A couple of months ago two French journalists, Thomas Dandois and Valentine Bourrat, were arrested in West Papua (a part of Indonesia) for filming the living conditions of Papuans there. They were on tourist visas (not press visas) and, even worse, they contacted local pro-independence activists, seeking to film their demands.
Getting a press visa for visiting West Papua has been known to take over a year. Getting a tourist visa for Indonesia is relatively easy (just don’t say you are going to visit Papua when you are getting the visa). Once in Papua, a travel permit (surat jalan) is necessary but that is quite easy to get. I have first hand experience.
Since the Netherlands got rid of its colony in West Papua in 1961, Indonesia invaded, took over and killed around 500,000 Papuans, which is by all standards a genocide.
What interests me is why few people in the developed world have ever heard of West Papua, let alone of the genocide there whereas virtually everyone is concerned with the situation in Tibet, which is usually described as “cultural genocide“, although quite many Tibetans actually died as a result of the Chinese occupation.
Don’t get me wrong, the last thing I would do is (more…)
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