TRIKORA: WHEN SUKARNO DECLARED WAR ON WEST PAPUA

On the morning of December 19, 1961, Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, stood before thousands gathered in Yogyakarta’s city square and delivered a powerful, fiery speech. This moment, known as ‘Trikora’, marked a turning point that would forever reshape Indonesia’s identity as a nation.

Yogyakarta was no random choice. Fifteen years earlier, it had been made the heart of Indonesia’s fight for independence against Dutch colonial rule (1946-1949). Though Indonesia officially gained sovereignty in December 1949, Sukarno remained restless.

The Dutch still held on to West Papua, a resource-rich territory in the Pacific. Worse, on December 1, 1961, the Netherlands had accepted West Papua independence. For Sukarno, this was unacceptable. On December 19, he issued the ‘Trikora’ decree, commanding Indonesians with three urgent orders:

1. Crush the Dutch-backed puppet state in West Papua.

2. Raise the Indonesian red and white flag over West Papua.

3. Prepare for general mobilization.

Trikora was, in essence, a declaration of war against West Papua’s fledgling statehood. This moment transformed Indonesia from a former colony into a colonizer itself. Playing the Cold War powers skillfully, Sukarno secured military support from the Soviet Union while using American diplomatic pressure on the Netherlands to relinquish West Papua. The United Nations eventually authorized Indonesia’s occupation of West Papua on May 1, 1963.

Though Sukarno is long gone, the echoes of Trikora still haunt West Papua. The so-called general mobilization he called for 62 years ago continues in a more insidious form: the systematic marginalization of indigenous Papuans. The promise of liberation has become a slow-motion genocide. Indigenous Papuans now make up less than 40% of the region’s population.

Decades of Indonesian military occupation have cost an estimated 500,000 Papuan lives. In just the past five years, more than 60,000 civilians have been displaced by pacification operations. In 2023, Komnas HAM Papua, the regional human rights commission, reported 65 cases of human rights abuses.

Indonesia has failed to prove itself any better than the Dutch colonial regime it replaced. Rather than deflecting international criticism, Indonesia should urgently begin the process of decolonizing West Papua.

Jesuit Father Frans Magnis Suseno captured it best: “The situation in Papua is bad and shameful. That’s why it is closed off to foreign media. Papua is like a festering sore on the body of the Indonesian nation... We are presented to the civilized world as barbarians who kill Papuans, even if we don’t use sharp weapons.”