indonesia).14 This inductive insight suggests
the importance of taking more than a “stamp album” view of history.15 Although the
study follows a loose chronological sequence, it rejects a chronological or teleological
understanding of the representations of “Papua” on postage stamps. In an attempt to
understand better the broad trends that characterise these representations, this study
adopts a thematic approach to the case material. This approach is consistent with the
only other scholarly work on Indonesian postage stamps.
In 1973, the French journal Archipel published an article by Jacques Leclerc titled
“Iconologie politique du timbre-poste Indonésien, 1950-1970” (later translated into
English and re-published in the journal Indonesia in 1994). Today, thirty-five years
since it was first published, this article remains the only scholarly attempt to understand
the place of the postage stamp in Indonesia's political landscape.16 Without access to
the decisions (or decision makers) responsible for the production of postage stamps
during this period, Leclerc adopted a formal art history approach to their analysis and
classification. The descriptive approach adopted here differs substantially from
member countries form, in effect, a single territory“ under this agreement. It should be noted, however,
that the rapid growth of private postal and courier services greatly complicates this picture (e.g. see
http://www.wto.org/English/tratop_e/serv_e/w39.doc). Some consequences of this transformation in
postal service provision are discussed later in the chapter.
12
A discussion of the socio-historical or cultural impacts of these systems of exchange is beyond the
scope of this chapter. Considerable work has been done by anthropologists of Melanesia in relation to
currency (i.e. Robbins and Akin 1999; Foster 1999) while Rutherford (2001) gives brief mention to the
use of former Dutch New Guinea “colonial” currency as an adornment of identity. My argument here,
however, is concerned with a grammar of stamps and currency (i.e. see Foster 1998).
13
For example, see Breckon and Gertsakis (2000) on the iconicity of the Kangaroo reinforced by the
Australian Kangaroo and Map issues of 1911 or Demarbaix (1996) for an iconic history of Belgium
through a stamp history of Brussels.
14
For an elaboration of some of the theoretical issues raised by such analyses, see Altman (1991:37-102).
15
Indeed, Donald Horne (1984:15) notes that “the stamp album is itself a kind of do-it-yourself museum,
involving classification, catalogues… auctions, dreams of unexpected finds and tests of authenticity” .
16
Earlier accounts, such as Nieuwenkamp (1930), tend to follow the highly descriptive formula of
collector’s catalogues with little if any interpretative analysis of imagery.
63
Leclerc's positivist methodology, but follows his lead in attempting "to single out a
number of elements and tendencies constituting what might be called 'an official mental
picture'" (Leclerc 1994:16). It also shares his intention to identify, where possible,
"systematic state intervention" in the creation and projection of narratives and discourse
through the media of stamps and currency. However, while the material may infer such
interventions, a lack of access to pertinent informants and relevant official documents
makes it difficult to verify such conclusions (Chapter 1).17
Benedict Anderson observed the complex cultural and historical foundations of the
languages of Indonesian politics as early as 1966 when he described colonial Indonesia
as "a bureaucratic Wonderland: a cluster of interacting but basically separate linguistic
and cultural universes, linked by the miracle of modern bureaucratic and technical
organisation…" (Anderson 1966:90). In newly independent Indonesia, this modernity
was expressed through such institutions as national language, a national currency,
nation-wide post and telecommunications networks, and national defence agencies.
Among these, the Post Office apparently took its role in nation-building very seriously.
The proliferation of stamps of varied imagery since the first revolutionary issues of
1946 is testament to this ideological drive, as Leclerc observes (1994:16):18
The edification of a unified State as well as the generalization of national feeling
demanded an intense ideological activity on the part of State authorities; they
needed to define their cultural specificity and provide the country with sociohistorical references that would enable others to identify it.
The postage stamp orders a system of communication as stamps impose uniformity
across the nation through a defined regime of charges for postal services. Money,
similarly, structures another system of exchange, integrating the economic activity of
17
Leclerc's limited access to such critical information led him to consider his work as an investigation
into the 'iconology' rather than the 'ideology' of the Indonesian postage stamp (Leclerc 1994).
18
Leclerc suggests that the sheer number of different images, particularly during the 1960s, was
indicative of the deployment by the Soekarno/Suharto government of this medium as a form of
ideological communication. If we were to continue his analysis from 1970 to the present day, a similar
pattern would be apparent. The key point is that although stamps are consumable products, it is
expensive and unnecessary for new images to be commissioned and printed on a regular basis or for each
face value to have a different image (since one image can be printed with multiple face values, see
Appendix 3 on stamp terminology). Leclerc tallies and graphs the stamps from 1950-1970 and makes the
point that before 1951 a mere 5 distinct images carried more than 40 different face values (Leclerc
1994:17). It should also be noted that postal administrations frequently print stamps as a way of
generating revenue from collectors (who pay for a service they do not collect).
64
citizens, defining and structuring the way goods and services are transacted within the
nation and holding value in perpetuity. Both of these instruments of governance
circulate within and beyond the nation, enabling them to communicate in both implied
and direct ways the character of the nation. They are more than mere symbols or
signifiers of value. Stamps and monies require a physical form to function and their
very use ascribes them value as cultural artefacts. Moreover, the apparent banality of
their use masks the messages they relentlessly convey of iconic images of the nation. In
this way, they communicate values beyond their utilitarian value as signifiers of goods
and services. So how should we understand the signals and significance of their
iconology and its relationship to national ideologies and agents of the state? In the
literature on Indonesian politics the significance of visual forms and functions has been
an integral part of Benedict Anderson’s inquiries on nationalism for decades (1990:155).
If direct speech often eludes the academic eye because of its fluid and ephemeral
nature, symbolic speech escapes attention for rather different reasons. We
understand that public monuments and rituals, cartoons, films and
advertisements represent a mode of political communication. But the grammar
may be perplexing, the relation of form and content at once more salient and
more ambiguous. More than printed speech, these visual condensations of
significance find their meanings shift, deepen, invert, or drain away with time.
Since their audiences are necessarily fleeting and anonymous, context is all
important…
Anderson's search for a grammar, for meaning and context, is equally relevant in
attempts to understand the deployment and significance of the postage stamp in
Indonesia's history and its depictions of “Papua”.
The history and development of postage stamps in Indonesia has been an intensely
reflexive activity. While many other newly independent nations in the period after the
Second World War satisfied themselves with stamps designed and printed by
"specialized international agencies or from the ex-colonial power" Indonesia moved
quickly to establish domestic stamp design and production facilities (Leclerc 1994:1719).19 But far from signalling a break with practices established during the Dutch
period, the new Indonesian PTT,20 while celebrating Indonesian Independence and anti19
Leclerc notes that by "as early as 1950, Indonesian stamps were designed by national artists,
maquettistes, and engravers…" (Leclerc 1994:18). See also Sejarah PTT (1980)....
20
This chapter is not a review of the history of the Postal service in Indonesia or Papua. While an
authoritative postal history for Papua has yet to be written, significant work has been done to consolidate
65
Dutch rhetoric, preserved many of the formal design elements, stamp series and special
issues of the colonial office.21 This reflected a more profound structural and
institutional similarity between the old and new PTT. One key reason for this apparent
continuity is the bureaucracy’s continuing sense of importance and efforts at selfaggrandisement, as Leclerc elaborates (Leclerc 1994:21):
The postal service makes generous use of these stamps to diffuse the image it
wants to give of itself…the first public building shown on an Indonesian stamp
was, in January 1953, the main post office in Bandung, and the first head [bust],
other than that of the President of the Republic, was, in September 1955 … that
of its first director: narcissism at the center and the head which encloses and
freezes into a State within a State a service whose raison d'etre is the creation of
links between people and the circulation of information, openness and exchange,
and therefore mobility…
Leclerc’s observation on this imperative of the Indonesian post office is exemplified by
the succinct encapsulation of 100 years of political history in the 1964 centenary issue
(Leclerc 1994:27).
Figure 3-3: “Seratus Tahun Prangko Indonesia 1864-1964” (1 April 1964)
this history by Dr Wim Vink (see Vink 1972-2005) and other members of the Philatelic Studiegroep Zuid
West Pacific (ZWP), notably Han Dijkstra, Nico de Weijer and Jelis Klip. Almost all of this work is
published in various issues of the Proceedings of the ZWP Philatelic Society. For the UNTEA period, see
Hofmann (1965). The Indonesian PTT has also written several extensive institutional histories, including
its comprehensive 5 volume set with important information about the PTT in Papua: during the
Revolution (Indonesia. PTT 1980b: 183-190), the Trikora/UNTEA (Indonesia. PTT 1980c:47-66) and
Pepera periods (Indonesia. PTT 1980e:48-52).
21
The new Indonesian PTT followed its colonial predecessor in its approach to the form and content of
many of its stamp series. The most conspicuous examples of this were the busts of President Soekarno
which symbolically asserted the head of State in a similar fashion to the earlier vignettes of the Dutch
Royal Family. Other continuities included the use of rural scenes, "native" imagery (transformed as
tradition – see Altman 1991:13), monuments (especially Borobudur) and special surcharge issues raising
funds for social/community causes.
66
The “100 years of stamps in Indonesia 1864-1964” (Figure 3-3) single issue featured a
series of 7 stamps from the period 1864-1964 which cascade over one another, with the
most recent and triumphant “Republik Indonesia” (symbolised by its figurehead,
Soekarno) placed atop earlier stamps issues, revealing history through their captions:
“Republik Indonesia,” “Republik Indonesia Serikat,” "Indonesia R.I.S.” (“Indonesia”
stamps overprinted with Republik Indonesia Serikat or United States of Indonesia),
"Repoeblik Indonesia,” “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” (Japanese WWII
stamps issued in the archipelago, also known as Dai Nippon issues), "Nederlands
Indiës" and "Nederlandsch Indiës" respectively. While Leclerc grapples with the
grammar of this and other postage stamps, he misses an opportunity to explore the selfreferential introspection that this stamp exemplifies. More than a history of Indonesia, it
is a history of Indonesia inscribed in, recollected through, and reconstituted by the
Postal Service. Similar rhetorical devices with frequent allusions and homage to past
stamp issues abound in the decades since 1970 - the limit of Leclerc's analysis.
Self-referential stamps are common in Indonesian postal issues. Indeed, stamps issued
over the past 50 years would appear to constitute a litany of repetition, mimicry and
self-adulation if their imagery were to remain in constant circulation.22 Instead, they are
issued, posted, and removed from general view (as waste or collector’s oddities). It is
this feature of stamps – that they are so swiftly consumed and discarded - that resonates
with the "shifting meanings" of Anderson's cartoons and monuments. This same
ephemeral quality renders stamps and currencies, once withdrawn from circulation, of
interest to collectors while enabling them also to "elude the academic eye."
In applying rigour to his study of Indonesian postage stamps, Leclerc established a
typology of four "preferential areas" for the subject matter of stamps produced between
1950-1970 and asserted that all stamps produced in Indonesia during this period fell into
one, and only one, of these categories (Leclerc 1994:21):
[1] Commemoration of struggles for independence, institutions, portraits of the
head of State, development plans, the Bandung Conference and Afro-Asian
22
Such frequent turnover of stamp issues is regarded with disdain by some collectors who believe that
many stamps in these issues are produced primarily to sell (for hard currency) to the large international
market of stamp collectors (Edlins Stamp Dealers, pers. comm., Canberra, Feb 2004).
67
solidarity (in b: international integration institutionalized by the UN), roughly
speaking what is announced by the Indonesian concepts: kebangsaan,
kedaulatan rakyat, and perikemanusiaan. [nationalism, sovereignty and
humanity]
[2] Social solidarity, safety, and justice….
[3] Sporting events…
[4] Communications, transportation, and meeting places… post office, bank,
international expositions (including those promoting tourism…).
The seemingly benign nature of these (national) themes reinforces Altman’s (1991:100)
observation that “with some exceptions… stamps are very conservative products that
venerate the most respectable version of social reality” – impressions the “great states”
would like to communicate to children and others (consistent with the chapter cover
page quote by Walter Benjamin).
This study challenges a number of assumptions made by Leclerc and Altman about the
politically conservative nature of postage stamps. While it is possible to employ
Leclerc’s typology in ordering the pre-Indonesian colonial stamps of NLNG, I call into
question his assertion that Indonesian postage stamps had lost their nationalist intent or
ideological edge by 1970 (Leclerc 1994:44). Narrow interpretations of political intent
that favour explicit ideological assertions over the “apolitical” imagery and cultural
policies of the New Order, form the basis of this understanding. It is axiomatic that the
New Order had a radically different ideological position to Soekarno's Old Order, but it
is also evident that both regimes subscribed to strong ideological imperatives.
Leclerc’s study could not benefit from later research on New Order cultural policy (i.e.
the work on museums and Taman Mini). His decision to focus exclusively on the
stamps of the Indonesian post office also excludes any analysis of the linkages between
stamps of the late East Indies colony of Netherlands New Guinea and the newly
Independent Republic during the period 1950-1962.23 This study explores that
relationship and argues that the stamps from this period, rather than reinforcing
conventional notions of the centre’s dominance of the periphery (cf. Leclerc 1994:4044), actually place elements of the (peripheral) colonial outpost of Netherlands New
Guinea at the centre of the Indonesian national imaginary.
23
Although Leclerc does note that the new Republic continued the practice of issuing stamps with
vignettes of the Head of State.
68
By 1950, the administrative centre (The Netherlands) had lost much of its periphery.
After a four year-long independence struggle (1945-49), Indonesian nationalists and
their Republic finally reached an accord with The Netherlands at the Round Table
Conference (RTC) of October 1949. The Netherlands former East Indies colony
contracted to the territory of West New Guinea.24 From 1950-1962, imagery on stamps
and currency in Netherlands New Guinea flourished, reflecting the substantial Dutch
investment in its vestigial East Indies possession.25 Yet in 1963, the Indonesian
Republic effectively wrested control of Netherlands New Guinea from The Netherlands
(see below) and announced its achievement with a flurry of ideologically charged stamp
issues. By the end of that decade, however, Indonesian stamps were starting to mimic
their earlier Netherlands New Guinea counterparts. A crucial new relationship between
Indonesia and Netherlands New Guinea was emerging with its origins in colonial
cultural practice.
Colonial continuities and discontinuities
At the 1931 World's Fair in Paris a magnificent Balinese style pavilion represented the
Netherlands East Indies. Artefacts lavishly adorned the interior, juxtaposing Asmat
shields with bas-reliefs from Borobudur (Gedenkboek 1931:116). Displays profiled
economic activities, the challenges of governance (including overpopulation on Java)
and the exotic peoples of the archipelago all unified under the edifice of the Netherlands
East Indies (see Chapter 5). One display identified the disparate peoples of the NLEI by
region of origin and bound them together in time and space in a series of photographs of
archetypal Papuan, Batak, Torajan, Buginese, Javanese, Madurese, Balinese, Malukan
and others framing a map of the East Indies (Figure 3-4).26 The display was a pastiche
held together by the power of empire and geography.
24
It should be noted that at that time The Netherlands retained control of other colonies such as Surinam
(until 1975) and still holds Netherlands Antilles and Aruba as autonomous territories. There are many
parallels in the development of stamps during the colonial and post-colonial period in the Netherlands
East Indies and Surinam but this is beyond the scope of this discussion.
25
The sheer number of new stamp issues during this period was not justified by postal needs alone,
suggesting an ideological rationale behind this imagery similar to that which Leclerc proposes for
Indonesian stamps of the period (Leclerc 1994:17).
26
Another version of this display included two photos inset from the main frame to denote the eastern and
western boundaries of the territory – Sabang and Merauke (see Gedenkboek 1931:120). See also
Chapters 4 and 6.
69
Figure 3-4: “Les Peuples des Indes Neerlandaises” (Gedenkboek 1931:47)
Many of these “Peoples of Netherlands (East) Indies” (Figure 3-4) may not have
imagined themselves united in this way, but this was unlikely to concern a colonial
government which actively promoted political and ethnic rivalries within the colony to
aid its administration efforts. Anderson has convincingly elucidated how key
institutional developments "profoundly shaped the way in which the colonial state
imagined its dominion" and so tempered anti-nationalist sentiment in late-colonial
Indonesia (Anderson 1991:164).
The institutions of census, map and museum (Anderson 1991:163-187) are all active in
the integrationist rationale of the modern Indonesian state and evident in its earliest
stamp issues to those of recent years. 27 In Indonesia, the theme of census first appears
in a 1961 stamp release and the parallel symbolism of election series from 1955. These
stamps help publicise and promote good citizenship and compliance with the relevant
government agencies.28 Museums receive little direct attention in either colonial or
post-colonial stamp issues in Indonesia, but the cultural policies that directed museum
development through the New Order period (1966-1998) are crucial to an understanding
of the impulses for Indonesian stamp issues since the late 1960s. Taylor’s (1994:79-80)
27
Anderson notes that these three "institutions of power … although invented before the mid-nineteenth
century, changed their form and function as the colonized zones entered the age of mechanical
reproduction" (Anderson 1991:163).
28
Anderson (1991:174) also discusses the linkages between the census and the map in colonial (and
therefore) post-colonial administrations. This link between census and map is evident in stamp issues
from the Indonesian Post Office: 1961 Sensus Penduduk (the 1st Population Census, with map-as-logo);
1980 Sensus Penduduk (Population Census, with map-as-logo).
70
description of the layout of provincial museums resonates strongly with much of this
imagery in stamps:
Viewers are first placed in the physical universe, then in the context of local
fauna and flora, then presented with the cultural artefacts and history of their
province. Finally, in the nusantara gallery these local traditions are compared
to those elsewhere in Indonesia, with the implication that, for all its variation,
Indonesia is one.
Similarly, the cultural (and scientific) knowledge that provincial museums are intended
to promote and preserve feature prominently in stamp imagery, especially since the
early 1970s in issues which celebrate regional traditions of dress, dance and material
culture (e.g. traditional carvings or musical instruments) from across the archipelago.
Such artefacts may appear superimposed over map sections of the archipelago or be
designated by province. The “Traditional Dress of the Archipelago” (Pakaian Adat
Nusantara) post-New Order issue of 2000 (Figure 3-5) exemplifies this “Nusantara”
approach to cultural representation (see Chapter 4) and features a designated
“traditional” dress and weapon for each province of Indonesia.29 The Bird of Paradise
headdresses (discussed later in chapter) feature prominently in the male and female
traditional dress for Papua depicted in these stamps (see Howard 2000). The couple
representing Papua appear as the bottom right stamp in the sheet (Figure 3-5), as if the
stamp sheet is to be read as a map of the archipelago, from west to east (left to right)
and top to bottom.30
29
This issue pays homage to the first postal issue in the Nusantara style (the Pacific Area Tourism
Association, or “PATA” issue of 1974). The selection of an “official” weapon for Papua can be traced to
research work conducted for the Ministry of Education and Cultural Affairs in 1992 (see Darnys 1992).
30
See also Indonesia. Museum Negeri Provinsi Sulawesi Utara (2000).
71
Figure 3-5: “Pakaian Adat Nusantara” (2000)
Anderson identifies two key features of maps in the colonial imagination, as historical
argument (the incorporation of a territory through its cartographic association with a
particular historico-political constellation)31 and map-as-logo (Anderson 1991:175,
emphasis in original):
…its origins were reasonably innocent – the practice of the imperial states of
coloring their colonies on maps with an imperial dye…. Dyed this way, each
colony appeared like a detachable piece of a jigsaw puzzle. As this 'jigsaw'
effect became normal, each 'piece' could be wholly detached from its geographic
context. In its final form all explanatory glosses could be summarily removed:
lines of longitude and latitude, place names, signs for rivers, seas, and
mountains, Neighbours.
Representations of Papua by the Indonesian state have employed both historical maps
and logo maps (Chapter 4). Indonesian nationalists seamlessly adopted the gloss of late
colonial Dutch cartography in which Irian Jaya exists "with nothing to its East"
(Anderson 1991:176).32 An Indonesian stamp catalogue is replete with such imagery
but it was not the Dutch colonial post office or the new Republic that first projected a
logo-map of the East Indies on the postage stamps of the archipelago.
31
The evocation of the Sriwijaya and Majapahit empires as justification for the incorporation of
Netherlands New Guinea into 'Greater Indonesia' can be thought of as an example of this cartographic
license (see Chapter 4).
32
Papua is clearly visible in almost all logo-maps of Indonesia.
72
Figure 3-6: “Great Japan Imperial Post” (1944)
This “Dai Nippon” issue (Figure 3-6) is the first logo map of the archipelago ever
produced on a postage stamp and it clearly cuts the island of New Guinea in half.33
These stamps were produced in early 1944 for circulation in the archipelago during the
brief Japanese interregnum in the Dutch East Indies (January 1942 - August 1945). The
projection of this imagery within the occupied East Indies colony is extraordinary given
the extremely bloody war the Japanese Imperial army was waging at the time across the
island of New Guinea.34 The abrupt truncation of New Guinea can be explained both by
the fact that these stamps were a commemorative issue to celebrate the “Second
Anniversary of newly-born Malay”35 and through their recognition of the “Greater East
Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” – a cartographic imaginary which did not include the
Pacific island territories.36 This instance of replicating European colonial boundaries
within the orbit of Japanese Imperial power is an example of Anderson’s mapping by
33
In Indonesian stamp catalogues listed as the “Dai Nippon Farmer issue, 1944 ” (see APPI 1999:153).
There is no one authoritative history of the Japanese and the Pacific War in New Guinea as most
histories and biographical accounts are framed by colonial interests in the island (i.e. one half of the
island) or trace the actions of particular military units and battles (see Nelson 1998). For a range of
perspectives on the conflict in New Guinea see the papers from the Symposium Remembering the War in
New Guinea (19-21 October 2000) at the Australian National University (online at
http://ajrp.awm.gov.au/AJRP/remember.nsf/Web-Frames/SympFrame?OpenDocument).
35
The main banner (across the top of the stamp) proclaims “Great Japan Imperial Post”. The caption to
immediately below and to the left of this banner declares that this stamp is a commemorative issue
“Second Anniversary of newly-born Malay” and the caption at the bottom of frame simply states
“Malay”. The Japanese text below the value tablet (bottom left) matches the opposing English value
tablet (bottom right). My thanks to Keiko Tamura of the Division of Pacific and Asian History, ANU for
these translations.
36
See the Proclamation of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere by Japanese Foreign Minister
Matsuoka Yōsuke in Lebra (1975:71-72). This “sphere” did, however, evolve during the course of the the
Pacific War (see Magistretti 1975; Kōichi 1975).
34
73
historical argument and of cartographic circumscription (see Chapter 4). It is also
consistent with the Japanese effort to foster indigenous nationalism in the archipelago,
which resulted in a declaration of Indonesian independence on 17 August 1945, only
two days after the Japanese surrender (V-J Day) which marked an end to World War II.
Independence issues: authors and authority
Almost as soon as Soekarno and Hatta issued their Proklamasi of Indonesian
independence on 17 August 1945, Indonesian nationalists took over the main post
offices in Bandung (on 27 September 1945, see PTT 1994a) and immediately issued the
first Republic of Indonesian postage stamps (overprinted on Japanese and Netherlands
East Indies stamp stock). Six months later, the new Republic issued its first locally
printed stamps and continued to do so intermittently until 1949. In January 1949, under
intense pressure from Dutch military offensives, Indonesian nationalists were desperate
to promote their case internationally. Their extemporised postal service enlisted the
help of two of the most prominent stamp printers in the world, located in Vienna and
Philadelphia (see Ramkema and Vosse 2003) to produce a series of stamps known as
the Vienna imprints.37 Central to this stamp series was a set which featured the leading
figures of the Indonesian Revolution juxtaposed with their moral “counterparts” from
the American Revolution. Intended to give both prominence and legitimacy to the
nationalists leadership and their struggle, the first stamp in this special set depicted
President Soekarno with an inset image of George Washington to his right (Figure 37).38
37
It is claimed by the Indonesian Postal Service that this stamp initiative helped undermine the Dutch sea
blockade of the new Republic (Indonesia. PTT 1994).
38
“Soekarno was shown with George Washington as the father of his people, Mohammad Hatta was
shown with Abraham Lincoln as the upholder of democracy, Sutan Sjahrir was shown with Thomas
Jefferson as the architect of the people and the nation, A.A. Maramis was shown with Alexander
Hamilton as the national ideologue and H. Agus Salim was shown with Benjamin Franklin as the
people’s ambassador” (Gouda and Zaalberg 2002:56-57). See also Indonesia. PTT (1994:19).
74
Figure 3-7: Soekarno and Washington (1949)
The Vienna imprints and the dozens of other stamps printed and overprinted (OP, see
Appendix 3) in the period 1945-49 were not recognised by the Dutch colonial Post
Office. Although many were produced for propaganda purposes they were also
exchanged for postal services in those regions of the archipelago held by Indonesian
nationalist forces and honoured internationally by some states sympathetic to the
nationalist cause. The four-year independence struggle between the Indonesian
nationalists and The Netherlands was finally resolved through the Round Table
Conference (RTC) talks which concluded on 31 October 1949. The RTC agreement
recognized the Republic of the United States of Indonesia (Republik Indonesia Serikat,
RIS) as a joint union between the Republic of Indonesia and fifteen autonomous states
established by The Netherlands.
In May of 1950, President Soekarno declared the unilateral withdrawal of the Republic
of Indonesia from the RIS and moved quickly to consolidate the autonomous United
States of Indonesia into a unitary republic. This resulted in political protest and violent
conflict in many parts of the country, including the Moluccas. The complex regional
dynamics of this issue resulted in independence activists in Ambon unilaterally
declaring the independent Republic of South Maluku (Republik Maluku Selatan, RMS)
on the 25 April 1950 (see Bouman et al. 1960 and Chauvel 1990). By November 1950
this rebellion had been suppressed by Indonesian Republican forces and thousands of
RMS supporters sought safety in the Netherlands where they established a government
in exile. RMS nationalists then faced a political and diplomatic challenge similar to that
which had confronted the Indonesian nationalists in the mid/late 1940s. Although the
75
historical, political and geographical circumstances were dramatically different to those
of Indonesian nationalists in the preceding decade, the RMS government in exile
adopted at least one similar strategy for publicising their independence aspiration. They
made stamps.
The RMS evoked nation through multiple stamp series. In 1949, with control of 11 post
offices across the Moluccas, the RMS symbolically defied both Dutch and Indonesian
colonialism by overprinting the first Indonesian stamp issues (Baldus 2002:232-235;
Ramkema and Vosse 2003). The following year, in 1950, they issued their first stamps
(a flag and map issue) and a Universal Postal Union (UPU) issue in in response to the
UPU issue the year before by the (then) Republic of the United States of Indonesia. The
first RMS UPU issue was followed by other UPU issues (1951), all featuring the banner
"Republic Maluku Selatan" in bold lettering. The RMS government in exile’s printing
of RMS UPU and parallel RMS United Nations (UN) stamp issues was an emphatic
claim to sovereignty and international recognition that drew legitimacy from earlier
Indonesian UPU issues even as it parodied those Indonesian stamps. Other RMS issues
in 1950 commemorated the “Fifth Anniversary of Pacific Liberation” even as they
appealed for the assistance of the United States through a celebration of its hero of the
Pacific Campaign, General Douglas MacArthur (Figure 3-8).39
Figure 3-8: MacArthur salutes the Republic of South Maluku (1950)
A host of subsequent stamps series were produced at a later period although their
provenance is less certain. Later RMS stamp sets focus on representations of the natural
flora and fauna of the Moluccas. There is no sense of occasion in these stamps and no
39
More than 12,000 soldiers from the former NLEI army (KNIL) and their families were exiled in The
Netherlands by the end of 1951. The RMS government in exile offered the services of 2,000 of these
soldiers to assist in the UN Korean intervention led by MacArthur in exchange for US recognition of the
RMS (see http://www.newsindo.com/siar.rms.html accessed 060304). This offer is represented in the
RMS special issue that features MacArthur projected over a map of insular southeast Asia.
76
triumphalism. Although the RMS stamps attempt to address the themes of nation, they
cannot commemorate its struggles or assert the presence and authority of leaders whose
achievements have yet to be made manifest.40 These stamps circulate in the same
liminal space inhabited by the idea of the Republic of South Maluku and those promote
it.
The RMS stamps lacked authority. The movement had not (and has not) succeeded in
creating an independent nation. While RMS stamps have circulated widely within
Indonesia in the past decade they remained “Cinderella” stamp issues - unrecognised by
any national postal authority (see Glossary, Appendix 3). Even if they had gained
popular currency they still would not have been exchangeable for any service of the
state. In this sense they are an appropriation of the form of nation, serving a function
similar to the 50,000 rupiah Megawati "sticker" money described by Strassler (2000),
the manifestation of success.41 While the RMS stamps acquired political value through
informal systems of exchange, their primary value was as "a symbol of political
alternatives and possibilities." 42 Meanwhile, immediately to the east of the Southern
Moluccas, new cultural and political structures were hastily formed through the 1950s
and early 1960s to shore up the possibilities of political alternatives for the “natives” of
Netherlands New Guinea.
Imagery of Integration
The Charter of Transfer of Sovereignty (CTS) between the Indonesian Republic and the
Netherlands at the Round Table Conference in 1949 excluded West New Guinea. The
reasons for this are complex but essentially stem from claims by The Netherlands
government that the peoples of New Guinea were ethnically distinct and not yet ready to
40
A possible reason for this was the fundamentally fractured character of RMS political leadership and
the desire by the stamp’s authors to use them not only as a rhetorical device against the Indonesian state
but also as a way of building a national identity informed, in part, by a bio-geographical rationale (see
Wittermans and Gist 1962).
41
These PDI-P stickers were widely circulated in 1997. They copied the 50,000 Rp note as a frame and
replaced the vignette (the feature portrait) of Suharto with the face of Megawati. Both the RMS stamps
and the PDI-P stickers sought to attach their aspirations to these self-evident depictions of
national/political success – stamps/money respectively.
42
The RMS stamps relied on a similar process to the Rp 50,000 sticker which "… represented money's
antithesis” (i.e. an anti-state protest) “even as it gained its semiotic currency from the logic of money”
(Strassler 2000:77).
77
be brought into a modern nation-state (see Netherlands-Indonesia Committee on New
Guinea 1950b). The Netherlands indicated their intention to grant this part of their
former East Indies colony a special status (in accordance with the provisions of the
United Nations Charter of 1945) but members of the Indonesian Union were emphatic
that they would reject the RTC accords if New Guinea were declared a UN Trusteeship
(Penders 2002:83). For this reason it was agreed (CTS, sub-section of Article 2 in
Netherlands 1950:176-177):
...that the status quo of the residency of New Guinea shall be maintained with
the stipulation that within a year from the date of transfer of sovereignty to the
Republic of the United States of Indonesia the question of the political status of
New Guinea be determined through negotiations between the Republic of the
United States of Indonesia and the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
President Soekarno’s unilateral withdrawal from the RIS in May 1950 was considered
sufficient grounds by The Netherlands to invalidate this provision. Preoccupied with
regional rebellions elsewhere in the archipelago (including the South Moluccas),
Indonesian nationalists had little choice but to accept de facto Dutch authority over
West New Guinea and bide their time.
Through the 1950s the Indonesian government prosecuted its right to West New Guinea
in international fora such as the United Nations and meetings of non-aligned countries
such as the Bandung Conference of 1955. During this same period The Netherlands
sought to solidify its authority over the territory and in January 1952 altered its
Constitution to recognise Netherlands New Guinea as a non-self-governing territory of
the Kingdom of The Netherlands. The dispute between the two nations gradually
escalated and in 1957-58 was used as a pretext for the forced nationalisation of Dutch
businesses in Indonesia without compensation (Penders 2002:436). By the late 1950s
the Republic was seeking closer political and military ties with the Soviet Bloc in
efforts to bolster its military capacity to deal with regional rebellions as well as prepare
itself for an offensive to wrest the colony from The Netherlands (Pauker 1961; van der
Kroef 1961; Platje 2001). This prospect alarmed key Dutch allies, particularly the
United States and United Kingdom, whose principal concern in the region was
Indonesia’s apparent shift towards communism. The Netherlands remained intransigent,
78
however, determined to retain the colony and see its eventual transition to
independence.43
Figure 3-9: “West Irian is a territory of the Republic of Indonesia!” (1959)
In 1959, as part of the propaganda campaign to raise domestic political support for the
“West Irian struggle,” a special fundraising envelope was sold across the Republic by
the government-organised non-government organisation “Front for the Liberation of
West Irian” (Front Pembebasan Irian Barat, FPIB).44 The envelope featured a
declaration by President Soekarno scrawled over a logo map of Papua (Figure 3-9). A
printed serrated-style frame contained the image (on the top left-hand corner of the
envelope) as if it were a stamp. These envelopes could be kept as collectibles or sent at
the regular postal rate (with real stamps affixed in the top right-hand corner) and were in
circulation in the archipelago until 1962. The FPIB envelope demonstrated that the
PTT did not have effective control over the production and circulation of stamp-like
imagery through the postal service. Yet while the FPIB fundraising propaganda was not
an initiative of the Post Office it did provide an important impetus for the agency in the
years that followed. Such material was an important part of the effort to mobilise
ordinary Indonesians to contribute to the West Irian struggle. From 1959-1962 this
even involved Indonesian volunteers willing to risk their lives to infiltrate West Irian
and turn the local population against the colonial Dutch administration. Reports of
43
The causes and consequences of this dispute are dealt with extensively elsewhere (e.g. Bone 1957; van
der Kroef 1958, 1960; Lijphart 1966; Penders 2002; Drooglever 2005).
44
Similar fundraising and promotional material, like metallic badges, were also sold from 1957/58 to help
fund the struggle for the liberation of West Irian by groups like PERMI (Persatuan Muslim Indonesia, see
Appendix 3, Figure 3-9).
79
these attempts to undermine Dutch authority in the territory circulated widely within the
colony and abroad.
Figure 3-10: “Vluchtelingenhulp” (1960)
The 1960 issue for “Refugee Help” (Figure 3-10) depicted a dignified but despondent
woman sitting on a suitcase, her head in her hands, eloquently conveying the sense of
foreboding in the New Guinea colony.45 A radical departure from the proudly resolute
busts of Wilhelmina and Juliana which had characterised prior representations of
women in the NLNG, this stamp set was released across The Netherlands and its
colonies to commemorate International Refugee Day 1960 (with a special banner
printed for NLNG). While the image might have resonated for many in The
Netherlands with direct experience of the upheavals of World War Two (WWII), it was
also a poignant image for the thousands of Dutch and Eurasians living in Netherlands
New Guinea.46 Many of these people had migrated to Netherlands New Guinea after
Indonesian independence and were apprehensive about the growing threat of a major
military offensive by the Republic to reclaim the territory as well as what future (if any)
they might have in an independent West New Guinea. In 1960, The Netherlands
declared its intention to bring the territory to full independence by 1970 (see Penders
45
This illustration was based on a sculpture by the French artist Aristide Maillol. “La Douleur” (the
grief/sorrow) is a public monument in the town of Ceret to the memory of people of the town killed in the
First World War.
46
Perhaps especially so for the thousands, displaced by the collapse of the East Indies, who had migrated
to NLNG both before and after Indonesian Independence (see Tutupoly 1981).
80
2002:332, Chauvel 2003a:28-32) and implemented a precipitous plan which included
the creation of a representative national parliament. The Netherlands New Guinea
Council (Nieuw Guinea Raad, NG Raad) was inaugurated on 5 April, 1961.
In May 1961 a stamp set featuring the new Netherlands New Guinea Council building
followed a month after the NGRaad was installed and less than a month after a similar
stamp release in neighbouring Papua New Guinea (see Chapter 5). Signifying
important parallels between the postal and colonial administrations across colonial New
Guinea in the late 1950s and early 1960s, these overtly political releases punctuated the
otherwise benign themes on the stamps in both colonies: social causes (surcharge
stamps), endemic flora and fauna, and imagery intended to promote good citizenship
(see Appendix 3). They also reflected growing international scrutiny of both Dutch and
Australian administrations and their efforts to promote self-government for their
respective New Guinea colonies.47 On 1 December 1961, amid growing uncertainty
about secret negotiations between The Netherlands and Indonesian administrations over
the future of the territory, Papuan members of the NG Raad started to assert their own
future with a unilateral declaration of sovereignty (see Chapter 2). The declaration
evoked an almost immediate response from Indonesia.48
On 19 December 1961, President Suharto delivered his People’s Threefold Command
(Tri Komando Rakyat, Trikora) speech for the liberation of West Irian in Yogyakarta.
Trikora ordered (Indonesia. President Soekarno 1961):
... the people of Indonesia, including those in the region of West Irian, to
execute the following tri-command:
1. Defeat the formation of the puppet state of Papua of Dutch colonial make.
2. Unfurl the Honoured Red and White Flag in West Irian, Indonesian native
land.
3. Be ready for general mobilisation to defend the independence and unity of
Country and Nation.
47
For example, see the special 1959 issue commemorating the visit of a UN delegation to the Territories
of Papua and New Guinea (Appendix 3).
48
Chauvel notes that Subandrio had apparently “stated in his speech of 15 November at the UN that
Indonesia would not resort to military action as long as the conflict remained one between The
Netherlands and Indonesia. However, if Papua declared its independence, Indonesia would immediately
intervene, as it had done in the case of the Republic of the South Moluccas” (Chauvel 2003a:42).
81
Trikora also reiterated Soekarno’s claim that Indonesia was ready to use military force
in its quest to gain control of Netherlands New Guinea. In this same speech, Soekarno
made it clear that such a plan was already well advanced and that “the Armed Forces of
the Republic of Indonesia have received my order to get themselves ready so that at any
moment I give the order they enter West Irian to liberate it.” Dutch intelligence, having
already cracked key Indonesian military codes, had accumulated substantial information
on the movements and plans of the Indonesian forces. This resulted in decisive early
victories for the Dutch in January 1962 and gave them a broad outline of the Indonesian
plan of attack in NLNG (Platje 2001:305-308).
Figure 3-11: “Hari Dharma Samudera” (1974)
A skirmish in the Arafura Sea on 15 January 1962 between Dutch and Indonesian naval
vessels and the sinking of the Indonesian gunboat, the Macan Tutul, attested to the
gravity of the situation (see Penders 2002:344-347). This incident, near Vlakke Hoek
(Etna Bay), resulted in the loss of dozens of Indonesian lives and the inauguration of an
annual nation-wide day of remembrance, “Sea Sacrifice Day” (Figure 3-11).49 Naval
Commodore Yos Sudarso, one of the victims of the Vlakke Hoek incident, is also
recognised on this day and in a special commemorative stamp, issued 12 years later
when he was officially added to the register of Indonesian heroes of the Revolution.50
49
“Sea Sacrifice Day” is the translation given in the first day cover notes for this stamp.
For the official biography of Yos Sudarso and the rationale for his induction as an Indonesian Hero see
Oemar (1976). See also Schreiner (1995:216, 240).
50
82
Figure 3-12: “Peta Operasi Djayawidjaya”
(Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:62-63, inset)
By early 1962 The Netherlands was under considerable pressure from the United States
and other allies as well as the United Nations. It engaged in a series of talks with
Indonesia mediated by the United States. Indonesia, for its part, continued to muster its
forces and prepare its military for an ambitious invasion of West New Guinea.51 “Map
of Operation Djajawidjaja” (Figure 3-12) refers to one of the main Indonesian
offensives of the invasion, planned for 1 August 1962. Although a diplomatic
breakthrough in talks between The Netherlands and Indonesia eventually obviated the
need for a major Indonesian military operation in the territory, the planned campaign is
celebrated in some histories of the period as if it were the decisive factor in the
resolution of the dispute (e.g. Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971; Pily
1993). While the threat of a full-scale military campaign added an urgency to
deliberations, it was the untenable position of the Dutch that eventually obliged them to
resolve the dispute with Indonesia through the “New York Agreement” (NYA) of 15
August 1962.52 The NYA allowed for a United Nations Temporary Executive
Authority (UNTEA) to manage the transfer of the territory from Dutch to Indonesia
administrations. The key stipulation for this transfer of authority was that an “act of
51
Platje (2001:206) notes that “In his memoirs the Indonesian Admiral Sudomo, in 1962 commanding
officer of the main amphibious task group, speaks about the planned operation as a ‘one way ticket’.”
52
This history is recounted elsewhere (see van der Kroef 1963; Henderson 1973; McMullen 1981;
Markin 1996; Penders 2002; Drooglever 2005).
83
self-determination” (Article XIV) be conducted by the people of West Irian “in
accordance with international practice” (Article XVIII d) no later than 1969 (Article
XX). From March-August 1962 negotiations were punctuated by low-level military
actions and infiltrations by Indonesian volunteer and military forces. Yet through this
period and even after the NYA was signed between the two nations, the Netherlands
New Guinea Post Office feigned disinterest in the crisis.
In late April 1962, a stamp issue to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of Queen Juliana
and Prince Bernhard’s wedding (1937-1962) proclaimed Dutch sovereignty and the
status quo. Similarly, Dutch influence in the Pacific was asserted through the prominent
participation of the Netherlands New Guinea government in the Fifth South Pacific
Conference (July 1962) in Pago-Pago and celebrated by a special stamp issue in
Hollandia less than a month before the terms of the transfer of the territory were
finalised through the NYA (see Chapter 4). In a final act of defiance by the Post Office
at the loss of NLNG, a series of social day stamps featuring crustaceans was released a
month after the NYA was signed and two weeks before the United Nations Temporary
Executive Authority (UNTEA) took charge of the territory.53
Figure 3-13: UNTEA era letter to USA (14 March 1963)
From 1 October 1962 the UNTEA post office issued “UNTEA” overprints on old
Netherlands New Guinea stamp stock. Signalling the politically awkward and
53
As I have mentioned earlier, although the stamps used during the UNTEA period were mostly
overprints of the NG 1958 Cenderawasih issue, they also included Mambruk and Juliana issues. The
prominent role played by Pakistani troops in the UNTEA operation led to the Pakistani Government
releasing a special overprinted stamp in Pakistan honouring the role of its troops in the UN operation.
84
precipitous nature of the UNTEA transition, the first issue of these overprints was
hastily hand stamped (three subsequent issues were machine overprinted). The UNTEA
era letter (Figure 3-13) includes three “UNTEA” overprinted stamps, but also reveals
other aspects of the political transition. The cancellation marks on the stamp indicate
the letter was posted from Steenkool on 14 March 1963. What the cancellation should
also indicate is that the letter originated in “Nederlands Nieuw Guinea” but the
cancellation has been made to ensure this does not appear on the envelope.54 This is
clearly deliberate and reflects ambivalence within the Netherlands New Guinea
administration towards Dutch authority. Some Papuans were strongly pro-Indonesian
as were many of the lower level bureaucrats in the Dutch colonial administration who
had migrated to NLNG from elsewhere in the archipelago before 1963.55 ProIndonesian postal workers no doubt celebrated when on 30 April 1963 the UNTEA Post
Office was replaced by the Indonesian Post Office.
Figure 3-14: “United Nations Temporary Executive Authority” (1963)
UNTEA was the first operation in which the United Nations acted as a transitional
authority for two of its member states (see UN 1985:301-317). The United Nations
celebrated the UNTEA mission with official publications which proclaimed the success
of the mission and with a United Nations stamp issue in 1 October 1963, on the first
anniversary of the start of the operation (Figure 3-14). The Netherlands never
54
While some postage cancellation imprints were modified or replace to exclude the designation
“Nederlands Nieuw Guinea” others (such as this one) remained in use until late in the UNTEA period.
55
On this point and the related dual structure of administration (between Dutch and Ambonese,
Menadonese and Keiese) and the tension this created among Papuans elites, see Chauvel (1997:560).
85
succeeded in bringing West New Guinea under the United Nations mandated territory
system (the status of the adjacent territories of New Guinea and Papua).56 However,
UNTEA offered The Netherlands a way out of an invidious position in New Guinea
even as it reinforced the role for the United Nations in the creation of a “New World
Order.” The metaphor of the bridge in this stamp issue asserts the significance of the
UN across the entire island of New Guinea. During the UNTEA period, the UN was
notionally responsible for all three transitional territories on the island, the Australian
Trust Territories of (old German) New Guinea, of (old British) Papua and of
Netherlands New Guinea. The new Republic of Indonesia, for its part, was impatient to
liberate the former Dutch colony from the past.
Figure 3-15: “Tugu Pembebasan Irian Barat” (1963)
During the UNTEA transition period, on 15 February 1963, the Indonesian Post Office
issued its first Papua specific postage stamp.57 This set (of four stamps with different
face values) featured a single image, the “Monument of the Liberation of West Irian”
(Figure 3-15) under construction at the time in Jakarta. The image is of a powerful man
shouting (presumably "merdeka" or "freedom") with his arms thrown to the sky and his
feet apart and planted firmly on the ground. Freshly broken shackles fly from his hands
and feet. The imagery evokes earlier stamp issues which depicted the banteng of the
Indonesian Revolution breaking free of colonialism (12 January 1946). The fact that
56
The UN mandates over the territories of Papua and New Guinea is proclaimed in a 1959 FDC special
issue celebrating the UN inspection of these mandated territories (see Appendix 3).
57
It appears coincidental that the Pakistani Post Office released a special FDC and single issue overprint
to commemorate Pakistan’s role in the United Nations Security Force (UNSF) under UNTEA on 15
February 1963 (see Appendix 3).
86
Irian’s liberation was an integral part of the Revolution is metaphorically asserted by the
monument’s location in Lapangan Bantèng (literally “the Bull Field/Plain”).58
Paralleling the earlier “Irian Jaya is a territory of the Republic of Indonesia” unofficial
fundraising envelope of 1959 (Figure 3-9), this four-stamp set sought to raise funds for
the “Monument to the Liberation of West Irian” (Figure 3-15).59 These stamps were
purchased (and redeemed) for their face value, but an additional surcharge (designated
with a “+”) was collected by the Post Office on behalf of the monument fund.
Surcharge stamps were common for fundraising in the late colonial period in the East
Indies and in Netherlands New Guinea. In cash-strapped modern Indonesia, this surtax
set fed on the nationalist fervour around the liberation of West Irian and provided a
mechanism by which citizens could “participate” in this re-integration of Irian into the
Republic. The implication of the stamp series and the monument itself was
unambiguous. The transfer from UNTEA to Indonesian administration on 1 May 1963
marked the close of the UNTEA Postal Service (see Appendix 3) and the launch of
many new issues of stamps for Papua.
Figure 3-16: “Merah Putih from Sabang to Merauke” (1963)
While Leclerc’s study of Indonesian postage stamps made few references to Indonesian
Papua, he does include an incisive note on one of the new stamp sets issued to
commemorate Irian’s integration into the Republic (Leclerc 1994:28, emphasis in
original):
The linguistic message on the envelope, 'Merah Putih dari Sabang sampai
Merauke,' corresponds to the .12 and .17 rupiah stamps: the map of Indonesia
with the red (Merah) and white (putih) national flag at both the northwest
(Sabang) and southeast (Merauke) ends. Irian, on the .60 and .75 rupiah stamps
58
See Anderson (1990:174-175) on the Irian Monument.
The renowned Indonesian sculptor Edhi Sunarso designed and oversaw the construction of this
sculpture and others, including the Welcome Monument (Tugu Selamat Datang). See also Indonesia.
Panitia “Karya Jaya” (1977:191-195).
59
87
is designated by its map overprinted with a possibly totemic bird, the bird of
paradise, the feathers of which were one of the forms of tribute most demanded
from the peoples of Irian by the petty maritime rulers of the Moluccas; and its
name (Cendrawasih) was taken by the newly established military command and
by the University of the now Indonesian province, Irian Barat. History is
actively present only on the .20 and .50 rupiah stamps, in the center of the
system, thus both fiscally and ideologically joining the two ends: the Indonesian
paratrooper coming to the region, giving the center back its periphery, a center
therefore legitimated by its capacity for military intervention.
The three distinct images in this six-set issue resonate directly with the three
imperatives of Trikora. The Merah Putih (red and white) flag of Indonesia is unfurled
in the first image; in the second the nation is mobilised in its own defence; and in the
final stamp in the set, the cenderawasih symbolically represents the state of West Papua.
There is no celebration here of the state’s determined diplomacy or the mediation efforts
of foreign powers, or of the role of the United Nations. The Merah Putih issue sets out
the framework for the narrative of Irian’s restoration to the nation – through the
precedents of colonial geography and martial success (see Chapter 4). It also continues
the colonial era shorthand of representing the territory through a bird of paradise (see
below).
The Post Office was not the only agent of the state that sought to make its marque on
this occasion. Joining in the celebration of Indonesian authority in the territory (May 1,
1963) Garuda Indonesia, the national airline of Indonesia, released "The First Liberation
Flight to West Irian" cover (Figure 3-17). The Garuda cover is more like an invitation
to a party than a traditional first flight cover (an aviation tradition). The territory is
awash with colour, as if filled with excited people. Party balloons rush skywards. Only
the sombre colours of the sugar cane (tebu) stamp with its dull "West Irian" overprint
suggests the extemporised nature of the event, and what it symbolised. Irian's sparse
population could not have put on such a show, even if there was popular support for
Indonesian integration in the territory. This party was elsewhere - at Garuda's publicity
department in Jakarta.
88
Figure 3-17: “The First Liberation Flight to West Irian” (1963)
In the days immediately following 1 May, 1963, the Indonesian Minister of Information,
Ruslan Abdulgani (cited in Chauvel and Bhakti 2004:15):
spoke with embassy political officers at the Jakarta Diplomatic Group. To the
diplomats he confided that Indonesia was being “a little bit naughty” about the
plebiscite and that many voices will reproach Indonesia for “not upholding the
treaty.” He added that West Irian people would say they did not want a
referendum and, if necessary, groups would be manipulated in helping them to
say this.
A year later, from 30 April to 9 May 1964, a process was enacted in West Irian intended
to obviate provisions in the New York Agreement for an Act of Free Choice. The
province-wide meetings organised for this “First Great Consultation of the People of
West Irian” (Musyawarah Besar ke-I Rakyat Propinsi Irian Barat, or Mubes1964) are
today forgotten and consideration of this political process has so far eluded academic
and popular histories of the period (see Henderson 1973; Webster 1999; Saltford 2000a,
2003; Penders 2002; Vlasblom 2004; Drooglever 2005). Organised by the Coordinating
Secretariat for West Irian Affairs (Sekretariat Koordinator Urusan Irian Barat),
Mubes1964 involved regional gatherings at which government officials gave speeches
to assembled community representatives (Indonesia. Sekkor Irba 1964a). The
Mubes1964 process culminated in a plenary meeting in Soekarnopura (modern day
Jayapura) and numerous pledges of fidelity to the Republic of Indonesia, including a
reiteration of the declaration signed a month earlier by religious leaders, the
“Shepherds” of West Irian (see Ummat 1964). Pledges were given by women’s groups,
village-heads, traditional leaders and religious leaders to fully support the government’s
development programs in the province (see Indonesia. Sekkor Irba 1964a:245-308)
while others, such as the “Declaration of Traditional/Tribal Leaders” (Pernjataan
89
Kepala-Kepala Suku/Adat) made explicit the intention of this domestic political process
(Indonesia. Sekkor Irba 1964a:259, my translation):
…that our right to self-determination means: our right to join with the Republic
of Indonesia.
All declarations at Mubes1964 affirmed the allegiance of “communities” across Irian to
the Indonesian state.60 The declarations were intended to be the basis for claims by
Indonesia that the people of Irian had conducted their act of self-determination and
voted in favour of Indonesian integration. This attempt to keep the vote “in the family”,
however, was overwhelmed by other domestic events. 61
In January 1965, Indonesia was in turmoil and withdrew from the United Nations.
Suharto’s New Order government came to power in 1966 after the bloody coup that
deposed Soekarno. In the first few years of the New Order, the government sought to
accelerate foreign investment in Indonesia. It also sought international financing for
government development initiatives across the archipelago. Eager to demonstrate a
secure investment environment through political stability, the rule of law and its
subscription to international norms, the New Order government applied to resume its
membership of the United Nations in 1966. One of the key obligations for Indonesia in
re-entry to the international community of states was to fulfil its commitment to the
NYA of 1962 and its provision for an act of self-determination in Papua by 1969.
60
These included: “the Declaration in Unanimity of the Women’s Group of West Irian” (Indonesia.
Sekkor Irba 1964a:246-250, 77 signatories essentially ratified Sumpah Pemuda); “the Declaration of
Tribal/Traditional Heads” (Indonesia. Sekkor Irba 1964a:259-262, 63 signatories asserted their act of
“self-determination” was to “return” to the Republic of Indonesia) and a “Declaration of
Tribal/Traditional Heads” (Indonesia. Sekkor Irba 1964a:263-264, 9 signatories to a declaration in “the
Bokondini, Tiom and Ilaga language” - which presumably reiterated sentiments of the other proIndonesia declarations).
61
Most of the official speeches given to Papuans or about Papua through this period of the 1960s
addressed Papuans as “Brothers and Sisters…”, a salutation common in the familiar rhetorical style of
politicians like Soekarno (see http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/pidato/index.html).
90
Figure 3-18: “Hari Kesaktian Pantjasila” (FDC, 1 Oct. 1968)
The first day cover for “Pancasila Sanctity Day” (1968) featured the Lesser Bird of
Paradise (Paradisea minor) representing Papua projected over the shield which
symbolically represents the Pancasila, or the five principles of the Indonesian state
(Figure 3-18).62 This shield is the breastplate of the mythical Garuda on the Indonesian
coat of arms. Here, superimposed over the front of the shield of Pancasila and
substituting for the Garuda, the Lesser Bird of Paradise symbolically asserts the Five
Principles and the ideology of the Pancasila over the territory and peoples of Papua:
(1) Belief in the one and only God (represented by a star);
(2) Just and civilized humanity (represented by a chain);
(3) The unity of Indonesia (represented by a banyan tree);
(4) Democracy guided by the inner wisdom in the unanimity arising out of
deliberations amongst representatives (represented by a banteng or wild bull);
(5) Social justice for the whole of the people of Indonesia (represented by
sheaves of rice and cotton).
Figure 3-19: “Setia pada Ikrar 9 Mei 1964” (1968)
62
Note that Pancasila has undergone significant changes since first formulated as a foundation for the
Indonesian Constitution in 1945. Of particular significance were changes brought by the New Order that
“established” the philosophical and historical roots for the Five Principles in “Indonesian” traditional life
(van der Kroef 1954). For a standard reference on the Pancasila, see Darmaputera (1988).
91
The twin stamp set “Loyal since the Oath [Pledge] of May 9, 1964” (Figure 3-19)
commemorates the Indonesian Mubes ke-I process of 1964, asserting that there is no
longer any need for an Act of Free Choice as stipulated in the NYA. Tens of thousands
of these stamps were printed and circulated across the archipelago and abroad in late
1968 (and still circulate widely today among stamp collectors). As such, these stamps
represent the most enduring memorial to the Mubes1964 process – a domestic political
process conspicuously overlooked in recent official accounts of Irian’s integration (e.g.
Indonesia. Deplu 1998; Indonesia. PMRI-UN 2001; Indonesia. PMRI-UN 2003,
Indonesia. Deplu 2005).63 The stamps evoke key components of the 1964 Oath(s),
including the three torches of the Spirit (Fire) of Trikora (Revolution), the Pancasila and
the “Great Consultation” of April-May, 1964. The imagery is of a youthful Papuan
guided by the Oath(s) of 1964 in the approach to the Act of Free Choice or Pepera of
1969. Yet in the years leading to the Pepera vote, the popular disillusion and disdain
among some communities in West Irian with Indonesia authority had already expressed
itself in guerrilla insurgencies in parts of the province that threatened the United
Nations-sponsored transfer process as well as a pro-Indonesian outcome from Pepera
(the act of self-determination).
The transitional administration program overseen by UNTEA in 1962-63 from the
outset had disenfranchised one key group in the former Netherlands New Guinea colony
– its Papuan security force members. Papuans had served in the NLNG police for years
but a royal decree in February 1961 commissioned a new Papua Volunteer Force
(Papoea Vrijvilligerskorps, PVK). This designation reflected Dutch efforts to meet
“Non-Self-Governing Territory” obligations prescribed under “Trust Territory”
provisions in the UN Charter. These provisions recognised the need to maintain
“international peace and security” and the “use of volunteer forces... for local defence
and the maintenance of law and order within the trust territory” (UN Charter, Article 84)
as legitimate mechanisms for achieving this outcome. The PVK force initially consisted
of 200 men based at Andai, near Manokwari. The PVK recruitment booklet (PVK 1961)
reminded applicants that they were responsible to the civilian government of
Netherlands New Guinea in order to assist the “rapid progress of New Guinea towards
63
The common occurrence of these stamps in “West Irian” and “Indonesian” stamp collections drew my
attention to the Mubes1964 process and sparked my subsequent search for relevant documentation.
92
independence” (PVK 1961:1).64 It also left little doubt of the gains in the territory
under the Dutch, in infrastructure, education, health and most importantly, political
institutions (PVK 1961:1-2). The PVK’s disingenuous mandate was the “protection of
the peace” but the intention of the force was explicit in the cartographic imagery of the
PVK recruitment booklet, “In defence of our land and our nation” (Figure 3-20). The
regiment was to ensure that progress for the Papuan people “was not disturbed by
foreigners who would like to colonise our land, who would like to attack our land so
they can rule over us and take away our rights to be independent” (PVK 1961:4).65
Figure 3-20: “Pertahankan tanah dan bangsa kita”
(PVK 1961:cover image)66
64
This recruitment booklet is now extremely rare. I have never seen a copy of it in Papua or elsewhere in
Indonesia. Copies may have been destroyed or banned as they reportedly were with Kijne’s Kota Emas
(Kijne 1958d), see also Chapter 4 of this thesis.
65
The PVK was under the direct control of the Governor of NLNG. As such, it remained outside the
formal structure of the Dutch defence forces. The Netherlands Army Museum PVK website suggests that
between March and August of 1962 the PVK played a significant role in rounding-up Indonesian
infiltrators in NLNG. See The Netherlands Army Museum (Legermuseum) webpage at
http://www.collectie.legermuseum.nl/strategion/strategion/i002013.html accessed 070725).
66
While the PVK recruitment booklet cover image presented a restrained image of a watchful “volunteer”
in parade uniform looking to the west, a similarly PVK promotional poster, featured a Papuan volunteer
in army fatigues armed with a sub-machine gun and standing in an oblique pose facing to the east (but
still superimposed over a map of Netherlands New Guinea). It appears that the PVK poster in Meijer
(2003:98) was a later adaptation of this imagery that was at once more and less threatening (i.e. the
Papuan was facing to the east, but armed with a sub-machine gun).
93
In February 1963, the Papuan Volunteer Force was disarmed by deception by UNTEA’s
Security Force (United Nations Security Force, UNSF) and disbanded on 1 May 1963
by the new Indonesian administration (see Saltford 2000a:120-124). That same year
Lodewijk Mandatjan (Mandacan) and his brother Barend took to the hills behind their
base at Arfai and went into hiding in the Arfak Mountains. Both Lodewijk and Barend
were veterans of World War II guerrilla actions against the Japanese and Lodewijk was
also widely regarded as the leader of the Mejach-Arfak people (Vlasblom 2004:126,
298-299, 321). By mid-1965, the Mandatjan brothers, together with former PVK
members, posed a serious guerrilla threat in several regions of the Bird’s Head
(Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:121-128). The origin of the Free
Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua Merdeka, OPM) is widely attributed acts of
guerrilla resistance by these groups in 1965 (Djopari 1993:1; Ondawame 2001).
Official histories of this period suggest that the rise of guerrilla resistance in Papua
corresponded with Indonesia’s withdrawal from the United Nations as this move was
understood to obviate Indonesia’s obligation to conduct an act of self-determination
(Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:121). However, similar guerrilla
actions intensified across the province after Indonesia’s return to the United Nations and
in the lead up to the 1968/9 Act of Free Choice.67 By late 1968, amid preliminary
preparations for the Pepera vote in mid-1969, Indonesian army reports stated that 6000
Indonesian soldiers and marines were engaged in efforts to quell the uprising lead by
Lodewijk Mandatjan in the Bird’s Head (May 1978:175). This intensive effort, led by
Brigadier-General Sarwo Eddie, eventually resulted in the surrender of Mandatjan and
hundreds of his supporters.
67
There are surprisingly few accounts of the guerrilla resistance in Papua during this period. The main
account for decades has been the official history of the Indonesian military’s first eight years in Papua
(see Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:121-128, 138-152, 158-193). This book is the
basis of the early guerrilla actions described by Djopari (1993:109-115) in his history of the OPM.
Vlasblom (2004) is the first author in recent decades to have conducted interviews with former OPM and
other Papuans who were witness to these events.
94
Figure 3-21: A “Prodigal Son” of West Irian surrenders to President Suharto
(Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:165)
Mandatjan’s capture was so important to the effective implementation of the Act of Free
Choice that Sarwo Eddie announced his surrender on January 1, 1969 as “the
command’s New Year present to the government” (May 1978:171). He was flown to
Jakarta, dressed in an Indonesian army uniform with the insignia of Kodam XVII
Cenderawasih (see below) and ceremonially surrendered his “arms” to President
Suharto (Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:164).68 His surrender
and induction into the Indonesian army (sic) as Major Titular did not end other armed
resistance in the province (Figure 3-21). In April 1969, Papuan police in the Paniai
(Wissel) Lakes area rebelled.69 Sarwo Eddie responded with orders for paratroops to
enter the region, isolate and neutralise resistance groups and restore control (Indonesia.
Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:178-189). This action included several
leaflet drops, in early May and early June, imploring members of the police forces,
government officials and the community members to “remember the story of the
prodigal son (Gospel of Luke 15, verses 11 to 32)” and return to their respective homes
and duties.70
68
Although at the time of his initial surrender, Mandatjan’s forces were armed with (obsolete) rifles, the
symbolism depicted here is of a Papuan ill-equipped for (or incapable of) modern warfare.
69
This revolt was centred on the villages of Enarotali, Muanemani (Moanemani) and Wagete (Wahgete)
where airstrips were rendered unusable – either blocked with trees or dug up with holes.
70
The first of these leaflets, dated 7 May 1969, was addressed to the members of the Police Forces of
Wagete and environs (Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:Appendix 3a, p.304), the
second on 15 June 1969, was addressed to Government Officials and the Ikari (Ekari) community
(Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:Appendix 3b, p.305).
95
Ongoing military operations ensured that the Pepera vote, its international legitimacy
and its pro-Indonesia outcome were safeguarded.71 At the end of the Pepera vote, after
intimidation and repression by Indonesian security forces and in spite of ongoing
Papuan guerrilla operations, the government did honour, in part, its promise to the
“prodigal sons” (and daughters) of West Irian through Presidential Decree 1A of 1969
Giving Amnesty and Pardon to those people involved in the Awom Gang Incident, the
Mandacan Gang Incident and the Wagete-Enarotali Incident in Irian Barat.72 In this
way key pro-Papuan heroes were expropriated from Papuan independence narratives
and their misplaced loyalty explained away as a cruel deception of the Dutch, an
“aftermath of colonialism” (Indonesia. Department of Information 1976). The recent
revelation that Ferry Awom was murdered in 1971 by order of Acub Zainal, then
Military Commander for Irian, makes a mockery of this Presidential Decree of
Amnesty.73 Other Papuans, such as Silas Papare, Marthen Indey, and Frans Kaisiepo
were later considered exemplary Indonesian citizens, inducted into the Pantheon of
“National Heroes”.74
The conclusion of The Act of Free Choice (Pepera) and the official recognition by the
United Nations of Indonesian authority in Papua did not bring forth any new stamp
issues. The Merah Putih and Garuda first flight covers and the Mubes1964 stamps were
the closest imagery on stamps released in Indonesia to proclaim the conclusion of this
71
See Indonesia. Angkatan Darat Komando Daerah Militer XVII Tjenderawasih (1969) for details of
Brig.Gen Sarwo Eddie’s operational plan to ensure security for – and the pro-Indonesian outcome of – the
Act of Free Choice.
72
Inpres 1A/1969 (reproduced in full in Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:211-213).
73
Recent interviews with former resistance fighters, such as Maarten Luther (Jimmy) Wambrauw,
suggest that even after this amnesty some Papuan guerrillas were able to surrender to Indonesian military
whereon they would be sent to Java for indoctrination and induction into the Indonesian military and, in
at least some cases, later allowed to return to Irian (see Vlasblom 2004:487). Other interviews Vlasblom
was able to secure, including one with Acub Zainal (commander of Indonesian military forces in West
Irian in the early 1970s) in November 2003 make it clear that the fate of more prominent Papuan
guerrillas was often very different. Zainal is reported as stating that despite his surrender “Awom
remained dangerous” and that on his orders he was murdered (Vlasblom 2004:490??) – in spite of his
Presidential pardon.
74
Frans Kaisiepo, Silas Papare and Marthen Indey are the only Papuans listed amongst the 101 National
Heroes of Indonesia (see Indonesia. Depdikbud 1996: 493-497, 499-502, 503-506 respectively). The
inclusion of Silas Papare, whose political support for both Dutch and Indonesian administrations in Papua
was always conditional, illustrates the dilemma for Indonesian officials of selecting National Heroes from
among independently-minded Papuans (see van der Veur 1963a:59; Chauvel 2005:99). Other proIndonesia Papuans such as J.A. Dimara (see Sukmawati 2000), as well as other Indonesians involved with
the campaign to regain West Irian such as Sujdarwo Tjondronegoro have been nominated as national
heroes (Indonesia. Badan Pembina Pahlawan Pusat. Team Fact Finding 1974 ) but not awarded this
distinction.
96
transfer of authority and no stamp issues have commemorated any anniversaries of
Pepera or the 1st May 1963 transfer from UNTEA. The ambivalences expressed in
these stamps reflect ambiguities in the manner in which Anderson’s “imagined”
Indonesia is connected to the projections of late-Dutch colonialism in NLNG.
Anderson believes that the "immediate genealogy should be traced to the imaginings of
the colonial state" (Anderson 1991:163). His analysis of nationalism, however, does not
explore the paradox of a continuing and dynamic colonial presence embedded in (by
Indonesian nationalist logic) - and in opposition to - the post-colonial state. This was
the relationship of the new Republic to Netherlands New Guinea from 1950-1962 and it
had powerful and far reaching implications for the ways that NLNG was imagined by
Indonesia and how the late-colonial state in NLNG imagined itself and its colony.
Fragments of this effect surface in the imagery of postage stamps produced for the
NLNG and Indonesian post offices in this period.
Integrated imagery
Despite the revolutionary imagery of Indonesian postages stamps related to Papua in the
1960s, stamps issued from the late 1950s to the early 1970s suggest continuity and
symbiosis between the Indonesian Post Office (see Indonesia. PTT 1980a-e) and its
predecessor, The Netherlands New Guinea Post Office (see Nieuw-Guinea Instituut
1956:57-61). While the Indonesian Post Office sought to celebrate and build unity
across the archipelago with anti-colonial and iconic 'Indonesian' imagery, it also
announced the new symbols of nation – the Flag (1950 Bendera Merah Putih) and
Coat-of-Arms (1950 Lambang Negara). In stark contrast, the first stamp issues in the
new and now geographically isolated Netherlands New Guinea projected continuity
through nostalgic references to the Dutch Queen and (mother) country. The colony's
first stamp release in 1950 promised continued tradition and asserted imperial authority
through the faint but certain presence of Queen Juliana of The Netherlands.75 During
75
Queen Juliana's bust is repeated on 12 stamps with separate face values (15, 20, 25, 30, 40, 45, 50, 55,
80 cent; 1, 2, 5 gulden). A lower valued stamps series featured the value tablet as the stamp's vignette,
surrounded by a modest frame (1, 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5 cent) which is echoed in the even simpler
Porto (tax) set. The only other series of stamps from this period features Queen Juliana in a bas-relief
profile (10, 25, 40, 45, 55, 80, 85 cents; 1 Guilder). A special overprint in 1953 in response to devastating
floods in The Netherlands (NLNG overprint “hulp nederland 1953” - surtax: 5+5, 15 +10, 25+10 cents)
marked the release of the first surtax stamps in the new colony.
97
the early period of Dutch re-consolidation in its vestigial East Indies colony there was
an almost complete lack of local imagery in the stamps and currency circulated in the
colony.76 This contrasted starkly with the imagery on stamps in the neighbouring
Australian administered territories of Papua and New Guinea.77 In Netherlands New
Guinea this situation began to change in 1954 with the release of a striking new series
of bank notes that featured several endemic birds and stylised elements of local material
culture.78 In the neighbouring Republic, stamps still celebrated the Indonesian
Revolution and independence struggle, although by the mid-1950s new releases
featured social welfare and international conferences aimed at the consolidation of the
new Republic’s domestic and international agenda.79
In 1956, the Indonesian Post Office released the first stamp series featuring wild
animals with the imperative to “Protect wild animals!” (Figure 3-22).80 Although
reminiscent of the earlier kerbau (water buffalo) series of the NLEI, this scene was not
pastoral. It introduced new animals like the beloved kantjil (small deer) and badak (in
this case a Javanese Rhino), but also included the banteng (ox), an image synonymous
with the Indonesian Revolution. This marked the first attempt by the Post Office to
depoliticise such a powerful national icon.81 Several years passed before a bold new
direction in 1959 with the release of a series of six stamps that defined wild animals
76
The one important exception was on the 10 Gulden note where the Bird of Paradise holds pride of
place, resting opposite Queen Juliana on the front of the bill, a point returned to later in discussion.
77
In the Australian administered territories of Papua and New Guinea the first definitive series of locally
issued stamps featured local themes, architectures and daily life (before 1952 P&NG used Australian
postage stamps).
78
The 1, 2.5, and 5 Gilder notes (all the same design but with different face values) brought into
prominence the Pale-billed Sicklebill (Drepanornis bruijnii) and Queen Juliana on the front of the note
separated by a traditional carved motif from Tobati (near modern day Jayapura). On the reverse of the
note a beaded apron from Serui assumes the centre, framed and complimented by stylised designs of
similar colours. The 10 Gilder note again featured a mambruk (in this case a Western Crowned Pigeon or
Goura Cristata) opposing Queen Juliana and separated by a Sentani foi motif. On the reverse, the
Magnificent Rifle Bird (Ptiloris Magnificus) is given the centre, framed by a sweeping stylised arch
emerging from two opposing Sentani foi motifs.
79
While examples include stamp releases to celebrate ‘international’ days and years, perhaps the most
significant of the period was the release to celebrate the Bandung Conference of 1955 (and another
release to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Conference in 2005).
80
That these animals were really wild is playfully reinforced in the first day cover (FDC) that
accompanied this new stamp issue of June 7, 1959 which depicts a Javanese rhinoceros standing over a
rifle and a pith helmet in the jungle. The would-be colonial hunter is nowhere in sight (and presumably
still running).
81
The first stamps printed by the Indonesian nationalists in January 1946 featured a banteng posed, ready
to charge, and another in a field with the Merah Putih (flag) in the background. “I want to become a
banteng of Indonesia” was apparently a popular mantra among young nationalists under the Japanese
occupation (cited in van der Kroef 1972:54).
98
geographically by projecting them over faint maps of regions of the archipelago to
which they are endemic. The stamps included a tapir (South Sumatra), Komodo dragon
(Komodo Island), Javanese rhino (West Java), orang utan (East Kalimantan), anoa or
miniature water buffalo (Sulawesi) and babirusa or pig-deer (Sulawesi). The use of
natural icons heralded the arrival of flora and fauna as a technique to unify
geographically the nation through the archipelago's diverse natural world.
Figure 3-22: “Lindungilah Margasatwa” (1959)
While the Indonesian Post Office had printed several animal sets by the end of the
1950s, the neighbouring administration in NLNG was quicker to recognise nature as
"the coat of arms of the social sphere" (Leclerc 1994:18). From 1954-58 the NLNG
Post Office definitive stamp set for Netherlands New Guinea featured the Greater and
Lesser Birds of Paradise (Paradisaea apoda and Paradisaea minor respectively, Figure
3-23). These issues remained in constant circulation in the territory until 1 May 1963,
although overprinted with “UNTEA” for use in the UNTEA transitional period from 1
October 1962 – 1 May 1963 (see Appendix 3).
Figure 3-23: Netherlands New Guinea definitives (1954-58)
99
In 1959, the Dutch PTT launched a Western Crowned Pigeon (Goura cristata) set in the
same year as the first (and only) Netherlands New Guinea Annual Expo (Jaarmarkt). A
Social Day release (surcharge tax fund-raising issue, see glossary in Appendix 3)
followed in the same year that featured the first flower series for NLNG (reminiscent of
the 1957 Indonesian floral issue).82 For the next few years, an innovative new stamp
release marked each Social Day issue. In 1960, the first butterfly series ever produced
in the archipelago was in circulation in NLNG. The following year the first insect
series and in 1962, the NLNG Post Office issued the first crustacean set in the
archipelago (see Appendix 3). These celebrations in miniature of the diversity of
NLNG's natural world did not end with the transfer of the territory from The
Netherlands to Indonesia (see below).
Without access to historical records or interviews, it is difficult to assess the
significance of the take-over of NLNG PTT by its Indonesian counterpart. It seems
reasonable, however, to suggest that PTT Indonesia was in a position to benefit
substantially from the forced incorporation of NLNG PTT into its organisation. What is
remarkable is the speed of innovation evident in some of the Indonesian stamp designs
in the period immediately following the Indonesian take-over of NLNG. In April 1963
the Indonesian Post Office released its first fish stamp set which featured three new fish
and a crustacean identical to that depicted in the 1962 NLNG release.83 In 1963 a new
Indonesian butterfly stamp series was released, again apparently modelled on the NLNG
issue of 1960.84 It appears that greater familiarity with the NLNG stamps enabled the
Indonesian PTT to reconceptualise its appreciation of the natural wonders of the
archipelago after 1963, as well as what it considered legitimate and worthy subject
matter for stamp issues.85 In a similar vein, the Indonesian Post Office released a reptile
82
The 1959-11-15 “Sociale Zorg” 1959 (Flowers, Social Day – surtax: 5+5, 10+5, 25+10, 30+10 cents)
was reminiscent of the 1957 Indonesian floral release.
83
The 6 April 1963 Marine Life issue featured 3 fish and 1 crustacean. This crustacean was almost
exactly the same illustration as the 1962 except that the claw of the gastropod was raised in the
Indonesian issue (both stamps even shared red as their background colour).
84
This was also a set of 4 distinct stamps released as a surtax issue to assist with charity fundraising (as in
the 1960 NLNG issue).
85
Most of these NLNG PTT nature issues were released as special charity issues with a surtax. The fact
that these stamps (and their themes) were not part of the regular postal series may have made it possible
for the Indonesian PTT to accept the portrayal of a natural world that did not conform to the conventional
icons (e.g. banteng) or fond and familiar (e.g. kantjil) animals of the Indonesian inner islands (Java, Bali,
Sumatra).
100
issue (1966) and a few years later printed an insect issue (1970) that again appears to
have been inspired by an earlier 1961 NLNG issue.
Reframing nature was not the only practice of the NLNG PTT adopted by its Indonesian
successor. The Netherlands stamp releases during 1950-1962 never featured imagery
peculiar to a particular place in the colony, unless it reinforced the power and prestige of
the centre, such as stamps celebrating the Head of State (Queen Juliana) or the
establishment of a new local centre of power in Hollandia (the Netherlands New Guinea
Council, see Chapter 5). Other stamps which attested to the new developments brought
to the colony were also common, including leprosy research (1956), child welfare (1958)
and traffic safety (with the promise of streets full of vehicles, 1962). All of these issues
reinforced a sense of structure, progress and stability without regionalism. Any
suggestion that this imagery resulted from a lack of knowledge of NLNG at this time is
far from convincing.86 Rather, agents within The Netherlands postal service responsible
for the colony appear to have understood how stamps could project images of
integration and unity and through their imagery create a presence to distract the public
gaze from what was notably absent. The exclusion of references to (and celebrations of)
local material culture on stamps in NLNG was consistent with the policies and practices
of the administration and its missionary allies in their efforts to subvert many of the
practices these artefacts represented. The celebration of ritual warfare or traditional
spirituality evoked by imagery of traditional men's houses or wooden carvings was
anathema to the agenda of building a modern and Christian community in NLNG.87
The transfer to Indonesian administration in 1963 brought a new set of abstracted - and
extemporised – postal imagery to Papua.
86
While this may be argued for stamps with themes such as traditional dance (unlike the regional dances
celebrated in stamps during the late-colonial period in the NLEI), it is clear that these themes were simply
not the priority of the NLNG government as it sought to expand its administrative control over the
colony. Examples of the material culture of NLNG were well known from the late 1800s (and even better
known to museums and collectors in The Netherlands following the military expeditions of the early 20th
century, see Chapter 4).
87
This contrasted with currency issues in 1954 (as discussed earlier) which did feature elements of
material culture (motifs and actual physical objects) from specific regions of NLNG (all from north coast
cultural groups which were the most prominent in the late-colonial NLNG administration).
101
Figure 3-24: “Irian Barat” overprints (1963)
From 1963-1968, the Indonesian postal service in West Irian relied on a definitive set of
“West Irian”overprinted stamps, released on 1 May 1963 (Figure 3-24).88 President
Soekarno featured in this set, proclaiming Soekarno’s authority over the territory. The
ox (banteng) and the rhino (badak), two iconic “wild animals” of Indonesia (depicted as
docile and tamed in this 1958 issue), were included as if extending the domesticating
influence of the state over Papua. But it was the inclusion of the agricultural series of
1960 which suggested the economic agenda for the territory: (eight stamps featuring)
plantations of: coffee (kopi), tea (teh), rubber (karet), rise (padi), oil palm (kelapa sawit),
tobacco (tembakau), coconut (kelapa) and sugar cane (tebu). These stamps remained in
constant circulation through the tumultuous years of 1965/66, the collapse of the Old
Order, the anti-communist pogram (see Chapter 6) and the rise to power of Suharto’s
New Order. While symbols of the Old Order such President Soekarno’s effigy were
expunged elsewhere in the archipelago (Labrousse 1994), his image remained in
constant circulation in West Irian until 1968 (when new stamps were issued in the
territory).
The “Transfer” stamps (Figure 3-24) were overprints of definitive issues already in
circulation in the archipelago, but they were only available in West Irian. The transfer
process from Dutch to Indonesian authority involved key compromises by the
Indonesian state, including the maintenance of a separate currency in the newly
acquired territory. The former NLNG economy had been heavily subsidised by the
Dutch colonial government. In an attempt to avoid a complete breakdown of West
Irian’s economy and the loss of support for Indonesian authority among Papuans that
would inevitably follow, the Republic transformed the Netherlands New Guinea Guilder
into the Irian Rupiah. Items (such as postage stamps) purchased in West Irian from
88
The Merah Putih (Trikora) stamps of 1 May, 1963 (Figure 3-16), were also available in West Irian
during this period but with different tablet values and rated in Irian Rupiah (see Appendix 3).
102
1963-1971 were designated for use within the territory in an attempt to minimise blackmarket trade and profiteering. At an officially designated rate the Irian Rupiah could be
exchanged for the Indonesian Rupiah (until the Indonesian Rupiah was imposed
uniformly across the archipelago in 1971).
It is certain that many Papuans living outside the small coastal towns of NLNG would
not have seen these images at the time, but it should not be assumed that these stamps
were being produced merely to benefit a small elite in West Irian. Indigenous Papuans
were a minority in this elite. By November 1961 Cenderawasih University was
established and employing almost exclusively Indonesians who had moved to West
Irian from elsewhere in Indonesia (see Jaspan 1964). Significant numbers of
government bureaucrats and almost all military and police living across the new
territory during this period were also non-Papuan (including long term residents from
the nearby Ambon and the Kei and Aru Islands in the Moluccas).89 With extremely
limited telegraph and telephone facilities in West Irian most of these populations were
reliant on post as the only affordable means of communication with their families and
friends in other islands of Indonesia. The Post Office, like the print and radio media in
the archipelago,90 was revealing Papua slowly to the people of Indonesia, fuelling
interest in and a sense of national renewal and anticipation at the return (as official state
representations would have it) of the territory to the Republic. For urban elites in Java
who were receiving post (or seeing postage stamps through their work in the PTT) most
would trace their origins to the cultivated landscapes of Javanese rural life, to the rice
(padi) fields and orderly villages of the inner islands –scenes celebrated in Indies and
early Indonesian stamp sets. Yet by the end of the 1960s, and after two decades of
revolutionary struggle, West Irian was still a region unknown to most Indonesians - a
distant, vast and wild land.
