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about Asia Buzz
Asia Buzz:
Independence Day
Free Papua: the information war is half the battle
By ERIC ELLIS
June 7, 2000
Web posted at 11.30 a.m. Hong Kong time, 11.30 p.m. EDT
Here is a real-time test for all those who follow Indonesian affairs--and the
Internet. Much has been made of how the Internet liberates the mind, and
possibly even nations. Governments and regimes which seek to control and doctor
information can be circumvented by the Net. The Internet in many parts of Asia,
for example, is seen as a more reliable medium than the quasi-official press.
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Perhaps the classic, recent example in Asia was the struggle by the East
Timorese for independence. With their widespread, tech-savvy diaspora in
Portugal, Australia and North America, the East Timorese won that particular
hearts-and-minds battle. That Jakarta sanctioned various massacres, militias and
human-rights abuses obviously didn't help the Indonesian cause either. Still, it
was an eloquent statement when Jakarta, in the dying days of the B.J. Habibie
administration, was still vacillating on recognizing last year's UN independence
referendum while Dili burned, and East Timor's Jose Ramos-Horta vowed to unleash
computer terrorism on Indonesian systems, promising to comprehensively cripple
what was already a dying regime.
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Cyber terrorism had officially arrived as a quasi-legitimate political tactic.
East Timor will be the first country born in the Internet Age, thanks in large
part to the sophisticated information bombardment of its committed supporters.
So now the attention turns to West Papua--or Irian Jaya as Jakarta likes to call
it--the massive, primitive province that abuts the New Guinea landmass. The idea
of a breakup of Indonesia discussed online is not new but the Aceh Merdeka
movement, or its equivalent in Ambon and elsewhere, don't have the
sophistication of the Papuans, whose often-Christian diaspora are sprinkled
across university campuses in Australia, New Zealand and North America, where
communications infrastructure are very solid.
Just a few days after the unilateral declaration of independence by the Free
Papua Movement in Jayapura, the world's press has been bombarded with
information about the cause. We are encouraged to log on to various sites
detailing the alleged human-rights atrocities of Jakarta and its military, as
well as the environmental outrages allegedly perpetrated by the New Orleans-
based mining giant Freeport McMoran, which operates a huge gold and copper mine
in the province that is Indonesia's biggest foreign investment. I suspect this
is a foretaste of what is to come, as the campaign gathers intensity.
The source sites were in New
Zealand, Canada
and Australia/United
States. Interestingly, as I trawled through the various sites
and search engines for information on Irian Jaya, there was very little
by way of rebuttal, or an alternative view from either Jakarta, or
Freeport, or even humble Indonesia patriots or academics anxious to
maintain a unitary state. One of the significant points here is that
technical skills are clearly more advanced in places like North America
than they are in Jakarta. Some of the above sites suggest strong technical
competence in getting the message out.
So, the first strike in the info-war has been won by the West Papuans, and from
that one can expect an avalanche of sympathetic stories from the world's press.
This is an opportunity for us, the readers, to follow how goes the campaign. It
is a political battle in embryo, and the desktop will be a significant theatre
of action.
Eric Ellis is the Southeast Asia and technology editor of web-based
finance portal AsiaWise.com
Ticked off at Asia Buzz? Turned on? Talk back to TIME
Write to TIME at mail@web.timeasia.com
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