Aboriginal "freedom flotilla" risking all for bringing solidarity to West Papuans

West Papua is occupied by Indonesia since soon after independence. While the agreement of independence of Indonesia placed West Papua still under provisional Dutch control, the newborn Malay state soon managed to annex West Papua, which has no Malay native population, just as they did with East Timor, then under Portuguese control. The USA and UN were instrumental in this undemocratic transaction.

A new imperialism replaced the old one. 

Since then low intensity guerrilla has existed in West Papua. The deposition of Suharto, that allowed East Timor to break free, saw no significant change in the conflict of West Papua, still oppressed by Indonesian imperialism, which is speeding up the colonization of the island by ethnic Malays.

Australian, Papuan and Melanesian activists, most of them Aboriginal, set sail yesterday from Cairns in what is an act of cultural-political defiance to Indonesian oppression, described as Aboriginal cultural exchange. 

Indonesia has denied visa or authorization for the boat to sail in its waters and the participants acknowledge that they could even been shot down by the Navy. More likely is that they get arrested and jailed for years. That's what happened to several Australians who entered West Papua years ago without visa. 

Source: The Guardian.

May Day: Indonesian general strike defeats ban of worker holiday

May 1st in Indonesia is, unlike in most of the World, not an official holiday. This obstacle was turned into a opportunity for a show of strength by the Indonesian worker movement, by carrying a part-journey general strike in order to march through the main cities of the country. 

Some half million workers marched in red colors, several times the numbers mobilized in 2012. There is context of growing strikes, including a million people general strike last October, that explains this mass participation. 

The mobilizations began in 2011 when 9 miners were shot down within a three month strike in the colonial possession of West Papua, in 2012 the class conflict also flourished in Java, with strikes and road blockades, as well as vigilante pickets that applied popular justice to the most abusive capitalists. Further mobilizations impeded the hike of fuel prices decreed by the government. 

Source and more details: In Defense of Marxism.

Indonesia: the millions murdered by Suharto

While the Capitalist propaganda machinery (aka "free media", all owned by a bunch of oligarchs) is quick to recall the massacres real or alleged of the so-called Communist regimes, it almost never dwells with the at least as brutal and merciless repression of its own system, like the US prison-slavery system, which creates the criminals (usually black people) artificially in order to get cheap work force.

Al Jazeera, while most of the time silent in what affects to Islamist regimes like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain or Egypt, offers now and then research on some such matters and now it is providing, in a hidden corner and such (let's not too many people watch it), a documentary in one of the less know mass murder campaigns of recent history: the murder of millions of communist sympathizers in Indonesia after the Suharto coup. 

Most people, knows nothing of that, not even in Indonesia. 

→ watch at Al Jazeera.

Papuan separatist leader murdered by Indonesian police

Mako Tabuni, deputy chairman of West Papua National Committee (KNPB) was killed by Indonesian occupation forces in the town of Wanea. Indonesian police claims that Tabuni was armed and that he is responsible of several shooting but even pro-Indonesian rights groups underline that the KNPB is a peaceful political organization as far as they can tell. 

There were riots after the murder and people has been killed in them but the information available is very limited.

The level of violence in the occupied country has been increasing recently. The Indonesian occupants have been blamed for it.

West Papua remains invaded by Indonesia against the will of the people

West Papua was occupied by Indonesia in 1962, in spite of already having a distinct national parliament clearly opposed to union with Indonesia (both Indonesia and West Papua were Dutch colonies previously). Both the Netherlands and the United Nations played shameful roles in allowing the Indonesian invasion, much as the UN did in the cases of Palestine or West Sahara.

There has been a diffuse guerrilla war ever since. A clear indicator of the lack of normality is that Indonesia keeps all the country off-limits to foreigners, including journalists, humanitarian agencies, etc.

Ref. Al Jazeera (also this video).

Indonesia vs. the freedom of no-religion

Atheists are being persecuted in the SE Asian archipelago for expressing their anti-religious views. Alexander Aan (pictured), a West Sumatran citizen, will be jailed for two and a half years and fined for expressing his atheist opinions. He wrote in his Facebok page:

There is no God

So good for the Indonesian democracy and human rights!

Ref. Al Jazeera, also in this AJ blogpost.

Punks arrested and humilliated in Aceh (Indonesia)

They were taking part in a charity concert for the orphans of the 2004 tsunami. Some 64 were arrested, forcibly shaven and sent to "moral reeducation". Not for any reason but their way of life.

Some of the arrested youths

Believe it or not, something very similar happened in the 80s here in Bilbao: when the town hall decided to raid the fiestas and forcibly wash and shave everyone sporting long hair or a mohawk. Many were seasonal vagabonds (whose arguable lack of hygiene was the pretext) but many other were just locals enjoying the holidays. Police made no distinctions and all were humiliated with an institutional shower and an undesired haircut. 

Naturally, it is intolerable that in the name of Sharia or whatever other obsolete religious idiocy (oh, man, you just have to read a couple of lines from the Bible to have Yaveh demonstrated as silly farce!) normal decodifying Punk people are being abused and mistreated this way.

Sharia vs. Punk? Sharia loses for sure. It may take a few years however. So they better retreat to their temples of fear while they can.

More on this story at Punks against Apartheid.

10,000 miners strike at US-owned gold mine in Papua

10,000 miners walked out from the Grasberg gold mine (pictured) in Papua, owned at 90% by Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, with central see in Phoenix (Arizona, USA).

The central reason for this strike is that the company refused to raise salaries to $3 per hour (now it is $1.5) as well as to improve working conditions. Allegedly the company has even shot against union leaders.

Grasberg is the World's most profitable gold mine but is also damaging the local environment and workers consider legitimately that they deserve at least a greater share of the cake.

Source: Morning Star.