89
With the notable exception by 1961 of the Papuan Volunteer Force (see PVK 1961).
Through radio broadcasts of Soekarno's speeches to liberate NLNG, through newspaper reports about
various operations and programs in this struggle and in the post-integration project to mobilise
Indonesians in the development of the new province.
90
103
Figure 3-25: “Flowers and animals of West Irian” (1968)
Two further stamp sets released in 1968 were for use only in West Irian (again because
of the separate economic and administrative status of the territory). The Floral Series
(Seri Bunga) and Animal Series (Seri Hewan) were issued in Soekarnopura (modern
day Jayapura) on 17 August - Indonesian Independence Day (Figure 3-25). Each of the
eight stamps featured a flowering plant, bird or animal projected over a logo-map of
Irian. Although the clear implication was that these flora and fauna were endemic to
West Irian, most occurred across a wider region.91 These icons of Irian's natural wealth
were a direct allusion to the 1959 fauna stamps (Figure 3-22)92 but with an additional
subtext.
91
The flora set included: the fruiting Matoa (Maniltoa gemmipara, in two different images, one which
featured its leaves, the other its flower) and two orchids (Dendrobium lancifolium and Gardenia
gjellerupii, only one stamp of this image was released in this set with an orange background, but another
stamp with the same image and value tablet was also printed – perhaps later - with a grey background.
This separate Gardenia gjellerupii issue is now relatively rare, suggesting only a limited number were
produced). The fauna set included the following, denoted by their scientific names: cuscus
(phalangeridae), cassowary (Casuarius), wallaby (macropodidae) and Western Crowned Pigeon (Goura
cristata). Although it is implied by the design and special release of these two stamp series, most of these
flora and fauna are not endemic to Papua. Indeed, most of these species can be found in the Maluku
islands to the west of Papua as well as Papua New Guinea and Northern Australia. In the case of
Dendrobium lancifolium, it appears this species of orchid is not found at all in Papua, but only in
Sulawesi and Maluku (see http://www.orchidindonesia.com/dendrobium/lancifolium.html).
92
It is worth noting the similarities of the wallaby and other stamps in the West Irian Flora and Fauna
series (and indeed the earlier 1959 Fauna set – with maps) to the Australian Kangaroo and Map issues of
1912 (which featured a kangaroo projected over a logo map of Australia). This controversial stamp set
broke with postal tradition as it did not recognise the British monarchy. Instead, it was an assertion of
Australian self-government and “an advertisement for Australia” (Breckon and Gertsakis 2000). The
Federal election the following year saw the Fisher (Labor) government replaced by a conservative Liberal
government and the appointment of a new Postmaster-General who gave instructions that production of
the Kangaroo and Map stamps cease and that Australian stamp issues again feature busts of the British
monarchy (at this time, King George V).
104
Explicitly a-historical in their imagery, the 1968 series made no reference to West
Irian's troubled transition to Indonesia administration, or of the obligation Indonesia still
had to fulfil the terms of the NYA to hold a plebiscite in Papua by 1969. In these
stamps, no geographic reference asserted Indonesia’s presence or its sovereignty over
the territory. Yet, accustomed to logo maps that for decades had framed Irian as
integral to the archipelago (and the nation), these projections of Irian implied an
absence. What was missing from this picture was not the eastern half of the island of
New Guinea, but the rest of the Indonesian archipelago. In this way these stamps
simultaneously proclaimed the territorial integrity of Papua (see Chapter 4) even as they
evoked, for Indonesians, an “imagined” community unified by both history and
geography. Conventional philatelic techniques reinforced this connection.
The banner at the base of the stamp proclaims "Republik Indonesia" while a pentagon in
the top right corner of the stamp containing the year "1968" symbolises the active
presence of the Pancasila (Five Principles) across the territory as if this state ideology
was the guiding principle of man and nature. The use of "Rp…." to denoted the
currency as “rupiah” and not the usual acronym “IB Rp” (Irian Barat Rupiah) also
implies an integrationist logic in this series by failing to acknowledge Irian's separate
currency. Any possible confusion this omission might create among postal clerks
elsewhere in the archipelago was pre-empted by the inclusion, to the right of the value
label, of the words "Irian Barat" (precluding the stamps from being used elsewhere in
the country).
Figure 3-26: Parrot and Bird of Paradise (1970)93
93
Burung (Nuri Domicela Lory rubiensis and Tjendrawasih Paradisea apoda).
105
Two final West Irian stamp issues in 1970, a set of ten Papuan carvings (see Chapter 5)
and a bird issue (Figure 3-26), signalled the last of the special issues for Irian Barat, the
conclusion of the Act of Free Choice (Penentuan Pendapat Rakyat, Pepera) and the
integration of the territory into the Republic. It also marked a fundamental shift in the
way that the New Order government would use stamps to foster unity and integrity
across the archipelago. Indonesia's natural wonders remained a feature of stamp issues,
but they would no longer reveal their place of preponderance. Unlike the increasingly
frequent series with themes of culture and tourism (traditional dancing and dress,
material culture and temples), virtually none of the flora and fauna that featured in
stamps between 1970 and 1993 was attributed by region.94 Within the territorial
boundaries of the nation, the natural world of the archipelago appeared seamless - and
ubiquitous. Indonesia's seas and oceans, its mountains and rugged swamps were no
impediment to this metaphoric unity, imposed on endemic and largely isolated
terrestrial species of flora and fauna across the archipelago. The Post Office still
incorporated many exotic floras and fauna from the outer islands of the archipelago,
especially Papua, but it no longer explicitly acknowledged the origins of these plants
and animals, fish and insects. The boundaries of nature were being subordinated to
those of the administration.
94
This generalisation holds for all the Margasatwa (Wild Animals or Fauna) sets with the exception of the
1959 set as already noted. No fauna are specified by region in sets from: 1965 Burung, 1977
Margasatwa, 1978 Margasatwa, 1979 Margasatwa, 1981 Margasatwa (Burung Kakatua), Margasatwa
(Burung Cenderawasih), 1983 Burung Cenderawasih, 1984 Burung, 1985 Margasatwa, 1989 Fauna
(Orang-hutan with WWF logo endorsement), 1992 Fauna until the early 1990s. In 1993 fauna and fauna
stamps again denote their regional specificity (for reasons discussed later). This notable absence in
regionalism is also evident in all the Bunga (Flower) stamp sets which serve as the only Fauna stamps
until 1968 (following the release of the Irian Barat Fauna Series) and then again until 1993. This
includes: Anggrek (charity orchids), 1976 Anggrek Indonesia, 1977 Anggrek Indonesia, 1978 Anggrek
Indonesia , 1979 Anggrek Indonesia, 1980 Anggrek Indonesia; the flower sets of 1957, 1965, 1966, 1966
Bencana Alam Nasional; and the 1980 Festival Bunga, 1988 Flora, 1989 Flora, 1992 Flora. The only set
that approximates this is the 1975 Anggrek set of three stamps which features Dendrobium Pakarena,
Abridachnis Bogor, and Vanda Genta Bandung (which are species names but location specific). Again
the same is true of stamps produced for charity, or Social Day (Hari Sosial) such as the fruits of Indonesia
stamp series, the Freshwater Fish and Saltwater Fish series, the Insect series, Mushroom series, as listed:
1961 Buah-buahan, the 1963 Ikan, 1963 Kupu-kupu, 1966 Reptil, 1968 Buah-buahan, 1969 Kerang, 1970
Serangga, 1971 Ikan Hias Laut, 1972 Ikan Hias Laut, 1974 Ikan Hias Laut, 1974 Ikan Hias Laut, 1983
Ikan Hias Air Tawar, 1987 Ikan, 1988 Fauna (butterflies), 1993 Kupu-kupu (Ornithoptera goliath), 1994
Ikan Hias Air Tawar, 1999 Jamur, 1999 Binatang Piaraan, 2001 Serangga, 2002 Buah-Buahan.
106
The nature of icons
Figure 3-27: Coat of Arms of the Province of Irian Jaya (1981)
During the period 1981-83, the Post Office produced a series of 27 stamps.95 This was
a provincial coat of arms (Lambang Propinsi) stamp set honouring the 27 provinces of
Indonesia (Figure 3-27). This release marked a re-assertion of the Post Office as a
champion of both the implied and explicit symbolism of the nation. The official Coat of
Arms of Irian Jaya features a three-pillar monument to Trikora96 below the three (once
snow-covered) mountains of Mandala, Trikora and Puncak Jaya.97 Atop the mountains
is the banner "Irian Jaya"98 and framing the lower section of the badge are two sheafs,
one of rice and one of cotton (suggesting both the “social justice” principle of Pancasila
(see Figure 3-18) and the importance of these crops to the economy of Irian).99 Despite
the curious assemblage of elements in the Papuan provincial coat of arms, it is sewn (as
95
Irian Jaya was one of the first 5 provinces to have their coat of arms produced on a stamp – together
with Aceh, Bali, Benkulu, DKI Jakarta. The choice of an alphabetical system for the rolling production
of these stamps indicates both a clear rationale to this stamp series and the limited resources available to
produce them.
96
Not to be confused with the Pepera Monument (Tugu Pepera) in central Jayapura overlooking the
harbour and beside the International Investment branch of the Provincial Government of Papua (Badan
Investasi, Pemda Tk. I) or the Mandala monument (Tugu Mandala) in Makassar, the coordination
Headquarters for Suharto’s military invasion of Papua.
97
Mt Mandala, Mt Wilhelmina and Mt Carstensz respectively.
98
Since 2000 gradually replaced with “Papua” (see Chapter One: note on terminology).
99
Rice and cotton were, and remain, relatively insignificant cash-crops in Irian. BPS figures for 2002
(which included statistical coverage for both provinces - Papua and West Papua) show approximately
142,000 tons of rice was produced (see http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/bps/angka-2002/05.pdf) of a
national total of more than 32 million tons in 2002 (see http://www.bps.go.id). Cotton is so insignificant
a cash crop in Papua that it is not even listed by the provincial Office of Statistics (BPS). These
commodities are insignificant (and have been for decades) when compared with the value of precious
metals extracted daily from the Freeport Indonesia gold and copper mine and other massive nonrenewable resource deposits of natural gas (BP Tangguh) and nickel (Gag Island).
107
a cloth badge) onto the shirt of every government employee in Papua. These badges are
familiar and specific signifiers of the authority of the agents and agencies of the state in
the province.100 In the years since 1981, the IPO introduced its own, more subtle
imagery of regionalism and unity, to make the provinces appear to be a natural part of
the nation.
In 1993, amid a flurry of International Environmental activity101 and consistent with the
New Order ideology of integration and provincial identity building, the Post Office
commenced a less conspicuous form of provincial identity building, a new series of
flora and fauna. The "Love Flora and Fauna" stamp set of 1993 (Cinta Puspa dan Satwa,
Seri 1) featured the provincial bird and plant (flower) from Aceh and North Sumatera.
This and subsequent stamps in the series would encourage young Indonesians to love
their flora and fauna… but not any flora or fauna. The PTT would direct the attention of
nature lovers to a celebration of nature that was firmly, if subtly, rooted in place by the
state. These stamps achieved elegance in their presentation and simplicity in their
projection of Indonesian unity through diversity.
Figure 3-28: Twelve-Wired Bird of Paradise and Matoa (1994)
100
In many parts of Indonesia such a badge is worn with distinction since it also signifies life-long
employment with reasonable wages, good working conditions and possibilities for gaining greater
influence and economic advantage.
101
The United Nations Conference for Environment and Development (UNCED) had been held a year
earlier and was still generating many projects among Indonesian government agencies (particularly linked
to Agenda 21 activities). This was also represented by the Post Office with a special issue to
commemorate the International Year of Environmental Awareness (Tahun Lingkungan Hidup 1992).
108
Where earlier stamp releases (1959, 1968) had promoted regionalism by using logomaps, the 1993 series began a process of systematically presenting the flora and fauna
of Indonesia's provinces as a single taxonomic (postal) group. In this way, the Post
Office could suggest that the flora and fauna of the archipelago was contiguous without
the use of maps as visual cues. These images of fauna and flora subtly subverted the
established science of Wallace, Lydekker and others who sought to define zoological
and botanical discontinuities across the archipelago (see Chapter 4). The flora and
fauna issues of 1993-1995 promoted the official provincial icons (lambangan provinsi)
designated by the Indonesian Department of State (Depdagri). According to Depdagri,
to “love” Papuan flora was to love the fruit of the Matoa tree (Pometia pinnata) and to
“love” the Twelve-Wired Bird of Paradise (Seleucidis melanoleuca, see Figure 3-28).
The Post Office, however, had found love elsewhere.
Figure 3-29: “Cinta Flora dan Fauna” (1994)
The Indonesian PTT, like their earlier NLNG counterparts, had fallen in love with the
“exotic” fauna of New Guinea and since integration with Indo
nesia they had depicted Irian as a treasure trove of nature. Particular attention was
given to some of the most visually striking birds of Irian, especially birds of paradise.
The 1994 “Love Flora and Fauna” series included a rather subdued depiction of Papua's
official bird, the Twelve-Wired Bird of Paradise (Seleucidis melanoleuca, Figure 3-28).
This and the accompanying provincial flora and fauna issues are eclipsed by the
presence of a resplendent Victoria Crowned Pigeon (endemic to the island of New
Guinea)102 on the FDC envelopes of both flora and fauna sets for 1994 (Figure 3-29).
102
Cf. the Western Crowned Pigeon (Goura cristata), which is endemic to the Bird’s Head of Papua and
109
With this first day cover, the Post Office directly (if subtly) challenged the authority of
the Depdagri edict stipulating which flora and fauna were to signify Papua (as
lambangan propinsi, as in Figure 3-27).
The Australian colonial administration in the neighbouring territories of Papua and New
Guinea deployed the Greater and Lesser Birds of Paradise to great effect from as early
as 1931.103 In NLNG, birds of paradise made their first appearance on postage stamps
in 1954 (discussed above). The only other bird in NLNG to be featured by the NLNG
PTT was the Crowned Pigeon (mambruk or Goura)104 which was issued to coincide
with the inaugural flight of the local NLNG airline Kroonduif (Crowned Pigeon) from
Hollandia to Lae in Papua New Guinea on 2 July, 1959 (Figure 3-30). The stamp
depicts a stylised Western Crowned Pigeon (Goura cristata) sitting on a branch, the
accentuated red, white and blue of its wings evoking a Dutch flag.
Figure 3-30: Goura cristata set on “home-made” First Flight cover (1959)
Since the early-mid 1960s the mambruk and the cassowary have both been popularly
associated with guerrilla resistance in Papua. The cassowary denoted the Papuan
Volunteer Force (Papoea Vrijvilligerskorps, PVK) established in the last years of Dutch
the adjacent Raja Ampat islands, or the Lowland Crowned Pigeon (Goura scheepmakeri) which is
endemic to the southern lowlands of the island of New Guinea.
103
The first bird of paradise stamp produced in the world was a 2 August 1931 release (with 13 different
value tablets). The following year a new stamp series (set of 16 definitive) was released for the colony of
Papua. The bird of paradise was first depicted on money exchanged in colonial New Guinea with the
release of the 10 pfennig coin of the German Neu-Guinea Compagnie in 1894.
104
In Indonesian, the Victoria Crowned Pigeon (Goura victoria) is mambruk victoria, the Western
Crowned Pigeon (Goura cristata) is mambruk ubiaat and the Lowland Crowned Pigeon (Goura
scheepmakeri) is mambruk selatan.
110
colonial rule (see PVK 1961, see Figure 3-20, emblem on hat). UNTEA disarmed the
PVK (Saltford 2000a:120-124) and it was disbanded at the end of the UNTEA period
on 1 May 1963 (Drooglever et al. 1999:76). Disaffected ex-PVK members, together
with the Mandatjan’s and members of the Arfak mountain tribes (as discussed earlier)
formed the core of the guerrilla insurgency in the hinterland of Manokwari that
signalled the rise of the OPM with the mambruk at the centre of its coat of arms. 105
Both the Post Office and Bank of Indonesia attempted to re-appropriate the mambruk in
the Pepera era as a state symbol (in the 1968 hewan set discussed above (Figure 3-25)
and the 1971 25 sen coin). Later, in 1994, the Post Office appropriated the Crested
Pigeon from the Bank of Indonesia.
Figure 3-31: Mambruk victoria (Bank of Indonesia 1984)
The image that appeared in the 1994 “Love flora and fauna” first day cover (Figure 3-29)
is taken directly from the face of the 1984 Bank of Indonesia 100 rupiah note (Figure 331). The mambruk has not reappeared on postage stamps or currency in the past two
decades even though it remained the central icon of the coat of arms for the district
(kabupaten) of Manokwari through much of the New Order period. Similarly, the
striking Northern Cassowary (Casuarius unappendiculatus) and Dwarf Cassowary
(Casuarius bennetti), both endemic to New Guinea, have never featured in the imagery
of either agency (compare this with neighbouring PNG where cassowaries first featured
on postage stamps in 1970). In 2007, the association of the mambruk with the
105
The association of these birds with the independence movement is ongoing. Since the 1996 hostage
taking, an incident widely reported in international media, the OPM commander Kelly Kwalik has been
known to many Papuans by his pseudonym “the cassowary”. It is worth noting that even at the height of
the guerrilla insurgency in Papua the military frequently designated military units the names “mambruk”
and “kasuari” (see Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971).
111
independence movement in Papua was officially recognised and depictions of the
mambruk were officially banned in Papua (see Chapter 6).
Birds of Paradise are found throughout the immediate region of Papua, including many
parts of Maluku, Papua New Guinea and northern Australia (Firth and Beehler 1998)
and have been a prized commodity of and ceremonial icon for the region for centuries
(Swadling 1996). While their distribution is well known, the apparent abundance of
these birds in New Guinea - and importantly that part of New Guinea known to
archipelagic traders from the west - has strengthened their association with the island.
The excessive hunting of birds of paradise in the late 19th century on the smaller islands
of the Moluccas and later the New Guinea mainland, together with their larger
populations and the eventual regulation of hunting on mainland New Guinea (Cribb
1997), also helps to explain this association.
The Dutch colonial Post Office in Papua had a formative role in reinforcing the popular
association of Papua with birds of paradise (as discussed above). Similarly, the
Indonesian Post Office, from the first day of its operation in Papua (1 May 1963) used
this imagery (in the Merah Putih issue, Figure 3-16). In 1970, a bird of paradise
featured on issues from both the Post Office (Figure 3-26) and Bank of Indonesia
(commemorative 200 rupiah silver coin to celebrate 25 years of Indonesian
independence). The following year, a bird of paradise featured on the face of the 50
rupiah coin. In the years 1970-1993 the practice of attributing regional origins
(endemicism) for flora and fauna on stamps was actively discouraged (as discussed
above).106 Following PTT Indonesia's first release of a Bird of Paradise stamp in 1970,
the Bird of Paradise featured in subsequent major releases in 1982, 1983 and 1984.
These 1980s sets did not explicitly attribute the birds of paradise to Papua but the sleeve
notes for their first day covers make it clear that all of these birds are from Papua (see
Appendix 3). By the early mid-1980s, birds of paradise were featuring prominently as
icons of Indonesian Papua. In the province, a Papuan cultural revival was underway,
spearheaded by the performing group Mambesak (the Biak word for “bird of paradise”).
A parallel booming (and illegal) export trade of these birds from Irian through a black
106
Virtually no other flora or fauna with regional endemicism were celebrated during this period (19701993) and it was not until the mid-1990s that stamps featuring orangutans from Kalimantan or Sumatra,
rhinoceros from Sumatera or Java and 'dragons' from Komodo were once again printed.
112
market controlled by the military (Special Correspondent 1990) further reinforced birds
of paradise as icons of Papua. Soon this unofficial icon for Papua proved irresistible to
other agents of the state.
Figure 3-32: Kodam XVII Tjenderawasih as Trikora (1964)
In August 1962 (at the time of the NYA) the Indonesian government formed the
“Regional Military Command XVII for West Irian” (Komando Operasi Daerah or
Kodam XVII Irian Barat).107 The name was changed two years later to Kodam XVII
Tjenderawasih (see Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:113). The
insignia (Figure 3-32) “symbolises the commitment of Kodam XVII to defend the
territory to their last drop of blood.” The insignia is framed by sheafs of rice and cotton
from the provincial coat of arms of Papua (intended to symbolise the fifth principle of
the Pancasila – social justice), a star for the President of the Republic and Kodam
XVII’s motto – “knights [who] are the defenders of the people” (Praja Ghupta Vira,
Sanskrit). Papua’s “regal beauty” stretches from sea to its three snow-capped
mountains – a direct allusion to the Trikora declaration.108 Below these natural “pillars”
of Trikora, an abstracted forest109 also signifies the fire of the Trikora spirit (Api Trikora,
see Yayasan Badan Kontak Keluarga Besar Perintis Irian Barat 1986). The scene’s red
backdrop is intended to the represent “outpouring of extraordinary bravery by guerrilla
107
Prior to 1962, the Indonesian military structure included Papua in Kodam XV Pattimura,
headquartered in Ambon.
108
Puncak Mandala, Puncak Trikora and Puncak Jaya (all named in honour of the Trikora campaign).
109
In some depictions of this insignia these “flames” are coloured green to signify the lush forests of
Papua (see Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:309, 2c).
113
forces in the liberation of Irian from Dutch colonialism,” the white of the snow to
symbolise the “purity of their hearts in this purpose”. The yellow/orange stands for the
“nobility and glory” of these “knights”. “Tjenderawasih” represents “the name given to
Papua by other Indonesians.”110 From 1962 until 1985, this complex imagery with its
abstract associations and Sanskrit was the key signifier of the Indonesian military in
Papua.
Figure 3-33: Kodam XVII Trikora as Cenderawasih (1985)
Kodam XVII Tjenderawasih and XVI Pattimura (Moluccas) amalgamated in 1985 to
form Kodam VIII Trikora, its headquarters in Jayapura. The new Kodam changed its
name from Cenderawasih to Trikora and changed its imagery from that of the “Trikora”
struggle to the “cenderawasih” (Figure 3-33). The change of the Kodam motto from
Sanskrit to Indonesian (“Ksatria Pelindung Rakyat” or “Noble Guardians of the
People”)111 also reflected this shift to less ideologically complex symbolism that would
speak directly to Papuans (cf. Ballard 2002). The embroidered insignia worn by
members of Kodam VIII was reduced to a single word “Trikora” and a single Greater
Bird of Paradise (Paradisea apoda).112 In 2000 the decision to amalgamate these
regional commands was reversed and Kodam VIII Trikora became Kodam XVII
110
All quotes taken from Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer (1971:309-310, my
translations).
111
The official translation of “Praja Ghupta Vira” in Indonesian is “Kesatrya Pelindung Rakyat”
(Indonesia. Kodam XVII Dinas Sedjarah Militer 1971:113).
112
Note, the cotton and rice sheaf “frame” was not featured on the uniform ensignias of the earlier Kodam
XVII Tjenderawasih but appeared in the letterhead, documents, flags, and on the command posts of the
unit.
114
Trikora (Jayapura) and Kodam XV Pattimura (Ambon). On Armed Forces Day 2007,
Kodam XVII Trikora became Kodam XVII Cenderawasih, as reported by Womsiwur
(2007):
According to the Head of Kodam XVII, Major General Zamroni the change to
this name ... was simply because the Army is born of the people, so that the
nuances of the Army are also those of the people... Kodam must also be Papua
nuanced, and truly, the Bird of Paradise is the source of pride for Papua and a
symbol of Papuan culture. Besides this, the symbol of Kodam XVII/Trikora has
always been the Bird of Paradise (sic).
Where the Greater and Lesser Birds of Paradise were once iconic of Irian Jaya, during
the post-Reformasi era (since May 1998) they have emerged instead as metonyms for
Papua and 'Papuaness.' These birds are no longer mere metaphors for Papua. They do
not transfer their qualities to the province, but instead embody the nature of Papua – its
beauty and expansive wilderness.113 The cenderawasih is the Crown for the Kingdom
of Papua, worn as traditional dress by the men and women of Papua (see Figure 3-5) as
well as independence leaders like as Theys Eluay (who as leader of the PDP was
frequently depicted wearing a cenderawasih headdress).114 It is used as a logo by
Kodam XVII Trikora as well as prominent human rights groups like Elsham and SKP to
signify their association with Papua. An example of this shift from icon to metonym
appeared in a curious newspaper advertisement in November 2001 by the Jayapura
office of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF Sahul). It featured a “traditional”
warrior (in fact a man from the Waghi valley in neighbouring PNG) wearing his
traditional headdress (see O’Hanlon 1993, Plate 6,7) and projected over a rugged
mountain range (Figure 3-34).115 The adjacent text reads:
The Bird of Paradise is a part of Papuan culture. The hunting of the Bird of
Paradise will result in its extinction. Unrestricted trade in the Bird of Paradise
and the destruction of its habitat will result in the loss of this culture.
Let’s ensure the future of Papuan culture! Let’s protect the Bird of Paradise!
113
Particularly to many Indonesians living in the crowded urban centres and inner islands of the
archipelago. See, for example, Soekarno (1952).
114
It is increasingly used in commercial contexts across Indonesia (e.g. Bali Hai's “Papua” brand beer
released in 2001).
115
The mountain backdrop used in this advertisement appears to be of the European Alps (apparent from
the form of the mountains and the extent of snow cover and the presence of conifer/fir trees) and may be
an adaptation of the image used for the cover of Mampioper (2000) which features the (Swiss)
Matterhorn as if it were Nemangkawi (Puncak Jaya), the sacred mountain (mother) of the Amungme.
115
Figure 3-34: “Bird of Paradise in Papuan Culture” advertisement
(Jubi, November 2001)
The beauty and rarity of the plumage of Birds of Paradise does not explain their
inclusion in this advertisement, at populist gatherings (such as Kongres II and Mubes),
in the official “traditional” dress of Papua (Figure 3-5), or the curiosity cabinets of
many past and present military officers and upper level bureaucrats who serve or have
served in Papua. Cenderawasih is a source of mystery, an enduring tradition and
identity, a cultural artefact, a souvenir, an assertion of conquest, an icon of freedom and
of independence. Central to all of these interpretations is the evocation of an imaginary
– near mythic – world of wild, primordial landscapes and “big” nature.
Icons of nature
Viewing this snowy peak… everybody is greatly moved. Suddenly we are
clearly reminded of the great duty we have taken upon us and we realise the full
extent of the gravity of our undertaking (H.A. Lorentz in 1909).
[The] team had succeeded in the men's determination. I can only wonder what
this experience meant to these men. I am a sportsman, I will never think of a
summit of a mountain as an achievement worth the sacrifice of life. These
soldiers were of a completely different mind-set. They were more committed to
success than to life (Anatoli Boukreev in 1998).
The two extracts above are taken from the accounts of two separate mountaineering
expeditions. The first is an excerpt of a diary entry by H.A. Lorentz during the Dutch
116
attempt to reach the snow mountains of New Guinea in 1909 (cited in Ploeg and Vink
2001:13).116 The second is a quote from a professional mountaineer who trained the
1997 Indonesian expedition to Mount Everest (Boukreev 1998). These events are
fused, compressed in time and space, in a special twin stamp set released on 28 October,
1998.
Figure 3-35: “Sang Merah Putih” dari Puncak Jaya ke Puncak Everest (1998)
The “Revered Merah Putih” issue of 1998 (Figure 3-35) depicts Mt Jaya (Puncak Jaya)
with the “red-white” flag of Indonesia portrayed as a banner, stretched across the sky
above the glacial snow of Indonesia’s highest peak, Mount Jaya in central Papua. The
second stamp (right) substitutes Mount Everest (Sagarmatha) for Mount Jaya, in a
deliberate homage to the grandeur, the rugged beauty and the conquest of both
mountains. At first the comparison appears peculiar, almost ridiculous.117 Yet as the
quotes above suggest, both mountains elicited a similar response and resonance that is
inextricably tied to the psychological and emotional identity of the individuals involved
and the communities they represented. This is reinforced further by the clear conviction
that the ascent of these peaks was a crucial test of the character and resolve of the early
Dutch and later Indonesian climbers and that of their respective nations.
116
The Lorentz expedition aimed to reach the summit of Mt Wilhelmina (later renamed Puncak Trikora)
while the British expedition aimed to reach the summit of Mt Carstensz (later renamed Puncak Jaya) (see
Ballard, Vink et al. 2001).
117
A similar juxtaposition of the temple complex of Prambanan with the Eiffel Tower was the subject of a
special souvenir sheet issue for the PhilexFrance (stamp collectors show) in June 1999. This FDC
envelope featured a Taman Mini style compression of geography where the Eiffel Tower and Prambanan
temple complex rising up to meet one another from either side of a distorted globe.
117
Dutch concern that the other colonial powers had the impression that the Dutch
government was incapable of duly exploring, let alone administering, its vast
colony, it wanted to prevent British explorers from being the first to reach Dutch
tropical snow (Ploeg and Vink 2001:13).
Yes, we were pushed by the plans and ambitions of our neighbors… If we hadn't
made it, what would have happened to our national pride? … For me, Everest is
an indicator of a nation's greatness. And we did it, Indonesia is the first ASEAN
country to reach the summit of Everest. That internationally acclaimed record
will remain forever (Lt. Gen. (ret.) Prabowo Subianto in Hartanto (n.d.)).
Both cast as races, the ascents of Carstensz and Everest each had very different
historical contingencies. The Dutch (and not the British) first climbed Carstensz in in a
later expedition in 1936 (see Colijn 1937). This did not detract from the importance the
Indonesian administration placed on making their own belated entry into the "…
international race to the eternal snow" (Gooszen, cited in Ploeg and Vink 2001:13). A
joint Indonesia – Japan expedition to Puntjak Soekarno (which the Suharto government
later renamed Puncak Jaya), the highest peak in their newly acquired West Irian, was
completed in early 1964.118 Its two-fold aims were to plant the Merah Putih on the top
of Indonesia’s highest mountain and to conduct scientific research which might be of
assistance in the development of the central highlands (Komando Operasi Tertinggi
1964:iii).
Figure 3-36: “High Mountains” of Indonesia (Soekarno 1952:44-45)
118
The Indonesian expedition took place two years after Harrer, Temple and others had climbed
Carstensz (see Harrer 1963; Temple 1962, 2002), in the period immediately preceding the transfer of the
territory to Indonesia.
118
To the climbing party, I order you to pursue your mission to climb Mt Soekarno
and to plant the Merah Putih on the summit, with the blessings of your
followers and with the confidence that the sons of Indonesia are better able to
master the nature of Indonesia because only sons of Indonesia can communicate
instinctively with and know the disposition of their Mother, their native country
or Homeland, Indonesia. Ever onward! No retreat! (President Soekarno,
Djakarta 10 February 1964, in Komando Operasi Tertinggi 1964:63, my
translation).
The fact that the mountain had been “conquered” decades earlier did not diminish the
national prestige attached to the 1964 Indonesian ascent of (and claim to) Puncak Jaya.
Similarly, the successful ascent of Everest in 1953 only strengthened the resolve of the
Indonesian Everest Expedition team of 1997 to attempt their ascent of the mountain (on
27 April 1997). The political imperative behind the Indonesian expedition to Everest
was clear from the political patronage it attracted. Lt. Gen. Prabowo Subianto was the
coordinator and primary financier of Indonesia's 1997 "National Expedition to Everest,”
at a cost of US$1.5 million. Prabowo reportedly laughed when asked by a journalist
whether the Indonesian team (largely consisting of military personnel) had reached its
objective “because he had commanded them to.”119 He replied (Prabowo Subianto,
cited in Hartanto (n.d. (b), my emphasis):
It was not like that. They were all volunteers. It wasn't an order. They
understood that this mission was for the sake of the country and for the red-andwhite flag. I motivated them, because I was their commandant at the time. … for
me, they are national heroes and therefore we must not forget them.
As commander of Indonesia's elite Special Forces (Kopassus) and son-in-law to
President Suharto, Prabowo held a position of great influence, connected to the highest
echelons of power in Indonesia. Without the opportunity to discuss the commemorative
Indonesian Everest expedition stamp issue with former Lt. Gen (now retired) Prabowo
Subianto or senior bureaucrats in the Indonesian Post Office, it is difficult to ascertain
the precise role the expedition’s patron had in the release of the 1998 Puncak-Everest
stamp issue. Of particular interest is the decision to produce a two stamp set which
119
The idea that this was an Indonesian national expedition and not merely a military one appears to have
escaped many of the Indonesians in the team with military backgrounds. "Desperate to prove that
Indonesians had scaled Sagarmatha, the Nepali term for Everest, Asmujiono pulled off his oxygen mask,
balaclava and glacier sunglasses. He replaced them with his red [Kopassus] beret and unfurled the redand-white flag… I had to prove that it was us, the Indonesians, who made it to the top. Who would have
been able to recognize us in the summit photos if our faces had been completely covered?" (Asmujiono,
Kopassus soldier and member of the 1997 Indonesian Everest team, in Hartanto (n.d. (a)).
119
featured both Puncak Jaya and Mt Everest, when one stamp to celebrate the Everest
ascent would have sufficed. The connection between the first “Indonesian” ascent of
Mt Everest in 1997 and a depiction of Puncak Jaya is ambiguous, particularly in the
absence of any reference in the 1998 stamp issue to the 1964 ascent of Puncak Jaya.
The imagery and grammar of the stamp issue (i.e. two mountains side by side connected
by the Merah Putih) appears to assert Indonesian dominance over both Puncak Jaya and
Everest, yet while the Post Office may have intended to convey this impression, the
political connection between these two mountains may remain elsewhere.
This stamp issue suggests the influence of executive authority on the form and content
of Post Office issues. Prabowo's last major operational activity as head of Kopassus
was close to Puncak Jaya during the Kopassus operation to free the Indonesian and
foreign hostages taken at Mapnduma in early 1996 (see Start 1997; Rizal and Budiarto
1997). Prabowo’s success in this operation saw him become one of the youngest three
star generals of the New Order era (at 46 years of age). The long delay from the
successful Indonesian ascent of Everest (27 April 1997) to the release date of this stamp
(28 October 1998) suggests that this stamp issue required that some political influence
be directed towards the Post Office (commemorative issues are typically prepared in
advance and released to coincide with significant events). The 1998 “Sang Merah
Putih” issue may celebrate Indonesian mountaineers, but it is also a celebration of
Prabowo’s individual ambition, alluding to both the “success” of his recent 1996
Kopassus operation near Puncak Jaya and his role as Patron of the 1997 Indonesian
Everest expedition.
Any hope Prabowo or others may have had that the 1998 commemorative stamp issue
might help reinforce the achievement of the Indonesian Everest team in the public
imagination appear to have faded with the end of the New Order era.120 As Monty
Sorongan, liason officer for the 1997 Everest Expedition said (cited in Hartanto n.d.(b)):
It is such a pity. Our nation was internationally acclaimed for this great
achievement, but because of political changes, it seems that history has been
forgotten.
120
In Papua, Ramandai (1999) took almost immediate advantage of Reformasi to challenge official
historiography of the conquest of Puncak Jaya by writing an school textbook which celebrates the Dutch
ascent of Carstensz in 1936.
120
Despite the dramatic political changes in mid-1998, the Sang Merah Putih issue was
printed and has been followed by a proliferation of other new stamp issues. Yet it is
axiomatic among stamp collectors that the more colourful, creative and prolific a nation
is with its stamp releases, the more serious are its economic and political problems.
New Orders?
In May 1998, Suharto resigned from power, ending 32 years as President of Indonesia.
Euphoria at this sudden collapse of the New Order regime marked the zenith of a
movement for political reform in Indonesia and an efflorescence of local and regional
protest and political aspirations. In Papua, the immediate impact of this political change
at the centre was a wave of optimism at the possibilities this encouraged for the
acceleration of local political aspirations, especially political independence for Papua.
Central to Papuan demands for independence were claims of systematic political
repression, discrimination and economic neglect endured by Papuan people under
Indonesian governance. The Team 100 meetings with President Habibie, the creation of
Foreri, Mubes and Congress2000 are crucial markers in this recent past in Papua (see
Chapter 2). For many government agencies this was a period of great uncertainty and
apprehension. Through the Reformasi period, the Post Office appears to have vacillated
between assuming a more forthright role in national political and cultural debates and
reverting to familiar New Order themes for stamp issues.
Figure 3-37: “Kapitan Pattimura” 1000 rupiah note (2001)
By late 2001, an increasingly repressive security approach was once again in place
across Papua and pro-independence leader Theys Eluay had been assassinated (see
121
Chapter 1). Papuan independence aspirations, buoyed by East Timorese independence
in 1999, were high. Pro-integration forces, however, were also on the move as several
high profile military and militia leaders were re-deployed from East Timor to Papua
(see also Chapter 6). Since taking over from Gus Dur as President of Indonesia (23 July
2001) Megawati had been unequivocal in her support for Indonesian security forces to
take whatever action they deemed necessary to ensure the unity and integrity of the
Republic. As the notorious Enrico Guterres and his Merah Putih militia established
themselves in Papua,121 the Bank of Indonesia reinforced Megawati's message. The
legendary Pattimura, whose defiant struggle against Dutch authority122 had helped
enshrine militant action as a legitimate defense of nation, re-appeared across the
archipelago (Figure 3-37).123 In iconic imagery that echoed an earlier Soekarno-era
stamp issue to this National Hero (the 0,75Rp stamp in the 1961 “Heroes” issue),
Pattimura was brought to life by the Bank of Indonesia on their 1000 Rupiah note - as if
in exhortation to citizens across the archipelago to take up arms whenever and wherever
the nation is threatened.124 Similiarly nationalist sentiment was depicted in the 50,000
rupiah note (first issued in 1999) which depicted Wage Rudolf Soepratman, the
writer/composer of the Indonesian national anthem (Indonesia Raya) and a solemn
ceremonial flag raising attended by armed military personnel. The Post Office through
this period appeared to take a very different approach in their “statements” to the public.
121
See the “Masters of Terror” entry for Guterres at http://www.villagechief.com/mot/cons92z%20%20Eurico%20Guterres.htm.
122
Captain Pattimura (Thomas Matulesia) was not a militia leader even though he is depicted as such in
this image. He was a soldier and nationalist who in 1817 led a revolt against the Dutch government as
they were attempting to re-assert their authority (and exploitative practices) in the Moluccas after the
British Interregnum (see Chauvel 1990:21-22). He and his family were executed by the Dutch as part of
their effort to regain authority over Ambon and the surrounding islands.
123
The reverse of this banknote depicted a scene of fishermen in the waters off Maitara and Tidore islands
in the Moluccas.
124
The use of this imagery on one of the lowest denomination bills in Indonesia (only the Rp500 was bill
was of lower value in 2001) is one way to ensure that this message was transmitted to as many people
across the archipelago as possible. Pattimura's campaign against Dutch authority preceded the Indonesian
nationalist struggle by more than a century, but his actions are memorialised as part of the revolutionary
history of Indonesia (see Nanulaitta 1976).
122
Figure 3-38: “Dialogue between Community, Dialogue among Civilisations” (2001)
In late 2001 and before the assassination of Theys Eluay, a Post Office first day cover
sought to make its own contribution to debates on how to handle Papuan separatism.
Against a backdrop of increasingly ominous reports of loyalist (Merah Putih) and
Muslim militias gathering in Ambon and Papua, the Post Office issued a "World Post
Day" cover with a difference (Figure 3-38). A single stamp featured four cartoon
people – red, white, yellow and black – linked by communication devices as if holding
hands around the world. Appearing in English, the caption on the stamp read “Dialogue
among Civilisations” but juxtaposed with this on the first day cover a mixed Indonesian
and English caption read "Dialogue between communities, Dialogue among
Civilisations" (“Dialog di antara masyarakat, Dialogue among Civilisations”). While
the stamp issue made a clear reference to a international dialogue, the domestic first day
cover subtly inserted the idea of inter-communal dialogue. Of all the possible imagery
that could have accompanied this message, the Post Office chose to focus on a
handshake – two hands, one pale skinned with a shirt cuff and suit the other dark
skinned with a "tribal" bracelet. As if anticipating the ambiguities of the imagery, a
Dani (Papuan highlands) chief, speaking on a telephone, was placed immediately
beside the hands, inviting an association by the reader. This first day cover seemed to
be suggesting the need for dialogue between two very specific "communities" and/or
“civilisations” in Indonesia – Indonesians and Papuans.
A year after the Post Office was advocating “Dialogue between communities” and
“Dialogue among Civilisations,” its Dani warrior re-appeared in a new Post Office
stamp set. "Modern Communication Instruments" (Figure 3-39) conveys a message that
123
seem to be more straightforward than the earlier Dialogue cover –universal access to
modern communications technology. Both characters benefit from the communications
technology which has, through the energies and efforts of the state, become ubiquitous
across the country.125 While the Dani chief may have access to this technology, it is far
from certain that he has any real understanding of it (by contrast the Indonesian woman
appears at ease surrounded by this technology). The symbolically significant
presumption of access sits awkwardly with the juxtaposition of a tribal (and apparently
shirtless) Papuan with a modern Indonesian office worker.
Figure 3-39: “Alat Komunikasi Modern” (2002)
The Dani man is presented as traditional but not in the naïve or arcadian sense typical of
earlier nusantara-style imagery (cf. Figure 3-5). Yet there is a strange subtext to this
imagery. As it moves from a local, to a national, to a global perspective (left to right), it
also juxtaposes extremes of diversity united by technology. The Papuan’s exaggerated
facial features and naked black skin constrast sharply with the elegantly dressed, pale
female office worker and despite possibilities to the contrary, this stamp issue
powerfully reinforces popular imaginary of Papuans as tribal, traditional and perhaps
even primitive in a modern world. There are numerous Papuan office workers and
millions of Javanese who live and work in village settings, but that imagery does not
allow urban Indonesians to define their lives in contradistinction to their rural, religious
and racial contemporaries elsewhere the archipelago. Such imagery suggests
possibilities for indigeneity and tribal identity beyond the formulaic nusantara
framework and at odds with the New Order’s cautious approach to tribal, religious,
125
Mobile phone coverage in Papua has increased significantly in recent years, but remains limited
outside the larger towns of the territory.
124
racial or group difference (suku, agama, ras, antar golongan or SARA), even though it
is sustained by the state’s own anti-ethnic, anti-racist integrationist imagery.126
Figure 3-40: “Indonesia Indah: Busana Tradisional” (1998)
Yayasan Harapan Kita and BP3 TMII (1998, cover)
“Beautiful Indonesia: Traditional Clothes” (Figure 3-40) is the cover illustration to the
tenth book in Taman Mini’s encyclopedic series “on the background to the lifestyle of
the peoples of Indonesia, their customs, arts and culture.” A Papuan warrior (Dani
chief), covered in black body paint, is depicted larger than life as a shadowy presence
behind the peoples of the archipelago as if a part of their collective past. This effect is
created through the use of perspective in the placement of figures in this image suggests
depth in the image and a chronological sequence that originates at the back of the scene
– with a stone-age Papuan.127 Such imagery suggests a very clear analogical function
(Comaroff and Comaroff 1992) for the Papuan who is, in effect, the standard by which
all other peoples of the archipelago may measure their progress and the refinements of
their culture. While the Dani chief depicted in “Modern Communications Instruments”
(Figure 3-39) evoked an ambiguous distinction between primitive and modern
technologies, other recent postal issues have followed the lead of TMII with less
tentative assertions of Papuan cultural primitivism.
126
In the New Order’s usage of SARA, ras was commonly understood as a euphemism for Chinese in
Indonesia and antar golongan as representing class-struggle (see Masmiyat 2007).
127
The Dani man depicted here is literally stone age. He has no metal adornments and no clothing and
his ‘blackness’ is accentuated by the black paint that covers his naked body.
125
Figure 3-41: “Bulan & Sagu di Ibuanari” (2005)
In 1998, the first in a series of Indonesian folktale (cerita rakyat) stamp sets were issued.
Serving a similar function to the earlier flora and fauna imagery, these mythologies
were released in sets of sixteen stamps - four frames to depict four different provincial
myths. The second release of the folktale series included a myth from Papua. The
stamps recounted fragments of the story of Woiram, a powerful warrior from Merem
village (near Lake Sentani) and depicted the narrative in a realist cartoon-style
consistent with the other stamps in the issue. The Woiram myth, imbued with syncretic
Christian allegories to Moses in the bullrushes and the Flood, was published by the Post
Office as a companion children’s storybook (see Indonesia. Kantor Pos 1999, see also
Manilet-Ohorella 1985). In 2005, the “Moon and Sago (festival) at Ibuanari” (Figure 341) was released with three other folktales but in a style of its own. Although the
Ibuanari stamps evoke the rock art of Southern Africa (see Willcox 1984; cf. Arifin and
Delanghe 2004) these highly stylised illustrations draw inspiration from much closer to
home – from pseudo-Papuan “primitive” sculptures carved in Bali (see Appendix 3,
Figure 3-41).128 These carvings are commonly promoted as originating from Papua and
sold both domestically and internationally in art, furniture and curios markets. While
this distinctly new style may have been adapted from innovations in Asmat art (see
Roper 1999), its association with Papua through the Ibuanari stamp release is an
example of how life imitates art (see Chapter 5). Whether such recent ambiguities in
the depictions of Papuans in the nation will continue or not remains uncertain, but the
128
Perhaps calculated not to cause offense to the extremely remote village of Ibuanari (in the Kebar
region, Bird’s Head of Papua).
126
most recent Papua-specific stamp issue suggests a return to the more socially and
politically conservative themes of the New Order period.
Figure 3-42: “Penemuan Spesies Baru di Papua” (2006)
The “Discovery of new species in Papua” souvenir sheet (Figure 3-42) reinforces the
image of Papua as an intrinsic treasure-trove of wild nature. In 2005 a group of
Indonesian and international botanists and zoologists on a scientific expedition in the
Mamberamo basin discovered five new species of plants, including a palm (Licuala
arbuscula Mogea, left of frame) and recorded the first sighting in the wild of the
Golden-Fronted Bowerbird (Amblyornis flavifrons Rothschild) in over one hundred
years (see Indonesia. Post Office 2006).129 This stamp issue echoes a theme in popular
representations that has defined Papua for more than a century (and persisted longer
than similar representations of neighbouring Papua New Guinea).130
For those who yearned after the obscure, and its promise of wonders, New
Guinea was the world's last great hope. Earlier in the nineteenth century these
yearners - eccentrics and romantics, adventurers and confidence men, collectors
and prospectors; the froth, as it were, on the heavy ale of colonialism - had had
plenty of room to play in, but by 1875 their world had contracted greatly.
Because New Guinea dominated this dwindling world, its history is perhaps
frothier than that of any other frontier land (Souter:1963,9).
129
Similar perceptions of Papua as a time capsule of nature have arisen in recent decades with respect to
other species considered to be extinct. In 1991 a Tasmanian Tiger (Thylacinus Cynocephalus) enthusiast
visited Papua to follow up on rumoured sightings of the animal in the central highlands (see Terry
2005:104-138). In 1997, J.B. Wenas, then Regent of Jayawijaya province, announced further sightings of
the animal (Reuters 24 March, 1997).
130
While assertions of Papua as “the last unknown” were commonplace through the twentieth century,
today such impressions are reinforced by a scientific community eager to conduct research in the territory
(see Frodin 2007).
127
The decision by the national government in 2007 to convert more than 2 million
hectares of forest land in Papua into oil palm plantation (see DTE 2007), together with
the extensive logging, land clearance, mining and agricultural practices in Papua since
the late 1960s, directly challenges such popular conceptions of the territory.131 The
2006 “Discovery…” issue, however, is itself a direct – if subtle - challenge to the
authority of the central government in Papua. In its depiction of the entire western half
of the island of New Guinea this souvenir sheet asserts the biogeographical continuity
of the territory, while failing to acknowledge the 2003 administrative division of Papua
into the two provinces of Papua and West Papua (see Chapter 4).
In the Post?
As might be expected, little of the discontent with the state, widespread across
Indonesia in the New Order and post-New Order eras, is evident in stamps issued by the
Indonesian Post Office since the beginning of the Indonesian Reformasi (1998).
Although a Reformasi commemorative stamp set was issued in October 1998, most
stamp issues since the end of the New Order (May 1998) have maintained continuity
with the past, following the core Post Office themes of flora and fauna, Indonesian
heroes (of the Revolution), regional costumes and dance. Indonesia’s five presidents
since the fall of Suharto are all recognised in stamps, but they are lost among issues
which feature other prominent past Indonesians and a multitude of insects, flowers,
animals, landscapes and provincial mythologies. Such imagery conforms to the
conservative and generic national themes that Altman (1991) considers ubiquitous
across postal regimes,132 but the authority by which this imagery circulates does not go
unchallenged.
Three decades ago, in 1978, a joint stamp issue with a difference was released in Papua.
RMS stamps and stamps from Papua New Guinea were brought together for the first
131
Such programs were proclaimed and celebrated in the stamps of Indonesia during the Green
Revolution and early transmigration programs of the 1960s but have not featured in more recent stamp
issues (as transmigration and other programs of mass land conversion programs have become particularly
controversial with foreign funding agencies, see Chapter 4).
132
Altman (1991:27) notes that "official definitions of culture and the state show uncomfortable
similarities between the stamps of, for example, Iran and the US, Cuba and the Vatican." He considers
these themes to be centred on modernisation and progress, good citizenship, public health and religion.
128
time and overprinted with three simple letters: "O.P.M." (Figure 3-43). Initially
reported in The Indonesian Philatelist, a philatelic newsletter published in New
Zealand,133 news of this stamp release was picked up by the West Papuan Observer
newsletter (WPO 1979).134 The WPO speculated that these stamps had acquired some
form of "real" currency, suggesting the “existence of an independently operating
communication system, within the liberated areas of Indonesia and beyond.” The same
article poses the question “Is the OPM herewith demonstrating that it does not merely
consist of a paper cabinet, but that it is indeed taking over authoritative tasks, a.o. the
Postal Service from Indonesia in the liberated areas?”
Figure 3-43: “O.P.M.” overprints (1978)
(Ramkema and Vosse 2003:280-283)
How should these “O.P.M.” overprints be understood? As a protest or mockery of
Indonesian authority in Papua or something peripheral to the broader struggle of the
OPM? Or perhaps an expedient campaign by dissidents seeking to use cheap surplus
133
This article was first reported in the Indonesian Philatelist newsletter of November 1979 (WPO 1979),
one of the principle sources of information about Indonesian stamps at this time. According to Ramkema
and Vosse 2003:279) news of the OPM overprints appeared in the May 1981edition (sic) of The
Indonesian Philatelist, a newsletter published by J.W. Rabarts in Coramandel, New Zealand. A decade
later, in 1989, the Indonesian Stamp Dealers Association was established and the following year this
group published the first stamp catalogue in Indonesia since 1969 (APPI 1990:ix), which does not include
any reference to these OPM overprints.
134
I first became aware of this particular stamp series while visiting an old friend in Sentani in 2000. I
was discussing with him my interest in stamps and in visual representations of "Papua." He showed me
his stamp collection. Among some wonderful old NLNG and early Indonesian stamps was an old
photocopied page "The OPM as postman." We discussed this idea briefly, never really entering into the
complexities of the symbolism or the issues of possession. By the dim light of the kerosene lamp I could
just distinguish what I assumed to be an Indonesian stamp, pictured in the article. Later under stronger
light I could see that this was in fact an RMS stamp (which I later compared with the image on the
original APO newsletter).
129
stamps from the earlier RMS initiative? Do these OPM overprints suggest a reversal of
the logic of aspal (asli = authentic with palsu = fake) that Strassler (2000:76) attributes
to the Rp 50,000, or is this actually an example of aspal itself?135 The RMS stamps are
'real' enough 'fakes' (aspal), but can they become an 'authentic' represention for the
OPM?
According to the article in The Indonesian Philatelist, the OPM “requested the Fa.
Berani Singa Cve. Pty. Ltd., Mount Lawley, Australia, to prepare a series of stamps to
provide more publicity for their struggle” and the “RMS government-in-exile in
Luxemburg supported the Papuans’ desire for independence and provided RMS stamps
for overprinting” (Ramkema and Vosse 2003:279).136 Yet while the RMS stamps may
have been provided free of charge for this purpose, the PNG stamps were most likely
purchased. It was clearly a deliberate decision by those in the OPM who organised
these overprints to symbolically associate their struggle with the RMS, an independent
PNG and the international community (through the use of an Indonesian
commemorative cancellation “Year of the Child 1979).
Earlier use by Dutch,137 Japanese, Indonesian, United Nations, and Irian Barat
(Indonesian) administrations from the turbulent years of World War Two through to the
1960s attested to overprints as signifiers of transitional control. I believe the OPM
overprints should be understood as a deliberate allusion to - and thereby mnemonic for the period 1962/63 and 1963/71 when “UNTEA” and later Indonesian “Irian Barat”
overprints were the core stamp stock for Papua’s Post Offices (see Appendix 3). From
this perspective, the OPM overprints, like the RMS stamps they utilised, attest to a
vision of an alternative political reality138 and a historically informed conviction that
control may be wrested from an incumbent power. Ultimately, whatever rationale
informed this action, the OPM overprints were limited in their reach and effect. They
did not achieve the propaganda successes or circulation of earlier Indonesian nationalist
issues or match the propaganda value of the many varied, creative and colourful RMS
135
This definition is derived from the categorisation of Siegel (1998).
Chauvel (1990:239-240) notes the economic imperative some early RMS leaders felt to join with
Netherlands New Guinea.
137
Currency overprints (from 1943-45) in the Merauke region where Dutch and Allied Forces held out
against the Japanese for the duration of the Pacific War.
138
Which may include a pan-New Guinea or pan-Melanesian nation (see Chapter 4 of this thesis).
136
130
issues. Never widely distributed, the OPM overprints failed to help build cohesion
among Free West Papua activists or raise the legitimacy of their movement for a
domestic or international audience. Yet, like many other “Cinderella” issues (see
Appendix 3) they represented local ingenuity and the visual expression of a dream.
In 1999 the Indonesian Post Office launched a new series of stamps intended to raise
public interest in the imagery of their postage stamps (and raise revenues). The
PRISMA process of making "Your Personal Identity Stamp" (PRISMA, PRangko
IdentitaS Milik Anda139) allowed individuals to attach an image of their choice adjacent
to a recognised post office impression which included popular themes like “Happy
Birthday” (Selamat Hari Ulang Tahun). As PRISMA issues required special printing,
they were not available in post offices across the country. They were, however, an
innovation that was popular in post offices around the world.
Figure 3-44: Bintang Kejora personlijk postzegel (2003)
A West Papuan separatist “Bintang Kejora personalised postage stamp” (Figure 3-44)
was produced in 2003 in The Netherlands for a charity fundraising project in Merauke
(Han Dijkstra, pers. comm., August 2007) and illustrates a blurring of the traditional
distinction between authorised postal issues and ‘cinderella’ stamps. It also suggests a
range of possibilities and potential challenges for postal administrations which have
legitimated processes of self-made stamps. In the past few years The Netherlands
government has gone to considerable lengths to distance itself from any inference that it
is supportive of Papuan separatism (see Chapter 2), but stamp issues such as this
demonstrate the extent to which postal administrations that embrace such popular
innovations as personalised stamps must relinquish some control over the imagery
circulated through their stamps. However, both the Indonesia and Dutch postal
administrations still determine the imagery on the vast majority of stamps circulated in
139
See http://filateli.wasantara.net.id/prisma/prisma.htm for more information on PRISMA issues.
131
their respective juristictions and it is apparent that despite the growing use of franking
machines worldwide, postal administrations remain committed to projecting their
prestige, tradition and sense of nation through the continued production of postage
stamps.
Conclusion
Like Gulliver the child travels among the lands and peoples of his postage
stamps. The geography and the history of the Liliputians, the whole science of
the little nation with all its figures and names, is instilled in him in sleep. He
takes part in their transactions, attends their purple assemblies, watches the
launching of their ships and celebrates with their crowned heads, enthroned
behind hedges, jubilees (Walter Benjamin 1997:94).
Benjamin’s analogy to Lemuel Gulliver’s Travels into Several Remote Nations of the
World… (Swift 1726) and of the subliminal journey of a child through this imagery of
nation is an elegant evocation of the effect of postage stamps. It recognises the life of
the nation framed in miniature and expressed through succinct and very deliberate
statements. It is a realm within which the state can be fully scripted - in which nothing
need be left to chance. Yet as demonstrated in this case study, it is this very tight,
programmatic control of the production of stamps that allows them to be “read” against
themselves. While the state may represent the political and social dislocation of the
Indonesian Revolution, UNTEA and the 1960s administration of West Irian or
Reformasi in its stamp imagery, these political uncertainties of these periods are also
apparent in the improvised and ambivalent relationship of these stamps to one another.
Similarly, the more exploratory stamp issues in the years since the fall of the New Order
present themselves as discontinuities in the stamp album, in which the limits of the state
to control and contain change become apparent.
Indonesian postage stamps, like Taman Mini, present the nation in miniature for a
largely domestic audience. Such representations may be the starting point for a (dreamlike) journey of imagination from which the nation may be imagined. This is the clear
intention of the Post Office and the rationale for the precise register and limited
repertoire of their imagery. Such circumspection is intimately connected to the state’s
presumption to cultural and political hegemony, whether writ large in the strategic
132
claims of the security forces, or the cultural programs of the Department of Culture and
Education, or through the more modest efforts of the Indonesian Post Office. The
nation may be evoked through direct or symbolic imagery (as it is for Benjamin’s child),
but the state cannot proscribe the interpretation (and thus the meaning) of such
assertions to its citizens. Nor is the influence of the state uniform, homogeneous or
beyond reproach. As illustrated through its renderings of Papua in stamps, the
Indonesian Post Office reveals itself to be an agency susceptible to the influences of its
past, its institutional peers, its own imperatives and the desires of popular culture.
*****
133
134
‘What a useful thing a pocket-map is!’ I remarked.
‘That’s another thing we’ve learned from your Nation… map-making. But we’ve
carried it much further than you. What do you consider the largest map that would be
really useful?’
‘About six inches to the mile.’
‘Only six inches! … We very soon got to six yards to the mile. Then we tried a
hundred yards to the mile. And then came the grandest idea of all! We actually made a
map of the country, on the scale of a mile to the mile!’
‘Have you used it much?’ I enquired.
‘It has never been spread out, yet… the farmers objected: they said it would cover the
whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the country itself, as its own
map, and I assure you it does nearly as well…’
from Chapter 11
“The Man in the Moon”
(emphasis in original)
Sylvie and Bruno Concluded
Lewis Carroll
1893
135
136
– CHAPTER 4 –
Circumscribing Papua:
tracing maps of the past
circumscribe (v.)– to draw a line round; to encompass with (or as with) a
bounding line, to form the boundary of, to bound … to mark out or lay down
the limits of; to enclose within limits, limit, bound, confine (usually fig.); esp. to
confine within narrow limits, to restrict the free or extended action of, to hem
in, restrain, abridge.
This chapter explores how heterogeneous cartographic representations of ‘Papua’ have
produced, over time, a relatively homogeneous understanding of Papua’s geography
through a process of circumscription. While the borders of Papua were originally
defined by the colonial claims of distant nation-states, the state cannot control the
imaginings of the geography or the conceptual coherence attributed to Papua. The
previous chapter demonstrated how the state is constrained in its capacity to produce
and project unequivocal imagery through the simplest and most regulated of means.
This chapter demonstrates similar limits to the capacity of the state to control the range
of cartographic imagery produced, projected and construed by other stakeholders in
Papua. While representations of Papua through stamps are the exclusive domain of the
Postal Service, maps have been used as explanatory, heuristic and propaganda devices
by a multiplicity of stakeholders in Papua, including explorers associated with scientific
expeditions, regional and national government departments, development agencies,
environmental groups, foreign governments, multilateral agencies, independence
activists, human rights advocates and local community organisations. What is
remarkable, given this diversity of authors and intentions, is the manner in which the
search for political, socio-cultural and physical continuities and discontinuities across
the region has contributed to a cartographic coherence for “Papua”. Paralleling
presumptions of cartographic control by the state are the efforts of its security apparatus
and government agencies to restrict physical access to - and the dissemination of certain
information about - the territory. While such practices were prevalent during the New
Order period they continue today, perpetuating Papuan critiques of development
practices in the province and Papuan challenges to Indonesian authority. Finally, it is
137
observed that the state narratives of the past can themselves pose a challenge to state
authority and initiatives in the present.
Surveying the field
Figure 4-1: “Novae Guineae: Forma en Situs”
(Chart produced by de Jode in 1593, detail)
Maps and mapping exercises in Papua hold considerable mystique, as they did more
than three centuries ago when “New Guinea: Shape and Situation” (Figure 4-1) was first
published, replete with sirens and sea monsters. The popular mystique associated today
with maps of Papua is no longer attributable to superstition or the perils of open-ocean
voyaging. The modern mythology of map-making is due, in part, to a widespread lack
of map literacy and the enduring impression that cartography is the preserve of a
specialised and technically proficient elite. In Papua, this perception is also fuelled by a
history of cartographic secrecy, frustrated ambition and control.
Knowledge of – and access to – the archipelago and its maps was tightly restricted for
the first few centuries of European engagement with the region because of Papua’s
proximity to the fabled ‘Spice Islands’. Portuguese colonial authorities and, later,
agents of the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC)
sought to maintain monopoly control over the location and access to the ‘Spice Islands’
since the fifteenth century (see Heeres 1913; Forrest 1969:8). This situation eased
considerably following the collapse of the VOC, the subsequent British Interregnum
(1811-1816) and the establishment of Dutch colonial governance across the archipelago.
138
The transition from Dutch corporate to Dutch state authority in the East Indies helped
open these islands to foreign explorers and naturalists, eager to share their discoveries in
the archipelago and the ‘South Seas’ (Oceania) with a broad domestic and international
audience. The preoccupations of the Dutch colonial government with events such as
their 1828 claim to West New Guinea (van der Veur 1966b:2-3), spurred expeditions,
which contributed to the knowledge and awareness among Dutch colonial officials of
the territory.1 Dutch attention again turned briefly to West New Guinea with the
conclusion of an agreement between the imperial powers of The Netherlands, Britain
and Germany over New Guinea’s colonial boundaries in 1884/85 (van der Veur
1966a:10-17). It was, however, events in the East Indies colony itself that would
eventually direct colonial resources to the mapping of West New Guinea.
By 1900, impelled by a new ‘Ethical Policy’ doctrine (van der Eng 2004), the Dutch
government was eager to present itself as a benevolent and assiduous administrator of
the East Indies. A part of this process involved crafting policy for its easternmost
possession in New Guinea, but information on the region was scant. In 1906,
Hendrikus Colijn, personal aide-de-camp to the Indies Governor, van Heutsz, initiated a
program of military expeditions in Netherlands New Guinea which would last from
1907 until 1915 (Overweel 1998). These efforts were complemented by other privately
funded exploration (see Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap 1908),
but all of these explorations were heavily focused on mapping the territory and its vast
interior.2 Books and articles related to these endeavors were published in relatively
large print runs either as monographs or in Dutch academic journals and were
frequently accompanied by detailed maps (see Verslag 1920; Nova Guinea 19031936).3 Dutch Admiralty charts were also widely available to assist local and foreign
vessels to navigate the waters of the archipelago. Such cartographic efforts in the East
Indies colony reached their zenith with the publication of The Atlas of Tropical
Netherlands (1938), arguably the most ambitious atlas of its day in the world in both
1
For a comprehensive history of expeditions to Dutch New Guinea to the early 1880s and a polemic to
legitimate continued Dutch authority over the region see Haga (1884).
2
Since its establishment in 1809, mapping in The Netherlands East Indies was the responsibility of the
military (Corp of Engineers). Ormeling (2003:6) notes that the high number of casualties among Dutch
troops in the Java War (1825-30) provided the impetus for colonial government to significantly expand
its mapping operations in the inner islands of the archipelago.
3
For a list of the Nova Guinea series and facsimile copies of some of these publications, see Papuaweb
(http://www.papuaweb.org/dlib/nova-guinea/index.html).
139
scope and detail. All publications in this period were available without restriction to an
international readership (although many were written in Dutch). The Pacific War in the
East Indies (January 1942 – August 1945) and the Indonesian Revolution (August 1945
– December 1949) derailed this effort across much of the East Indies, but momentum
for enhanced topographic and administrative mapping in Netherlands New Guinea grew
from 1950.4 By the early 1960s, an extensive topographic survey program had resulted
in the publication of a staggering 200 of the 300 planned maps at 1:100,000 scale for the
colony (Figure 4-2).5 This, and other Dutch initiatives to extend administrative
knowledge and capacity in the territory, ended as abruptly as Dutch sovereignty over the
territory in September 1962.6
Figure 4-2: “Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea” 1:100,000 map index
(van Baal, et al. 1984:6)
By the early- to mid-1960s, the Indonesian takeover of Papua, and the rise of Suharto as
the Republic’s second President, brought tight new restrictions on access to maps of
Papua and to the financial and technical resources required to produce them (see
Chapter 3). The New Order regime not only restricted access within Indonesia to
spatial information but also sought to restrict access to much of the existing
4
Some of this cartographic knowledge and the connections between the overseas colonies of The
Netherlands is presented for children in Eggink’s (1956) School Atlas for Netherlands New Guinea.
5
The residual 100 maps not published in this series were in a late draft stage when the Dutch ceded
NLNG to Indonesia (May 1963). These map drafts are held in the archives of the old Topographische
Dienst in Delft (see http://www.ncg.knaw.nl).
6
The only attempt to compile a comprehensive list of maps of Papua (i.e. the western half of the island of
New Guinea) was completed in 1953 by The Netherlands Government (see Netherlands. Departement
van Overzeese Rijksdelen 1953).
140
cartographic knowledge of Papua. Similar arrangements were secured with Australia
through an extensive border survey in the late 1960s conducted as a joint military
exercise. The framework for this survey enabled the Indonesian military to assume de
facto authority over topographic mapping in Papua. The presence of armed insurgent
groups in Papua throughout the 1960s helped to further legitimate government and
military restrictions over access to spatial information about the territory.
Military restrictions on the circulation of – and access to – high quality spatial data on
Papua have always been of limited efficacy. The stated objective of removing maps
which might be of strategic value to independence movements was never credible given
the intimate knowledge of local terrain possessed by guerrilla forces. Moreover, for
decades this policy has been at odds with ongoing efforts by other Indonesian
government agencies to strengthen mapping of the region for jurisdictional (sub-district,
district, provincial and national administrations), cadastral (land registration for
taxation) and statistical purposes. Central government efforts to engage the financial
and technical assistance of bilateral and multilateral agencies in collaborative
development initiatives have also frequently frustrated military restrictions on access to
spatial data in the province through The Fund for the Development of West Irian in the
late 1960s and early 1970s (FUNDWI 1968, 1974) and a raft of programs since the mid1980s dealing with transmigration (Indonesia. RePPProT 1990; World Bank 1988),
development (Lavalin International 1988a, 1988b), environmental management and
conservation (Petocz 1984) and the Department of Forestry’s nomination of the Lorentz
National Park to the World Heritage Committee (Indonesia. DirJen PHPA 1998). Such
international cooperative programs have all necessitated the creation of a range of maps
for infrastructure development, (re)settlement, resource concessions, conservation and
biogeographical research. The proliferation of government agencies requiring detailed
spatial information and the ongoing engagement of international consultants and
multilateral agencies in such efforts has resulted in the circulation of detailed maps of
Irian within Indonesia and abroad. However, many of these maps remain difficult to
access without close links to key government departments, consulting groups or
resource companies, or foreign bi-lateral and multilateral aid agencies, effectively
restricting public access to much of this data.
141
In the post-Suharto era many government departments have taken very deliberate steps
to increase public access to information. However, access to existing maps and spatial
data held by the state remains problematic. While some state institutions now have
maps and other spatial data freely available via their websites or for purchase from
departmental shop fronts and offices, much of this is relatively low grade spatial
information.7 Other repositories of high quality spatial data in Papua, such as
concessionaires like Freeport Indonesia or BP Indonesia, gain commercial advantage
from restricting access to competitors, government and the general public – especially
when their mapping projects may relate directly to land claims by local communities.
For these reasons, and because many stakeholders seem content to adapt existing maps
and use them for impressionistic purposes only, most maps related to Papua that are in
the public domain are low resolution and contain only rudimentary spatial data. While
some of these maps are little more than logo maps of Papua (see Chapter 3), others
denote administrative boundaries at a national, provincial or district (kabupaten) level
and include major towns, sites of (tourist) interest, occasional rivers and spot elevations.
The National Mapping Agency (Badan Koordinasi Survei dan Pemetaan Nasional,
Bakosurtanal) has plans to produce a map series for Papua at a scale of 1:50,000
(Indonesia. Bakosurtanal 2003:11-12), but as yet this project has not been completed
and, based on past practices, it seems unlikely these maps will be available to the
public. While access to high-quality spatial data in post-Suharto Indonesia is
improving, access still typically relies on informal (and business) networks8 or formal
collaborative projects and the use of such data often remains subject to significant
restrictions (see Appendix 4). This poses considerable challenges for local and foreign
researchers, development agencies, NGOs and some entrepreneurs, all of whom may
desire access to spatial data for a variety of cartographic applications.
To date there are no substantive studies of the history of mapping modern Indonesia.
This contrasts starkly with centuries of intellectual endeavors to document the discovery
and early mapping of the South Seas, including Australia, the Indonesian archipelago
7
Virtually no maps or spatial data publically available through these agencies is geo-referenced (i.e. is
identified by its longitude and latitude coordinates).
8
For example, members of the “Indigenous Forest Producers Network” I have met in Papua and
discussed map access with have no problem obtaining relatively high resolution (1:100,000) maps of
Papua from the Department of Forestry to denote their concessions, for dispute resolution and to direct
their work crews.
142
and New Guinea.9 Such a project would not aim to map history, which has been done
admirably by Cribb (2000 and 2006) and with varying success by others, but to
historicise recent maps and mappings of the archipelago.10 The most recent
contemporary research in this field is the introductory essay by Ormeling (2003) to the
Grote Atlas van Nederlands Oost-Indië (Asia Maior/KNAG 2004).11 The Great Atlas of
the Dutch East Indies is a cartographic retrospective of the Royal Dutch Geographical
Society (Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap or KNAG), The
Netherlands Topographic Service (Nederlands Topografisch Dienst) and other
miscellaneous institutions involved in mapping the East Indies prior to Indonesian
Independence.12 It is a beautifully produced atlas with almost 500 pages of stunning
full-colour plates, including faithful reproductions of almost all of the East Indies plates
from the 1938 Atlas of the Tropical Netherlands. Yet while the Great Atlas of the
Dutch East Indies is a fitting tribute to Dutch cartographic ambition in the East Indies,
its detailed historical accounts do little to explore the impressions that such cartographic
imagery may have had either on the peoples of the East Indies or on its colonial
administration.13
9
See, among others: Burney (1803-1817); Kops (1852); Haga’s two-volume history of New Guinea
(Haga 1884) and Smeele’s (1987) critique of the polemic behind Haga’s history; Markham’s short article
and extensive bibliography (Markham 1884); and Wichmann’s amply illustrated two-volume history of
European discovery in New Guinea (Wichmann 1909; 1910 and 1912). More recent publications include
The Spanish Lake, the first in Spate’s acclaimed three volume “History of the Pacific since Magellan”
(Spate 1979) and Suarez’s lavishly illustrated Early Mapping of the Pacific and Early Mapping of
Southeast Asia (Suarez 2004 and Suarez 1999 respectively).
10
Most important among these with respect to history in Netherlands New Guinea/Irian Jaya/Papua are
the works of Yamin (1956a) and the Historical Atlas of the Province of Irian Jaya (Indonesia. Depdikbud
1990) for its formulaic and crude gloss of Irian’s history (this is reproduced in full in the map appendix).
For a useful general discussion on historical atlases of Indonesia and the region, see Cribb (2000: 1-8).
11
The most useful overview of cartography in Netherlands New Guinea is Kint, et al. (1954). Although
exceedingly brief, the “Mapping Indonesia” section from Webster’s exemplary M.A. thesis is also worthy
of note (Webster 1999:7-8, Papuaweb pagination).
12
The Atlas includes maps and a discussion on the South West Pacific Area mapping during WWII (van
Diessen and Voskuil 2003) discussed in a later section of this chapter.
13
This is not to say that there was no cartographic imagination in the Dutch East Indies, merely to
observe that little has been written about this (beyond the references already cited). The familiar phrase
Gordel van Smaragd or Necklace of Emeralds (coined by Multatuli 1860:194) is a colonial era example
of the way cartographic knowledge assumed a popular imaginary.
143
Figure 4-3: Collingridge’s Bird of New Guinea (1906)
(Collingridge 1906:42)
De Jode’s “Nova Guinea…” (Figure 4-1) evokes a sense of apprehension and wonder at
the world that might have inspired exploration. Similarly, Collingridge (Collingridge
1906:42) suggests:
Had the Portuguese and Spanish known the map of New Guinea as we know it
nowadays they would, no doubt, have described it as a Guinea fowl, Bird of
Paradise or some such creature, as delineated above, in the same way as they
described Java and other islands in these seas… Celebes was likened to a
spider, Ceram to a caterpillar.
Such cartographic imagination may well have been fuelled by myths of legless Birds of
Paradise that “never alight but float in the air until they die and fall to earth”
(Massimiliano Transilvano, 1523 in Frith and Beehler 1998:30). “Collingridge’s Bird
of New Guinea” (Figure 4-3) appears to take the form of a Crowned Pigeon (see
Chapter 3) and is an excellent example of how cartographic knowledge can contribute
to a cartographic imaginary. This chapter considers a range of maps related to Papua
with particular interest in the depiction of the relationships of people to space and place.
Anderson’s logo-maps (see Chapter 3) are crucial to an understanding of the
circumscription of Papua, as are other popular impressions of New Guinea which have
accreted over time.14
14
This imagination is neatly captured by Shapiro (1944:10):
And Children learned a land shaped like a bird,
Impenetrable black. Here savages
Made shrunken heads of corpses, poison darts
Pricked sudden death, no man had crossed their hills.
It fell from Asia, severed from the East;
It was the last Unknown. Only the fringe
Was nervous to the touch of voyagers.
144
Papua, a natural history?
A small selection of maps is sufficient to illustrate key themes in the cartographic
history of Papua. The first is the legacy of early European exploration and the “science”
of mapping the lands and peoples of the region. In the pages that follow, the historical
significance of these foundations are considered briefly for their contribution to a
natural history of Papua – processes of naturalising Papua as a cartographic imaginary
and geographic entity.
Figure 4-4: “Nova Ginea” (Torres 1606)
Papua New Guinea “National Heritage” stamp issue (1970)
The successful passage of Luis Váez de Torres through the waters between Australia
and New Guinea in 1606 suggests an auspicious year to begin a natural history of
Papua. The Papua New Guinea National Heritage stamp issue of 1970 featured the
Torres map of “New Guinea” (Figure 4-4), although it made no reference to his claim of
New Guinea for the Spanish Crown (van der Veur 1966a:6) Although boldly proposed
in Mercator’s 1569 Map of the World (Figure 4-12) Torres’s discovery of a passage
through the “Torres Strait” was conclusive proof that New Guinea was an island in a sea
of islands and not part of The Great Southern Land (Terra Australis). Insularity
appealed then, as now, to cartographic aesthetics and conceptual frameworks which
seek the delineation of clear, natural boundaries (see Lewis and Wigen 1997). In this
way, their island afforded the peoples of New Guinea a conceptual congruence upon
which most subsequent explorers, naturalists and cartographers would build their
models of the human and physical world. Stanislao Stucchi was not one of these men.
145
Figure 4-5: “Oceanica o quinta parte del mondo” (Stucchi 1830)
(Grande Atlante Universale, Plate No.7, detail)
Stucchi’s “Oceania, the fifth part of the world” (Figure 4-5)15 is an example of the early
preoccupation among European explorers and cartographers with racial and cultural
types (classifications). The purpose of the lines that converge on the northern Bird’s
Head of New Guinea and appear to exit from the southwest of the bird’s foot is unclear
in this map detail (see the ‘bird’ in Figure 4-3). The entire plate (see Appendix 4,
Figure 4-5) makes it apparent that these lines delineate the culture regions of
Archipelagic Asia (Arcipelagio D’Asia) to the west of New Guinea, Polynesia to the
east of the convergent lines on the Bird’s Head and to the east of the line in the south,
and Australasia to the south of New Guinea. Archipelagic Asia and Polynesia are
bounded regions, but again this portion of the map is out of frame in this detail. A note
in the bottom right-hand corner of the map indicates that it was prepared from the
“recent travels of Mr. Krusenstern, Kotzebue, Bellingshausen, King, Freycinet and
Duperrey, etc, and from the discoveries made by various ships of commerce of several
nations,” all brought together by Stucchi’s cartographic hand.
Stucchi appears to have understood mainland New Guinea as a key to the cultural zones
of the region. Presumably the boundaries that converge at the top of the Bird’s Head16
15
Oceania at this time might more accurately be translated as “the Southern Seas”. Although Douglas
(2003:3) attributes this phrase to “the French littérateur Charles de Brosses [who in 1856] had proposed
that the still ‘unknown southern world’ be regarded as the ‘fifth part of the globe’” this characterisation
was apparent decades earlier in the Italian speaking world.
16
In the region of Tanjung Jamursba (Kaap de Goede Hoop). It is even conceivable that, with this
landfall, Stucchi was recognising the Dutch claim of 1828 (Van Delden Proclaimation) which extended
from the 141st parallel west to the Cape of Good Hope (see van der Veur 1966b:2-3).
146
mark a landfall reported in at least one of the explorer journals17 he consulted to
construct these cultural zones. The remarkable consequence of running a boundary
aground in this way is the ambiguity it creates about where the line goes once it hits
land. Comparable maps of the period typically sought to circumscribe entire islands
rather than be responsible for an untidy and indeterminate border.18 Indeed the
cartographic logic of Stucchi’s delineations between Insular Asia and Polynesia in the
north and Insular Asia and Australasia in the south made it possible for the entire island
of New Guinea to become a cultural boundary. This appears to be a radical departure
from the cartographic conventions of the day.19 If the boundary was to be understood as
the west coast of mainland New Guinea, this intention would have been indicated by the
continuation of the red line (border), tracing the western coast from north to south. We
might reasonably conclude that Stucchi’s decision to leave the cultural boundary
indeterminate resulted from his reading of the available evidence which suggested a
porous boundary between mainland New Guinea and the cultural regions of Insular
Asia, Australasia and Polynesia. It may also be that Stucchi lacked the confidence to
chart a course through the “maze of islands” (labirinto d’Isole) to the west of New
Guinea and so opted for a land boundary to avoid the islands completely.
Stucchi lacked the acclaim of a renowned explorer. He relied, instead, on the journals
of explorers from Russia, Germany, France, Britain and elsewhere for his authority.
Only a few years later, a highly celebrated and respected explorer presented a vision of
17
Of the explorers he mentions in his note on sources, Freycinet and Duperrey are the most likely sources
for this boundary on the north of the Bird’s Head. Both voyaged through this region in 1818-1819 and
1823-1824 respectively. Duperrey made landfall at both Waigeo Island (west of the Bird’s Head) and
Dore Bay (at modern day Manokwari). It is even conceivable that Stucchi took Duperrey’s observations
of the differences between the natives at Waigeo and Dore and on the strength of such accounts decided
that a transition point existed somewhere between the two. The point at which his cultural boundary
makes landfall is (at the scale of this map) roughly equidistant between the two harbours of Waigeo
Island and Dore Bay. For the southern boundary, Freycinet, Duperrey and King (1819) all passed
through the Torres Strait, passing the island of Dolok (see earlier footnote on nomenclature). Of course,
it is possible that none of the explorers mentioned in the note were the principal source for Stucchi’s
decision to resolve cultural boundaries in this way, but I am making the assumption that he has named his
most important sources. The expeditions of Krusenstern, Kotzebue and Bellingshausen were focused on
islands to the east of New Guinea (or the Antarctic).
18
For example see the contemporaneous map by De Rienzi, delivered in a paper to the Geographical
Society in Paris in 1831 (Ward 1999:3) published 1836 in Océanie, ou Cinquième Partie du Monde,
Vol.2, Firmin Didot Frères, Paris (1836) and those who followed his delineations in their interpretation of
Melanesia such as Duvotenay Melanesié: d’après les circonscriptions ajoutées par M. de Rienzi (1850,
online at http://www.nla.gov.au/apps/cdview?pi=nla.map-t1487-e).
