Indonesia's next regime, West Papua's new nightmare?

Former German chancellor Angela Merkel paid tribute to Nazi victims on her first visit to Auschwitz,
December 2019.

A great nation is one that recognizes its mistakes. 

While Germany and Japan have acknowledged the crimes they committed during the Second World War and are still trying to atone for them, Indonesia, the world's third largest democracy, is not only far from humanitarian values, but has clearly defied them.

East Timor, Indonesia's past shame

A few days ago, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, received Timor Leste's Prime Minister Xanana Gusmao to strengthen bilateral relations between the two countries, which had been soured by Indonesia's 24-year military occupation of Timor Leste (1975-1999).

For some Indonesian human rights activists like Veronica Koman, Jokowi should have used this opportunity to at least apologize for Indonesia's crimes in Timor Leste: the UN recognizes the massacre of 200,000 Timorese, while Indonesia still ignores it."Reparations for Indonesia’s crimes against humanity and colonization are overdue." Thus was Veronica's tweet on January 26th.

As a matter of fact, the true history of Indonesia's occupation of Timor-Leste is not taught in the Indonesian school curriculum. Worse, the majority of Indonesian millennials still do not understand why their elders were once considered the oppressors of the Timorese.

A war criminal is coming to power in Indonesia?

Unlike after the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia, there has been no human rights court to try Indonesian war criminals in Timor Leste. The few who have been brought to justice were low-ranking officers. Most galling of all, a number of Indonesian generals suspected of crimes against humanity are in Jokowi's government!

One of them is former General Prabowo Subianto who serves as defense minister. He is now running to become the next president of Indonesia, partnered with Gibran Rakabuming, a 36 years old entrepreneur who is none other than Jokowi's eldest son. Polls show that Prabowo-Gibran is far ahead of the other presidential candidates. 

Indonesia's next regime, West Papua's new nightmare?

The Republic of Indonesia has existed for more than 76 years, but has never been a model democracy. Although it underwent reform in May 1998 after two periods of dictatorship by Sukarno (1945-1967) and Suharto (1967-1998), signs indicate that it will soon return to dictatorship with a ruthless oligarchy.

For Timor Leste, Indonesia's tyranny is a thing of the past. However for West Papua, Indonesia's remaining colony, the next Indonesian regime can be expected to be a new nightmare. As a reminder, since the first day of the Indonesian occupation of West Papua in 1963, an estimated 500,000 indigenous West Papuans have been killed.