West Papua has a long journey and history before it gets the present position. Since a long time ago, this province problem has been an interesting issue for the Indonesia’s history.
Everything was started from the Konferensi Meja Bundar (KMB) in 24 of December 1949. After that, this province got it’s independence from the Netherlands and joined that SouthEast Asian country.
After that, some incidents sometimes happened in that place. It is especially if the sensitive moment was triggered. The example was when the Papua dormitory was attacked in another province. That triggered the demonstrations everywhere in the West Papua.
The Time Bomb of KMB
Since many times ago, Papua has been a sensitive issue around the country. The Round Table Conference (KMB) on December 27, 1949 resulted in the handover of sovereignty from the Netherlands to Indonesia..
However, KMB also leaves unresolved problems. It was regarding the status of that province or West Irian. This issue seems to be a time bomb for Indonesia – as well as the Papuan people themselves – in the future. It may explode at anytime.
Both Indonesia and the Netherlands insist on feeling more entitled to the land of West Papua. These countries had the strong reason behind it.
For the Netherlands, western Irian , or what they call Netherlands New Guinea, is not part of the territorial unity that must be returned to that tropical land.
One of the reasons owned by Netherlands is because the indigenous Papuans have ethnic and racial differences with Indonesian society in general.
Therefore, they want to make it as a single country under their kingdom. That plan was not agreed by some parties, especially Indonesia.
Why Indonesia was Feeling Entitled to West Papua
Geographically, the province is included as a whole nation with the Indonesia. Besides that, this country also has the other reasons to own it, such as:
- Former Dutch colony must be ceded
That country does not agree and wants the entire territory of the former Dutch East Indies colony to be handed over. However, there is no meeting poin.
It was said by Amarula Octavian in Military and Globlization (2012), that this province’s problem will be resolved within the next year. That was the plan.
- The agreement failed to make
Further negotiations have been held several times, but the results are always deadlocked. Because of this, since August 1954, the Indonesian-Dutch Union mandated in kmb disbanded.
That tropical country failed to decide a soft agreement about this province which was accepted by the united nations at the month.
This information was written by the M. C Ricklefs in the Sejarah Indonesia Modern (2008). From another source, an information can be known.
The example is from the Sejarah Nasional Indonesia Holiday V (2008) made by Marwati Djoened Poesponegoro and Nugroho Notosusanto. What are the points ?
It was said that this tropical country had been trying to solve the west Papua issue for about 11 years. However, Dutch was not taking that seriously.
- The issues was brought to the United Nation forum
Because of the attitude showed by the Netherlands, this problem was then brought to the United Nation’s forum. Those were in 1954, 1955, 1957, and 1960.
At the United Nations General Assembly in September 1961, Dutch Foreign Minister Joseph Marie Antoine Hubert Luns proposed that West Papua be under UN guardianship. It was especially before the referendum. However, the UN General Assembly rejected this proposal.
When they Become “one”
Nugroho Notosusanto in the history of Operations liberation of West Irian (1971) mentioned that on January 2, 1962, a decision was made. It was through the Presidential Decree No. 1/1962. President Sukarno formed mandala command to seize that province.
The Major General Suharto was appointed commander of this military operation. This situation made the Dutch depressed and had to be willing to negotiate again with Indonesia.
As a result, on August 15, 1962, the New York Agreement was agreed stating that the Netherlands would cede its power over Irian to the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA).
It was not the end of the west Papua history. The New York Agreement requires Indonesia to implement a People’s Determination (Pepera).
The people of that province will decide for themselves whether or not to be part of that tropical country. The deadline for implementing pepera was set until the end of 1969.
It came with the United Nations as its supervisor. Finally, on October 1, 1962 the Dutch handed over papuan administrative authority to UNTEA.
Then, on December 31, 1962, the Dutch flag was officially lowered and replaced with the Red and White flag as a sign of the start of Indonesia’s de jure rule over the land of Papua.
Once again, that even was under the supervision of the United Nations. Until now, west Papua is still the legit part of that beautiful tropical country.