19
I am unaware of any earlier (or later) map that allows the coast, or the possibility of the interior of New
Guinea to define a cultural boundary at the scale of that of Polynesia, Australasia, or insular/Asia.
147
Oceania that eclipsed Stucchi and all preceding explorers and cartographers of the
region.
Figure 4-6: “Carte pour l’intelligence du mémoire de M. le Capitaine D’Urville sur les
îsles du Grand Océan”
(Dumont D’Urville 1833, detail)
In 1833, Dumont D’Urville’s “Chart for the intelligence of the report of Captain D’
Urville on the islands of the Great Ocean” (Figure 4-6) was published in his magisterial
Atlas Historique (1833). His definition of Melanesia incorporated the entire island of
New Guinea, dividing Papua from “insular Asia.” Accompanied by an extensive
published narrative and lavishly illustrated, this atlas solidified Dumont D’Urville’s
reputation as one of the leading maritime explorers of his age, despite his prejudice.
According to Dumont D’Urville (quoted in Thomas 1989:30):
These blacks are almost always grouped in very fragile tribes, the chiefs of
which exercise arbitrary power, often in a manner as tyrannical as that of many
petty African despots. More degraded towards the state of barbarism than the
Polynesians or Micronesians, one encounters neither a form of government nor
laws nor established religious ceremonies amongst them. All their institutions
appear still to be in their infancy; their dispositions and intelligence are also
generally inferior to those of the tan race.
As Douglas observes, his “racial schema contrasted sharply with the fluid,
circumstantial classifications of indigenous Oceanian people proposed by a few 18th
century commentators or the more general absence of systematic discriminations, then
and earlier” (Douglas 2006:3). Dumont D’Urville offered unequivocal distinctions to
the peoples of Oceania as well as the credentials to advance them. His classifications
would “map the racial geography of the region into its modern contours” (Douglas
148
2006:3), regardless of how the peoples of these regions saw themselves and their
relationship to one another. The emergence of biological difference in the conception of
race (and thereby culture) and a growing “scientism” in the representation of
exploration tended to reinforce Dumont D’Urville’s schema for the mapping of the
region. In the decades that followed, reflections on the origin of continents – and of
species – and the antiquity of man (see Chapter 5) would bring fresh scientific impetus
to the consolidation of these racial/ethnic boundaries.
Figure 4-7: “Eastern Archipelago to illustrate Mr. W. Earle’s Paper 1845”
(Earl 1845)
In the early 1840s, George Windsor Earl constructed this map of Southeast Asia and
Australasia based on naval charts (Figure 4-7). His aim was to resolve how kangaroos
might come to be found not only in Australia, but also on the adjacent islands of New
Guinea and Aru. His map was the first attempt to illustrate the presence of two large
and discrete submerged coastal banks, the “Great Asiatic Bank” and the “Great
Australian Bank” (Ballard 1993:17). With this map, Earl proposed a natural connection
across the Great Australian Bank and a rationale for the presence of kangaroos across
this region (Earl 1845). Less than a decade later he was arguing against such a
terrestrial connection on the basis of what he considered to be fundamental differences
between the Papuan race of New Guinea and the Aboriginals of continental Australia.
To reinforce this point, Earl’s The native races of the Indian Archipelago: Papuans
(1853), included several maps of the region in which the boundaries of New Guinea and
Australia, and the submarine connections between the islands he had plotted in his 1845
149
map, were effaced (see Earl 1853: Plates I & II). Earl’s 1853 ethnographic review20
also advanced Crawfurd’s assertion that the “extirpation” of remnant populations of
Papuans in the Spice Islands “is a matter of history” (Crawfurd, quoted in Earl
1853:112).21 In this way, Earl provided a rationale for the consolidation of Papuans in
the far east of the archipelago (i.e. New Guinea)22 and for their separation from
Australian Aboriginals. Yet Earl’s efforts to synthesise a more nuanced understanding
of the peoples of the region were overshadowed by his proposition of two continental
submarine banks, later named Sunda and Sahul,23 which were to prove his most
enduring contribution to his fellow naturalists. The most famous natural scientist in the
East Indies since Rumphius was quick to acknowledge Earl’s “…clue to the most
radical contrast in the archipelago” (Wallace 1869: 7-8).
Alfred Russel Wallace was compelled by a powerful intellect and insatiable curiosity to
consider all manner of problems and patterns before him during his eight years in the
Malay Archipelago. His observations on the marked distinctions between the fauna of
Bali and islands to its west from the birds and animals of Lombok and the eastern
archipelago intrigued him. On 3 November 1859, Charles Darwin presented a paper on
behalf of Wallace to the Linnean Society titled, proposing the existence of a clear
zoological division in the archipelago (Wallace 1860)24 – “The Wallace Line”.25 In
20
Earl’s publication was based on his translations of some of the key Dutch texts on New Guinea
(including accounts of the voyage of the Triton, Siewa and Iris in 1828 (Modera 1830) and of the brig of
war Dourga in 1825-1826 (Kolff 1838) as well as recent Dutch historical reviews such as Kops (1852). It
also relied heavily on English expedition narratives, including those of Captain Cook (1770) as well as
Earl’s own brief experiences in the archipelago. The title of his 1853 work, The native races of the
Indian Archipelago: Papuans is, however, somewhat misleading as more than half of its 240 pages are
filled with descriptions of other regional “races” as part of his comparative study. His attempt to map the
“Seats of the Papuan Race in the Indian Archipelago” is, ultimately, the most compelling argument in
support of Dumont D’Urville’s Melanesian typology.
21
Earl (1853:113) continues (regarding the Mountain Papuans) that “it is an error to suppose that these
poor creatures disappear before civilisation. Their chief destroyers are the wild and warlike hunting
tribes of the brown race; and, excepting the case of the Moluccas, wherever European civilisation has
been introduced, the Papuans are more numerous than elsewhere. In the Philippines, for example,
according to an intelligent modern traveller, their number in the year 1842 amounted to 25,000 souls.”
22
Although it should be noted that Earl’s map identifies remnant populations of Papuans (or “Oceanic
Negroids”) in western islands of the Malay Archipelago as well as the Philippine islands. The extensive
region mapped in Earl’s “Seats of the Papuan race in the Indian archipelago” (Earl 1853: Plate VII)
conceptualised a region identified by others as “Papuanesia” (see Ballard “Oceanic Negritos” in press).
23
Ballard (1993:17) notes that Earl’s Great Asiatic Bank and Great Australian Bank were first given the
names Sunda and Sahul Shelves respectively in the 1919 summary report by Molengraaff and Weber of
the Siboga bathymetric survey of 1899-1900.
24
In this paper, he applies his knowledge of the geological theories of Lyell to his observations of the
biogeographical differences across the archipelago, speculating that: “The great Pacific continent, of
which Australia and New Guinea are no doubt fragments, probably existed at a much earlier period, and
150
1864, in a paper read before the Ethnological Society of London, Wallace presented his
ideas on “The Varieties of Man in the Malay Archipelago”, in which he asserted the
presence of another, now forgotten, racially defined “Wallace Line” through the
archipelago (Wallace 1865:211):
If we draw a line, commencing on the eastern side of the Philippine Islands,
thence along the western of Gilolo [Halmahera], through the island of Bouru,
and curving round coast the west end of Flores, then bending back round
Sandalwood Island [Sumba] to take in Rotti, we shall divide the archipelago
into two portions, the races of which have strongly marked distinctive
peculiarities. This line will separate the Malayan and Asiatic from the Papuan
and Pacific races, and though along the line of junction intermigration and
commixture have taken place, yet the division is on the whole almost as well
defined and strongly contrasted as are the corresponding zoological divisions
of the archipelago into an Indo-Malayan and Austro-Malayan region.
Much of this paper found its way into Wallace’s Malay Archipelago (1969) which
contains a highly caricatured and polarised discussion of Malays and Papuans, the “two
very strongly contrasted races [which] inhabit the Archipelago” (1890:446; 446-458,
see also Vetter 2006), as well as an adapted version of Earl’s 1845 map. The enduring
popularity of Wallace’s book and continued reference to his zoological datum line have,
over time, helped to both cement and conflate notions of an archipelago divided along
racial/ethnic and biogeographical/zoological lines as impassive and irrefutable as
‘nature’ itself.
extended as far westward as the Moluccas. The extension of Asia as far to the south and east as the Straits
of Macassar and Lombock must have occurred subsequent to the submergence of both these great
southern continents” (Wallace 1860:178).
25
According to van Oosterzee (1997:36-7) it was Thomas Henry Huxley who first coined the term
“Wallace Line” (for Wallace’s zoological division) in a paper he presented in 1868.
151
Figure 4-8: “The Continents of the world tell their own impassive and irrefutable story”26
(Netherlands Information Bureau c.1956:13)27
The “impassive and irrefutable story” told by The Netherlands Ministry of Information
map (Figure 4-8), benefits enormously from distorting and conflating the legacy of
Dumont D’Urville, Earl, Wallace and others. By playing on the ambiguities of implied
racial/cultural and biophysical boundaries and through its appeal to the sophisticated
science of tectonic theory, this map naturalises difference between (Southeast) Asia and
Australasia. The eye is drawn to either Sunda or Sahul. The scattered islands of the
eastern archipelago and the western Pacific are rendered visually inconsequential by the
graphic style of the map (cf. Earl 1845). What is intended to be clear is the fundamental
and irreconcilable separation between east and west. But the “story” of this map is
detached from the legitimating framework of its scientific origins.
26
This is the caption immediately below the map (included in this image, but not legible at this
resolution). A much larger caption accompanies the map in the original document which states: “The
position of The Netherlands.”
27
This publication is undated, but there are several factors which suggest it was published around 1956.
The KITLV Library catalogue attributes this publication to The Netherlands Information Bureau (NIB) in
New York although the publication itself contains attributes no author or publisher. The NIB publication
relies on photographs that also appeared in the New Guinea Institute’s substantive Vademecum voor
Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea of 1956. The caption featured here was not included in the original
Vademecum version of the map (Nieuw Guinea Instituut 1956:10), but the map is identical in all other
respects. The re-labelling for “Indonesia”, New Guinea” and “Sunda Shelf” and “Sahul Shelf” are all
modifications to the original source map, as is the legend and its key descriptor “continental shelf areas.”
Care has been taken (in the Vademecum original) to ensure that name labels applied to the map do not
obscure the coastlines of the islands (i.e. in places the labels are transparent). Such refinements all create
the impression of competent, albeit straightforward, cartography. The Vademecum map was already
stripped of the bio-geographic and zoologic lines which formed a crucial element of the original map
(van Bemmelen 1949 – see text below and Appendix 4).
152
Appearing around 1956 in a Dutch Foreign Ministry funded publication intended to
situate NLNG outside the former Netherlands East Indies, “the Continents of the
World…” embodies re-authored history and re-authorised cartographic knowledge. The
image was adapted from a map first published in 1949 in van Bemmelen’s The Geology
of Indonesia (van Bemmelen 1949:5). In 1950, a facsimile copy of the map had already
been reproduced in a research report jointly commissioned by the Dutch and Indonesian
governments (at the end of the Round Table talks of November 1949). Its inclusion by
Indonesian researchers of the Joint Committee on New Guinea was an effort to
reinforce their case that West Irian was part of Indonesia.
Figure 4-9: “Map 5”
(Netherlands-Indonesia Committee on New Guinea 1950c:178 Appendix)
The point of view that West Irian should be put apart because the Indonesian
Archipelago or Indonesian territory only comprises parts situated on the Sunda
Shelf, whereas Irian does not lie within the boundary of this area because the
island is located on the Sahul Shelf, is mixed with and full of wrong ideas
which should be put right. A distinction ought to be made between the
geological and geographical basic principles on which the conception
“territory” is founded and the territory, designated by both parties as the
Indonesian territory is i.c. [sic] a territory which includes West Irian. It should
also be clearly understood that the division in Sahul and Sunda territories
includes almost all the areas of the East Asiatic Archipelago as well as the
mainland of Australia, and that these two territories are united by the area in
between, which is enclosed by the Wallace-Weber lines… (NetherlandsIndonesia Committee on New Guinea 1950c:34, emphasis in original).
153
“Map 5” (Figure 4-9) was one of ten maps included by the Indonesian Committee in
their submission to The Netherlands-Indonesia Union. While the above argument is
beguiling and the propaganda value of some of these maps in advancing the Indonesian
claim to New Guinea at times seem spurious (see maps 2, 4 and 6), many of these maps
warrant closer scrutiny. Historian-geographer Professor Muhammad H. Yamin was a
member of the Indonesian Committee that prepared this report and his nationalist
position in this and subsequent works (i.e. Yamin 1956a, 1956b, 1956c), is clearly
evident. However, the Indonesian assertion – “that the two territories are united by the
area in between” (emphasis in original) – raises an inconvenient flaw in the logic of this
and earlier maps that sought to authoritatively classify or delineate difference across the
archipelago. Several decades earlier, the Snellius Expedition (1929/30) to survey the
deep submarine basins in the Banda, Celebes, Sulu and Flores Seas had confirmed the
existence of two separate plates, as earlier theorized by Earl and others, and the
geophysically fragmented character of the islands between Sunda and Sahul (van Riel
1937:79-112). The Expedition also sought to answer the question, “Can a geological
dividing line be drawn between Asia and Australia?” Their conclusion was that such a
geological division was as indeterminable as “a Wallace line” (van Riel 1942:106-108).
Although epistemologically fraught, the Indonesian Committee’s use of “Map 5”
resonated with long-standing critiques of the Wallace Line and the dizzying array of
other efforts to divide the archipelago racially, culturally, biogeographically,
geologically and linguistically (Figure 4-10). As Simpson (1977:107) notes:
... the premise, generally unstated, was that a definite line can and should be
drawn on the map such that all islands on one side would have definitely
Oriental faunas and all on the other side definitely Australian faunas”.
154
Figure 4-10: “Too many lines…”
(Simpson 1977:117)
A review of zoogeographic regions alone reveals the shifting boundaries conceptualised
for the archipelago and its fauna. Wallace’s proposed zoological distinction, later
adapted by eminent scientists such as Thomas Huxley, was also re-constituted as the
region of ‘Wallacea’, a transitional zone between the two plates stretching as far as the
northern Philippines. While some of these characterisations hold heuristic value,
Simpson (1977:116-117) observed that “… the delimitation and characterization of
faunal regions and regional faunas… seems to have become a sort of game… with two
basic, but rarely expressed rules:
1. If reference is to terrestrial faunas, including those of islands, every land area
must be placed definitely in one region or another.
2. The boundaries of such regions must be definite, single lines on a map
where, as Mayr put it, we ‘replace one color by another’.”
Linguists, in their earliest attempts to characterise the languages of New Guinea,
‘played’ by similar rules.
155
Figure 4-11: “Papuan Language Stocks: Western New Guinea Area”
(Wurm and Hattori 1983)
While early classificatory schemas of race/ethnicity and bio/geophysical difference
showed little interest in the ways the peoples of New Guinea understood one another, by
the 1950s concerted research efforts among the peoples of the island began to shift these
boundaries of intellectual inquiry. This resulted in the first comprehensive language
maps of New Guinea, east and west (P&NG Board of Education 1952; Drabbe 1956
respectively). The fine black lines and crisp demarcations of colour on a subsequent
language map convey the sense of clarity and authority that linguists at the Australian
National University sought to attain in their research by the early 1980s (Figure 4-11).
In a decision which can only be a cartographic and aesthetic convenience, the entire
island is covered in colour, as if every inch of the territory is a considered space. We
might reasonably assume that blanks in the linguistic record have been filled with a
language group (a coded colour), or designated as “uninhabited areas” (in grey).
Immediately apparent on this map is the transgression of international borders by the
Trans New Guinea phylum (pale pink on this map). Yet the map itself reinforces earlier
attempts to naturalise a division of New Guinea from the rest of Indonesia. In this
instance, an important reason for this impression is the inclusion of this map in an
“Atlas of Pacific Languages”. West New Guinea is a natural counterpoint for research
focused in neighbouring Papua New Guinea despite the political separation of these
territories. As Uhlenbeck (1971:213) observes:
156
To the outside world Indonesian studies seemed to be a field almost
hermetically closed. I have pointed out... that with respect to scientific
exploration each colonial power kept to its own territory... published the results
of their work in their own language [Dutch], and this made the study of the
literature on the languages of Indonesia into a domain nearly isolated from
foreign interest. An especially harmful result was that the study of the
Indonesian languages became divorced from that of the Oceanic area, in spite
of the fact that the famous Dutch scholar Kern had shown in his work on Fiji
and Aneityum that it was most fruitful for a scholar to look beyond political
boundaries.
While the natural history of Papua is of profound importance in framing contemporary
understandings of Papua in the region, so too is the role of politics. Political factors are
as decisive in determining research pragmatics in New Guinea as they are in defining
the conceptual frameworks for – and character of – socio-economic development in the
region. Recent literature which seeks to bring an epistemological and ethno-geographic
unity to the island of New Guinea, such as Moore’s New Guinea: crossing boundaries
and history (2003), illustrates this point. Moore (2003:ix) laments that:
Two things seem to me to have been very wrong about the way the history of
New Guinea has been written. Almost all of the histories, whether by
archaeologists, linguists, geographers, or historians, divide the island in half,
concentrating on the Dutch-Indonesian west or the German-British-Australian
and now independent east… There is also an intellectual disciplinary divide:
archaeologists usually turn to the ancient past without dealing with the present,
while historians give undue emphasis to the last few hundred years.
Moore’s history of the island of New Guinea’s begins with an overview of Melanesia
before considering New Guinea’s “environment and its peoples.” It then moves into a
discussion of “cultural spheres and trading systems” across the island. By the end of
Chapter Two, a collision of cultural systems (Moore 2003:56) reveals the profound
challenge inherent in any attempt to transcend the politico-cultural divide across the
island that has solidified through differences in pre-colonial worlds and distinct colonial
and post-colonial political and administrative experiences. Chapters Three and Four
deal exclusively with West New Guinea (Moore 2003:57-102) and it is only by
refocusing the historical lens away from politics and towards the progress of Christian
missions in the region that Moore effectively reunites the two ‘halves’ of the island (in
Chapter Five of his book). Politics is as important in shaping perspectives on New
Guinea today as it was when the first Europeans entered the archipelago and the partial
157
circumscription of Papua this established is clearly depicted in Gerhard Mercator’s
“Map of the World in the Year 1569” (Figure 4-12).
Figure 4-12: “Weltkarte vom Jahre 1569”
(Illustration in Wichmann 1909:6)
Mercator’s revolutionary map, posthumously published in 1569, was the first to use a
conformal projection of the world. The detail (Figure 4-12) reproduces these ‘waxing’
latitudes as two arcs which divide New Guinea from the Indonesian archipelago.28
These correspond to the spheres of Portuguese and Spanish influence set down in 1494
by Pope Alexander VI in his Treaty of Tordesillas (echoed centuries later in the
structure of the Catholic Church in Papua, see Chapter 5 and Appendix 5). Although
many of the “natural” divisions discussed in the preceding pages echoed this division,
the cartographic convention and the pronouncement that underpinned it was made with
little regard for (or knowledge of) the archipelago. It was, in essence, the first attempt
to exert European authority over the region and it was a decision taken with the express
purpose of maintaining peace in Europe between the two great maritime rivals of the
age (Spate 1979).
28
Wichmann notes the common attribution of this name to the claim by Yñigo Ortez de Retes to the
island for the Spanish Crown in 1545 and that the name first appeared in print as “Nova Guinea” on
Mercator’s world map of 1569 (Wichmann 1909:24, footnote 4).
158
Second nature: “knowing” boundaries and territories
Figure 4-13: “An old Papuan examines the portrait of H.R.H. Princess Beatrix”
(Brongersma and Venema 1962: inset pp.220-221)
Boundaries, regulations, procedures and practices of government that once seemed
foreign may, in time, become second nature. This theme is explored and illustrated in
the following examples which all, in various ways, signal measures undertaken to assert
political control over the territory and the peoples of Papua. According to van der Veur
(1966a:4):
Whenever a particular administration or missionary organisation established
itself more or less effectively in a frontier region it naturally placed its stamp
on the type of village organisation, schooling, brand of Christianity, and lingua
franca. The boundary, therefore, served as an important cultural barrier.
In “an old Papuan…” (Figure 4-13), a subject from the Ok tribal group in the Star
Mountains appears bemused by a portrait of his Princess, Beatrix of Netherlands New
Guinea (sic). This photograph was taken by Leo Brongersma on the last great
expedition into the interior of Dutch New Guinea in 1960, to the un-administered
exploration region of the Eastern Highlands (exploratieressorten Oost Bergland). The
juxtaposition of cultures and the novelty of the arrival of the Dutch monarch into this
man’s world is neatly encapsulated by this image. It speaks of a liminal colonial
presence throughout much of the central and eastern highlands of Netherlands New
Guinea, and is suggestive of the quite different modes of community and governance
159
that pre-existed European or Indonesian nationalist interest in – and creeping authority
over – West New Guinea.
Van der Veur (1966a) reviews the litany of failed and successful annexations of New
Guinea by European settlers and administrators and the background to border
agreements that today define the island’s political geography. These claims varied from
the fanciful to the improbable, such as the demand in 1826 by Pieter Merkus, then
Governor of the Moluccas, that the Sultan of Tidore assert his “possession” of the whole
island of New Guinea (van der Veur 1996b:4-9). Merkus intended this assertion to put
an end to the uncertainty of colonial control of New Guinea, but this was a forlorn hope.
While the Dutch could force the Sultan to assert their desire for colonial control, neither
the Dutch, nor the Sultanate were in a position to impose effective control over more
than a small portion of New Guinea’s coast. The arrival of the corvette Triton in what
was to become Triton Bay, the construction of Fort Du Bus (Modera 1830) and the Van
Delden Declaration of August 1828, made “without prejudice… to the rights which the
Sultan of Tidore may have” (van der Veur 1966b:2), which established the Dutch claim
to the island of New Guinea west of the 141st meridian. Less than a decade later, in
1835, the Dutch abandoned Fort Du Bus (Overweel 2002) and would not have a
permanent government presence again in the territory until the end of the nineteenth
century (1898 in Merauke, see Chapter 5).
The nominal Dutch control over New Guinea throughout the nineteenth century
reflected the limits of commercial and bureaucratic interests in the territory as well as
imperatives elsewhere in the East Indies. Nonetheless, the Dutch government retained
New Guinea west of the 141st parallel, eventually securing their possession through
agreements with Britain (Erskine Proclamation of 1884) and Germany (Schutzbrief of
1885), the two other colonial powers with a stake in the island (van der Veur 1996b:1017). The General Act of the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 (Kongokonferenz or Congo
Conference) established the imperative and framework for these agreements which, in
time, would necessitate more precise demarcation of colonial boundaries.
160
Figure 4-14: Fly River boundary (1895)
(after van der Veur 1966a:69)
In 1895, precipitated by years of British complaints at cross border raiding by the
Marind (Tugeri) peoples of Dutch New Guinea (see van der Veur 1966a:62-74), the
British and Dutch signed a new agreement. The 1895 Convention sought to re-aligned
significant sections of the existing border along the 141st meridian to accommodate
natural features in the landscape, including a bend in the Fly River (Figure 4-14). This
inclusion is apparent on even the crudest maps of modern Papua and Papua New
Guinea. Part of this agreement, imperceptible on most maps of the region, was a 3km
shift in the border to the east (141°01’47.9” E), below the Fly River boundary (indicated
in red on Figure 4-14). This made it possible for the southern terrestrial border to be
delineated by the mouth of the Bensbach River, a more obvious and identifiable marker
for indigenous populations, local officials and distant administrators alike (van der Veur
1966a:65).29 This brought parity in the territory the two colonial powers ceded to one
another through the new border arrangement. The relative success of the 1895
Convention in the southern borderlands and the imperative to clarify the northern
boundaries of their New Guinea colony, soon led to a new Dutch initiative with
29
Article 1 of the 1895 Convention states that “The boundary between the British and Netherlands
possessions in New Guinea starts from the southern coast of the said island at the middle of the mouth of
the Bensbach River, situated at about 141°1’47.9” of east longitude (meridian of Greenwich)” (van der
Veur 1966b:108).
161
Germany. A report from a meeting The Hague in September 1909 outlined the intended
approach by the two parties:30
The purpose of the border survey will be the making of reconnaissance
journeys in The Netherlands-German border area of New Guinea at the 141st
meridian east of Greenwich and the mapping of the explored terrain in such a
way that it will permit the indication of a natural boundary between the
territories of the two powers.
Figure 4-15: “Kaart III, Overzicht van het Grensgebied”
(Uittreksel 1912, proposed Dutch boundary in red, added by author)
“Map 3, Survey of the Borderland” (Figure 4-15) delineates a northern “natural” border
between Papua and Papua New Guinea. This border proposal appeared in a secret
report submitted to The Netherlands government by the Dutch members of the joint
border survey group in 1911 (van der Veur 1966b:154). The secret report also detailed
the economic impacts, particularly related to the trade in bird of paradise, which might
result from the adoption of this proposal. Public versions of this survey work, published
as excerpts in 1912 (Uittreksel 1912) and in full in 1914, included a variety of new
information on the peoples and terrain of the northern border areas, but included no
recommendations on boundary re-alignments (van der Veur 1966a:78). The outbreak of
World War One, the swift occupation of German New Guinea by Australian forces, and
the subsequent Australian trusteeship over (German) New Guinea transformed the
political context for the 1910 survey completely. This proposed border across northcentral New Guinea traced known natural features of the landscape. It remained
30
(Verslag van de op 21 en 22 September 1909 Gehouden Besprekingen Nopens de Voorbereiding van de
Nederlandsch-Duitsche Grensregeling op Nieuw-Guinea, quotedin van der Veur 1966a:75, emphasis in
original conference report).
162
classified for decades and is virtually unthinkable today. For more than 50 years the
PNG village of Wutung (with its border marker and beacon tower) has been recognised
by coastal travellers from the east and the west as the boundary between two nations.
Similarly, inland border crossers can readily identify the border between Indonesia and
Papua New Guinea. It is the checkpoint at which they are required to carry their
Traditional Border Crosser (TBC)31 cards or similar photographic ID (passport or
licence) to complete the journey between Jayapura (Sko, Arso or other villages in
Papua) and Vanimo in PNG.32 Recognition of borders and authority is as vital for an
effective, functioning modern state as it was for the Dutch East India Company, who
recognised that (van der Veur 1966a:7):
Living possessors are better and stronger witnesses for a continued and
immediate possession than dead stones and monuments.
Figure 4-16: “Plaquette, de Indonesische archipel, met op de plaats van Deli een saffier”
(Wassing-Visser 1995:247)
Tuanku Amaroedin Sani Perkasa Alamsjah was in no doubt of his possessions.
Guaranteed continued dominion over his traditional lands and subjects as a proxy of the
31
Various treaties and agreements between Indonesia and Papua New Guinea have guaranteed traditional
inhabitants of the border region the right to travel across the border as well as granted access to
traditional lands and waters for these communities (see Wolfers 1988; 1973 p.145 articles 3 and 4; 1979
p.152 articles 4 and 5; 1980 p.140 article 5; 1984 p.164 articles 4 and 5).
32
This is not to trivialise the importance of border crossings elsewhere along the more than 700km
terrestrial boundary between these two nations, nor overlook the crucial role Papua New Guinea has
played as a political sanctuary for refugees fleeing state violence and recriminations in Papua over more
than 4 decades (e.g. Zocca 1995, 2000; Glazebrook 2004b).
163
Dutch, he was a “living possessor” and a “strong witness for a continued and immediate
possession” of a Papuan presence in an Indonesian past.
On the occasion of Queen Wilhelmina’s 40th Jubilee (1938) her envoy in Batavia
received a “Small Plaque of the Indonesian Archipelago with a sapphire to mark the
location of Deli” (Figure 4-16). It was a gift from Tuanku Alamsjah, the Sultan of Deli
in the region of modern day Medan in Sumatra (Wassing-Visser 1995:245-246). The
plaque depicts the Indonesian archipelago in a logo-style relief map of silver. Attached
to the map is the Dutch Royal Family: Queen Emma (the wife of William II and mother
to Wilhelmina), Princess Juliana, Queen Wilhelmina (centre in gold), Prince Hendrik
and Prince Bernhard. The coat of arms of the house of Orange is featured prominently
in gold. Framing the map are enamel tiles featuring the major export products of the
archipelago, hanging together like medals, by a flowing Dutch ribbon (enamel tiles)
painted in the colours of the national flag. Below the map, and immediately below the
coat of arms of the Dutch Royal Family is the crest of the Sultan of Deli. A framing
shield, surrounded by an array of spears, swords, daggers, with an inscription in Arabic
below and a crown of his own above.
The Sultan reputedly designed the plaque himself (Wassing-Visser 1995:245) and it
appears clear that he considered the East Indies to be unified, at least from Deli to
Merauke, even if under a Dutch monarch. His clear presence in frame asserts not only
that suzerainty, but also his authority and enduring Sultanate. While this plaque speaks
of a pragmatic accommodation of authority, it also depicts continuities with the past. In
this respect, such imagery provides a firm basis for the nationalist narratives of authors
like Pramoedya Ananta Toer and historians like Mohammad Yamin who wrote for a
new generation of East Indies “natives” – in the aftermath of cataclysmic change.
A year after Queen Wilhelmina’s envoy received this plaque, The Netherlands was
drawn into a Second World War in Europe. By December 1941, Japanese Imperial
forces brought the war to the Pacific and by February 1942 almost the entire Dutch East
Indies colony was occupied. Only Merauke and its hinterland, a small corner of
164
southeast New Guinea, remained under Dutch control.33 It was defended by Dutch and
Australian forces and sustained by significant Allied land, air and sea power positioned
in neighbouring Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Arafura Sea. It was also
supported by a concerted Allied intelligence network which would prove invaluable in
repelling the Japanese advance and reclaiming Allied territories. Key to this
intelligence effort was the consolidation of masses of cartographic material, aerial
photographs and other valuable information on the region and its peoples.
Figure 4-17: “If only there could be some kind of machine…”
AGS Souvenir Book (n.d.:18)
The Allied Geographical Section (AGS or “The Section”) was a key intelligence
resource for the Allies in the Pacific War (Figure 4-17).34 It was formed in July 1942
following the swift advance by Japanese forces through much of Southeast Asia, The
Netherlands East Indies and a host of Pacific islands. Of immediate concern at the time
was the need to address “the paucity of [even] basic geographic intelligence regarding
the land and sea approaches to the north of Australia” (Bowd 2005:11). The Section’s
main purpose, however, was “to establish a unique organisation, exclusively devoted to
the collection and collation of information of geographical significance to tactical
33
For a map providing an overview of the Pacific conflict in West New Guinea, see Cribb (2000:152).
The Allies in this region of the Pacific Theatre included United States, British, Australian, New
Zealand, Dutch forces and locally engaged “native” peoples.
34
165
planning” (Bowd 2005:12).35 From its modest beginnings,36 the Terrain Studies of The
Section quickly emerged as the most authoritative source of field intelligence reports for
forces engaged in the Pacific Theatre.37 It achieved this by the rapid mobilisation of all
available expertise to assist the war effort.
In March 1942, F.E. Williams was tasked at The Section to compile maps of New
Guinea and to construct a “structural template for geographical studies” (Bowd
2005:13). The directive for this work stated that (Bowd 2005:12):
…one officer [be set] onto the task of collecting all information about the
islands to the north of Australia: 1. New Guinea: Divide between Dutch and
our [Australian] mandate. 2. Timor….
Although Williams is better known as a pioneering government anthropologist in
Australian Papua (from 1922-1939),38 his basic framework would define the work of
The Section for the duration of the war. What is apparent from the reports of The
Section as well as the only significant review of its activities (Bowd 2005) is the extent
to which pre-existing colonial boundaries determined and defined both the gathering
and structuring of intelligence information.
In September 1942, Williams was joined by Lt. Commander Frits Wissel, the first
Dutch appointee to The Section. Wissel was an accomplished naval aviator who in
35
The Section was a substantial concern with several hundred staff constantly challenged to meet
seemingly impossible deadlines and constraints (Bowd 2005). Operating within a highly classified
environment, The Section nevertheless solicited intelligence from all available sources. Past expedition
reports were utilised together with terrestrial maps and maritime charts of the region from Dutch,
Australian, British and US military and civilian agencies. These were collated by skilled cartographers
and augmented with the personal accounts and descriptions of explorers, missionaries and administrators
with experience in the regions of study. All information used by The Section had to come from
secondary sources and recent reconnaissance flights as all areas studied by The Section were in enemy
hands.
36
See, for example, the AGS Terrain Study No.2 on Babo, Dutch New Guinea. This report consisted of a
few typed pages and several low quality sketch maps of buildings in the compound of the Dutch New
Guinea Petroleum Company (Nederlands Nieuw Guinea Petroleum Maatschappij, NNGPM).
37
The Section was not the only intelligence source used by the Allies in the Pacific Theatre, but it
“outperformed them all in type, quality and quantity of product” Bowd (2004:36). These other agencies
included the Inter Service Topographical Department (the UK equivalent of The Section, based in Oxford
and India), the Joint Army Navy Intelligence Studies, the Office of the Chief Engineer and the Royal
Australian Air Force Objective Folder Section. Research institutions, such as the Smithsonian Institute
were also mobilised (e.g. Henson 2000) as were similar institutions among the the Axis powers (e.g.
Bremen 2003).
38
Young and Clark (2001: pp.3-62 about his life; pp.53-54 about his work at The Section).
166
1936 had discovered – and named – the Wissel Lakes.39 He escaped to Australia in
March 1942 and soon became an invaluable member of The Section (see Bowd
2005:28).40 As Netherlands East (Indies) Force Intelligence Service Liaison Officer, he
facilitated the exchange of information between Dutch and Australian forces. This was
considered a crucial step as Major Jardine-Blake (quotedin Bowd 2004:38) noted:
evidence was accumulating that the Dutch regarded all intelligence relating to
the Netherlands East Indies as their prerogative and appeared to deprecate the
intrusion of Allied officers into this field.
Although overcoming a proprietorial and intensely patriotic cultural milieu was a
challenge for many units under Allied command, staff at The Section understood their
work to be of the upmost strategic – not political – importance. Yet despite this
strategic focus intelligence reports for New Guinea and the region largely conformed to
pre-War colonial boundaries. This was precisely because Allied commanders in the
field were fighting to restore colonial authority and colonial boundaries.41 This is
evident by the inclusion of Netherlands Indies Civil Affairs (NICA) on the first day of
the Allied offensive to retake Hollandia and Tanamerah on April 22, 1944.42 NICA
personnel held primary roles in mobilising “native” peoples to assist the Allied forces,
particularly through the provision of forward intelligence, food and labour as well as reasserting colonial government and re-establishing confidence in it among local
populations43.
The desire to gather area-specific intelligence on the region did not begin – or end –
with World War II. Although the AGS was officially dissolved on October 31, 1945,
more modest intelligence agencies in Australia and the USA with a similar geographic
39
He had also been a climber on Colijn’s 1936 successful ascent to the top of Carstensz (see Colijn 1937)
and a pilot for NNGPM based in Babo before the Japanese invasion.
40
Note that although Wissel had previously worked for the NNGPM, he was not yet with the AGS when
Terrain Studies No.2 and No. 14 (revised) for Babo were produced.
41
Publications such as Reconquest New Guinea... (Australia. Director General of Public Relations,
Australian Military Forces 1944) exemplify this conviction.
42
As Visman (1945:183) states “Additional NICA personnel joined in the subsequent landings on
Wakde, Biak Island and Numfoor Island. Great importance was also attached to the landing on Morotai
Island, north of Halmahera. Morotai was the first Netherlands Indies island outside the New Guinea area
to be invaded by the Allies. It lies on the fringe of the ‘genuine’ Indonesia, populated by Malayans and
not by Papuans, as is the case of New Guinea.”
43
During the war, the AGS produced field manuals such as You and the Native to assist Allied forces in
their interactions with local peoples (see AGS 1943a, 1943b, 1943c), which “…in effect offered an
affirmative response to anxieties about the loyalty of indigenous peoples” (Gray 2005:19).
167
focus were created to continue such work.44 Outside the intelligence community, the
“AGS also had an academic legacy”. While Bowd (2004:43) makes reference to the
virtues of the AGS’s four-volume Annotated Bibliography of the Southwest Pacific and
Adjacent Areas,45 he also implies that the creation of the Australian National University,
and in particular of the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies in 1947, is a part
of that legacy. There can be little doubt that the Pacific War exposed the dearth of
knowledge in Australia about the region, one which Australian post-war governments
were keen to rectify. Australian universities, especially the ANU’s Research School of
Pacific Studies, were foundational in building area studies in the region (Lal 2007).46
But Bowd’s assumption risks underestimating the broader imprint of World War Two
on the way individuals, communities and states reconstituted themselves, their nations
and the international system in the aftermath of war.
Area studies did not emerge merely from the activities of intelligence organisations like
The Section, or from the desire to better defend the nation against a future threat.47 It
also emerged from the massive social and political dislocation of war and from
eruptions of anti-colonial sentiment across the region (and the world). Such tumultuous
times demanded decisive action as they forced the reconfiguration of the geo-political
topography of the region. The Dutch government in exile was well aware of the
nationalist sentiment the Japanese had so successfully cultivated during their occupation
of the East Indies and the problems they would face in reasserting their authority (e.g.
see Netherlands Information Bureau 1942). In 1941 a conference was held to discuss
“The Netherlands Indies in the twentieth century” and reiterate to a war-weary domestic
and colonial audience the vital role of The Netherlands in the East Indies (van
Helsdingen and Hoogenberk 1941). As the post-war abridged English language version
of this conference (van Helsdingen and Hoogenberk 1945:49-50) asserted:
Objections are sometimes raised against the use of the word Dutch in the
appellation “Dutch East Indies”, because this disregards the fact, that the East
Indies “existed and lived long before the first Dutchman had made his
44
An example of this of immediate relevance to the Cold War were plans by the US military to establish
missile bases on Biak and Waigeo Islands (see Thorp 1960, Thorp and Thomas 1960).
45
Available online at http://www.papuaweb.org/bib/the-section/index.html.
46
The work of Australian wartime anthropologists such as A.P. Elkin (1943) and others was also of great
significance in this respect (see Gray 2005).
47
This point is elaborated by Cumings (1997) in relation to the significance of area studies in the context
of the Cold War.
168
appearance in the tropics”. A worse disavowal of reality however is it, to call
the present Indies by names borrowed from race, language or geographical
location, and thus ignore the fact, that the Indies owe their position as a
political-economic unity exclusively to the operation of Dutch rule and Dutch
energy.
Such statements were clearly aimed at the post-war restoration of Dutch authority and
prestige in their East Indies colony, but they were also symptomatic of a broader (and
international) colonial paradigm. They undermined the core legitimacy of Indonesian
nationalist aspirations, which drew heavily on the cartographic imaginary of a restored
archipelagic nation under indigenous authority. Consider, for example, Soekarno before
the Bandung District Court in 1930 (quotedin O’Hare 1986:2):
What Indonesian heart does not sigh when recalling his former flag seen and
honoured as far afield as Madagascar, Persia, and China? … the Indonesian
nation consists of all humanity who, according to the geopolitics ordained by
God Almighty, live in the unity of all the Indonesian islands, from the tip of
North Sumatera to Irian… We have only experienced a national state twice:
during the periods of Sriwijaya and Majapahit, and which we must now rebuild
together.
While post-independence Dutch historians grew increasingly critical of Indonesian
claims to the restitution of some “mythological” past48 much of the scholarly tension at
this time related to the repositioning of Dutch and Indonesian historiographies.49
Imbricated in these shifting scholarly frames was the issue of West New Guinea; with
many (but not all)50 nationalists pulling Irian into the archipelago, while the Dutch
government, in a radical departure from centuries of tradition, sought to situate the
colony among the decolonising territories of the Southwest Pacific.
48
See Resink (1968:20-22), Supomo (1979) and also O’Hare (1986:10-22) for an overview of these
debates. See also Chauvel (1997:554-6) on Yamin’s concept of a “Greater Indonesia”.
49
Again see Resink (1968:1-25). Resink was pragmatic in his view of Indonesian historiography, but
remained unwilling to accept history as a relativistic enterprise. In an 1953 essay he wrote “Only once
intellectual Indonesians consciously began to experience and influence history did persons emerge among
them who took to writing it. A language of their own, a cultural milieu of their own, an Indocentric
perspective of the future of their own, and a corresponding view of their own regarding the past – these
and the reinterpretation of old facts… are a few of the phenomena which go hand in hand with the
transformation from a foreign colonial history to an indigenous national history, and sometimes lead it
astray” (Resink 1968:31).
50
The most prominent critic of Irian integration in the early years of the Republic was Vice President
Mohammad Hatta (Chauvel 1997:555-556). See Feith (1962) on the tensions between the
“administrators” (i.e. Hatta) and “solidarity makers” (i.e. Soekarno) in the Indonesian government in this
period (1949-1959).
169
Figure 4-18: “Vijfde Zuid Pacific Conferentie, Pago Pago 1962” FDC
“The Fifth South Pacific Conference, Pago Pago, 1962” FDC (Figure 4-18) presents a
curious picture of the islands of the Southwest Pacific. It is a sea of islands
encompassed by a expansive polygon where erratically placed boxes protrude to enclose
lone islands from disappearing as specks on the expanse of the envelope. This is the
abstract geometry of archipelagic states. The first day of a new stamp issue is almost
always accompanied by a first day cover, but this first day cover comes late in the day.
The cancellation mark on the envelope is dated 18 July, 1962, only a month before The
Netherlands submitted its formal withdrawal from the South Pacific Commission
(August 21, 1962).51
This map alludes to an archipelagic connection in defiance of Indonesian nationalist and
Dutch colonial historiography.52 In 1947, six governments with territories in the
southwest Pacific53 sought to establish a common community – “desiring to encourage
and strengthen international cooperation in promoting the economic and social welfare
and advancement of the peoples of the non-self-governing territories in the South
Pacific region administered by them…”54 The Netherlands New Guinea Government
was an important founding member of the South Pacific Commission, bringing more
than a quarter of the total population of the member territories (and 15% of the funding).
Dutch involvement in the South Pacific Commission was also a poignant reminder of
the benefits of regional association and of a distinctively maritime identity (Djalal
51
See www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaty_list/deposity/sthpacif.html.
Dutch era colonial literature is replete with allusions to the Gordel van Smaragd (or Necklace of
Emeralds), the islands of the East Indies archipelago (for an illustrated example of this allusion, see
Bijkerk 2003:41).
53
The founding governments of the South Pacific Commission were Australia, the Republic of France,
the Kingdom of The Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland, and the United States of America.
54
Australian Treaty Series 1948 No.15, www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/1948/15.html.
52
170
1996), a fact not lost on the leadership of the new Republic. A decade later, in 1957
Indonesian Prime Minister Djuanda Kartawidjaja (quoted in Rudiyanto 2002:359) made
a remarkable claim for its own maritime future:
The government declares that all waters surrounding, between and connecting
the islands constituting the Indonesian state, regardless of their extension or
breadth, are integral parts of the territory of the Indonesian state and therefore,
parts of the internal or national waters which are under the exclusive
sovereignty of the Indonesian state. … The delimitation of the territorial sea
(the breadth of which is 12-miles) is measured from baselines connecting the
outermost points of the islands of Indonesia.55
Figure 4-19: “50th Anniversary Djuanda Declaration” (1957-2007)
The Djuanda Declaration had profound implications for maritime trade through the
archipelago of Indonesia, but in 1957 it was only a declaration of intent. A few years
later the declaration was written into legislation in the Indonesian Waters Act of 1960
(UU4/1960). Against the historical background of UU4/1960 and the Djuanda
Declaration, the NLNG South Pacific Conference FDC of 1962 (Figure 4-18) may be
read as a direct and contrary claim of archipelagic association for Papua. The declation
was recognised for the first time in stamps in a three issue set in 2007 which featured a
recreated scene of the “declaration”, Prime Minister Djuanda projected over a logo-map
of the archipelagic state which asserts the geo-political significance of the archipelagic
state concept (Figure 4-19, left), and an issue which featured the “unity in diversity” of
the ethnic peoples of the archipelago (Figure 4-19, right, with a Papuan in the far right
of frame adorned with a bird of paradise, see Chapter 3).
With more than a faint echo of the Dutch SPC initiative and less than two months after
the transfer of administrative control of Netherlands New Guinea to Indonesia, a new
55
The islands associated with Papua relevant to the Indonesian Archipelagic State concept are mapped in
Appendix 4.
171
archipelagic regional association was being formed. ‘Maphilindo’ (Malaysia, the
Philippines and Indonesia) was a short-lived attempt to create a regional association
with the intention of legitimating territorial claims by Indonesia and the Philippines to
parts of the island of Borneo (rather than have these become part of a Federated
Malaysian state, see Wilkinson 1968).56 Being an archipelagic state was more than an
ambit grab for resources, it was on the way to becoming a foundational platform of the
state.57 Rudiyanto (2002:360) notes that in 1973, the wawasan nusantara (national
outlook) concept became a “political doctrine”58 (see also Danusaputro 1973:13-35,74
and Kusumaatmadja 1976:52-54) intended to strengthen the Indonesian claims to
archipelagic status in time for the 1974 United Nations Convention on the Law of the
Sea (UNCLOS III).59 At this forum, the chief Indonesian negotiator, Nugroho
Wisnumurti (quoted in Park and Park 1987), put the case more emphatically stating:
From time immemorial, the Indonesian people have regarded all of their
islands and the waters around them and interconnecting those islands as one
entity. The term “fatherland” in Indonesia is tanah air which means “land and
water”. The nationhood of Indonesia is built on the concept of unity between
the Indonesian islands and the inter-connecting waters. Those seas are
regarded as a unifying, not a separating, element. Such a foundation for our
nationhood is indeed essential and imperative for the survival of our nation…
The text finalised by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea process
(UNCLOS III, 1974-1982) included a substantial section on archipelagic states (Part IV,
56
There is a long history of attempts to form regional islands groupings within – and beyond – the
boundaries of modern Indonesia. One of the best known of these is the Darul Islam (House of Islam)
movement which fought to make Indonesia an independent Islamic state from 1949 until the early 1963
and is considered by some to still be in abeyance today (see Cribb 2000:162-169).
57
By the 1960s oil exploration was increasingly offshore and this had particular significance for
Indonesia (Rudiyanto 2002:360). The first offshore exploration for oil in Indonesia in 1966 was quickly
followed by Law 11 of 1967 (UU11/1967) on offshore oil and natural gas exploration and exploitation.
The archipelagic boundaries of the nation are defined, in part, by a series of remote islands scattered
throughout the archipelago, which are defined by the Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service, of the
Indonesian Navy (Indonesia. Dishidros TNI-AL 2003). See further notes and a map which plots these
islands in Appendix 4.
58
Acciaioli (2001) convincingly argues that despite the proclaimed attachment to an archipelagic
(nusantara) concept of culture, some of the most accomplished maritime peoples of Indonesia (i.e. the
Bajau) are marginalised precisely because they are not fixed in space. Archipelagic culture, in New
Order praxis, was not a celebration of the possibility of itinerant populations moving through the islands,
but about unique and regionally differentiated cultural forms and practices (see Taylor 1994).
59
UNCLOS 1982 (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea online at
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/UNCLOS-TOC.htm see PART IV
http://www.un.org/Depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part4.htm).
172
Articles 46-54) and the Republic of Indonesia asserts its rights as an archipelagic state
under this convention.60
Figure 4- 20: “The Nusantara Islands as one unit in politics, social culture, economics,
defence & security”
(Indonesia Magazine no.22, 1973:cover)
In a sense the Indonesian claim to archipelagic nationhood could be seen as the ultimate
triumph of political intention – and political institutions – over the natural boundaries of
the archipelago. Indonesia won the archipelagic tug-of-war against The Netherlands for
possession of Papua. Not only had the geophysical divisions across the archipelago
been “unified” by the sea, but even the substantial terrestrial borders (in the islands of
New Guinea and Borneo) were no obstacle to the Indonesian determination to achieve
international recognition as an archipelagic state. As the cover of Indonesia Magazine
No.22 of 1973 suggests (Figure 4- 20), the Nusantara concept was intended to embody
political, social, cultural, economic, and security elements in a provincially-based
nationalism that sought to mobilise both the political and natural resources required for
the government’s ambitious objectives for its first Five Year Development Plan
(Repelita I, 1969-1974). The extensive onshore and offshore economic opportunities in
the newly acquired territory of West Irian were crucial in this effort.
60
However, this does not mean that Indonesia’s claim to be an archipelagic state is accepted by other
nations. The United States in particular has pointedly refused to acknowledge claims to archipelagic
status under the convention. Perversely, the only online repository of archipelagic reference points for
Indonesia is the US Navy (http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/20051m_062305/Indonesia.doc).
173
Figure 4-21: “West Irian, Indonesia”
(FUNDWI 1968:25 facing page)
The boundaries shown on this map are not, in some instances, finally
determined and their reproduction does not imply official endorsement or
acceptance by the United Nations (note, bottom left of map, above inset).
With this caveat to “West Irian, Indonesia” (Figure 4-21), the United Nations aims to
appease all critics. This map was published in February 1968 in the “Report prepared
for the Government of Indonesia by a Survey Mission Acting as Consultants for the
Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme” (FUNDWI 1968). It
epitomises the entire United Nations transitional process in West Irian.61 This map
brings some new Indonesian nomenclature to a number of significant places, including
the capital Hollandia (now Sukarnapura) and the district of Hollandia (now also
Sukarnapura). Similarly, some geographical features are re-inscribed with indigenous
names, including the Schouten Islands in Geelvinkbaai which are “returned” to the
people of Biak and now sit on the edge of Tjenderawasih Bay (Indonesian and Biaki for
Bird of Paradise). The new district of Djajawidjaya62 recalls Operation Djajawidjaya, a
key element of the Trikora military operation to “liberate” the people of West New
Guinea from Dutch imperialism (see Chapter 3) while the juxtaposition of Dutch, new
Indonesian and English place names (i.e. Southern Division, Central Highlands,
Dampier Strait) gives a sense of the fluid, transitional space in which the map was
61
It is important to note that this process was interrupted by Indonesia’s withdrawal from the UN in
January 1965 and their resumption as a member of the UN in September 1966 (see Schwelb 1967).
62
“Djajawidjaja” may be translated as “Glorious Victory” (Djaja/jaya = glorious; victorious; triumphant,
etc and widjaja/wijaya = victory). Platje (2001:305) gives an English translation as “victory over
colonialism.”
174
produced and the preferred language of the international consultants charged with its
production. Boundaries delineated by natural features like the Mamberamo, Idenburg
and Rouffaer Rivers are neatly straightened – rationalised by distant administrators who
would struggle in the field to traverse such cartographic conveniences. Finally, the
presence of airfields,63 roads, and basic topographic information (like swamps and spot
elevations) indicates that this map is intended as more than a mere administrative rezoning exercise.
The UNDP/FUNDWI map illustrates the geographic and administrative continuities in
the transition from Dutch to Indonesian authority in West New Guinea.64 Soekarno’s
Trikora campaign for possession of Dutch New Guinea was replete with revolutionary
fervour. The compromises that followed (see Chapter 3), although begun precipitously,
slipped into a decade-long incrementalism. The slow pace of the consolidation of West
Irian into the Republic, together with the nationalist struggle that accompanied it,
reinforced Irian in practice – and in the popular imagination – as a region of difference
within Indonesia. Unique administrative structures and programs to facilitate
Indonesian transitional administration in the province were still in place a decade after
the United Nations Transitional Executive Authority (1962-1963) had left the territory.
This included a transitional currency, the Irian Barat Rupiah (from 1963 to 1973), a
quasi-military government structure for the territory and, most importantly, its status as
a discrete province (as indicated on this map by the dotted-dashed line that runs across
the west of the island).
The map was drawn by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) as part of its
broad range of initiatives in West Irian in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The Fund of
the United Nations for the Development of West Irian (FUNDWI) was the progenitor of
this UNDP program. FUNDWI was created in late 1963 under an agreement involving
joint funds from The Netherlands and Indonesia for development projects in Irian,
63
Including the first reappearance of Wakde Island since the end of World War Two (as the massive
airstrip on this coral atoll did not feature in Dutch development plans for NLNG).
64
For details related to the history of administrative division(s) in Netherlands New Guinea, see van der
Veur (1966a:137) and a map of the internal divisions of the territory prior to Indonesian takeover, see
Vademecum (1956:16-17).
175
administered by the United Nations.65 One of the key early functions of the Fund was
the “continuance of key public services” (FUNDWI 1974:5).66 Despite a two-year
interruption to the project in 1965/66,67 FUNDWI outlined and pursued a
comprehensive program for development in Irian with clear guidelines for the
prioritisation, budgeting and implementation in each sector.68 In May 1971, the Irian
Jaya Joint Development Foundation (IJJDF or JDF) was established as a sub-program
of FUNDWI to “stimulate entrepreneurial activities in the productive and service
sectors” (FUNDWI 1974:10). In 1972, FUNDWI was integrated into the UNDP
Country Programme for Indonesia. JDF soon became the local coordinating body for
UNDP projects, but despite its promising start by the early 1980s few of its programs
remained operational and virtually none of its development strategies had been
implemented.69 While government capacity was a clear challenge, Jakarta also had
different priorities to those promoted by FUNDWI’s foreign consultants.
65
“… November 1963 Memorandum of Agreement establishing FUNDWI” (FUNDWI 1968:11). This
fund involved existing government budgetary allocations for Netherlands New Guinea and the possibility
that these might be utilised to continue development efforts in the former colony (UNDP 1968).
66
Mitton’s (1983) impressions from his diary entry of 14 August 1972 offer some insights into this
project: “Although it was initiated in 1962, very little was accomplished before Indonesia dropped from
the United Nations in 1964 [sic, actually January 1965]. In the following years, the Indonesians utterly
cannibalized West Irian, and when they rejoined the United Nations in 1966, the country was in a
shambles. The first FUNDWI people began to come back in 1967. Nothing was working. Jayapura had
irregular water, even more irregular electricity and no food, even the native market had ceased to
function. The Indonesians had promised housing for the United Nations, but none was available.
Consequently, the United Nations had to build their own houses, using up a substantial slice of what was
remaining of the thirty million dollars… Apart from being expensive, this also formed a ghetto and a
delightfully incestuous and back-biting little crowd of multi-racial people” (Mitton 1983:227).
67
FUNDWI activities were suspended from January 1965 following Indonesia’s withdrawal from the
UN. The project was re-commenced in November 1966 (FUNDWI 1974:6).
68
Program areas included: basic infrastructure and transportation (vehicle, coastal, river and air);
vocational training; education; urban services (power, water, public health, telecommunications, etc);
small-scale industries; agriculture; fisheries and forestry; mining and geology; public and institutional
development.
69
Although some reports suggest that the JDF only operated for the first five years of the FUNDWI
program (see Tim Sintese 2005:7), I met with the head of the small JDF secretariate in the JDF Building
on Jl. Percetakan in November 1995 (at the time most of the office space in this building was leased to
Garuda Indonesia). JDF at this time was close to insolvent and in the process of selling off all their
remaining assets.
176
“Irian is a Giant Machine”
Acub once referred to Irian Jaya as a giant machine... Its natural
wealth is hard to assess. There are jungles with numerous sorts of
wood, there are oil, minerals, and many others. But all these
potentials were simply let to stay where they had been; nobody had
ever tried to touch and exploit them. Irian was just like a giant deep
in his sleep, snoring. But Acub was then quite sure that the time
would come when this giant would get up from his slumber; by then
the parts of this giant machine would be repaired, and off it would
go at full-speed to repay for the loss of time.
Figure 4-22: “Irian is a Giant Machine”
(General Zainal in Yassin 1987:16)
General Acub Zainal was appointed governor of the province of Irian Jaya from 197378. The extremely limited funds available from Jakarta for development programs in
Papua in the immediate post-FUNDWI period exacerbated the challenges of geography,
infrastructure and capacity he faced in bringing development to the province. He met
these challenges with enthusiasm (as Figure 4-22 above suggests) and a desire to
transform Irian’s status as a social and economic backwater within Indonesia (see
Hendrowinoto 1998). His period in Papua, however, is most commonly associated with
his time as commander of the armed forces in Papua (1970-1973) and his military-style
rapid assimilation and modernisation program known as “Operation Penis Gourd”
(Operasi Koteka).70
70
For more on Operasi Koteka, see Indonesia. Military Command XVII Tjendrawasih (1971), Indonesia.
Kodam XVII Tjenderawasih (1971), Indonesia. Kodam XVII Cenderawasih (1973:125-129).
177
Figure 4- 23: “Operasi ‘Koteka’”
(INDONESIA. Kodam XVII/Tjendrawasih 1971)
Operasi Koteka was intended as a comprehensive crash-program of acculturation to
achieve a wide variety of objectives, including “awaken the people’s interest in sending
their children to school” (Indonesia. Military Command XVII Tjendrawasih 1971:45).71
It involved the distribution of medicines to remote regions as well as efforts at
technology transfer by a cadre of university students and volunteers (Siregar 1972).72
However, the program achieved notoriety among critics for its presumed ban on the
wearing of the koteka (holim or penis sheaths) by highland men, a policy broadly
criticised as insensitive, ill-conceived and heavy-handed. The militaristic approach to
cultural change and the provocative name of the operation itself ensured that critiques
and commentary focussed on the symbolic penis gourd (koteka or holim), the traditional
clothing of the men of the central highlands of Papua. Although initially planned to run
for two years (1971-1973), Operation Koteka was discontinued when Zainal become
governor of Papua in 1973, at which time he adopted a more incremental approach to
development in the province (Hendrowinoto 1998). Although little was written at the
time about the program and the most strident critiques of Zainal’s initiative have come a
decade or more after the program was abandoned (see Tapol 1988:56-57; Defert
1996:271-273), Operasi Koteka remains a metaphor for cultural insensitivity and
71
Operation Clothes (Operasi Busana) of 1964 was a clear and important precedent to Operation Koteka
(see Jaspan 1965:16-17).
72
In a scheme reminiscent of the modern day Indonesian university practical experience training
programs known as Kuliah Kerja Nyata (or KKN). See also Hendrowinoto (1998:97-100).
178
coercive politics across Papua (as suggested on the original strategy document, Figure
4- 23). Yet despite criticisms of Zainal’s practices as military commander and governor
in Papua, in 1986 when interviewed for a promotional book on Papua, the retired
General Zainal stated that “today, I am fully convinced that Irian Jaya’s machine can
work. But still it’s up to the operator to decide what he’s going to do with it” (Zainal in
Yassin 1987:16).
In June 1985, a major new initiative was launched by ‘the operator’ to repair the Irian
“machine”. The “Regional Development Planning for Irian Jaya” program, coordinated
by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), The World Bank (WB) and the
Government of Indonesia, aimed “to produce a framework for the integrated and
balanced development of the area and to identify investment priorities” (Lavalin
1988a:1). Although its terms of reference explicitly referred to the government’s Five
Year National Development Plan (Repelita IV), the initiative followed UN offers (in
May 1985) to assist in resolving more than 12 months of grave instability in the
province.73
Figure 4-24: “Location of general resource studies and soil surveys used by RePPProT”
(Lavalin International 1988c:12)
73
While low-level Free Papua Movement hostage takings and guerrilla actions had occurred through the
early 1980s, a failed coup by Papuans in the security forces in February 1984 resulted in harsh Indonesian
reprisals and thousands of West Papuans seeking sanctuary across the border in neighbouring Papua New
Guinea (see International Commission of Jurists. Australian Section 1985; Blaskett 1989; Smith 1991).
179
The Lavalin map (Figure 4-24) is a clear statement of technical and analytical authority.
The map key is a digest of reports, surveys and studies utilised by The Regional
Physical Planning Programme for Transmigration. RePPProT was a joint program
between the Indonesian Ministry of Transmigration74 and the Land Resources
Department of the British Government’s Overseas Development Administration. The
RePPProT process was initiated at the behest of the World Bank (WB) and other
international agencies involved in co-financing the Indonesian government’s
transmigration program (Indonesia. RePPProT 1990). The Bank was involved in the
transmigration program since 1976 and by the early 1980s was well aware of clear
failings in the program (World Bank 1988). In an effort to ensure effective site
selection and settlement, the Ministry, encouraged by the Bank, had instituted a threephase process for site selection, assessment and settlement. By 1983, however, it was
clear to both the Ministry and the Bank that too many sites across the country were
being approved at Phase I (selection stage), only to be rejected when subjected to the
more rigorous and costly Phase II “Screening Feasibility Study” (SFS, also known as
Structured Planning Studies) (Indonesia. RePPProT 1986:16). These Phase II studies
and the subsequent Phase III “Screening Feasibility Study and detailed Engineering”
studies (SFSE)75 involved the preparation of a substantial site report, extensive ground
surveys and a comprehensive mapping process, indicating significant site features as
well as the configuration of the new settlement and its land allocations. They also
required coordination with the transportation networks provided by the department of
Main Works (Pekerjaan Umum, PU). Delays caused by these extensive survey
processes, suitability reviews, and infrastructure plans seriously compromised the
ambitious targets for transmigration in Irian Jaya laid down by the government in each
of its successive 5 year development plans (Repelita). The transmigration program to
Papua ended in 2000 (see ICG 2006a:4).
74
Now the Departemen Tenaga Kerja dan Transmigrasi Republic Indonesia, Depnakertrans.
Phase II Screening Feasibility (or Structured Planning) Studies typically involve a report and several
maps (i.e. “Suitability map and outline plan”; “Land use, land units and forest status”); Detailed
Engineering = Phase III (lengthy report and detailed map series).
75
180
The RePPProT program promised a new standard76 (and paradigm) for the
transmigration program across the country through the systematic selection of
settlement sites and with more than 2000 transmigration maps produced since 1986,77 it
formed the basis for the most prolific mapping program ever undertaken in Papua.
Even so, limited time and budgets meant that much of the RePPProT work was based
on the interpretation of a variety of satellite imagery and pre-existing maps combined
with older reports and surveys (Indonesia. RePPProT 1990:29). The inclusion of soil
surveys of Netherlands New Guinea from 1932 to 1962 alongside other recent studies
such as the “Nationwide study of Coastal and Near-Coastal swampland’ (Indonesia.
Ministry of Public Works 1984) exemplifies this consolidation process.78 Groundproofing in Papua was also limited to towns and local road networks, suggesting an
over-reliance on Landsat imagery for much of the report and its accompanying map
series.79 Dependence on road access for ground proofing also indicates significant
problems for later transportation between transmigration (agricultural) sites and
available markets (with no road access and often limited river access).80 In this sense
the Lavalin map (Figure 4-24) not only depicts information related to soil research but,
most importantly for the ambitious government development targets in Papua, new
settlement possibilities for the future.
76
“The [UK Land Resources] Department’s task in Indonesia was to meet the requirements of the
Ministry of Transmigration by providing the necessary facts and maps to improve the first stage of its
planning process – namely site selection for transmigration settlements. The results are perhaps the
largest integrated resource study ever attempted, and the extensive use already made of the work by
provincial planners, and by other professionals as diverse as epidemiologists and speleologists, indicates
that comprehensive resource surveys of this kind would be equally appropriate in other countries”
(Ambassador White, British Embassy, Jakarta, quoted in Indonesia. RePPProT 1990:iii). Yet there is no
discussion in the RePPProT (1990) report of who has access to maps, although it is implied (Indonesia.
RePPProT 1990:iii and p.60) that these maps/resources will be widely accessible. In practice access to
many of these maps has been restricted – both by deliberate restrictions on access (even among
government departments) and by circumstantial factors such as the limited production of original
documents and the resources required for the reproduction of large format maps.
77
These maps are listed at http://www.nakertrans.go.id/arsip_perpus/IRIANJAYA.php.
78
Earlier versions of this map exist, as indicated by the map in Lavalin (1988c:10). A similar map also
featured in the official report on Transmigration in Irian Jaya of 1973 (see Herdito 1973).
79
The RePPProT produced three thematic map sets at 1:250,000 – land status (Tata Guna Hutan
Kesepakatan or TGHK – Agreed Forest Use Categories); land use and land systems. These maps were
produced from newly plotted base maps especially prepared for the project (and drawn principally from
Landsat and various existing formats – see a figure of the RePPProT map production process (Indonesia.
RePPProT 1990:56-57insert) and a discussion of the project cartography (Indonesia. RePPProT 1990:5758). At the time of their publication, the RePPProT maps were the most accurate and complete set of
1:250,000 maps of the country. Although the RePPProT process was intended only for the
transmigration target areas (i.e. the Outer Islands), the program was eventually extended to Java and Bali
(Indonesia. RePPProT 1990:29).
80
Locating transmigrants close to markets where they could sell their agricultural surpluses was one of
the primary objectives of the transmigration program (see World Bank 1988).
181
The Lavalin map (Figure 4-24) re-traces RePPProT research findings and was adapted
from the 1986 RePPProT report for Irian Jaya81 and published a few years later in one
of the many instalments in the voluminous “Irian Jaya Regional Development Strategy”
(IJRDS). The final two volumes of the Regional Development Planning Project for
Irian Jaya were published as “A Framework for Provincial Development” (Lavalin
International 1988a) and a “Kabupaten [District] Development Strategy” (Lavalin
International 1988b). This significant undertaking was jointly funded by the UNDP, the
World Bank and the Indonesian Government as part of a wider Eastern Indonesia
development program.82 Lavalin International Inc., together with its Indonesian
counterpart PT Hasfarm Dian Konsultan, was commissioned by the UNDP to develop
the IJRDS at the same time as the RePPProT for Irian was completing the final sections
of its report.83
The Lavalin (UNDP) and RePPProT (WB) programs conceptualised Papua as a discrete
region for development (as had the earlier FUNDWI/UNDP program) – through
integrated development strategies for the province and later a rigidly structured and
regionally-oriented program of transmigration. The map also exemplifies the role
foreign consultants (and their local counterparts) play in validating one another’s work.
The Lavalin map represents the layering of earlier studies by foreign consultants thereby
reinforcing an “expert” paradigm through the incorporation of spatial data from the
“Nationwide study of Coastal and Near-Coastal swampland” (Euroconsult report, 1984)
and the RePPProT process itself.84 The role of foreign experts also undermined the
legitimacy and authority of earlier mapping and survey work conducted by officials
81
Adapted from RePPProT (1986:17-18 inset no.2 – “Figure 4. Location of general resource studies and
soil surveys used”).
82
“Part of a larger project for Regional Planning Investment Preparation and Implementation of Area
Development Projects in Nusa Tenggara, South East Sulawesi and Irian Jaya (INS/83/013)” (Lavalin
1988a:i).
83
The final sections of the RePPProT for Irian Jaya were completed in July 1986 (although much of the
document was completed by the end of 1985. The sudden, unexpected death in January 1986 of Bryan
Acres, the lead consultant on the Irian RePPProT, appears to have had a significantly adverse impact on
the quality of the final RePPProT report for Irian). The Lavalin/Hasfarm IJRDS commenced on June 23,
1986.
84
That this effort is deliberate is reinforced by the inclusion of the “Regional Advisory Group” and
“Petocz (1984)” references in the map key without attached symbols. These references might equally
well have appeared in the text, but here they add a sense of authority to the Lavalin version of the map.
182
from the Department of Transmigration (e.g. Indonesia. Direktorat Penelitian dan
Persiapan, Direktorat Jenderal Transmigrasi 1973) and the National Planning Authority
(Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Nasional, Bappenas). Ultimately, both RePPProT
and Lavalin versions of the map sought to provide credible evidence to donors and the
government alike of the possibilities for successes in Papua, in transmigration and
development respectively, provided certain preconditions were met. Such conclusions
reinforced a culture of experts in the development planning for Papua and programs
which were often technically sound but failed to deliver the projected results (see SOfEI
2004). Other problems arose when government agencies responsible for
implementation were in tension with other “operators” and other parts of the “machine”
of development in Papua.
Figure 4-25: “Protected areas and transmigration sites in the Merauke area”
(Map produced by Department of Forestry and WWF Indonesia in 1996, detail)85
“Protected areas…” (Figure 4-25) is a detail from a diazo copy of a map by the World
Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Indonesia, produced in collaboration with the
85
This diazo print was collected by the author during a visit to Merauke in 1997. The print shows
characteristic signs of folding (darker sharing) and fading, reflecting the unstable nature of the media, the
quality of the reproduction and the map’s storage history.
183
Department of Forestry. It depicts the Wasur National Park and the Kumbe-Merauke
Nature Reserve (darker regions to the south and north respectively) separated by a series
of faint rectangles linked by darker, dashed lines. Reference to the map key quickly
identifies these as transmigration sites. KK refers to Kepala Keluarga (Head of an
average family of 4-5). “Jagebob I”, “Jagebob J”, “Jagebob N”, etc. refers to the
settlement region known as Jagebob while “Jagebob H.1” and “Jagebob H.2” signify
areas temporarily withheld from the development plan. The dashed lines represent
roads yet to be constructed and the solid lines roads to existing settlements. The solid
road at the bottom of the map section is the “Trans Irian Highway” which runs from
Merauke (bottom left of map) to the Indonesian border village of Sota (bottom right).
The abrupt turn of the Trans-Irian Highway to the north at Sota is made at the border
with neighbouring Papua New Guinea.
WWF’s work in Irian became prominent in the early 1980s when the organisation was
still linked to its parent organisation, the International Union for the Conservation of
Nature (IUCN). As a result of this association, WWF’s early work was characterised by
close cooperation with the Indonesian Department of Forestry, which afforded the
organisation access to a wide variety of existing spatial data for the country. By the
mid-1980s, Ron Petocz, the energetic WWF program head in Irian, had prepared a
broad strategy of protected areas for the province, to complement the existing network
of parks and reserves (Petocz 1984; 1985; 1987). Mindful of the concurrent
transmigration and development strategies for the province and privy to information
related to the rapid expansion of forest exploitation across Indonesia, WWF Indonesia
followed a pragmatic provincial structure for its programs and gave Irian a high priority
in its conservation efforts. WWF’s Irian office also established a range of small-scale
“sustainable” income generation schemes intended to engage local communities in
conservation (such as butterfly farming and ecotourism).
In the southeast region of Papua, WWF sought to assist the development of the Wasur
National Park with a two-pronged strategy.86 This involved first securing entitlements
from the Department of Forestry to allow indigenous co-management of resources in
86
Wasur was first gazetted as a National Park (Taman Nasional) in 1978, but the implementing
legislation was not put forward in time for this to be approved. It was re-gazetted as a National Park in
1997 (Surat Keputusan MenHut 282/Kpts-II/1997 23 Mei 1997).
184
the park (for the first time in Indonesia), which enabled these communities to utilise
their traditional lands for modest economic advantage (limited sale of deer, fish, and
some forest products). WWF’s second strategy for Wasur involved coordinating with
its branch offices in PNG and Australia in an ambitious program to build a tri-nations
conservation region for Wasur, Tonda (PNG) and Kakadu (Australia) national parks.
These initiatives, however, have proven extremely difficult in practice. As suggested by
this map, the proximity of impoverished transmigrants87 and “day-trippers” in nearby
Merauke, combined with lax enforcement by park rangers, has resulted in intensive
hunting, fishing and timber extraction from Wasur.88 Moreover, deliberately concealed
by this map is the presence of more than 1000 transmigrant families (and their farm
plots) around the village of Sota – located inside the park and on the edge of the
Indonesian-PNG border.89 Such remote settlements and the delineation of the long
Indonesian-PNG border by the Trans-Irian Highway reflect a strategic imperative to
defend the territory and resources of Irian for the nation.90 A history of cross-border
incursions in the region and growing demands on access to the resources of Wasur,
Tonda and Kakadu seem likely to pose ongoing challenges for any tri-nations regional
park into the future.
87
The meandering Maro River along the north/west boundary of Wasur poses little obstacle to
transmigrants entering the park by foot or (in the dry season) at any of several vehicle crossings. Once in
the park they can hunt, fish or collect forest products.
88
I visited Wasur in May 1997 and was told that the existing Trans-Irian Highway may be relocated west
of the Maro River. Such a redesign would make it easier to restrict and monitor vehicle access into and
out of the park but to my knowledge the road has not been relocated.
89
This fact was confirmed during a visit I made to Wasur National Park in 1997. During this visit I spoke
at length with the local army (TNI-AD) officer stationed in the village of Yanggandur (where I stayed for
several days). He confirmed the presence of a platoon of soldiers (approx. 40) based in Sota nominally
defending a community of more than 1000 KK (approx. 4000-5000 people). According to the officer I
interviewed, Sota was a small post prior to an attack by OPM there in 1984. Following this attack it was
significantly expanded. He also told me that members of the local transmigrant community provide food
and other material succour to the platoon and some were entrusted with single bolt rifles for hunting
game in the National Park. When I asked about visiting the Sota region of the park, the officer made it
clear that this area was off-limits to tourists. This fact had been confirmed earlier in the provincial capital
Jayapura when I received my Surat Jalan (travel permit) for Wasur and was told that Sota was off-limits
to tourists.
90
For more on the Indonesian military and its history of locating transmigrants to reinforce the PNGIndonesian border, see Suriadireja (1985) and Defert (1996).
185
Figure 4-26: “Irian Jaya punya ‘sapi’, tetapi siapa yang memerah ‘susu’–nya?”
(Bina Darma No.44, 1994. Cover illustration)
The 1994 Irian issue of the Bina Darma Foundation (Yayasan Bina Darma) magazine
poses the question: “Irian Jaya has a ‘cow’, but who is milking it?” (Figure 4-26).
Although this cash cow risks further muddying Zainal’s “waking giant machine”
metaphor, it does neatly re-frame the context for the “operator” of his machine. This
cartoon encapsulates a broader awakening across the archipelago by the early 1990s that
Irian was, indeed, a rich resource. While the Bina Darma Foundation’s special issue
explored “development with a human dimension,” it also reflected a growing interest
among non-government groups, particularly those concerned with environmental issues
caused by transmigration, logging and rampant development. But by the mid-1990s the
most profitable cash C.O.W. in the country had consumed media and NGO interest in
Irian and become synonymous with the province and its troubles.
Freeport Indonesia was already the biggest corporate taxpayer in Indonesia by 1988-89
(Leith 2002a:83) before it started to exploit the massive Grasberg ore reserve. In the
2008 financial year the company is expected to contribute more than US$2 billion in
receipted tax to the Indonesian government.91 The company had received its Contract
of Work (COW) from the Indonesian government to explore and mine in the southwest
91
This figure assumes tax receipts to the Indonesian Government totalling 43% of PT Freeport
Indonesia’s gross earnings (consistent with 2006 figures) and projected revenues of US$4.8 billion in the
2008 financial year, which is conservative in light of current copper and gold prices (see Freeport
McMoran Copper and Gold Inc. 2007b, pages 38 and 45 respectively).
186
highlands of New Guinea in 1967, two years before West Irian was officially transferred
to Indonesia (see Chapter 3). This and other aspects of the company’s past became
prominent in the mid-1990s. In April 1995, two reports detailing systematic human
rights abuses by company employees and Indonesian military in the Freeport COW
brought significant media and NGO attention to the region (ACFOA 1995;
Munninghoff 1995). Mass-media and NGO attention was further focussed on the
region following the (related) kidnapping of two separate groups of researchers in the
region of the Lorentz National Park in early 1996 (Start 1997; Rizal and Budiarto 1997).
Despite its best public relations efforts, the adverse impact of these revelations brought
massive pressure to bear on the company’s practices.
Figure 4-27: “Suku-suku sekitar pertambangan PTFI” (1996)
(Map produced by the Department of Community Affairs, PT Freeport Indonesia, Timika)
“Tribes in the area of the PTFI mine” (Figure 4-27) presents a problem of containment.
The map was produced by PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI) Community Affairs
Department as a partial response to the serious riots of March 1996 which started in
Tembagapura and quickly spread to the lowland town of Timika. Still under intense
NGO and media scrutiny, Freeport Indonesia sought to placate disaffected local
communities by establishing a trust fund for traditional land owners – a “1% fund” (see
van den Broek 1996; Leith 2002a). However it soon became apparent that many
Papuans who had moved into the Freeport COW over the past few decades would also
demand recognition as traditional owners and compensation under the fund. The
promise of compensation from Freeport was understood to be a principle cause of inter-
187
Papuan ethnic conflict in the Freeport concession (McGibbon 2004a:31-35; Labat
Anderson 1996). Freeport Indonesia, operating for decades as a kind of de facto
government (Leith 2002b), was eager to contain this conflict and settle outstanding
grievances.
This map identifies those indigenous groups both directly impacted by the mine
(Amungme and Kamoro92) and tribes in the adjacent areas which, over the past few
decades, had migrated in significant numbers into the Freeport COW (Ekagi, Western
Dani, Nduga, Moni and Damal). The map seeks to identify which additional groups
might be eligible for compensation and thus contain the risk of land claims spreading.
This intention is clear from the way the traditional territories of the 5 adjacent tribal
groups are all awkwardly truncated to limit the inclusion of additional tribal groups that
overlap these outlying regions. Similarly, while gaps in habitable areas in the rugged
highlands are plausible (i.e. the significant gap in the high Zenggillorong Plateau
region) the broad zone of “uninhabited” (shown in white) land between the Kamoro and
all the highland Papuan groups is a notable anomaly which effectively excludes from
compensation the extensive Freeport company town of Kuala Kencana (and many
transmigration sites established in the 1990s). This contrasts markedly with the
language map of Papua (Figure 4-11) and fails to acknowledge Kamoro ancestral lands,
but this containment strategy is seen as crucial by the company to limit future land
claims and secure its operations. Yet Freeport’s attempts to contain (localise) claims
and thereby absolve itself of any relationship with a wider ‘Papuan’ community is
directly challenged by the company’s own affirmative action programs.
92
Amungme and Kamoro tribal groups were to receive a 1/7 share each of the 1% deal as well as
Freeport shares and a modest dividend stream (see Leith 2002a:100-114).
188
Figure 4-28: “Institut Pertambangan Nemangkawi”
(PT Freeport Indonesia 2007, cover)
The “Namangkawi Mining Institute” (NMI) logo (Figure 4-28) depicts Papua as a
single entity (not two provinces) with a white triangle and its shadow (in brown)
pointing symbolically to Namangkawi, a sacred mountain of the Amungme (Puncak
Jaya or Mt Carstensz). The NMI logo represents the institute through a variety of
media; as cloth badges on the work gear of Namangkawi apprentices, as stickers on
company vehicles and buildings and as a key identifier on documentation related to the
Institute.93 NMI was established in 1996 as a part of the reforms introduced by Freeport
McMoran to give greater recognition to the two indigenous groups most affected by
their operations, the highland Amungme and the lowland Kamoro, as well as the five
other tribal groups in the adjoining regions (see Figure 4-27).94 While NMI places a
priority on the training and employment of Papuans from the Seven Tribes (PT Freeport
Indonesia 2007:2), Freeport also recognises that the extremely limited educational
opportunities for many Papuans in the Seven Tribes region (even for apprenticeship
93
NMI maintained an enrolment of 1000 apprentices throughout 2006 (PT Freeport Indonesia 2007:6).
It is worth noting that even the list of the so-called “Tujuh Suku” or Seven Tribes has substantially
expanded since the mid-1990s by the reclassification of one of these tribes from “Western Dani” or Lani
(estimated population of 180,000 in 1993) to “Dani” (estimated population of 90,000 in mid-1990s). In
the context of this report, the term Dani incorporates both Western Dani and Dani, which means an
additional 90,000 people under this category (on mid-1990s figures). With a combined total of 270,000
(a decade ago) this tribal group alone constitutes two-thirds of the Papuans eligible for special training
programs and funding under the Tujuh Suku agreement. Other tribal groups with this special status
include the Kamoro (estimated population of 8,000 in 1987), Amungme/Damal (classified linguistically
as one group with an estimated population of 14,000 in 1991), Ekagi/Ekari/Kapauku/Mee (alternate
names estimated population of 100,000 in 1985), Moni (estimated population of 20,000 in 1991) and
Nduga (estimated population of 10,000 in 1985) – which collecively total 144,000. As the Indonesian
census collates population data according to cadestral boundaries, these estimates are taken from
Ethnologue (the linguistic standard for Papua) to reflect ethnicity (see
http://www.ethnologue.com/14/show_country.asp?name=Indonesia+(Irian+Jaya)).
