WEST PAPUA NEW GUINEA:
INTERVIEW WITH FOREIGN MINISTER BEN TANGGAHMA*

BLACK BOOKS BULLETIN VOLUME 4, NUMBER 2 (SUMMER 1976)

Posted by RUNOKO RASHIDI

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"Africa is our motherland. All of the Black
populations which settled in Asia over the hundreds of
thousands of years came undoubtedly from the African
continent. In fact, the entire world was populated
from Africa. Hence, we the Blacks in Asia and the
Pacific today descend from proto-African peoples. We
were linked to Africa in the Past. We are linked to
Africa in the future. We are what you might call the
Black Asian Diaspora."

--Foreign Minister Ben Tanggahma

Question: Minister, in the past few months the major
world's news media have reported large-scale fighting
going on in the Southeast Asia-Pacific region between
the Republic of Indonesia on the one hand, and on the
other, the guerilla forces of the Democratic
Government of West Papua New Guinea.

Answer: Yes, but the press fails to inform people
about the fact that these are struggles in which poor,
disinherited Black populations--both in East Timor and
West Papua New Guinea--are fighting against a yellow
supremacist, racist, expansionist, colonialist and
fascist empire: the Republic of Indonesia.

Question: It is a fact that even in the United States,
where people are supposedly in possession of the
greatest amount of information about what is going on
in the world, there is great ignorance about your
struggles. And certainly it was only recently that
most people in the U.S.A. were informed even that
Black peoples were living in those areas of Asia.

Answer: Yes, that is true. Nevertheless Black peoples
have been inhabiting all regions of Asia for many
thousands of years. In fact, the aboriginal
populations of Southern China and the entire Southeast
Asia (the Philippines, Kampuchea, Laos, Vietnam,
Malaysia, Burma, Thailand and Indonesia) were Black.
Black populations are still in the jungle areas of
those nations even today, though living as marginal
peoples and facing many hardships in most cases.

Question: The Black peoples of the islands of New
Guinea and Timor, who are now fighting the
Indonesians, are therefore part of that great belt of
aboriginal Black populations that settled in Asia?

Answer: Yes. We on the island of New Guinea and on the
island of Timor belong to what is known as Melanesia,
or Black Islands, if we translate it literally.

Question: Before getting in the political particulars
of your struggle, let us address ourselves again to
historical facts, considering our general ignorance on
the subject. What is your relationship toward Africa
and Africans?

Answer: Africa is our motherland. All of the Black
populations which settled in Asia over the hundreds of
thousands of years came undoubtedly from the African
continent. In fact, the entire world was populated
from Africa. Hence, we the Blacks in Asia and the
Pacific today descend from proto-African peoples. We
were linked to Africa in the Past. We are linked to
Africa in the future. We are what you might call the
Black Asian Diaspora.

Question: Still on the subject of history, at what
period in history did Black populations arrive on the
islands of New Guinea?

Answer: I can only go by what modern anthropologists
say, since we ourselves have never conducted any
scientific research on the subject because of the
conditions imposed by the Dutch colonization, British
colonization, German colonization, Australian
colonization, Japanese colonization, and, now
Indonesian colonization. But according to
anthropologists, different types of Blacks began
arriving on the island of New Guinea and Australia at
a date variously situated between 30,000 and 60,000
years ago.

Question: You have mentioned six colonial nations. Has
the island of New Guinea been colonized by all of
these nations?

Answer: Just a glance at contemporary history will
show that the island of New Guinea and its peoples
have been the most colonized territory on the planet.
Let me give you an idea. In 1512, Portuguese
adventurers began circling the island like vultures.
Soon after they seized the island of Timor and
colonized it until 1975. The Spanish joined a few
years later, in 1528, and eventually seized the
Philippines, then inhabited by Blacks. In 1545, Spain
made a claim over our island and called it "Nueva
Guinea" (New Guinea) because the peoples they met
there bore a striking resemblance to the Blacks they
were then coming into contact with on the Guinea Coast
in West Africa. In 1600 the Dutch entered the area and
starting pushing out both Portuguese and Spanish. In
1688 the British got in there and began rivaling with
Holland. In 1788, the French jumped in too and laid
claim to the Bouganville Islands. In 1834, Holland and
Britain agreed to split the island amongst themselves
in two equal halves and to oppose the intrusion of any
third party. In 1883 the first massive deportation of
Papuan slaves took place towards the sugar plantations
of Queensland, Australia, then a British colony. (In
fact, the deportation of Black slaves; or
`blackbirding,' had begun in 1845). In 1871, the
Russian Empire of the Czar got into the picture, and
was sending warships to New Guinea trying to secure
part of the island for itself. Britain and Holland
thwarted the Russian attempt. The same was true for
Italy, which tried to gain a foothold on the Island in
1876. Italy and Czarist Russia were left out of the
picture, since neither was strong enough to face the
British and Dutch navies together. Only Germany was
then in a position to do so. The French were pushed
further to the East into New Hebrides, New Caledonia,
Wallis Island, where they are still today. But Germany
imposed its will during the Berlin Conference
(1884-1885) at which time the African continent was
dismembered, and along with Togo, Cameroons, Namibia
and Tanzania, the Kaiser got a piece of the island of
New Guinea. Hence, in 1834, the German flag was raised
over Northeastern New Guinea. By 1888, therefore, the
eastern half of our island was called northern "German
New Guinea" and southern "British New Guinea," while
the entire western half was called western "Dutch
New`Guinea." Italy, France, Spain, Russia and Portugal
simply licked their wounds and took whatever they were
given in Africa.

