West Papua: occupation and deforestation
The case for the West Papuan people to have the right to self-determination, including separation from Indonesia, the state power which currently rules their territory, is straightforward and unanswerable. The Netherland was the colonial power over the whole archipelago most of which is now Indonesia. It stayed in West Papua after quitting Indonesia in 1949. In the early 1960s, the US government pressured the Netherlands to accept newly-independent Indonesia as a successor to its rule rather than look to the potential for West Papuan self-determination. The territory (one half of the island of...