94
189
training) makes it necessary for them to recruit Papuans from elsewhere in the territory
to meet their affirmative action targets (especially for upper level and management
positions).95
As with the other agencies involved in crafting, implementing or curtailing development
strategies in Papua, Freeport has struggled to extricate itself from the “giant machine” of
Papua. For much of the 1970s till the early 1990s, the company provided the vast
majority of the infrastructure required within its COW, including essential services for
which the government was responsible under the company’s concession agreement. It
established the “1% deal” and Seven Tribes framework in part to help formalise its
responsibilities to local communities and to enable local government agencies to assume
their role in local development and infrastructure provision (Charlie White, pers. comm.
December 1995). Yet even as this separation was being effected, the company could
not detach itself from political imperatives which obliged it to recognise its setting
within a broader pan-Papuan context. As with earlier programs of cultural change
(Operasi Koteka), transmigration (RePPProT), integrated development (UNDP/Lavalin)
and conservation (WWF), development initiatives in Papua have typically been
conceptualised and implemented in ways which reinforce the cultural, economic,
political and cartographic coherence of the territory.96
95
As the company’s NMI publication The Will to Skill explains in a section titled “Our Commitment to
Papuan Development”: In 1996… the company pledged to double the number of indigenous Papuan
employees throughout the workforce by 2001 and to double that number again by 2006. The company
also pledged to at least double the total number of Papuan management and professional employees.
Both goals are being met and the company is committed to further progress in providing employment and
management opportunities for Papuans. At the end of 2006, PT Freeport Indonesia and its direct
contractors had nearly 3,600 Papuan employees, compared to 600 in 1996, including about 320 Papuan
management staff employees, compared to less than 50 in 1996. Another 1,459 Papuans were employed
by privatized companies serving PTFI (PT Freeport Indonesia 2007:18, my emphasis).
96
One of the clearest examples of this are a series of low resolution Investment Maps of Irian Jaya which
reflect a development strategy conceived and framed at a provincial level (Indonesia. Regional
Investment Coordinating Board of Irian Jaya 1989). While attempts were made to overcome this
provincially-based approach to development through the Kapet strategic development program, this has
failed to deliver significant regional development outcomes (see Indonesia. Dewan Pengembangan
Kawasan Timur Indonesia. Sekretariat 2002).
190
The Locked World of Irian Jaya
The general tenor is that all is going well …. that the real problem is to keep
out those who would wreck … developmental activity before it has come to
fruition (Rowley 1965:7).
The Indonesian administration is hypersensitive to any form of criticism of its
development policies. The area has been virtually closed to bona fide research,
and those researchers who have obtained permits do so with the knowledge that
any overt criticism will jeopardize future research projects for themselves or
their peers… (Mitton 1983:233).
These two quotes encapsulate key policy approaches of the New Order (1966-1998) and
post-New Order governments in Papua. Although Rowley’s observation relates to
Australian governance in the territories of Papua and New Guinea in the 1960s, it
resonates for the entire period of Indonesian (and Dutch colonial) administration in
West New Guinea and retains its salience for understanding the approach of the current
administration in Papua. Similarly, the challenges identified for researchers in Papua in
the diary excerpt (above) from Mitton’s Lost World of Irian Jaya, although written more
than 30 years ago, remain as serious as ever (see Chapter 1). Restrictions on access to
Papua, the pervasive security practices in the province and the tensions Papua evokes in
the bilateral relationship between Australia and Indonesia are embodied in the maps of
the territory that follow.
Figure 4-29: “Zur Carstensz-Pyramide”
(Barensteiner and Leitzinger 1996:187)97
97
“Discover the world anew” (Die welt neu entdecken) is the motto of Bruckmann, the travel publisher of
this book. This guidebook for trekking in New Guinea first appeared in their series of Adventure
Trekking (Abenteuer Trekking) in 1996 but has not been revised or reprinted since that time.
191
“The Carstensz-Pyramid” (Figure 4-29) appears in an German adventure guidebook for
the island of New Guinea, accompanied by a trek overview (tourenprofil) indicating the
key locations and conditions between the village of Ilaga and Puncak Jaya (4884m), the
highest mountain in New Guinea. But this map is not for trekking. It is merely to
tantalise the would-be adventurer. The kind of detailed map desirable for such an
arduous walk is not available. This guidebook recommends the only detailed map
(1:20,000) of the area in the public domain, first published in 1973 (Hope et al. 1973).98
In this map, almost invisible against a pale cream background, are several pools of
bluey-white, at the end of the trail (of red). Identified only by the label “nord-wall”,
these are the remarkable tropical glaciers of New Guinea that sit atop the Carstensz
massif.99
The “eternal snows” of the Carstensz massif have enticed foreign visitors ever since
they were first sighted by Jan Carstensz as he attempted to chart a course through the
Arafura Sea in 1623 (see Figure 4-4). Early and mid-twentieth century European (and
later Indonesian) preoccupations with the ascent of these glaciers are discussed
elsewhere (Chapter 3), but in the past few decades Carstensz has gained in popularity as
a key stop-over on a worldwide quest for hard core mountaineers. By the mid-1980s,
Carstensz was considered one of the Seven Summits of the world, one of the highest
peaks on “seven” continents.100
98
In Hope et al. (1976). The map recommended by (Barensteiner and Leitzinger, 1996:187) is in
Gunung Es, the first Dutch edition of the same book (also published in 1973 by Balkema of Rotterdam).
The relevant map in both editions is “Map 2: Carstensz Glacier Area” at 1:20,000 and is available online
at: http://www.papuaweb.org/dlib/bk/hope1976/map2.pdf.
99
The 1971-73 expedition report mapped four distinct glaciers. The recent report affirms the continued
presence of these four glaciers: “Collectively known as the Carstensz Glaciers, the principal ice masses of
the 1990s consisted of two valley glaciers, the Meren and Carstensz Glaciers in the Meren and Yellow
Valleys, respectively, as well as the high-elevation plateau glaciers, the West and East Northwall Firn”
(Prentice and Maryunani 2002:9, a map on the same page plots the changes in the areal extent of the
glaciers at irregular intervals for the years 1936, 1942, 1972 and 1987 and later compare this with aerial
photography from 1995-2000).
100
Bell (2000:16) identifies 1971 as the year when Carstensz first “arrived” as one of the major peaks of
the world - when world renowned mountaineer Reinhold Messner proclaimed to the world that he had
climbed the six highest peaks on six continents (for more on this history, see Bell 2000:14-25). The
Seven Summits has come (since the mid-1980s) to represent the following mountains: McKinley (North
America), Aconcagua (South America), Vinson (Antarctica), Kilimanjaro (Africa), Elbrus (Europe),
Everest (Asia) and either Carstensz Pyramid or Kosciuszko (Australasia). The possibility of two
alternates for the “continent” of Australasia recognises both the uncertainty of the “continentality” of the
islands immediately to the north of the Australian continent. This debate arose in part because the
Carstensz Pyramid is more than twice the height of Mt Kosciuszko (2228m), the highest mountain in
Australia. The existence of an Australasian alternate is also an expedient decision due to the known
difficulties of access for mountaineers wishing to climb Carstensz. “During the times that Carstensz is
192
Carstensz is not for the fainthearted or the ill-prepared. Despite its inclusion in many
government tourist brochures, investment publications, tourist guidebooks and
government tourism websites for Papua, access to Mt Jaya, the Carstensz massif and the
Freeport mining operation and company town of Tembagapura is – and always has been
– tightly controlled. Consider this promotional blurb from the Provincial Department of
Tourism on the World Wide Web (www):101
Tembagapura [is] The giant copper mine, the biggest mine in Indonesia.
Situated in a foggy area and surrounded by snowy mountains, Tembagapura is
an interesting place to visit, for tourists as well as for entrepreneurs. Visitors
can witness the mining processes of several mines around. Access to
Tembagapura is by means of air planes or cars. It is only a 2-hour drive from
Timika to Tembagapura. There are public facilities such as airport, comfortable
accommodations, and even a modern shopping area in Tembagapura, making
the visit most convenient (Indonesia. Papua Provincial Government 2005).
According to Bell (2000:123), the Tembagapura road is only three hours walk from the
Carstensz base camp but as Barensteiner and Leitzinger (1996:186) note, the
“substantially shorter alternative through the minesite at Tembagapura to Timika is not
possible, as the mining company P.T. Freeport presently does not grant such
permission.”102 They continue, explaining that to undertake the trek from Ilaga to
Puncak Jaya one requires eight separate permission approvals from Jakarta which takes
approximately three months (Barensteiner and Leitzinger 1996:187), and strongly
recommend organising a trip to Carstensz through a tour operator. But sometimes even
tour guides can’t help with the necessary approvals and this is not the only part of Papua
subject to travel restrictions.103
off-limits to climbers, Kosciuszko enjoys a resurgence of interest from those seeking to climb all of the
seven continental high points” (Bell 2000:18).
101
This material first appeared in Indonesia. Pemda Tk.I Irja (1988:88) and verbatim on the web at
http://www.papua.go.id/papuatourism/inggris/fak_fak/Places%20of%20Interest/Tembagapura.html
(accessed 15 November, 2005) and is presented there with a low resolution photograph of a mountain
scene presumably intended to represent the road from Timika to Tembagapura.
102
Muller (2001:51) makes it clear that Freeport is not interested in tourists: “Note: Visitors are not
welcome at any of the Freeport installations. Only the head office in Jakarta grants permits to tour the
areas, and these are granted for professional reasons only.” Muller’s knowledge of Freeport protocols is
authoritative as he has worked as a travel guide writer for Indonesia for more than two decades and a
consultant to the company for over a decade.
103
A particularly acrimonious exchange related to access to Carstensz for seven summiteers erupted in
2004 following the web publication of an article by a Canadian Seven Summit hopeful Byron Smith (see
http://everestnews.com/4002expcoverage/cpbryon12032003p3.htm accessed 040130). Smith relied on
bribes and subterfuge to “sneak” to the top of Carstensz after failing to obtain a valid access permit to the
area. He completed his ascent (with several fellow climbers) in October 2003. The following March,
193
In 1997, when registering my arrival in the town of Nabire (standard practice when
traveling on a SKJ in Papua), I made a note of details written (in English) for the benefit
of tourists on a large notice board in the Intel office (intelligence agents assigned to
monitor foreign visitors) of the local police:
Must possess travelling letter (Surat Keterangan Jalan) from the police…
Areas closed to tourism:
1. Enarotali; 2. Waghete; 3. Moanemani; 4. Obano; 5. Ilaga.
For climbing Mt Carstensz you must possess:
Recommendation letter from: MENPORA; DirJen PHPA; DirJen Pariwisata;
BIA; MABES POLRI; KAPOLDA IRJA.104
When I requested clarification from the local Intel officer about where my friend and I
were permitted to travel in the region, he listed the following areas: Sugapa, Mulia, Ilu,
Sinak, Beoga, Aradide, Homeyo, Mapia, Uwapa/Topo, Nabire, Yaur/Kwatisore, Napan.
another Seven Summiteer, Ramon Blanco (again with companions) arrived in a climbing tour to climb
the mountain but was refused access after arriving in Irian with appropriate permits from Jakarta (see
http://7summits.com/forum/index.php?topic=367.msg1210). Blanco states that his permits were
cancelled the day before he was to head to the base camp (from Timika – he was 70 at the time and had
obtained special permission to make the ascent from the mine site). Apparently the “authority” who
prevented Blanco from making his trip up the road to Tembagapura was holding the web account by
Byron Smith in which he describes in some detail the bribes and manipulations he engaged in to gain
access to the mountain (18p.). According to Blanco, Smith’s (climbing tour) host had requested the
“utmost discretion” so as to avoid any negative repercussions. Blanco continued, stating that the
climbing tour guide had requested Blanco be contacted “… to let him know that what he has done brings
a very bad impact to me and my family also my business. He also has jeopardy many people’s live and
caused you… to lose an opportunity to climb the mountain.” (see Blanco 2004 online). This
correspondence was followed up by several other climbing websites, including a recent article
www.mounteverest.net announcing “Carstensz Pyramid – open for business (12 July 2005).
104
MENPORA (Menteri Pemuda dan Olahraga, the Minister for Youth and Sport), DirJen PHPA
(Direktur Jenderal Perlindungan Hutan dan Pelestarian Alam, Directorate General of Forest Protection
and Nature Conservation), DirJen Pariwisata (Direktur Jenderal Pariwisata, Directorate General of
Tourism), BIA (Badan Intelijen ABRI, Armed Forces Intelligence), MABES POLRI (Markas Besar
Polisi Republic Indonesia, National Police Headquarters), KAPOLDA IRJA (Kepala Polisi Daerah Irian
Jaya, Head of Provincial Police of Irian Jaya).
194
Figure 4-30: “Areas closed to tourism…” (1997)
(Sketch map by the author, April 2008)
For tourists used to relatively unfettered travel in other parts of Indonesia (or elsewhere)
such restrictions can be confusing and appear excessive. More than half the villages the
Intel officer listed as approved for foreign visitors were not marked on any of the maps in
Kal Muller’s (2001) Indonesian New Guinea, the best available guidebook at the time, nor
are they included in a listing of light aircraft airstrips in Papua (Petocz 1989:110-111 inset)
or the RAAF regional airfield guide (RAAF 2008).105 “Areas closed to tourism…” (Figure
4-30) indicates villages listed in the Nabire Intel office as closed in red and others open to
tourism (but often extremely inaccessible) in green.106 The restrictions on availability of
topographic maps (even at a scale of 1:500,000) for Papua make it difficult for travelers to
do more than rely on their guidebook for maps of the territory. The complex bureaucratic
and security checklist and the lack of available maps tends to encourage those intent on
visiting Carstensz to travel on tours organised exclusively by Indonesian trekking
companies.
As one of the closest significant airports to Ilaga, Nabire clearly received visitors intent
on climbing (or at least seeing) the Carstensz massif. Beyond the casual gaze of the
adventure tourist, however, this list on the Intel board in Nabire reveals itself as more
105
These lists include almost all of the light aircraft fields in Papua. The RAAF (2008) list includes data
collected and collated during the Australian Military drought relief program in Papua in 1997/98 (see
Ballard 2000).
106
Note that the large and dispersed settlement of Ilage is indicated by the two airstrips that service the
town operated by MAF/CAMA (Mission Aviation Fellowship/Christian and Mission Alliance) and AMA
(Associated Mission Aviation).
195
than mere fancy or Kafkaesque obstruction. It specifically identifies villages and towns
around the Paniai Lakes (incicated in blue). The Paniai Lakes was a priority area for
Operasi Koteka (see Indonesia. Military Command XVII Tjendrawasih 1971:20) and
has been a Military Operation Zone (Daerah Operasi Militar, DOM) for much of the
past four decades and Obano a site of conflict even earlier under the Dutch (see Giay
1995). Although the DOM status for Papua was “officially” revoked on October 5,
1998 by the Commander of the Indonesian Armed Forces (Cepos 6 October 1998) this
region remains “closed to tourism”.107 For tourists this is a mere inconvenience, but the
fact that the communities in this region have been “off-limits” for almost 50 years does
not bode well for the stability and security of Papua in the future (see Chapter 6).
Ongoing travel restrictions, the persistence of a special SKJ system across Papua to
monitor foreign tourists and the logistical challenges of travel in the territory all
reinforces perceptions of Papua as a place for adventure tourists, but no Bali.
Figure 4-31: “Perwilayahan Pariwisata”
(Map on the website of Dinas Pariwisata, Pemda Tingkat I Papua 2007)
The provincial government tourism department would like to open Papua to a wider
tourist market. Their recent map of Papua’s “Tourist Regions” (Figure 4-31) gives no
indication of travel restrictions in the territory.108 Its cartographic optimism
107
Several recent incidents, especially the dramatic events of 2004 in the Puncak Jaya district, suggest the
area will remain closed for the foreseeable future. See, for example, HRW (2007a).
108
Muller (2001:178) reported the following areas closed to tourists: “the corridor along the border with
Papua New Guinea, the Mamberamo River Basin, and the Paniai Lakes and adjacent highlands, including
Puncak Jaya. The reasons for this are various, having to do with politics, lack of infrastructure, and – in
the case of Puncak Jaya, proximity to the Freeport Indonesia copper mine.” Recent military operations in
the Wasior peninsula (at the northern base of the Bird’s neck, west of Nabire), in the Western highlands
196
conveniently overlooks ongoing military operations and changing travel restrictions that
can affect foreign tourists as well as Indonesian journalists and human rights workers.109
Kal Muller (2001: 178) promotes an easy, pragmatic attitude to travel in Papua, yet
even his nonchalance at the SKJ permit process reveals something of the anxiety
attached to travel in the province:
Be polite and use your head. Offer a coherent itinerary and talk about the
scenery and the wildlife and other noncontroversial aspects of the region to
which you want permission to go.
The registration process in Papua has relaxed considerably for travel to the major towns
of the territory. However, both provinces of Papua and West Irian Jaya retain the SKJ
travel permit system renowned among foreign tourists, particularly adventure tourists,
for restricting visitor access. Indeed, this reputation attracts some foreign tourists, who
assume (for this reason) that few tourists make it to this “lost world”. The same
restrictions on travel are rarely a feature in promoting Papua to the domestic Indonesian
market (which constitutes the majority of the territory’s visitors each year). The fact
that the provincial government promotes tourism in the region with little or no
indication of the impediments travellers may encounter may be mere marketing spin. It
may, equally, reflect a vision (or a desire) among tourism officials working in Papua to
be able to promote a region that is not defined by the strategic preoccupations and
unilateral control of the nation’s security forces.
(Mulia and other proximate villages), as well as the ongoing development of the Tangguh operation in
the Bintuni Bay make it likely that additional areas are off-limits to tourists.
109
In recent years both foreign and Indonesian-based human rights workers have reported recurrent
problems with accessing areas of the province under military operations to verify reports or human rights
violations (see HRW 2007a:21-23). The recent compilation of stories by Kompas journalists echoes this
theme with its provocatively titled “Expedition to the Land of Papua” (Yuniarti and Verdiansyah 2007).
197
Figure 4-32: “UNCLAS OSINT Papua Province TNI-POLRI deployments”
(Davies 2001:27)
Compiled entirely from ‘unclassified open source intelligence’ (UNCLAS OSINT)
documents, this map (Figure 4-32) is a guide to deployments of military (TNI) and
national police (POLRI) in the province of Papua.110 The boxes which surround the
territory are tactical symbols, indicating force strengths and capacities.111 With an
appropriate interpretive legend, the map reveals territorial (permanent or organic) and
special (temporary or non-organic) troop deployments as well as national police
numbers across Papua. Access to such information is always tightly controlled in
Indonesia and is rare outside publications prepared for and circulated among military
officers.112 Davies’s intention in producing this map (and his 2001 publication more
generally) was to demonstrate the value of so-called “Open Source Intelligence” to the
intelligence community, and in particular his recent employer, the Australian
Government’s Office of National Assessments (ONA). Although this may seem
counter-intuitive, it appears that the Australian intelligence establishment has often been
dismissive of such “open sources” as newspaper reports, academic articles, broadcast
110
Although TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia) signifies the entire Indonesian Armed Forces, this map
covers Army (TNI-AD, Angkatan Darat) but no Navy (TNI-AL, Angkatan Laut) or Air Force (TNI-AU,
Angkatan Udara) deployments in Papua.
111
Davies notes that in this map he has attempted to follow the Indonesian military notations, which
approximate “non-colour specific earlier generation NATO-type tactical symbols”, while incorporating
specific Indonesian adaptations from a reference he “purchased as a photocopied document from a street
vendor in Bandung” (Davies 2001:5).
112
See for example the similar map in a 1991 army publication (Indonesia. Kodam VIII Trikora
1991:70).
198
media and the like. Davies’s entire report on Indonesian Security Responses to
Resurgent Papuan Separatism… (2001) was prepared from such sources.113
“UNCLAS OSINT…” (Figure 4-32) effectively encapsulates two competing
perspectives towards Papua – that the territory is either defended or dominated by the
security apparatus of the Indonesian state. This impression is reinforced by a phalanx of
tactical symbols along the Indonesia-PNG border which prompts the question – what is
being kept out or kept in by these forces?114 The three dividing lines across the territory
(into Kodam 171, 172 and 173) reflect the fact that the military administration of the
province preceded well in advance of attempts at similar civil administrative redivisions (the policy of pemekaran discussed later in this chapter). 115 What this map
omits is the ways in which the territorial command structure across Indonesia has
enabled the security apparatus to penetrate almost every aspect of community life in the
country, particularly during the New Order period, through its doctrine of dual function
(dwifungsi, see Singh 1995).
This map actively undermines the common military strategy of ambiguity and
misinformation about troop numbers and deployments in the field. The lack of credible
information related to the security forces in Papua and its plans for expansion in the
future is a source of ongoing frustration for critics of state violence in the province.116 It
is also apparent that this lack of information has been one of the key techniques used by
the security forces to perpetuate a culture of fear in the province. The uncertainty of
how, when and where the state may be able (and willing) to act with violent or lethal
force, and its history of repressive action in Papua, has perpetuated this anxiety. This
abstract and imprecise fear of the capacities of state security apparatus is complemented
by the deployment of an explicit iconography of state terror in certain parts of the
113
As a former member of the Australian intelligence service, this point is crucial. In 1999 he wrote a
similar study for East Timor which resulted in action against him for “a breach of national security
protocols” (Davies 2001:2-3).
114
It is important to recognise that many of these symbols correspond to urban-based forces in Jayapura
and Merauke (see the corresponding data in Davies 2001:46, Table 4).
115
This is not strictly the case as the idea of a three province civil administrative division of the territory
was muted as early as the mid-1980s and assistant governors were put in place for each of these nominal
divisions. However, the legislative framework to underpin such a division was not approved until 1999
(see Figure 4-44).
116
Which prompted the International Crisis Group to address this issue in their FAQs on Papua (see ICG
2006b:2-3).
199
province (see Ballard 2002). Yet while apprehension may be an effective deterrent
within Papua, it has a limited effect on critics or dissenting opinion from outside the
province or the nation. This predicament requires deft diplomacy and a policy of
retribution.
Figure 4-33: The “West Papua” Map
(Australia. Department of Defence 2000a)
In June 2000, this map appeared in Defence Review 2000: Our Future Defence Force.
A Public Discussion Paper, June 2000 otherwise known as the “Defence Green Paper of
2000” (Australia. Department of Defence 2000a:12). It identifies the Indonesian
province of “West Papua”, along with East Timor as regions requiring particular
attention by the Australia Defence Forces.117 Although this “Green Paper” was
intended to solicit public comment on future directions for the Australian Defence
Forces, feedback on this map came from an unexpected stakeholder. As reported by
Greenlees (2000):
Deputy armed forces commander General Fachrul Razi also voiced objections
to the depiction of West Papua as an area of potential strategic concern during
meetings with Australian officials soon after the green paper was published in
June. Australia has gone to some lengths to explain the green paper and reduce
risks of misunderstandings with Indonesia…
Published in the same month as the Papuan Second National Congress (see Chapter 3)
and in the wake of the Australian Defence Force-led interventions in East Timor
117
Although Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid officially endorsed the use of this term on 31
December 1999, this change had not been ratified by the Indonesian Parliament by June 2000 when the
Defence Review discussion paper was produced. (The change from Irian Jaya to Papua was officially
ratified by the Indonesian Parliament in August 2000).
200
(September 1999), the map raised considerable anxieties among some officials in
Jakarta. The Australian government, in an attempt to ease diplomatic tensions,
dispatched several senior Defence officials to meet with the Indonesian Defence
Minister and members of his armed forces (Greenlees 2000).118 The definitive policy
document that emerged from this Green Paper – the so-called Defence White Paper
(Australia. Department of Defence 2000b) – removed this map completely. But it did
not efface all reference to the territory. The one map eventually included in the final
report was titled “Australian Defence Force Involvement in Overseas Humanitarian
Relief, Evacuations, Peacekeeping and Peace-Enforcing Operations 1990 – Present” and
included, in its explanatory map key under the title “ADF Contribution to humanitarian
relief and evacuation of civilians” a reference “19. Irian Jaya – Drought relief, 1998.”119
This inclusion of this map was consistent with the broad thrust of the White Paper and
served as an important reminder of the delicate diplomatic context for any Australian
interventions in Papua. It is not just that Jakarta has anxieties over Papua. Although
DuPont (2003:61) downplays the risk he does recognise Australia’s strategic concern
that:
If bilateral relations were to deteriorate over Papua or East Timor, Jakarta
might contemplate military action against Australian territory or the
interdiction of the trade routes that pass through the archipelago and carry vital
Australian exports to Northeast Asia…
All references to Indonesian Papua or “Irian Jaya” (with the exception of drought relief
operations in 1998) were excised from the final Defence White Paper (Australia.
Department of Defence 2000b), signalling a new kind of self-censorship with respect to
Papua among Australian government officials. Yet, paradoxically, objections to the
inclusion of (West) Papua in these reports reinforce the cartographic coherence of the
territory and merely exacerbate anxieties and mistrust related to recent and ongoing
practices in the province. There are, however, examples to suggest that other messages
in mainstream media have reflected and reinforced the Australian government’s
reticence towards Papua.
118
This map was even temporarily removed from the digital version of this document although it was
subsequently reinserted (see http://www.defence.gov.au/consultation2/Dpaper.pdf).
119
It is worth noting that this extended relief work in Irian Jaya afforded the ADF the opportunity to
update their information on all major airfields and hundreds of light aircraft landing strips across Papua to
their publically available Tactical Airfield Guide Regional (Australia. RAAF AIS 2004).
201
Figure 4-34: “Your world today… Our region”
(The Weekend Australian, September 2004, insert)
Without a hint of irony, “Your world today… Our region” (Figure 4-34) appeared in a
weekend edition of The Australian newspaper in September 2004, as if endorsing the
controversial assertion by Australian Prime Minister John Howard of 9 August 2004
that the Pacific was “our patch.” The map was one of a series of four produced by The
Times to promote the new Times Atlas of the World. They were distributed free each
week for a month in the weekend edition of The Australian newspaper with a weekend
circulation of approximately 300,000 papers. In this map a pallid Papua (i.e. west New
Guinea) disappears into insular Southeast Asia, dividing the island of New Guinea
along political lines and hinting at recent bilateral agreements intended to reassure the
Indonesian government that Australia “has no territorial ambitions in Papua.” The map
also hints at other imperatives in the bilateral relationship.
On 22 August 2002, the Australian Foreign Minister initiated an inquiry into Australia’s
relationship with Indonesia, with a “focus on opportunities for rebuilding closer links
between the two countries” (Australia. JFADT 2004:4). This was seen to be of
particular importance due to negative impacts on the bilateral relationship caused by
Australia’s intervention in East Timor. The Joint Standing Committee on Foreign
Affairs, Defence and Trade invited public submissions as part of their review process.120
While the submission process was underway, on 12 October 2002, several bombs were
120
According to the JFADT report, “The Committee advertised the inquiry in ‘The Australian’ on
September 18, 2002” (Australia. JFADT 2004:4, my emphasis) which is apparently common practice for
such inquiries but did not advertise in any other local, regional or national newspaper. A press release
was widely disseminated.
202
detonated in resort areas on the island of Bali, killing 202 people and injuring hundreds
more. Eighty-nine Australians were killed.121
The report received 124 submissions from members of the general public, academics,
non-government organisations, national and state governments and their agencies and
industry groups.122 Eight of these submissions expressed grave reservations about
Indonesian governance in Papua and as many others raised serious concerns about
recent trends in the province. The two submissions from the Indonesian Embassy in
Canberra to the process covered a range of issues, with specific focus on the Bali
bombings. Both reiterated Indonesia’s sovereignty over Papua and one submission
(Australia. JFADT 2004 Submission No.90, Feb.21, 2003, 28p.) included two separate
annexes that elaborated on “the historical and legal background” of Papua (Annex I)
and the “history of Papua” (Annex II). Both of these documents reiterated the official
Indonesian government position that Papua was an integral part of the former Dutch
East Indies and therefore a legitimate part of its successor state, Indonesia. Annex I
asserted the legitimacy of the UN transfer process, while Annex II “History of Papua”
affirmed Papua’s place in the constellation of the former Majapahit Empire (no page
numbers). The inclusion in the final report (Australia. JFADT 2004: 124-139) of
several Papua-related issues raised in these submissions was not echoed in the report’s
final recommendations which made not specific reference to Papua (Australia. JFADT
2004:xix-xxxiv). Bereft of maps, Near Neighbours, Good Neighbours was a wideranging document that covered many diverse areas of importance to the bilateral
relationship and placed strong emphasis on inter-governmental cooperation.
Most of the [government] departments that made submissions to the inquiry
described some engagement involving research collaborations or education and
training programs and other activities with a capacity building focus… The
Committee was struck by the mutually beneficial nature of these activities
(Australia. JFADT 2004:22).
There are salutary messages in the submissions by many individuals and institutions to
the Senate review, especially with relation to the widespread indifference in Australia
towards Indonesia. The malaise in Indonesian studies in Australia is lamented
121
Revised total in Canberra Times, 22 March, 2003. Details of the subsequent bombing in Jakarta of the
Marriot Hotel (5 August, 2003) were also incorporated into this report.
122
See all submissions at http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jfadt/indonesia/subs.htm.
203
elsewhere (e.g. Lindsey 2005; Hill 2008), but it is paralleled by a similar lack of interest
among foreign scholars in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific Islands. This has led
some commentators to suggest that the region risks slipping into “a miasma of
cartographic disinterest” (Ballard 1999:149). There are, however, large numbers of
students and academics with an indefatigable interest in these – their – regions.
Placing Papuans and Papuan places
The essential conviction among Papuans that they have an undisputable stake in
defining their communities and their future is at the core of critiques of life for Papuans
under Dutch and Indonesian authority (Aditjondro 2000; Giay 1995, 2000a, 2003, 2006;
Giay and Kambai 2003; Pigay 2000; Alua 2002a-e; Karoba et al. 2002; Ekari 2006, see
also Chapter 2). Within Indonesia, Papuans are not alone in the sense of frustration,
injustice and oppression they have felt at the hands of an authoritarian state. In the postSuharto period of Reformasi new laws were introduced across Indonesia recognising the
importance of local communities and the importance of decentralising programs of
development and governance (i.e. UU22/1999 and UU25/1999). In Papua, the Special
Autonomy Law 21 of 2001 (UU21/2001) promises greater control of political and
economic activities from within Papua but the core challenge of this new legislative
framework remains its effective implementation (see Chapters 2 & 6). Other recent
innovations in the implementation of multilateral aid in Papua and new ideals of
corporate self-governance suggest new possibilities for improved engagement with local
communities in development, often based on explicit recognition of their traditional
rights and practices. Yet despite nominal state support such participatory initiatives
typically rely for their coordination on civil society organisations (CSOs) and foreign
aid or corporate sponsorship. This section of the chapter explores some recent
innovations aimed at engaging local communities and how these programs inform
cartographic conceptions of Papua. One of the most celebrated recent initiatives to
engage local peoples in Papua was a community mapping project at the BP Tangguh
liquefied natural gas project in (West) Papua’s Bintuni Bay.
204
Figure 4-35“ “Kawasan Teluk Bintuni di Indonesia”
(Indonesia. Pemda Papua et al. 2003:3)
Bintuni Bay is a notable feature in the physical geography of the archipelago but this
this map frames the geography of the nation around Bintuni Bay. “The Region of
Bintuni Bay in Indonesia” is the first map in the Coastal Resource Atlas of the Bintuni
Bay Region (Atlas Sumberdaya Pesisir Kawasan Teluk Bintuni). The Atlas is the result
of a major collaboration involving the Provincial Government of Papua, the District
Government of Manokwari, the University of Papua and the Coastal Project (Proyek
Pesisir) of United States Foreign Aid in Indonesia (USAID Indonesia).
“Implementation” of the Atlas project was through the Coastal Resources Center of the
University of Rhode Island (Indonesia. Pemda Papua et al. 2003:ii). Major funding for
the project came from USAID and BP Indonesia. Every village in the Bintuni area was
mobilised for this study. With almost 100 pages of detailed description, extensive data
sets and high quality maps, the populations of Bintuni are now one of the most
geographically determined communities in Indonesia. Yet they may be unaware of the
extent of the data BP Indonesia has compiled on their communities and ancestral
lands123 and the full implications of this data on their claims to land and royalties in the
123
An intense focus on the accumulation of spatial data around large scale resource extraction projects is
common practice. Freeport Indonesia’s Contract of Work area (COW) a few hundred kilometres
southeast of BP Indonesia’s Bintuni Bay site, has been the subject of intense company research for more
than decades (especially since the negative international press related to Freeport’s operations in Irian
erupted in 1995/96). By November 1996, Freeport had completed aerial photography for a set of 878
maps at 1:5,000 covering almost its entire COW (Freeport Index Map - File Name: IDXNOV96.DWG).
Of this set, at least 120 detailed maps have been produced at 1:5,000 with special attention given to the
mine site, downstream operations and proximate villages. While this map set would have been valuable
in planning the levee bank for tailings deposition in the alluvial floodplain adjoining the lowland town of
Timika (constructed in the mid-late 1990s), maps at this resolution also clearly indicate aggregations of
peoples (villages, footpaths and the like) as well as patterns of land use (agriculture and gardens). It is
205
region today and in the future.124 Yet the Coastal Resource Atlas of the Bintuni Bay
Region is counterintuitive.
One of the greatest known coastal resources in all of Eastern Indonesia is in Bintuni
Bay, but it is not included in this Atlas. It is a startling omission, but it is hardly
surprising given the strategic importance of this information to BP Indonesia and to the
local people of Bintuni. The Tangguh natural gas fields in Bintuni Bay are enormous
and they are currently under development.125 While the Atlas plots the incomes of local
peoples from fisheries, hunting and sago production, BP and the Indonesian government
have signed supply contracts for Tangguh worth billions of dollars (US).126 The local
people of Bintuni are largely excluded from the economic benefits of this massive
resource project. BP Indonesia has gone to some length to engage local communities in
the development of the Tangguh project, but apparently this does not extend to the
inclusion of maps of the resource that they will be extracting from the area.127 Nor does
it include maps of the agreed community revenues, or their new resource, once
production “trains” come on-line.
In the context of Bintuni Bay, this “Coastal Resource Atlas” reads more like a base-line
study for a program of large-scale resource extraction than an aid project (cf. UABS
1998a-c). That the Bintuni Atlas was intended to be a model – and not a mere anomaly
– for other coastal atlas projects throughout the archipelago makes the selection of this
region even more puzzling.128 This decision may be attributable, in part, to the new
unlikely that local villagers would have access to such maps of their own lands unless under the auspices
of a community mapping project (which would almost inevitably be controlled by the concessionaire).
124
1000 copies of this atlas were produced (NRM Indonesia 2003). Sumampouw and Knight (2004) note
that “A second, more simple version was produced that was reproduced in greater numbers and
distributed directly to villagers living around Bintuni Bay to facilitate their own discussions around issues
that resonate with local villages. The complete atlas was greatly facilitated by the support of BP, which
continued to support utilization of the atlas in areas for community and local government dialogue.”
125
More than 14.4 TCF (trillion cubic feet) of proven and certified clean natural gas reserves (see
http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle.do?categoryId=9004779&contentId=7008759).
126
Even if no further contracts are secured, Tangguh has existing market commitments to supply around
7.65 MT of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) per year once production begins in 2008. The price BP Indonesia
negotiated for its Fujian supply contract was US$2.40-3.00 / mmbtu (United States Embassy Indonesia
2004:40). Assuming the conservative (lowest price of US$2.4) for current yearly supply contracts for
Tangguh, the gross revenue will reach US$1 billion per year from 2008.
127
There are other issues to be considered in any social assessment of the area not raised in the Atlas
including the place of local mythologies, especially those of the subterranean world (Timmer 2000).
128
Sumampouw and Knight (2004) identify two other atlas projects, the Lampung Atlas (see
http://www.crc.uri.edu/index.php?filespec=live_data.php&actid=155) and the Regional Coastal
206
paradigm USAID is working under around the world. While past USAID projects in
Papua and across Eastern Indonesia sought to work with NGOs129 in support of civil
society programs and capacity building, they now seek active corporate collaborations.
The Bintuni Atlas is an example par excellence of USAID’s Global Development
Alliance which “seeks to leverage private resources for development” (which also
leverages government resources for private development).130 In September 2002, BP
Indonesia “joined forces with USAID in a three-year Bird’s Head Alliance… [to] help
BP meet its AMDAL commitments” (BP Indonesia 2005:5, emphasis in original).131
The acknowledgements section of the Bintuni Atlas reads like a who’s who of
researchers, NGO activists and government employees in Papua132 and includes NGOs
and academics who were strident critics of the Tangguh project in the past.133 Their
Resources Atlas of Manado, Minahasa and Bitung (which compiled substantial data from earlier aid and
research projects). Each of these atlases appears to have relatively unique contexts of production,
suggesting that each atlas is a one-off project. Yet Sumampouw and Knight (2004) state that “As a result
of the CRMP atlas model, 27 other provinces have produced their own coastal resources atlases
supported by local government budgets, other projects and national funding.” To date it seems none of
these other local/provincial governments have produced CRMP-style atlases.
129
Either directly or through block grants administered by NGOs like YPMD or Foker LSM.
130
US Advisory Committee on Voluntary Foreign Aid report (see
http://www.usaid.gov/about_usaid/acvfa/acvfasummary1002.pdf).
131
Amdal (Analisis Mengenai Dampak Lingkungan) or Environmental Impact Analysis (EIA) are
required by companies to ensure that they meet certain specific criteria for operating in Indonesia.
AMDAL are typically quite broad in scope. BP’s Tangguh AMDAL consisted of a 7,000 page document
(BP Indonesia 2006:1).
132
The acknowledgements page of the Atlas makes special mention of: The Indonesian Minister for Seas
and Fisheries, The Governor of Papua, The Rector of Unipa, the Atlas production team, and others – a
total of 17 individuals). It also lists more than 150 other individuals by name in the following categories:
Papuan provincial government officials (25); Manokwari district government officials (25); NGOs
members (22); Corporate employees (mostly BP Indonesia – 9); Unipa and Uncen academics (24);
Consultants and Survey Team members (mostly Unipa and locally based NGOs – 19); Pesisir Project
staff in Jakarta (12); Community leaders/representatives (15); Volunteers (16). The final category in this
list suggests that the majority of contributors (at least those not mentioned purely out of professional
courtesy or for reasons of protocol) received some form of remuneration for their involvement in the
project.
133
This includes Decky Rumaropen (who was employed on the Atlas project as a private consultant and
not in his official role as head of YPMD); Max Samaduda (former staff member of YPMD now with BP
Indonesia); Yayasan Perdu; Robert Mandosir (former head of Yali in Papua) among others. There are
notable individuals and NGOs not included in this list including the Manokwari based YP3BH (Institute
for the Research, Analysis and Development of Legal Aid) and its current Director Yan Christian (Chris)
Warinussy. In June 2005 Warinussy was awarded the John Humphrey Freedom Award in Montreal, a
$25,000 annual award which honours the Canadian who wrote the first draft of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights (see http://www.westpapua.ca/?q=en/node/395). LP3BH has been involved in a number
of investigations of human rights abuses related to the Tangguh project, including the Wasior case (see
Elsham 2001) and the Wiriagar case. Ray (2005 online) notes that LP3BH’s investigation into the
Wiriagar case was supported by a BP trust fund and that “the group will be entitled to reimbursement for
its work regardless of its conclusions on the investigation” and that “The fund will be subject to
transparent auditing.”
207
involvement in the project does not, of course, prevent their continued critique of the
company or its activities, but it does help to legitimate the process. Similarly (NRM
Indonesia 2003):
The presence of the Papua Governor, the Bintuni Bupati, and the Unipa Rector
demonstrated strong local support for the development of the Bintuni Atlas and
its use to inform development of the Bintuni Bay area.
With the project still in its late construction phase, the broad compliance of stakeholders
(and potential stakeholders) is not surprising. The hype and hyperbole around Tangguh
in the local and national media and the substantial investment by the company in the
local region (more than US$600 million by mid-2002)134 are strong incentives for
engaging with the project. For University of Papua (Universitas Papua, Unipa) and
Bird of Paradise University (Universitas Cenderawasih, Uncen) academics, the prospect
of making a contribution to local community development efforts in Papua, coupled
with research opportunities and highly lucrative contracts, made involvement with the
project highly desirable. NGO activists had different motives for their engagement.
With USAID (historically the biggest aid donor in Papua) changing its funding strategy
from direct (or block-grant) sponsorship of NGOs and civil society-based initiatives,
NGO funding in Papua over the past few years has been limited. As BP has committed
US$6 million to the Bird’s Head Alliance and USAID another US$3 million, there have
been strong incentives for academics, NGOs and local communities to remain engaged
with Tangguh and USAID’s programs in the region.135 While such collaborations may
bring tremendous opportunities and valuable skills enhancement to participants, it
remains to be seen how effectively they can assist with long term development
objectives. Such approaches also carry inherent, if not immediately apparent, risks.
According to an anonymous informant involved in social mapping for the Atlas project
(interview August 2004, my translation):
People didn’t want to be working with BP… everyone was told by USAID that
BP would not be involved in the project, but, as time went by, they became
increasingly involved… the thing I find amazing is how BP managed to make
everyone hate USAID…
The Bintuni Atlas community mapping initiative put both BP Indonesia and USAID in
an invidious position. This is in part due to the recent reversal in the rationale for past
134
135
“Sociologists before geologists?” The Economist June 27, 2002.
For details on the funding breakdown for Birds Head Alliance, see USAID (2005:39).
208
aid projects in Papua (and across the country) which previously focused on
strengthening NGOs and civil society groups as a countervailing force to the practices
and excesses of government and business. In this project, the company and USAID
both placed a high priority on engaging local people and indigenous Papuans in the
development activities of the Bird’s Head region, helping to reinforce the sense that the
project is for all Papuans. Contradicting this impression is the clear intention by BP
Indonesia to attempt to limit the influx of migrants into the region once the facility
comes on-line (interview with members of the TIAP Committee, Canberra, March
2005).
Attempts to limit migration to the Bintuni region are likely to reinforce the tendency,
already evident for decades in the Freeport Indonesia Contract Of Work, for this project
to become an enclave development (see Chapter 5). The new “integrationist” aid
doctrine also virtually guarantees the consolidation in such enclaves of the best and
brightest of Papua’s young educated elites, making such projects provincial icons (see
earlier discussion on the Freeport C.O.W. and Figure 4-26). But the cost of such
opportunities is already apparent to the local and broader Papuan (and Indonesian)
community who are losing key advocates and some of their most strident and articulate
critics of government and business interests in Papua (see DTE 2005). The alliance
approach has resulted in a diminution of the quality (expertise) and transparency of
debates related to environmental or developmental practices as the mantle for
government, corporate and aid policy critique is taken up by other activists, often with
quite different constituencies, credentials and agendas.
On behalf of my people, I must tell you that if you love our natural
resources, you must first love our people.
People ask me “Where is this place called ‘Tangguh’?” and I have to
tell them that there is no river, mountain, village or town in West Papua
with that name. The Indonesian dictator Suharto who killed thousands of
my people gave your project its name. In his language it means “All
powerful” or “invincible”, like he thought his empire would be…
Figure 4-36: “A letter from Rev. Socratez Sofyan Yoman, President of the Fellowship of
Baptist Churches of Papua to Lord Browne, Group Chief Executive, BP, 30 July, 2005”
209
Reverend Yoman is an eccentric figure in Papuan politics, but as Chairman of the
Alliance of Baptist Churches in West Papua, he enjoys the admiration and respect of his
predominately highland Papuan congregation. His outspoken manner, readiness to
stand up for human rights issues, and support from Australian church ministers (see
Barr 2002) has raised his profile internationally.
Yoman’s statement (Figure 4-36) would most likely find broad resonance in Papua and
across Indonesia among communities feeling disenfranchised by large-scale resource
extraction projects on their lands. While Yoman’s letter was dismissed by BP senior
management (see Appendix 4, Figure 4-36), it may be thought of as part of an emerging
Papua-referenced spatial data set.136 Such conceptions challenge the authority of the
state through a framework which embodies local sensibilities, local conceptualisations
of space and local aspirations. Consider another example from Reverend Yoman, this
one concerning a sustained Indonesian military operation among communities of his
congregation in the western highlands of Papua.
Dear Sir...
You have made mistakes in writing the correct names of places and villages of
the native people who own the land of Papua. We do not know the name Limajari
village. The real name from our ancestors is Puncak Irinmuli village…. You have
made another mistake in writing the name of the village. The name of the village
was not Gurage Lima Jari. In Puncak Jaya there is no village called Gurage Lima
Jari. The word “Gurage” has a depth of meaning for us West Papuans as the owner
of the land. You need to know that “Gurage” includes all the villages from Monia,
Yarumugum, Pilia, Wirigele until Tanoba. Thus “Gurage” is not the name of a
village but a region… Once again you do not know the true names of our Papuan
villages: it is Wirigele village not Urgele and Pilia not Filia…
If the untruths you have relayed in your letter are genuine mistakes, I look
forward to hearing from you as soon as possible acknowledging that you were
mistaken. If however you continue to hold to a position that your letter contains a
truthful account of the events in Puncak Jaya, then with a heavy heart I will know
that you as a senior representative of the Republic of Indonesia in the United
Kingdom are quite prepared to try to deceive … the international community as a
whole by sending out letters which you know are full of lies.
Yours faithfully,
Revd Socratez Sofyan Yoman
President of the Baptist churches in West Papua
Figure 4-37: “Letter to the Indonesian Embassy, London, 22 July 2005”
136
Compare this to the conventional “geo-referenced” (spatial) data sets required for Geographical
Information Systems (GIS).
210
Reverend Yoman has discovered a structural flaw in the epistemological foundations of
Indonesian authority in Papua.137 This letter to the Indonesian Ambassador in London
is an example of the nuanced power local communities possess over place. Yoman’s
assertions critique Indonesian knowledge based on the authority of his local
knowledge.138 More than mere wordplay, Yoman’s critique is issued as a challenge to
the very structures that have proposed and accreted knowledge of Papua over centuries.
Representing a hybrid of Indonesian and local highland languages and dialects (Lani
and Dani), his letter combines nit-picking over modern renderings of place names with
corrections of meta-level classifiers (gurage) which assert a subtlety and nuance, as if
beyond foreign comprehension. In these ways, Yoman asserts his authority and seeks to
undermine the legitimacy of Indonesian governance in Papua.139 His letter is a direct
challenge to the official gazetteer of Indonesia:
A gazetteer is list of geographic names, together with their geographic
locations and other descriptive information. A geographic name is a proper
name for a geographic place and feature, such as Santa Barbara County, Mount
Washington, …(Hill et al. 1999 online, emphasis in original).
The Indonesian Bureau of Statistics (Badan Pusat Statistik or BPS) established a new
standard index of place names for the country in 1963 (the year of Papua’s integration
into the Republic). Today it is published in sections by BPS in Jakarta and distributed
to the relevant provincial governments in Eastern Indonesia as the “Map Index for
Villages/Wards in the Islands of Sulawesi, Maluku and Irian Jaya” (Peta Indeks
Desa/Kelurahan di Pulau Sulawesi, Maluku dan Irian Jaya). Names for local villages
(desa) or wards (kelurahan) are listed for the province if they are officially recognised
within the administrative structure.140 For this reason, the publication is not a
137
In this sense he is exploiting uses of vernacular languages and epistemologies that resonate with calls
by Pacific scholars such as Wendt (1995), Hau’ofa (1994) and Subramani (2001).
138
Here I use this term in the sense of Geertz (2000:167-234). See also Hercus and Simpson (2002),
McConvell (2002), Hercus (2002), Tamisari (2002).
139
Similarly, Ballard (1999:151) notes that “The Amungme are keenly aware of the relationship between
the power to bestow names and the right to control benefits that flow from the land; it is no coincidence,
in their eyes, that President Suharto selected the occasion of the inauguration of Freeport’s mining
township of Tembagapura in March 1973 to rename the province of Irian Barat (West Irian) as Irian Jaya
(Great or Victorious Irian).”
140
Each administrative area officially recognised by the government is given an administrative code
(kode wilayah administrasi). This code corresponds to the census classifications for the country (which
is the primary reason for the publication of these indexes). Codes are modified in these publications to
accommodate new legislation (such as the division of the province of Papua) or as rezoning of electoral
or census boundaries dictates (see Indonesia. Biro Pusat Statistik 2001:74-89 maps of Papua; 188-218
211
comprehensive gazetteer, which significantly limits its value. The preferred gazetteer
currently used by the National Mapping Agency (Bakosurtanal) and other government
departments with such requirements is the Gazetteer of Indonesia produced by the
United States Board on Geographic Names.141 While Bakosurtanal, in collaboration
with the Committee on Geographic Names (Panitia Pemberian Nama-nama Geografis,
or PPNG), is working to develop a comprehensive national gazetteer for the
archipelago, this is a massive (and ongoing) undertaking.142
The gazetteer is a compendium of knowledge that seeks to create the impression that
place is “fixed” in space. Its purpose is to provide a standardised and enduring
reference for cartographic representations of place. In this way it is an institution by
which governments may assert a degree of bureaucratic and (increasingly) technocratic
order over local spaces and communities. For a country the size of Indonesia,
maintaining a meaningful gazetteer is a monumental – and risky – enterprise. An
analogy to the definition and use of language may be apropos. A simple dictionary will
typically limit the range of possible meanings it offers in its definition of any given
word and exclude other words not (known by its authors to be) in common usage. A
rudimentary gazetteer will adopt a similar approach to the simplification of a similarly
complex world, in this case applied to the language of place. More sophisticated
dictionaries, such as the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), rely on the attribution of
meaning to words through exemplars of usage. A gazetteer that relied on a similar
etymological approach to defining place would not be so susceptible to critiques like
those of Yoman, but this runs contrary to state efforts to standardise and simplify place
names in Indonesia.143
lists of desa/kelurahan for Papua). The 2001 edition (Indonesia. Biro Pusat Statistik 2001) has Papua
divided into 3 provinces in accordance with UU45/1999.
141
US. Board on Geographic Names (1982). I have seen no more recent revisions to this gazetteer and
new editions are unlikely to be distributed again in printed form. The 1982 Gazetteer of Indonesia was
two volumes and totalled more than 1530 pages. An electronic version of this gazetteer is updated
regularly and available online through the website of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (US
Military, at http://earth-info.nga.mil/gns/html/cntry_files.html#I. Dixon’s Indonesian ports: an atlas and
gazetteer (1985) suggests a useful model for a compromise between a full national gazetteer and a
practical locality guide that it not determined purely by administrative/territorial imperatives.
142
Ballard (1999:150) notes that in Papua many place names “change with bewildering frequency,
betraying the tenuous quality of their relationship to any organic or indigenous referents.”
143
See Santoso (2001). As a part of this effort, a Presidential Regulation (PP112/2006) was passed in
2006 to help standard place names in Indonesia. (This contrasts with neighbouring PNG, where the
Village Directory served as the key reference gazetteer for many years although in recent years attempts
212
Although gazetteers may reflect “real world” encounters – knowledge gained through
experience in the field – they represent “remote” authority. Yoman’s critique strikes at
the heart of the authority of Indonesian knowledge of Papua and in this way constitutes
a direct attack on the authority and legitimacy of BP’s Tangguh operation and
Indonesian governance in Papua. The most poignant and compelling precedent for
Yoman’s critique of BP and the Indonesian Embassy’s spatial claim to authority over
Papuan peoples and Papuan places is the decades-long struggle by Papuans to have their
territory recognised as “West Papua.” At the Second Papuan Congress of May/June
2000 (see Chapter 2) even the location of the meeting was challenged. The protected
harbour and villages of Numbay, “founded” as Hollandia by the Dutch, Kota Baru
(briefly) then Sukarnapura under the Old Order and Jayapura under the New Order,
were once again referred to as Port Numbay. Local gazetteering, the assertion of local
space and place, cannot be meaningfully separated from local identity or culture
practices. How to purposefully engage with local peoples and their conceptions of
space is an ongoing intellectual and policy challenge, but Yoman’s letters represent this
issue as a fundamentally moral predicament.144
Figure 4- 38: Shifting the burden (triptych)
This triptych presents three images that project and embody a moral cartography of –
and responsibility for – Papua, yet each image is distinctly different in its context of
to revise the directory have been overwhelmed by the diversity of new and conflicting names attributed to
the same individual villages as/or sub-districts (Bryant Allen, pers. comm., March 2003)).
144
Yoman’s point is directly related to Giay (2000) who re-conceptualises the intellectual search for
Papua’s unwritten history by asserting the importance of Papuans (and non-Papuans in his schema)
themselves as the key “documents” to be consulted for any meaningful (revisionist) history of the region.
213
production. The first, taken from the cover of a presciently titled pamphlet “New
Guinea: time for renewed political scrutiny” (Hanekroot 1958), depicts a clog-wearing
Dutchman labouring under the burden of Netherlands New Guinea.145 The second
image, a detail from a cartoon by Les Tanner published in The Age newspaper in
Melbourne on 10 May 1969 (p.8), depicts Suharto similarly burdened by Papua. Yet
despite the similarities of both images they allude to very different burdens. The Dutch
burden is a costly and distant colony, a relic of a glorious past with a troubled political
future. Suharto’s burden is his obligation to the international community for a
plebiscite on integration with Indonesia, which he oversaw later in 1969 (see Chapter
3). The third image in the triptych, again through imagery that is at once explicit and
abstract, evokes a very different burden for Papuans to shoulder.146
The last image in the triptych is a sculpture carved by an indigenous artist from Biak
Island in 2002. The sculpture is at once a parody of the proverbial “White Man’s
Burden” as well as a critique that resonates with Yoman’s letters and indigenous
gazetteer (Figure 4-36 and Figure 4-37). The carving exemplifies two key themes in the
solidarity movement for Papuan self-determination. Through the inclusion of the entire
island of New Guinea, this sculpture alludes to the idea of a pan-Melanesian identity
which was prominent from the 1960s through until the mid-1980s.147 Closely related to
this pan-New Guinea theme is the iconic religious symbolism of the sculpture – a clear
reference to Christ shouldering the Cross in the moments before his crucifixion. As
with Christ, this Papuan, emboldened by his faith and the courage of his convictions, is
ready to resist injustice – and make the ultimate sacrifice if necessary – for the sake of
his followers. It is a poignant and provocative expression of pan-New Guinea Christian
unity, yet such imagery is directly challenged from within the solidarity movement for
West Papuan self-determination.
145
A similar image a few years later by cartoonist Fritz Behrendt published in the Algemeen Handelsblad
on 27 February 1961 illustrates the prescience of Hanekroot’s 1958 call for a political review of the
NLNG colony (Behrendt’s cartoon was given the caption “Luns – a new Atlas”, reflecting Foreign
Minister Luns attempts to retain the colony against rising international pressure, see Hilkhuijsen 2003:8285).
146
This carving purchased in Sentani in 2006 and is in the Hewat Collection (photograph courtest of
Robert Hewat).
147
The idea of black solidarity was prominent among Papuan leaders in NLNG in the early 1960s and the
association with black African nations was strongly encouraged by the Dutch administration (who funded
a promotional visit to Africa for NLNG Council members in 1961 in an attempt to bolster support for
NLNG independence among African nations at the United Nations). See also Papuan National
Committee (1962).
214
Figure 4-39: “West Papua” (Map by John Waddingham, n.d.)
(ACFOA 1995, cover illustration)
This particular “West Papua” map (Figure 4-39) has been synonymous with the West
Papuan struggle for independence for more than 2 decades. A version of this map first
appeared in a publication of Tapol (1983, 1988:iv), the UK-based NGO for political
prisoners and human rights in Indonesia. It was later adapted by John Waddingham and
in 1995 appeared in two separate publications, one on Human Rights abuses in the
Freeport COW (ACFOA 1995), the other the Australia West Papua Association’s West
Papua Information Kit (AWPA 1995). Since the late 1990s a web-based version of the
West Papua Information Kit has been available148 and this image has circulated widely
among activists, NGOs, students, academics and government officials and reappeared in
various subsequent publications.149
The Waddingham map is strongly reminiscent of the FUNDWI map that helped
stabilise the broad administrative regions of the province during the late 1960s (see
Figure 4-21). This “West Papua” map serves a similar stabilising function with respect
to activists working in solidarity with pro-independence Papuans. Although recognising
the place of West Papua in the archipelago and in relation to neighbouring Papua New
148
The Waddingham map is online at http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/cline/papua/map.jpg while the “kit”
is at http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/cline/papua/core.htm.
149
Ironically, Freeport McMoran’s Form-10K submission for 2007 to the United States Securities and
Exchange Commission included a map of the Freeport Indonesia concession (Block A) that appropriated
both the layout and many elements of the Waddingham map (see Freeport McMoran Copper and Gold
Inc. 2007a:16). While this may have been intended to undermine the map as an icon of Papuan activism,
it is also likely that this map was close to hand when one was needed (it is among the top ranked images
in a “Google image” search using the string “West Papua”).
215
Guinea (through this inset map), the larger map clearly privileges the western half of the
island in a deliberate attempt to remove the vexatious issue of unification for the island
from the activist agenda. There are several reasons for this strategy.
Despite some popular support for political and cultural movements calling for political
unification across the island of New Guinea, the different histories on either side of the
island, particularly through their respective decolonisation processes, made this
possibility remote by the early 1960s. Chauvel’s (1997) Decolonising without the
colonised… succinctly states the problem for West Papuans, while the decolonisation
process in the east resulted in tremendous new challenges for ‘East’ Papuans in building
the independent nation of Papua New Guinea. Similarly, border arrangements, first
between Indonesia and Australia and later Indonesia and Papua New Guinea reinforced
these historic distinctions and brought ongoing political tensions to the relationship (van
der Veur 1966a:117-123; May 1986; Wolfers 1988). The West Papuan refugee crisis of
1984/85 brought into stark relief the extent to which the PNG government was willing
to distance itself from sentiments of pan-Papuan solidarity for the sake of Realpolitik
with Indonesia. This is apparent in the populist accounts of West Papuan suffering
under Indonesia, such as Osborne (1985), Tapol (1983, 1988) and Monbiot (1989), all
classics among West Papuan activists. Osborne is particularly revealing of this dynamic
and notes that by the late 1984 PNG had tight new restrictions on foreign journalists in a
deliberate attempt to limit reportage of the WP refugee crisis from the PNG side of the
border (Osborne 1985:219, see also Blaskett 1989). Subsequent political events in
PNG, including the protracted Bougainville civil war (1989-1998) and the ongoing
issues with nation-building and nation-making in the country seem to have resulted in
limited interest in political developments in the west of the island. Similarly, the
creative arts in PNG appear preoccupied with themes of tradition, mythology and
modernity, nation-making within PNG, internecine conflict and indigenous Christian
iconography (see Baker 1980; Cochrane 1997). In some parts of PNG, however, this
pan-Melanesian movement remains extremely robust.
216
Figure 4-40: “From the dark shone the light…” (circa 1998)
(Artist unknown, photograph courtesy of Diana Glazebrook)
“From the dark…” was painted in the largest West Papuan refugee camp in Papua New
Guinea, at Iowara. As well as being emblematic of a pan-Papuan style that is
commonplace among pro-(West) Papuan artists in Papua (see Chapter 5), it also
exemplifies the second reason the Waddingham map has become the activist standard.
A significant number of international activists and NGO representatives in solidarity
with the movement for West Papuan self-determination have a strong secular
orientation (e.g. AWPA, Cultural Survival, Friends of People Close to Nature). Many
other critics of Indonesian government practices in Papua that do not profer a position
on self-determination or independence, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), The
Robert Kennedy Center for Human Rights (RFK Center) and Amnesty International
(AI), are founded on secular, rule-of-law principles. A faith-based movement for
Papuan independence and pan-New Guinea nationalism is a direct challenge to such
principles.
Christian churches in Papua have been implicated in independence activism ever since
the Indonesian take-over of Dutch New Guinea (see van de Wal 2006). The conflation
of Christianity with pro-Papuan cultural and independence movements is resurgent in a
variety of cultural forms in Papua today (see Chapters 2 and 6). This alignment is of
particular concern to Indonesian authorities given the strong moral, spiritual and
material sustenance afforded the movement for independence in East Timor by the
Catholic Church. Of similar and related concern to authorities in Indonesia in recent
years has been the use by pro-Papuan activists of critiques by secular and church-based
217
human rights groups. This has perpetuated a dismissive approach to such abuses by
government officials and continued impunity for those members of the security forces
responsible for such violations (see Chapter 6). The confluence of these factors has
provided the impetus for a broad base of civil society stakeholders in Papua who seek to
define a new moral geography for Papua as a “Zone of Peace”.
Figure 4-41: “Make Papua a Zone of Peace for you and me” T-shirt
(Foker LSM, Kampanye Anti-Kekerasan di Papua, CSSP, 2001)
“Papua Zona Damai…” (Figure 4-41) crystallises a campaign directed towards ending
state violence in Papua by parodying the military designation Daerah Operasi Militar
(Military Operation Area). Throughout the New Order period, state violence and
repression of basic human rights was widespread across Indonesia. Many Papuans have
family members directly affected by such practices. Public dissent was rarely tolerated,
whether manifest in flag raisings, church sermons, publications perceived to be critical
of the government, cultural events or even as street conversations that mentioned “West
Papua” (Papua Barat).150 The crescendo of reported state violence and oppression by
the late 1990s, across large segments of Indonesian society, together with the Southeast
Asian financial collapse in 1997/98 eventually forced the resignation of President
Suharto in May 1998. The promise of reform across Indonesia brought new optimism
to the peoples of the archipelago.
150
In the mid-1990s I had numerous experiences of being approached by Papuans eager to tell me of the
problems in their land and their desire to be living in an independent “West Papua”. On several
occasions, I was cautioned by such informants against using the term “Papua Barat” if talking with them
in a public place as this might get them into trouble. See Tapol (1988:v) for a clarification of the
politically loaded nature of West Papua under the New Order (and Chapter 1 note on terminology).
218
The “Papua Zona Damai” movement has its roots in a range of Papuan church
initiatives, some of which go back to the early 1990s. The imperative for concerted
action, however, came with the post-Suharto euphoria that pushed Papuan church
leaders to Papua to take the independence aspirations of their congregations to panIndonesian (and international) fora, such as the Evangelical Christian Church of Irian
Jaya (GKI) meeting with the Council of Protestant Churches in Indonesia (PGGI) in
June 1998 (Zocca 2000:76). The impetus also came from incidents in those early
months of Reformasi in Indonesia, which made it clear that state violence in Papua had
not ended with the downfall of Suharto. This was particularly apparent to the Biak
community in the wake of the July 1998 flag-raising and massacre in their main town
(Rutherford 1999). This and similar incidents led to a series of Church meetings across
Biak in 1999 “to make Biak the Geneva of Papua”.151 In a similar narrative, Giay
(2000) attributes the origins of the Peace Zone concept to young Marten Tanawane, a
Papuan student from Serui who sought to make “West Papua a zone of the Lord’s
Love.” Tebay discusses how the concept of Zona Damai emerged as a synchronous
phenomena across various regions in Papua (see Tebay 2005, 2007) and how the
movement reflects a widespread disillusionment with Reformasi (see Chapter 2) as well
as growing public awareness that the long history of state violence was collectively
experienced by communities across Papua.152
The Zona Damai T-shirt (Figure 4-41) brought a tangible imagery and geographically
specific vision to the more abstract concept of a Peace Zone. It was an initiative of
Foker (the “NGO Forum” in Papua), together with “the Campaign for Non-Violence in
Papua” and the Civil Society Strengthening Program (CSSP) of USAINDONESIA.
Shirts were distributed to Foker’s member NGOs and worn by various NGO workers on
buses and in other public places (particularly in Jayapura) as part of the campaign. On
the United Nations International Day of Peace (September 21) in 2002, the “Peace
Zone” concept was formalised through a “Peace March” (Scott and Tebay 2005:608)
151
According to a leading Biak cultural figure I interviewed in November 2000.
Leaders in several Protestant churches in Papua, together with key members of several human rights
and legal groups in Papua formed the Forum for the Reconciliation of Irian Jaya Society (FORERI) in
1998 with a mandate to review this history. By 1999, Catholic Church officials who had been working
on human rights reporting in Papua for years, labelled this phenomena Memoria Passionis, or a collective
memory of suffering (van den Broek and Hernawan 1999).
152
219
and interfaith declaration (Position Statement and Appeal by the Religious Leaders in
Papua, 10 April, 2002) which stated:
1. May all of God’s people who come here to Papua be united in a collective
declaration, apparent in mind and deed, that we are peace-loving. Indeed, as
we have already declared to the world: PAPUA IS A ZONE OF PEACE; a
region without violence, a place where the inhabitants share good relations,
reject violence and avoid all conflict…
Issued at Jayapura (and signed by the following Religious Leaders);
Rev. Herman Saud (Synod Chair, Evangelical Christian Church (GKI)
Rev. John Gobay (Synod Chair, Christian Missionary Church (GKII)153
Rev. Mestian Towolom (Evangelical Church of Indonesia)
Rev. Andreas Ayomi (Pentecostal Church of Papua)
Rev. Yuridis Daely (Sacred Word Christian Church)
Mgr Leo Laba Ladjar, ofm (Bishop of Jayapura)
Iman Zubeir D. Hussein (Chair, Islamic Council (MUI) Papua)
Rev. A. Yanengga (Acting Chair, Baptist Churches)
Rev. Roebyn Weohau (Adventist Church of Indonesia)
In the past few years, the enthusiasm and energy behind the movement for Papua as a
Zone of Peace, now increasingly referred to by the phrase “Papua as a Land of Peace”
(or PLP), has proven difficult to sustain. 154 As the concept is rooted in inter-faith
institutions in Papua, it has received limited ongoing support from secular NGOs. The
Catholic Church’s Secretariat for Justice and Peace (SKP) still strives to engage
stakeholders in peace-building activities in Papua while pursuing its other mandated
work on justice and human rights. The main Protestant churches in the province (GKI
and GKII) are less structured in their approach to such initiatives and many minor
churches (with often quite remote congregations) play little or no role in this largely
urban campaign. Others have argued that there is little need for such a movement as
most Papuans have accepted (or resigned themselves to) a future with Indonesia and are
now encouraged to accept the financial and policy incentives of the Papuan Special
Autonomy (Otsus). But this future is yet to be mapped.
153
GKII (Gereja Kemah Injil Indonesia) is commonly translated as the Evangelical Tabernacle Church of
Indonesia.
154
Elsham (Elsham New Service 21 Sept. 2003) reported that thousands of people, from all walks of life,
turned out for the Peace March on 21 September 2003.
220
“Obscured by clouds”
The highlands of New Guinea are wet. Annual precipitation averages more than 4000
mm across Papua and thick cloud cover is common much of the year (Ridder 1995).
This makes low-altitude flying in many highlands regions particularly hazardous.
While onboard satellite navigation systems (GPS) have helped in recent years, aerial
survey work cannot be conducted under such conditions. Long continuous passes by
aircraft equipped with stereoscopic cameras were, in the past, the most effective way to
produce detailed topographic maps. The specialised nature of the equipment involved,
the distances from airstrip base camps to target areas and the vagaries of uncertain
weather all make such aerial survey work extremely costly. For these and other reasons,
significant sections of West New Guinea were not aerially surveyed until the early
1960s. Even when fortunate enough to have clear weather conditions155 great care was
taken in the systematic surveying of highland (and some lowland) regions, the resulting
aerial photographs may have areas that were “obscured by clouds”. A notation to this
effect would then be made on the corresponding topographic map.156
In many respects current state-sponsored mapping projects remain obscured by clouds.
The metaphor refers both to the technological preoccupations of the cartographic elite
within Indonesia, as well as the missed opportunities for basic mapping of a range of
social and development challenges in Papua (and elsewhere in the country). Despite
significant improvements in the protocols, collection, collation and dissemination of a
wide range of statistical data in Indonesia,157 relatively little of this information is
available in anything other than tabular formats.158 The potential benefits of mapping a
variety of health issues (fertility, pandemics like HIV/AIDS, etc) or the delivery of
educational and other essential services, remain to be discovered by the relevant local or
national authorities working on Papua. The simplification of relational frameworks
155
As reported for the aerial surveys of PNG in 1977 (pers comm. Dennis Puniard, May 2007).
An example of this is the map of the Carstensz Glacier Area discussed earlier in this chapter (Hope et
al. 1976: map2 – available at http://www.papuaweb.org/dlib/bk/hope1976/map2.pdf). This phrase
alternates with “relief data incomplete” on many TPC, JOG and ONC charts.
157
For example the 2000 census across Papua, despite limitations, represents a remarkable improvement
on earlier Indonesian census work in the province. Groenewegen and Kaa’s (1964-67) analysis and
mapping of Dutch colonial census data in Papua remains one of the most comprehensive ever conducted
in the province.
158
A rare exception to this is the recently published Food Insecurity Atlas of Indonesia 2005 (Indonesia.
National Food Security Council of Indonesia and the World Food Programme 2006).
156
221
allowed for by mapping (see Ward 1999:6) may also help re-vitalise efforts to mitigate
conflicts of various origin, as well as promote regionally specific programs aimed at
addressing issues such as militarisation or human rights abuses. Such approaches have
yet to attract significant attention from government agencies or NGOs within Indonesia
or abroad, in spite of an abundance of available data for this purpose. Meanwhile,
satellite imagery and new technologies are making the integration of spatial and other
data easier via a wide range of internet-based technologies.
Figure 4-42: “Puncak Jaya, Indonesia”
(http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16650)159
Puncak Jaya, Indonesia’s largest peak and one of the seven summits (discussed earlier
in this chapter) may be found via Google or other search engines on the World Wide
Web (www).160 It is a one of several satellite images from Papua featured in Nasa’s
Earth Observatory. In “Puncak Jaya, Indonesia” (Figure 4-42) Mt Jaya is easily
distinguished by blotches of ice blue – the glaciers of the Carstensz massif at and near
its summit. Freeport’s Grasberg open-cut mine appears in vividly enhanced colours as
159
Accessing the site through the link listed below gives information about the image. It labels Freeport
mine, the Meren and Carstensz glaciers and the northwall firn. It is worth noting that this satellite image
is not indicated on the NASA Earth Observatory website because of the Freeport mine, but as part of a
Earth Observatory feature of the Seven Summits. In a similar way, the Carstensz glaciers attract attention
to the Lorentz World Heritage area. While this may be unwanted publicity for Freeport or for Indonesia
in its management of Lorentz, this exposure reflects the open-ended nature of the technology and a
proliferation in the stakeholders of the future for places like Papua. See Puncak Jaya at
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16650.
160
Cf. the internet, which is the network on which the traffic of the world wide web travels.
222
a large purple hole in the ground, the satellite image graphically depicting the proximity
of the glaciers (in the Lorentz National Park) to the Freeport mine site.161 The highly
reflective rugged karst landscape of the Sudirman mountain range is rendered pinky-red
while the vegetation of the surrounding hills and lowlands is an enhanced tropical forest
green.162 A quick comparison with the 1973 map of the glaciers (Hope et al. 1973)
illustrates dramatic shrinkage over the past 30 years since the last image of the glaciers
was publically available.
The Earth Observatory is a part of the borderless world of the World Wide Web and
travel in this virtual world offers astonishing new opportunities for remote access to –
and exchanges of – information. Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) is one of the
latest in a series of remarkable innovations which aim to integrate spatial data with
multimedia formats. Anyone with an internet connection can now visit websites that
use this technology and attach their own data to a georeferenced location. The
technology is freely available for local (personal computer, PC) use, membership
groups, and public websites with limited peer review or oversight. In this way users
may map whatever data sets they choose, building thematically maps that might identify
geological features, tourist attractions or sites of human rights abuses.163 While there is
oversight on some of these websites, many rely on voluntary contributors for their
textual annotations and editorial corrections.164
The phenomenal access to satellite imagery through the World Wide Web has profound
implications for the way information may be controlled and used. For example, it is
now possible to conduct remote environmental impact research in areas where physical
access is difficult, dangerous or denied. A recent paper by Paull et al. (2006) advances
161
In late 2005 another Grasberg satellite image was added to this site. See
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/ISS011-E-9620_lrg.jpg.
162
All satellite images are colour enhanced and while colour standards apply for the enhancement of
images, the images themselves are deliberately rendered with greater contrast than equivalent imagery
taken with conventional aerial photography.
163
John Burton of the Resource Management in Asia Pacific Program (RMAP) at the ANU has prepared
some interesting maps as examples of the possibilities available through this technology (see
http://coombs.anu.edu.au/SpecialProj/PNG/GMAP/PNG-GMAP.htm).
164
Such sites are modelled after the phenomenally successful wikipedia system of information exchange
based on registered volunteers.
223
a systematic approach to such analysis in the nearby lowland regions of Timika.165 In
past decades (and under past regimes) it was extremely difficult to obtain maps of Irian,
or other parts of Indonesia. Today it is increasingly difficult for governments to deny
access to a basic level of spatial information as such data is now available beyond the
boundaries of many nation-states. The technology is not unregulated or unrestricted,
but its sophistication and the commercial imperatives that underpin its proliferation and
innovation, have left many states struggling to catch up. Yet as remarkable as Google
Maps and other such technologies are the imagery they offer for many parts of the
world remain relatively crude compared with the remote sensing possibilities at the
cutting edge of the field. In 1999 and 2000, PT Freeport Indonesia contracted
Australia’s CSIRO to conduct a program of low altitude remote sensing (to map
malaria, water hyacinth on the company’s sediment deposition area, forest canopy
cover, and other parameters). This team mapped areas of the Freeport COW at a ratio
of 1:1000.166 At this ratio, individual houses (and even individuals) may be clearly
discerned.167 Yet while remote sensing innovations offer remarkable new tools for
analysis,168 even the best technologies cannot detect or determine the historical or
political imperatives of the terrain under their gaze. Consider, for example, the recent
history of the Lorentz World Heritage Site in the southern highlands and lowlands of
Papua.
In December 1999 the Lorentz National Park in Papua was listed by UNESCO as a
World Heritage Site (WHS).169 While data on the Lorentz WHS is available on
165
It is worth noting that the image of Puncak Jaya above is a detail of the larger satellite image. The
larger image (6Mb) depicts the entire southern region of Papua from the central highlands to the south
coast. A notable feature of this image is the visual impact of the tailings deposition area [See larger
image in Appendix 3, Figure 4-42].
166
With remote sensing imagery that provided 10 channels at 0.8m/pixel (Held et al. 2000).
167
This resolution of imagery is not yet available for any parts of Papua via Google Maps (or its desktop
companion, Google Earth). This satellite coverage for most parts of the world is often variable with
some locations (e.g. Jayapura in Papua) given priority for higher resolution imagery (e.g. see
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=jayapura+indonesia&ie=UTF8&t=k&om=1&z=18&ll=2.541627,140.706249&spn=0.00395,0.006738&iwloc=addr).
168
New technologies such as cloud piercing radar and digital composites of satellite imagery avoid the
common problems of cloud cover in New Guinea’s highlands.
169
The 1999 Lorentz World Heritage Site bears little resemblance to the colonial reserve in NLNG of the
same name (for a map of this reserve, see Dammerman 1929:64-65, plate 13). The 320,000 Ha Lorentz
Nature Reserve was first created in 1919 on the recommendation of The Netherlands Indies Society for
Nature Protection (Nederlandsch-Indische Vereeninging tot Natuurbescherming) with clear
environmental and political rationales. As Dammerman states (1929:65) “This reserve, reaching from the
sea coast to the summit of Mt Wilhelmina (4750m) of the Snow mountain-range or Nassau mountain-
224
UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre website, no maps of the park have been prepared by
UNESCO to accompany this information.170 The World Heritage List denotes Lorentz
as a park 2,505,600 hectares in area, a figure based on the original submission of the
Indonesian government to the World Heritage Committee for recognition of the site by
UNESCO (Indonesia. DirJen PHPA 1998:6).171 The WHS and affiliated World
Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC) websites list a variety of threats to the park,
including concerns with the impact of mine tailings and drainage, damage to riverine
environments as a result of widespread logging on the eastern boundary of the park, and
the government’s proposed road network through the park. 172 However, such
information is partial and fragmentary.
range, still appears in its original condition and there is certainly no other region in the entire Netherlands
Indies and probably nowhere else either, where nature can be kept untouched, from the tropical beach up
to the snow-clad mountain peaks. So this nature reserve is exceedingly important for the preservation of
the flora and fauna of Dutch South New Guinea, and the original localities of the scientific material
collected by the Dutch expedition to the Snow Mountains in 1909, directed by H.A. Lorentz, after whom
this reserve is named.” Celebrating the successful Dutch propaganda victory in the race to the ‘eternal
snows’ of New Guinea (see Chapter 3), the reserve “existed purely on paper, as at that time the Dutch
had just started to establish their authority in Irian” (Boomgaard 1999:274). Its designation had little
practical effect for decades and no further reserves were ever designated in Netherlands New Guinea. In
1956 the Ordinance that created Lorentz and proclaimed state control over these lands (see Indisch
Staatsblad 1916, No. 278. Enactment for the protection of nature reserves, Section 1 in Dammerman
1929:Appendix 1) was officially revoked due to conflicts between the colonial government and local
communities living within the park boundaries (see Petocz 1989:44).
170
Information about Lorentz is listed at http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/955. At present the UNESCO
website only locates the park by a pin-point on a dynamic satellite map of Papua (without including any
sketch of the aerial extent of the park). UNESCO does, however, include a list of documents pertaining
to the status of the WHS, including the original submission by the Government of Indonesia for World
Heritage listing (see http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/955/documents).
171
In 1978, the Indonesian government declared the first nature reserves in Irian Jaya, which included the
Lorentz Strict Nature Reserve (Cagar Alam Lorentz) with a land area of 2,150,000 Ha. In 1997 the park
was substantially expanded (by Decree 154, 1997 of the Minister of Forestry). This amalgamated the
Lorentz Nature Reserve with the Trikora Mountain Protection Forest (373,125 ha) with a coastal area
(224,975 ha) to create the Lorentz National Park with a total area of 2,505,000 hectares (Indonesia.
DirJen PHPA 1998:Appendix A Gazettement Notices, p.47. The relevant legislation for this decision is
listed on p.48 of this document.)
172
The WCMC website for Lorentz is at http://www.unep-wcmc.org/sites/wh/lorentz.html. The threats
listed by the WCMC and related World Heritage Sites for Lorentz include tailings and acid mine drainage
from the operations of PT Freeport Indonesia. Freeport’s Contract of Work (COW) stretches the entire
western boundary of the park.
225
Figure 4-43: Resource concessions in the Lorentz World Heritage Site
(Composite map by the author, see Appendix 3 Figure 4-43)
“Resource concessions in the Lorentz World Heritage Site” (Figure 4-43) brings
together some information about the Lorentz WHS by superimposing the “Mining
exploration concessions” map (Indonesia. DirJen PHPA 1998:27) with a second map
prepared in Papua by WWF in October 1999 (see Appendix 3 Figure 4-43). The black
line depicted in the upper section of the map (the north of the park) is the boundary for
the original Lorentz WHS, taken from the original Indonesian submission to UNESCO
which specifically excluded resource concessions within the park. Part of the process of
negotiating the original Lorentz WHS boundary involved an agreement between PT
Freeport Indonesia and the Indonesian government that 55,600 ha of the proposed park
be excised and included as part of Freeport’s concessions in Papua (along the western
and northern boundaries of the park). Since the Lorentz WHS submission was prepared
(September 1998), several other large areas have been excised from the park. A
concession of 150,000 ha within the park (in the northeast of the park and indicated in
pink squares) was reportedly allocated to Conoco-Phillips as part of their Warim oil
concession and other concessions within the park were made to PT Montague Mimika
and PT Nabire Bhakti Mining (indicated as yellow squares bordered by red in the
central northern section of the park) (see O’Neill and Mainunah 2002:6 and Project
Underground 1998:19). There is limited information in the public domain about the
areal extent of concessions granted in the Lorentz WHS to date, but data overlayed from
the WWF map suggests that recent concessions are extensive and are likely to have a
significant impact on the park in the future. The uncertain status of the Lorentz WHS
reflects the arbitrary nature of its boundaries, the importance of international prestige,
the power and influence of foreign capital and the lack of consultation afforded
226
indigenous stakeholders in the park. The iconic status of Mt Jaya and its glaciers and of
Papua as a treasure-trove of nature (see Chapter 3) are both symbolically represented by
the Lorentz WHS, but so too is the vast mineral wealth of Papua. Yet while the
economic future of Papua is of great importance to the nation, this remains contingent
on political stability in the province and its continued future in the unitary republic.
