Category: Indonesia

Policy brief: Canada–Indonesia relations, past and present

February 16, 2021

Canada is negotiating freer trade (a comprehensive economic economic partnership agreement) with Indonesia. It’s worth looking back at the history to see that trade alone is not enough. Here’s a policy brief making that point, originally published in 2019. By David Webster Original Publication: International Journal 2019, Vol. 74(3) 472–479 Abstract Canada–Indonesia relations recently passed their… More Policy brief: Canada–Indonesia relations, past and present

Time for a New U.S. Approach toward Indonesia and West Papua 

August 27, 2019

By Edmund McWilliams (retired US foreign service officer) Originally published in Flowers in the Wall (download free pdf) There are few places in the world where U.S. human rights policy is as disingenuous as it is in West Papua. The bankruptcy of U.S. posturing regarding respect for fundamental human rights, including protection of the physical security of… More Time for a New U.S. Approach toward Indonesia and West Papua 

Facts, Feasts & Forests: Considering Approaches to Truth and Reconciliation in Tanah Papua

August 23, 2019

By Todd Biderman and Jenny Munro From Flowers in the Wall – download full chapter What sorts of “truths” are included in “truth and reconciliation” and from whose perspective? In Tanah Papua we have the problem of a multi-dimensional conflict and a state that is very dedicated to controlling what is said about that conflict.… More Facts, Feasts & Forests: Considering Approaches to Truth and Reconciliation in Tanah Papua

Self-Determination Abandoned: The Road to the New York Agreement on West Papua

August 22, 2019

By David Webster West Papua, occupied by Indonesia since the 1960s, is making headlines with a wave of protests sparked by anti-Papuan racism. How did this territory come under Indonesian rule? This article from Cornell University’s journal Indonesia (now in open access) provides context on how the Papuan right to self-determination was abandoned in the… More Self-Determination Abandoned: The Road to the New York Agreement on West Papua

Memorializing Dili, Timor-Leste

November 12, 2018

The right to food; the right to health. Images of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as it gets ready to turn 70. Centro Nacional Chega, the Timor-Leste centre for truth & reconciliation, Dili, Timor-Leste. pic.twitter.com/sYhjUeKHBE — David Webster (@dwebsterbu) October 30, 2018 Instead of mega-monuments glorifying the past, a photo exhibit explains a complex… More Memorializing Dili, Timor-Leste

The Touchy Historiography of Indonesia’s 1965 Mass Killings: Intractable Blockades?

October 3, 2018

By Bernd Schaefer The violence of 1965–66 is both a domestic and an international issue. It cannot just be reduced to the fact that Indonesians were killing Indonesians, and therefore labelled an Indonesian affair and an Indonesian tragedy. That is only part of the story. It is also an international story: many countries bear responsibility,… More The Touchy Historiography of Indonesia’s 1965 Mass Killings: Intractable Blockades?

New Book: The Killing Season A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66

October 1, 2018

The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66 By Geoffrey Robinson The Killing Season explores one of the largest and swiftest, yet least examined, instances of mass killing and incarceration in the twentieth century—the shocking antileftist purge that gripped Indonesia in 1965–66, leaving some five hundred thousand people dead and more than a… More New Book: The Killing Season A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66

Cracks in the Wall: Indonesia and Narratives of the 1965 Mass Violence

September 30, 2018

30 September and 1 October mark the anniversary of the Indonesian military’s seizure of power in Indonesia in 1965, which began an organized wave of killings by the Indonesian military and their supporters. To mark the anniversary of the killings and the ongoing campaign to tell the true story of what happened in 1965-66, we… More Cracks in the Wall: Indonesia and Narratives of the 1965 Mass Violence