Stephen Fitzpatrick, Jakarta – "You should send the Australian military into Papua. Why not? The sooner the better. It would be a humanitarian operation."
Senior Papuan independence campaigner Willy Mandowen has a twinkle in his eye as he makes his provocative suggestion, but the humour masks a steely intent. Mandowen, 46, pitches his struggle as that of the righteous oppressed who must eventually best his brutal coloniser. In this case, the bad guy is Indonesia.
Mandowen knows how to play the freedom-fighter game. Invited to Jakarta last week to address a parliamentary committee on why a boatload of 43 of his fellow Papuans fled their homes for the relative safety of temporary protection visas in Australia that 42 of them have received, he spoke frankly to the country's leaders.
"We told them that the asylum-seekers who went to Australia felt unsafe in Papua and it is normal anywhere in the world to move from where you feel unsafe to somewhere where you will feel safe," he says, sporting a well-worn beanie in the colours of the banned Papuan independence flag.
That same flag, the Morning Star, was flown by the bedraggled group that landed on Cape York in January and it was first raised by Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay in 1999, two years before his murder at the hands of Indonesian special forces troops. Eluay was followed as head of the Papuan People's Presidium, a kind of informal government often regarded as the political wing of the armed Free Papua Movement (OPM), by Papuan elder Tom Beanal, who spoke alongside Mandowen last Wednesday.
"We asked the committee to see the Papua issue not only from the perspective of political sensitivity but also of human rights," Mandowen says.
However, for many Indonesians, sensitivity is precisely the issue; Australia's lack of sensitivity, that is, to its neighbour's territorial integrity, as evidenced by Canberra's support in 1999 for East Timorese independence, as well as the fear of latent Australian backing for a breakaway Papuan state.
It's a fear that plays large in Jakarta and among decision-makers. A prominent letter last week in Kompas, Indonesia's most respected daily newspaper, accused Australia of having "a huge interest in Papuan independence; with rich natural resources and a relatively uneducated population, economic domination of Papua would be easy".
Says Theo Sambuaga, head of the committee that heard Mandowen and Beanal's pleas: "We understand there are elements in Australia that support separatism in Papua. We know they are there: in academia, in the press, people at large, even among certain members of parliament. And although we know the Australian Government supports Indonesia with Papua as a part of it, people here have the suspicion that Australia supported East Timor's independence and that now it wants Papuan independence too. Well, we listened to what [Mandowen and Beanal] had to say, but they will never get independence in Papua, don't worry about that."
The question of national integrity goes to the heart of Indonesian identity in this nation, whose proper name – although it's rarely translated in full into English – is Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia, or the Unitary Nation of the Republic of Indonesia.
Generations of schoolchildren grew up with the geographic spread of their archipelagic motherland drummed into their heads. Indonesia's greatness stretched from Sabang (off Aceh's far northeastern tip) to Merauke, the southernmost port city in the former Dutch New Guinea (later known variously as Irian Jaya, Irian Barat and, for anti-integrationists, West Papua) and the final embarkation point for the latest leaky boat of international trouble. The land from Sabang to Merauke was Indonesia's version of being girt by sea, and it made sense because it corralled into one newly constructed nation all of the former Dutch East Indies, itself a geographical artifice based on 300-plus years of European colonial convenience. However, Mandowen believes mere geographical convention can be reversed in Papua's case and that Jakarta's elite is right to fear an Australian role in the process.
Even though Canberra has clearly stated its support for a unitary Indonesia, including the belated official incorporation of Papua, thanks to a flawed UN-administered referendum in 1969, "it's obvious that in this situation it is not only state security but also human security that is at stake", he says.
"We think actually that hearts and minds in Australia are already behind us. We know that people there are already very concerned about human rights violations in West Papua and clearly, once hearts and minds are with us, they will go with Papua."
He also believes Papua's secret weapon could be its vast reserves of natural resources, including gold and copper at the giant Freeport McMoRan mine on Mt Grasberg, oil and gas being exploited by BP, PetroChina and others, and a planned joint Indonesian-Russian satellite launch from Biak island.
"There you have four vital UN states [US, Britain, Russia and China] with an interest in Papua. That could shift the balance of power," says Mandowen, who is careful to stress that Freeport's operations, of late the focus of violent and bloody protests, have come in for unfair criticism and been the victim of mysterious forces. It's an astute politician who knows not to scare off foreign investment, especially one who wants outside support for his independence drive.
He alleges as an example of political manipulation the student demonstration a month ago outside Cendrawasih University in the capital, Jayapura, which was supposed to call for the closure of the Freeport mine. It turned ugly, however, when police stormed protesters, rocks were thrown and five military personnel were beaten to death. "I believe both the police and the students were the victims," Mandowen explains. "It was others who came in there, others who had been given strong drink, who caused the trouble."
He insists there are forces at work in Papua that have nothing to do with Papuan independence or with Indonesian territorial integrity. "The military have fingers in many pies here," he explains. "[Cendrawasih] was a way of undermining the role of the police and we already know that illegal logging involves elements of the military." Mandowen believes there are retired and current generals, as well as businesspeople, former ministers and other government officials, who have been stirring up the Papua issue "to provoke things".
He says student protests against Australia's granting of visas to the asylum-seekers and foreign investment in Papua have been carefully planned and even funded from Jakarta, including by regressive Islamist groups.
He also believes terrorists are likely to be targeting Papua because of its strategic location bridging the southern Philippines and Pacific nations, and that Canberra should be paying more attention to this issue.
"Australia shouldn't let this problem come to it, otherwise Australia itself will become the next front for terrorism," he says. "Papua could become a window for problems like this. Look at Indonesia: terrorism has gone very silent [for now] but it's ready to go again."
Again the twinkle: "But let us know first, so that if Australian troops are coming, we can prepare and help them. If they have not enough food in the jungle, we will find it for them. We can hide them. We can pray that the rain and the clouds are closing down so that nobody can fly in until they are ready on the ground."