In January 2002, Prof. Dr. Ermaya Suradinata (formerly of with Depdagri, see Chapter
2), Governor of the Institute for National Resistance of the Republic of Indonesia
(Lembaga Ketahanan Nasional Republik Indonesia, Lemhannas) circulated a
confidential report to key government strategists titled “The division of Irian Jaya as a
solution to overcome the threat of the disintegration of the nation” (Indonesia.
Lemhannas 2002:3). The document listed “specific factors,” including requests by
several district heads (Bupati) and other key Papuan stakeholders, the support of the
Papuan Presidium Council and the support of the majority of the Provincial Legislature
(DPRD) for the implementation of legislation to divide Papua into three provinces
(Indonesia. Lemhannas 2002:3). It expressed concern at the risk of around 140,000
unemployed (many well-educated) people in Papua becoming disaffected and “creating
instability” (gangguan keamanan) in the province and accused Governor Jaap Solossa
of corrupt practices (KKN) and of stacking the local provincial bureaucracy with
members of his own Ayumaru tribal group (see Chapter 6). While advocating the threeway division of the province for enhanced development opportunities, the Lemhannas
report (Indonesia. Lemhannas 2002:15-16, my translation) also made specific reference
to efforts to disrupt pan-Papuan independence activity, particularly armed organisations
like the OPM:
… no longer centrally positioned with one target and in one purpose, but rather
will have to face three fronts which are not (all) certain to support the cause of
Papuan independence.
Presidential Decree 1/2003 proclaimed “The accelerated implementation of Law
45/1999 concerning the formation of the provinces of Central Irian Jaya, West Irian
Jaya, the District of Paniai, the District of Mimika, the District of Puncak Jaya, and the
Municipality of Sorong.” It was a case study in how not to implement changes to
administrative divisions in Papua, according to the International Crisis Group report on
the Presidential Decree (ICG 2003). The map I prepared for Papuaweb in 2003 “New
227
administrative boundaries for provinces of Papua” (Figure 4-44) to plot the geography
of these changes and the note I added in April 2005 to Papuaweb’s Pemekaran page,
suggest some of the problems caused by the central government adopting the advice of
the Institute for National Resistance.
The map below does not accurately reflect the current administrative
divisions of Papua (formerly Irian Jaya). Only the provinces of Irian Jaya
Barat (West Irian Jaya) and Papua currently exist. The official launch of the
province of Central Irian Jaya was postponed for an indeterminate period
following protests and riots in Timika in mid-2003. Central Irian Jaya province
remains part of Papua province and in November 2004 the Constitutional Court
of Indonesia (Mahkamah Konstitusi Republik Indonesia) invalidated the legal
basis for the future implementation of this province (see the Court’s decision
on Case Number 018/PPU-I/2003). Maps of the provinces of Irian Jaya Barat
and Papua were produced for the Elections in 2004. These include the 14 new
kabupatens (districts) announced in UU26/2002 and the new provinces of
Kabupaten Paniai, Kabupaten Mimika, Kabupaten Puncak Jaya and the
Municipality of Sorong as outlined in Inpres 1/2003. Although a 3-way
division of Papua based on Law 45 of 1999 (UU45/1999) has been vetoed by
the Constitutional Court, it remains uncertain whether Papuan Special
Autonomy (Otsus - UU21/2001) will extend to West Irian Jaya province.
Moreover, some government officials continue to maintain that Inpres 1/2003
should be revoked (with Irjabar and Papua/Irja reconstituted as the old
province of Papua/Irja), while others advocate a 5-way re-division of the
original province of Papua... (emphasis in original).173
Figure 4-44: “Batas administrasi baru untuk propinsi-propinsi Papua”
(Papuaweb, April 2005, emphasis in original)
173
See http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/pp/index.html.
228
The ICG report of 2007 was one of the first web-based maps to clearly and accurately
illustrate the boundaries of Papua and West Papua provinces and their districts.174
Figure 4-45: The Provinces and districts of Papua and West Papua (2008)
(ICG 2007:13)
The Pemekaran policy has been exceptionally divisive within Papua and is widely seen,
as stated explicitly in the Lemhannas report, as a strategy to “divide and rule” Papuans.
It has elicited numerous responses and, as I mention in the Papuaweb note, was taken to
the Constitutional Court of Indonesia (for its apparent breach of Article 76 of the
Papuan Special Autonomy legislation). The decision of the Constitutional Court
decision effectively upheld the creation of the province of West Papua (thereby enabling
174
My Pemekaran map for Papuaweb (http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/pp/index.html), as noted on the
webpage, is itself an example of the kind of cartographic inertia I identify in this chapter as it was adapted
with permission from another map produced for World Vision’s Watch project by Robert Hewat (see
http://www.papuaweb.org/dlib/lap/watch/2000-hr-1a.pdf). As discussed (above) the legislation to divide
the province was first passed in 1999 and later re-asserted in 2003, when I hastily adapted the Hewat map
for the Pemekaran webpage on Papuaweb (Figure 4-44). From mid-2003 until late-2005, I received
numerous requests from users of Papuaweb for permission to reproduce my map in various websites and
publications even after I noted in correspondence the inaccuracies of the map (see ICG 2006a:19 for an
amended version of this map). I wrote the note (above) as consequence of these requests and in lieu of an
updated map. It was not until it became popularly known among Papua scholars, activists and observers
that an updated map was publically available in a digital format, that I stopped receiving requests to
reproduce the Papuaweb map. The map that superseded my Pemekaran map for Papuaweb was first
released in a report on Papua by the International Crisis Group (see ICG 2007) and is reproduced in the
text as Figure 4-45. Within a year, this map was made out of date by the creation of the new district
(kabupaten) of Mamberamo Raya (UU19/2007). This situation was compounded in early 2008 with the
creation of another 6 kabupaten (see http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/index.html). Credible reports of
discussions in Jakarta about the creation of three new provinces (to be carved out of rump Papua) appear
to have left many government officials and people in Papuan (and possibly Jakarta) bewildered.
229
the division of Papua into two provinces), but not before other stakeholders had
contributed their solutions to the ‘problem.’175
Figure 4-46: “Wilayah Administratif Provinsi-Provinsi Papua Pasca Sinkronisasi”
(Flassy 2004:71)176
Don Flassy, an official with the Provincial Planning Agency (Bappeda), prepared a
lengthy response to the Pemekaran policy (Flassy 2004:71) in which he recognises
distinct traditional (adat) or ‘ethnic’ regions in Papua (based on traditional cultural and
political practices) as the framework for seven distinct regional administrations,
consistent with Dutch colonial administrative structures and those of the Papuan
Traditional Council (Dewan Adat Papua) (see Flassy 2004:vii-viii).177 Such an
approach, Flassy argues, can help “synchronise” (sic, sinkronisasi) the implementation
of Law 45 of 1999 (uu45/1999) to create three provinces from the single province of
Irian Jaya with Law 21 of 2001 (uu21/2001) on Papuan Special Autonomy. He argues
175
See http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/mahkamah-konstitusi/018-puu-i-2003.pdf for the decision of the
Constitutional Court (available in Indonesian only).
176
Facsimile copy (i.e. distortion in original). A map indicating the six administrative divisions of the
former NLNG may be found on the website of the Stichting Papua Cultureel Erfgoed (PACE) at
http://www.papuaerfgoed.org/img/kaartNNG350.jpg.
177
The Dutch era in West New Guinea was defined by a cultural/administrative structure which
recognised six distinct administrative regions (the seventh culture region in Flassy’s schema broadly
conforms to the then eastern highlands exploration region (exploratieressort Oost Bergland)). For
examples of these divisions in maps of NLNG, see Vademecum (1956:17, online at
http://www.papuaweb.org/dlib/nngg/vademecum/16-17-3000.jpg) Vlasblom’s (2004) recent history of
Papua contrasts the Dutch era administrative divisions of NLNG with a recent map of the Indonesian
administrative divisions of Papua (see Vlasblom 2004: inside front and back covers).
230
for a period of transition, a single capital city for the seven provinces and a Special
Minister for Papuan Affairs in Jakarta.
As an employee of the local Provincial Development Planning Agency (Badan
Perencanaan Pembangunan Daerah, BAPPEDA), a trained linguist, and former head of
the Papua Arts Council (Dewan Kesenian Papua), Flassy would appear to be in a strong
position to advance an argument for bureaucratic rationalisation of Law 45/1999 and
Law 21/2001. Moreover, he makes more than a merely nostalgic appeal for such a
rationalisation, suggesting that the cultural harmonising of various ethnic groups would
promote stability and prosperity across the provinces and the territory. His argument,
however, was most likely viewed with considerable scepticism by some of his
colleagues in Papua and many in Jakarta as Flassy, while a serving member of
BAPPEDA, was also a member of the pro-Independence Papuan Presidium Council
(Presidium Dewan Papua, PDP see Chapter 2). While Flassy’s contribution could be
seen as a reasonable compromise solution to the problems of synthesising contradictory
legislation in Papua, it also added further fuel to widespread speculation about the
possibility of creating more than three provinces in Papua.178 The continued division of
provinces in Papua and the tremendous administrative dislocation this has already
caused across the province raises the spectre of further divisions requiring a subsequent
re-unification of the provinces and the possibility that Papua might, once again, become
a coherent single administrative region.
178
See, for example, the article posted to the Papua Provincial Government website: “Pemekaran Papau
(sic) Lima Provinsi Tergantung MRP” of 15 February 2005 (online at
http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/pp/5-provinces.htm).
231
Figure 4-47: “Perjanjian Mansinam, 20 Pebruari 2007”
(Photograph in The Jakarta Post 21 February 2007)
A meeting held on Mansinam Island last year between the Governor of Papua Province
and the Governor of West Papua Province led to an agreement to circumvent the sociopolitical fall-out of the Pemekaran strategy. The “Mansinam Agreement of 20 February
2007” (Figure 4-47) depicts the two governors (left of frame) shaking hands as they
agree on a framework for formal administrative cooperation between the two provinces.
This photograph represents the symbolic unification of two newly established yet
discrete political and cartographic entities – Papua and West Papua province – and the
possibility that Papuan leaders may be adapting strategies of their own to deal with
policies which have caused social and political dislocation. A report in the Jakarta post
newspaper (Somba 2007) states:
The ceremony was titled “One but Two, Two but One”, meaning that Papua’s
culture, economy and infrastructure development are unified even as its
government has split into two provinces. The three-step process included an
agreement on the legal basis for the creation of the new province under the
Special Autonomy Law; the handover of documents on personnel, financing,
equipment and other issues from Papua province to West Papua; and a pledge
to jointly manage the economy and infrastructure. The agreement means that
the two provinces will share management of the special autonomy funds, which
account for 2 percent of the central government’s general allocation funds.
As if reinforcing the moral foundation for their commitment, the governors conducted
the Mansinam Agreement in front of the Laharoi Church on Mansinam Island, the
revered site of the first Christian church in New Guinea (see Chapter 5).
232
Conclusion
Lewis Carroll’s description of cartographic ambition (frontipiece of chapter) invokes the
rationale underwriting the authority and technological impulse to map Papua in everincreasing detail. The final resolution of Carroll’s mapmaker, to “use the country itself,
as its own map…”, resonates with the ways in which cartographic representations of
Papua have come to stand for Papua itself, despite the multiplicity of authors and
agendas implicated in actual projections of this cartographic imaginary.
This chapter charts a history of the cartographic inertia which has helped to
circumscribe Papua as a discrete geographic entity over time. While early mapping of
the region demonstrated remarkable cartographic innovation, many later representations
have merely traced known coastlines and contours. In doing so, they have solidified
Papua’s coherence.
This chapter demonstrates the importance and persistence of colonial boundaries in the
framing of the geography of ‘Papua’ (see Chauvel 2003). The chapter also examines
the significance of broader regional concepts, and how these have worked in tension
with one another in processes which have cartographically and politically isolated the
territory. Perversely, state policies which have sought to restrict access to the province
have actually helped to reinforce the territorial boundaries not only for the state, but also
for its opponents. Exclusion has also reinforced anxieties about government and
military – practices which, through association of Papua with instability and repression,
have helped further frame the province as a distinct region within Indonesia and the
region. While colonial and post-colonial states have been central in this framing
process, the chapter demonstrates numerous points of slippage, moments and locales in
which the state is either excluded or incapable of exerting sufficient influence over
representations of Papua as a territory. This lack of effective control is mirrored in the
limited capacity of the state to contain the increasing number of actors and agencies
outside Papua – multinational corporations, the international community of states and
civil society organisations, and private citizens – who are seeking to establish some
form of ‘stakeholder’ status in Papua.
233
The history of Papua and the visual cues contained in maps of the territory are critical
processes in the circumscribing of Papua. They lie at the core of claims over Papua
made by both Indonesian and Papuan nationalists. This reinforces Anderson’s
characterisation of maps as historical arguments (justifying particular historico-political
constellations) and of the central role of the map-as-logo in nationalist imaginings of
political community (see Anderson 1991:175). However, there is another dimension to
the cartographic representations of Papua that extends beyond the imaginings of either
Indonesian or a Papuan community.
There is a cartographic presence in representations of Papua discussed in this chapter
that exceeds the intentions of either the Indonesian state or a Papuan “nation of intent”
(after Shamsul 1996). The Papua represented by many of these maps is more akin to
the ‘geobody’ that defined Siam – boundary making and cartographic inscriptions
which defined the borders of an uncolonised state (Thongchai Winichakul 1997). While
Thongchai’s thesis is adopted by Anderson (1991:171-173) for his own argument about
the emergence of an imagined community, it also serves to point to the limits of agency
in the inscription of cartographic imaginaries. The material presented here similarly
extends Anderson’s work by demonstrating that the map-as-logo can become an
encumbrance to the ‘imagined community’ of the nation. The 2003 division of Papua
has been partially implemented, and more change may shortly follow, but the
cartographic coherence and popular attachment to ‘Papua’ as a socio-cultural, political,
economic and historical entity cannot be circumvented so easily.
*****
234
All architecture proposes an effect on the human mind,
not merely a service to the human frame.
Aphorism 4
The Seven Lamps of Architecture
John Ruskin, 1849:27
All that I desire to point out is the general principle that
Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life, and I feel
sure that if you think seriously about it you will find that
it is true. Life holds the mirror up to Art, and either reproduces
some strange type imagined by painter or sculptor, or realises
in fact what has been dreamed in fiction.
Vivian, in
The Decay of Lying: An Observation
Oscar Wilde (1889)
235
236
- CHAPTER 5 -
Constructing Papua:
an architecture of community
construct (v.t.) to build up: to compile: to put together the parts of: to
make: to compose: to put into grammatical relation...
This case study explores meanings of “Papua” by considering a range of influences and
articulations of the built environment in West New Guinea. The chapter sketches how
subtle and conspicuous changes in architecture and the structuring of social spaces have
affected – and come to stand for – shared notions of community. It considers a broad
range of architecture and associated cultural practices in Papua and relies on the
author’s familiarity with various regional styles as well as an appreciation of available
literature. Changes in the built environment were, and continue to be, highly
differentiated across West New Guinea. The focus here is primarily on the agents of
church and state, the two main institutions promoting such change, through complex
relations of acculturation, cooperation, coercion, and competition. In the six sections
that follow, particular attention is given to de-contextualised “traditional” elements of
the built environment deployed by church and state in the pursuit of their ideals of
‘community’ across the territory.
Foundations
Many doors to the New Guinea past are closed. A comprehensive study of traditional
architecture in Papua or neighbouring Papua New Guinea can no longer be written but a
few substantive studies have been undertaken (Ruff and Ruff 1990)1 and completed
1
The research conducted on behalf of UNESCO for “The Village Studies Project for the Recording of
Traditional Architecture” in PNG (discussed in Ruff and Ruff 1990) has yet to result in any major
publication. Jell and Jell-Bahlsen (2005:434 endnote) write that “Prof Wallace Ruff moved to Papua
New Guinea together with his wife, Ruth Ruff, after his retirement from the University of Oregon in
Eugene. They were commissioned by UNESCO to study and document the country’s architectural
heritage in the “Village Studies Project” (Ruff and Ruff 1990). The Ruffs’ vast collection of drawings
and photographs is currently housed in the Architectural Heritage Centre at the Papua New Guinea
University of Technology at Lae…”. The fact that this UNESCO project does not appear to have
237
(Loebèr 1930; Loupis et al. 1982; Loupis 1984; Hauser-Schäublin 1989; Bogner 1995).2
It is revealing that in more than 1200 pages the Encyclopaedia of Papua and New
Guinea (Ryan et al. 1972) has no entries for traditional or contemporary PNG
architecture.3 Despite its intimate connection to both art history and ethnography,
architecture in New Guinea has been overlooked in favour of traditional and
contemporary material culture studies and more conventional ethnographic research.
Recent contributions have gone some way to redress this in Papua New Guinea (e.g.
Quanchi 1994:112-130; Kaitilla 1997; Milani 1998), while texts on architecture in
Indonesia typically treat Papua summarily (e.g. Dawson and Gillow 1994; Tjahjono
2001:46-47) or not at all (Schefold et al. 2003).4 Even the few brief entries pertaining
to West New Guinea in Oliver’s remarkable Encyclopedia of Vernacular Architectures
of the World (1997) are marginal notes from broader ethnographic studies.5 However,
several older ethnographic works such as van der Sande (1907) and Le Roux (1948-50),
are noteworthy for the breadth of their insights into the traditional architectures of West
New Guinea.6 The most significant of these older texts, somewhat surprisingly, is the
published results of military expeditions to Netherlands New Guinea (1907-1915)
which contain a diverse collection of photographs, sketches and descriptions of the
generated significant publications on PNG architecture other than those noted in this chapter is regrettable
given the quality of the Ruffs’ contribution to the Sepik Heritage volume (Ruff and Ruff 1990a).
Similarly, H. Heijnes, Head of the Lower Technical School (Lagere Technische School, LTS) in Kota
Raja (Hollandia), apparently had collated substantial data on the architectures of Netherlands New Guinea
(Miekee Kijne, pers. comm. November 2005) but I have not yet been able to ascertain whether his
collection was preserved.
2
Other brief studies of relevance to Papua New Guinea include Loupis (1980, 1983) and Bowden (1990,
1992).
3
Vale (1992:167) notes that no significant articles (aside from his book chapter) have been written about
either the controversial design competition for the Papua New Guinea Parliament building or Cecil
Hogan’s winning design in architectural journals or other publications (Vale 1992:165-189) and a
promotional souvenir booklet published with the authority of the PNG Parliament (Briggs 1989).
4
This recent edited volume is an excellent contribution to an otherwise scant scholarly literature on
vernacular architecture in Indonesia but it has no chapters of direct relevance to Papua.
5
The most disappointing entry for West New Guinea in this Encyclopaedia is for Biak architecture,
which appears to be derived entirely from the Department of Education and Cultural Affairs (Depdikbud)
Irian architecture report (Depdikbud 1986). This entry only deals with contemporary residential
architecture and makes no reference to the rum srams of the Cenderawasih Bay (Geelvink Baai) despite
the fact that these structures are reviewed in the Depdikbud report. Other entries for Asmat (Boylan
1997:1175-76), Dani (Ploeg 1997:1177-78), Kapauku or Mee (Pospisil 1997:1180-81 extracted from his
1963 monograph), Kebar (Miedema 1997:1183-84) and Meybrat (Miedema 1997:1185-86) are of varying
quality but all are brief (averaging 500 words or less in length and sparsely illustrated).
6
Boissière’s recent ethno-botanical and ecological study of the Yali is a valuable contribution to an
understanding of this cultural group’s traditional/contemporary structure (Boissiere 1999:273-305) and
conceptualisations of space (Boissiere 1999:351-392). A brief note on the construction of Yali houses
(homea) may also be found in Parker (2003:64-65).
238
various structures encountered across the territory (Verslag 1920). In recent years this
book has become the authoritative source on Papuan architecture for academics in
Papua striving to create archetypal ‘Papuan’ houses for resettlement projects.7
Figure 5-1: “Verdeeling der bevolking en de woningtypen...”
8
(Illustrated map in Verslag 1920: 296-297 inset)
Although published almost a century ago, “Distribution of populations and house
types…” (Figure 5-1) remains the only cartographic depiction of the vernacular
architectures of western New Guinea. It maps around 30 distinct building types across
the territory bounded by polygons intended to indicate both the geographic extent of
each style as well as regional estimates for population. Despite obvious extrapolation
and some peculiar oversights,9 “Distribution of Inhabitants and House-types” might
7
In 2003 and 2004 a team of academics from Unipa-Uncen (including architect Soleman Betawi, Unipa’s
Musa Sombuk, a community development lecturer and Uncen’s Jos Mansoben, an anthropologist) were
engaged as consultants by BP Indonesia to arrange the resettlement of a community in the BP contract of
work area. Dr Jos Mansoben, a prominent Papuan anthropologist and head of the Irian Jaya Research
Centre, brought his copy of this book (Verslag 1920) to the group’s meetings. Together, the team
considered the various structures illustrated in the book and distilled from it five different designs which
they then took to the community at Tanah Merah in the Bintuni Bay for discussion. After consultation
with community representatives, the joint Uncen-Unipa team produced the final design drawings for the
building contractors employed by BP Indonesia. The result is the new settlement village of Tanah Merah,
which includes residential housing as well as Catholic and Protestant churches and a mosque (Musa
Sombuk, pers. comm. August 2007). For photographs of this new settlement, see
http://www.papuaweb.org/gb/foto/unipa/tangguh/tanah-merah/index.html.
8
This map was later reproduced in Poortenaar and Coolhaas (1946:foldout section).
9
Many of the illustrations are projected over areas on the map as if to fill the blanks in the survey data
(see also Chapter 4, Figure 4-10 and Ballard 1999). In other instances some architecture, such as the
highly distinctive structures of the island of Kimaam (also known as Prince Hendrik Island, Yos Sudarso
239
have made a valuable contribution to a more systematic, emergent understanding of
local cultures and cultural practices in Netherlands New Guinea. However, a curiosity
and concern for the local practices and customs of New Guinea ‘natives’ by government
officials and anthropologists (Wolf and Jaarsma 1992:110-120; Adatrechtsbundels
1955) did not disuade most church officials and colonial administrators in Netherlands
New Guinea from modernist agendas which favoured urban consolidation and
contemporary construction techniques and materials.10 This imperative also
underpinned Sukarno’s nation-building efforts which shunned allusions to the
“repertoire of traditional architectural forms and ideas” in favour of domestic and
international (architectural) icons of modernity and progress (Kusno 2000:2).
Suharto’s New Order sought a new role for tradition which resulted in the most
substantial research on traditional architecture ever attempted in Indonesia. Based on
the nusantara cultural policy (see Chapters 3 and 4), the decade-long (mid-1970s to the
mid-1980s) “Inventorisation and Documentation of Regional Culture Project” was
undertaken by the Directorate of History and Traditional Values of the Department of
Culture and Education.11 One component of this project sought to establish a unitary
architectural ‘heritage’ for the archipelago through a series of provincial studies.12 The
broader project was monumental in its scope and in Irian included studies on traditional
ritual, material culture, costume, dance and an architecture study conducted by leading
Papuan cultural and intellectual figures including Sam Kapissa, Arnold Ap and Tom
Ireeuw.13 The resulting document (Indonesia. Depdikbud 1982, 1986a) collates useful
Island, Kapaur Island, Kolepom Island or Dolak Island) are not represented on this map even though the
island was visited by several expedition teams.
10
For example, most publications of the 1950s and early 1960s featured “modern” buildings, such as the
KLM Hotel in Biak and the Hotel Berg en Dal in Hollandia. Publications profiling the NG to prospective
investors and new (Dutch) residents similarly promoted modern pre-fabricated residential buildings in a
“Sorong”, “Biak” or “Hollandia” style (see Vademecum 1956). A similarly titled “Irian Barat” house,
made of modular timber sections, is described with detailed construction drawings in a booklet published
by the Regional Housing Centre in Bandung. They describe this particular pre-cut timber house style as
intended to contribute “in the spirit of Trikora” to the housing/development needs in Irian as elsewhere in
the country (Regional Housing Centre c.1972: 1).
11
(Proyek Inventarisasi dan Dokumentasi Sejarah Nasional, Direktorat Sejarah dan Nilai Tradisional,
Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan). See Kusno (2000:78-79).
12
This build on earlier works, such as Sumintardja’s 1978 Compendium of Architectural History
(Kompendium Sejarah Arsitektur), but made little reference to earlier Dutch era scholarship. I have not
yet obtained a copy of Sumintardja’s (1963) Traditional Housing in Irian Jaya but have referred to his
entries on Irian in his 1978 monograph (see Sumintardja 1978).
13
A parallel and detailed publication on the contents (and their various uses) of traditional houses in Irian
Jaya was produced by the same sub-section of the Irian Jaya Department of Culture and Education Project
240
information on two regions, Biak and the Baliem (highland Dani architecture), but
makes no reference to the karewari (also rendered kariwari and karawari) temples of
the Jayapura (Humboldt Bay) region. This is a striking omission as the karewari and
Dani honai were selected as early as 1975 to stand for quintessentially Irian architecture
(Indonesia Magazine 1975:27; Djamadil et al. 1978) at the Beautiful Indonesian-inMiniature Park or Taman Mini in Jakarta (discussed in Chapter 3). This may merely
reflect regional bias in the research team (three of the four team members were from
Biak) but the modest resources available for their research, the absence from the team of
a trained architect, their limited access to relevant Dutch language documentation and
the formulaic approach proscribed by the Directorate (Kusno 2000:79) are all likely to
have constrained the study’s results.
The impulse for the 1982 government study of Irian architecture had its origins in Dutch
(and later Indonesian) efforts to construct a distinct architectural identity for the
archipelago. This architectural identity grew over centuries and drew inspiration from
the stately palaces of the buildings of Java and Sumatra (see Tjahjono 2001). It also
embodied the wealth and prestige of the Indies colony as well as the sensibilities of key
colonial architects (see Akihary 1990) and continues to inform Indonesian architecture
today (see Kusno 2000). By contrast, the modest public buildings of West New Guinea,
almost all constructed since 1945, are afforded a very different aesthetic, one which
invites comparison with neighbouring Papua New Guinea. Indeed the impulse at the
time of Papua New Guinean independence to promote a “Melanesian style” of
architecture (Plocki 1975) suggests regionally relevant criteria by which buildings in
modern Papua might be measured.14 Such principles form the basis of the recent moves
to promote ‘critical regionalism’ through which architectural practice reflects sensitivity
under a different team of Papuan and non-Papuan researchers (see ID Depdikbud 1986b). It is worth
noting that the Irian Jaya Development Information Service Center (IrjaDISC which was later
transformed into YPMD) also expressed some interest in vernacular architecture and settlement patterns
in Irian during the first few years of the organisation (see Alif 1983). Settlement patterns (particularly the
phenomena of urban enclaves) was also studied as part of the Department of Culture and Education’s
National Cultural Inventory Program (see Depdikbud 1986c).
14
A short article in the Schakels series for Netherlands New Guinea by the Head of the Lower Technical
School (Lagere Technische School, LTS) in Kota Radja (Hollandia) notes that the School was guided by
similar principles to Plocki (1975) and the appropriate technology movement in their promotion of a
modern “Papuan style house” (see Heijnes 1959).
241
to local cultural, environmental, economic and political conditions (see Frampton 1983
and Eggener 2002).
The production of architecture, art and spaces of community in Papua are intimately
connected with institutional imperatives, authority and audience. The institutional focus
of this case study is informed by the interpretive approach of organisational and policy
anthropologist Dvora Yanow, who poses the deceptively simple question, “How does a
building mean?” That is (Yanow 1993:309):
... [agency] buildings and built spaces, including their siting, landscaping,
materials, decor, furnishings – may be said to embody and express policy and
agency meanings. It is a symbolic relationship – that is, it is representational:
the buildings and their appurtenances represent meanings. This is especially
significant when policy language and goals are ambiguous.
Yanow’s research suggests multiple layers through which buildings and ‘built’ spaces
convey institutional intention and authority (with a particular focus on policy in her
methodology). A key element of this repertoire is the deliberate or circumstantial
juxtaposition of new structures with vernacular architectures. In New Guinea, a
beginning for such an analysis is the first site of European settlement on the island. It is
here that the traditional architecture of New Guinea was first rendered ‘primitive’.
Architects of Salvation: replacing the rumah adat
Figure 5-2: “Dengan nama Tuhan kami menginjak tanah ini”
(Ottow and Geissler Memorial, Kwawi, Manokwari, Photographs by the author, November
2001)
The ‘arrival’ of Christianity in New Guinea in 1855 is encapsulated by the phrase “in
the name of God we set food on this land” and commemorated by the Ottow and
242
Geissler monument constructed at Kwawi in Dore Bay in 1984 (Figure 5-2).15 Inside
the memorial a concrete relief triptych tells the story of Christianity in New Guinea.16
The first panel depicts the traditional cultural practices of the peoples of the region,
represented by carved ancestor figures (korwar), dense foreboding jungle and a rumah
adat (traditional house) – known locally as a rum sram (men’s ceremonial house). The
third panel symbolically depicts Papua as a Christian community after the
transformation which comes in the central panel (exaggerated in this photo-montage) in
which Ottow and Geissler arrive by ship in Dore Bay (modern-day Manokwari). A
Bible is laid across part of the scene and it is open at Ephesians 5:8 with the verse
written in white across the central panel:
For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light.
Live as children of light.
The complex histories of the interactions of Christian missions and churches with the
peoples of Papua are reduced to this single moment of encounter. The memorial stands
as a symbol of the power of the Christian churches (of all denominations) in Papua in
their transformation of Papuan society.17 Carl Ottow and Johan Geissler, German
‘mechanics’ or lay missionaries, were sent on behalf of the Christian Workmen
Committee to promote Christianity among the communities of Dore Bay.18 Popular
15
Teluk Dore as it is known today was variously rendered as Dorey, Dorei and Doreh. Similarly Kwawi
was variously rendered Kouaoui and Kwawe. Wallace refers to the village of Kwawi as Dorey (Wallace
1890:378).
16
These panels were painted in “secrecy” by a local Moluccan artist prior to the ceremony which opened
the memorial (Feije Duim, pers. comm. August 2007).
17
In this respect it is predominately a memorial to the main Protestant Church in Papua (Gereja Christian
Indonesia, GKI), even though the Germans Ottow and Geissler were not members of the Dutch Reform
Church. While the Christian Workmen Committee (Comité van de Christen-Werkman) was founded in
Berlin by two German Protestants (Gossner and Heldring), they operated with the support of the
Netherlands Mission Society or NZG (Nederlandsch Zendeling Genootschap). Nielson (2000:45) notes
that “these mission societies were not schismatic bodies, as their founders emphasised that they would not
establish congregations that would be independent of the Dutch Reform Church.” But while Ottow and
Geissler had the support of the Dutch Reform Church, it was the continued arrival and expansion of
Dutch Reform missionaries and missions in Netherlands New Guinea that ensured the association
between the GKI and Ottow and Geissler. In recent years this association has been emphasised by the
commemorative programs of the GKI, funded by both local and Dutch congregations (particularly for the
150th Anniversary celebrated in February 2005 discussed later in this chapter).
18
Lay workers, as Neilson wryly reminds us, who were “skilled in carpentry, shoemaking, blacksmithing
and agriculture, skills that were not eagerly sought after in Irian at the time” (Neilson 2000: 59, footnote
xxiv). Van der End (quoted in Neilson 2000: 60, footnote xxvi) suggests that the delays in placing Ottow
and Geissler in the field may have been due to the fact that they were German missionaries attempting to
enter a Dutch colony (with direct links to the control of territory discussed in Chapter 4). This reinforces
the observation by Neilson that the VOC had effectively retarded the expansion of missionary activities in
the NEI. He notes that during the Napoleonic wars in Europe and the French (1795-1811) and British
(1811-1816) Interregnums in the East Indies, the NZG conducted work “under the auspices of the London
243
modern depictions venerate “Ottow and Geissler: the Apostles of Papua” (Figure 5-3)
arriving, as Francis Xavier had three hundred years before them in the Moluccan
Islands, as emissaries of God.19
Figure 5-3: “Ottow dan Geissler: Rasul Papua”
(Oil on canvas, Krey Studio, Manokwari 2000, artist unknown. Photograph by the author)
The practical Christianity Ottow and Geissler brought served them well for their early
years in New Guinea. But the significance of their mission for other Europeans was
the imaginary beachhead of possibility it suggested to missionaries and congregations
in adjacent regions and distant metropoles who yearned for new fields but had not yet
committed themselves to New Guinea. Reverend Samuel McFarlane, in an account of
his experiences in the east of the island, vividly evokes the specter of “New Guinea”
among missionaries and colonial officials: “... a country of bona fide cannibals and
genuine savages, where the missionary and explorer truly carries his life in his hand”
(McFarlane, quoted in Souter 1963:4).20
Missionary Society”. The return of the NEI to Dutch control in 1816 thereby presented (Protestant)
missionaries with a “unique mission field” (Neilson 2000:44). “The initial approach of the missionaries
was one of a ‘Christian presence’, with patterns of evangelism used in Europe. They held a weekly
Malay-language Sunday service, which included prayer, singing and a sermon with an offer of eternal
salvation and threat of damnation to those who rejected their message. By 1861 they had already
produced a song book in the language of Numfor, and by 1870 several parts of the Bible had been
translated” (Nielson 2000:47). For an authorised history of the early Protestant mission in Papua, see
Kamma 1981. For an excellent brief account of Ottow and Geissler’s mission in Papua and its
institutional affiliations, see Neilson (2000:45-50).
19
On several trips to Manokwari I have heard Ottow and Geissler referred to as the Apostles of Papua.
This idea is elaborated in Mamoribo’s (1971) booklet and reiterated in Flassy (1999).
20
It should be noted that McFarlane wrote this in 1888 as a publication of the London Mission Society
titled: “Among the Cannibals of New Guinea: Being the Story of the New Guinea Mission of the London
244
In 1858 Alfred Russel Wallace arrived in Dore Bay with little apparent concern for his
life.21 Travelling with several assistants on a trading vessel from Ternate, the naturalist
was preoccupied with his plans to settle at Dore to collect plant and animal specimens.
His arrival was greeted by Ottow and together they went ashore at Mansinam Island to
meet Geissler, who had been confined to his house for six months due to a severe leg
wound. While Wallace noted with disapproval the methods of these “trade”
missionaries his criticism was largely directed at the mission and church, which he
believed should have better provided for the needs of these men (Wallace 1890:377).
But it is his keen eye as a naturalist, not his moral rectitude, which brings us to Wallace
at Dore in 1858. Although his Malay Archipelago is scant on illustrations unrelated to
the flora and fauna of the islands, he creates a vivid picture of the village of Dore Bay
and of all the buildings fringing the bay he speaks most favourably of his new home.
Commending himself on his foresight,22 resourcefulness and the tidy manner of his
house and how, once built, he was “… fairly established as the only European
inhabitant of the vast island of New Guinea.”23 The pride in his abode contrasts with
his descriptions of the “miserable huts” of the natives of Dore.
Missionary Society.” It is likely that McFarlane’s book contained deliberate hyperbole with the intention
of engaging readers and patrons for the LMS mission in New Guinea.
21
Wallace did not believe Dore to be completely safe, “As we had some doubt about the natives [of
Dorey], we slept at first with loaded guns beside us and a watch set; but after a few days, finding the
people friendly, and feeling sure that they would not venture to attack five well-armed men, we took no
further precautions” (Wallace 1890:380). At this time the people of Dorey, through their history with
European explorers and Moluccan and Chinese traders, were more familiar with – and better known to –
foreign visitors than most other coastal peoples in New Guinea.
22
Wallace brought construction materials for his house by boat from Ternate.
23
A technical conceit on the part of Wallace, since Ottow and Geissler had established themselves on the
nearby island of Mansinam.
245
Figure 5-4: “Village de Kouaoui au Havre Dorey, Nelle Guinee”
(Lithograph by Jean Baptiste Arnout in Dumont D’Urville, 1833, Plate 116)
The villages of Mansinam and Dorey presented some features quite new to me.
The houses all stand completely in the water, and are reached by long rude
bridges. They are very low, with the roof shaped like a large boat, bottom
upwards. The posts which support the houses, bridges, and platforms are small
crooked sticks, placed without any regularity, and looking as if they were
tumbling down. The floors are also formed of sticks, equally irregular, and so
loose and far apart that I found it almost impossible to walk on them. The walls
consist of bits of boards, old boats,24 rotten mats, attaps, and palm-leaves, stuck
in anyhow here and there, and having altogether the most wretched and
dilapidated appearance it is possible to conceive... (Wallace 1869:378).
Clearly the opportunistic use of composite materials in the construction and
ornamentation of the structures did not impress Wallace. They appear rather more
picturesque in an early lithograph of “The Village of Kwawi in Dore Bay, New
Guinea” (Figure 5-4). Wallace continues with a passing reference to a significant
contemporaneous work noting that (Wallace 1869:378):
The view of an ancient lake-dweller’s village, given as the frontispiece of Sir
Charles Lyell’s Antiquity of Man, is chiefly founded on a sketch of this very
village of Dorey; but the extreme regularity of the structures there depicted has
no place in the original, any more than it probably had in the actual lakevillages.
The frontispiece used by Charles Lyell for his landmark publication The Geological
Evidences for the Antiquity of Man (1863) is taken from the work of another naturalist,
24
We might assume that the presence of milled boards and planks of timber were the remains of wrecked
trading vessels or their cargoes. This is suggested by an earlier passage in which Wallace implies that
such ships were common in these waters as the natives were “…accustomed to sell their trifles to whalers
and China ships...” (Wallace 1869:376).
246
Ferdinand Keller25 who discovered submerged wooden poles on the edge of Lake
Zurich in 1853. In his efforts to reconstruct the habitations of these pre-Bronze age
lake-dwellers, Keller turned to recent images of similar structures that had been found
in New Guinea. The sketch Keller used for this purpose is almost certainly that of the
village of Kouaoui drawn by Jean Baptiste Arnout, an artist on Dumont D’Urville’s
corvette l’Astrolabe, during its visit to Dore in 1828 (Figure 5-4).
Figure 5-5: “A village built on piles in a Swiss Lake”
26
(Illustration by Dr F. Keller in Lyell 1863, Plate 1)
In this view… he has not simply trusted to his imagination, but has availed
himself of a sketch published by M. Dumont D’Urville of similar habitations of
the Papoos in New Guinea in the Bay of Dorei (Lyell 1863:19).
In this way, a contemporaneous image from ‘primitive’ New Guinea was adapted as an
analogue for the ‘stone age’ in Switzerland. Keller’s archaeological discovery was
significant in the intellectual world of Western Europe at the time as it suggested new
possibilities for the lifestyles of prehistoric lake-dwelling Europeans. The work of
Lyell, Keller and later Darwin, Wallace, Huxley and others paved the way for science
to separate itself from religion even as it advanced arguments for an evolutionary
distinction between modern peoples and their primitive counterparts. In this way
vernacular architecture from New Guinea became instrumental in European imaginings
25
Keller was the President of the local history society. The discovery of these piles was made on the
shores of Lake Zurich after one of the most prolonged droughts on record. Keller’s work caused a
sensation at the time and he later published his findings in a two-volume monograph which elaborated on
his research, methodology and comparative analysis (including the relevance of the New Guinea pile
buildings to his findings). See Keller (1854).
26
This plate first appeared in Keller (1854). The presence in this illustration of a round house is
necessary to account for the pattern of wooden piles (columns) found at the Lake Zurich archaeological
site. Keller used many of the features of the houses depicted in the village of Kwawi.
247
of their prehistoric past and simultaneously reinforced assumptions about the ‘native’
peoples of these islands and their practices.27
Reproductions of form and opportunistic adaptations in architectural styles among the
peoples of New Guinea were nothing new. Aside from the obvious need for habitable
dwellings, the construction, repair and renewal of buildings was the primary method of
transferring indigenous construction techniques to younger generations. It seems likely
that modest architectural innovations were common among New Guinea’s peoples,
particularly for communities connected to significant routes of trade and internal
migration.28 Innovations may often have been pragmatic in nature as the local
materials used by the peoples of Dore were not particularly durable. Strong winds,
monsoonal rains, beating sun and the vagaries of processes of construction completed
by many hands (some expert, some novice) would necessitate the constant upkeep and
periodic replacement of buildings. It is possible that this fact enabled relatively rapid
innovation in building design and may explain differences in the accounts of the rum
srams of Dore Bay of the late 1820s from those of the 1850s.
Figure 5-6: “Façade et details de la maison sacree a Dorey” (1828)
(Lithograph by Louis Auguste de Sainson in Dumont D’Urville 1833, Plate 125)
27
Menotti (2001:320) states “The image [of lake-dwellers] was made plausible by ethnological accounts
of exotic societies, namely the water-dwellers of the Malaysian Archipelago, who seemed also to have
had some kind of wooden pile-dwellings constructed just above the water. On this basis but very little
scientific evidence, the romantic image spread all over the Alpine region...”
28
The idea that traditional architecture was immutable is commonplace in Indonesia. For example, the
approach by Tjahjono (2001) in his review of the architecture of Indonesia is structured so as to place
traditional architectures at the beginning of a continuum which then moves into “Indonesia’s classical
period” (i.e. stone buildings and temples), “Cities, Mosques and Palaces” (15th to 17th Century), the
colonial period (17th to 19th centuries) and the emergence of a new “Indies style” which marks the
beginnings of Indonesia’s “Modern” architecture and identity).
248
Figure 5-7: “Afbeelding van de Roemsram te Doreh” (1858)
(Lithograph by von Rosenberg29 in van der Goes et al. 1862: plate S)
A large boat-shaped council-house is supported on larger posts, each of which
is grossly carved to represent a naked male or female human figure, and other
carvings still more revolting are placed upon the platform before the entrance
(Wallace 1890:379).
The “façade and details of the sacred house at Dore” (Figure 5-6) from Dumont
D’Urville’s visit to Dore in 1828 depicts a straight-edged structure with a gable roof and
no overhang.30 This is consistent with earlier illustrations of the buildings of Dore Bay,
such as Forrest (1969, frontispiece) and illustrations of other buildings in Dumont
D’Urville’s account of Dore (i.e. this is not stylistic variation or artistic license). It is
not consistent with the rum sram encountered by Wallace in 1858 (Wallace 1890:379)
or the “illustration of the rum sram at Dore” (Figure 5-7) presented in the account of the
Etna Bay expedition of the same year (van der Goes et al. 1862).31 While the house
posts of the 1820/30s structure appear similar in style to those other 1820s structure, the
“boat-shaped” roof is radically different from the earlier rum sram. Kamma (1972:9293) notes that the Dore rum sram was unusual in design (canoe-shaped) but his
description does not concern itself with the architectural form of the structure and
makes no reference to earlier illustrations of the building.32 What is clear is that the rum
29
Von Rosenberg was an illustrator on the New Guinea Committee’s steamship Etna for its expedition to
New Guinea in 1858. In 1869 and 1870 he made his own independent visits to the island. His 1875
monograph includes illustrations from all three visits to New Guinea (see Rosenberg 1875).
30
This is clearly apparent in the profile illustration of the building in Plate 119 of Dumont D’Urville’s
Atlas Historique (1833, see Plate 125 at www.papuaweb.org/gb/nla/dorey/125.html and the view of the
rum sram in profile in Plate 119 www.papuaweb.org/gb/nla/dorey/119.html).
31
This plate is labelled as enclosure S, but in the text (van der Goes et al.1862:156) and table of contents
(van der Goes et al. 1862:xii) it is referred to as enclosure RR.
32
Although Wallace had disdain for the subject matter of this rum sram, he does acknowledge the artistry
of the carvings and of the men who made them. The report of the Etna Expedition of 1858 (van der Goes
et al.1862:151-159) gives the most considered account of the rum sram at Dore and even records names
249
sram at Dore was not static in its architectural form during this period (even though it
has since been immortalised in its 1850s form as discussed later in this chapter).33
On May 22/23, 1864, the rum sram at Dore (Figure 5-7) was irreparably damaged by
an earthquake and tsunami that devastated all of the settlements along the coast of the
Dore Bay.34 According to Geissler, nobody died in this natural disaster but the event
did create tremendous tensions within these coastal communities. Many left the bay,
apprehensive about the missionary presence there, and travelled to Amberbaken to
follow a messianic Koreri movement.35 Most returned again later that year, reportedly
disillusioned with their experiences at Amberbaken. Meanwhile Geissler had his own
challenges. His wife was late into her pregnancy, their house was badly damaged and
his leg injury remained debilitating. His efforts at Christian conversion were painfully
slow and it was already almost two years since the death of his companion Carl Ottow.
Geissler’s resolve was sorely tested. His response was to re-affirm and re-construct his
mission effort (I Chronicles 22:19):
Now set your mind and heart to seek the LORD your God. Go and build the
sanctuary of the LORD God so that the ark of the covenant of the LORD and the
holy vessels of God may be brought into a house built for the name of the
LORD.
With these words on September 24, 1864, Geissler laid the foundation stone of the
“Church of Hope” (Gereja Harapan) on Mansinam Island. Van Hasselt, a new
for the 19 (of 24) carved house post figures which serve as the physical and metaphysical (mythological)
foundations for the building (van der Goes et al. 1862:154-155). This includes Sampari (the physical
manifestation of the morning star holding a sword above his head, top left of Figure 5-6) and Simbooij, an
eight armed woman. Such accounts led subsequent authors to suggest a Hindu cultural legacy in the
Geelvick Bay area of New Guinea (see Horst 1893).
33
It is possible that the discrepancies in the accounts and illustrations of rum srams in Dore come from
ambiguities in which rum sram are being depicted. Guillemard (1886:275) notes that there were three
villages around Dore Bay (Ambobridoi, Kwawe and Rasamberi) and another two villages nearby (Rode
and Monokware) with three villages (Menubabor, Mansinam and Saraundibu) on the island of Manaswari
(now known as Mansinam) and none on the uninhabited island of Meosomapi. Dumont D’Urville’s visit
of 1827 notes four villages in the harbour and estimates a total population of 1,500 in the immediate
vicinity (Wittakker, et al.1975: 229). However, none of these accounts make reference to more than one
sacred house in the Dore Bay region.
34
Most of this brief account of the destruction of the rum sram and construction of the Church of Hope
(Gereja Harapan) is taken from Kamma (1981:206-214) and augmented with notes from van Schie
(1995).
35
For a succinct summary of Koreri, see Penders (2002:115-130). For a more comprehensive and
nuanced account, see Kamma (1972).
250
missionary in Dore, brought members of his congregation to the ceremony.36 Reading
from the Bible, van Hasselt proclaimed that “this [was the] gate of the LORD, into
which the righteous shall enter” (Psalms 118:20). Geissler translated a Psalm into
Numfor language for the occasion (Psalms 84:1-4) and had the people sing:
How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts!
My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh
sing for joy to the living God.
Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she
may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God.
Happy are those who live in your house, ever singing your praise.
The physical foundations of the church were more than a promise or a pledge. They
were a means by which Geissler could use an act of God – an earthquake – to renew his
faith in his own mission.37 Local beliefs were challenged by the missionaries who, in
turn, faced their own tests of faith. The rum sram of Mansinam remained in ruins
while its villagers were preoccupied with a new Koreri movement and their attention
turned to the ways of the ancestors. Geissler attempted to reason against their
“irrational” belief in the power of wooden idols (amfanyiers38) asking, “How can a
piece of wood, like this table, be vengeful?” (Kamma 1981:211) Although he failed to
convince the men of Dore that they should not rebuild their rum sram, he did manage
to persuade them to dispose of some idols39 and the ornate carvings that adorned the
exterior of this building (van Schie 1995:166). His efforts to convince the people of
the omnipotence of his Christian God were rendered less convincing by his own trials
and the storm which virtually destroyed the Church of Hope when it was near
completion. Eventually, with the assistance of Moslem labourers from Ternate, the
Church was completed and inaugurated in December 1868 with a special Christmas
service by Geissler. That the construction of this church, despite its setbacks, had a
positive effect on Geissler is suggested by his optimistic correspondence with his
German Church patrons towards the end of 1864 (Kamma 1981:220). The church was
also a significant step forward in the consolidation of the Christian mission in Papua
36
At this time, Geissler had moved to Kwawi and van Hasselt had taken over the church on Mansinam
(see Jansen-Weber et al. 1994:27).
37
Kamma (2001:220) notes that by the end of 1864 Geissler was more optimistic about his mission in
Papua.
38
These idols are commonly known as korwar (see Baaren 1968) but the korwar is the spirit of the
ancestor. An amfanyier is the figurative wooden representation of a korwar (see Roper 1999:137).
39
He laid down an ultimatum for the surrender (and destruction) of these idols and eventually more than
30 of these carvings were surrendered (Kamma 1981:213).
251
and created a new focus for community at Dore Bay. The first two non-Europeans
Christians were baptised at Mansinam on January 1, 1865. More, haltingly, followed.40
Today a replica of the Lahairoi, the “Church of Hope” (Figure 5-8) stands on the site of
Geissler’s original church on Mansinam Island.
Figure 5-8: “Lahairoi”
(Photograph by the author, November 2001)
The crisp clean lines, painted surfaces and lack of ornamentation even today
distinguish the Church of Hope from the surrounding buildings, many of which are still
constructed from traditional materials. While some of these materials may be modern
(i.e. the corrugated iron roof), the use of sawn and panelled timbers was almost
certainly a feature of the original church, as was the design which clearly distinguished
the building from those in its immediate surroundings. The church is sited on the edge
of Mansinam Island, facing out across Dore Bay, in full view of Kwawi and the
adjacent mainland, ensuring its presence in the landscape, and thereby the lives, of the
local communities. The contrast of this building with those in the surrounding villages
has the effect of removing “the individual from ordinary life” which, as Yanow
(1993:322) has observed in other contexts, helps distinguish this building as a
“ceremonial space.”
40
Guillemard (1886:275) notes that by 1883, only 16 adults and 26 children had been converted in
Dorey. He also notes that in 1883 the rum sram at Manokwari “which had been accidentally destroyed by
fire, was being rebuilt in all its former hideousness and indecency.” The early mission history of
Netherlands New Guinea is documented in Kamma’s seminal two-volume work on the Dutch Reform
Church (1977 – abridged and translated into Indonesian and published in three volumes in 1981, 1982 &
1994) and Boelaars authorised three-volume history of the Catholic church (1992, 1995, 1997). Other
valuable histories include Ukur and Cooley (1977) and Neilson’s excellent and exhaustively researched
PhD dissertation on the history of Christianity in Papua (2000).
252
A scattering of other missionaries arrived over the next 50 years, but by 1900 there
were still few converts along the coast and none in the interior of Netherlands New
Guinea. Carl Ottow died of a fever and was buried at Kwawi on 9 November 1862.41
Geissler continued this work, aided by new missionaries, until his departure from
Papua in 1869.42 A scattering of other Protestant missionaries established other
beachheads over next 50 years (see Neilson 2000), but by 1900 there were still few
converts on the coast and none in the interior of Netherlands New Guinea. However,
Ottow and Geissler and later Protestant missionaries did have some success.43 Their
opposition to the rum sram (and other aspects of material culture) and the importance it
placed on its own new edifices, must have made an impression on local Papuans. As
Van Hasselt (quoted in Kamma 1972:91) notes:
In the Schouten Islands the rum sram fell into disuse about 1897 when the last
rum sram in the Doreh Bay collapsed and was not rebuilt. The smallpox
epidemic of that time proved fatal for these temples.
Kamma (1972:91) adds that “The Mission was not established in Biak until 1908,
therefore the rum sram lost their importance through internal causes; they failed in a
violent crisis.” In making this observation, Kamma does not recognise that this
particular health crisis was itself of foreign origin. As such, foreign influence may well
be considered to have caused (or accelerated) the collapse of the rum sram socioreligious and cultural system in the Geelvink (Cenderawasih) Bay area. By the early
twentieth century, the rum sram and other ceremonial houses along the entire north
coast of West New Guinea, including the karewari of Humboldt Bay, were in rapid
decline and in most areas had disappeared completely.44 The situation in parts of the
Catholic south of the territory was markedly different.
41
The following year in April 1963 Ottow’s wife left New Guinea for Ternate to give birth.
Geissler died in 1870 of tuberculosis while on furlough in Germany (Neilson 2000:50).
43
My characterisation of missions and missionaries here encompasses various Protestant church
denominations and their missionaries and mission societies (usage consistent with Kamma 1981). Ottow
and Geissler were sent by Heldring and Gossner’s Christian Workmen Committee (Comité van de
Christen-Werkman) founded in Berlin in 1850. In the late 1850s several mission societies were formed in
the Netherlands which later became active in West New Guinea, including the Dutch Mission Society
(Nederlandsche Zendingsvereeniging, NZV), the Utrecht Mission Society (Utrechtsche
Zendingsvereeniging, UZV) and the Dutch Reformed Church Mission Society (Nederlandsche
Gereformeerde Zendinsvereeniging, NGZV). For an overview of these missions and their first
missionaries see Neilson (2000:44-46).
44
Feuilletau de Bruyn (1920:33) notes the presence of a rum sram (roem seram) in Wafordori (north
coast of Supiori Island) as late as 1915 , but this structure (indicated as Plate VI, Fig.1) has the classic
“turtle” appearance of the rum som or living house (young men’s house traditionally in proximity to a
42
253
Architects of Salvation: reforming the village
In 1894 Father Cocq d’Armandville established himself on the island of Kapaur (near
modern day Fak-fak) as the first Catholic missionary in Netherlands New Guinea.45 He
came almost three centuries after Francis Xavier (see Wessels 1926) who is today
celebrated as the Pope’s first messenger to Eastern Indonesia. In May 1895,
d’Armandville’s mission ended abruptly when his boat capsized in the harbour at
Kapaur and he and his mission were lost at sea.46 It would be another decade before a
permanent Catholic presence was established on the south coast of Netherlands New
Guinea, at modern day Merauke.
The Catholic Church was slow to establish a presence in Netherlands New Guinea in
part because from 1844 the territory was designated part of the Vicariate Apostolic
(VA) of Melanesia which comprised much of Western Oceania and the entire island of
New Guinea (see Appendix 5). Early mission activity was focussed in the eastern
islands of the VA of Melanesia and met with repeated misfortune (see Whittaker et
al.1975:331-346; Laracy 1976). To the west of the island of New Guinea in the
neighbouring Kei Islands (southern Moluccas) the Catholic Church had been active
since the early 19th century (see Steenbrink 2003; 2007:231-257) following the collapse
of the VOC and the end of the British Interregnum.47 With the support of catechists
from Kei, Dutch and Belgian Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) envisioned the
expansion of their mission across the south of Netherlands New Guinea. The
establishment of a substantial and permanent government military presence in Merauke
in 1902 (Swadling 1996:175-178) was intended to prevent cross-border raids by the
rum sram), a form considered to be inconsistent with that of the rum sram, or male ritual house (for
clarification on the rum sram and rum som forms in Geelvink Baai architecture, see van Hasselt 1921;
Indonesia. Depdikbud 1986:24-54). It is possible on this more remote coast of Supiori that Feuilletau de
Bruyn did encounter a rum sram with a turtle-shaped roof, as this is reported elsewhere (de Clercq and
Schmeltz 1893:173). It is also possible that this rum som was used as a rum sram.
45
The choice to initially settle on islands by both Ottow and Geissler and d’Armandville was significant.
They had the strategic advantage of smaller populations who, if accepting of missionary presence, could
then be engaged to assist in the material provisioning and security of the missionaries. These island
communities typically had prior contact with foreigners and were, at least in places like Dore Bay, less
prone to attack by hostile tribal groups from the (highland) interior.
46
It is unclear if he drowned or was murdered (Steenbrink 2003:144).
47
The British Interregnum in the East Indies (1811-1816) ended with the close of the Napoleonic Wars in
Europe (1796-1815) at which time the new Kingdom of the Netherlands (Constitutional Monarchy)
assumed direct control over all former VOC possessions in the East Indies.
254
head-hunting Marind-Anim (Tugeri) into British Papua (see Chapter 4). It also helped
reassure the Keiese mission assistants that administrative and material succour as well
as communication and transportation routes would be available to assist a mission based
at Merauke. “Our first mission station in Merauke” (Figure 5-9) illustrates the modest
but relatively modern buildings and fenced compound established by the mission in
1905.
Figure 5-9: “Onze eerste missiestatie te Merauke” (1905)
(Photograph from van der Kolk 1919:15)48
In the early 20th century, Marind-Anim villagers in the hinterland of Merauke were
under attack by a deadly disease. Dutch sources correlate this onslaught to the arrival,
in 1902, of indigenous labourers from Australia’s Thursday Island to the remote
Merauke outpost (van Baal 1966:25).49 The particularly virulent strain of venereal
granuloma (donovanosis), a sexually transmitted disease, spread quickly through local
populations with lethal effect. When members of the Order of the Sacred Heart
founded their mission in Merauke in 1905 little was known of the disease or the sexual
practices of the Marind-Anim. The missionaries did know that they were surrounded
by a local people whose “savage” cultural practices – head-hunting, live burials and
infanticide – were the antithesis of a “Christian” norm. These early MSC missionaries
led a precarious existence and relied heavily on the courage of their convictions and co48
A similar photograph of their Merauke mission station is on display at the Tropenmuseum of the KIT,
Amsterdam as part of the small display dedicated to the work of Father Vertenten (this exhibition is
discussed further later in this chapter, see Figure 5-49).
49
The arrival of this disease in southwest New Guinea was subsequently attributed to bird of paradise
hunters although the bird trade does not appear to have been the source of the disease in the Merauke
region. Swadling (1996:174-203) notes that hunting prior to 1908 was by local peoples, not foreigners
(p.178) while Schoorl (1993:149-153) states that the bird trade in the Merauke district (onderafdeling)
developed from 1914 and was banned in the district by 1922 – in part to help slow the spread of the
disease.
255
operation with local Dutch government officials. The administration, however, was
largely indifferent to calls from the Merauke mission for greater government
intervention in the health crisis affecting the local peoples. Dependent on an
administration indifferent to their presence and surrounded by a recalcitrant people
whose internecine conflicts and sexual promiscuities confounded Christian norms, the
mission seemed doomed.
In 1913, Father J. van der Kolk, OSC embarked on a radical social experiment on
behalf of the Merauke mission.50 The immediate goal was to isolate healthy Papuans
from those already infected by venereal disease. The broader intention was to create an
entire village dedicated to the moral, physical and spiritual salvation of the local
people. In doing this, Kolk inverted the dominant pattern of Christian proselytization
and administrative settlement. His mission efforts were no longer directed towards
consolidating dispersed populations, or transforming the cultural practices of an entire
community, approaches common for other tribal groups in the Indies. His village was
a gated community, predicated on exclusivity, in which the onus was on villagers to
transform their cultural (and spiritual) practices in order to enter (see Vriens 1988; van
der Kolk 1919). There individuals once again became a village community which, in
turn, became a congregation for Father van der Kolk and his Keiese brothers. It was a
community in which the teachings of the catechists might be attended to and the wellbeing of (at least some) local people protected.
By 1918, van der Kolk’s island village afforded its residents refuge from a terrible
storm. The epidemic of Spanish flu which swept across the world in the immediate
aftermath of World War I arrived on the Marind-Anim coast. For many other
communities in the region, ravaged by venereal granuloma (and already coping with
malaria and other endemic disease), this flu was catastrophic. Many villages in the
Merauke region lost around a quarter of their population in a matter of weeks (van Baal
1966:24). The MSC missionaries had extremely limited financial means or physical
capacity to address this public health disaster. Father P. Vertenten wrote letters to
colonial officials and in 1919 a dramatic account of the problem in the Java Post
50
This account of the early stages of the establishment of the model villages is taken from Cornelissen
(1988:4-8); van Baal (1966); Vriens (1988). For an excellent overview of the venereal granuloma crisis
in the region at the time see Vogel and Richens (1989).
256
simply titled “South New Guinea is dying out” (Zuid-Nieuw-Guinea sterft uit). This
article was subsequently reproduced in newspapers in the East Indies and The
Netherlands (Rosema 1995: 87-88) describing in desperate terms the health crisis
caused by the venereal granuloma and proposing van der Kolk’s model village as an
appropriate “rescue plan.” This concern was taken up in the Dutch Parliament and
official pressure, combined with the prominence of the issue in East Indies and Dutch
media (see Overweel 1995:102-108), led to swift and decisive action. The government
in The Hague sent Dr Cnopius, a venereal disease specialist, to the Merauke region
whose medical survey of the area concurred with Vertenten’s suggested method of
treatment (Vogel and Richens 1989). A government conference in the Netherlands was
convened at the Dam Palace on 29 January 1921 which established the bureaucratic
mechanisms for the transformation of traditional villages into “model” villages across
the entire southern lowlands of Netherlands New Guinea. According to van Baal
(1966:25-26):
... treatment was to be backed up by an almost complete change of the native
patterns of life. Feast and dances were banned, since the sexual promiscuity
accompanying them was a dangerous source of re-infection. In the village
boys’ and men’s houses were closed and living in one-family houses made
compulsory. All the things that had made the glory of Marind-Anim life were
discouraged, because they were supposed... to be connected in one way or
another with sexual licence...
Verschueren (1953:189-200) argues that this government intervention, with its focus on
the construction of buildings and villages, marked the beginning of a ‘great expansion’
(grote uitbreiding) for the mission. An ‘education’ campaign was one of the key
components of the 1921 government plan. Initially the plan offered a five-year
government subsidy (1921-26) for educational institutions across the region. This
brought crucial funds for existing mission schools and powerful financial incentives for
the Catholic mission to assist in the consolidation of existing populations into villages.
The extraordinary funding for education under the 1921 rescue package – which
included moral education to address the sexual promiscuity of the local peoples – was
renewed for another five years in 1926 and ended in 1931.51 Government funding for
mission education, however, continued in the years that followed with one strict
condition. Missions were obliged to have a minimum number of pupils in their schools
51
Examples of the new restrictions and residential living arrangements are illustrated in Vriens (1988: in
“het integratie-proces bij de Auyoe bevolking”).
257
to qualify for government subsidies. In the Muyu region, where local populations were
particularly dispersed (Schoorl 1993:17), mission schools required 15 students (or a
village of 100-150) to qualify for such funding.52 This policy served both mission and
government objectives but its implementation had its own local dynamics and
consequences. In some cases, missionaries advocated the destruction of local people’s
forest dwellings so as to force them (back) into villages for ‘Christian’ education... a
practice familiar to most controleurs working in the region.53
The transformation of settlement patterns was of fundamental significance in the restructuring of Papuan lives and lifestyles. For missionaries and government officials,
the orderly village was the physical manifestation of an active “civilising” presence.
Houses built in ordered rows, all adjoining a village road (or river) and frequently
neatly separated by bamboo fences created a sense that progress was being made by
both church and state. As mission and government influence expanded from the
Merauke region to the hinterland, the model village became the template stamped upon
new regions and a ready signifier to missionary, administrator and adventurer alike of
the alignment of local peoples to church and government. As (Cornelissen 1988:253)
notes:
The Dutch civil servants however went further than the original [1921] plan at
the execution: the old Papuan villages disappeared, everything became a model
village.
52
Schoorl (1993:178) estimates that 15 students for a Catholic mission school in the mid-1930s required a
village population of 100-150 individuals.
53
Schoorl (1993:178-179) has an interesting, if brief, discussion of this issue in relation to the extent of
mission coercion of local populations in the pursuit of ‘Christian’ ends. He also notes (Schoorl 1993:160161) that the local controleur instructed the bestuurassistent to persuade the people to move to the new
village and to demolish their forest dwellings or impose other penalties if they did not comply. This was
the “gentle pressure” policy, but often resulted in local communities retreating further into the jungle for
safety. Schoorl notes that this practice by government officials stationed in the Muyu region was
effectively banned by the end of 1938 and discusses the steps taken by some officials to repair the
damage done to government-community relations as a result of this approach. But he also notes that a
“steady” government policy regarding village formation remained elusive due to the vagaries of the local
population, shifting economic circumstances (e.g. impact and after-effects of WWII and the closure of
Tanah Merah, discussed later in this chapter) and other cultural changes (Schoorl 1993:161-169).
258
Figure 5-10: “Doorpstraat voorheen en thans”
(Photographs in Boelaars 1960:160-161 photo inset)
The transformation of traditional settlements and the consolidation of dispersed local
communities into ‘healthier,’ nucleated villages in southeast Netherlands New Guinea
is strikingly depicted in the two photographs of a “village street, past and present”
(Figure 5-10).54 Gone are the opportunistic felled trees for pathways and the stilted
(defensible) houses of isolated family settlements, replaced with a new-style of
traditional house (imported from the Moluccan islands), in neat rows separated by a
broad path and open ground. This juxtaposition distils the socio-cultural, economic,
religious and political practices of two distinct eras – caricaturing both past and
present/future. The ‘model’ village demanded the consolidation of the local peoples
and obliged them to loosen their attachment to hunter-gatherer cultures and lifestyles.55
Church and mission brought trade goods into new regions56 and the possibility of
expanded socio-cultural, economic and political activities that were tied, expediently,
to these new institutions. Such changes, however, meant forsaking key cultural
practices and the prestige and status associated with them. It also required the
dissolution of traditional enmities.
54
See also Boelaars (1953:151) for an account of Verschueren’s wonder and excitement at this newfound
geometric order for the villages and schools across the region.
55
Schoorl (1993:187) notes some of the impediments to village formation in the Muyu region.
56
Including, for example, trade in steel tools (see “I.3 ijzer-honger” in Vriens 1988).
259
Figure 5-11: “Doop van 1200 Papoea’s tegelijk in juli 1951...”
(Photograph in Vriens 1998:311)
Behind the altar is a wreath of shields. This ceremony was hastily organised at
a time when the Papuans were on the point of (launching) a great head-hunting
raid. Through this ceremony, war was averted at the last moment (Vriens
1998:311, my translation).
The shield altar for “the baptism of 1200 Papuans in July 1951” (Figure 5-11) at Kepi
in southeast Netherlands New Guinea, is one of the earliest and most striking examples
of elements of material culture being reconstituted to form an innovative new
architectural structure. Here ritual objects (shields and spears) typically associated
with warfare are transformed by architectural artifice to become a new symbol of
peace. Through this process the mission asserted its authority as the bridge to a new
era of prosperity, offering an expanded vision of (spiritual) community and a “symbolic
portal to Christianity” (Boelaars 1953:159, my translation).
In July 1951, more than 6000 Papuans gathered at the new village in Kepi57 to
participate in a peace-building ceremony which included the consecration of a new
Catholic church and a mass baptism (see Boelaars 1953:146-168).58 An open-air altar
was erected for this occasion with a backdrop of a huge fan of war shields with spears
at their ends extending radially (12 metres in diameter).59 The motifs on the shields
57
A new village at Kepi was purpose built for this festival, which included a thousand Auyu and 5000
Yaqui participants housed in 32 large, temporary shelters (Boelaars 1997:111).
58
Precedents for mass-baptism ceremonies and feasts were established by the Catholic mission in the
early 1920s (see Vertenten 1922).
59
Van Baal (1966:361) notes that the Catholic missionaries first used the symbolism of the gari in their
church rituals in 1925.
260
represented the warring clans of the Yaqui and Auyu and all were carved specifically
for the ceremony. The two warring tribes brought together in this peace-festival/feast,
the Yaqui (also denoted Jaqui or Yahray) and Auyu (Auwju), live on either side of the
Mappi River. The altar design directly alludes to the imagery of the hemispherical
head-dress or gari of the dema ritual (see van Baal 1966:356-376)60. Here the gari, or
Morning Star,61 is effectively “worn” by the Catholic priests and Bishop Tillemans as it
frames their performance of the rituals of communion, consecration and baptism.62
One of only two published photographs of the altar, the image also depicts the new
Kepi church (back left) and hundreds of Mappi children waiting to be baptised in the
foreground.63 Boelaars, in his popular account of the event, notes that the peace
ceremony was conducted in accordance with traditional rituals (Boelaars 1953:158159) even though it was brokered by the Church. He also makes clear that these weeklong celebrations, including a mass pig feast, were considered crucial by the mission as
a way of infusing their (Christian) present with the cultural status and pride of the
feasts of the past (Boelaars 1953:146). The symbolism invested in the extemporised
Kepi altar architecture for the peoples of the region is immediately apparent if
compared with interest Father Petrus Vertenten had in mapping the material culture and
practices in the region of the mission.
60
It should be noted that the peoples of the Mappi region have their own form of imagery and ritual
practice (sorom) which parallels the imagery of the gari among the Marind (see Boelaars 1953, 1960).
61
That is, Venus. In certain phases of the dema ritual, the gari may also be interpreted as Jupiter, the sun,
or even the moon, see van Baal (1966:359, 364-7).
62
Somewhat surprisingly, neither Boelaars (1953) nor Vriens (1998) discuss the connection between the
traditional symbolism of the gari (sorom in the Yaqui area) and the design of the feast altar at Kepi in
1951 even though Boelaars describes and advocates acculturation of other traditional (ritual) practices by
the church in his 1953 publication.
63
Although Boelaars (1953) gives the most comprehensive published account of this feast, none of the
photographs he includes in his 1953 book depict either the Kepi altar or church. Boelaars later includes
an image of the altar/stage devoid of people in his Papoea’s aan de Mappi (Boelaars 1960: 144-145 photo
inset). The image above was first published in his authorised history of the Catholic Church together with
another photograph of the peace-ceremony which features a large pile of broken spears placed before the
altar (Boelaars 1997:110). A year later the image (Figure 5-11) was published again in Vriens (1998:311)
who notes that it is part of the Tilburg Mission Archive (which has since been incorporated into the
Museum Volkenkunde, the former State Museum of Ethnology or Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde in
Leiden).
261
Figure 5-12: “Schild-motieven bij de Autoe-Bevolking in het Digoel-Gebeid” (c.1914)
(Illustration by Fr. Vertenten in Vriens 1988, no page number)
“Shield motifs of the indigenous peoples in the Digul region” (Figure 5-12) is a sketch
by Fr. Petrus Vertenten from around 1914.64 It is an excellent illustration of the
sensitivity Vertenten brought to his mission work and of his effort to understand the
cultures of the peoples he was working among in SE NLNG. His aesthetic sensibility
and cultural curiosity no doubt enhanced the awareness of later missionaries of the
significance of tribal motifs in the region. Such awareness was critical to the
conceptualisation and re-construction of this imagery at Kepi in 1951 (and his map and
accompanying manuscript which describes these shield motifs may even have been
used as the basis for the altar).65
Although Kepi is off to the right of centre in this map (located on the bend in the river
Obaa), shield motifs across New Guinea convey similar key information about clan and
tribal affiliations. The aesthetic sensibilities that missionaries like Fr. Vertenten
brought to their work helped inspire an architecture that spoke symbolically, yet
unambiguously, of the purpose of the Catholic Church and its quest for (spiritual) unity
and peace. Typically constrained by infrastructure, funding and personnel, these
missionaries applied their knowledge of local languages and traditional practices to the
purpose of their mission work. This impulse was reinforced by trained mission
anthropologists introduced to the region in the post-war period who actively
64
Regrettably most of the notes gathered in Vriens’s “Out of an obscure past” (1988) are unreferenced.
From the extensive Vertenten bibliography online (http://www.aequatoria.be/BiblioVertenten.html), it
seems likely that this map formed part of his unpublished manuscript Teeken en Schilderkunst der
Marindinezen (Symbols and shield artwork of the Marind) which according to Zegwaard (n.d.) was
written in 1914. Vertenten left New Guinea in 1925.
65
The accounts I have of this event do not credit any individual for the design innovation of the altar.
262
encouraged vernacular innovation, especially in art and architecture, during the midlate 1950s.66 Formal endorsement of this approach came through the Decree Ad Gentes
of the Second Vatican Council (1965) which sought greater adaptations to local
circumstances and cultural practices in the missionary work of the Church (as
discussed later in this chapter). Such accommodations were important to the long-term
place of the church in Papuan communities and key counterpoints to administrative
approaches in the territory.
Architectures of Authority
‘Model’ villages, peace ceremonies, the replacement of architectures associated with
traditional rituals and a host of other initiatives across coastal and inland regions of
Netherlands New Guinea involved a convergence of interest among church and state
actors and agencies. At the core of many of these programs were attempts to promote
cultural change and ‘progress’ – through a modernity framed by Christian values67 and
delivered in accordance with rational (and secular) socio-political and administrative
norms.68 Such processes, particularly in the early stages of Dutch and Indonesian
governance in the territory, were also often inextricably linked to particular
understandings of the peoples and the landscape of New Guinea. While ‘model’
villages sought to limit the impact of disease in the southeast of the territory, such
initiatives also helped to address the anxieties of administrators and missionaries with
the multifaceted peoples of New Guinea. Van Baal, former Governor of the territory,
observes that the task was confounding as even the most basic assumptions may be
mistaken (Baal 1966:40):
… the village was taken for what it seemed to be: the kind of territorial unit
well-known from other areas, which in due time should be incorporated into the
administrative system as the lowest tier, a unit called a village, administered by
a village chief. It all seemed very simple; the villages stretched in one long row
66
See, for example, images of the Kepi church by Fr. Boelaars (Boelaars 1958; Boelaars 1960:224-5,
inset).
67
Van Baal (1949:557) “…on the contrary, it is my opinion that, granting differences in emphasis,
Protestant and Catholic missionaries, too, have preached the gospel of social change and material
progress.”
68
The focus on the concentration and consolidation of communities into permanent settlements of a
minimum size was crucial to the provision of basic services in NG. This approach of consolidation
eventually was pursued by the Indonesian state and remains crucial today to government strategies for the
provision of education, health and other services (see Lake 1989 on the challenges of education provision
to itinerate communities in Papua).
263
all along the coast, waiting as it were to have their names noted down in a
register and their chiefs recognised as village chiefs. The trouble was that there
were no village chiefs.69
Such administrative ‘problems’ could nominally be solved by the appointment of a
village head, but this did not create the prestige, authority or allegiances necessary for
those individuals to assume effective leadership within their communities.
While the administration understood the kind of physical and political structures they
wished to impose on local communities, such an understanding was rarely – if ever –
possible among the communities affected by these changes. Mission and
administrative buildings and compounds often challenged traditional physical, sociopolitical and cultural spaces of local communities. New building materials and new
designs reinforced a sense among local peoples that profound changes were afoot.
Similarly village consolidation brought peoples together into larger settlements and
new lifestyles with new demands, practices and procedures. This brought new cultural
norms and conceptual frameworks which almost always required new subsets of
language. Consider, for example, that large urban agglomerations on the shorelines of
the Paniai lakes are a relatively recent phenomenon. As Hylkema observes (2003:232):
The Ekagi did not traditionally live in villages. One searches their vocabulary
in vain for equivalents of our words ‘village’, ‘hamlet’ or ‘settlement’. In fact,
the term ‘house’, owaa, sufficed them. The people used to live scattered in
small units, preferably halfway up or at the foot of a slope. Typically, a unit
was made up of an extended family comprising three generations. On the death
of the first and the birth of the fourth generation, a unit would split up into two
or three new units...
Although incredibly rich in their own right, many local languages, like Ekagi, had to
adapt or adopt new vernaculars for the settlement patterns, architectural forms or
materials that were entering their worlds.70 While government regulations were largely
written in Dutch, they often contained specific terms of Malay or Javanese derivation.
This reflected the fact that at an official level, the preponderance of Dutch
administration in the Indies concerned populations elsewhere in the archipelago.
Under the Indonesian administration this had the specific effect of introducing not
69
The linear arrangement of villages made many administrative tasks easier, including periodic census
taking.
70
The importance of place and contextual cues of non-verbal communication to the repertoire of possible
forms of communication related to space are well understood by linguists. See, for example, Heeschen’s
(1997:190-194) notes on place-names, objects and movements).
264
merely a new vocabulary but an entire conceptual system of norms to structure
settlement patterns and style(s) of vernacular architecture as well as socio-cultural and
political practices. This lingua franca effectively imposed the conceptual framework
of an Indonesian (Javanese) desa system over the communities of New Guinea.71 The
cultural impact of this spatial vernacular in framing future socio-political relations to
space and place have been profound across the archipelago, although these impacts are
beyond the scope of this case study (see Lee 1999:119-206; Asian Development Bank
2002:14-15). The relevance here of a lingua franca to order and organise space (and
place) is its association with ‘modernity’ and contribution to processes which edified
administrative authority in the New Guinea colony, as elsewhere in the Netherlands
East Indies.
In 1927 a new measure to strengthen Dutch administrative authority and protect East
Indies society was devised by the colonial government. The Boven Digoel prison camp,
initially established as a place of exile for leaders of the failed communist rebellions of
1926-27, soon became home to an assortment of other anti-colonial leaders. It was
located on the site of Tanah Merah (“Red Earth”) in the upper (boven) reaches of the
Digul River in Southeast Dutch New Guinea amid dense jungle accessible only by river
launch. Boven Digoel isolated anti-Dutch activists, their families and their behaviours
from the rest of the East Indies colony by its setting in New Guinea’s remote and hostile
interior. The camp maintained the veneer of a “model village” but this was normality
“perverted” (Mrázek 1996:43) and constrained by its setting and political architecture
which included its own prison even deeper in the interior than the Digoel settlement, at
Tanah Tinggi (“High Ground”).72 In this way, a hierarchy of socio-political and
71
While much in the framework of the Indonesian administration in West New Guinea took its lead from
Dutch colonial structures (see Cribb and Brown 1995:36-38), there is also evidence to suggest that the
Indonesian government speficially sought to impose such a system over the province and its peoples.
Roosman (1974:4) observes that “Tribal law seems to be too strong in West Irian to accept an immediate
Indonesianisation of its grass roots tribal rule. A gradual approach towards district autonomy is embodied
in a compromise which involves the ‘ondowafi’ (tribal chief) in the local administration as an adviser,
while the government-appointed ‘korano’ serves as a liaison between the tribe and the government.”
Later, Roosman (1974:4) states that Governor Acub Zainal told him at a meeting “it can be expected…
that in the course of developments in Irian Jaya the ‘desa’ (village) can be established in 1974 in the
framework of district autonomy.”
72
Boven Digoel camp was not fenced, except for the guard’s quarters, and the camp buildings and
infrastructure were orderly and well-maintained. It was one of the first settlements in Dutch New Guinea
to have electricity, a reasonably well-equipped hospital, schooling for the children of internees and even a
movie theatre (Mrázek 1996:45-48; see also Salim 1973).
265
behavioural norms was maintained even in a place of exile in which all residents were
deemed to have strayed beyond the norms of the colonial state.
The success (and infamy) of Boven Digoel came from the threat of exile to its
“phantom” world. The wide publicity attached to the camp from its inception and the
spectre of being sent from the inner heartland of the archipelago to remote New Guinea
helped to discipline political activity in the pre-War East Indies colony (Shiraishi
1993:118). Over the fifteen years of its operation (1927-1942) the camp “protected”
mainstream Indies society from communist agitators and later a broader spectrum of
dissidents including prominent Indonesian nationalists like Mohammad Hatta and Sutan
Sjahrir. As Tickell (2005) astutely notes the Dutch administrative and military presence
necessary to establish and maintain Boven Digoel also brought a degree of protection to
nearby inland Papuan communities from the “murderous raids of the coastal Kayakayas” (Marind-Anim). Facilities at the camp were better than those enjoyed in many
villages across the archipelago at the time and the camp guards were reputedly
restrained in their ministering of order and justice to internees. Nonetheless, in fact and
in fiction (Toer 2001; Hasjmy 1976), Boven Digoel was a place of misery, deprivation,
disease and death for many, particularly hard-line dissidents. By 1945, when
Indonesian nationalists declared their independence, Boven Digoel was already an icon
of the anti-colonial struggle (Thamrin 2001). In the ensuing dispute between Indonesia
and The Netherlands, it was the harsh injustices of Dutch colonial rule that the
Indonesian Republic sought to impress on other nations and its Papuan brothers and
sisters.
Figure 5-13: “Makam Pahlawan Perintis Kemerdekaan”
(Architectural concept drawing in Indonesia. Sekkor Irba 1964b:146)
266
This grandiose sketch of a proposed “National Cemetery to the Pioneers of
Independence” (Figure 5-13) memorial was included in the transcript of the speech by
Kolonel Sutjipto, S.H., Head of the Irian Barat Military Command at the Mubes ke-I
meetings in April and May of 1964 (Indonesia. Sekkor Irba 1964b:80-147). Intended
for the “brothers and sisters” of the nation and dedicated to those forced to endure life
(or martyred by death) at Tanah Merah, it embodies the symbolic significance of their
political exile from Indies society, their “... isolation in the heart of hostile,
overwhelming, majestic nature that threatened to reduce anyone to a part of nature...”
