Gregory Toshio Meronek

East Timorese and West Papuan Independence: Explaining Political Climate Change Gregory Toshio Meronek

At first glance, it is difficult to comprehend why East Timor is free and West Papua continues to be held by Indonesia. The human rights offenses these peoples have suffered include what appear to be acts of genocide (including hundreds of thousands of targeted deaths by the Indonesian military, and transmigration policies that have seen immigrants from other parts of Indonesia begin to outnumber the native populations). For years, their rights to self-determination were in effect ignored by the United Nations and overridden by Indonesia as will be described later. Appearances aside, there do exist factors that help to explain why East Timor is now recognized by the world and its former aggressor, Indonesia, as an independent nation, while for West Papua freedom is still elusive: Internal, domestic, and international factors all account for the political climate surrounding these movements.