Question: That is certainly an amazing an unknown
account of colonization in that side of the world!

Answer: The story is not over yet. By the end of the
1880's, the natural and human resources of the island
were being exploited mercilessly; the slave trade to
the sugar plantations of Queensland, Australia, the
extraction of gold, the exportation of coconut oil;
and from 1808 onwards, copper and rubber were being
exported.

Meanwhile, white migrants from Germany, Australia and
Holland had seized and carved up amongst themselves
the best and richest lands of the island pushing back
deeper and deeper into the jungles the original
occupiers of these lands. This brought about an
interminable cycle of war, raids, counter-raids,
so-called punitive expeditions and so on. No historian
has yet attempted a detailed account of the number of
Blacks killed or taken into slavery on the island from
the 16th century onwards. By the end of the 19th
century, compulsory labor, that is practically slave
labor, was in force throughout the island. Then, in
1902, Australia became independent of Britain and
concluded an agreement with London whereby "British
Papua New Guinea" was ceded to Canberra. The British
pulled out of Northeastern New Guinea and it became
"Australian Papua New Guinea" in 1906. At about the
same period the Boers of South Africa proclaimed their
Independence, too, and took over the British colonies
which today make up South Africa. But in 1919,
generalized warfare broke out amongst the different
European nations against Germany. Australia, which had
declared war on Germany alongside Britain, invaded
"German New Guinea" to the North, and took it over.
That was during World War I. Less than thirty years
after, World War II broke out with Japan fighting
alongside Germany. In 1942 Japan invaded the island of
New Guinea kicking out both the Australians, who held
the eastern half, and the Dutch, who held the western
half. Imperial Japan occupied our island until 1945,
exploiting the resources, imposing another form of
forced labor and continuing the colonial policies of
the Europeans. In 1945, the U.S. got into the picture.
American troops, a lot of them Blacks, invaded the
islands and fought some of the bloodiest battles in
the Pacific area against the Japanese. After giving
back the West to the Dutch and the East to the
Australians, American troops pulled out in 1948. In
1962, the Indonesians invaded "Dutch New Guinea",
kicked out the Dutch and annexed the western half
where we are presently fighting. Australia held on to
Eastern Papua New Guinea until September 18, 1975,
when the eastern half of our island became independent
under Prime Minister Michael Somare.

Question: No doubt, the situation you have described
is more complicated than any of the cases we have
studied in Africa or elsewhere. Minister, when exactly
and how did the armed struggle begin in the western
half of the island, or West Papua New Guinea?

Answer: Well, first of all, when the Indonesians
invaded in January 1962, our people were caught
unawares. We were on the road to Independence then.
The Dutch had already accepted the idea of
independence and had agreed to open discussions around
a target date. The date proposed was 1970. Our first
elected parliament, or National Council, had just been
elected and half-a-dozen nationalist political parties
were campaigning for Independence. That is why
Indonesia, then ruled by Ahmed Sukarno, decided not to
waste the time and launched a military invasion. In
fact, Indonesia had been claiming West Papua New
Guinea as part of her territory since she had become
Independent of the Dutch in 1949. The U.S. stepped in
to stop the fighting between Indonesian and Dutch
troops, and an agreement was signed between both
nations, totally behind the backs of our people, which
handed over West Papua New Guinea to Indonesia with
the proviso that a referendum be effected in 1969 to
determine whether our people wanted to be part of
Indonesia or independent. That was called "The New
York Agreement," and was signed at the United Nations
in August 1962. Holland pulled out its civilian
administration, thus ending 140 years of colonial
rule. Indonesia's colonial reign of terror began.


