MARKUS HALUK: "PAPUANS ARE STILL DIVIDED!"

Markus Haluk, executive director of the ULMWP

If West Papua is not independent to this day, it is not only because of global capitalism and the Indonesian colonial rule. It is also the fault of the Papuan people themselves. Indeed, colonization is impossible without the cooperation of the colonized.

From my twenty-five years of experience in joining and then leading mass movements demanding Papua's right to self-determination, I have often found obstacles in communicating with the factions involved. I must admit that the internal organization of the Papuan resistance is still a work in progress.

In defacto, the West Papuan freedom fighters are divided into three major groups:

1). Papuans living abroad (diaspora), 

2). Papuans engaged in the liberation army (TPNPB), 

3). Ordinary people who are engaged in nonviolent civil resistance like me. 

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua, created in 2014, has been trying to improve coordination between these three groups. However, it is not yet optimal: There have been many decisions taken together with high enthusiasm and idealism. But unfortunately, some of us are not consistent in implementing the work programs that have been agreed upon.

What saddens me most is that fellow Papuans themselves like to accuse and to put each other down. They are consciously or unconsciously playing the Indonesian government's game of divide and rule.