Desember 1st, What Will Happen in Papua?

Papua, the eastern province of Indonesia, has beatiful nature, seas, mountains and lakes. But, many people around the world don’t know much about the beauty of Papua. They know Papua as land of  hunger, poverty and human right violences. Papua is also known as  province that Freemovement Papua (OPM) struggle for Papuan people to get freedom .

This is not suitable to the real situation in Papua. OPM activists just struggle to their own interest and they are supported by just a little number of Papuans. The activities of OPM excatly disturbed the development of Papua. Their terror actions scared people, so in some places, people couldn’t do daily activities.

In less than one week, OPM activist will celebrate a big day. They claim Desember 1st 1961 as independence day of West Papua. Is it true? OPM’s claim that Desember 1st 1961 was a independece day is a big mistake. In fact, Desember 1st 1961 was a day that Netherland (the invasor of Indonesia) formed Nieuw Guinea Raad to fail integration West Papua to Republic of Indonesia. These was a slay action of Netherland to break Indonesian country because Deutsch selected the Papuans who loyal to Deutsch to be members of Nieuw Guinea Raad.

Actually, Papua have got freedom since August 17th 1945. In that day, President Soekarno proclaimed the Republic of Indonesia that consists of ex Nederland Indie (Hindia Belanda) territories that was from Sabang to Merauke. But, because of Netherland didn’t want to release Papua to be part of Indonesia, integration of Papua to Indonesia got many problems. After did several submits, after 18 years of Indonesian freedom in May 1st 1963 Netherland (via UN)  gave back Papua to Indonesia. This status was strengthened by result of Self Determination (Pepera) that showed all Papuans wanted Papua to be part of Indonesia. Pepera process was supervised by UN, the result was validated with UN Resolution 2505 and avowed by most of countries in the world.

I hope the young generation of Papua review the true history of Papua and not easily to be influenced by wrong history that shared by OPM activist. The young generation should study science more and more to build Papua. Papua has been free, so don’t waste your energy to prosecute the freedom again.