(Shiraishi 1993:116). Indeed, Mrázek (1996:41) states “the camp remained forever
infamous in Indonesia as the worst of all places of exile.” The apparent paradox of
exile within (the boundaries of) the colonial state is resolved in this instance73 once we
understand the profound sense of alienation felt at Boven Digoel where “The only
barbed wire enclosed the quarters of the military and the civilian staff, to guard these
wardens of the camp, and of the system, against the unbound space beyond.”74 Mrázek
(1996:42) continues:
[For] Beyond was a jungle as far as one could imagine, with snow peaks only
occasionally visible far in the northeast. What a jungle! It was such as never
before seen by Javanese, nor even Sumatrans. Nameless flowers and nameless
trees. Savages reputed for cutting off heads and relishing human flesh. And
Digul crocodiles...
Figure 5-14: “Monumen di Taman Makam Pahlawan Perintis Kemerdekaan”
(Photograph in Hasjmy 1976:143)
73
Another prominent example of such internal exile is Sukarno’s period at Ende on the island of Flores.
Mrázek (1996:51-53) writes that Sjahrir, interned in 1935 in Tanah Merah, had a much more buoyant
outlook towards the camp and the “virginal beauty” of its surrounding nature. Mrázek does, however,
also note that Sjahrir was one of Boven Digoel’s more privileged internees.
74
267
The “phantom” world of Digoel was a metaphorical site of colonial struggle and
communal suffering for Indonesian nationalists. It was essentially a state of fear and of
fear of exile which extended far beyond – but drew potency from – the existence of the
remote prison camp at Tanah Merah. The monument proposed in 1964 for Boven
Digoel was never built. In its place buildings from the original prison camp remain –
their own testament to the place and its memories. Today the “Monument at the
Cemetery of the Pioneering Heroes of Independence” at Tanah Merah (Figure 5-14) is a
far more modest structure, in keeping with its place amid the jungles and peoples of
West New Guinea which for so long represented exile in the popular imagination of the
Indies. Indonesian narratives of Digoel and the importance of the camp in the collective
memory of the nation (see Chauvel 2003a:7-8) resonate with the later writings of
Pramoedya Ananta Toer of imprisonment on Buru Island.75 Such imagery contrasts
starkly with the social and spiritual harmony envisaged by some Dutchmen in their New
Guinea colony.
Figure 5-15: “De Gouden Stad” (in circulation from 1953-1963)
(Illustration in Kijne 2004:21, facing page)
75
Although Pramoedya Ananta Toer’s “Buru Quartet” was banned when first released in Indonesia, it
was published by foreign presses (in Malaysia and translated and published in Russian, German and
English) before the ban was lifted at the end of the Suharto era (see
http://www.radix.net/~bardsley/prampage.html).
268
In 1942, in a Japanese internment camp, the Reverend Izaak Samuel Kijne first
articulated and illustrated his modernist, Christian vision for a new Papua. The Golden
City is an evocatively illustrated story of spiritual yearning and moral equality. It is a
clear allegory for the prosperous and harmonious future Kijne envisaged in Netherlands
New Guinea if Dutch and Papuan worked together to create an orderedly, Christian
community.76 He was not naïve about the challenges such a future posed, having
worked as a missionary and teacher in the territory for more than two decades (Miekee
Kijne, interview, Borgercompagnie May 2006). His narrative describes the perilous
journey that Regi and Tomi must undertake to arrive at the portal to “The Golden City”
(Figure 5-15).77 The architectural splendour of this entrance eloquently portrays the
awe of the story’s protagonists, Regi and Tomi, as they stand together before the Gates
of Heaven. It is an image of promise and wonder in which the Kingdom of Heaven is
made manifest in all its grandeur and harmony.
First published in 1953 (in Indonesian) as Kota Emas, the book became a popular
children’s reader across Netherlands New Guinea and was later revised and republished
a few years later in a second edition.78 It remained a standard text in the school
76
Some of Kijne’s other publications of this period deal with the more practical steps required to realise
this modernist vision. See Healthy and Happy (Kijne and van Berkel 1953d) and An agreeable and
healthy home ( Kijne and van Berkel 1954b).
77
Kota Emas is a parable of equality, imbued with religious symbolism and teleological meaning. Its key
protagonists are a Dutch girl Regina (Regi) and her Papuan friend Tomi. The story begins with the
children playing in an idyllic garden setting adjoining Regi’s house. The environment is safe and the two
watch the sun set over the distant hills. The sunset appears to Regi as “a Golden City.” The story
develops the relationship between these two friends, ever mindful of the socially subordinate role of the
Tomi to his friend – but not his equal – Regi. An incident in the garden distances the friends and Regi
decides to embark on a journey to the Golden City, alone. After many challenges, she eventually arrives
at the foot of the mountain on which the Golden City is built, but at the last minute is overwhelmed by a
sense of loneliness and cannot continue her journey. She returns to her family house on the hill,
overlooking the Papuan village below and begins her search for her friend Tomi. She finds him hiding in
the forest, withdrawn, embarrassed and deeply hurt from the earlier incident when Regi had called him
“stupid” and “clumsy”, ignored him completely and forbid him access to her playground. The tension
between the two children is only resolved when Regi accepts her need for the friendship of Tomi and
when Tomi is permitted to show how his friendship can help Regi as they travel together to the Golden
City. There everyone is equal, black children and white children, and there is music and joy. They meet
God and he tells them to remember well the peace and harmony of this place and to return with this joy in
their hearts to their own land (see Kijne 1958d).
78
The original manuscript De Gouden Stad was written (in Dutch) and illustrated by Reverend Kijne in
1943 during his internment by the Japanese (1942-45). Fearful that he might never see his family again
(who were interned in a separate camp), he wrote this book for his daughter, Miekee. The central
characters of the narrative are Regi (Miekee) and Tomi (the name given to one of her closest Papuan
childhood friends in the book) (interview Miekee Kijne, November 2005). Accompanying The Golden
City in its Indonesian editions were several short vocabulary primers titled Itu dia! or “That’s it!” (Kijne
1953a, 1953b; 1958a, 1958b, 1958c). In 2004 Miekee Kijne privately published (for the first time) a
facsimile copy of the 1942 Dutch original of De Gouden Stad (Kijne 2004).
269
curricula until 1963 and became widely known to both children and their parents across
the territory. Its imagery was vital to the success of the book as a reader, enabling
students to see the places and events described in the Malay text on opposing pages.
Students hesitant in their command of Malay might study the illustration before they
attempted to read the parallel text, allowing either image or text to be ‘read’ first. As
Berger (1972:29) observes, “the meaning of an image is changed according to what one
sees immediately beside it or what comes immediately after it. Such authority as it
retains, is distributed over the whole context in which it appears.”
With the Indonesian take-over of Irian in May 1963 (see Chapter 3) came a concerted
effort to restrict access to The Golden City. The explicit Dutch colonial presence in the
narrative posed a direct challenge to Indonesian anti-colonialism and authority in the
new province of West Irian. School-teachers in the Teminabuan area recall this and
other Dutch era books being systematically collected and burnt in large piles by
Indonesian authorities (Jaap Timmer, pers. comm., March 2003) while Kijne himself
believed the book was banned (Miekee Kijne, interview, November 2005).79 In 1964, a
bright new vision for Indonesia’s Irian replaced Kijne’s Golden City.
79
Timmer (pers. comm. March 2003) confirms that this story book was still well known among adults in
the Teminabuan region of the Bird’s Head in the late 1990s. Glazebrook (pers. comm. December 2000)
recovered a partial copy of Kota Emas in the form of a tattered manuscript in the possession of a teacher
from Jayapura living as one of several thousand Papuan refugees at Iowara in Papua New Guinea (see
Glazebrook 2000). Glazebrook’s Kota Emas was a transcribed copy of the original text produced on a
manual typewriter and written to conform with modern Indonesian orthography, suggesting that this book
may be something of an ‘underground’ classic or ongoing educational tradition among some Papuans.
The book was published again in a serialised format in the Jayapura-based weekly newspaper Jubi in
2002.
270
Figure 5-16: “Irian Barat: Pembangunan Suku Mukoko”
(Illustration in Iskander 1964: front cover)
While much early Indonesian activity focussed on the coastal towns of the West Irian,
plans were also formulated for the development of the territory’s vast interior. The
Indonesian government considered the expansion of the ‘Silver City’, the new
settlement of Wamena established by the Dutch among the ‘Mukoko’ (Dani) of the
central highlands, of great strategic importance.80 “West Irian: Development of the
Mukoko” (Figure 5-16) is a book which provides an elaborate rationale for the arduous
process of developing the peoples of the Baliem Valley, in the settlement now known
as Wamena.81 Explicitly depicting the awe the “primitive” Dani might feel at the
arrival of modernity, this imagery almost certainly seeks to evoke the popular memory,
authority and promise of Kijne’s Golden City. Both are aspirant visions of the future,
broadly indicative of the period, but with very different ideological foundations. The
Golden City is a narrative of Christian companionship, spiritual growth and
transcendence. The Development of the Mukoko, co-published by the newly founded
University of Cenderawasih (1962) and West Irian’s military administrator82 and “in
80
Wamena was known as the ‘Silver City’ because all of the new buildings were made of galvanised iron
which literally shone like silver (Anton Ploeg, pers. comm. April 2008). See also Schneider (1996).
81
During regional “consultations” for the Act of Free Choice in 1968-69, Rowley (1969:45) notes a
similar kind of imagery. “Here, the symbols of the cargo which was to come from national unity... Borne
aloft was a picture of Merauke as it is, and one as it would be – with a train, that looked like the Sydney
Harbour Bridge [sic], tall buildings, fine houses and planes circling overhead. The same theme was
illustrated by two examples of transport – an ancient ox cart, followed by what stands for modernity in
Merauke – an ancient steam roller, and some very old creaking trucks…”
82
Sekretariate Koordinator Urusan Irian Barat, Kodam XVII Tjenderawasih (Sekkor Irja).
271
the spirit of Trikora,” outlines an effort “intended to correct the heavily one-sided
development [of the past], especially that conducted by missionaries” (Iskandar
1964:121). It articulates a strongly secular vision for the future,83 a new ‘Silver City’
founded on government development programs delivered to the “extremely backward
region of the central highlands … whose peoples we cherish” (see Iskandar 1964:
xiii).84 Together, these images (and the publications they represent) succinctly
illustrate the emerging tension of how – and by whom – community was to be
constituted in late colonial/transitional period in West New Guinea. But in the late
colonial period it was far from certain that Indonesia would succeed in wresting
Netherlands New Guinea from the Dutch, who were accelerating their preparations for
the territory’s eventual independence.
Figure 5-17: “Vogelvlucht-perspectief Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea Raad te Hollandia”
(Diazo print of a preliminary draft by Hr. A.V. Noordwÿk, March 1960 in the collection of the
Nationaal Archief, Den Haag)85
The election in February 1961 of a representative council (the New Guinea Council or
Nieuw-Guinea Raad, hereafter NGR) and plans for its political reification through a
monumental new Council building were emphatic assertions of secular (and
democratic) state authority in the constitution of community for West New Guinea. A
83
In spite of its claim to be directed towards the “physical, mental and spiritual” life of the population
(Iskandar 1964: xviii).
84
In the same year Operation Clothes (Operasi Busana) was launched in West Irian (a prelude to
Operation Koteka, see Chapter 3). In the decades that have followed various government programs in the
highlands have also sought to improve the well-being of Papuan communities through “Healthy House”
(Rumah Sehat) programs. The public health issues related to highlands dwellings (and the reliance on
open fires in these buildings for heating and the control of insects), as well as government initiatives to
tackle this problem, are discussed in Vriend (2003).
85
This architectural perspective drawing is in held in ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en
Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). 10945 Gebouw van de Raad.
272
year after the Round Table (RTC) talks between Indonesia and The Netherlands had
concluded in December 1949, the Netherlands-Indonesia Commission on New Guinea
had failed to resolve the political status of the territory. The Netherlands, for its part,
was eager to present as a benevolent, modern and secular administration in its New
Guinea colony. It formally recognised its New Guinea colony as a trust territory
(although this status was not recognised by the United Nations) and submitted its New
Guinea administration to all the requisite international obligations and standards (see
the Reports by the Netherlands New Guinea Government to the United Nations, 19511961).86 However by the late 1950s growing pressure from Indonesia and the
international community (see Chapter 3) brought a new imperative to incipient efforts
to constitute a representative government in the territory. The precipitous nature of this
process is reflected in design proposals and construction deadlines of the NGR’s
offices and council chamber.
Governor Platteel sent preliminary design drawings to The Hague in June, 1960,
including a “Bird’s eye view of the proposed New Guinea Council Building” (Figure 517). The Governor was insistent that the NGR building “must be a restrained design,
but architecturally striking and imbued with character considering that it is also of great
political importance and esteem.”87 These plans (above and below) were drawn up by
Ir. A.V. Noordwÿk, an architect in the service of the Department of Public Works in
Hollandia. Noordwÿk’s design reflected the Governor’s desire for “an impressive
building that would compliment (meespreken) the urban landscape of the capital city.”88
The building was also at the centre of his ambitious plans for the territory. He
envisioned a conference centre in the building which would host South Pacific
Conference meetings and other events that would bring an “international character” to
the city and, by implication, make Netherlands New Guinea a focus for the Southwest
Pacific region.89
86
Despite amendments made to The Netherlands Constitution in January 1952 to incorporate its New
Guinea colony into the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
87
ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). 10945 Gebouw van
de Raad. Letter from Platteel to MBZ, 15 Juni, 1960. Confidential, p.1, my translation.
88
ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). 10945 Gebouw van
de Raad. Letter from Platteel to MBZ, 15 Juni, 1960. Confidential (attached: 6 tekeningen and 4 photos –
not in archive).
89
ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). 10945 Gebouw van
de Raad. Letter from Platteel to MBZ, June 15, 1960. Confidential, p.3, my translation.
273
Figure 5-18: A political structure - never developed (1961)
(Diazo print of a preliminary draft by Hr. A.V. Noordwÿk, March 1960 in the collection of the
Nationaal Archief, Den Haag)90
The Governor’s initial design consisted of two main structures.91 The first building (an
“H”-like shape) was to accommodate council members and their staff as well as
members of the press and translators. The second, elevated behind the first, was to be
the Legislative Chamber building. Seen in section in one of the mock-up drawings
(Figure 5-18), the profile of the building evokes the rum sram of Dore (cf. Figure 5-7).
Plateel proposed an “open, light foyer with a magnificent view out over the bay” and a
“vast permanent ethnographic exhibition” within the building.92 In this way, the NGR
building was conceived as both a parliament as well as a cultural centre, to serve the
functions of institutional politics as well as the broader political processes of cultural
integration and identity formation. As with the later design for the PNG Parliament,
this was “a cathedral dedicated to the people and to democracy” (Briggs 1989:1). The
landscaped gardens were to be embellished with fountains and an entire room was to be
reserved for a future air-conditioning plant. Platteel’s proposal for the NGR building
was ultra-modern in design, with no conspicuous reference to Papuan traditional
architectures and no use of traditional motifs in its ornamentation. On the contrary,
although not explicit in the project documentation, Platteel’s architect, Noordwÿk,
clearly adopts elements from Jørn Utzon’s controversial and remarkable winning
design (1957) for the Sydney Opera House (under construction by 1959) for the NGR
design. The Governor, in turn, had selected two stunning locations to compliment the
significance of these edifices and the mid-century modernism of their architecture.
90
This architectural section drawing is held in ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers:
Dossierarchief (1945-1963). 10945 Gebouw van de Raad.
91
Correspondence indicates that initially there were two designs but only the details and plans for the
design discussed here are preserved in the ARA archives.
92
ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). 10945 Gebouw van
de Raad. Letter from Platteel to MBZ, June 15, 1960. “Confidential”, p.3, my translation.
274
Platteel’s grand vision presented a challenge for site selection in the compact harbour
town of Hollandia. Much of the usable flat land in the inner harbour had been built up
when the Allied forces used the town as a major base in 1944-45. More recent
residential and government buildings had either accommodated or replaced these older
structures. Space in town was at a premium. The Governor also favoured an “open
character” to the new Council buildings, believing that it was essential for them to be
free-standing and to be readily distinguished from the surrounding urban landscape.
His preferred site for the complex was 100 metres above sea level, overlooking the
main beach road, above the new government offices at Dock 2 (Site 1, see Figure 5-19.
The Dutch era buildings at Dock 2 remain the offices of the Governor and select
provincial government officials).93 He acknowledged that the slope of at least 17% at
this proposed site would require extensive – and costly – earthworks. Alternative sites
were suggested,94 at Signal Hill (Site 2),95 the lower ridge between Docks 4 and 5 (Site
3) and the westernmost peninsula of Hollandia, close to the village of Kaju Batu (Site
4).96 Staff at the Ministry in The Hague were keen advocates for situating the Council
buildings adjacent to the new Training Centre for Government Officials at Base G (Site
5).97 Platteel, however, was scathing in his criticism, considering this to be an
“eccentric location.”98 Eventually the expense of an elevated site and Platteel’s desire
to assert the symbolic importance of the NGR resulted in his return to the first alternate
site, in the physical centre of Hollandia (Site 6). The approximately 7000m3 of flat
land required to realise the complex would necessitate a 100m long seawall and
significant reclaimed land.
93
This site is in the suburb of modern day Bhayangkara in Jayapura (at the police housing complex).
ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). 10945 Gebouw van
de Raad. Map Hollandia Haven en Omstreken, Schaal 1:10,000. These sites are indicated in red on
Figure 5-19.
95
The first hill on the southern road out of Jayapura city passed Gajah Putih (Witte Oliphant), the main
dock/ferry terminal and the Indonesian navy base. The site was at the water’s edge, below the modern
day “Hotel 99.”
96
This peninsula that separates Dock 4 and Dock 5 also delimits Humboldt Bay from Imbi Bay (to its
immediate north). This ridge site was later rejected because of the expense of its construction and the fact
that it had already been selected (and planning commenced) for the construction of a stadium complex –
which later became the Mandala Stadium. See ARA 2.10.54 inv90945. Beantwoording van de
“Opmerkingen n.a.v. voorstel voor een gebouw t.b.v. de Nieuw-Guinea Raad” response prepared by Ir.
E.L.M. Berretty, Director of Public Works, Hollandia.
97
ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). 10945 Gebouw van
de Raad. Letter from the MBZ to the Governor of NLNG, July 20, 1960 and Letter from the MBZ to the
Governor of NLNG, Sept 15, 1960 related to the new OSIBA.
98
ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). 10945 Gebouw van
de Raad. Letter from the Governor of NLNG to the MBZ, Sept 3, 1960.
94
275
Figure 5-19: Nieuw Guinea Raad locations (1961)
(Adapted from Vademecum 1956:150)
Reports on the proposals by Ministry staff in The Hague note growing concerned at the
scope and expense of the NGR building project. Although they recognised that the
“process of winning land back from the sea” (landaanwinning uit zee) was common in
New Guinea (and that there was no shortage of expertise for such work among Dutch
contractors), Hollandia’s deep water harbour made significant “wins” impractical, again
restricting the possible sites for such a large complex.99 Moveover, the costs of the
project appeared to be a huge extravagance at a time of growing political uncertainty.
Within a matter of months, the Governor’s vision for the NGR complex had been
radically altered.100 The final compromise consolidated the legislative member offices
and the council assembly building into a single structure, while incorporating some of
the original design features.101 This substantially reduced the footprint of the building,
enabling it to be situated on reclaimed land in the heart of Jayapura (at the mouth of the
Anafré River). By April 1961, any further uncertainty about the basic design of the new
Raad building was finally put to an end through an emphatic government statement – in
the form of a postage stamp depicting the “New Guinea Council 1961” (Figure 5-20).
99
ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). 10945 Gebouw van
de Raad. “Opmerking n.a.v. voorstel voor een gebouw t.b.v. de Nieuw-Guinea Raad”, ‘s-Gravenhage, 15
Juli, 1960.
100
The available archival sources are vague about the design rationale for these changes.
101
Features from the original design for the NGR which were included in the modified design include the
roof structure, panelled feature walls and the use of heavy horizontal lines across exposed window
sections.
276
Figure 5-20: “Nieuw-Guinea Raad 1961”
The Government of Netherlands New Guinea was keen to maximise the publicity
surrounding the installation of the New Guinea Council on April 5, 1961. A week of
festivities were arranged for the occasion, and many dignitaries from The Netherlands,
Australia and the territory of Papua and New Guinea were in attendance (no
representatives of the Indonesian Republic attended this event).102 In June 1960, the
Government’s Secretary in Netherlands New Guinea had written to the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs to request approval for a special commemorative set of stamps to
indicate the “Opening of the New Guinea Raad 1961”.103 Almost three-quarters of a
million stamps were printed and their first day of distribution was April 5, 1961.104
The stamps presented a vision of the New Guinea Raad Building that was radically
different to that originally envisaged by Governor Platteel and his staff, and this new
vision was projected far and wide.
The release of these stamps with the caption “Nieuw-Guinea Raad 1961” proffered
tangible proof of what was, at best, an incipient political institution. The Council had
not yet even convened its first meeting when the stamps were released. The building
itself, although both design and site were now approved, was not yet even under
construction. The costs of the project were still being calculated and contractors had
102
ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). inv.6910 NGRaad.
(This file includes a four-page schedule for the week-long festivities).
103
ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). inv.6910 NGRaad.
Gov.Sec. to MBZ 8 Jul, 1960. “Onderwep: Gebouw voor de Nieuw-Guinea Raad te Hollandia” (p.1).
104
ARA 2.10.54 Ministerie van Koloniën en Opvolgers: Dossierarchief (1945-1963). inv.8408. NG Raad
postzegels. This document indicates that 350,000 of each stamp 25c and 30c were printed at a total cost
of ƒ12,200 which included ƒ1000 for a line item(s) identified only by the mysterious phrase “USA
propaganda”. The nature of this “propaganda” is not explained in any associated documentation, but it
was clear by 1961 that the United States of America was highly critical of the continued presence of The
Netherlands in New Guinea (see Chapter 3).
277
still not been finalised by June 1961.105 The NGR conducted its first meetings in a
much more modest structure that echoed the legislative assembly building of
neighbouring Papua and New Guinea.106 This New Guinea Council building used in
1961 would later become the office of the Traditional (Arts) Council of Irian Jaya, but
without the overt political associations of the past. Construction on the new Raad
building began in late 1961 by the Dutch building contractor Intervam b.v., but work
was far from complete when the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority
(UNTEA) took administrative control of West New Guinea on 1 September 1962.
Figure 5-21: Kotabaru (October 1962)
(Photograph. Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia, ANRI)107
The construction of the (West) New Guinea Council building continued through the
UNTEA period and under the new Indonesian administration until its completion in
1964. This decision by the Indonesian government to continue construction of the
building was pragmatic, but it was also deeply symbolic. It was a clear appropriation
of both the physical and metaphysical edifice of Dutch authority in New Guinea.
Despite the revolutionary rhetoric of the Indonesian campaign to wrest West New
Guinea from The Netherlands, many aspects of Indonesian administration in the postUNTEA period (from May 1, 1963) demonstrated a marked continuity with existing
105
“Aanbesteding gebouw Nieuw-Guinearaad” New Rotterdamse Courant 13 June 1961.
In neighbouring Papua and New Guinea the “reconstitution” of the PNG Legislative Council was also
commemorated in a special twin stamp issue in 1961 (see stamp appendix). The PNG Legislative
Council building had been a hospital until 1959. The building was refurbished and opened on 17th
October 1960. The P&NG stamp issue celebrates the election of the Second Legislative Council which,
as in NLNG, did not coincide with the completion of a council building (see Briggs 1989:3-4).
107
This image is taken from the National Archive of the Republic of Indonesia website (online at
http://www.anri.go.id/Citra_daerah/Papua/bangunan/KEMPEN_62-9165_(47)b.htm accessed January
2006).
106
278
institutional procedures and practices. The building was completed with no significant
design modifications and inaugurated by the UNTEA transitional administrator, Djalal
Abdoh, on 23 April 1963, who “expressed the hope that this ‘seat of democracy would
reflect the will of the people’” (quoted in Saltford 2000:130, see also p.148).108
In the early 1990s, a five-floor annex was added to the northeast rear of the building.
The initial design for this extension was put forward by Governor with the support of
the Assembly and finalised and supervised by the Javanese architect Ir. Endi Roosyadi.
The new building provided desperately needed additional space for offices and meeting
rooms (Ikatan Arsitek Indonesia 2005:8-9). Roosyadi’s new structure deliberately
echoed architectural elements of the old Raad building (notably the roof and the strong
horizontal lines of the external windows). The construction of the new building in the
rear corner of the DPRD was an attempt not to impede views from the original Raad
complex, but this site was restricted by the available space and problems of
establishing firm footings for the new building.109
Figure 5-22: “Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah Papua (DPRD Papua)”
(Photograph by the author, 1998)
The NG Raad / DPRD (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah) Irian Barat of the 1960s
and the new 1990s DPRD Irian Jaya extension buildings embody the authority of a
108
The date of 23 April 1963 is contradicted by the Annual Report by the Provincial Government of Irian
Barat 1963 (Indonesia. Kantor Gubernor IrJa 1964:29) which states that the building was opened on April
29, 1963. This report includes additional notes on the early role and limits to the activities of the DPRD
Irian Barat (Indonesia. Kantor Gubernor IrJa 1964:30). Two photographs, one close up and the other
viewed across the (yet to be constructed) IMBI square, are included in the report (Indonesia. Kantor
Gubernor IrJa 1964:31, 33).
109
Roosyadi notes that foundations had to be prepared up to 20 metres into the coral below to ensure the
structure would be stable on this site (Ikatan Arsitek Indonesia 2005:9).
279
modern, secular government over the population of West New Guinea. Governor
Platteel had intended this complex to feature prominently in the landscape of
Hollandia, giving the secular, democratically elected government pride of place in the
city. The compromise structure that Platteel was eventually obliged to accept in late
1961 persists to this day as the “People’s Representative Council for Papua” (Figure 522). The building integrates legislative offices and the legislative chamber and is
closely flanked by surrounding buildings which vie for attention in the landscape of the
city. To the west of the DPRD is the multi-storey IMBI Hotel (the former Cinema
complex and current Hotel Sederhana) and the 6 storey Regional Development Bank
(BPD Papua). To the south (across the Anafré River) is the main Post Office of
Jayapura (occupying the same site as it did during the Dutch period). The building first
used by the New Guinea Raad in 1961/2 still faces out over the Yos Sudarso monument
and the IMBI square to the DPRD (with the same perspective on the DPRD building as
Figure 5-21). It is now used by the Papuan Arts Council (Dewan Kesenian Papua,
DKP), and was the centre of Papuan independence activity in 1999/2000 when it
became the focus of the “Second Papuan Congress” and Headquarters for the proIndependence Papua Presidium Council (PDP). This suggests a strong association in
the collective historical memory of the Papuan community in Jayapura between this
this building and the promise of political independence (as well as the central role that
‘traditional’ communities play in the pro-independence movement).
To the immediate north of the DPRD building (at the rear of Figure 5-22) is the main
Protestant Cathedral of Jayapura (of the Gereja Kristen Indonesia, GKI). Following
Platteel’s logic of representation, the prominence and proximity of the Cathedral to the
DPRD complex suggests an analogue in the urban landscape for the competition
between church and state as the focus of community in Jayapura. The understated
presence of a small, conical roofed structure in the northwest corner of the DPRD
complex reveals that there is more than modernist architecture to this competition.
This building, for security personnel, is a deliberate (if diminutive) reference to the
massive karewari watchtowers that once dominated this coastline of New Guinea. The
significance of this and other such direct references in the urban landscape to
traditional architectures is more than mere fancy. Such structures – however
280
haphazardly appended to existing buildings – are illustrative of the New Order’s
project to create a regional cultural identity in Papua.
Figure 5-23: “Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah, Propinsi Daerah Tingkat I Irian Jaya”
(Photograph by the author, November 2000)
For more than a decade the DPRD building has been embellished by a miniature rum
sram modelled after the one known to have existed at Dore Bay in the mid-1800s (see
Figure 5-7). The sign to identify the DPRD Papua or “The People’s Regional
Representative Council, Provincial Area Level 1 Papua” (Figure 5-23) also
symbolically signifies the cultural connection of peoples across Papua through its
fusion of architectural and artistic styles from across the province. Since 2001 “Irian
Jaya” has been replaced with “Papua” on the sign, but the structure remains in place
even though the rum sram of Dore Bay is iconic of Manokwari, the capital of the new
province of West Papua since 2003. Through this rum sram sign and other icons of
Papuan architecture and art that embellish the DPRD, the building itself projects a
cultural unity and sense of belonging to all Papuans, regardless of where they are from
in the territory (echoing the cartographic inertia that favours pan-Papuan unity
discussed in Chapter 4).110
110
Directly opposite the DPRD Papua, over Sam Ratulangi Street (Jl. Sam Ratulangi), is IMBI square and
its Yos Sudarso monument. The creation of the Yos Sudarso monument in the IMBI square at the front
of the DPRD is another poignant reminder of how the DPRD reinforces representations of authority and
seeks to socialise particular representations (in this case a particular history) of the state. The February
1984 Papuan uprising in Jayapura and elsewhere in Papua, including an attempted coup by Papuan police
and military personnel, led to a brutal military crackdown and mass exodus of refugees from Papua to
Papua New Guinea (see Smith 1991, Blaskett 1989). The New Order’s ‘smiling policy’ for Papua that
followed from 1985 saw much of the park area in front of the DPRD absorbed by the construction of a
new cinema complex. The IMBI theatre effectively neutralised this site of political protest by
dramatically reducing the physical area of the park and bringing a new, ultra-modern focal point to
Jayapura. In the past decade the enormous popularity (and growing affordability) of personal home video
281
The art of ‘belonging’: Papua(ns) presented
Ibu Tien Suharto’s famously glib statement that the inspiration for Beautiful Indonesiain-Miniature Theme Park (TMII) “came from a visit to Disneyland” (see Chapter 3)
detaches the TMII concept from its colonial lineage. As early as 1883, a similarly
styled theme park – an entire “Indies village” – was ‘reproduced’ near the
Museumplein in Amsterdam for the “International Colonial and Export Trade Fair.”111
Free-standing buildings from prominent “Indies” regions – Batak (Sumatra), Java,
Toraja and Bali – were arranged together into a single compound. This and similar
Indies pavilions at subsequent international expositions have attracted some recent
interest (see Montijn 1983; Gouda 1995:194-236; van Wesemael 2001; Kusno
2000:26-29; Bloembergen 2006), particularly for their importance to the Netherlands
and other European powers in the display of their wealth and accomplishments in their
respective colonial possessions.112 A similar Indies Pavilion at the World’s Fair in
1898 saw the addition of architectural styles from the east of the archipelago at the
extreme periphery of another ‘reconstructed’ village (see Captain 2005:208). A
“complete” model set of Indies traditional houses was built for The Netherlands
Pavilion at the 1901 Colonial Exposition, although not one of the 100 models
constructed for the occasion represented an architectural style from New Guinea.113
The first “All-Indies Ethnic Arts and Crafts Fair” to involve Papuans (woodcarvers and
dancers), was held in Batavia (now Jakarta) in 1929 (Hoogerbrugge 1995:175-179). It
was followed, almost immediately, by the stunning Netherlands Indies pavilion at the
Colonial Exposition in Paris in 1931 (Gedenkboek 1931). Here architecture, art and a
technologies, together with the ‘security’ risk posed by mass gatherings at the IMBI cinema has resulted
in this cinema complex being closed. For the past few years the former IMBI cinema has been
undergoing refurbishment and will eventually be opened as a luxury hotel. The imperative to minimise
spaces for political gatherings in downtown Jayapura, together with high rental rates on commercial
property and ongoing attempts to supplant political disillusionment with signifiers of modernity and
economic prosperity have all contributed to the transformation of this site.
111
The site to the south of the Rijksmuseum used for this exposition was an open field prior to the 1883
Internationale Koloniale en Uitvoerhandelstentoonstelling (see Mattie 1998:58-65; Bloembergen 2006).
112
The event caused great excitement in the country as it suggested that the NEI empire, and therefore the
Netherlands itself, was the equal of the colonies of the major European powers exhibiting at the Fair,
including Britain, France, (Germany, Italy, Russia) and Spain.
113
These are now held in the collection of the Colonial Institute in Amsterdam (KIT) and were on display
recently as part of “De Indische Zomer 2005” exhibition at the ‘miniature world’ of Madurodam in The
Hague (see http://www.madurodam.nl).
282
benevolent administration were skilfully represented to create the impression of
seamless continuity across the Netherlands East Indies. The pavilion building was a
fusion of Sumatran, Javanese and Balinese styles, creating an architectural “metaphor
for the Dutch pride in being able to forge political unity among the diversity of
sophisticated ethnic cultures and religions that flourished in the Indonesian
archipelago” (Gouda 1995:194). Only the maps and scattered artefacts from the outer
islands, displayed in the interior exhibition halls, suggested a place for the outer islands
of the archipelago in the colony. There was no sense in this exposition that New
Guinea was a discrete part of the Indies.114 There was, however, a clear difference
between representations of the cultures of the inner islands and the outer (tribal)
regions of the archipelago.
Figure 5-24: An Indies cultural rijstaffel served in Paris (1931)
(Photograph in Gedenkboek 1931:116)
Finamore (2003) describes the 1925 and 1931 Paris Expositions as promoting a
“coloniale moderne” aesthetic with the imagery of the era intended to “…depict the
encroachment of Western civilisation and the receding threat of the natives in some
fashion; yet just beneath the surface lies the appealing frisson of participating in this
exotic and ‘uncivilised’ world” (Finamore 2003:354). She also notes that “These
pavilions were a deliberate campaign on behalf of the organisers to position the
colonies as a source of aesthetic inspiration for modern creation” (Finamore 2003:349350).
114
While a few carvings from Papua were represented in separate images in the official Netherlands
souvenir book for this exhibition, most Papua-related imagery appears in photographs of the exhibition
halls, where objects from across the Indies were juxtaposed in a pastiche similar to that of the pavilion
itself (see Gedenkboek 1931:28).
283
The New Guinea Room (Nieuw Guinee-kamer) at the Paris Colonial Exposition in
1931 (Figure 5-24), a curious jumble of artefacts from New Guinea and elsewhere in
the archipelago, was itself an inspired modern creation. Relief panels at the rear of the
“room” were framed by two stone sculptures of Buddha from Borobodur, positioned at
either side of its entrance.115 Juxtaposed against these markers of ‘high’ civilisation
were the shields and spears of the Marind-Anim and Asmat. In an adjacent “room” the
beaded aprons of Yapen Island hung alongside the woven fabrics of other eastern
islands, interspersed with Javanese batik. 116 In adjacent corners of that room, a pale
limestone Hindu goddess shared company with a mannequin of a dark Papuan (replete
with stylised robes and plumes) – silent counterpoints for the ‘civilised’ and ‘primitive’
peoples of the Indies, past and present.
The Paris Colonial Exposition of 1931 marked the end of the era of the great
exhibitions. The French Republic celebrated their North African colonies with the
1931 and 1936 expositions, but such expositions were fast becoming ‘unfashionable’,
an international anachronism. Already less than a ‘world exposition’, there was no
involvement by the British Empire, its colonies or protectorates and the former colonies
of the German and Ottoman Empires were now independent or mandated territories of
the League of Nations. The Soviet Bloc countries did not participate and the Republic
of the United States of America, while keen to exhibit its rising industrial and
technological prowess in World Fairs, openly protested Imperial power. Colonial
worlds were in contraction. The emergent new world order would involve less obvious
and ostentatious displays of international interest and influence. The celebrations of
colonial prowess and cultural ‘heritage’ that featured so spectacularly at international
expositions continued to be preserved and promoted by institutions linked to the
modern colonial enterprise, such as the Colonial Institute in Amsterdam117 and the
Institute of Indology at Leiden University, but these institutions too were soon
overwhelmed by events.
115
This juxtaposition evokes the comparison between Hindu and Papuan art and architectures (especially
that of the rum sram) that is the central thesis of Horst (1893).
116
It is worth noting that kain timur have been traded into the Bird’s Head of Irian Jaya for centuries and
as such can reasonably represent both the textile producing communities of NTT and the peoples of the
Bird’s Head of Irian (see Elmberg 1968; Miedema 1984)
117
The Colonial Institute is now known as the Royal Institute for the Tropics (Koningklijk Instituut voor
de Tropen, KIT).
284
The occupation of the Netherlands by German forces on May 10, 1940 transformed the
role of many Dutch government institutions. The Colonial Institute’s relationship to
the Netherlands East Indies colony was severely disrupted as more and more of the
building was appropriated to billet German troops. The Institute did, however, retain
its role as one of the key repositories of the cultural heritage of the East Indies. The
news that the Japanese had overwhelmed British defences at Singapore and invaded the
East Indies on January 11, 1942 must have been a bitter blow. Further news, barely a
week later, that an agreement had been signed in Berlin between German, Italian and
Japanese forces (18 January 1942), shocked peoples across Europe. It must have been
a double blow to those Dutch, including staff at the Colonial Institute, whose despair at
their own occupation in Europe had been mitigated by their sense that their East Indies
colony remained free. The release of this postcard, in 1942, is rich in symbolism.
First, it can be read as signifying the enduring sense of attachment of an occupied
Netherlands towards its occupied East Indies colony, and to its ‘interrupted’ mission of
bringing civilisation to the archipelago.118
Figure 5-25: “Papoea in krijgskleeding, Z. Nieuw Guinea”
(Postcard. The Colonial Institute, Amsterdam, c.1942)
“Papuan in battledress, South New Guinea” (Figure 5-25) depicts a statue of a Papuan
warrior in the foreground, juxtaposed against a bas relief (top right) of industrious early
118
See van Helsdingen and Hoogenberk (1941, 1945) for an account of the 1941 conference on the Dutch
achievements in the Indies up to the mid-twentieth century when they found their “mission interrupted”,
and their post-war plans for the colony.
285
Dutch colonists. The statue is positioned against the column as if a pillar of the
Institute, a part of the edifice – as though addressing the ‘savage’ were foundational to
a ‘civilised’ colonial enterprise. But the symbolism of this particular warrior also
evokes a people at risk and itself constitutes a symbolic act of resistance. In early
1942, Dutch authority in the East Indies was reduced to the last link in the island chain
not occupied by Japanese forces, the town of Merauke and its hinterland. This postcard
returns us to the land of the Marind-Anim. The head-hunting warrior depicted here is
armed and defiantly proud. This cryptic message, in defiance of the Axis powers
(Germany, Italy and Japan), could only be ‘read’ by those with sufficient knowledge of
the cultural regions of New Guinea and the archipelago.119 Members of staff at The
Institute, entrusted then (as now) with preserving the (colonial) history and continuing
Dutch presence in the Indies, were likely to be well aware of the symbolism of this
display and the postcard that proclaimed it.
With World War II marked the beginning of the political separation of Netherlands
New Guinea from the East Indies. Japanese forces maintained separate administration
over Maluku and occupied West New Guinea and this separation continued when the
Netherlands Indies Civil Administration (NICA) arrived with Allied forces in
Hollandia in April 1944 to resume governance of the territory (Chauvel, pers. comm.,
May 2008). At the Den Pasar Conference (December 1946), West New Guinea was
excluded from the new State of Eastern Indonesia. This exclusion was re-affirmed by
the Dutch at the Round Table Conference (RTC) of 1949 (see Chapter 3). By the end
of 1950, the case for the cultural separation of New Guinea from the East Indies had
been vociferously argued by Dutch members of the Dutch-Indonesia Commission
(Netherlands-Indonesia Committee on New Guinea 1950b; and see Chapter 4).
Whereas The Netherlands pavilions at international expositions and permanent
exhibitions at its domestic cultural heritage institutions (such as the Colonial Institute)
had blurred cultural boundaries across the archipelago, the impulse to retain West New
Guinea imposed new political and cultural frameworks over the territory.
119
The date of circulation of this card is assumed from the postage cancellation mark, indicated as
October 1942 (in the collection of the author). The KIT does not have a record of the publication date of
this postcard.
286
Figure 5-26: “Wij versieren onze huizen met motieven uit eigen land” (1958)
(Photograph in Verhoeff 1958:59)
The Bureau of Native Affairs (Kantor voor Bevolkingzaken, KvB) was formed in
Hollandia in 1951 to conduct “cultural anthropological and linguistic” research in the
territory.120 Impelled by the desire for “a systematic study of the indigenous cultures of
Netherlands New Guinea,” the Bureau was also expected to be an “advisory body” for
the local administration (KvB 1957:3). KvB fell short of either aim (Jaarsma 1990;
1994) even though its research programs “…were formulated in terms of ethnographic
coverage (filling in blank spaces on the map) or opportunities for comparison” (Wolf
and Jaarsma 1992:112). This had the effect among administrators of further
reinforcing an impulse for the regional consolidation of Netherland New Guinea’s
communities apparent since van Eechoud became de facto administrator in April
1944.121 By the mid-1950s, training at the new technical school in Hollandia was
assisting this process as well as providing skills considered of immediate relevance to
the local population. The slogan “We embellish/decorate our houses with the motifs of
our land” (Figure 5-26) illustrates how the KvB and its broad agenda to promote
indigenous cultural and political practices in the territory was filtered through
educational institutions in NLNG. At the Lower Technical School (Lagere Technische
School, LTS) in Kota Radja (Hollandia) this included training in carpentry, woodwork,
drafting and design as well as other trades necessary for urban development, villagebased handicrafts and other small-scale industries.122
120
Bureau of Native Affairs is the official translation for KvB given in government reports.
First as Commander of the Netherlands Indies Civil Administration (CoNICA) and then as Resident of
Ternate from 1947 (see Derix 1987).
122
Heijnes, the Director of this school for many years, had a particular interest in the architecture and
traditional structures of Netherlands New Guinea. Apparently he took extensive photographs
121
287
Figure 5-27: “Een man maakt een sepikmasker bij een kiosk in Hollandia”
(NNGG 1961: photograph appendix, p.18)
“A man making a Sepik mask at a kiosk in Hollandia, (Netherlands) New Guinea”
(Figure 5-27) is noteworthy as it features a young Papuan from the Lower Technical
School in Hollandia (Jayapura) making a wood-carving in the style of the Sepik river
region of Papua New Guinea.123 The work is being completed with the use of steel
wood-chisels and modern carving techniques and refinements, under the instruction of
a teacher from the technical school.124 The deliberate (re)orientation of Netherlands
New Guinea from its former association with the East Indies (i.e. now Indonesia)
towards the Pacific involved a redirection of resources, government programs,
educational materials and conceptual linkages, such as those of art traditions and
(shared) cultural heritage. This photograph appeared in the Report on the Netherlands
New Guinea to the United Nations for 1961 and exemplified the efforts of the
Netherlands New Guinea government to engage local people with the cultures of the
South Pacific region. Such programs in the late Dutch colonial period in New Guinea
were, once again, directly associated with regional trade and cultural fairs.
documenting the traditional structures of the territory, including construction techniques, but very few of
these have been published. He did write a brief article for the Department of Foreign Affairs publication
Schakels (Heijnes 1959).
123
This image is included in the collection of the KIT with this caption [KIT. TM-nummer: 1001 0345].
124
Some of the refinements offered by the LTS included the use of pre-cut timbers, steel tools and the
finishing of carvings with sandpaper and varnish.
288
Figure 5-28: “1e Jaarmarkt Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea” (1959)
The “1st Annual Market Netherlands New Guinea” (Figure 5-28) was the first and last
pan-Netherlands New Guinea trade and cultural fair.125 It relied heavily on the
sponsorship of the colonial administration and Dutch entrepreneurs but also featured
the participation of a substantial number of Papuans from across the six distinct cultural
regions identified in the territory (Figure 5-28, map). The Netherlands New Guinea
government arranged similar exhibitions of trade commodities, handicrafts, and
‘Papuan’ culture from the territory at events in Toronto (Canadian International Trade
Show, 1952), Seattle (Washington State International Trade Fair, 1954-1960), The
Netherlands (Expositions on the art and culture of NLNG 1955-1956), Brussels (World
Exhibition 1958) and San Francisco (Annual Pacific Festival, 1959-1960).126 That the
subsequent Indonesian administration placed significant store on these international
cultural festivals and that the Papuan elite of the day may have had an expectation of
such continued participation is evident in the declaration to a Papuan audience in 1963
of the Indonesian government intention to “have Irian dancing and participation at the
next world’s fair...” (Indonesia. Sekkor Irja 1964b:147).
In many respects, Taman Mini sought to replicate something of the atmospherics of
these national and international fairs through a peculiarly New Order monument – a
national fair that never ends. To the extent that TMII may be considered an outdoor
museum for the architecture of the archipelago, Anderson’s analysis of the
125
This ‘annual’ fair was held over a week in August in the town of Manokwari (see ARA 1.824.511
Markten. Beurzen. Hallen. Tentoonstellingen: #7981 Jaarmarkt te Manokwari 1959). In January of 1959
a similar event was hosted in Hollandia on the life and work of the Papuans in Netherlands New Guinea –
“What they have achieved” (see ARA 1.852.16 Tentoonstelling: #7698 Tentoonstelling in Hollandia over
leven en werken van de Papoea in Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea: “Dat presteren zij” (Januari 1959), 1959).
126
See ARA 1.852.16 Tentoonstelling: file #3100 Canadese Internationale handelstentoonstellingen
(Toronto-fairs), 1952; file #5463 Washington State International Trade Fairs, 1954-1960; #6173
Exposities van kunst en cultuur van Nederlands Nieuw-Guinea in Nederland, 1955-1956; #5429
Wereldtentoonstelling te Brussel 1958, 1954-1960 [Geheim dossier, 1955-1956]; #7884 Annual Pacific
Festival (San Francisco), 1959-1960.
289
(post/colonial) museum (Anderson 1991:177-185) and Taylor’s comments on the
nusantara approach to the display of culture (Taylor 1994) are both germane and
encapsulated by Kusno’s architectural critique of Mini (2000:75):
… this series of houses portrays the nation itself as a colourful ‘traditional’
village within which all members supposedly live harmoniously together. Not
unlike full-color advertisements for tourists, what has been concealed in the
phantasmagoria… is the complex social and historical production of the images
themselves. Moreover, as identity is marked and fixed upon the idea of having
a physical place within the territory of the nation, traces of ‘non-indigenous’ …
are refigured by ‘excluding’ them from the national belonging of the park.
Scholarly interest in the way TMII simultaneously collapses space, effaces (local) pasts
and elicits a state-centric future is well documented (see Chapter 3). The ersatz forms
on display are said to proclaim an authenticity that they wholly lack (Errington 1998)
and TMII cannot offer the kind of locally nuanced experience of its provincial
counterparts (Robinson 1997).127 However, critiques of TMII’s meta-narratives and
conceptual “coherence” risk overstating the extent to which park visitors actually
experience Indonesia-in-Miniature. As Roper (1999:49) observes, “Ironically the
theme park is so big that it is difficult to see the whole thing in one day.” Moreover,
the park has afforded many ‘modern’ Indonesians an opportunity to be taken from a
world of conventional urban forms into radically different three-dimensional spaces.
TMII’s buildings are not architectures of the past. They are diminished in their
grandeur, craftsmanship, and use of materials as well as being bereft of their past
temporal, geographic and cultural context. They do, however, “… at least give a point
of reference for comparison with the ‘pure’ traditional form in the future development
of domestic architecture in Indonesia” (Sumintardja, quoted in Kusno 2000:76).
Indeed, by 1976 the completed Irian Jaya Pavilion at TMII had become the template for
‘traditional’ architectural references in Irian itself,128 despite its fraught lineage – a cut
and paste pastiche of the past in the present.
127
Papua has its own Cultural Exposition Park (Taman Budaya Irian Jaya or Expo adjacent to the
provincial museum in Waena), which is similarly formulaic in its representation of locally regional
cultures, including an Arfak stilt house (rumah kaki seribu), a Dani compound (including a honai
enclosed by a traditional pig fence and accessed through a gapura or gate, an icon ubiquitous today in the
town of Wamena), as well as miscellaneous sculptures from across the province(s). See also the brief
notes in Roper (1999:48-50).
128
This was not the case for ‘domestic’ architecture as suggested by Sumintardja (quoted above).
290
Figure 5-29: “Potong, Lipat, dan Tempel - Rumah Adat...”
(Wijaya c.2002, back cover)
The first “Cut, Fold and Glue – Traditional House…” (Figure 5-29) of Indonesia
cardboard cut-out series was released a few years ago (Wijaya c.2002). Book 5
(Papua) features the “kariwari” (karewari) temples of Yos Sudarso (formerly
Humboldt) Bay and the Dani honai. The selection of “Papuan” architectural styles
reinforces the regional architecture prescribed by TMII (Djamadil et al. 1976) almost
three decades ago. Today the Provincial Museum at Waena, the Sentani airport, the
DPRD guard post, old bus terminal (in downtown Jayapura), Hotel Sentani Indah and
the Pelni shipping office buildings in Jayapura have all featured the karewari geometric
form.129 The coincidence of government buildings with transportation nodes in this list
is significant. Privileged international and domestic visitors arriving in Papua by
airplane are greeted by ‘Papuan’ architecture – the towering conical roofs of the
karewari-inspired Sentani airport. Those who have been to TMII will ‘know’ they
have arrived in Papua. Visitors travelling by boat, often obliged to visit the Pelni
office, are similarly welcomed with a karewari form, as were local travellers
connecting bus trips via the (now defunct) bus terminal in the heart of downtown
Jayapura.130 Perversely, all these modern buildings reference a traditional karewari
temple architecture that disappeared from the region almost a century ago. In the town
of Wamena in the Baliem Valley, the form of the local Dani honai is similarly echoed
129
It is worth noting that while most of these buildings virtually recreate the free-standing form of the
karewari, the Pelni office building in Argapura is a bolder, post-modern design which attempts a more
fluid integration (and simultaneous juxtaposition) of past with present through its use of modern materials
(polished metal and glass façades).
130
The exponential increase in traffic volume by the mid-1990s forced the closure of the old bus terminal
which was moved out of downtown Jayapura to a very large new terminal site at Entrop. The old bus
terminal building was refurbished for retail and office use.
291
in major public buildings including the airport, Bupati’s office and residence,131 and the
district (kabupaten) Museum Silimo, although many Dani can boast continuous use of
– and cultural pride in – their honai. Yet in spite of all the government efforts to
sponsor and promote a regional architecture for ‘Papua’, it is their endorsement of
Papuan ‘regional’ art that has gained greatest currency across the province, the country
and the world.132
The Art of Belonging: Asmat ancestors
A few years ago, community interest in the art of Asmat woodcarving began to
rise… (Soemadio et al. 1986:8).
In 1985, the first “Made in Indonesia Exhibition” (Pameran Produksi Indonesia or PPI
1985) was held in Jakarta in the gardens of the National Monument (Monumen
Nasional, Monas). A group of Asmat woodcarvers were ‘performing’ at this
exhibition, demonstrating and displaying their art as well as selling carvings. By the
close of the exhibition, many Asmat carvings remained unsold including display pieces
as well as items created during the exhibition – with both traditional and modern
designs. Ibu Tien Suharto “dropped by” the Asmat display and was apparently “very
interested” in this work. Mindful of the international interest in the arts of the Asmat
(Soemadio et al. 1986:10) and the importance of “national cultural education”, she
“devised a plan to keep these items together as a collection” to be housed in a purposebuilt and permanent Asmat Museum at TMII. Fortuitously, it would appear, the
elaborate Department of Mining and Energy pavilion at PPI 1985 was modelled around
the primary geometry of the karewari, “in the spirit of Unity in Diversity.” At the close
of PPI 1985 this pavilion was removed from its temporary site at Monas (in central
Jakarta) and reassembled as a permanent structure on the grounds of TMII and
“although this building is not ‘Asmat,’ it is a building characteristic of Irian” (Soemadio
et al. 1986:8-9, my translations). In “Ibu Tien Soeharto, sponsor of the Asmat Museum
131
Although this does draw on the form of the honai, because of the elongated structure of the building, it
should, perhaps, more properly be considered a simulacrum of the Dani women’s house or pig sty (see
Ploeg 1997:1178).
132
The use of local art and artistic motifs in the ‘enhancement’ of the urban landscape across Papua has
gained considerable momentum in recent years and is of considerable significance to broader questions of
urban identity but beyond the limits of this case study (see Roper 1999:50-51).
292
development at TMII” (Figure 5-30), Ibu Suharto is depicted as the architect, not only
of the Asmat Museum concept, but of the karewari itself.
Figure 5-30: “Ibu Tien Soeharto, pemrakarsa pembangunan Museum Asmat TMII”
(Photograph in Soemadio et al. 1986:6)
The Asmat Museum at TMII embodies the transcendence of Asmat art over all other
artistic and architectural forms of Papua. The use of anachronistic temple architecture
from the northeast coast of Papua to house carvings from the south coast Asmat region
marks another pivotal moment in the state-sponsored definition of “Irian” regional
culture. Asmat finials adorn the peaks and beams of the three museum karewari, Asmat
motifs are emblazoned on their walls and the material culture and displays describing
Asmat life and traditional culture fill the buildings’ interiors. There is little space
remaining, either inside or outside the museum, to elaborate on the cultural dispositions
of the peoples who traditionally identified themselves through the architecture of the
karewari. As with the TMII designation of the karewari and honai as the architectures
of Irian, the Asmat Museum celebrates two cultural traditions, one past and one present.
It also obfuscates much of the history of the development of Asmat art, including earlier
government bans on Asmat cultural practices (see Sowada 2002), international aid and
the ongoing support and sponsorship of Asmat art and culture by the Catholic Church
since the mid-1960s.
Asmat art rose to popular international acclaim with the disappearance of Michael
Rockefeller (son of Nelson Rockefeller, then Governor of New York State) in the
region on 16 November 1961. In 1968 the Fund of the United Nations for the
293
Development of West Irian (FUNDWI) established the Asmat Art Depot to help
enhance local development through the commercialisation of Asmat woodcarving. The
project was led by Jac Hoogerbrugge working under the auspices of the International
Labour Organisation (ILO) and in cooperation with the Indonesian government’s
Department of Small-scale Industries (Departemen Perindustrian). Hoogerbrugge
found it difficult to impress on Indonesian government authorities the artistic merit of
Asmat woodcarving, especially vis-a-vis the monumental stone carvings of central Java
(Hoogerbrugge, pers. comm. Aug. 2006), but the international profile of this project
brought a new appreciation of woodcarving traditions in Papua (see Hoogerbrugge
1969, 1974). This is apparent in the “Irian Barat woodcarvings” stamp issue of April
1970 (Figure 5-31) available exclusively in Papua. Of the ten objects depicted in the
set, eight featured traditional Asmat motifs and carving styles.133
Figure 5-31: “Ukiran Kayu Irian Barat” 1970
The promotion of traditional and innovative woodcarving by the Asmat Art Depot was
greatly assisted by the presence and support of the Crosier Mission in Asmat and their
enthusiastic engagement with the Decree Ad Gentes of the Second Vatican Council in
1965. Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) had entered the Asmat region in the
early 1950s, but within a decade the Crosiers (Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy
Cross, OSC) had assumed responsibility for the Asmat mission. By the late 1960s a
history of Asmat animosity towards the neighbouring Kamoro peoples (to the west)
133
On the bottom row, the second image is of a Biak/Geelvink Bay amfanyier and the third image on the
bottom row is a Marind-Anim tifa. The bottom right image represents an Asmat fretwork panel carving
from timber planks. This was an artistic innovation encouraged by Hoogebrugge as carvings could be
produced quickly from sawn timber and there was a ready domestic market for flat panel work for wall
decoration and architectural embellishment in private and government buildings (Hoogebrugge, pers.
comm. August 2006).
294
and the challenges of establishing a mission in the remote Asmat region led to the
establishment of the Diocese of Agats (see Trenkenschuh 1972a, 1972b). On 24
November 1969, at a ceremony in Agats, Alphonse Sowada OSC was ordained the first
Bishop of Agats. The following day in a meeting of the Bishops of Papua, Sowada was
encouraged to annex the Mimika (Kamoro) region into the Diocese of Agats
(Trenkenschuh 1972b:65-66; 1972a:131-132). Bishop Sowada was emphatic in his
refusal, mindful of the history of internecine conflict between Asmat and Kamoro
peoples, of the challenge ahead for his mission in Asmat and of the importance of
building a cultural relationship between the mission and the people. Sowada
understood the importance of the mission in maintaining the territorial and cultural
integrity of the Asmat (Bishop Sowada OSC, interview, Sawa-Erma, October 2001):
If the people have a sense of their identity, they will be able to endure any
change… If my mission experience has been of any value, it has been to help
maintain [their] identity. Development will come, so let them do it with a sense
of who they are, with a little comfort… That to me is the meaning of salvation.
Figure 5-32: Dioceses in Papua and West Papua (April 2008)
(adapted from Leeuwen 1994:28)
Today, the Diocese of Agats remains the smallest Diocese in Papua (indicated in red in
Figure 5-32). Today, as in 1969 when the Diocese was excised from the Archdiocese
of Merauke, the Diocese of Agats remains dwarfed by the Archdiocese of Merauke, the
Diocese of Manokwari/Sorong and the Diocese of Sukarnopura (the Diocese of Timika
was excised from the Diocese of Jayapura in 2003, see Appendix 5). Yet for three
295
decades, Bishop Sowada remained resolute that his Diocese would not be amalgamated
with territories and peoples to the east, west or north (Sowada OSC, interview, October
2001). The efforts of Bishop Sowada and the Crosier mission to promote Asmat art
and culture over the past few decades helped to strengthen the integrity of the culture of
a people living in a region of Papua and in the process helped to create a regional
culture for Papua. There are, of course, other factors, including the short period of
contact, the defiant nature of Asmat people and their pride in cultural traditions. Yet
the optimism of the Crosier mission among the Asmat contrasted starkly with their
despair at the missionary challenge among the adjacent Kamoro people. As Father
Trenkenschuh, OSC noted in 1970 (1972a:127):
Mimika strikes a person as a dead area filled with zombies. There is no work
and no interest in work. Religion of the past is no longer celebrated and the
Christian religion means nothing to the people. The past is gone forever. The
present lacks vitality. The future holds no hope.
While the FUNDWI project supported the commercialisation of Asmat art, the support
for their culture has been a preoccupation of the Crosier missionaries for decades. In
1971, the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress was established in 1971 in Agats
with a grant of $20,000 from the John D. Rockefeller III Foundation.134 Since the early
1970s, this Museum has been a focal point for the Crosier’s patronage of Asmat art and
cultural activities (see Schneebaum 1982, 1985; Sowada 2002) aided by the substantial
interest in Asmat art by international collectors (see Konrad and Konrad 1996; Smidt
1993). A key feature of the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress is its location in
the heart of Asmat. By contrast, the Asmat Museum at TMII perpetuates a culture of
collecting and re-assemblage that has decontextualised Asmat art from its cultural
context for decades. Nowhere is this separation of culture from context more apparent
than in the separation of Asmat traditional art from its architecture.
134
While this museum was established in Agats, parallel collections of Asmat arts were assembled in
Jayapura and New York (the primitive art gallery). The aim of the Asmat Museum was to “aid in the
educational and scientific progress of the Asmat area.” The museum was seen as a “basic tool in
continuity and change of the Asmat people. By preservation of the past the museum will promote pride
and continuity in the people. By use of modern audiovisual equipment and educational techniques it will
promote progress and change” (Trenkenschuh 1970:5).
296
Figure 5-33: “Asmat Ceremonial House [or jeu], Atjs Village, Irian Jaya” (1985)
(Illustration in Boylan 1997:1176)
The role of the Jew [Jeu] in the village has a strong tradition and background
with great implications for us… the Jew, for the time being (perhaps always?),
should be retained. I know that the Jew is where the war plans are formulated.
Even its construction gives rise to sentiments of revenge. I know that the songs
that sung in the Jew often evoked revenge feelings. I also know that even
rituals have their focus point in the jew. Nevertheless, I suggest that the Jew be
retained because it functions as the visible and the invisible heart of the social
life of each group. The Jew represents the group in its relations with the outside
world. Besides its social functions it has other implications for life, religion and
entertainment (Zegwaard and Boelaars in Trenkenschuh 1970a: 42).135
In 1970 the government’s position relative to feasts remains obscured. In 196465 the government of Indonesia ordered the destruction of all Jew-Je buildings
in Asmat. At the same time they ordered the abolition of all feasts. For a short
time drums and artwork were also being destroyed by government personnel.
Gradually the art itself came back in good faith first with the careful
encouragement of the missionaries and then with the full approval of the
government supported FUNDWI program (Trenkenschuh 1970a: 55).
The Jeu, or traditional men’s house, remains at the heart of Asmat culture even though
much of the prized ornamentation traditionally associated with it, including many
monumental ceremonial bisj poles, have been taken by – or sold to – museums and
private collectors for decades. Boylan’s (1997:1176) ethnographic note on the Atjs jeu
suggests an intriguing possibility. He suggests that the Atjs jeu is unique because of its
carved figurative house-posts (jewe mbis, sic) are “…extremely important to the
owners as the ancestors represented look after them and protect them from dangerous
spirits.” Boylan’s account raises the possibility of an innovation that deliberately
135
Fr Trenkenschuh (1970a) notes that Zegwaard discusses only the jeu of the southern regions of Asmat.
Trenkenschuh notes that in the north of Asmat the jeu is a bachelor house rather than the dwelling of all
the men in the village.
297
sought to build artwork into the essential structure of the building (to prevent these
works being removed and sold). In a ‘remote’ region well-travelled by local
entrepreneurs as well as foreign tourists and art collectors looking to procure carvings
imbued with artistic and spiritual meaning, this may be one strategy to ensure that local
art and architecture – and ultimately local community – work to maintain cultural
cohesion. In the regional capital of Agats, the role of the Church in the socio-cultural
life of the people of Asmat is apparent from conversations with local people, from the
network of boardwalks (over the muddy riverflats) that meet at the front of the
Cathedral of Agats and from the convergence of local and pan-Papuan symbolism on tshirts worn by staff of the Asmat Museum that proclaim “Your Uniqueness [is] Our
Pride, Asmat, West Papua” (Figure 5-34).
Figure 5-34: “Keunikanmu, Kebanggaanku, Asmat West Papua”
(Photograph by the author, October 2001)
In September 2001, after four decades of continuous mission work, Bishop Alfonse
Sowada left the Asmat. On his final farewell he visited his first parish in Asmat, the
sister villages of Sawa-Erma on the banks of the mighty Pomatsj River. A
commemorative mass was held in the church in the village of Sawa (Figure 5-35).136
136
It is worth mentioning that although Bishop Sowada has been the most compelling and constant
advocate for Asmat art and culture, the spectacle of the churches at Sawa-Erma owe much to the
commitment and energies of Fr. Vincent Cole who has been based in these villages for over a decade (see
McCarry 1996).
298
He conducted the ceremony together with special liturgical rituals organised and
enacted by lay members of the congregation. These incorporated elements of past
traditional spiritual practice. His final mass was given in Indonesian. Villagers sat,
attentive and in familial groups around hearths defined by stone and carved poles
traditionally reserved for use in the jeu (men’s house) within a church made of wooden
walls and a sago-palm roof.137 The setting and the ornate bisj or spirit poles standing
against the exterior columns of the structure were reminiscent of the jeu in early
photographs of the region. Other bisj poles formed interior columns for the structure,
and a “tree of life” carving, rising up from the floor of the church, inverted the
dominant bisj form (see Smidt 1996:439-440). Carved story boards (new to the region)
depicting key moments of local conversion adorned the interior walls, together with
vernacular carvings of more conventional Catholic imagery, such as the crucifixion.
After the mass in Sawa, his entourage boarded their motorboat to cross the broad,
muddy river. At the church in Erma, an Asmat Jesus stood in the Garden of
Gethsemane beside a still congregation. Sowada was too tired to give a second mass,
but the people came, regardless.
Figure 5-35: The Church at Sawa-Erma (2001)
(Photograph by the author, November 2001)
137
Traditionally bisj poles were attached to the exterior of jeu, not the interior of the buildings.
299
I sat amid the gathering; privileged to be welcomed by the Bishop and
the people of Sawa and Erma into their villages and their Church. My
own journey had brought me to the place, and among the people, where
a spiritual and cultural movement emerged that helped transform the
Christian church in Papua. No longer a foreign institution that eschews
traditional practices, the Church and its congregations in Asmat have
defined new spiritual and social practices for themselves – clergy and
congregation alike. The Church has become the new rumah adat, or
‘traditional’ cultural house, and forms the new cultural and spiritual
‘home’ of the people and the new focus for community (notes from my
field diary, Sawa-Erma, Central Asmat, 3 October 2001).138
“A church born in Papua…”: opus and final act
“It is a church born in Papua, for the Papuans…” designed and supervised by a
Dutch Franciscan, with detailed drawings drafted by a Javanese Catholic
architect, construction completed by a team builders from Makassar, interior
“frescos” by a Papuan “master painter” and carvings by Papuans from the
nearby Protestant church in Sentani … (Br. Henk Blom ofm, interview, July
2005).139
Brother Henk Blom OFM was sent by the Dutch Franciscan Order to New Guinea in
1957. Upon his arrival in the district town of Kokonau he discovered, to his delight,
that his mission already possessed a powerful (35hp) diesel engine and complete
workshop with wood-cutting and milling machinery.140 He quickly busied himself
with the task that would consume him for the next 43 years of his life in New Guinea.
Today his presence may be felt and his influence seen in many villages and towns
across Papua.
Brother Henk was a builder. In his first year in Netherlands New Guinea, he completed
the construction of a house for the government doctor and a school for the Catholic
community of Kokonau. At nights, he would watch the children play on the beach and
138
The jeu is a continuing presence in many Asmat villages, but community life is now increasingly
focussed around the role of the Catholic Church. This change is tempered by the observation that in some
villages in Asmat church attendance today is very low (Astrid de Hontheim, pers. comm., July 2005).
139
Unless otherwise stated, the information in this section is taken from interviews with Brother Henk at
the Minderbroeder Franciscan, Utrecht on 3 July 2005, 7 July 2005, 28 March 2006 and 4 July 2006. It is
supplemented with information from Brother Henk’s autobiography Mijn Verhaal (My Story) privately
published in mid-July, 2006 (see Blom 2006).
140
By this time the Franciscans (OFM) had taken over from the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC)
in the Mimika region.
300
the long, lingering sunsets over the inlet. In the building boom of the late Dutch
colonial period (late 1950s-1962) his considerable energies and talents were in high
demand from his Order and the Netherlands government and by 1959 he assumed
duties in Hollandia (modern day Jayapura/Port Numbay). Within a week of his arrival,
he was requested by the Bishop of the Diocese of Hollandia to draw up designs for a
new church in Kaimana. Henk assiduously prepared the drawings and costings for this
project. The Bishop, apparently, was dismissive of this work, stating that his design for
the new church was “too much like the Protestant churches...” and that his costings
were totally inappropriate. Brother Henk was crushed. A modest man, he had already
endured the frustrations of academic study for which he was told he lacked the
necessary aptitude. Only in hindsight did he understand the Bishop’s comments as a
ploy – a test to see if he was confident with his ideas and his trade. Although he
continued his building projects in the Diocese, this incident made an indelible
impression on Brother Henk and would strongly influence the evolution of his future
work.
The building boom of the late 1950s and early 1960s in Netherlands New Guinea gave
way to a mass exodus from the colony leading up to the UNTEA transition (1 October
1962 – 30 April 1963). Building materials became scarce in the period immediately
following Indonesian integration and church construction projects slowed for several
years. By the mid-1960s basic construction materials were again available in Irian,
although Brother Henk considered the quality of these materials in general to be
inferior to those available during the Dutch period. The return of Indonesia to the
United Nations in September 1966 and the resumption of the Fund for the
Development of West Irian (FUNDWI) in the following years brought a fresh
optimism to the Catholic Church about its future in the province.
Henk’s architectural style was able to develop through a host of projects, including new
churches or major renovations/extensions to existing churches in greater Jayapura
(APO, Argapura/Entrop, Waena, Abepura, Sentani) and environs (including four in the
Arso region at Kojo Koso, Workwana, Arso IV settlement and the main Catholic
301
church in the town of Arso).141 He was also significantly involved in the
reconstruction, design and supervision of churches in the Baliem Valley (Wamena,
Jiwika and Pieke), Star Mountains (Admisibil), Paniai Lakes (Moanemani) and the
town of Timika. Henk explained that there were four groups responsible for building
in the Diocese of Jayapura. While he was based in Jayapura, another group was based
at Kokonau/Timika, another in the Paniai Lakes and the fourth in the Baliem Valley
(including Isr. Stam and Br. Theo v.d. Bilt). Over time Henk became the most senior
and experienced builder in the Diocese and would be called on to offer design,
technical and/or supervisory assistance by these other building groups in the Diocese,
helping to diffuse his influence and his aesthetic across the Diocese of Jayapura (see a
map of the Dioceses in Papua, Figure 5-32).
In addition to his church projects, Henk built and renovated a wide array of ancillary
buildings for the Diocese, including the Friary for his Franciscan Order at APO
(Jayapura), a Chapel and Retreat for Franciscans (Sentani), several Convents (including
those at Arso and Argapura), the Community Village Development Foundation Centre
(YPMD Office in Kotaraja), a medical centre in Wamena, a hospital in Waena (Dian
Harapan), a school and dormitory complex in Biak and another in Sentani (Pantai
Asuhan), the housing complex for theology students at the Theological and
Philosophical College in Abepura (Sang Surya, STFT), the Library and other buildings
for the Teacher Training College (SPG) at Waena, various lower and middle level
school buildings (including the SMA Kotaraja, Tauboria II at Abepura, SMP Argapura,
YPPK Bernadus Timika), and a kindergarten at the Cathedral in Jayapura.142
141
Henk designed the church at APO (part of the Franciscan Friary) but construction and supervision was
carried out by Br. Theo van der Bilt (completed in 1963). APO (the location of the American Post Office
when Hollandia played host to 250,000 Allied forces in 1944) is a small suburb to the immediate north of
downtown Jayapura.
142
This is a partial list. Unfortunately Brother Henk did not keep a record of the churches he built and
was not able to remember specific details about all the buildings he had constructed and the dates of their
construction (although some of these are recounted in Blom 2006).
302
Figure 5-36: “APO Ruangan Sosial” (1980)
(Photograph courtesy of Br. Henk Blom)
In 1980, Henk completed renovation work on the Dutch-era APO Church in downtown
Jayapura and began construction of a new Church Social Hall at APO (Figure 5-36).
His renovation of this church and the realisation of his architectural vision for the APO
Church Hall was a turning point in his career. For more than two decades he had often
felt judged by his colleagues. With the completion of the APO renovation and Church
Hall, he received overwhelming praise for his work and finally gained recognition as
an accomplished builder and architect of real vision. The earlier churches he had built
in New Guinea (Argapura and Abepura) were completed in collaboration with another
church builder, Isr. Stam. From 1980 on, he was given sole responsibility for the
design and construction of new building projects and worked under the direct authority
of the Bishop of Jayapura.
The APO Social Hall marks the emergence of a distinctive architectural style that
Brother Henk would continue to develop throughout his time in New Guinea. With its
origins in early 1960s modernist architecture, Henk’s style was also strongly
structuralist, deploying angular aesthetics and recursive geometric forms. His highly
defined style was further complimented by his creative and pragmatic design solutions
to the constraints imposed by limited project funds, simple construction materials and
the peculiarities of New Guinea’s natural environment. His time in Kokonau had given
him a sense of the possibilities and problems of architecture for relatively remote
communities in New Guinea. Hollandia (later Sukarnopura, then Jayapura) gave him a
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whole new scale on which to develop his aesthetic and construction ideas, and the
materials, funds, and manpower to realise his architectural visions. His buildings are
not technically complex. They rely mainly on architectural devices, particularly the
integral use of angled walls, columns and rafters in building construction, which are
enhanced through the deft use of natural light and paintwork. The internal effect of this
design typically results in internal spaces which are both light and spacious. This
contrasts starkly with much contemporary Indonesian institutional architecture with its
reliance on solid rendered brickwork, reminiscent of the pre-colonial period (see
Akihary 1990; Kusno 2000).
Figure 5-37: “Mols”
(Photo-montage. Photographs courtesy of Br. Henk Blom)
One of the key techniques Brother Henk deploys to achieve an exterior distinction and
interior openness in his buildings is through his hallmark patterning of structural walls
with a range of specially moulded cement blocks. By the time Brother Henk left
Papua, he had assembled moulds (mols) for more than 10 different cement bricks,
giving him an impressive range of combinations with which to pattern the walls of his
buildings (Figure 5-37). Although the use of patterned brickwork is not uncommon in
tropical architecture elsewhere in the world (including neighbouring Papua New
Guinea), Henk’s extensive reliance on this form of construction and his development of
his own custom designed bricks enabled him to simultaneously address issues of
ventilation, light and structural longevity at a price that was well within the modest
means of local churches and their congregations. When combined with his highly
stylised, geometric use of colour, the effects were impressive. They are also suggestive
of a sensitivity to place consistent with the “Principles for a Melanesian architecture”
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enunciated by Plocki (1975) and the broader ‘critical regionalism’ movement in
modern architecture (see Frampton 1983 and Eggener 2002).
Figure 5-38: “Gereja Katolik di Arso” (1999)
(Photograph courtesy of Br. Henk Blom)
The remarkable “Catholic church in the township of Arso” (Figure 5-38) is the last
building Brother Henk completed before he retired and left for the Netherlands. For
him it is a “special church” (gereja istimewa) that represents the culmination of his
aesthetic, architectural and spiritual journey in New Guinea. Completed in 1999, this
church is now the focus of Catholic worship for the Arso region, one of the largest
transmigration settlements in modern Papua. The restrictions on access for foreigners
(and even some local Papuans) to Arso and other regions close to the Papua New
Guinea border for much of the past decade means that this church is known and
frequented only by peoples resident in the area.143 The church contains many of the
elements already familiar in Brother Henk’s works and includes new innovations which
enable him to transcend a reliance on traditional structural form to create an aesthetic
appropriate to a church. The symmetry of the exterior, with its two opposing portals
and the geometric design of the paintwork bring both unity and the illusion of the
building reaching towards the heavens. Three triangles stretch across the rear wall of
the interior, one for Mary, a large one for the altar and the third (sized as the first) for
the sacraments. The composition of these three triangles evokes the trinity while
143
I have not visited the church, but have studied numerous photographs of the building.
305
interior columns reach upwards to geometric rafters and a rectangular panelled ceiling.
The church has no spire/bell-tower as the project ran out of funds.144 Instead, the
church now relies on the illusion of its geometric patterned paintwork (both interior and
exterior) directing the congregation to the heavens to achieve a sense of spiritual
exaltation.
Brother Henk’s Church at Arso, as the culmination of his distinctive style, is directly
attributable to the degree of control he was able to maintain over the design and
realisation of his architectural visions. By the early 1970s, he was so busy with
construction for the Catholic Church in Papua that he would typically start projects
prior to any formal budget or consultation with committees or representatives of local
congregations. Although he had attempted to engage local communities in the process
of building a new church through consultative approaches, he identified several
problems with such an approach. He claimed not to have the confidence or
competence with Indonesian to conduct such consultations.145 The second was that
when he attempted to get the community involved and solicit ideas for the design of a
church, he found it was very difficult to get agreement among the congregation on a
design. He discovered that if he had prepared a drawing to show the congregation, he
found the congregation was enthusiastic… and he would be able to go ahead
immediately with the construction. He was not sure if this was because they did not
want to argue with his vision/authority or whether it was just easier for them not to
negotiate and argue amongst one another to agree to a common design. Either way, he
often felt that this was the only viable approach. There were just too many projects to
be stuck in consultation constantly refining and negotiating at the design phase of the
building. He added that he would never have chosen such work in the Netherlands as
he would have found the constant modifications to his designs too frustrating.
Brother Henk had little to do with site selection for most of the churches and church
buildings (social halls, schools, residences) he built across Papua. In almost all cases,
144
Br. Henk noted that an external spire was intended for the church, and he had designed one, but funds
ran out and it now seems that this spire will never be built.
145
In fact Henk’s Indonesian is very good and he was clearly able to make himself understood when
discussing more technical aspects of his buildings and their construction. He is, however, a quiet and
unassuming man who may have been reluctant to be drawn into such public processes. My interviews
with him were conducted predominantly in Indonesian, interspersed with Dutch.
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his buildings were constructed on sites where land had already been allocated to the
church – and often on the sites of earlier churches. When I asked him about the
relationship of church buildings to other buildings in a village setting – particularly to
the rumah adat – he expressed the view that there was nothing remarkable about the
siting of church buildings, which are “always located on a site designated by the
congregation”. He did, however, mention several occasions when churches – under
construction or completed but not yet in use – had been occupied by Papuans
demanding compensation from the church for land. These land claims were in the
sprawling urban agglomeration of Jayapura – Argapura/Entrop – Kota Raja/Abepura –
Sentani, today a city of approximately 300,000 residents and home to the Cathedral that
typifies Brother Henk’s achievement in Papua. Site selection was the biggest single
challenge in the construction of this building, and something that Henk was powerless
to change.
Figure 5-39: “Kathedraal Noordwijk, Hollandia” (1956)
(Postcard in the collection of the author)
In 1956 the Cathedral of the Diocese of Hollandia was completed at Noordwijk, the
ridge known today as Dock Lima Atas (“above Dok 5”, named after the mooring point
below established by the U.S. Navy in 1944, see Figure 5-19). Dok Lima is in central
Jayapura. When first built this Cathedral must have been an impressive sight with its
heavy brick construction and its prominent location; high on the ridge of a spur that
winds its way down to the waterline and separates the city from its northern suburbs.
307
In the three decades that followed, the town of Hollandia became Sukarnopura and then
Jayapura and transformed into a thriving, modern Indonesian city, with a population of
approximately 240,000 people.146
In 1985, while on holiday in the Netherlands, Brother Henk received news that a
decision had been made that a new Cathedral should be built for Jayapura. He did not
interrupt his vacation, but once back in Jayapura immediately began designing the new
building, to be constructed on the site of the existing Cathedral. The biggest challenge
he faced was how to accommodate the desires of the congregation, who wanted a social
hall in front of the existing Cathedral site. But the site would not permit two structures
and still provide space around the Cathedral – and its façade – for the building to
distinguish itself. Br. Henk’s radical solution transformed the vision of the
congregation. Instead of heeding their desire for a new church social hall at the front of
the cathedral, his reconceptualised the cathedral renovation and the construction site.
First he stripped away most of the original cathedral, leaving only the front wall of the
original structure.147 His team of builders then began the arduous process of
excavating the site and building a large retaining wall. Although this wall posed many
problems, and was modified at the request of municipal engineers, it was eventually
completed, enabling the social hall to be constructed as a part of the foundation of the
Cathedral. The resulting symbolism is interesting. Henk’s design solution did create
an architectural separation between the sacred and the secular – recognising the social
functions of the church as a community while reinforcing the supremacy/authority of
the Bishop through the edifice itself. In this way the Cathedral incorporates the two
core features of a rumah adat – its social and spiritual functions.
146
This total includes the population of Kota Jayapura and its adjacent regions (i.e. people living along
the northern edge of Lake Sentani, see
http://www.papua.go.id/bps/DDA%202006/BAB%203/Tabel3.1.13.htm).
147
This enabled the Church to qualify for provincial government funding for the restoration of the
building. The bulk of the funds for the church came from Rome and from the substantial contributions of
the congregation itself.
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Figure 5-40: “Katedral Kristus Raja, Jayapura” (1990)
(Photograph courtesy of Br. Henk Blom)
Henk embraced Asmat bisj poles for the free-standing spire of the “Cathedral of Christ
the King” (Figure 5-40). Although typically positioned over the altar in traditional
Catholic architecture, most of Brother Henk’s churches follow a pragmatic convention
of Catholic church architecture in New Guinea in which the spire/bell-tower stands
apart from the main church structure.148 Henk’s four stylised bisj poles connect to one
another to form a cross (in plan) and support a Christian cross flared at its ends to
suggest the symbol of his Franciscan Order.149 This design is echoed by the use of
elongated inverted triangles around the outside of the Cathedral which Henk adopted to
evoke a Bishop’s Mitre (at inverted angles). The stylised fish-tail triangles that run the
length of the Cathedral’s exterior walls are adapted from a motif of the local coastal
community of Tobati-Engros and are used again to great effect on the interior wooden
panels of the nave.