Question: When exactly did the Blacks of West Papua
New Guinea react to Indonesian occupation?

Answer: Practically immediately after the Dutch pulled
out in 1969.

Question: How did the Indonesians react to the
launching of the armed struggle?

Answer: That is an important question because the
struggle was launched the same year a coup d'etat took
place in Indonesia, in which one million Indonesian
communists were killed. Hence, at the same time that
Sukarno was being eased out of power, our people were
battling Sukarno's troops in West Papua New Guinea.
Large-scale repression had begun, and in a matter of
months after our first attacks against Indonesian
barracks and police posts in February 1976, a total of
35,000 West Papuans had been killed by air strikes,
bombings or the assaults of Indonesian troops against
rebelling tribes and villages. So it made no
difference for us, in terms of repression, whether
Sukarno was in power or not.

Question: Was it really grassroots leadership that
launched the resistance movement in February 1965?

Answer: There can be doubt. This is proven by the fact
that although Johan Ariks, the iniator of the
struggle, was captured and killed in prison by the
Indonesians; or that Lodewik Mandatjan and Col. Freddy
Awon were to be eventually captured and killed by the
Indonesians, the struggle not only continued, but
widened to cover areas where there had been no
military activity.

Question: You referred to the existence of a slave
trade from New Guinea to Australia. Also, you quoted
from a book in which mention was made of Malay and
Arab slave traders. Could you elaborate?

Answer: Yes. These are facts relatively unknown to any
but ourselves and certain historians. But the
existence of a widespread slave trade of Papuans in
the Middle and Far East, and as far as Turkey and
Russia, is attested to by medieval chronicles. From
the 12th and 13th centuries onwards, the expanding
Arab Empire had spread its influence to the islands
which now make up Indonesia: mainly to Malacca,
Sumatra and Java. By the 16th century, Muslim
Sultanates were in existence in Java, Malacca and the
Moluccas. The latter, inhabited by Black populations,
was ruled by an Indonesian military theocracy by the
15th century and called itself the Sultanate of
Temate-Tidore. By the 16th century, the entire
Indonesian archipelago had been Islamicized and the
influence of Islam had spread to the westernmost area
of West Papua New Guinea. At present, between 15% and
20% of our population is Moslem. At any rate, an
important Arab-Malay trade route was in existence in
the 14th and 15th centuries, linking West Papua New
Guinea to the rest of Indonesia, the Middle and Near
East and right up to Turkey. Malay and Arab traders
raided the coasts of West Papua New Guinea for slaves
throughout those centuries and right up till the 19th
century. The offshore island of Biak acted as a
slave-trade outpost, very much like Zanzibar was at
the same period. Hence, from the 13th or 14th
centuries onwards, Black slaves were being captured
and carted away to the chief slave markets in the
Middle East and Turkey. In another direction, Papuan
slaves were being carried massively to satisfy the
demand of the medieval Chinese Empire. From Iraq,
Papuan slaves were resold to Turkey, and from Turkey
many of them were resold to Russia. These are
historical facts.

Question: That is certainly amazing!

Answer: Then, of course, during the 19th century,
Papuans were being taken into slavery to work on the
sugar plantations of the state of Queensland, in
Australia, when not reduced to slavery on the spot by
the Dutch, the Germans, the British and Australians.
Maybe historians will one day be in the position to
tell how many hundreds of thousands, or millions, of
our people were taken into slavery from the 13th and
14th centuries up to the end of the 19th century. At
any rate, I have read reports of aboriginal Black
Fillipinos having been taken as slaves into Mexico by
Spanish slave dealers during the heyday of the
Atlantic slave trade. It wouldn't at all surprise me
if some of our people had also been taken to the
Americas during the period!

Question: The parallel between the history of Blacks
in New Guinea and that of Blacks in Africa and
elsewhere is no doubt remarkable. Do you find that
Africans are aware of this?

Answer: Maybe not aware in all of its details, but
certainly so in terms of a recognition that we are
part and parcel of the African family and that as such
we, the Blacks in Melanesia, and our brethren on the
African continent have a common past and a single
destiny. Between the past and the future, there is
therefore room for a present-day, active solidarity.

Question: Has the Revolutionary Provisional Government
of West Papua New Guinea enjoyed much of that
solidarity to date?

