The statement made by Benny Wenda in Oxford, England was very embarrassing because it plays with historical facts on Papua. The history of Papua as part of Indonesia was based on the international law and its legality is recognized by the United Nations.
The history of Papua to become part of the Republic of Indonesia is a long story. Although Papua was “a bit late” to be recognised by the international community as part of the Republic of Indonesia, but in fact from the beginning the Papuan population was already a “big family” of residents who inhabited the Nusantara region who later joined and formed the Republic of Indonesian.
Four years after Indonesian declared its independence, the Dutch continued to control Papua region, which led to the Round Table Conference (KMB) to determine the status of Papua. The conference took place in The Hague on 23 August 1949 and it was agreed that all territory formerly colonised by the Dutch would be the territory of the Republic of Indonesia, except West Papua, which would be returned by the Netherlands to the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia after 2 years.
On December 19, 1961 in the North Square of Jogjakarta, Indonesia’s First President Soekarno announced the Tri Komando Rakyat (Trikora) to take back West Papua from the Dutch. Trikora was announced because of the Dutch defiant from the Round Table Conference (KMB) agreement and formed the Papua National Council (OPM embryo) and declared a puppet state on 1 December 1961.
Through diplomacy efforts facilitated by the United Nations (UN), the Dutch finally agreed to sign the New York Agreement (NYA) with Indonesia on August 15, 1962. In order for the Dutch not to lose face, the transfer of Papua to the Republic of Indonesia was carried out indirectly. The Dutch handed over Papua to the UN, only after that the UN handed it over to the Republic of Indonesia through a referendum (PEPERA) process.
As part of the New York agreement, Indonesia before the end of 1969 was required to hold a Public Opinion Determination (PEPERA). The PEPERA was attended by the Chairperson and members of the DMP, the Minister of the Interior/Chairperson of the Central Government Mission, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, led by Ambassador Ortiz Sanz, several Ambassadors from other countries, domestic and international journalists, and reviewers. As a result, the people of Papua choose to join the Republic of Indonesia and Papua became the 26th province of Indonesia, which was named Irian Jaya.
These facts and the history of Indonesia’s struggle are concrete evidences that Papua is part of Indonesia, which is recognise by the international community. However, there are some groups that continue to distort history and deny the reality of the integration of Papua into the Republic of Indonesia, especially the leader of the Free Papua Organization (OPM), Benny Wenda.
Benny Wenda and members of the OPM group have been the masterminds of a series of acts of violence both against civilians and security forces in Papua including killing dozens of construction workers in Nduga Province in 2018 in an inhumane way. This group continues to seek international support by creating opinions on the occurrence of human rights violations in Papua, as if there was genocide in Papua and there was unfair treatment by the Indonesian government to the people of Papua.
In fact the Government of Indonesia has given great attention to Papua through infrastructure development such as the construction of highways, ports, airports and also improving the quality of education in Papua including providing scholarships to students from Papua to attend education abroad through a scholarship program.
The support given by the city of Oxford to Benny Wenda is a shameful step because it shows Oxford’s ignorance of the bad record that has been done by Benny Wenda, a Papuan separatist activist with a number of criminal records in Papua. The Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs had earlier regretted the support because it hurts the hearts of Indonesian citizens.
Tell The Truths believes that the international community can clearly assess who Benny Wenda really is and hope that the international community will not be deceived by the cunning tricks carried out by Benny Wenda to gain international sympathy.
