The outbreak of war in Ukraine should have prompted the international community to take radical action to peacefully resolve conflicts in all parts of the world. But unfortunately this did not happen.
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| Thales bombs used in West Papua |
Instead, the outbreak of this new war further fueled the military industry and justified the arms trade. The latter generates billions of dollars and greatly benefits the world's capitalist elites. Reflecting on history, in the first world war, the Krupp Factory produced weapons for both the French and German armies that were fighting each other at the time. In Indonesia, western arms companies have made enormous profits during sixty years of conflict in West Papua, a large province occupied by Indonesia since 1963.
The war in Ukraine raised the issue that after Russia, China would also wage war in the Asia Pacific region. On this pretext, France has recently sold many war weapons to Indonesia. The transaction value was worth over ten billion euros. It would appear that some of it was not paid in cash, but in raw materials. Indeed, Indonesia is not a rich country. Today its foreign debt has reached USD 403 billion! The number of poor people rose to 26.36 million in January this year, an increase of 0.03% compared to the previous year.
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Mr. Prabowo, Indonesia's defense minister received by
President Macron at the Elysées Palace in Paris, 2022. |
While many Indonesians are struggling to endure hunger due to massive layoffs, the Indonesian regime is covering up the failure with various theatrics. One of them is the arms exhibition. This campaign was vigorously carried out both in the national media and on social networks: showing as if Indonesia had become a superpower. In essence, this kind of propaganda is no different from what Kim Jongun's regime is doing in North Korea.
Indonesians should be angry that their tax money is being misused. They should realize that buying weapons from foreigners is not an achievement to be proud of. It is a crazy act that plunges Indonesia into dependence on western countries: the consumer will forever be the lackey of the producer, and not the other way around. Indonesia's arms-supplying countries, especially France, which is currently its special partner, should be ashamed of their hypocrisy: Talking about human rights in public, but selling weapons to unaccountable regimes in private.
Indonesia is just one of the many clients of French arms manufacturers.
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| Purge of Indonesian communists in Madiun 1948 |
And yet, history has recorded a poor track record for the Indonesian military: Since its independence in 1945, Indonesia has launched at least three invasions: into West Papua in 1961, into Malaysia in 1963, into East Timor in 1975. Not to mention the dozens of military operations carried out in various areas of its control: more than 500 000 Indonesian civilians were brutally massacred under the pretext of anti-communist resistance in 1965-1967. During the twenty-four years of Indonesian occupation of East Timor (1975-1999), there was a genocide of 200 000 Timorese, nearly a quarter of the total population at the time. In scale, this is far more cruel than the genocide committed by Pol Pot in Cambodia in the 1970s!
The genocide in West Papua continues to this day. Military operations were launched in a number of inland areas such as Nduga, Intan Jaya, Puncak Jaya, Maybrat, Yahukimo and Mount Bintang. Tens of thousands of Papuans have become refugees in their own country. Since last April, a combat alert has been in place.
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| Indonesian military patrols Papua's interior |
Although a number of countries have condemned Indonesia in international forums, there is still no real action from the UN to restore the Papuan people's right to self-determination. From the beginning, Papuan leaders realized that the superpowers did not support West Papua's independence because of the capitalist elite's interests.
Therefore, since 2014, the Papuan people, through their representative the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), have called on their sister countries in Melanesia to support negotiations at the international level. This year is a defining moment in the fate of the Papuan people's struggle. ULMWP is in the process of being admitted as a full member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). This will allow the ULMWP to negotiate on equal terms with Indonesia. The latter is an associate member of the MSG.
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