Paradise Betrayed

Book excerpt: In the third Quarterly Essay for 2002 John Martinkus details what is being done to West Papua by its Indonesian overlords. He illustrates how those who seek independence are killed and tortured for their cause. There is now no one like the Papuan leader Theys Eluay, murdered in 2001 by the Indonesian military, and a campaign of death and terror has been launched on those who raise the Morning Star flag. Martinkus shows how the wealth of the Freeport mine underpins a regimen of repression and he reports on the rise of Laskar Jihad, the imported Islamic extremists who spread fear inthe name of Indonesian domination. In a powerful, groundbreaking piece of reportage, Martinkus shows how West Papua is another East Timor waiting to happen and how this is made possible by the indifference of everyone from the United Nations to the Australian government. "John Martinkus' narrative is as engrossing as it is appalling. It is full of menace and madness and the smell of death." —Peter Craven, Introduction "The violence in West Papua today ... is being orchestrated by the same figures in the Indonesian military who were behind the events in East Timor ... the whole repressive network of the Indonesian military that laid [it] waste." —John Martinkus, Paradise Betrayed