Henk’s Cathedral is a remarkable statement of the interdependencies and
interpenetration of church and community. He chose to use Papuan motifs and
148
The experience of Henk and other church builders in New Guinea led them to depart from an
integrated spire. These builders found that spires added unnecessary complexity to roof framing, adding
significant additional costs to construction and almost invariably compromising the all-weather durability
and longevity of church buildings. While many Protestant churches persist with integrated spires, most
Catholic churches dispensed with them decades ago.
149
This cross is flared at all four points in a fashion similar to the (caricatured) cross of the Franciscan
Order.
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imagery in the cathedral because “it is a church that was born in Papua. It was built in
Papua... for the Papuans.” For this monumental project, Brother Henk did receive
many suggestions from both the Bishop and the Catholic community in Jayapura (Fr.
Frans Lieshout pers. comm., July 2003), but he retained ultimate control over all
aesthetic and construction decisions and his distinctive style features throughout the
building. The detailed architectural drawings for the Cathedral were completed by
Heni Purnomo, a Javanese architect who lives in Jayapura and is a member of the
Cathedral’s congregation. As well as this architect, the main construction (bricklaying
and rendering) for the Cathedral was completed by five families from Makassar (all
Moslem), whom Henk describes as very hard working. Henk also relied on the
creative input of Jaap van der Werf, a Dutchman resident in Papua who trained as a
master painter and had collaborated on design ideas and colour schemes with Henk for
more than a decade. A series of carved panels in the Cathedral’s interior carry the foi
motif of the Lake Sentani people (see Hoogerbrugge 1967) and were carved by
prominent Sentani artists (including Nico Ohee and Agus Ongge, see Roper 1999).
Ohee and Ongge are from the island of Asei, which is strongly Protestant (GKI). The
Cathedral project is a testament to ecumenical, multi-faith and multi-ethnic
cooperation.
Figure 5-41: Interior of the Cathedral of Christ the King, Jayapura (1990)
(Photograph courtesy of Br. Henk Blom)
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The interior of the church is cool and remarkably light. Henk’s signature patterned
brickwork is used to great effect, adding both colour and a sense of space that
compliments his decision to finish the columns and rafters of the structure with wooden
panelling. The impression is stunning. The end wall of the Cathedral is in three
sections, each division suggested by the use of ornamental rafter sections. Off-set brick
work is accentuated by the use of complimentary colour schemes and the altar wallpanels are backlit by two floor-to-ceiling concealed windows on the back wall. Henk’s
custom-made elongated hexagon lights accentuate the internal roof geometry and echo
the shapes of the moulded bricks that frame the two interior side walls of the structure.
The Children of Israel, lost in the wilderness, appear on a mural on the interior of the
Cathedral above the main entrance. Like most of the other artworks in the building it
was painted by a Papuan artist, Donatus Moiwend, who has worked with Henk for
years. For Henk, Moiwend’s works embody two elements crucial to good art: a
capacity to use colour creatively and the ability to create works that “live.”
“A church born in Papua…”: Papuan Archangels
If Papuans were able to see the form of angels before the arrival of the
Europeans, perhaps radiant Papuan angels [like those in the cathedral] would
have appeared before them. Angels appear in other paintings as European.
Similarly, the face of Jesus is not represented as an Arab, Semite, Hamite and so
on. This is the reason that I depicted the Archangels as Papuan. Furthermore,
who among us has seen an angel? How then do we understand this concept? In
my view these mysterious (spiritual) beings may become manifest to man only
through God Almighty. The Great Comforter (Maha Penghibur) and
messenger; manifest in the form of the Archangel Gabriel, who eradicates sin;
[and who also] has the appearance of the Archangel Michael. So too with
Raphael and others. These angels, if they appear in Papua, will surely [appear
in] clothes as beautiful as the Bird of Paradise and as radiant as the realm of
Papuan nature (Donatus Moiwend, pers. comm. Sept. 2006, my translation).
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Figure 5-42: Michael, a Papuan Archangel, beats a ‘dragon’ skin tifa (2001)
(Photograph by the author, November 2001)
In the Cathedral of Christ the King the Archangel Gabriel blows his trumpet and the
Archangel Michael summons the heavenly chorus with a goanna skin tifa drum (Figure
5-42).150 Between the two Archangels is a choir of six heavenly angels, smaller in size.
All hover on the choir balcony wall above the congregation as they enter the Cathedral
of Christ the King in Jayapura, and all are Papuan. That they are angels is evident from
their ornate wings, which echo the intricate carved woodwork in the ‘Geelvink Baai’
style, and their tail-feathers of the Greater Bird of Paradise (Paradisea apoda).151 The
angels all wear a standard white tunic, augmented with broad red collars fringed in
golden tassels and decorated with opposing star/Asmat bipane images for insignias.
The red collar is reminiscent of the ‘traditional’ red tunic worn for dancing and feasts on
Biak Island. A single Morning Star is fixed in the crown of their heads, among dense,
frizzy (‘Papuan’) hair.152 The Archangel Michael plays a tifa that is decorated with
motifs from the Asmat (bipane) and the Marind-Anim (top and bottom of drum). He,
150
A tifa is a distinctive form of wooden drum (in the shape of a stylised hourglass) used across New
Guinea and parts of eastern Indonesia.
151
The Geelvink Baai (now Cenderawasih Bay) style is most typically associated with art of Biak Island.
152
For centuries “Papua” has been associated with “frizzy haired” (see Gelpke 1993:318).
312
like all other angels, is barefoot, black-skinned and skillfully painted. His gown floats
in the air and his image almost flies from the wall. It is only one of many paintings
adorning the interior and exterior of the Cathedral.
Donatus Stevanus Moulo Moiwend (Moyuend) is one of the most important painters in
Papua today.153 A member of the Maklew clan, a sub-group of the Marind Anim,154 he
was born in Kampung Bibikem, Desa Wanam, Kimaam sub-district of Merauke around
the end of World War II. His distinctive paintings feature in many of the larger
Catholic Church buildings in the province and may be identified by a deceptively
simple contraction of his name: “My professional name is Donet… as there is a Monet,
Manet, Bonnet.”
Donet is a devout Catholic with a clear sense of whimsy.155 His formative years were
spent entirely in the Catholic education system, first in his village, then in the subdistrict of Kimaam, and later at high schools in Merauke. At a young age he
discovered joy in illustration (and later sculpture) which he pursued with any and all
media available to him. Although he never had an illustrated version of the Bible, he
was exposed to a range of biblical imagery through his teachers, “particularly the
teachers from Holland... who taught the Gospel with interesting images. Our thinking
and imagination developed very well.” Later, as an adult, Donet would spend time
looking at illustrated books, particularly those which featured the works of famous
painters. He now has a significant personal collection of art books. Many of these
books are in Dutch and most, it seems, were given to him by Dutch Catholic teachers
and clergy, eager to nurture his talent. The most recent addition to his collection is
1000 Meester Werken van de Europese Schilder kunst van de Tiende tot de
Negentiende Eeuw (1000 Master Works of European painting from the 10th to the 19th
Centuries), a good indication of the influence that his patrons have had on his artistic
development. The influence of Christian devotional art on Donet’s style and his own
153
This section is based on correspondence with Donatus Moiwend from 2004-2007. All correspondence
was conducted in Indonesian and the translations are my own.
154
Donet renders this “Malind, of the Malind Anim” (sic).
155
For example, his humour is clearly evident in some of his artworks (through his choice of subjects,
composition, etc.) as well as in his correspondence. In elaborating on the Biblical significance of one of
his paintings, he commented “Sorry, this is not my sermon...”
313
aesthetic merge in a major work he completed for the Franciscan Friary in APO which
depicts St. Francis Xavier at prayer in the radiant realm of Papuan nature (Figure 5-43).
Figure 5-43: St Francis of Assisi... in Papua (1980)
(Photograph courtesy of Br. Henk Blom)
In 1969, Donet began work as a civil servant in the Indonesian government, based in
Paniai and later Jayapura. For more than a decade, his art remained little more than a
keen hobby, with limited results, but in 1979 he got an apprenticeship to go to Bali to
study painting under Arie Smit. In the mid-1980s he left Irian again, this time for twoyears art training in Bogor before eventually returning to Papua to continue his art in a
private capacity. A civil servant till his retirement in 2003, Donet completed a range of
minor painting commissions for government agencies (whom he found frequently
unappreciative of his work), non-governmental organisations and businesses in
Jayapura and the surrounding regions. He has been very active in the promotion of
local and regional art projects, competitions, art instruction and community seminars.
During the past five years he has also completed a number of exhibitions within Papua
and elsewhere in Indonesia. But the major works of his career to date are commissions
completed for the Catholic Church during the 1980s and 1990s, frequently working
with Brother Henk Blom.
314
Donet enjoyed remarkable freedom of expression in his commissions for the church.
His many years of Catholic schooling, as well as regular attendance at church, provided
him with a wealth of parables from which to select the imagery for his art. Brother
Henk claims he had complete faith in Donet, a confidence that grew from years of
working together and from the “true artistry” and religious vision that Donet brought to
his work. In their church projects they sought to integrate the building design with the
artworks – to “reinforce the spiritual message of the church” (Br. Blom). Donet, for his
part, apparently frequently reminded himself that his artwork was merely one element
of the ambience (suasana) of a church. Donet claims to have “a wide knowledge of the
scriptures,” as suggested by the breadth of themes he has depicted in the Cathedral of
Christ the King.
Donet’s skill as both painter and carver is evident in many of the architectural
embellishments in the Cathedral in Jayapura. Above the main portal to the Cathedral,
Donet’s children of Israel wander through his painted wilderness. He also carved the
panels of the four apostles for the chapel and the framing panels on opposing sides of
the altar. A depiction of Mary with the baby Jesus sits below the altar, flanked by
symmetrical pillars carved with Asmat bipane motifs. The exterior walls, either side of
the main portal, are adorned with two large paintings with themes Donet chose to
celebrate the Christ the King – his depiction of a fisherman retrieving his net (on the
left) and of the stable in Bethlehem during the visitation of the Three Kings. Inside the
“Frans Social Centre” below the Cathedral are two monumental works depicting the
Sermon of Faith (Khotbah di Bukit) and the Sermon on the Boat (Khotbah di atas
Perahu). And there was other imagery, lost to the Cathedral since its renovation in
2000.
315
Figure 5-44: Jesus before Pontius Pilate (1990)
(Photograph courtesy of Br. Henk Blom)
The larger-than-life portrait of Christ, in chains before Pontius Pilate (Figure 5-44), no
longer stands over the entry to the Social Hall at the rear of the Cathedral. This
poignant image of betrayal and injustice must have given pause for thought to many of
the congregation. As demonstrated in the populist Mubes and Congress meetings of
2000 (see Chapter 2), many Papuans, particularly during the New Order period, felt a
sense of grievance and injustice under Indonesian governance. This image is no longer
displayed at the Cathedral, but it was not banned by the authorities. The painting did
not weather the bleaching sun and pounding rains it was exposed to on the Cathedral’s
northwest wall. Instead, it was painted over in the renovation of 2000 and while Donet
is disappointed, he remains philosophical about the loss of this work.
Donet aims to achieve resonance through his art. Although the majority of his work has
been for the Catholic Church, he continually strives to explore themes of universal
spirituality in his art. He has never done commission work for the Protestant church but
remains open to work with other denominations in Papua. He is, however, firmly of the
316
belief that there is little interest amongst Protestant churches in Papuan art and cultural
expression. Moiwend (pers. comm. Oct. 2005, my translation) asserts that the
Protestant church, when it arrived in New Guinea,
Sought the removal of paintings and carved objects from the church and local
community, banning these as idol worship. Because of this, when the
evangelists arrived in the Land of Papua (Tanah Papua) almost all elements of
art rooted in ritual worship and belief were destroyed.
As discussed earlier in relation to the rum sram, van Hasselt, Kamma, and other
evangelists and perhaps many in Protestant congregations in Papua today, might fairly
regard this as a gross distortion of – and disservice to – the proselytizing efforts and
sacrifices of pioneering evangelists in the territory.156 Donet, for his part, does not
dwell on this loss of Papuan cultural heritage, nor does he see Catholicism as the only
way to salvation. His religious worldview is ecumenical and pragmatic. It is
encapsulated in his description of “Your flock hears Your voice” (Figure 5-45) a classic
rendition of a quintessentially Biblical image, painted in the interior balcony wall of the
Cathedral, above the main entrance.
Figure 5-45: “Your flock hears Your voice”
(Photograph courtesy of Donatus Moiwend)
…this is to know the voice of the shepherd – even if one day the shepherd
appears with different clothes or features. I chose this theme because of the
broad meaning to both Christians and non-Christians... Jesus was a good
shepherd. God alone is the Shepherd, Jesus is in The Father and The Father in
Jesus. The Voice of Jesus is the voice of The Father... God guides and instructs
his followers through the prophets, by the emissaries who bring His Religion by
156
This is no longer the case and some Protestant pastors (and denominations) have actively encouraged
the integration of Papuan art in their churches for decades (for example, see Zöllner 1977). Mirjam Korse
has placed a number of images of Christian art in Papua on the World Wide Web and although few of
these images have accompanying documentation, many of them represent artistic embellishments on
Protestant churches in Papua (see http://constellarti.nl/Papua).
317
different names: Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Krisna, Zoroaster, Bab and Baha’ullah.
All of them wore period clothes of various colours. Many messengers, many
prophets but only One Holy Spirit within them and speaking through them.
There is no reason not to acknowledge, value, respect, and even more than that,
believe other religions, because they are all the voice of God, The Shepherd.
God sends his prophets as our divine teachers, one after another and each period
accords with an expansion of his followers. The end of the era for one prophet
is the beginning of an era for another. That means the end and the beginning are
a teaching (ajaran) (Moiwend, pers. comm. Sept. 2006, my translation).
Donet sees his works to date, including those in the Cathedral, as “stepping stones” to
the project that now consumes his creative energies. This new work echoes the
universal themes of spiritual renewal encapsulated in “Your flock hears Your voice,”
but it is a radical departure from his previous church commissions. Recently he has
spent his days, piously, building a cave.
Figure 5-46: “Goa Maria” (Sentani 2007)
(Photograph courtesy of Donatus Moiwend)
For the past few years Donatus Moiwend has been working on a major project which
includes three large reliefs depicting “Maria receiving the good news from the
Archangel Gabriel,” the “Flight of the Children of Israel to Egypt” and the “Seven
sorrows of The Virgin Mary.” These works are all associated with the “Cave of Maria”
(Figure 5-46) – a rock wall and cave (grotto) built of concrete into a small embankment
on the grounds of the Orphanage of the Sisters of Mercy at Hawai (sic), Sentani. The
entire complex is intended to become a “spiritual reserve” for the charitable benefit of
318
the orphanage. Donet hopes that eventually many people will come to pray at the Cave
of Maria and that the place will be consecrated. The works in the Cave and the
surrounding gardens are intended to offer visitors a sense of spiritual peace, reflection
and sanctity. Donet hopes that the Cave and garden may appeal to the people of
Jayapura and the region and that “spiritual wonders or miracles may become
synonymous with this place.”
Shadows in the cave: the nature of Papuan architecture?
The end of the era for one prophet is the beginning of an era for another.
That means the end and the beginning are a teaching.
(Moiwend, pers. comm. Oct. 2005).
Figure 5-47: “Grotto/Goa Santa Maria, Wamena, Irian Jaya, Indonesia” 157 (c.1996)
(Postcard in the collection of Chris Ballard)
Donatus Moiwend’s Cave of Maria suggests some intriguing possibilities for the future
of architecture, art and religious practice in Papua. His is not the first attempt by
Catholics in Papua to venerate the Madonna or her Child by placing them directly in
nature. The “Grotto of Madonna of Wamena” (Figure 5-47), or Goa Bunda Maria (as it
157
Caption as it appears on the postcard.
319
is locally known) in Kurulu has been revered for more than a decade and this Black
Madonna, like Moiwend’s Cave of Maria, is inspired by the Grotto of The Blessed
Virgin in Lourdes, France.158 Both if these sites of syncretic Christianity in Papua
assert a connection to the world of Papuan nature that transcends religious iconography.
Locating these objects in the landscape of Papua does not require the authority of any
religious community. Such expressions of reverence can free spiritual practice from
prescribed religious structures and architectures to enable innovation by anyone who
desires (or is impelled) to establish new forms of spiritual/religious worship (cf. Giay
1995). In this sense, Donet’s deliberate and self-reflexive work on the Cave of Maria
suggests a parallel to Plato’s allegorical prisoner who escapes the cave (Plato 360 BCE).
He will:
…see the sun, and not mere reflections of him(self) in the water, but he will see
him(self) in his own proper place, and not in another; and he will contemplate
him(self) as he is.
In the context of Papua, and Melanesia more generally, spontaneous and spiritually
inspired movements or practices are often interpreted as a form of millenarian practice
(Worsley 1957; Lindstrom 1993). Donet’s spiritual worldview, involving both major
and minor Prophets, may be seen as further evidence of such a disposition. But
connections between the spiritual world and the realm of Papuan nature were
fundamental to most forms of pre-contact spirituality across New Guinea and are well
known even in the relatively few mythologies that have been documented in the region
– including other Caves of Wonder (Arifin and Delanghe 2004). Donet’s Cave of
Maria at Hawai may suggest incipient new initiatives and practices that seek to reconnect Papuan spiritual and natural worlds. It raises questions about the way in which
‘tradition’ is deployed in Papuan art and architecture: although this project received the
endorsement of the Catholic Church in Papua, such innovations may come to be seen
as a challenge to the foundations of established Christian practice in Papua.
Have you not read this scripture:
‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord’s doing,
and it is amazing in our eyes’?”
158
Moiwend’s white-skinned Maria is a (souvenir) replica of The Blessed Virgin in Lourdes and even
includes the caption “Lourdes” on her plinth.
320
The Reverend Kamma took the final line of this verse from the Bible (Mark 12:11-12)
as the title of his authorised history of the Protestant Church in Papua.159 The
cornerstone, the foundation on which a building is constructed, is the place of
Christianity in Papua. Kamma is not only asserting the success of the Protestant
Church in building a religious community in West New Guinea, but also his conviction
that this sense of community has become foundational to Papuan community life. The
importance of Christian community is suggested in recent celebrations in Papua,
focussed on a site of specific religious and architectural significance.
On 5 February 2005, the town of Manokwari hosted celebrations to mark the 150th
Anniversary of Christianity in Papua. There were street festivals, special
commemorative church services and a marching competition with more than 300
teams.160 The event drew spectators, participants and pilgrims from across Eastern
Indonesia. Activities were focussed on Mansinam Island where Ottow and Geissler
first landed, and at Kwawi, the site of the first Church on mainland New Guinea. In
scale, pomp and ceremony, these celebrations could not have contrasted more starkly
with the first tentative steps taken by these two German church workers in 1855.
Figure 5-48: Graven Images: Ottow and Geissler Memorial, Kwawi
(Photograph by the author, November 2001)
159
Kamma’s history takes his title from a slightly different translation, A miracle in our eyes (Kamma
1981, 1982, 1994).
160
Although it is tempting to suggest that these were ‘Christian soldiers’, the marching competition
appears to have been a deliberate strategy by the provincial government to encourage the participation of
non-Christians in the festivities.
321
Crowds queued at the gates of the Ottow and Geissler memorial.161 Inside the
memorial pilgrims strained to see Ottow’s grave and to read (and understand) the
gilded inscription on the black marble stone, written in Dutch (my translation):162
C.W. OTTOW WITH J.G. GEISSLER
AS FIRST MISSIONARIES ON NEW GUINEA LANDED ON
THE 5TH OF FEBRUARY 1855 AT MANSINAM
DECEASED ON THE 9TH OF NOV 62 AT KWAWI
BLESSED ARE THOSE WHO HAVE NOT SEEN
[the light/the two missionaries]
BUT NEVERTHELESS WOULD HAVE BELIEVED.
The structure is a remarkable monument to the early Protestant evangelists of the north
coast of New Guinea. It is a scaled replica in concrete of the rum sram of Dore Bay as
illustrated in the van der Goes report of 1858 (Figure 5-7) – the architectural
embodiment of the cultural and religious practices that Ottow and Geissler worked so
hard to displace. Although it is free of religious idols the entire structure represented a
form of idolatry to these early missionaries.163 Their edification through this
monument also suggests an institutional intention to enable “those who have not seen”
to see, in deference to their epitaph. Modern Manokwari, however, is awash with
stylised rum srams (in miniature as ornate signs for buildings and gateways and as the
featured architectural element of the offices of the provincial governor). Similarly,
several Dutch-era Protestant churches reminiscent of the first Church of Hope (Figure
5-8) still feature in the urban landscape. The predominately Protestant churches of the
north coast of Papua have become, in many respects, the new traditional houses (rumah
adat) for these communities. On the south coast of Papua, at the site of the first
Catholic mission station in Papua, a very different – albeit familiar – pattern has
emerged.
161
Two angels kneel atop the columns of these gates. Their folded wings arch forward to touch one other
and in their hands a sign proclaims that “Joyful are they who Glorify the Name of God” (my translation).
This enclosure has a small grassy forecourt with the memorial at the rear. The memorial enclosure is
flanked on both sides by GKI churches, an old replica of the original church at Kwawi and a brand new
church built in the past few years and completed for the 150th Anniversary celebrations with funds from
the local congregation, the Dutch Reform Church and the provincial government (Department of
Religion).
162
The memorial stone itself is written in Dutch and Numfor languages. Carl Ottow, who died at Kwawi
of a fever in 9 November 1962 is buried there, alongside members of the van Hasselt family and several
other later missionaries to New Guinea.
163
It may also be argued that the two Archangels which frame the entrance are a form of idolatry.
322
The ‘model’ settlement structure established by van Kolk, Vertenten and their Sacred
Heart Mission order and endorsed by the Dutch administration (and the Protestant
churches that came later to the region) is today understood as the traditional village
structure in the hinterland of Merauke.164 These free-standing family homes, with
individually fenced gardens on clean and well-maintained streets, have apparently
failed to instil the cultural changes they were intended to promote among these
communities almost a hundred years ago. The Marind-Anim people are today
struggling to cope with the onslaught of a new disease, HIV/AIDS. Their nucleated
families and settlements have not substantially altered their cultural practices and their
capacity to contain this new disease is extremely limited.165 Progress in the region is
brought into question and government has (again) been slow to respond to this public
health crisis (which has been apparent since the mid-1990s, see Path Indonesia and
Departmen Kesehatan 1997).
In the Tropenmuseum (“Museum of the Tropics” of the KIT) in Amsterdam, Father
Petrus Vertenten, MSC is on permanent exhibition.166 The Belgian priest of the Sacred
Heart Mission is celebrated here for his skilful and sensitive portraiture of the MarindAnim and his efforts to protect them from the waves of disease brought to the region
through foreign contact and trade. The focus in this corner of the museum is not the
colonial administration or Christian mission per se or its place in the lives of the locals.
The display seems intended to evoke Vertenten’s life in New Guinea and the refuge he
found in his austere study (recreated as the centrepiece of the display). He is
surrounded by photographs of Marind-Anim in outdoor ceremonies and his portraits of
them in exotic garb. Through this juxtaposition, and the recognition of Vertenten’s
campaign to mobilise Dutch authorities to protect the Marind-Anim, the display asserts
the mission’s moral authority and its key role in the history of the region. There is also
an intriguing sculpture on Vertenten’s desk.
164
This pattern of settlement was uniform in numerous villages in the Merauke region that I visited in
1997.
165
See articles at Papuaweb’s HIV/AIDS page [http://www.papuaweb.org/dlib/tema/hiv-aids/index.html].
166
Since his ethnographic collection, artworks and personal effects were acquired by the Tropenmuseum
from the Mission of the Sacred Heart (Borgerhout) in 2002.
323
Figure 5-49: “Archangel in the form of a Javanese prince”
(Photograph by the author, June 2006)
The statue of an archangel was presented to Father Vertenten when he left
Netherlands New Guinea. It was carved in wood by Iko, a West Javanese, nonChristian who made statues of saints and altarpieces for Catholic churches and
missions in Indo-Javanese style.167
The inclusion by museum staff of “Archangel in the form of a Javanese prince” (Figure
5-49) in the Vertenten display is ambiguous in its meaning. We know from the caption
that this sculpture was not on Vertenten’s desk during his time in New Guinea. The
“Archangel…” reminds us that such cultural classifications and categories are also
influenced by institutional arrangements, which are social, economic and, most
importantly, political in nature (see Chapter 4). Vertenten’s Archangel is a symbolic
representation of the unity of purpose in the Church’s work across the East Indies
colony. The “New Guinea Exhibition Hall” (which brings together artefacts from
Papua with those of neighbouring Papua New Guinea) and the giant bisj poles that
stand in the grand hall of the Tropenmuseum, speak of different classificatory systems
and other forms of belonging.
167
This quote and the physical description: “wood, West Java, Indonesia, 1926. Acquisition: 2002, from
the Sacred Heart Mission, Borgerhout” are copied verbatim from the caption label for the sculpture as
presented in the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam. This sculpture also appears to have been included in the
Netherlands East Indies pavilion at the 1931 Paris Colonial Exposition (see Gedenkboek 1931:113.)
324
The civilising presence of colonial administrators and missionaries, once celebrated by
the Colonial Institute, have long since given way to more complex post-colonial forms
of influence. Churches in Papua in many cases today are directed and controlled to a
significant extent by local congregations. The involvement and authority of Papuans in
these churches, particularly the larger Protestant churches of the GKI and GKII, has
also resulted in new kinds of politicisation of church structures (cf. van de Wal 2006;
Farhadian 2005). In Mubes2000 and Congress2000 (see Chapter 2), the push from
church congregations for political representation from their leadership structure in
relation to issues of Papuan independence was particularly apparent. Strong support
has also been forthcoming from the Catholic Church in Papua in work for the
protection and promotion of Papuan rights and in calls for reconciliation for collective
Papuan grievances with Indonesian governance.168 Religious groups in Papua have at
times, and particularly in the post-Suharto period, directly challenged the authority of
local and national government institutions in Papua. This challenge has its roots in the
relationships of civil society to government authority in the province (see Chapter 2).
Figure 5-50: “Cornerstones…?” Remnants of the DPRD Manokwari (2001)
(Detail of photograph by the author, November 2001)
168
See SKP’s webpage on ecumenical and inter-faith statements/declarations (seruan-seruan) concerning
Papua (http://www.hampapua.org/skp/indexd.html).
325
The central government, in its attempts to address ongoing political tensions in Papua,
has adopted several new and apparently contradictory policy initiatives in the postSuharto period. The Provincial Assembly (DPRD) in Manokwari, once a building that
celebrated a variety of Geelvink Bay-style architectural embellishments, was torched
and burnt out by fire in 2001 following independence-related protests. Only the
concrete shell of the building remained in late 2001. The motifs ‘carved’ into the wet
cement columns of the building and other locally crafted embellishment did not bring
sufficient sense of ownership of the institution to prevent the building from becoming
the target of frustrated local protestors. Government offices and commercial buildings
have been the focus of repeated acts of vandalism and arson in Papua in the postreform period (since 1998).169 Despite the extreme anti-Christian religious violence in
neighbouring Maluku, as well as Poso (Sulawesi) and Java, the thousands of churches
in Papua have note yet been the focus of mob violence or arson.170 Yet these churches
today, like the mosques of Papua, must vie for position in an urban landscape
increasingly dominated by the rapid expansion of commercial and residential buildings
in the cities (Jayapura and Sorong) and towns of Papua.
The building boom evident in many towns in Papua today is largely unrelated to
Christianity, Islam or any other religious practice in Papua. It is sustained by a
combination of national and provincial government funding together with substantial
private investment from within Indonesia and abroad. This new period of prosperity in
Papua began in the early 1990s with the massive expansion of PT Freeport Indonesia’s
copper and gold operation and their exploitation of the Grasberg ore deposit.171 The
wealth at Grasberg is so colossal it gave the parent company, Freeport McMoran, the
169
Most of the commercial buildings in Manokwari, as elsewhere in Papua are owned by local Chinese
entrepreneurs, Indonesian migrants and large Indonesian corporations typically based elsewhere in the
country.
170
There was tremendous anxiety about mass religious violence in Papua in the first few years of
Reformasi, and considerable suspicion (and prejudice) towards Moluccan refugees attempting to flee to
Papua for safety. In some instances during my visits to Papua in 2000 and 2001, boats of Moluccan
refugees were refused safe harbour in Papua because of the concern that they would (literally) bring the
conflict to Papua. During this period, ecumenical and inter-faith peace movements in Papua played a
vital role in maintaining harmony in the province (see Chapter 4). There are a substantial number of
reports on recent interethnic and interfaith violence in Indonesia. See HRW (http://www.hrw.org), ICG
(http://www.icg.org) and the recent UNDP report at
(http://www.undp.org/cpr/documents/prevention/integrate/country_app/indonesia/Malukufinal%5B1%5D.pdf).
171
It is estimated that in 2008 the Grasberg complex in the southern highlands of Papua will return
US$4.8 billion in gross revenues (Freeport McMoran Copper and Gold Inc. 2007b:45).
326
confidence to develop a bold new future for its employees and the region. The
company, as part of its “Enhanced Infrastructure Project” invested more than US$250
million in the design and construction of a new company town.172
Figure 5-51: “New Town will offer its residents and visitors…” (1994)
(PT Freeport Indonesia 1994:1)
“New Town” (Kota Baru), in the southern lowlands near the existing boomtown of
Timika, epitomises enclave development (cf. Garnaut and Manning 1974:71-81).173
Officially inaugurated as Kuala Kencana (Golden River) by President Suharto in
December 1995, this exclusive residential complex features an 18 hole golf course (and
club house), a 12 hectare recreation area (including an Olympic size swimming pool,
tennis courts and indoor soccer field), its own retail and entertainment complex (with a
bowling alley, cinemas, library, supermarket and restaurants) and quality residential
accomodation for more than 3000 people (ranging in sizes from 54-160 m2 all fully
172
Unless otherwise indicated information on Freeport’s New Town is from my notes of a meeting with
Charlie White, Director Community Affairs Freeport Indonesia, in Timika and Kuala Kencana in
December 1995) and from my own observations during several visits to Kuala Kencana in the mid-late
1990s.
173
New Town was developed to relieve problems of overcongestion at the company’s highlands town of
Tembagapura (whose population in the early 1990s peaked at 12,000 people) and provide more appealing
accomodation alternatives for workers and their families. Many non-mine related jobs were moved from
Tembagapura to the lowlands once New Town was completed. Demand for accomodation in New Town
was also high among company employees living in Timika (and its long-term Freeport enclave of Timika
Jaya).
327
airconditioned).174 Access to Kuala Kencana is tightly controlled by police
checkpoints and vehicles require special passes for entry to enter the complex.175 Yet
while this exclusive complex once afforded accomodation and retail opportunities the
envy of residents elsewhere in Papua, the wealth apparent elsewhere in the province
has made such amenities more accessible in other towns across Papua.
New hotels, office buildings, retail and residential developments are now congesting
the urban centres of towns like Jayapura, which recently introduced a by-law which
obliges all new buildings (and redevelopments) to be at least 4 storeys high and include
car parking (see Ikatan Arsitek Indonesia 2005). These buildings, “messengers of the
might in the land” (after Conrad 1902:67), seek to appear sleek and ‘international’ in
style and make few, if any, concessions to a ‘traditional’ Papuan aesthetic. Made of
imported and often expensive materials, they are possible only in the largest of Papuan
towns (notably Jayapura, Sorong and, since 2003, the new provincial capital of
Manokwari), where the routine supply from elsewhere in Indonesia of such materials
makes these buildings affordable. In the more remote regions of Papua national
government subsidies for basic materials such as cement are in decline, slowing the
construction of new buildings. While the urban environment increasingly conforms to
an ‘international’ – or rather, modern Indonesian – style, the loss of a provincial
architecture contrasts with the continued rise in in the recognition within the province,
across Indonesia and internationally of Asmat art as an emblem of Papua.
174
The town has one of the best infrastructure systems in Indonesia with underground power, sewage,
water, drainage, street lighting and fully sealed roads.
175 Freeport has been an enclave since it was first granted a concession in Irian in the late 1960s. As
Mitton observed in the late 1970s, “Vacuum-sealed from the world beyond the town’s roads, most of the
inhabitants have no knowledge of, nor any interest in, the wider context of Irian Jaya” (Mitton 1983:232).
My personal observations at Timika and Kuala Kencana in the late 1990s and 2001 suggest little change
to the enclave culture Mitton described three decades ago.
328
Figure 5-52: “Dies Natalis Pertama Unipa” (2001)
Asmat art is now synonymous with Papua. In November 2001, at the “First
Anniversary Ceremony of the University of Papua” (Figure 5-52), a purpose-built stage
was assembled in the main auditorium of the University of Papua in Manokwari. The
feature of the set was two free-standing four metre high tifa (drums) columns flanking
the stage. Each monumental tifa was emblazoned with colour and embellished with
local motifs (from the Cenderawasih/Geelvink Bay tradition) and Asmat motifs,
representing a cultural connection across the territory of Papua from the Bird’s Head to
the southern swamps.
Despite recent reports of poor church attendance across the Asmat region (de
Hontheim, pers. comm. June 2005), it appears that the long-term support of the
Catholic church and the Indonesian government in the promotion of Asmat art has
helped it achieve widespread recognition of this cultural identity across Papua,
Indonesia and the world.176 Although Ibu Tien Suharto’s efforts and her Taman Mini
Indonesia Indah project was decades behind the substantial work of the Asmat Art
Depot and the decades of committed cross-cultural work by Bishop Sowada and his
fellow Crosier missionaries, official endorsement was crucial in expanding domestic
recognition of and markets for Asmat art. In the process, Ibu Tien’s TMII and Asmat
Museum helped to reinforce recognition of Papuan architecture and art for domestic
176
Such recognition has, of course, been helped by the prominent display of Asmat art in international
collections, notably in The Netherlands (at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, the Museum Volkenkunde
in Leiden and the Wereld Museum in Rotterdam) and United States (at the MET in New York City,
which includes the Asmat collection of the former Museum of Primitive Art).
329
and international visitors to Indonesia and its easternmost province(s). Although the
resulting structures were mere shadows of traditional architecture, they have aquired
new cultural meanings or significance (albeit without the consent or endorsement of
traditional communities whose cultures they purport to represent), they have attained
an authority as icons of Papuan in part through such representations. Moreover, the
influence of TMII is by no means a spent force in the post-Suharto period.
Figure 5-53: Rum sram, Papua Pavilion, TMII (2007)
Figure 5-54: Rum sram in the TMII complex
(satellite image created through Google Maps, March 2008)
In the past few years, and presumably in response to the political division (pemekaran)
of Papua into two provinces (see Chapter 4), TMII has constructed a new West Papua
Pavilion adjacent to its original Papua (Irian Jaya) Pavilion. The classic roof structure
330
of the rum sram at TMII (Figure 5-53) is augmented by ornamentation from across
Papua and its entrance ‘guarded’ by a Kamoro wemawe ancestor pole (itself an
emerging icon of Papua since the rise of Freeport’s New Town and cultural patronage
of Kamoro carving; see Roper 1999; Jacobs 2003). By this addition, TMII is
demonstrating its capacity to adapt to bureaucratic change and its enduring ambition to
define for its (largely) domestic audience the ‘traditional’ arts and architectures of
Papua and the nation. The pavilion is also a physical assertion – within the framework
of Taman Mini – of the administrative creation of the new province of West Papua. It
was constructed, as expected, on the easternmost edge of the archipelago to the north of
the original Irian Jaya Pavilion (Figure 5-54, West Papua Pavilion Rum sram is to the
centre right of Papua in this ‘map’ of Indonesia). Yet while the representations of
Papuan art and architecture are transformed at TMII after a hiatus of three decades, art
and architecture in Papua is evolving constantly.
The Cathedral of Christ the King is an example of a church that combines regional
sensitivities, a distinctive aesthetic style and the effective integration of art with
architecture. Many Papuans and non-Papuans, of varied denominations and faiths,
were involved in the creation of this cathedral. As such, it suggests important
possibilities for collaboration – and possibly even peace-building – through large-scale
construction projects in Papua. Its congregation is similarly diverse in ethnicity –
roughly 50% Papuan (most from Paniai and Balim/Dani) and the remainder from
across Indonesia (including around 17% of Javanese origin) (Fr. Frans Leishout, pers
comm. July 2003).177 Fr. Frans Leishout notes that,
The Papuan members are especially proud because they feel that the
decorations are from Papua. The members from other parts of Indonesia are
proud too and most of them accept the Papuan colour…
177
Father Lieshout noted in correspondence with me that the liturgy is also often conducted in a Paniai or
Baliem (Dani) style, incorporating specific cultural cues and practices from these regions in the general
service.
331
Figure 5-55: “Katedral Kristus Raja, Jayapura (pasca renovasi, 2001)”
(Photograph by the author, November 2001)
The ‘Papuan colour’ of Jayapura’s Cathedral of Christ the King (post renovation, 2001)
is stunning (Figure 5-55). Gone are the sombre tones of the colour scheme originally
chosen by Brother Henk and Jaap v.d. Werf for the Cathedral. The renovation was
completed in 2000 with a colour scheme chosen by the Javanese foreman to reflect a
more Papuan aesthetic.178 The Cathedral was painted by volunteers from the
congregation – a group of unemployed young Dani. Their paint job and the angular
style characteristic of much of Br. Henk’s church designs and paint schemes both
suggest possibilities for an emergent Papuan aesthetic. Roper (1999:36) notes that the
vibrant (often fluorescent) colours of Batik Irian have their origins in problems of
supply of coloured fabric dyes from Java. Yet such brightly coloured clothing appears
to resonate with Papuan aesthetic sensibilities. Since the mid-1990s and in a period of
greater prosperity in Papua, it is these brightly coloured garments that have come to
characterise the Batik Irian worn with pride by many across Papua. The colourful
character of this batik and its Papuan motifs are a clear mark of distinction and a stark
contrast to the muted colours and restrained designs of traditional Javanese batik,
suggesting that the new colour scheme for the Cathedral may indeed be a sign of an
emerging Papuan aesthetic.
178
Brother Henk was told that these vibrant colours were purchased by accident and by the time v.d. Werf
had realised this mistake the painting of the cathedral was already well underway.
332
Conclusion
This chapter was introduced with two quotes, the first an aphorism by Ruskin
(1849:27) on the effect of the built environment on human beings and, by extension,
their social worlds. Case material presented here demonstrates some of the
significance and influence of architecture (broadly defined) on socio-cultural, political
and economic life in Papua – its role in ‘constructing’ Papuan community. This
importance of architecture in community life was recognised by the first Christian
missionaries in New Guinea who, like their contemporaries in Africa, “took it for
granted that houses and the routines they inscribed, constructed their inhabitants. [That]
the architecture of civilization should… be an effectual means of insinuating hygienic,
Godly habits into heathen life” (Comaroff and Comaroff 1997:277). The
transformations brought by church and state in Papua over much of the past century
have reflected this essential connection between architecture and community and
between physical edifices and moral edification.
The second proposition put forward at the outset of this chapter, that “Life imitates art”
(Oscar Wilde 1889) is clearly illustrated by several of the cases in this study. In the
early contact period, when Papuan architecture was first rendered ‘primitive’, it was
taken as an exemplar of the lives of prehistoric Swiss lake-dwellers. The architecture
of the rum sram of Dore Bay has come full circle now, standing both as a memorial to
Ottow and Geissler and as an assertion of syncretic Papuan Christianity. Similarly, the
art of the Asmat, once intimately connected to Asmat architecture and spirit worlds, has
been taken up by Papuans in their representations of pan-Papuan community and more
widely as a regional expression of Indonesian cultural life.
Many of the examples put forward in this chapter illustrate a range of tensions in the
way the Indonesian administration and Christian churches have interacted with one
another and with Papuan communities. The core importance of networks of patronage
and control in realising much of this cultural expression, and the strategic role for
individuals within such institutional frameworks, is demonstrated most emphatically
through the works of missionaries such as Br. Henk Blom ofm and of Papuan artists
such as ‘Donet’ Moiwend. Such practices are clearly not new to Papua, but they do
333
suggest models for the continued and enhanced patronage of Papuan architecture, art
and culture by the state and civil society more generally.
While the state seeks to govern the architecture of Papua through urban planning
regulations and other sanctions on certain forms of artistic expression (notably in
relation to independence imagery, see Chapter 6), it readily recognises a broad
diversity of cultural expression by myriad actors, investors and agents in the
construction of the urban environment. While the Nieuw Guinea Raad building and
Boven Digoel memorial demonstrate the ambition of both colonial and post-colonial
states to project their authority over political and cultural life, they also exemplify the
contingencies and compromises within which state actors and agencies must operate.
Papuan agency finds expression through all such processes; from the rejection by local
communities of the rum sram and its cultural practices to their endorsement of it as a
memorial to Christianity in Papua. Local agency and local community inserts itself in
various ways through all the examples of architectural practice considered in this
chapter – from the decision of local communities in the Kepi region to choose peace
over internecine conflict to the satisfaction of local congregations with their colourful
new Cathedral of Jayapura.
The diversity and richness of architectural and artistic expression considered in this
chapter suggests all kinds of possibilities for pan-Papuan cultural expression and for
enhancing cultural practice in Papua. Most importantly, this history of cultural change
in Papua might also reassure both the Indonesian state and Papuan communities that
the cultural anxieties of the present have their analogues in the past and need not
imperil the future.
*****
334
The Development of West Irian is not just a local problem for West Irian,
Not just a problem for the people of West Irian…
The Development of West Irian is also
Your problem and my problem,
Your problem and my problem,
It is a problem for us all,
A problem for the Indonesian Revolution
And for the entire Indonesian Nation!
Speech by President Soekarno, December 1963
Buatlah Irian Barat satu Zamrud jang Indah
(Indonesia. Departemen Penerangan 1964:151)
my translation
335
336
– CHAPTER 6 –
Imprinting Indonesian Papua
Imprint (v.) To mark by pressure; to impress, stamp (a figure, etc. on something); to portray;
to impress with some feeling, quality, etc; to be impressed upon, manifest itself in;
to bring about… a state of habitual recognition of or trust in another animal
or an object, which may thus come to be regarded as a parent.
The previous three chapters considered various ‘artefacts’ of Papua and processes by
which they move from subjective or isolated instances of representation to more
coherent and cohesive popular expressions of Papua. These practices are demonstrated
to be contingent with Papua (and Papuan identity) emerging as a dynamic and multiply
constituted entity. This chapter considers some of the implications of these imprints of
Indonesian Papua with particular reference to the pathologies of the present (Chapter 2).
Finally, as President Soekarno presciently suggested in a speech in 1963 (frontispiece of
chapter), development in Papua is not just an issue for the peoples of Papua as this
‘problem’ affects all Indonesians and challenges the very ideals and values at the core of
the revolution and the Indonesian nation.
“Dari Merauke sampai Sabang”
In a period of emerging democratic freedoms within Indonesia, state representations and
state practices in Papua are increasingly challenged by non-state actors and mainstream
media in the territory and elsewhere in Indonesia. Such practices are analogous to the
socio-cultural and political influence exerted by former colonies on their old imperial
centres – processes which recognise interactive histories and the effects of bringing the
empire back home. In the context of Papua, this inverts the old revolutionary phrase
“from Sabang to Merauke”, shifting Papua from the margins and into the centre of
debates about the character and depth of state reform and the future of Indonesia.
337
Figure 6-1: “Buatlah Irian Barat satu zamrud jang indah”
Indonesia. Departemen Penerangan 1964, cover illustration)
“Make West Irian a beautiful emerald!” (Figure 6-1) is the cover to a book containing
the speeches of senior Indonesian government officials (including Soekarno, above) to
mark the first year of Indonesian governance in Papua (1 May 1964). A Papuan man is
illustrated with arms outstretched – as if he is the “emerald” in the necklace, the missing
link in the island chain that is Indonesia (see Chapter 4). In the background is a treehouse modelled after those found in the Arfak mountains inland from Manokwari.1 To
the bottom right of the frame is a Dani house (honai) and to the far left a north coast
canoe sits beside two Asmat spirit (bisj) poles. Forests and rugged mountains are the
backdrop for various items of material culture including spears, a shield and a stone axe.
The man’s full-length suit is accentuated by a distinctively ‘Indonesian’ batik shirt. A
symbol of Papuan traditional dress, the penis gourd (koteka or holim) appears behind
him (to his right), alongside ethnographic curios which suggest a primitive, stone age
past. Unlike the other figure in partial view to his left (west) dressed in a traditional
sarong, this Papuan has foregone his koteka (or other traditional attire) for a modern suit.
While this symbolism might appear unambiguous – the illustrator asserting a modern
“Indonesian” identity for Papua(ns) – it is not as straightforward as it seems. The
depiction of a “modern” Papuan and a traditional Moluccan (or possibly Javanese) is a
curious inversion of stereotypical imagery of Papuans as ‘primitive’. The abstracted
1
While such tree-houses are now popularly associated with the Korowai lands of the southeast interior
swamplands of Papua (e.g. Steinmetz 1996), they were once commonplace in the hinterland of
Manokwari (see Verslag 1920, inset pp.282-283, Schets 5) and this traditional architectural form is still
celebrated in the town of Manokwari (known colloquially as a “1000 legs house” or rumah kaki seribu).
338
batik motif on his shirt represents the mythical Garuda, the centrepiece of the
Indonesian national crest (coat of arms).2 This specific motif (not the Garuda per se)
was once a symbol of the Sultan of Yogyakarta, its use forbidden to others (see
Steinmann 1958:31-36, fig.80). The colloquial use of this motif embodies genealogies
that challenge assumptions of power and authority in Indonesia. While it is popular
among Papuan and foreign critics today to decry Indonesian motives for “liberating”
Irian as purely self-serving, many Indonesian nationalists were drawn to this cause by
revolutionary ideals. Such aspirations, combined with revolutionary action, helped to
curtail the power and privilege of imperial courts across the archipelago and enable the
emergence of a more egalitarian society in Indonesia.3
Revolution and involution
Brothers and Sisters… I appeal to you: Stimulate your fighting spirit. Plant the
Sang Merah Putih from Sabang till Merauke. In West Irian too, from the coast
till the virgin forests… at places such as Fak-fak, Manokwari, Biak, Serui,
Kaimana and Kota Baru, on the banks of Sentani Lake under the beating waves
of the Tabi Bay on the beach of the Pacific Ocean under the waving of the Sang
Merah Putih. The future is ours (Yamin 1962:7-8).
The demand that Indonesia be free “from Sabang to Merauke” (dari Sabang sampai
Merauke) was a persistent call to arms for Indonesian nationalists in the dispute with
The Netherlands over the future of West New Guinea (1949-1962).4 For nationalists
such as Prof. Dr. Mohammad Yamin, Deputy First Minister and Minister of Information
in Indonesia, this Soekarno-era phrase evoked a glorious history of ancient archipelagic
empires.5 For the Dutch, this cartographic imaginary was evoked as their sparkling
“belt of emeralds” (De Gordel van Smaragd), the arc of their influence from west to
east across the archipelago.6
2
Garuda, the mount of the Hindu God Vishnu, is the centrepiece in the Indonesian coat of arms.
It is important to recognise that while the Dutch colonial administration had a policy of indirect rule (i.e.
of accommodating and exploiting indigenous leadership structures) the VOC and later Dutch colonial
administration did change the nature of many pre-existing power structures across the archipelago. On
the complexities of these processes see Sutherland (1979) and Stoler (1989).
4
It was also popularised in song: “From Sabang to Merauke stretches island upon island. One after the
other they link up as one, that is Indonesia! Indonesia my homeland, I promise you that I will honour you,
my homeland Indonesia” (music and lyrics by R. Suharjo).
5
As Henley (1995:288) suggests “...Javanese empires were probably more useful to Indonesian
nationalists as remote abstractions than as living memories.”
6
Gordel translates as belt, or girdle, and may also be a band or sash. The original phrase De Gordel van
Smaragd was coined by Eduard Douwes Dekker in 1860 (Multatuli 1860:194). For an illustration of this
cartographic imaginary, see Bijkerk (2003:41).
3
339
When the New York Agreement to “guarantee” the provisions of the transfer of
sovereignty of West New Guinea was signed between The Netherlands and Indonesia
(15 August 1962), Indonesian Foreign Minister Subandrio gave a carefully scripted
speech. Although the ink was barely dry on the document, he declared the profound
significance of the event for Indonesia (and by implication the incorporation of West
New Guinea into the Republic as a fait accompli):
For the Indonesian people this very moment is regarded as a very important
national occasion since with the signing of the agreement the Indonesian unity
has been restored and therefore the basis for the struggle for independence
completed as part and parcel of the Indonesian revolution (Indonesia.
Departemen Penerangan 1962:88).
The realisation of Indonesia, from Sabang to Merauke, was a great achievement for the
Indonesian state, but it did not signify an end to Revolution for President Soekarno. He
envisaged a thriving, industrious and prosperous Indonesia, prominent and respected
among nations, and sustained by ongoing revolutionary zeal (see Soekarno in Subandrio
2001:13-22). Yet the success of the Trikora operation (see Chapter 3) brought a loss of
focus to this nationalist fervour, weighed down further by economic collapse and the
failures of Confrontation (Konfrontasi) with the new nation of Malaysia over the future
of British Borneo. By early 1965, Indonesia had descended into political chaos and
violence precipitated by the failed G30S ‘coup’. The anti-communist pogrom that
followed presaged the ascent of Suharto’s New Order (Cribb 1990). With the end of the
Old Order, the effective resolution in 1962 of the West Irian dispute in Indonesia’s
favour through the New York Agreement (and final transfer of authority in May 1963)
marks, by default, the last great cause and triumph of the Indonesian Revolution.
In November 2000, in the wake of the call of Congress2000 to “rectify Papua’s history
of incorporation into Indonesia”, a book titled Straightening the History of the Struggle
for West Irian was published in Jakarta by the “Foundation for My Nation” (Yayasan
Kepada Bangsaku). It was, undeniably, one of the last gasps of the Old (Revolutionary)
Order. This orthodox pro-nationalist narrative was written by former Foreign Minister
Subandrio. At 86 years of age and after three decades imprisonment (1966-1995) as a
‘communist’ under the New Order regime, he was eager to retell his version of the
history of Irian’s integration into Indonesia. The book was introduced by Roeslan
340
Abdulgani, a nationalist contemporary of Subandrio and Indonesian Minister of
Information in 1962.7 In tone and in substance, Subandrio’s book bears more than a
passing similarity to Ministry of Information publications on Papua from the early and
late 1960s. The book appears wilfully ignorant of the disdain for the Ministry of
Information in recent years (as a propaganda tool of the state) that resulted in its
abolition in late-1999 by President Abdurrahman Wahid. Subandrio’s publication,
however, is not an isolated case. A variety of books on Irian’s integration into the
nation have been published recently, including speeches made by Soekarno in the West
Irian campaign (Indonesia. Soekarno 2000), many by pro-nationalist groups such as
Foundation for My Nation.8 Such history appears to be offered up as a palliative to a
younger generation of Indonesians for whom incessant reports of conflict and disunity
may seem anathema to the aims and aspirations of Reformasi. They are also intended to
shore up the foundations of Indonesian history and nationalist ideology and to attempt,
once again, to project the myth of past unity into the present and the future.9
These foundations were built through the narrative assertions, made by both Old and
New Orders, of the central role played by the military in the formation and defence of
the Republic. In practice, however, such efforts to create a “history in uniform” could
not succeed in the creation of a uniform history for the nation (see McGregor 2007).
This project’s fatal flaw was its epistemological presumption that history (and thereby
culture) could be produced, manipulated, controlled and accounted for by a single
authority. This premise fails to recognise a basic distinction between the assertion of a
historical narrative, political practice or cultural imaginary vis-a-vis the agency intrinsic
in its interpretation and acceptance. In practice this presumption, imposed over the
diverse historical, political and cultural experiences of the peoples of “Indonesia”, relied
7
He was appointed to this position in October 1962, but quickly assumed responsibility for all Ministry
of Information publications related to West Irian and made several visits to the territory during the 1960s,
including for the official UNTEA transfer ceremony on 1 May 1963.
8
The most remarkable of these is a polemic study published in Russian in 1961 and translated and republished in Indonesian in 2003 with an introduction by Jimmy Ijie of the Irian Jaya Crisis Centre in
Depdagri (see Kesselbrenner 2003). Other recent publications with relevance to Irian variously glorify
and expound on the ideals (and realities) of the Revolution, with regard to the political prisoners held in
the Boven Digoel “concentration” camp (Suwardi 2003, Kartodikromo 2002, Karmtomi 2001, Thamrin
2001, Toer 2001, Wiranta 2000) or focus on the contribution of Papuans to the nationalist struggle. See
Sukmawati’s (2000) tribute to J.A.Dimara and the Post Office’s history of the “official” Indonesian hero
Frans Kaisiepo (see Chapter 3).
9
Indonesia’s revolutionary history was defined as much by the ideas and aspirational nationalism of its
leaders as it was by regional rebellion, violence and bloodshed (see Chapter 3).
341
on the disingenuous recognition by state officials of control as a marker of unity when it
is, more plausibly, a hallmark of dissent. One of the most compelling examples of the
failure of this New Order cultural practice, with important ramifications for Papua, is
the way in which East Timor (now the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste) was
written into – and then effaced from – narratives of the Indonesian nation.
Official accounts of East Timor’s integration into the Republic celebrate a timely
intervention by the Indonesian military in a bloody civil war which “threatened” to
destabilise the region (e.g. Imran 1975). In the years since 1975, Indonesia’s “27th
province”, although never recognised as a part of the country by the United Nations, has
featured prominently in state-sponsored cultural and cartographic assertions of the
nation (including numerous stamp issues). The “Second Option” (referendum) for East
Timor first proposed by Habibie in January 1999, the offer of extensive autonomy, the
UN-sponsored vote for independence in East Timor (30 August 1999), the ensuing
chaos and carnage at the behest of pro-Indonesia and military-sponsored militias and the
belated intervention of the international community were all widely reported in both
Indonesian and international media.10 These events belied decades of disinformation
and ‘good news’ development stories about East Timor circulated across Indonesia by
the New Order regime. Most Indonesians knew little of the desperate and barbarous
actions of its military in the territory over more than two decades.11 Independence was
assumed by many Indonesians to be the consequence of hasty and poorly-scripted
responses to the new possibilities of Reformasi and, according to popular mythology,
imperilled the nation (see Cribb 1999). This was an anxious period for many
Indonesians and the cause of particular frustration and humiliation to the nation’s
military who for 23 years had fought euphemistically titled campaigns such as Operasi
Seroja (Sanskrit for “Lotus”) against East Timorese guerrilla and civilian resistance
groups. In the new era of Reformasi, news of these events was published widely within
Indonesia and abroad. Today, by stark contrast, bad news stories of dissent, demands
10
A broad range of media articles from this period may be found at http://etan.org/et/default.htm.
Van Klinken (2005:109) notes that “The undeclared war in East Timor was so secret that even close
relatives were hardly supposed to know that Indonesian soldiers were dying.” The New Order
suppression of adverse reports from East Timor eased in the wake of the 1991 Santa Cruz cemetery
massacre. Footage of this event was smuggled out of Indonesia and widely broadcast by foreign media,
bringing intense popular and diplomatic pressure to the Suharto government from bilateral and
multilateral partners and donors. Although criticism of the New Order’s practices in East Timor was
typically suppressed in Indonesia at the time, a few authors such as “Seno” used allegory to devastating
effect in their critiques of the regime’s brutal practices in East Timor (see Seno 1995).
11
342
for independence and human rights abuses from Papua are daily fare in Indonesia’s
mainstream media.
Bringing the empire back home
Since the fall of Suharto in May 1998 there has been a remarkable proliferation within
Papua of newspapers and tabloids and significant efforts to improve the professionalism
of Papua-based journalists.12 This has been paralleled by a rise in the number of
websites offering regular news updates from Papua.13 Of equal importance are the new
media freedoms across Indonesia and the resulting changes in editorial policy among
leading Indonesian newspapers like the Jakarta Post and Kompas. These and other
print and online media in Indonesia now provide forthright news reports on events in
Papua as well as regular space for opinion pieces critical of government policies and
practices in Papua (often written by Papuan academics and journalists). This
remarkable development is transforming the way Indonesians receive news about Papua
– about its peoples, their aspirations for independence and the problems of
administration in the province(s). Coverage has also centred on cases of human rights
abuse and legislative disputes brought by Papuans before the Permanent Human Rights
Court in Makassar and the Constitutional Court of Indonesia in Jakarta.14 The
frequency of such reports since May 1998 has heightened awareness among many welleducated Indonesians of Papuan grievances. Negative coverage of government activity
in Papua has also focused on damning “secret” documents pertaining to operations in
Papua disseminated by Papuans (often in positions within the military, police or
government), Papuan sympathisers and other pro-reformers – including members of the
12
The range of newspapers (of varying quality) available in Papua during my visit in 2001 included:
Cenderawasih Pos (Cepos, Jayapura daily broadsheet), Papua Ekspres (Jayapura weekly tabloid), Timika
Pos (Timika daily broadsheet), Papua Pos (Jayapura daily), Pikiran Merdeka (Biak weekly), Suara
Papua (Sorong weekly tabloid), Radar Sorong (special section of Cepos), Radar Serui (special section of
Cepos), Radar Biak (special section of Cepos), Jubi (Jayapura weekly) and TIFA Papua (Jayapura
weekly). For information on changes to print media in Papua since the Dutch period through to the
present day, see Mirino et al. (2003). Some of these are now defunct (i.e. the USAID sponsored Jubi
weekly), but others have appeared in their place (including the online news service www.infopapua.com).
13
For a review of websites offering regularly updated news on events in Papua see the page I prepared for
Papuaweb at http://www.papuaweb.org/vl/www/01.html.
14
The so-called “Abepura Case” of 2000 is one of the most protracted cases of human rights abuse in the
post-New Order period (see Robinson 2002, 2005). DPRD Papua took the national government to the
Constitutional Court over the implementation of Law 45 of 1999 (UU45/1999) via the Presidential
Decree of 1/2003 (Inpres 1/2003) taking the issue of Pemekaran to Constitutional Court (see the ruling of
the Constitutional court on Papuaweb at http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/mahkamah-konstitusi/018-puu-i2003.pdf).
343
security forces (see Chapter 2). Relentlessly bad press about Papua is only occasionally
punctuated by stunning discoveries of new animal species or deposits of mineral or
petroleum wealth (see Chapter 3).
Papua today is more salient that ever before in Indonesia and foreign media.15 For
decades Papua’s natural resource wealth has been of considerable significance to the
Indonesian state, with PT Freeport Indonesia alone one of the largest corporate
taxpayers in the country (see Chapter 4). In the post-New Order era, the governance of
Papua is no longer a peripheral issue for the administration in Jakarta, nor is it
understood as such by Indonesia’s near neighbours,16 or to the wider international
community (see Chauvel 2006c). The decision taken in 2000 by the Dutch government
to commission a historical review of the 1969 Act of Free Choice exemplifies this
concern.17 Similarly, Indonesian governance in Papua (particularly in the wake of
Congress2000 and the death of Theys Eluay in 2001) has been called into question in
parliamentary and house debates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland,
France, Germany, the European Union, Australia, New Zealand.18 The murder of two
U.S. nationals in Timika on 31 August, 2002 strengthened calls from some U.S.
Congressional members for greater Indonesian government accountability for its
15
Despite media bans on Papua: “The authorities have refused to lift a ban on the foreign press from
working in Papua, scene of a crackdown on an independence movement. An Australian TV crew was
expelled from the island and a score of Indonesian journalists have been assaulted by police in the
province.” extract of Reporters sans frontières report for Indonesia 2007 (online at
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=20786). See also Chapter 4.
16
Jamie Mackie has gone as far as stating that of the possible problems he envisages between Australia
and Indonesia in the future “the first and most dangerous… are issues related to separatist movements in
Papua and the support they garner in Australia” (Mackie 2007:12).
17
See Duim (2004) for a brief background to this decision and its consequences for Dutch CSOs and
foreign aid to Indonesia. See Drooglever (2005) for the results of this study and Elson’s incisive review
of Drooglever’s report which argues the importance of the Indonesian nationalist perspective to any
appraisal of Irian’s integration into the Republic (Elson 2007).
18
International concern with Indonesian governance in Papua may also reflects a growing unease among
certain constituencies in these countries with the cynical realpolitik position of their governments in the
past (e.g. see Nevins 2002 on the populist critiques that flow from implicating foreign governments in the
violence and mass murder in East Timor in 1999). Examples where Indonesian government practices in
Papua have been queried in national and supranational parliaments include: queries directed to the French
Foreign Minister regarding the rights of West Papuans and the assassination of Theys Eluay (see Question
écrite n° 10414 de M. Jean-François Picheral (Bouches-du-Rhône - SOC) publiée dans le JO Sénat du
25/12/2003 - page 3676 online at http://www.senat.fr); and “European Parliament resolution on Papua
(Irian Jaya) and Sulawesi in Indonesia”, 13 December 2001
(http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P5-TA-20010709+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=BG). In the First Session of the Universal Periodic Review for
Indonesia (9 April 2008), representatives for Germany, Canada, France, the United Kingdom and The
Netherlands all expressed concern for Indonesian government practices in Papua (see International
Service for Human Rights 2008:4-5).
344
military in Papua and even led to draft legislation demanding a review of the legitimacy
of Indonesian governance in the territory (HR 2601-109). Many Indonesian
government officials, notably President Yudhoyono, protested against the inclusion of
these provisions, which were eventually deleted from the final bill (HR 3057-109).19
International concern and perceptions of Indonesian indifference to conditions in Papua
have resulted in characterisations of Papua as “the last frontier for democratisation,
demilitarisation and decentralisation in Indonesia” (Hedman 2007).
Papua is brought to the attention of Indonesian diplomats, parliamentarians, bureaucrats
and security forces by the international community. Given the wave of nationalist
sentiment in Indonesia with respect to Papua and after the loss of East Timor, the
government has to balance the concerns of the international community with those of its
domestic constituencies – no easy balance as an analogy from Soekarno’s speech on 1
June 1945 on the “Birth of Pancasila” (Indonesia. Soekarno 1984:148-149, my
translation) suggests:
Internationalism does not thrive if it is not rooted in the soil of nationalism.
Nationalism does not blossom and thrive if it is not rooted in the garden of
Internationalism...
Containing the fall-out internationally from adverse reports about Papua is a challenge
for Indonesia’s diplomatic relationships with democratic governments and multilateral
agencies20 – as it is for the management of ongoing governance and security challenges
in Papua. Just as the “Giant Machine” of Papua required the technical and managerial
skills of Western development consultants, engineers and the like (see Chapter 4), so
too the political challenges posed to Jakarta by Papua require bureaucrats and security
personnel with specific ‘expertise’ to manage political and security issues in Papua as
well as the broader media and international dimensions of the issue. This results in key
19
See Vaughn 2006 for detail on HR2601-109 and its amendments in the final Senate bill HR3057-109.
See also the page I prepared for Papuaweb on this issue at http://www.papuaweb.org/vl/www/02/us-2005hr2601/index.html). Various issues related to Papua have been raised on numerous occasions in the
United States House of Representatives by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the U.S.
Senate Representative for American Samoa, Eni Faleomavaega. See, for example, “Faleomavaega and
Congressman Donald Payne call upon African Nations to request UN review of West Papua” at
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/as00_faleomavaega/westpapua.html or their letter of 14 February,
2008 to Ban Ki-moon, Secretary General of the United Nations at http://lists.topica.com/lists/[email protected]/read/message.html?mid=813016149&sort=d&start=33340).
20
Many UN agencies and multi-lateral donors such as the World Bank and Asian Development Bank now
have mandated human rights provisions and principles in their charters of operation.
345
agents of the state being deployed for very specific purposes, including (somewhat
perversely) counterinsurgency operations intended to foment political instability in the
province.21 Reports of such deployments in recent years in Papua are widespread (see
Chapter 2). Of particular relevance in shaping the long-term attitudes and approaches of
the state towards Papua (and other “conflict” zones in Indonesia) are questions relating
to the impacts and influence these experts may have on the policies and practices of the
state when they ‘return’ to their administrative or command centres.
Lebovics (2004) has considered some of the consequences of “bringing the empire back
home” in his book by the same name. His post-colonial study notes how government
officials returning from the periphery (colonies) are frequently rewarded with prominent
positions at the centre (empire), within both the bureaucracy and the military. They
often then become powerful players at the centre of government, recognised for their
competences and influential in matters of politics, culture, international diplomacy, and
security especially with respect to ‘their’ regions.22 They may become both gatekeepers and trouble-shooters when issues related to their experience and expertise are
raised and effectively constrain government initiatives on key issues. But there are
other ways of bringing the empire back home.
21
For example, Prof. Dr. Ermaya Suriadinata is a prominent Jakarta bureaucrat who has assumed several
key advisory roles with respect to Papua. In mid-2000 he was Head of National Unity and Community
Protection in the Department of State (Kesatuan Bangsa dan Perlindungan Masyarakyat, Departemen
Dalam Negeri or Kesbang dan Linmas, Depdagri) and was instrumental in the formulation of the “Papuan
Hydra” (see Chapter 2). Less than two years later Suriadinata had become Governor of the influential
strategic government think-tank, the Institute for National Resistance (Lembaga Ketahanan Nasional
Republik Indonesia, Lemhannas). See Suriadinata’s report on dividing Papua (Indonesia. Lemhannas
2002) and the discussion of this document and the policy of Pemekaran in Chapter 4. Examples of
similar individuals in the security forces include Major General Mahidin Simbolon and East Timorese
militia leader Eurico Guterres, both notorious for their role in state-sanctioned violence in East Timor in
1999, who were both ‘posted’ to Papua following East Timor’s independence (Guterres was never
officially a member of the security forces, but acted with the knowledge and complicity of the security
forces in East Timor. See the entry for Eurico Guterres on the Masters of Terror website at
http://www.villagechief.com/mot/cons92z%20-%20Eurico%20Guterres.htm).
22
In the Indonesia/Papua context, Imron Cotan returned to Jakarta and was almost immediately appointed
Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs (after maintaining a staunchly nationalist line, on Aceh
and Papua during his term as Chargé d’Affaire and Ambassador at Indonesia’s Embassy in Australia).
Similarly, the recent fiasco in Australia related to an attempt to subpoena former General Sutiyoso (now
Mayor of Jakarta) to an inquiry related to the killing of Brian Peters, one of the five Australian-based
journalists who were killed in the Indonesian invasion of East Timor in 1975 (one of the so-called “Balibo
5”) demonstrated the influence some such individuals attain within the state as well as the difficulty of
bringing them to account (see Australia. Coroner for New South Wales 2007).
346
Phantom geographies
Perhaps nobody will ever travel (over land and sea) the length of Papua’s borders (see
Chapter 4). Yet this geography is well known to most people living in Papua, as it is to
many other Indonesians and (in my experience) a surprising number of foreigners.
While few today may know what to call the territory, the idea that it exists as a discrete
politico-cultural geographic entity seems rarely in doubt. This political and geographic
‘fact’ had its origins in the cultural speculations of early explorers and naturalists in the
archipelago and has been reinforced by the close survey work of colonial powers in the
nineteenth and early twentieth century and defended by the governments of The
Netherlands, Germany, The United Kingdom, Australia and, more recently, Indonesia
and Papua New Guinea (see Chapter 4).
The recent attempt to divide Papua into three provinces, and the subsequent decision to
scale back the implementation of this law to create only two new provinces, has effected
little change in the ways in which most people who know Papua continue to
conceptualise it. This is apparent among government employees across Indonesia who
continue to frame their programmes and publish reports which give a geographic and
cartographic coherence to the territory as if it were still a single province – a
phenomenon which cannot be explained as ignorance or mere indolence. This entity
has been known to them for decades through school history and civics lessons as a
discrete geographic region, whether labelled as Netherlands New Guinea, West Irian,
Irian Jaya, and Papua.23 This conviction is widespread and nowhere more so than
among Papuans who proclaim their cultural, political and racial difference with respect
to (other) Indonesians and who have been, in the main, vociferous in their opposition to
the division of the territory.24 They are in good, if unexpected, company. Official
23
Leigh (1994) notes that there is significant overlap in the ideological curricula across subjects in the
national curriculum. She attributes this to weak classification (i.e. distinction) between school subjects,
but a strong process of framing which distinguishes formal (state) education programs from extracurricular (out-of-school) education. This observation is significant to the many Papuans whose
education may only extend to primary or lower-secondary school and whose experience of Indonesian
civics and history is moulded more by their own experience than by any formal processes of education (or
indoctrination).
24
The notable exception to this is the campaign by Jimmy Ijie of Depdagri’s Irian Jaya Crisis Center to
promote the concept of West Papua (i.e. West Irian Jaya province) among the sub-regions prominent
tribal and church leaders. Pro-division Papuans from the region have been given all-expenses paid trips
to Jakarta to demonstrate and demand in public and before parliament their desire for the province of
347
narratives of Papua’s integration into Indonesia stress the singularity of Papua. As
Yamin’s cursory gazetteer of Papua’s geography suggests (quoted above), it is the
totality of Papua’s territory, as stipulated in the New York Agreement (1962), that was
returned to the Republic. Revisionist histories, such as that of Subandrio (2001),
remind modern Indonesians of the struggle to liberate Papua, but also reinforce the
geographic, political and historical integrity of the territory as it was at that moment.
This apparition of history – summoned by the state – projects its phantom presence
upon the modern idiom of “Papua”, paradoxically undermining state initiatives in the
present.
“From Sabang to Merauke” is another rhetorical relic of the Revolution which holds
new salience.25 The harbour town of Sabang is situated in the restive province of Aceh.
The recalcitrant Acehnese resisted Dutch authority for decades in a war of independence
which was brutally suppressed by the Dutch (Reid 2006). A return to state violence
under Indonesian authority helped to further solidify Acehnese identity (Aspinall 2006).
The incorporation of Papua into the Republic in 1962 began another enduring resistance
struggle to the imposition of external authority at the other end of the archipelago. In
July 2007, a document was prepared in Jayapura with the collaboration of several very
well-regarded human rights groups in Indonesia and East Timor. Its focus was on
systematic human rights abuses in Aceh and Papua (and included reference to similar
practices in the former Indonesian province of East Timor). The report’s authors
(Franciscans International, et al. 2007:3):
...acknowledge the Government’s overall progress in relation to human rights in
Indonesia, but note that in the Province of West Papua, the steadfast pattern of
human rights violations, including torture, repression of the freedom of
expression, unfair trials, arbitrary detention and the denial of social, economic
and cultural rights, have created a culture of fear and have resulted in a stagnated
development, which has made Papua the least developed province in Indonesia.
This so-called Shadow Report on Torture (a civil-society report on torture which
“shadows” the official report of the Indonesian state) brings together the accounts of
local peoples in Aceh and Papua of trauma and violence inflicted by members of the
West Papua to be retained. Much of this campaigning was conducted with the endorsement and
sponsorship of the government-anointed head of West Papua province, Bram Atururi.
25
In the post-Suharto era, a growing number of Indonesians are critiquing the canon of Indonesian
history. See, for example, the writings of Indonesian journalist and author Andreas Harsono who is
currently writing a book From Sabang to Merauke: Debunking the Myth of Indonesian Nationalism
(http://andreasharsono.blogspot.com/2003/12/republik-indonesia-kilometer-nol.html accessed 080112).
348
Indonesian security forces (SKP et al. 2007). Specifically prepared for the visit to
Indonesia in 2007 by the United Nations Special rapporteur on torture (Prof. Manfred
Nowak) and in advance of the 2008 Session of the United Nations Committee Against
Torture, it is one of the most comprehensive (of many) reports on state violence and
abuses of power for these two regions. Documenting 242 alleged cases of torture since
the collapse of the New Order (i.e. May 1998 – May 2007) the report makes grim
reading. Such reports – and more particularly the practices they document – are at the
root of critiques from Papuans (and some other Indonesians) of an Indonesian
nationalist ideology which they see as tired and tattered at its edges and bereft of any of
the moral authority or idealism originally vested at its core.
“If I were an Indonesian…” (after Suwardi)
Does it not occur to us that these poor slaves are also longing for such a moment
as this, when they like us will be able to celebrate their independence? Or do we
perhaps feel that because of our soul-destroying policy we regard all human
souls as dead? If that is so, then we are deluding ourselves, because no matter
how primitive a community is, it is against any type of oppression. If I were a
Dutchman, I would not organise an independence celebration in a country where
the independence of the people has been stolen... (Suwardi Suryaningrat, quoted
in Anderson 1991:117).
Suwardi’s statement embodies the moral argument at the core of Indonesian nationalist
calls for independence from The Netherlands. Originally written in Dutch in 1913,
Suwardi’s article is the first known instance of an Indonesian (Javanese) using the
language of the oppressor to criticise colonial policy (Elson 2005:148).26 Papuans too,
in recent years, accept and engage with many of the administrative changes which
enable them to express their sense of collective oppression through a common
geography and lingua franca (Bahasa Indonesia). For example, John Rumbiak (a
trained linguist, development worker and human rights activist) made specific mention
of the benefit for Papuans of the imposition of Bahasa Indonesia in the territory at the
Morning Star Concert in Melbourne on 28 February 28, 2003 (attended by the author,
see also Rutherford 2006). Suwardi’s core themes resonate with recent critiques by
Papuans, their calls for independence from Indonesia and Giay’s imperative for Papuans
26
It should be noted that people of mixed Dutch-Indonesian ancestry, most notably Eduard Douwes
Dekker (a.k.a. Multatuti), had written critiques of colonial policy in Dutch in the mid 1800s (see Multatuli
1860). For more on the relationship between Suwardi, Multatuti and other early nationalists, see Scherer
(1975).
349
to move towards a new moral community – Towards a New Papua. Suwardi’s text also
implies a great deal about the symbolic power of citizenship (of belonging),
stereotyping and ‘othering’ fundamental to processes of ethnically-based nationalism –
processes in Papua which may suggest uncomfortable parallels for some Indonesians to
their own nationalist struggle (see Elson 2005, forthcoming; Anderson 1991). Such
practices are widespread in Papua today (see Chapters 2 and 3) and they are also
inextricably linked to the ideological and narrative projections of the Indonesian state.
This connection is increasingly recognised in contemporary Papuan social and political
commentary.
With Papua’s incorporation into Indonesia came educational and employment systems
built around an indoctrination in the state ideology of Pancasila (see Chapter 3).27 It
was expected that Pancasila and Civic Education (Pendidikan Pancasila dan
Kewarganegaraan) be taught at all levels in even the most remote schools in Papua
(and across Indonesia), irrespective of whether these schools were operated by the
government or various religious communities.28 Another key component of the
curricula across Indonesia throughout the New Order period was the study of officially
sanctioned histories of the nation. Yet the circumstances of such instruction in
morality/civics and history by the Indonesian state in Papua echo what Benedict
Anderson (1991:118) labels:
the paradox of imperial official nationalism … that… inevitably brought what
were increasingly thought of and written about as European ‘national histories’
into the consciousness of the colonized – not merely via occasional obtuse
festivities, but also through reading-rooms and classrooms.
A key message of the Papuan Team100 National Dialogue, Mubes2000 and
Congress2000 was the profound dissonance felt by many Papuans towards the national
history of Indonesia as it was taught in educational institutions and circulated in popular
27
Note that Pancasila has undergone significant changes since it was first formulated as a foundation for
the Indonesian Constitution in 1945. Of particular significance were changes brought by the New Order
which “established” the philosophical and historical roots for the Five Principles in “Indonesian”
traditional life (van der Kroef 1954). For a standard reference on the Pancasila see Darmaputera (1988).
28
See Mulder (2000:33-100). This practice was encouraged (and enforced) through the allocations of
funds by the Department of Education and Culture (Departemen Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan,
Depdikbud) in the case of government schools and by the Department of Religion (Departemen Agama,
Depag) which offered conditional supplementary funding to church and mission schools in Papua. In
practice, government efforts to ensure the inclusion of such curricula modules in remote schools were
fraught with obstacles, not the least of which was the structure of church education which was organised
around education foundations (yayasans), in response to earlier government policies). See also Farhadian
(2001:266) and Soepangkat (1986).
350
culture in Papua (and across Indonesia) through the New Order period (see Chapter 2).
Giay tackles this issue directly by asserting the imperative to establish Papuan
ceremonies and festivals to commemorate events of significance to the lives and
collective history of Papuans (Giay 2001a, 2003). Today, there is much greater local
discretion regarding instruction in Indonesian national history and civics across the
archipelago and New Order style-indoctrination has been broadly critiqued. However,
Papuan experiences of life under the New Order have provided a critical impetus to
Papuan nationalism. In the immediate post-Suharto period this sentiment required no
coaxing by foreign actors (as asserted by Indonesian officials at the time), nor did it
require the consolidation of a Papuan “political conspiracy” or Papuan Hydra (see
Chapter 2). Consider, for example, the statement by the Reverend Herman Saud, then
head of Papua’s largest Christian community (the Chairman of the GKI Papua Synod),
before the fact-finding mission of the DPR in June 1998 (in Giay 2001a:6, my
translation):
At the time Indonesians came to the land of Papua, I was still young. With these
two hands (raising his hands has he spoke), I lowered the flag of West Papua,
the Morning Star, and with these two hands I also raised the flag of the Red and
White (of Indonesia). Since then I have studied and learned to become an
Indonesian. But perhaps I am stupid because I have failed to become an
Indonesian, because since then I continually hear Indonesians say that Papuans
are stupid, they are not (yet) capable, Papuans are lazy, drunkards, etcetera.
There are important similarities and differences between Saud’s ‘failure’ to become an
Indonesian and Suwardi’s critique of Dutch colonialism. Suwardi’s text challenged
Dutch narratives of self; of a benevolent administration advancing the interest of the
natives of the archipelago, guided by (the doctrine of) an ‘Ethical Policy’. For Suwardi,
there are certain inalienable rights to which all human beings are entitled as “no matter
how primitive a community is, it is against any type of oppression”. He is proudly
defiant in his challenge to the moral rectitude of the Dutch colonial administration.
Saud’s statement, by contrast, denotes a form of oppression used only rhetorically by
Suwardi. Saud’s disenchantment with life under Indonesia is complete as is his
disillusionment with the aspirations and ideologies of the Indonesia state. He also
intimates a sense of collective defeat at being Papuan. His experience of being
stereotyped as a Papuan and of the profound psychological oppression this carries with
it echoes similar claims by Giay and Berotabui (see Chapter 2). Ironically, these
351
socially divisive and debilitating effects are precisely what the Pancasila and state
policies to discourage discrimination of an Ethnic, Religious, Racial, Intergroup nature
(Suku, Agama, Ras, Antargolongan, SARA) are intended to overcome.
Some Papuan authors evoke these New Order era ideologies in a manner similar to
Suwardi’s rhetorical critiques of the Ethical policy and Dutch benevolence in the
colonial era. Consider the assertion of Yakobus Dumupa (2006:51, my translation), a
young, articulate and increasingly popular Papuan critic of Indonesian authority:
…the legality of the struggle for West Papuan independence is already
established by the Indonesian state via the Constitution and the Pancasila.
Indonesia should, as a democratic nation, therefore recognise the struggle of the
West Papuan community for independence.
Dumupa’s argument that the Papuan struggle for independence is legitimated by
reference to concepts (and clauses) within the Indonesian Constitution and state
principle of Pancasila is more than mere fancy or Creole nationalism (after Anderson).
It is mimicry with intent.
Papuans today express their disdain for the practices of the Indonesian state (Old Order,
New Order and post-New Order) by measuring these against the aspirational goals and
principles of the state as well as incipient explorations of these through parody and
other rhetorical devices. Consider, for example, Dumupa’s Panca Salah (2006:107, my
translation):
Neither the Pancasila nor the Constitution calls for: [1] the extermination of the
Papuan race and plunder of their wealth, [2] murder in the name of religion, [3]
the distortion of historical truths, [4] the practice of corruption, collusion and
nepotism or [5] other evils. Yet if we deviate from the values of Pancasila, I
suggest we change the term to Panca Salah. That is, five principal mistakes.
