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Tribes in West Papua
22 januari 2007
van Survival International
Papua is the western half of the island
of New Guinea, and is officially part of Indonesia. The island as a
whole has an extraordinary cultural and linguistic diversity,
containing 0.01% of the world's population, but 15% of the world's
known languages.
How do they live? Papua is home to around 312
different tribes, including some uncontacted peoples - the island
has the largest number of uncontacted peoples outside Brazil. The
central mountainous region of Papua is home to the highland peoples,
who practice pig husbandry and sweet potato cultivation. The lowland
peoples live in swampy and malarial coastal regions, and live by
hunting the abundant game, and gathering. Some of the many Papuan
tribal languages are related to others, but some are completely
unique. The people are ethnically distinct from the Indonesians who
control their country.
What problems do they face? All the Papuan peoples
have suffered greatly under the Indonesian occupation which began in
1963. The Indonesian army has a long history of human rights
violations against the Papuans, and the racist Indonesian
soldiers generally view the Papuan people as little more than
animals. Papua's natural resources are being exploited at great
profit for the Indonesian government and foreign businesses, but at
the expense of the Papuan peoples and their homelands. When
international companies come to Papua, the Indonesian military
accompanies them to 'protect' the 'vital projects': the military
presence is almost always associated with human rights violations
such as killings, arbitrary arrests, rape and torture. Those Papuans
who protest against the Indonesian government, the military or 'vital
projects' are even more likely to experience abuses of their human
rights.
How does Survival help? Survival is supporting the
right of the Papuan peoples to live on their land in peace, by
exposing, and protesting against, the human rights violations they
experience, and by campaigning for their land ownership rights. It
supports Papuan opposition to any harmful projects on their land,
such as the pulp plant which Scott Paper planned to build on Auyu
land - the plan was abandoned after international protests. Survival
is calling on the Indonesian government to enter into dialogue with
the Papuan people so that they are able to decide their own way of
life and their future.
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