Genocide Rages to This Day

West Papua

The author of this report has been asked to review and summarize the ongoing genocide and other atrocities that have been occurring in West Papua since World War II. Further, it will be explored why and how these atrocities and instances of genocide have been obscured and hidden from the peoples of the West by the media and other bodies that should normally report and summarize what is really going on. While some reports of atrocities and wrongdoing is conjecture or fiction, this is certainly not the case with West Papua.

To give a little bit of context, the West Papua region mentioned above in the introduction is a province and section of Indonesia. Part of the problem when it comes to journalists reporting on the area is that journalists are often condemned and shunned when they so much as ask about the region and what is going on there. Further, there are instances of journalists being told straightly and bluntly to not ask questions about the region when they are touring or otherwise engaging in journalism in Indonesia or anywhere around West Papua in particular (Davidson, 2015). This is an obvious sign of a corrupt and evil government that is either engaging in atrocities or allowing them to occur at least partially unabated. For these journalists to accept such conditions as it relates to their presence in the area is a bit suspect and unethical. At the same time, they would surely be expunged from the area if they were to raise a ruckus about the practice. Further, newspapers like the Guardian (UK) are indeed reporting that censorship and over-regulation of journalists is indeed occurring. Part of the problem is that the Indonesian government is cracking down on even foreign journalists when it comes to reporting about the atrocities and the journalists, at least to some degree, are allowing it to occur (Davidson, 2015).

The genesis of the West Papua conflict stems from its transition away from a Dutch colony to what it is now. Many in Papua asserted that they had independence once their Dutch occupiers left while the Indonesian government claimed the area as their own. The United Nations has clearly sided with the latter as they support the Indonesia effort to take over the area. This conflagration has led to a lot of deaths and many refugees being without their homes. The benefactors to the uprising and removal of the indigenous people are international companies that are deforesting and otherwise "plundering" the area for their own economic gain. Indonesia itself is reaping in the spoils of such endeavors with one example being an Australian company paying off an Indonesia company to deforest the area. There is also mining in the area that will affect (or already has) the traditional and indigenous landowners of the area. Even with the suppression and perhaps willing accomplices in the media, the "mass exodus" of people from the area is something that could not be hidden and was quite obvious to anyone with a modicum of observational talents (Cultural Survival, 2015).