Goodbye Indonesia
In the face of state repression and international indifference West Papuan activists have been locked in a life or death struggle for independence. People and Power finds out what is behind one of the most forgotten conflicts in the world.
When the Dutch decolonized their East Indies empire after the Second World War they handed it all to the emergent country of Indonesia - all except the territory of West Papua, which forms one half of New Guinea, the second largest island on Earth.
This remarkable landmass - split neatly by colonial powers into West Papua and Papua New Guinea - is like few other places in the world.
Its mountainous terrain and dense rainforests have spawned extraordinary linguistic diversity among its indigenous population, some of whom are still in uncontacted tribes.
Five decades ago few, if any of these tribes, showed any desire for their land to become an extension of Indonesia, a new nation state with which they shared neither history, culture, religion nor ethnicity, but which wanted resource-rich West Papua within its borders.
While this documentary exposes the awful treatment of Papua by Indonesia, one can't help but detect another, subtle message within the film, brought to us by Al Jazeera: Papua's conflict is now with Indonesia, but who started the problem initially? Who is really at the bottom of Papua's suffering? Answer: the usual enemies of the Muslim world--the United States and the rest of the West, particularly Holland. Why Holland? Perhaps one reason is that Holland spawned Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born activist, feminist, and member of Dutch Parlaiment who is also a former Muslim and outspoken critic of Islam. Ever since Hirsi Ali's rise to international prominence, the Dutch seem to have become targets in smear campaigns by Islamists. One wants to give credit for objectivitiy to Al Jazeera. But the objectivity isn't there. Subtly and not so subtly, they continue to take their pot shots at the West; the trend is especially disturbing when it's hidden in films like this one, which expose a true injustice which deserves the attention of the free world.
documentary journalists expose and identify the incorrigible activists for assassination. congratulations.
The Cry is such an innocent and world weary song.