Answer: Yes and no. Yes, if solidarity is meant
sympathy with our struggle by our brothers in Africa
and the Caribbean. No, if by solidarity is meant
concrete material and humanitarian aid. So far, only
the Republic of Senegal has granted us a limited aid
and allowed us to open an Information Mission in
Senegal. It began operating at the end of 1976. But
things are changing fast in our favor and already more
than a dozen Black nations of Africa, the Caribbean
and the Pacific have made known to our government, in
one way or another, that they support our national
liberation struggle.

Question: Can you name those nations?

Answer: I would prefer for them to do so themselves
whenever they so deem it appropriate.

Question: What would you say is your ideology?

Answer: In answer to that question, I shall quote our
President, who said: "We are not going to get involved
in ideological blocks. We have our ideology already:
Melanesian nationalism!" We are Melanesian
nationalists. No less, no more. We believe that the
Black peoples of Melanesia must determine their own
future, work together with their brethren in the rest
of the Black world to redeem Black peoples from their
present position of servitude at the hands of other
races, and rescue them from their present state of
illiteracy, technological and economic backwardness,
rampant diseases and general chaos. We believe that
Black peoples, the Black race, has the right to aspire
to something much, much, much better they what they
have now.

Question: But, what does Melanesian nationalism mean
in terms of social, political and economic structures?

Answer: I think it means giving people a chance to
decide for themselves, without arm-twisting, what they
really want and how they want it.

Question: Where does the R.P.G. situate itself in the
controversy of capitalism vs. communism, in terms of
economic structures and also in terms of ideology?

Answer: We feel that our people, based on their
so-called primitive communal experience, can define
the type of democratic, economic and social structures
better suited to a rapid social and technological
development and which, at the same time, preserve and
develop what is best in our society. We think that it
is possible to find new models of development which
can insert our people into the modern world, while
preserving those features of our society which give us
spiritual fulfillment.

Question: What role would private capital play in such
a model?

Answer: Our country is an extremely underdeveloped
country, in fact, compared to most nations in the
world, our country appears as not developed at all. To
bring about development in such a situation will
require skills, manpower and capital which we at
present do not have. Hence, we will be looking towards
the Black world for these. If the capital which the
Black world can provide to develop our nation is
private, we will take it. If it is state capital, we
will also take it. We will take whatever the Black
world can spare on our behalf.

Question: And how about capital, private or state,
from the leading technological powers: Japan, USA,
USSR, China, West Germany, France, Great Britain,
etc.?

Answer: Our relationship with any of those outside
countries--by outside, I mean non-Black--will entirely
depend on their past attitudes towards our people and,
more so, on their present attitudes towards Indonesia
on the one hand, and our people on the other. Those
who are helping, financing, arming, abetting and
supporting Indonesia in its attempt to exterminate our
people, cannot expect anything but lasting opposition
from our part in the future. Moreover, nations like
Japan, Holland, Australia, Britain and Germany (both
Germany's) owe us a lot of money in terms of
reparations for the periods over which they exercised
control over our people, exploited the natural and
human resources of our nation and plundered its
peoples. Reparations will be a top priority on our
lists of requirements once we achieve our freedom.

Question: How rich is the Island of New Guinea?

Answer: Fourteen of the world's sixteen strategic
minerals are reported to be found in abundant
quantities on our island: copper, gold, nickel,
uranium, cobalt, iron ore, manganese, oil, lead, tin,
in the western half alone, according to geological
reports, 10% of the world's known reserves of crude
oil are to be found. The biggest deposits of copper in
the world are also reported to be found on the island.
That will give you a rough idea.

Question: Taking into account the military might of
Indonesia, its sheer superiority in terms of men,
financial resources and foreign backing, how does the
R.P.G. intend to liberate the rest of the country with
hardly any weapons, less than 10,000 men and no
material backing from the outside?

Answer: That was the question our people posted to
themselves more than ten years ago, when they decided
to challenge Indonesia. That is the question that our
ancestors in New Guinea, in Africa, the Caribbean and
the Pacific must have asked themselves over and over
again, in the face of the invading white man. In the
years of struggle against Indonesia, we think we have
found the answer. The answer is: reliance on the
courage, awakening and determination of our people to
be free: reliance on the active and total support of
the Black world. There is no other answer. If we are
wrong, then another Black community will have been
exterminated from the face of our planet!

*This interview is an abbreviated version of a longer
interview done with Foreign Minister Ben Tanggahma by
Shawna Maglangbayan and Carlos Moore in Dakar on
February 16, 1976. The complete interview is contained
in two issues of the Association of African
Historians' Newsletter, Volume 1, Numbers 9 and 10.