This means five principals which are abused. If so, then as before, the people
and the state of Indonesia are not yet independent and must be freed again.
Dumupa may seem extreme in his views, but he is not alone. Authors like Sendius
Wonda (2007) have gone further, suggesting a creeping Papuan cultural and racial
genocide under Indonesia.29 Wonda’s book, The Sinking of the Melanesian Race: the
political struggle of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia in West Papua, was
29
Wonda claims, among other things, that HIV/AIDS is being deliberately spread in Papua by prostitutes
brought from Java as part of a state conspiracy to extirpate the indigenous population of Papua. This
echoes past claims, such as one regarding the trafficking of tapeworm to Papua as a form of biological
warfare against highland Papuans in the early 1970s (see Hyndman 1986).
352
banned only a few weeks after its release by the Attorney General of Indonesia on 27
November 2007 (Decision No. 123/A/JA/11/2007).30 These writings are indicative of
how recent Papuan commentators, young and old, position themselves with respect to
Papua’s political and cultural place in contemporary Indonesia. Their arguments are
unapologetically nationalist – “Papuans are not migrants in West Papua... the country is
their (birth) mother and the land of their ancestors” (Dumupa 2006:229, my translation).
This perspective is shared by many young educated Papuans who have pursued or are
pursuing higher degrees elsewhere in Indonesia or abroad,31 but it is also widespread
among Papuans across the province(s) (Chapter 2).
The emulation and mimicry of Indonesian state ideologies and the grammar that
underpins them may be understood as derivative (Anderson 1991:163), but
constructivist analyses risk eliding the profound sense of aggrievement felt by many
Papuans at the loss of their autonomy through the imposition of external authority and –
most importantly – dislocation from an abiding attachment to place (see Beanal
1997:12-20; Erari 1999). Fabian (in Fischer et al. 1999:489-490) illuminates this
intellectual dilemma when he notes that he has never seen “any essentialists calling
themselves essentialist” and that “constructivists may be reluctant to accept the label”:
Essentialism is – essentially – an ontological position; it asserts a reality…
Constructivism… marks an epistemological position…. Put somewhat
differently, ‘essentialism’ is one of the things ‘constructivists’ try to understand.
Signifying Papua
Papuan nationalism, from its inception, was both constructed and essentialised. The
declaration of an independent West Papua on 1 December 1961 at the First Papuan
Congress asserted a distinct ethnic and political basis for an independent nation and
30
I have not yet had access to Wonda’s book but have read a review of the book by an anonymous
informant in Papua. My informant considers the book to be poorly written and its claims largely
unsubstantiated and argues that the book would have remained relatively obscure had it not been banned
(by late April 2008 it has already attained a degree of notoriety, returning 410 hits on Google for a search
of the author’s name with the lead title, i.e. “Wonda Tenggelamnya Rumpun Melanesia”). By contrast, a
similar Google search for Dumupa’s “Hunting for Justice in Papua: revealing Indonesian political crimes
in West Papua” (using the string “Dumupa Berburu Keadilan di Papua”) returned only 65 hits, yet the
claims in Dumupa’s book are no less damning and it was published in two years earlier (January 2006).
31
Often because these degrees are not offered in Papua or the standard of education is considered to be
higher elsewhere in Indonesia and abroad. Australia is a common choice for foreign courses (when
funding is available) as it is close in proximity, English is the dominant language (cf. The Netherlands,
Malaysia) and it has a large Indonesian student body undertaking similar degrees which offers some
familiarity and sense of home (sic!).
353
nominated symbols for this nation: Morning Star flag (Bintang Kejora),32 the anthem
“Oh Papua, my Homeland!” (Hai Tanahku Papua!), the Crown Pigeon (Mambruk) as
state emblem, and by renaming the territory West Papua (Papua Barat). These
signifiers were adopted in a self-conscious construction of nationhood, through some,
like the Bird of Paradise, were already iconic in New Guinea. Today these signifiers of
an independent Papua are more than mere rhetorical constructions. Over more than four
decades they have been invested with meaning and emotion by the many Papuans who
have asserted their right to cultural expression and greater self-determination in their
lives, their land and their future. As Giay explains, “Papuans have sacrificed much and
some have given their lives [for independence]. Their struggle is embodied in these
symbols” (Giay, interview Canberra, January 2004).
The New Order government was particularly brutal in suppressing specific symbols of
Papuan nationalism and projecting others to their own ends (see Ballard 2002) but it
was were never able to exert hegemonic control over the wider symbolic life of Papuans
or to remove these symbols from popular consciousness (e.g. the symbolism of
Crowned Pigeon, see Chapter 3). The efflorescence of these symbols in the immediate
post-Suharto “Papuan Spring” (July 1998 – November 2001)33 and the mythologies
attached to the Papuans who martyred themselves for such symbols or furtively
sustained them through the decades of the New Order regime attest to this fact.34 New
Order policies and practices in Papua, and similar practices in Papua since 1998, are
largely responsible for the making of Papuan martyrs like Arnold Ap, Thomas
Wainggai and Theys Eluay among others and for the mythologies that surround their
lives and deaths (see, for example, the special issue of Jubi Tahun III (22), 27 Dec. – 2
Jan. 2002). The ambiguities, apprehensions and permissiveness of the immediate postNew Order period represented, in effect, a relaxation of official policy towards these
symbols and their proponents.
32
This flag is also sometimes referred to as the Bintang Fajar (Dawn Star). The reference is to the myth
of Koreri and its associations with the “Morning Star” (Venus). See Sharp and Kaisiëpo (1994) and
Kamma (1972).
33
After the Biak massacre of July 1998 (see Rutherford 1999; van den Broek and Szalay 2001).
34
For example, Theys Eluay repeatedly stated at public events in 2000 and 2001 that he was “ready to die
for the Morning Star” (see Jubi Tahun III (22):9-12).
354
Pierre Labrousse (1994) has demonstrated the importance of shifts in official policy and
their effects on popular processes of historical imagination and remembering in his
intriguing “The Second Life of Bung Karno: Analysis of the Myth (1978-1981)”.
Labrousse documents the remarkable proliferation of popular publications about
Soekarno in Indonesia (dozens of books and around 100 newspaper articles) in the first
few years after the New Order lifted its embargo on publications about Soekarno and
began to reinscribe him into Indonesia’s national historiography.35 In a similar way, the
period of the ‘Papuan Spring’ (August 1998 – December 2000) saw a remarkable
revival of Papuan popular mythologies surrounding independence guerrillas, political
activists36 and cultural figures, as well as a wide variety of pro-Papua iconography. In
the street, in markets and at public events bead jewellery, woven string bags (nokin) and
other cottage crafts (kerajinan) were for sale, depicting the Morning Star Flag or
spelling “(West) Papua” (Papua Barat) or “Freedom” (Merdeka or ‘M’) as well as
Christian crosses in the red, white and blue of the Bintang Kejora or the Rastafarian
colours of the Ethiopian flag (Figure 6-2).
Figure 6-2: Kerajinan ‘M’
(handicrafts collected by the author in Papua, November 2000)
More elaborate imagery circulated widely in newspaper reports, books and diverse print
ephemera. The speed with which this print ephemera was produced and the quality of
35
Sukarno was accused of involvement in the 1965/66 coup by the New Order and held under house
arrest without trial until his death in 1970. The decision to officially re-introduce him through the
mainstream press and in officially sanctioned history books in 1978 coincided with the eighth anniversary
(windu) of his death (see Labrousse 1994:175-176).
36
Paralleling Sukarno’s second life, see “Dr. Wainggai, Hidup Kembali” Jubi Tahun I (16) (29 Mar. – 11
Apr. 2000):9-11. Wainggai is discussed in greater detail later in this chapter.
355
some reproductions reflected access to new print technologies and a happy coincidence
between a desire among Papuans for these symbols and the commercial interests of nonPapuan entrepreneurs who reproduced this imagery on business cards, stickers, window
transfers, rubber ink stamps (stempel) and t-shirts locally and elsewhere in Indonesia.
Figure 6-3: Symbols circulated at Congress2000
(May-June 2000, author(s) unknown)
This imagery incorporates elements of an essentialised Papuan identity (birds of
paradise, crown pigeon, Morning Star Flag, traditional motifs) while evoking other
national and international struggles framing Papua within a community of nations to
which its authors and their audience aspire (a Papuan Statue of Liberty, the Morning
Star raised at Iwo Jima,37 Papuan membership of the United Nations and a nation united
through Christianity).38 Such imagery asserts the moral rectitude of the Papuan struggle
for independence but it poses a peculiar challenge to the authority of the Indonesian
37
This allusion was taken further in an illustration in Jubi Tahun II(19) (Nov. 8 – Nov. 14, 2000):3.
Not all these symbols signify independence, but notable inclusions are the Statue of Liberty (with the
Morning Star flag held as her torch), a parody of the Indonesian Special Forces (Kopassus) military
insignia with the Morning Star flag (Bintang Kejora) replacing the Indonesian Garuda, an group raising
the Morning Star flag in a direct allusion to the iconic image of the US flag-raising at Iwo Jima, the
United Nations framed by two opposing Birds of Paradise, one representing the Red White flag of
Indonesia (Merah Putih), the other the Morning Star flag of West Papua (suggesting that the ‘dispute’
again be determined by UN mediation). Several other images reiterate early parodies of the Indonesian
coat of arms with the Victoria Crown Pigeon (Mambruk) replacing the Indonesian Garuda and the
Morning Star replacing the shield of Pancasila. Other imagery on this sheet relates to: the GKI church in
Papua and HAMAK, the Human Rights Organisation for Amungme and Kamoro in the PT Freeport
Indonesian contract of work (Hak Asasi Manusia Amungme Kamoro).
38
356
state in Papua. Raising the Morning Star flag was banned in Papua when Indonesia
took administrative control of the territory on 1 May 1963 although it was briefly
permitted during the Indonesian Reformasi from 1 December 1999 (van den Broek and
Szalay 2001:80) until late 2000 under President Abdurrachman Wahid. During this
period it was to be flown as a ‘cultural’ symbol only and always alongside the
Indonesian Red White (Merah Putih).39 This permissive policy was one of the gestures
of reconciliation extended by President Abdurrahman Wahid towards Papua during his
term in office (see Erari 2006:9-15). Since late 2000, flag raisings have once again been
dealt with summarily by the security forces and harsh penalties again imposed for such
actions as under the New Order.40 Yet one of the biggest challenges for the security
forces and Papuans alike for much of the past decade has been to known what imagery
is permitted in the province. In December 2007, for the first time since Reformasi, the
national government made an emphatic statement about flag raisings in three provinces
of Indonesia with a history of separatist movements; Papua, Aceh and Maluku.
Government Regulation No. 77 of 2007 on Regional Symbols (Peraturan Pemerintah
77/2007 Lambang Daerah) is intended to clarify the nature and character of regional
symbols. The regulation stipulates in Chapter IV, Article 6d on the “Design of
Regional Symbols” (my translation) that:
The design of a regional logo or flag must not, in its essence or in its entirety,
bear a resemblance to a logo or flag of an organisation, society, foundation or
separatist movement banned by the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia.
The clarifying notes for Article 6d (Penjelasan Bab IV Pasal 6d) notes: this includes
“the logo of the Crowned Pigeon (mambruk) and the Morning Star (Bintang Kejora)
used by the separatist movement in the province of Papua.”41 Since its approval on 10
December 2007 (UN Human Rights Day), and in spite of the fact that the legislation
makes no reference to the province of West Papua, police clampdowns on the use of
39
Prior to the 1 December West Papuan independence celebrations which commemorate the original
declaration of the nation of West Papua on 1 December, 1961. The decision to ban the Morning Star flag
was implemented haltingly and the uncertainty about this policy (and its enforcement) was the cause of
serious conflict in Papua in late 2000 (see HRW 2001; van den Broek and Szalay 2001).
40
For example, Filep Karma, Yusak Pakage and approximately 200 other Papuans attending a nonviolent flag-raising protest in Jayapura were arrested on December 1, 2004. For their involvement in
leading the flag-raising, Karma was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment and Pakage to 10 years. The
severity of these sentences were appealed but upheld by the Supreme Court of Indonesia on 27 October
2005 (see Amnesty International 2005).
41
This note of clarification also includes the Benang Raja flag of the Republic of South Maluku (Ambon)
and the Crescent Moon flag of the Acehnese separatist movement.
357
these symbols and the sale of handicrafts depicting or evoking the morning star (such as
those in Figure 6-2) or the mambruk have been reported in the provinces of Papua and
West Papua.42 The ban on the use of separatist flags is consistent with government
policy across the archipelago since Indonesian independence (except for the brief period
already mentioned in Papua under Gus Dur). However, the longstanding logo for the
District of Manokwari (Kabupaten Manokwari) with its depiction of a mambruk (in this
case a Goura cristata) raises the possibility that this logo may be, or come to be, in
contravention with the new regulation (Figure 6-4, left).43 Moreover, the use of the
cassowary for the logo of the new province of West Papua (Figure 6-4, centre) is
similarly fraught for its past associations with the Dutch era PVK (see Figure 3-20) and
with the OPM leader Kelly Kwalik (see Chapter 3). The Victoria Crowned Pigeon
(Goura Victoria) with a dog-tag of the Morning Star flag (Figure 6-4, right), the logo of
the West Papuan New Guinea National Congress (WPNGNC), is the kind of separatist
imagery the state aims to ban, but with dozens of pro-independence Papuans and
Papuan splinter groups in exile, often making their own independence imagery, there
are numerous variations on the mambruk theme.44
Figure 6-4: Kabupaten Manokwari, Propinsi Papua Barat, WPNGNC Logo
(All available on the World Wide Web)45
42
On 15 January 2008 two highland Papuan women, Yohana Pekei & Nelly Pigome, were reportedly
arrested and interrogated for attempting to sell such handicrafts in Jayapura (see
http://www.infopapua.org/artman/publish/article_1625.shtml).
43
The regulation arguably even throws into doubt the legality of depictions in illustrated children’s books
about crowned pigeons (see Gambir 2000).
44
In this coat of arms, the Victoria Crowned Pigeon is clasping a tifa drum (in a Geelvink Bay style) and
bow and arrow in its claws.
45
The coat of arms for the District of Manokwari (Kabupaten Manokwari) and the coat of arms for the
Provincial Government of West Papua are at http://www.papuabaratprov.go.id/images/logo_mkw.gif and
http://www.papuabaratprov.go.id/images/p-b-log.gif respectively (accessed 080501). The image of the
Crowned Pigeon (in this case a Goura Victoria) is taken from the homepage of the pro-independence
West Papuan New Guinea National Congress (http://www.wpngnc.org).
358
As with representations of Papua on postage stamps (Chapter 3) the imagery of the
Crowned Pigeon, the Cassowary and the Morning Star have their ambivalences and
ambiguities. While state prohibitions on flag-raisings and public displays of the
Morning Star (and other separatist flags) have met with material success, they cannot
curtail all possible renderings of pro-independence sentiment.46 Moreover, Neles Tebay,
a Papuan priest, journalist and academic, has written about the risks of restricting
freedoms of expression in Papua just at the point when Papuans are beginning to take a
greater interest in their intellectual and cultural life (see Tebay 2008). For Giay and
other Papuan critics (e.g. Ramandey 2005, Erari 2006), Indonesian cultural hegemony
advances through such diminution of Papuan cultural expression and political life; a
process they continue to define as Indonesianisasi (see Chapter 2). Giay’s solution to
this predicament is broadly consistent with that promoted by Eluay, Saud and many
other prominent Papuans (Giay 2001a:27, my translation):
The Papuanisation agenda is necessary because during more than 30 years of
integration with Indonesia, Papuans have been forced to become Indonesian.
Papuans have been made and educated to think like Indonesians; to talk, to
behave and to have the manner of Indonesians. The richness of their religion,
their language, tradition and customary laws, for all tribal groups in Papua, have
been pushed away and never given a special place. On the contrary, all Papuans
who want to develop and support Papuan culture have been suspected and
intimidated.
Citizens of Indonesian Papua
The suspicion associated with pro-Papua cultural and development programs is a
fundamental barrier to peace and stability in Papua as it polarises thinking around
Papuan cultural and political expression. This increases apprehension and anxiety
among non-Papuan residents in the province and pushes otherwise moderate Papuans to
adopt a more radical position in order to promote their distinctive cultural identity (e.g.
Berotabui 2007). While a change towards affirmative action policies by the
bureaucracy (so-called “crash programs”) and PT Freeport Indonesia (the largest private
employer in the province) brought more Papuans into skilled and semi-skilled
46
This proposition may seem far-fetched, but even the jewellery I collected in Papua in late 2000 (Figure
6-2) demonstrates this point. In the mid-1990s, during the New Order era, I had several conversations
with Papuans who wore garments such as baseball caps with a single star (the logo for the sportswear
company Converse) specifically to identify with the banned flag of the Morning Star.
359
employment through the mid-late 1990s, this did little to address deeper concerns about
processes of Indonesianisasi.47
The sense of dispossession among Papuans – feelings that they are restricted in their
cultural and political expression and marginalised economically in their own land –has
fuelled Papuan nationalism since the mid-1960s (see Chapter 3). The guerrilla struggle
by some Papuans for more than four decades has been defined not only by disdain for
the Indonesian state but at times also for the place of non-indigenous peoples living in
Papua. For example, the Provisional Constitution of the Republic of West Papua (WPC
1971) ‘authorised’ by OPM commander Seth Rumkorem and others makes it explicit
that, although an independent West Papuan nation would be founded on “Christian
principles and guarantee fundamental human rights, freedoms, democracy and justice
for all…” (WPC 1971, Preamble), citizenship would only be a natural right “of native
Papuans and others who, before this proclamation, were active in supporting Papuan
independence” (WPC 1971, Article 4, section 13, my translation).48 Similar stipulations
on the rights to citizenship are made in the post-Suharto State Constitution of West
Papua of 1999 prepared as part of the Basic Guidelines for the State of West Papua for
the West Papua Independence Committee by Don Flassy and endorsed by Theys Eluay
in August, 1999 (Flassy 1999).49 While Flassy’s model is more inclusive than the
earlier proposal in the OPM Constitution of 1971, it still fails to address the
demographic realities of contemporary Indonesian Papua in which an estimated 40% of
the total population is non-Papuan.50
47
This concern has its roots in Dutch colonial policies of second-tier colonialism where Indonesian
migrants filled lower-level positions in the colonial bureaucracy and reinforced a sense of alienation from
the administration for Papuans. While this process was discouraged in the post-WWII period (especially
under Governor van Eechoud), it caused widespread resentment among Papuan elites in Netherlands New
Guinea. The Indonesian administrative take-over of Papua in 1963 only exacerbated this problem, as did
their programs which encouraged the free movement of labour and capital across the archipelago and
government sponsored transmigration of landless peasants from the inner islands (see chapter 2).
48
On the importance of “race modernity” and “citizenship” to Indonesian nationalism, see Elson
(forthcoming).
49
It should be noted that while Flassy’s 1999 Constitution only grants automatic citizenship rights to
ethnic Papuans, it does allow for non-ethnic Papuans to be designated citizens in future legislation which
is consistent with Eluay’s publically stated position in favour of an ethnically plural and independent
Papua.
50
McGibbon (2004a:16) gives a figure of 35% non-Papuan, based on the 2000 Census. The next Census
is not due until 2010, but even the most conservative estimates, assuming no change in the percentage
ratio of non-Papuan to Papuan in the territory, suggest a non-indigenous population of at least 945,000
individuals in 2008 (based on the most up-to-date population projections for 2008 from the Bureau of
Statistics (Badan Pusat Statistik, BPS) Jakarta, see http://www.datastatistik-indonesia.com/proyeksi).
360
In October 1999, a bold new plan was endorsed by Indonesia’s parliament to address
Papuan demands for independence. Sumule (2003c) attributes instigation of the Papuan
Special Autonomy Bill (Otsus) to the political acumen of several key actors in the
central government, and to the skilled advocacy of Papuan members of the former New
Order’s Golkar party – Simon Morin, Jaap Solossa and Ruben Gobay. Morin and
Solossa were Team100 representatives for the National Dialogue with President
Habibie in February 1999 and experienced first-hand the blunt dismissal of Papuan
demands for independence by Jakarta. With years of experience as New Order
functionaries, they were also well-versed in Jakarta politics and sought to intervene
strategically in Jakarta’s policies vis-à-vis Papua.
Solossa’s election as governor of Papua in late 2000 greatly expanded his opportunities
to advance a Papuan political agenda within the framework of the Indonesian state.
Solossa and a number of his Papuan contemporaries including Theys Eluay and Bas
Suebu (the current governor of Papua province), although steeped in the politics of the
New Order, were astute enough to manoeuvre themselves to the forefront of whatever
opportunities Reformasi might concede in Papua. They managed to articulate for
themselves – and others – an identity that had, as Hastings (1986:230) put it, “a sense of
being both Indonesian and Melanesian…”
Figure 6-5: Governor Solossa at the “Papua 2000 Festival”
(November 2000, photograph by the author)
361
Governor Solossa appeared at the “Papua 2000 Festival” (Figure 6-5) in a silk, freehand gilded Batik Irian shirt51 at the Mandala Stadium in downtown Jayapura to launch
the “Papua 2000 Festival”.52 His attire, demeanour and speech that evening exuded the
rhetorical flair and confidence of a Papuan orator, yet he conducted himself with the
etiquette of a classically trained Indonesian government official. His batik shirt visually
encapsulated this elegant mix of cross-cultural practice and Solossa wore the shirt with
ease and panache. This Christian celebration featured a German evangelical preacher,
faith-healer and long-time GKI missionary from Serui, the Reverend Rainer
Scheunemann, supported by a large entourage of Indonesian evangelicals and several
hundred local support staff. Solossa opened the festival and was present throughout the
ceremony. Later in the evening, when Rev. Scheunemann requested volunteers desiring
a faith-healing, Governor Solossa joined this line. He declared his hearing problem
before an estimated 10,000 people. A few short (prayerful) minutes later the Governor
announced that his hearing had significantly improved. Epiphany or not, Solossa was
hearing the calls of his Papuan constituency and feeling the resonance that night of the
masses of Papuan and non-Papuan Christian supporters assembled before him. It was
support that he desperately needed.
The electoral success of Solossa and his vice-governor, Constant Karma, had been
controversial from the outset. Although elected on 3 October 2000, Solossa was not
inaugurated as Governor until 23 November 2000. Many highland Papuans had
campaigned strongly for a highland Governor (or deputy) to represent them in the
provincial Jayapura. So insistent were some highlanders that the issue raised anxiety
among Papuans of internecine conflict in the immediate pre- and post-election periods.53
Sumule suggests another reason for the delay – Solossa’s involvement in the Team100
delegation (Sumule 2003c:356). Perhaps even more significantly, he featured
prominently in the ‘Papuan Hydra’, the Depdagri diagram that depicted the Papuan
independence ‘conspiracy’. However, his nomination was accepted and while it may
have frustrated many in the security apparatus that he was declared the successful
51
Solossa’s shirt was made by Rajawali Tailors (in 2001 located in the old bus terminal karewari-styled
building in downtown Jayapura), a business run entirely by ethnically non-Papuan Indonesians resident in
Papua who work with fabrics from Java, Thailand and China.
52
I attended this event and the description above is taken from my field notes.
53
This tension was clearly evident during my fieldwork in Papua in October-December 2000.
362
candidate, this possibility was a clear indication in Papua of the relatively permissive
nature of Abdurrahman Wahid’s Presidency.
Solossa’s imperative, barely six months after Congress2000, was to initiate a process
that could come to be seen as “an alternative... if the demand for independence, as stated
in the declaration of the Congress meets with deadlock, because at the end of the day it
will be the common people who suffer” (August Rumansara in Sumule 2003c:356). He
established a “Governor’s team” for Special Autonomy, to canvass opinion in Papua
and push officials in Jakarta for legislation that reflected as many Papuan desires and
aspirations as possible (especially those articulated in recent popular fora like
Mubes2000 and Congress2000). The Governor’s team was headed by Frans Wospakrik,
a highly respected Papuan academic and then Rector of Cenderawasih University
(Universitas Cenderawasih, Uncen). The team consisted of university academics and
sought the ongoing engagement of local and national politicians and NGOs
representatives in their attempts to a locally authored legislation over drafts produced in
Jakarta (see Sumule 2003a, 2003b, 2000c). The document eventually ratified by the
Indonesian Parliament and passed as Law 21 of 2001 (UU21/2001) contains many of
the recommendations and language of the Governor’s team, including clauses that
recognise Papuans as ethnically Melanesian, stipulate that the governor and vicegovernor must be ethnically Papuan and recognises the right of Papuans to a regional
identity with regional symbols (as designated by regulation).54
Otsus was passed on 21 November 2001, only weeks after the assassination of Theys
Eluay (see Chapter 1). This cast a pall over whatever optimism the legislation might
have generated, polarised opinion in Papua and Indonesia regarding Papuan popular
expressions of discontent, and placed elites in Papua like Solossa who had promoted
Otsus, in an invidious position. Within a year the Papuan Customary Council (Dewan
Adat Papua, DAP), the organisation Eluay had chaired before he became Head of the
PDP, had rejected Otsus even as Indonesian officials in Jakarta sought to undermine or
54
See Erari (2006:9-15) on a meeting by a diverse group of Papuan elites in Jakarta during the period of
the formulation of the Papuan Special Autonomy Bill in 2001. This group discussed the role of the role
of the Morning Star as both a “critique of a repressive government” (i.e. separatist symbol) and as an
“expression of culture and reconciliation” in Papua. Their suggestion, for an “interim agreement” or
“middle way” that might allow the use of the Morning Star as a provincial symbol, contributed to the final
legislation on regional symbols (Otsus, Chapter II, Article 2). The complete Special Autonomy Law for
Papua (UU21/2001) is available on Papuaweb in English and Indonesia, see
http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/index.html.
363
wind back the various political, economic and cultural concessions the legislation had
conceded to ethnic Papuans and the provincial administration.55 Concern among
Indonesian nationalists focused specifically on the creation of the Papuan Peoples’
Parliament (Majelis Rakyat Papua, MRP) and its institutional premise of being a
Papuan cultural institution and the possibility that it might assist Papuans in their
independence movement.
The trials and challenges of implementing Otsus in Papua, including the division of
Papua in 2003, are discussed in various recent volumes (Sumule 2003a, 2003b) and a
published version of the PhD dissertation by the late Governor on the subject (see
Solossa 2005:91-183). Solossa died while still in office, in circumstances some
Papuans consider suspicious, on 19 December 2005.56 His term as Governor challenges
both Papuan presumptions of Indonesian cultural and political hegemony as well as the
assumptions of the Indonesian security forces (and state) of a pan-Papuan conspiracy
(see Chapter 2). The success of Solossa and his Otsus team in achieving a Special
Autonomy package for Papua with significant Papuan input demonstrated some of the
possibilities for meaningful Papuan agency within the framework of the Indonesian
state. Although he was shadowed throughout his term as Governor by a security detail
which included members of Kopassus (Anonymous informant, pers. comm., October
2005), his term as Governor was defined by his high-profile efforts to persuade Papuans
of the merits of engaging with an administrative framework that might allow for the
expansion of their socio-cultural and political life within the Unitary Republic of
Indonesia.57 Indeed, rather than advancing the cause of Papuan separatism, as assumed
by his prominence in the Papuan Hydra, Solossa practiced a form of sub-regionalism in
55
The Papuan Customary Council reiterated their rejection of Otsus in an emphatic statement on 12
August 2005 (see Dewan Adat Papua 2005).
56
Mainstream media reports suggest that Solossa died of a heart attack (e.g. see Tempo Interaktif at
http://www.tempointeraktif.com/hg/nasional/2005/12/19/brk,20051219-70863,id.html), but the fact that
no autopsy was performed on his body further raised suspicions among some Papuans about the cause of
his death. See, for example, the commentary on the death of Solossa in a transcript of a Radio
Netherlands (Hilversum) interview on 27 March, 2003 with the speaker of the Papua Provincial
Parliament, John Ibo (see http://www.geocities.com/batu_capeu/rn270303.htm accessed 071210) and
Hans Gebze’s note “Jaap Solossa dan Kematian Misterius Itu” in Suara Papua Merdeka
(http://www.melanesianews.org/spm/publish/article_1569.shtml accessed 071210). I was told by a
reliable informant in Papua that the Solossa family’s refusal to allow an autopsy on the body of the
Governor was not part of a cover-up but rather a decision taken for cultural and religious reasons.
57
Solossa’s PhD thesis, published only months before his death, argues that Special Autonomy could be
understood as a form of self-determination (see Solossa 2005:53-66) – a process denoted colloquially in
Papua as [m]otonomi (merdeka dalam otonomi), independence or freedom with(in) autonomy.
364
government, out-manoeuvring opponents and assisting elites from his Ayamaru, Aifat
and Aitinyo region (tribal groups on the western Bird’s Head of Papua) in a program of
Ayamaruisasi – to assume control of senior positions within the provincial bureaucracy
(see Timmer 2005a).58
Edifying Papua
The introduction of new institutions and the restructuring of existing indigenous
political, social and cultural institutions have often been reflected in architectural
practice (in its broadest sense). These changes in the built environment have echoed a
variety of shifts in political power and influence away from local communities in Papua
towards the institutions of church and state. Many of the diverse urban and village
landscapes apparent in Papua today are the result of these complex interactions between
state, church, commerce and local community. From their inception, these changes
have assumed a modernist trajectory, edifying communities in Papua through the
transformation of their moral and spiritual life. Although initiatives to promote change,
and later a vibrant and resilient regional identity in Papua, were often prescribed by
church or state on behalf of Papuans themselves, such changes have never precluded
Papuan agency. Much of the architecture of Papua has emerged from this dynamic
tension, suggesting important possibilities for the continued development of a
distinctive regional identity.
Regionalism
A key theme of all three case studies presented here is the issue of regional identity,
particularly how Papua is defined in relation to Indonesia. Central to this relationship is
an understanding of the role assumed and asserted by the New Order in defining the
regional cultures of Indonesia (see Chapter 3). This project reflects, in part, a deliberate
cultural strategy to contain and transcend the regional rebellions and instability which
have, since the colonial period, frustrated administrative unity across the archipelago.
The “Unity in Diversity” promoted and proclaimed by the state as a hallmark of the
nation was understood by the New Order to require the management (and when
58
The concentration of these three cultural regions close to the western Bird’s Head town of Sorong and
the challenges and rivalries caused by this nepotistic stacking of the provincial bureaucracy was a
phenomenon known colloquially as SOS (Semua Orang Sorong, or “all of them are from Sorong”).
365
necessary the suppression) of regional identity. In a new era of Reformasi and
decentralisation, the growing desire for locally defined identities challenges an
Indonesian nationalism predicated on the state as author and arbiter of regional culture.
A transformation in the way regional identity is conceptualised and practiced is required
if new political reforms are to succeed in enabling communities across the archipelago
to re-imagine for themselves their place in a peaceful and plural Indonesian community.
As John Rumbiak, a leading Papuan human rights activist, has observed (Rumbiak
2001), Papuans want to:
talk about their own crisis of identity as a Melanesian group within Indonesia...
If Indonesia wants to remain a united state, its leaders must understand that
unrest in the regions indicates a real psychological need to say ‘I am Acehnese’,
or ‘I am Dayak, or Papuan, and I want to be acknowledged as I am before I will
be an Indonesian’. Thus far, the system has no room for such an
acknowledgement. The colonial system is too strong. I do not see Jakarta
changing its view…
This is a challenge, not only to the state, but also to civil society in Papua. The
architectural icons of a plural society in Papua cannot be defined solely by the state, nor
should the possibilities for the built environment be the preserve of a Papuan
nationalism that doggedly promotes stasis or privileges Arcadian notions of indigenous
identity.59 Communities in Papua are ethnically and religiously diverse and a durable
built environment may be expected, to some extent, to reflect this diversity. State and
church groups in Papua have been engaged in processes of constructing community
since they first arrived in Papua (see Chapter 5). In a new era for Indonesia and for
Papuans, these organisations may be required to adapt and expand the political and
financial patronage they, and other stakeholders, can offer to assist in the ongoing
project of building Papuan regional identity. The success of Asmat art as an icon of
Papua and of Indonesia exemplifies this point. Its success in contributing to both a
regional and national culture may be attributed not only to the culture of the Asmat
themselves, but also to the considerable efforts to promote Asmat culture and cultural
coherence by the Catholic church (see Chapter 5), suggesting possibilities for the kind
of contribution that a vibrant and engaged regional Papuan culture may offer Indonesia
in the future.
59
As Dumupa (2006) reminds us, such visions are often promoted by non-Papuans as a form of sociopolitical control.
366
The built environment, in which both Papuans and non-Papuans dwell, makes an
important contribution to the sense of community among these peoples. However, the
scope for enhancing this effect is limited by more than the aesthetic imagination. These
possibilities require, somewhat perversely, greater confidence and conviction from all
levels of government and civil society across Indonesia, and most importantly within
Papua, of the worth and value of investing in regional cultural expression as an
investment in Indonesia. After decades of collective trauma under the New Order,
Papuans (individually and collectively) along with other ethnic groups in Indonesia,
have lost faith in the capacity of the state to deliver outcomes favourable to the needs of
local and regional communities within the nation. This was not always the case.
In the early 1980s, Thomas Wainggai, an employee in the Provincial Planning Board of
Irian Jaya (Badan Perencanaan Pembangunan Daerah, Bappeda) moved to the United
States to begin a PhD program in Public Administration at Florida State University
(FSU).60 In 1985, he became the first indigenous West Papuan student ever to complete
a PhD program. His dissertation asserts the value of decentralisation based on a
comparison of ten developing countries, including Indonesia. Employing a
conventional political science framework, Wainggai engages with debates on
decentralisation in Indonesia indirectly, but his conclusions are unequivocal (Wainggai
1985:129-130):
The goal of delegation and decentralization of authority by apparatuses and by
functions is to enable national development, tangible and intangible... to achieve
the ultimate goal of development – to improve the national quality of life, to
raise the standard of living of all individual citizens, and to promote the general
welfare of the nation – development must take place nationwide in all the
interrelated areas: governmental, economic, social, and physical. Development
can be achieved most efficiently and productively through decentralization of
authority to smaller regional or local government units.
His PhD supervisor, Professor Richard Chackerian, was uncertain what motivated
Wainggai to argue in favour of decentralisation in his thesis. Professor Frank Sherwood,
Head of Department while Wainggai was at FSU, similarly recalls Wainggai’s resolve
to follow a strongly deductive methodology which would determine, unequivocally, the
value of decentralisation. Wainggai’s emphatic position frustrated his supervisory panel
at FSU, who had limited knowledge of Indonesian politics or culture. Wainggai rarely
60
He completed a Master’s degree at the School of Law, Okayama University in 1969.
367
spoke of his life in Papua or the broader political situation in Indonesia and members of
his panel noted that “there was nothing of the political firebrand” in his manner during
his time at FSU. Yet both Chackerian and Sherwood acknowledge that “... in retrospect,
his research style makes a great deal of sense” (Chackerian, pers. comm. 10 August,
2004).61
The conventional political science framework of Wainggai’s study conformed to the
rationalist and bureaucratic style of the New Order. It is possible that Wainggai
intended to return to Indonesia and argue for decentralisation in Indonesia, particularly
in his home province of Papua.62 That may have been his plan but, within a few years
of being back in Papua, he was pursuing a very different course of action. Even through
the dispassionate, positivist narrative of his PhD, Wainggai gives clues to his conviction
that political structures and concerns for their legitimacy are second order issues by
asserting “the oldest authority is that between God and human beings...” (Wainggai
1985:19).
On 14 December 1988 Wainggai, with his Japanese wife Teruko and around 60
followers of his “Fourteen Stars” movement (Bintang Empatbelas, Bintang14), gathered
at the Mandala stadium in downtown Jayapura. There they conducted a peaceful
ceremony at which he declared himself President of the independent nation of “West
Melanesia” and raised the “Fourteen Stars” flag, symbolising solidarity with their
Melanesian Christian neighbours (of the Southwest Pacific).63 All were arrested and
many were charged and convicted of subversion (see Asia Watch 1990:23-27).
Wainggai received a sentence of 20 years imprisonment, even though the military
commander for Papua at the time observed that “[it is] really nothing more than a
diplomatic group… it is not an armed movement… He had got together a few people to
61
This information on Wainggai’s PhD candidature at FSU comes from email correspondence with
retired Professor Richard Chackerian and retired Professor Frank Sherwood (July-August, 2004). I have
been unable to contact Wainggai’s Japanese widow, Teruko (who is reputedly still alive and living in
Indonesia). Wainggai’s son, David, was one of the 43 Papuans who sought asylum in Australia in 2006
(see “Asylum Seeker No.43 has a new start” The Age 14 August 2006, online at
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/asylumseeker-no-43-has-a-newstart/2006/08/13/1155407670304.html).
62
Wainggai’s research was timely as plans to divide the province into three were first raised in 1983 (see
Wanggai [sic] 2005:3).
63
Note that the Morning Star flag (Bintang Kejora) and “West Melanesia” or “Fourteen Stars” flag are
different (on the Bintang14 and the ‘movement’ see Giay and Godschalk 1993:340; 338-341), although in
recent years the Morning Star has been endorsed by members of the Bintang14 movement.
368
act as functionaries of a new state but he hadn’t got around to making any laws”
(Amnesty International 1994).
Wainggai died in March 1996 in Cipinang maximum security prison (Jakarta) under
conditions many Papuans regard as suspicious. The return of his body to Papua
prompted an outpouring of public grief across the territory Papuans and led to
demonstrations and riots across Jayapura – by some accounts the worst since 1969 (see
Erari 2006:64-65).64 Wainggai’s strongly held Christian convictions, courageous
declaration of independence and subsequent incarceration and death, has made him a
martyr to many Papuans.
Remembering
The mythologising of individuals of influence, for their political, cultural, spiritual,
physical or intellectual contributions to community life, is a recurrent theme of most
nationalist narratives. The deeds of heroes may indeed be exemplary but the impulse
for their fame and immortality is typically derived from the desires of others. The
process of investing heroes with great deeds and promoting (mythologising) them to a
popular audience is often done for strategic purposes. It also often generates such
enthusiasm that proposals to edify the deeds or memories of these heroes may easily be
exaggerated. The monument for the heroes of Boven Digoel (Chapter 5) exemplifies
this phenomenon. It did not need to be a grand physical structure as long as the
mythology of Digoel and its “phantom world” endured in the national imaginary. Few
nationalists either in the Soekarno era or today would make a pilgrimage to the physical
site of the internment camp.65 The modest monument eventually constructed at Boven
64
I was in Jayapura March 1996 when the body of pro-independence leader Dr Thomas Wainggai was
returned to Papua from the Cipinang maximum security prison near Jakarta. Wainggai’s body was
returned by plane to Sentani airport (near Jayapura) and I witnessed first hand the efforts by supporters of
Bintang14 to maintain a peaceful demonstration as they accompanied what they believed to be
Wainggai’s body on a 40km walk from Sentani to his home family home in Dock 5. Riots broke out as a
consequence of demands by other Papuans, who had blocked the road outside the Uncen campus, to
inspect Wainggai’s body for signs of torture. Wainggai was widely assumed to have been mistreated in
custody and rumours were rife at the time of his torture and death by poison.
64
also known as the Bintang Fajar.
65
Indeed, it may not serve a nationalist narrative predicated on the nightmare of life in Digoel if visitors
to the settlement were to see that, despite its deprivations, the camp provided its internees with electricity,
potable water, food security, modern buildings and infrastructure decades ahead of most towns and
villages across the archipelago (see Tickell 2005).
369
Digoel attests to the significance of Digoel as a (mythical) monument in the national
imaginary. The creation of 14 new administrative districts (kabupaten) in Papua
through Law 26 of 2002 (UU26/2002), among them the new district of Boven Digul,
effectively created an ‘administrative’ monument for the nation to the memory of the
Indonesian nationalists of Boven Digoel.66
Today, a former soccer field in Sentani, opposite the main airport, is the last resting
place of independence ‘hero’ Theys Eluay. The designation of this site as a “Papuan
National Heroes Cemetery” (Taman Makam Pahlawan Papua) by local Sentani leaders
and members of the PDP was considered and deliberate. Its consecration came on 17
November 2001 during Eluay’s funeral (attended by an estimated 20,000 people).67
The designation of the field as the “Papuan Heroes Cemetery” is a direct reference to
the Indonesian military practice of establishing regional “National Heroes Cemeteries”
(Taman Makam Pahlawan). The Indonesian National Heroes Cemetery in Papua, for
soldiers killed in combat operations against Papuan ‘separatists’ are buried, is on the
north-side of the main Sentani to Jayapura Road (Jalan Sentani Raya) in Waena.68 In
November 2006, five years after Eluay’s death, his memory was honoured by one of
Indonesia’s most prominent spiritual and political figures.
I came here to show my respects and remembrance of Theys Hiyo Eluay. He
was a great man, a fighter. Not only for the people of Papua, but for us all. We
accordingly give him our esteem...
Former Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid (“Gus Dur”), politically
marginalised since 2001, made this statement to reporters while visiting the tomb of
Theys Eluay at the Papuan Heroes Cemetery in late 2006.69 During this visit, Gus Dur
also laid the first stone to a monument for democracy and human rights adjacent to
66
The political machinations surrounding the creation of this district and its role in the ongoing attempts
to create another province in Papua are complex (see ICG 2007).
67
I attended this funeral. The date of his abduction and assassination, 11 November, is fixed by the
Presidium Dewan Papua as “Commemoration Day for Crimes against Humanity in Papua” (“Eluay Layak
Jadi Pahlawan Nasional” Kompas 14 Nov, 2006)].
68
“Separatists” are broadly defined in the rhetoric of the New Order (see McRae 2002; Kirksey 2002).
Individuals honoured here also include those killed in factional fighting within the Indonesian security
forces, although such incidents are not officially acknowledged. For example, I was in Timika on the day
27 soldiers were shot in a fire-fight at the Timika airport in early 1997, including a detachment of soldiers
from Indonesia’s elite special forces (Kopassus) and their commanding officer. This “incident” was
attributed in official reports on that day (and in subsequent press reports) to a single soldier, delirious with
malaria.
69
See “Eluay Layak Jadi Pahlawan Nasional” Kompas 14 Nov, 2006.
370
Eluay’s tomb. Gus Dur’s policies towards Papua had always been controversial and
were understood as erratic (as were many of his other decisions and comments as
president).70 Yet in the early stages of his presidency, while he still maintained
effective control of his office, he held a consistent position with respect to Papua and
sought every opportunity to provide the political space within Papua for a genuine
reconciliation among Papuans and non-Papuans. He also advanced the idea of
reconciliation between Papuans and the Indonesian state and permitted and promoted
key political concessions by the state towards Papuans (i.e. Mubes2000 and
Congress2000) as well as the space for Papuan special autonomy which was eventually
passed as law in November 2001.
On 10 November, 2002, Gus Dur’s successor, President Megawati Soekarnoputri paid
tribute to the unsung heroes of another campaign of national unity when she inaugurated
the “Seroja Monument” (Monumen Seroja)71 behind the closed gates of the Indonesian
Army Headquarters in Cilangkap near Jakarta. It is the only place in the country where
the loss of East Timor is officially commemorated. The monument was built as a salve
for veterans of the East Timor campaign and in form and function evokes the Vietnam
Memorial (by architect Maya Lin) in Washington, D.C..72 In place of the simple
elegance of Lin’s single wall carved into a raised mound, Seroja consists of 23 panels,
depicting “manly” deeds (van Klinken 2005:110)73 and inscribed with the names of
almost 4000 “military” personnel who fought and died in defence of Indonesia’s
occupation of East Timor (1975-1999).74 Yet this allusion to East Timor as Indonesia’s
Vietnam is fleeting; Seroja is not a space for public grieving, nor does it serve as a
public critique of government folly or reminder of the hubris of foreign policy. Unlike
70
Gus Dur was President of Indonesia from 20 October 1999 - 23 July 2001. Eluay’s assassination came
during the Presidency of Megawati Sukarnoputri, after Gus Dur had been removed from office. See
Chauvel (2001) for the political context to Gus Dur’s policies to Papua (and Chapter’s 1 and 2 of this
thesis).
71
See the official Seroja memorial website (www.sejarahtni.mil.id/index.php?(id=1756).
72
A great deal has been written on Maya Lin’s Vietnam Memorial. See, for example, Heathcote
(1999:142-143).
73
Compared with the panels on the official website which recount the history of ET prior to Indonesian
integration (but do not include any post-integration imagery) – i.e. the information on the official website
for the monument does not celebrate the TNI in East Timor.
74
Van Klinken states that the number of official combat deaths listed on the Seroja monument as 3804.
He explains that the widely varying estimates of how many Indonesian security forces were killed and
injured in East Timor campaigns. Part of the reason for these discrepancies is the inclusion of locally
recruited (East Timorese) militia in official figures (see van Klinken 2005:109-110). The names, ranks
and affiliations of those listed on the walls of the Seroja monument may be found online at
http://www.sejarahtni.mil.id/index.php?cid=1756 accessed 071212.
371
the Vietnam Memorial, Seroja is not open to the public. Constructed within a restricted
area in Indonesian Army HQ, it is off-limits to almost all of Indonesia’s 230 million
citizens, including most government employees and politicians.75 It is also situated well
beyond the gaze of foreigners.76 It is a monumental mnemonic to a military campaign
rendered futile by the frailty and fallibility of a civilian government. Seen as such, the
Seroja monument performs an important symbolic function by perpetuating a fiction at
the heart of the culture of the Indonesian military – that it alone can maintain and defend
the nation against all threats. It also achieves this effect by asserting a historical
paradox. Seroja was an anachronism even before it was built. It commemorates East
Timor’s integration into the republic even though it was constructed because of East
Timor’s independence from the republic. This temporal subterfuge allows the
monument to exist without challenging the projection of omnipotence by the Indonesian
security forces. Yet such subtle exercise of power is gradually being recognised and
openly contested by pro-reformers in Indonesia, as is the presumption of omniscience
by Indonesia’s intelligence services.77 These developments, emerging from the
concerned and concerted efforts of civil society actors across Indonesia for decades,
may yet assist Papuans and all Indonesians in addressing the silences imposed through
official narratives of history.
We are never as steeped in history as when we pretend not to be, but if we stop
pretending we may gain in understanding what we lose in false innocence...
History is the fruit of power, but power itself is never so transparent that its
analysis becomes superfluous. The ultimate mark of power may be its
invisibility; the ultimate challenge, the exposition of its roots (Trouillot
1995:xix).
Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s elegant discussion of power and the processes of Silencing the
Past (1995) has direct relevance to all the case studies discussed here. Trouillot
identifies four key stages (as conceptual tools) to help develop an understanding of
where “silences enter the process of historical production” (Trouillot 1995:26-27):
75
Attesting to what van Klinken has described the “subterranean” East Timor campaign in Indonesia
(2005:121-122).
76
McGregor’s (2007) impressive study of the monuments of the Indonesian military and their role in
constructing a narrative of nation does not include any reference to the Seroja monument as it confines
itself to the New Order period (1966-1998). This is regrettable as she apparently managed to finesse
good access to many key sites and informants within the military. She does, however, acknowledge the
difficulty of negotiating such access in the field, observing “how guarded the military was about their role
as history-maker[s]” (McGregor 2007:xvi).
77
For example see Widjajanto (2006), especially the chapters by Zen (2006) and Prasetyo (2006).
372
the moment of fact creation (the making of sources);
the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives);
the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives);
and the moment of retrospective significance
(the making of history in the final instance).
Such a schema should not be understood to apply only to textual sources of history (see
Morris-Suzuki 2005). For example, the absences in the imagery of postage stamps
related to Papua, although concealled by alternative visions of Papua, are apparent when
this imagery is ‘read’ against itself. Similarly, silences embodied in contemporary
allusions to traditional Papuan architecture may be better understood by retracing these
four moments of historical production (a process implicit in the discussion of the
karewari in Chapter 5). Such research is not trivial, but Trouillot’s work has further
implications of urgent relevance to Papuan and Indonesian historiography – to expose
some of the most profound silences of the past.
There is a growing recognition among long-term human rights campaigners and
academics in Indonesia and abroad that unresolved state violence, particularly under
Suharto’s New Order regime, must be addressed. State actors in Indonesia, particularly
within the security forces, have been effective in silencing questions related to their role
in state violence in the past. In Papua this has often been achieved by public assertions
of the ‘risks’ posed by a Papuan Hydra and other ‘plots’ to destabilise the stability and
integrity of the nation. Yet a compelling case is now being made by key activists and
international commentators that such violence must be addressed. To date, this
argument has been made most forcibly with respect to the 1965/66 anti-communist
pogrom which presaged the rise of the New Order.78 It is increasingly recognised that
such pernicious abuses by agents of the state may themselves pose the most profound
obstacle to the stability and durability of the Indonesian state; impeding progress
towards a democratic, plural, peaceful and prosperous society (e.g. see Zurbuchen 2005).
In Papua, awareness of the role of the state in the past is of as central importance in
understanding the meaning of memoria passionis as it is in building effective strategies
to engage with this history.
78
See the special issue of Asian Survey 42(4) 2002 on the 1965/66 killings in Indonesia and their
reverberations in the present. See also Cribb (1990).
373
Restitution and Reconciliation
Figure 6-6: “Events and Stimuli for [conflict in] Papua”
(Dexter 2005:42-43)
Conflict is typically multi-faceted and notoriously difficult to isolate from broader
socio-political and cultural processes. This is illustrated by the bewildering linkages in
Dexter’s schematic of the historical causes of conflict in Papua. It is unclear how her
analysis, prepared for the Australian Department of Defence, assists in determining
Australian defence or diplomatic priorities in the region. However, Dexter’s diagram
does offer a sense of the complexity of conflicts in Papua that is often missing from
reports generated in Jakarta on conflict and security issues in Papua – as exemplified by
the Papuan Hydra (see Chapter 2). Yet both analyses miss a strategic opportunity,
which is to incorporate the core grievances articulated by the target community as the
key point of reference from which to consider the causes of conflict and the possible
means of its resolution.
In recent years some of the key causes of socio-political dissent in Papua have been
clearly and emphatically asserted through the broadly representative processes of
Mubes2000 and Congress2000. Although these fora raise issues such as independence
which the state rejected outright, this does not preclude the state from engaging with
other related issues which may enhance its legitimacy and authority in Papua. Indeed,
some steps towards meeting Papuan demands for greater local control have been made
in the form of Special Autonomy (as discussed earlier) and related initiatives with
respect to Papuan cultural and traditional rights.
374
The most significant state initiative towards restitution in Papua since the Indonesian
take-over of the province in 1963 is the creation of a Papuan Peoples’ Parliament
(Majelis Rakyat Papua, MRP). This institution, part of the Special Autonomy (Otsus)
legislation of 2001, is intended to “be sensitive to and channel the aspirations, problems
and opinions of the customary, female and religious communities and the community in
general which relate to the protection of the native Papuan’s rights as well as facilitate a
method of resolving these issues” (Peraturan Pemerintah 54/2004, Bab IX, Bagian 1,
36.d.).79 With the exception of New Order government-organised “non-government”
(sic) organisations (GONGOs) such as the Papuan Customary Council (Dewan Adat
Papua, DAP), the MRP is the first institution officially sanctioned to channel the
aspirations of traditional and civil society organisations in Papua as a countervailing
force to the actions of government. As such, it has the potential to enable ordinary
Papuans to feel that they have a genuine socio-cultural and political stake in the
administration of the province. In late 2008 this process of edifying Papua will
apparently take concrete form.
The Papuan Customary Parliament building is under construction on the eastern edge of
Lake Sentani near Jayapura. In the past few years members of the MRP have worked
closely with project architects on the conceptual principles and design elements which
will feature in the new building. The building will feature the two key architectural
styles made iconic through New Order cultural representations of Papua – the central
highlands men’s house (honai or homea) for the assembly building and the locally
derived temple building (karewari) for the main entrance foyer to the building.
According to Agus Alua, the Chairman of the MRP, this brings a symbolic unity to the
indigenous highland and coastal peoples of Papua. Asmat and Kamoro carvings,
highlands bows and arrows, north coast carvings and other Papuan artefacts of Papuan
traditional life will be adorn the interior and exterior of the building (as envisaged by
Governor Plateel in 1961 for the original New Guinea Council building, see Chapter 5).
The process of designing and constructing the physical edifice of the MRP does not,
however, ensure the success of the institution. While Alua and other MRP members
have been instrumental in designing the MRP building, they have also made it clear that
they will determine the conditions under which they will occupy the building.
79
See http://www.papuaweb.org/goi/pp/2004-54-en.rtf.
375
According to Alua, Special Autonomy in Papua has, for more than five years, largely
failed in its legislated objectives. He attributes this principally to the lack of political
will in Jakarta to implement Special Autonomy and to the deliberately disruptive
practices of the security forces in Papua (see Alua 2007). It is also apparent that the
demands on MRP members to adapt to the bureaucratic and procedurally-driven
structures of the institution, raise serious questions about the extent of institutional
support for MRP members (particularly in light of their other, often demanding,
commitments). There are also clear cross-cultural challenges posed by the MRP for its
members. Most have little experience with government and many, while skilled
negotiators, orators or leaders in their respective communities sometimes find little
congruence between the political skills of maintaining popular influence among their
own tribal, church or women’s group and the rigours of highly bureaucratised
legislative practice.80 The challenge of constructing institutions which can celebrate the
cultural, moral and spiritual stake of Papuans in Papua is profound, but it is fundamental
to the architecture of the future in Papua.
“Papuans in the Cosmos”
The people of Irian have confidence only in themselves, in the appropriate use of
their common sense, because they feel themselves part of the heart and soul of
every portion of the cosmos. They are members of the cosmos as long as they
are active in their own environment (Boelaars 1984: 38-39).
Boelaars spent more than three decades in Papua, most of it in the southeast lowlands in
the hinterland of Merauke. Yet his observation has broad resonance with the kinds of
initiatives and actions apparent across much of Papua in the post-Suharto era. Papuans,
like other local communities across Indonesia, are asserting local presence and local
privilege – “the rights of indigenous sons and daughters” (putri/putra daerah). This
phenomenon is still on the rise in Papua. Recent socio-cultural and religious
movements, like the “Papua as a Land of Peace” civil society initiative in Papua are
directed, in part, to containing the more strident and militant articulations of this
80
This point was made to me in discussions with Agus Alua and several anonymous Papua-based
informants. The challenges of working in such cross-cultural settings are significant. See, for example,
Neumann’s (1992) discussion of the aesthetics of Papuan oratory and the challenges of interactions with
‘Western’ legislative and other normative frameworks.
376
phenomenon (see Chapter 4). This is particularly important due to the history of
guerrilla struggle in Papua and recent calls from Papuan leaders to demilitarise the
provinces. Serious questions remain, however, as to whether such church-based
initiatives can successfully channel the sentiment of the large, highly politicised, and
often remote indigenous communities in Papua whose resistance to Indonesian authority
has perpetuated mythologies of stone-age warriors (e.g. see Bohane et al. 2003)
engaged in a David and Goliath struggle against the modern Indonesian state (c.f. Tebay
2005, 2006).
In 1969 Charles Rowley, Foundation Professor of Politics at the University of Papua
New Guinea, attended three of the nine regional votes which comprised the Act of Free
Choice (Pepera). At the vote in Wamena, for the Central Highlands region, Rowley
(1969:46) observed that the delegates:
…were typical of the men one would see round Mount Hagen; most of them
middle-aged and dignified; and delighted, perhaps astonished, to be addressed
by the names which were pinned to their shirts. But they were far less
vulnerable than the sophisticates of Merauke to the propaganda methods of
populist politics. Of the 175 of them, about 20 only wore the colours which
indicated non-traditional social groupings.”
Rowley’s insight is valuable in understanding the impulses of Papua politics now and
into the future. Many coastal towns have been radically transformed since the late
1960s by massive migration and concomitant infrastructure development and business
activity. Rapid population growth (particularly in the colonial era capital of Jayapura)
has come about through a combination of urban drift within Papua and the arrival of
spontaneous economic migrants and government-sponsored transmigrants from
elsewhere in Indonesia (see Chapter 4). Papua’s coastal towns are today melting pots of
ethnicity. They include a mix of ethnically non-Papuan migrants some of whom are
now third or fourth generation Papuan as well as families of mixed Papuan ethnicity –
growing numbers of children in the coastal towns have a Papuan father and a nonPapuan mother (and occasionally vice-versa).81 Recent initiatives from the central
government such as Special Autonomy and the Division of Papua into two provinces
(Pemekaran) have significantly enhanced opportunities for employment of Papuans in
81
The significant tendency for Papuan men to marry non-Papuan women is, in part, due to the lack of
bride-price obligations when marrying non-Papuan women. It is also directly related to the fact that
educational opportunities favour Papuan men, who often meet migrant women at university and other
educational institutions or through Christian church networks.
377
the local bureaucracy as well as ensured their appointment to higher level political
office (such as district head or governor). Such programs, together with pro-Papua
recruitment programs among many civil society organisations and private employers
like P.T. Freeport Indonesia (see Chapter 4), have resulted in economic opportunities
for many Papuans in coastal areas which are better than ever in their past. In the
highlands and more remote inland regions this situation is starkly different.
Figure 6-7: “Ikatan Mahasiswa Pegunungan Tengah – IMPT – Manokwari Papua”
(screenprint paint on rayon, c.2005)
Today, many strident critics of Indonesian authority are from the highlands regions of
Papua even though most now live in its coastal towns or outside Papua. The
“Association of Central Highlands Students – Manokwari, Papua” (Figure 6-7) is one of
the largest of many Papuan student groups promoting awareness and advocacy on
behalf of highland communities. These highland students see Papua as their inheritance,
their mountains and their towns. This is represented symbolically in the t-shirt motif
above which features a traditional men’s house (honai or homea) with its five pillars
firmly founded in the towns of Nabire, Paniai, Timika, Wamena and Puncak Jaya.82
Their claim to – and recognition of – Papua – as their homeland is asserted through the
logo map of Papua (with no reference to the provincial divisions within of the territory).
A sheaf of spears attests to their shared tradition as warrior peoples and suggests a
readiness to fight in defence of their rights. They are brought together in an ‘invented’
traditional unity – through their common language and educational structures of the
82
The IMPT member who gave me this t-shirt said that the 5 pillars also represent the 5 main tribal
groups of the central highlands: Ekagi, Lani (Western Dani), Dani, Amungme, Moni/Nduga.
378
Indonesian state and through their shared experiences of life under Indonesian authority.
But these students and their “union” are also products of a larger, globalising world.
Their IMPT logo is imprinted on chic black synthetic soccer shirts, and their members
are scattered through tertiary instititions in Papua, across Indonesia and abroad. Like
the recently formed Freeport Papuan employees Union (Tongoi Papua),83 these groups
are determined to assert a “politics of presence” (Phillips 1995); strategically working
themselves into posititions within institutions where they can ‘stand for’ and embody
their cause(s). Their political activism is intimately connected to the re-emergence of
adat (tradition) and adat rights in post-New Order Indonesia (see Davidson and Henley
2007), a phenomena in its incipient states in Papua (Howard et al. 2002) and one which
increasingly shows “signs of evolving into a political ideology” (ICG 2002:13, see also
Kirksey 2003; Wibowo 2005). The existence of such groups may be seen as ominous,
but it may equally be apprehended as an indication of a healthy and vibrant civil society.
*****
83
Tongoi Papua was formed in 2006 by a great consultation process (Musyawarah Besar, Mubes) among
indigenous Papuan employees of P.T. Freeport Indonesia. Its antecedents are understood to stretch back
to 1993 when the “Association of the Greater Family of Irian Jaya” was established among Papuan
employees of P.T Freeport Indonesia (Ikatan Keluarga Besar Irian Jaya, IKBIJ) and also is understood
to be linked to the 1974 agreement between Freeport McMoran and the local Amungme community (see
Beanal and Karubaba 2006).
379
380
– CHAPTER 7 –
Coda: Wearing Batik Irian
This thesis is framed as a deliberate and modest response to the invitation contained in a
gift. The gift, from my elderly Papuan friend Tomi in late 2000, was a copy of Benny
Giay’s Towards a New Papua (MPB). Tomi’s agitated manner at that time was caused,
in part, by the bloody events on 6 October 2000, only weeks before my arrival in
Wamena. He was also impelled by a desire among Papuans (ubiquitous in my
experience) to be connected to a world that extends beyond the political, economic and
geographic boundaries of Indonesia. I encountered this sentiment (along with a liking
for Bob Marley and Coca-Cola) even in the most remote villages during a month-long
trek across the central highlands to the south coast town of Agats (in Asmat). This
imperative is explicit in Giay’s MPB, as it is in the work of various other Papuans cited
throughout this thesis. It is not unique to Papuans, but it does inform my research
process, as does Giay’s intriguing proposition to move Towards a New Papua. I have
endeavoured to undertake my project in the spirit of MPB, by approaching Papua not as
an oppositional identity, but as a personal and cultural challenge, a journey of
transformation, and a step into an unwritten future. This chapter seeks to project
possible future trajectories for analysis and elaboration of the case study materials and
ideas contained in this thesis.
Traces of my past lines of inquiry and research frameworks have worked their way into
the final version of this thesis. My intention to write an ethnography of Papua is a
guiding theme in the development of my case material. This was propelled by my
encounter with MPB, my conversations with Rev. Giay (and other Papuans) and my
desire to better understand the “Old Papua” (see Chapter 1). My decision to articulate
the central themes of the thesis through case studies constructed around a visual
hermeneutics of Papua, rather than the conventional text-based historiography, is a
direct reflection of experiences in Papua which have affirmed for me the overwhelming
importance of the visual and the symbolic to the (aesthetic) lives of Papuans. This
approach also reflects the relative neglect of such influences to date by scholars of
381
Indonesian Papua (and Indonesia), rendering case studies of postage stamps, maps and
architecture (broadly defined) both timely and novel. My experiences in Papua and
elsewhere in Indonesia have similarly influenced my sense of the current cultural and
political context for the study.
My parallel work with Papuaweb has been of particular consequence to the formulation
of the case material in this thesis. The agreement that forms the basis of the
collaboration between the University of Papua (Unipa), Cenderawasih University
(Uncen) and ANU is predicated on the development of an academic network to enhance
research opportunities for all three universities. I mentioned earlier (Chapter 1) my
enthusiasm for building the resources available through the primary organ of the project,
the website www.papuaweb.org. What I had not anticipated in my early efforts to
expand the breadth and depth of materials available through this website was the nature
of the challenge confronting many researchers in Papua. I busied myself with digitising
documents and images or soliciting new materials from past and present researchers of
Papua (including many documents from within Papua), but had not adequately thought
through how these researchers in Papua might engage with various foreign language
research resources. It soon became clear to me that much of the material of interest and
relevance to foreign researchers of Papua was, for various reasons, less accessible to
Papua-based researchers, even when these were immediately available (in the form of
stand-alone versions of the Papuaweb website on personal computers in Papua).
My decision to develop case studies that rely on a disparate range of sources was
intended both to address under-researched areas in the extant literature on Indonesian
Papua as well as to frame thematic research agendas which might stimulate further work
among Papuan researchers along similar lines of inquiry. Clear precedents for such
compilations, with similar method and intentions, are existing ‘readers’ for New Guinea
and Indonesian history (see Whittaker et al. 1975; Jinks et al. 1973 and Penders 1974
respectively) and visual histories of Papua New Guinea (see Moore et al. 1984; Gash
and Whittaker 1975). This approach is also consistent with the aims of the Papuaweb
project to share, exchange and repatriate research resources between and among a
community of researchers within Papua and elsewhere. Such initiatives are also critical
in assisting to enhance opportunities for academics and students at universities like
382
Unipa and Uncen, where resources are scarce and intellectual networks limited.
Conversations that might result from the repatriation of such materials are not restricted
to an academic community in Papua. They may help facilitate Giay’s MPB project to
de-construct and re-construct Papuan identity in a new era of governance and reform in
Papua. The discussion that follows suggests some specific ways in which the case
materials presented in this thesis might be used or extended, both within and beyond
Papua, to the advantage of indigenous and non-indigenous communities.
Some links between my case study material and contemporary political developments in
Papua were not apparent to me at the outset of this thesis. These have emerged
inductively from my reading of a diverse scholarly literature (see Chapter 1) and from
my own experiences researching Papua. In particular, I am fortunate to have had the
opportunity to return to Papua, year after year, to many of the same places and people.
This helped to cultivate practices such as “looking closer” and the conscious search for
a grammar to representations of Papua – both in the field and elsewhere. My
appreciation of postage stamps (see Chapter 3) grew from a fortuitous decision made on
one trip to Papua in the mid-1990s to travel with a business card I designed which
featured Indonesian postage stamps. The excitement and interest raised by these cards
on that visit made me realise the power and popularity with which such images can
speak. Nora Scott’s translation of Leclerc’s 1973 Archipel article and recent work in
neighbouring Papua New Guinea (see Chapter 1) provided some of the intellectual
encouragement I needed to allow these “Indonesian minis” a story of their own and to
recognise them as a legitimate and productive area of research inquiry.
My study of representations of Papua in stamps, like Leclerc’s early work on Indonesia,
has relied on reading these stamps against themselves. Chapter 3 offered a survey of
themes in state representations of Indonesian Papua with its own analytical
consequences and conclusions. Access to the field would enable this work to be
extended. Interviews with the individuals who created the original artwork for these
stamp issues and with the agents of the state responsible for commissioning and
approving the circulation of this imagery would enable a more complete understanding
of the relationships between individual discretion, institutional intention and practice,
and the importance of broader political agendas in the production of postage stamps in
383
Indonesia. Such research would add nuance to existing studies of management of
culture in New Order and post-New Order Indonesia. Similarly, fieldwork based on this
study among Papuan communities would be of tremendous value in determining
degrees of commensurability in the coding and signification of ‘Papua’; in the
projections of Papuan culture by agents of the state and Papuan understandings and
interpretations of such imaginaries. Such research might also consider the extent to
which communities in Papua are ‘conditioned’ by such representations. It might also
usefully adopt the approach by Soepangkat (1986:275-325) to transcend statesanctioned ‘imaginary communities’ to elicit depictions by indigenous and nonindigenous Papuan children and adults of themselves – of their sense of culture, place
and connection to a pan-Papuan community.
I owe a debt of gratitude to colleagues and friends for the formulation of my research on
circumscribing Papua. This interest owes as much to my map-averse colleagues of
Papua as it does to the cartographic enthusiasms of friends in Papua (particularly at the
office of WWF Sahul where I was a frequent visitor in the mid-late 1990s). My
experience of collating documents for the Papuaweb project (including the digital
rendering of hundreds of large format maps) was also important in leading me to the
conclusion that the ambitions of the Indonesian state to control Papua’s territory and its
geography did not accord with the evidence; a vast array of cartographic depictions of
Papua produced by disparate actors and interests all with a stake in spatial
representations of Papua. Paradoxically, the size of many of these maps has helped
keep them ‘hidden’ from scholarly view; stored or archived away in large-format
cabinets and special collections. Understanding every map as symbolic of a particular
relationship of information to space, each with its own purpose and context of
production, was crucial to the formulation of this study. So too was the parallel process
of selecting and re-arranging various maps from this cartographic corpus into a critique
of the practical limits to Indonesian control of Papua’s geographic realms. Many
Papuans already ‘know’ Papua as it has been circumscribed, even though many of these
maps would be unfamiliar to them. This chapter demonstrates how these maps
themselves are silent testimonies to the breadth of stakeholders (state and non-state)
engaged in the processes of constituting ‘Papua’.
384
The mapping of cartographic impulses and projections of Papua in Chapter 4
successfully illustrates the importance of cartographic inertia and iteration in the
creation of geographic imaginaries. The emphasis in this chapter on surveying the
nature and extent of cartographic representations of Papua (in the absence of preexisting studies in the region) has precluded significant engagement with a diverse and
substantial literature on relations of space and place to identity. The interpretative
insights from this case study might gain greater practical and theoretical salience if
considered dialogically with such literature. Further research might also usefully
explore various constraints of circumscribing Papua (raised by this case study), to better
understand the effects of boundary-making processes on local and regional
administration (see Nordholt and van Klinken 2007) and the analytical frameworks
imposed by such processes on research agendas (see Philpott 2000). Again, field access
could dramatically expand the scope and possibilities for how this case material might
be developed. Modest community mapping projects have been undertaken in various
locations across Papua by non-government organisations since the early 1980s (e.g.
Mitchell et al. 1990) but the information and maps produced by such programs are often
exceedingly difficult to access outside Papua. In recent years these programs have
again gained in popularity, particularly because of new government regulations that
entitle and enable greater discretionary control of landed resources by local
communities (see Alhamid 2004). Yet the focus for such programs remains the
mapping of claims to landed resources (Ketut Muliastra, pers. comm., March 2008).
The themes of agency, technological efficiency and the key questions posed about the
purpose and intention of mapping projects in Papua explored in this case study are of
direct relevance for community mapping in Papua, the challenges of local gazetteering
(as posed by Yoman in Chapter 4) and the broader emancipatory agenda put forward by
Benny Giay in MPB.
The architecture of community in Papua is never out of view for people living in or
visiting Papua. That architecture is physical but it is also socio-political and cultural. It
appears in glimpses from a crowded minibus of Br Henk’s distinctive church
architecture in Jayapura and in the dismay of worshippers in Biak town at the collapse
of their massive concrete Mosque during the earthquake of 17 February 1996 (which
flattened parts of the town and raised a tsunami that claimed more than 100 lives). The
385
icons of Papuan architecture, its monuments and its art, all speak of a community in the
making. This community is not exclusively Papuan. The broad mix of peoples –
indigenes and migrants – who have been generous in their time and friendship during
my research inside Papua (and elsewhere) oblige me to question the notion of Papua as
an exclusive (p)reserve for Papuans. These experiences lead me to the conviction that
creating a peaceful and prosperous future in Papua will rely on both the recognition of a
distinctive architecture to community in Papua as well as an imperative for institutions
and cultural expressions built on the recognition of the distinctive identities of
indigenous Papuans.
The broad survey of architecture – inclusive of urban planning schemes, building design,
architectural embellishment and art – in Chapter 5 suggests several key points of
departure for further research. Of immediate concern in Indonesian Papua is the lack of
attention given to date to traditional architectures and their broader socio-cultural
contexts. The published literature on the architectural heritage of neighbouring Papua
New Guinea is similarly scant, although considerable unpublished work may already
have been undertaken in the eastern half of the island (Ruff and Ruff 1990). For
obvious reasons Indonesian Papua, unlike PNG, has no National School of Art to
promote a distinctively post-colonial identity to the nation (see Beier 2005) and the panPapuan Council of Papuan (Traditional) Arts (Dewan Kesenian Papua, DAP) does little
to promote such an agenda or innovations among local artists across the province.
Similarly, artistic innovation has been slow to emerge through the artistic patronage of
communities such as the Asmat or Kamoro as commercial success has typically relied
on ‘traditional’ (i.e. ‘primitive’) art forms (see Konrad et al. 2002; Jacobs 2003; Roper
1999; Smidt 1993, 2003). The literature on incipient forms of pan-Papuan artistic and
cultural expression remains scant (Roper 1999, 2001) and much work remains to be
done on all aspects of contemporary art in Papua, especially in the area of syncretic
Christian iconography which is flourishing in Papua. Of central significance to this
third case study is the dynamic tension and dialogical relationship between the state and
Christian churches in Papua. This issue, and its significance for local agency and the
engagement of local communities, is central to any elaboration of this case material, as
it is to the broader practices of ‘Papua’ posed in this thesis.
386
For the Papuans whom I know, to wear batik Irian is to celebrate Papuan tradition, even
if the innovations for, production of, and traditions surrounding these garments are
inextricably linked to the influence and antiquity of Java. The fact that Papuan tribal
motifs are deployed in these clothes without authority from – or commercial benefit to –
the local communities whose ‘authenticity’ they appropriate seems immaterial to most
Papuans, although views on appropriation may change in the future. Batik Irian is a
metaphor for technological, cultural, social and political fusion which explicitly
recognises the possibility that Papuans may be both Papuan and Indonesian. The fabric
may clothe Papuan, Indonesian and foreigner alike. Papuans are not required to make
explicit their intentions when they wear batik Irian. It is not that you wear it (like the
Papuan man with his Garuda batik shirt of ‘Indonesia’, Figure 6-1), but how you wear it
(as Governor Solossa did, with pride and panache, Figure 6-5), and why you wear it (as
a member of the IMPT student network, in the invention of new traditions and identities,
Figure 6-7). Batik Irian, as a specific pan-Papuan style, is likely to endure for some
time, but it is also embodied in a world of new imagery from Papua.
In December 2001, I bought a t-shirt from Ronald’s Shop (Toko Roni) in the Freeport
boomtown of Timika (see an enlargement of the t-shirt logo and Ronald’s exclusive
‘Papua’ label in Appendix 7, Figure 7-1). The design printed on the shirt was produced
for Pak (Mr) Ronald by an artist from Makassar (formerly Ujung Pandang), along with
a several other t-shirt designs, caps and miscellaneous souvenirs available at the store.
The majority of items for sale at Ronald’s Shop at the time were ‘traditional’ arts and
crafts souvenirs from across Papua; including ancestor carvings of the Asmat (bisj),
Kamoro (wemawe), and Biak/Geelvink Bay (amfyanir/korwar) peoples, barkcloth
decorated with stencilled motifs in a Sentani style or painted with ‘Papuan’ scenes
(“Irianica”, see Roper 1999:109-119), highland Dani bows and arrows, bags (noken),
bracelets and other handicrafts. Most of Ronald’s customers are not Papuan but
Indonesian, or the occasional foreign tourists or mine workers with enough local
knowledge to buy cheap souvenirs in Timika rather than pay the prices charged at stores
in the nearby Freeport company town of Kuala Kencana (see Chapter 5), the local Hotel
Sheraton or at the souvenir stand in the Timika airport.
387
Figure 7-1: “Papua… the Real Thing”
(logo on a t-shirt from Ronald’s Shop, Timika. November 2001)
The logo on my new Papua t-shirt, “Papua… The Real Thing” (Figure 7-1) is a visual
summation of key themes in this thesis. At its most immediate (and paradoxically
abstract) level, this imagery denotes a Papua both essentialised and encapsulated; here
through the interplay of a closed can and an opened bottle. It also evokes an icon of
globalisation assumed to be pervasive and insidious in its effects on local culture by its
critics in much the same way that Papuan critics view the effects of ‘Indonesian’ culture.
Such binary distinctions may be recognised subliminally as both crude and caricatured,
yet they may remain highly influential in popular culture. A key motivation for such
critiques is resentment related to the authority and potency of this imagery. The image
would be widely recognised, in Papua and elsewhere, as a parody of Coca-Cola. This
recognition is contingent on a capacity to project this imagery internationally and the
efficiency of this particular corporation in policing and maintaining monopoly control
over the use of its brand. As Foster (2008) demonstrates in his innovative recent study
that “follows soft drinks from New York to New Guinea”, the key successes of the
Coca-Cola corporation come from having people “recognise Coca-Cola as an artifact of
their home” (Foster 2008:xx, emphasis in original) and (ironically and somewhat
perversely) through the promotion of “a product that company officials insist belongs to
consumers, but in legal fact belongs to the company as abstract property” (Foster
2008:xxi). The parallel to representations promoted by the Indonesian state as artefacts
of Papua, yet controlled and scripted by the state itself, is unequivocal and direct.
388
My use of Coca-Cola’s trademarked slogan “[It’s] the Real Thing” (see Foster 2008:81)
as a caption to this image leads directly to further reflections on my thesis. The CocaCola parody on my t-shirt suggests the possibility of an immediately recognisable
‘brand’ for Papua (like batik Irian) as well as a market (or audience) for such ‘products’
of Papua. The imagery is an example of the local domestication of an icon of global
modernity, but it raises important questions, such as: Who is authoring this imagery?
Who authorises it? What are their intentions? Who are their intended audiences?
Papuans today have a strong affinity and affection for their ‘brand’ of Papua,
particularly those elements which have been co-constituted by Papuan communities
over decades and centuries. Papuan nationalism and self-determination remain
inextricably linked to this ‘brand’ but, as this thesis demonstrates, Papuan identity is
more expansive than iconic assertions of the Morning Star flag, the Crowned Pigeon,
the anthem “Papua, My Homeland!”, or the name “West Papua”. It is also more
imbricated with and inclusive of Indonesian identities than most Papuan nationalists and
nationalist narratives are ready to acknowledge. Nevertheless, many Papuans today are
disillusioned with the state, suspicious of its claims to reform, and apt to associate these
experiences with all things ‘Indonesian’.
A crucial question that arises for the state from an examination of the imprints of
Indonesian Papua in this thesis is how might it capitalise on the attachment of Papuans
to Papua and accommodate socio-cultural and political diversity in Papua within a
political framework that privileges mutual respect and mutual benefit. In this respect,
an insight by Jan van Baal, one of the most influential government officials in Dutch
New Guinea, is instructive. Although his comment was made in regard to education, it
is of far broader significance (van Baal 1953:152):
Many a curious thing is taught in this school… Their knowledge of arithmetic
may be very unsatisfactory and that of reading and writing only slightly better,
but they will all come to understand that the world of their fathers, that small
and mysterious little world, is not the real world after all. There is only one
real world that matters: it is the world of schools, of big ships and planes, of
trade and films, of motor-cars, luxury and prosperity. That real world,
however, is not theirs…
There is only one narrow sphere where the Papuan may enter and where he is
even welcome without being reminded of his inferiority: that is the church,
where he is called a brother and acknowledged to have a place of his own. But
389
that same church is on rather bad terms with that wonderful world to which it
belongs and thus cannot give him what he would like most.
Van Baal’s observation brings into sharp focus the resonance between Papuan
communities and the religious institutions that so frequently stand in solidarity with
them. The moral authority that Christian churches (and to a lesser extent other faiths)
possess among Papuan communities today is unimpeachable, emboldening the stridency
of claims by individual members of various churches in Papua. Most of the Christian
churches in Papua have international affiliations but, as van Baal notes, they are poor
partners in a wider world of business and political power. Yet in Netherlands New
Guinea there was less distinction between the moral authority of these same churches
and the moral authority of the late colonial state. As Hastings (1982:158) observed, “if
I were to search for a single word to describe Dutch attitudes towards the ‘Papoeas’ at
almost all levels it was that of encouragement.” This sense of a benevolent colonial
presence (and the money lavished by the administration in its final years) explains the
sentimentality that many older Papuans attach to the late Dutch colonial era in Papua –
an attachment they have imparted to a younger generation of Papuans.
The state today, as in the Dutch colonial era, has the potential to engage Papuans in this
wider “world of schools, of big ships and planes, of trade and films, of motor-cars,
luxury and prosperity.” In recent years it has made considerable concessions to this
effect in Papua (especially through the allocation of resource revenues through Special
Autonomy). The enormous resource wealth in Papua suggests that the Indonesian state,
despite its many and varied responsibilities elsewhere in the archipelago, is in a position
to enhance economic opportunities for Papuans in the future. However, as Munro (1996)
suggests, the state also has a critical need to strengthen its moral authority if it is to
counter the corrosive effects of state abuses of power and mismanagement (past and
present) by its own agents and officials. The presumptions of the state towards Papuans
– as conspiratorial and of a Papuan Hydra – involve projections of state authority that
are themselves caricatures of power. In the post-Suharto era, some of the tensions
among the different agents and agencies of the state have become more transparent
through greater media and societal freedoms and pressures for reform (both from within
the country and from the international donor and investment community). These
challenges to the implementation of state policy and to effective state practice continue
390
to undermine confidence in state institutions in Papua, and expose some of the threads
(and threadbare) strands of an “old” Papua. If the state were to match its aspirational
rhetoric with a more concrete commitment to establishing its moral – rather than simply
legal or military – authority within Papua, and if the peoples of the territory could see
greater possibilities for their future in an Indonesian Papua, then a more durable fabric
may be in the making.
*****
391
392
Het feit, dat de voetpaden bij primitieve volken
van nederzetting tot nederzetting loopen,
en niet regelrecht naar het punt, waarheen men wil gaan,
is geen bewijs voor de zorgeloosheid der primitieven….
The fact that the footpaths of primitive peoples
run from settlement to settlement,
and not straight to the point of one’s destination,
cannot be taken as evidence for the carelessness of primitives...
Stellingen VII
Ethnologische Economie
Nicolaas Willem Bruijnis (1933:135)
my translation
393
394
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