Our coach took the M3 expressway from Budapest to Bratislava. Most of the roadway between the two Central European capitals was a vista of seemingly endless fields of Van Gogh-like sunflowers. When we got to the Slovakian border we were able to seamlessly cross over thanks to both countries being EU signees of the Schengen Agreement … no vehicle stops, no passport checks, etc. Fast-forward just six months, there would no such easy passage for Syrian asylum seekers trying to make it to refugee-friendly Germany.
We parked up the hill near the tramlines and walked down the ancient looking steps to the Town. Old Bratislava was composed of a “rabbit warren” of roughly cobbled lanes and narrow streets leading directly or less directly to the town square. The first thing that caught my eye (near the under-road tunnel) was a smoking salon, decked out with comfy chairs much like a cafe (actually it might be characterised as a “smoking cafe with coffee optional”). I was bit surprised to find this establishment here, only because I’d heard from a Slovak acquaintance in Australia that smoking parlour shops had been outlawed in Slovakian cities, but here it was, couples happily chugging away at the weed in relaxing surroundings. Mind you, they were lots of other public places anyway that you could freely smoke anywhere in the town (so a shop specialising in smoking seemed a bit superfluous to this outsider!).
Street upon street packed with outdoor beer taverns
It was very hot on the day we visited (about 35-36 degrees), so most of the locals were content to sit round drinking their pivo of choice in the numerous bars (vyčapy) all over the old town. One of the cobblestone street in particular was a kind of “booze bingers’ alley”, wall-to-wall liquor swilling outlets strung out along a dark, dingy bar strip.
One especially popular bar (called, what else? … “the Dubliner”) had the right idea in the heat, it had affixed a sprinkler system of sorts to the underside of the shop awning allowing the sweltering patrons the relief of jets of soft droplets of water whilst they were imbibing. Budapest had a similar thing … a number of Váci utca restaurants were equipped with fans blowing gentle mists of cold vapour (perfumed?) on to diners.
Cultural pointer: Beer drinking du jour is the norm in Bratislava – and cheaper than H2o I found out! … when finally we were driven inside one of the bars by the unrelenting heat, the spring water I ordered cost me €1.80 whereas the half-litre of beer my companions both had cost them a mere €1.20 each!?!
From Bratislava’s central square, tourists can explore the town on a dinky toy train (in keeping with the ‘Lilliputian’ scale of the Slovakian capital). Many of Bratislava’s public buildings seemed a little tired, in need of a facelift or a paint job – or both.
Among the locals, especially the younger women, I noticed a high percentage of blonds (very much in line with what I observed in the Czech Republic). Amusingly one stopped me in the street to ask me, in animated Slovakian, for directions! I am getting used to being mistook for a local but it still bemuses me why.
Bratislavsky Hrad from Staré Mêsto
On the north side of the Danube (about 15 minutes walk from the Old Town) is what is probably the city’s most impressive historic structure, the formidable Bratislava Castle (Bratislavsky hrad). The original castle dates from the early 10th century and has passed through the hands of Moravian, Hungarian, Czech and Slovakian rulers. Its historical strategic importance lies in its elevated location on the fringe of the vast Carpathian Mountains.
Footnote: Tiny Slovakia cf. Even Tinier Slovenia
We visitors to Europe from the other side of the world get these two small Central/Southern European republics mixed up so often (no excuses though once you have actually visited each one!). I can only imagine how frustrating this must be to the Slovaks and Slovenes themselves … especially as both peoples long existed as subordinate ethnic identities in their respective, larger former states before finally freeing themselves from the shadow of numerically larger ethnic groups.
“Czechy Crumbly”, well not exactly, but that’s what I thought the name of this place sounded like when I first heard it was on the itinerary of our trip to the Czech Republic. This small town 170km south of the Czech capital isn’t exactly crumbling but it is very old … and exceedingly picturesque. The combination of its beauty, charm and size has led many visitors to describe it as a miniature version of Prague.
CK: Zámek KrummauThe 13th century Gothic castle (Zámek), on the left bank of the Vltava River, is the magnet for most visitors to Český Krumlov (or Krumlaw). The castle is a long complex of buildings (40+), courtyards (5!) & 10ha of Baroque gardens, its entirety stretches from a lower point near an old part of the city (Latran) through the Red Gate up to the upper castle. As you would imagine with a grand structure so historically significant, the castle has the customary UNESCO accreditation.
Most visitors pay to clamber up the 162 steps of the Castle Tower staircase to glimpse the commanding, 360 degree-views of CK. Gazing east across the river you can see the orangey-yellow terracotta roofs of the Inner Town (Centrum). The Inner Town sits on a curved nub of land which follows the contours of the winding river and offers a smorgasbord of quaint medieval buildings.
Below the walkway and the Castle Tower (Zámez Čnít), between the first and second courtyards, there is a bear moat with a few remaining brown bears prowling solemnly around its confines. Bears have been kept here since the days in which the city was ruled by the House of Rožmberk (Rosenberg)(Rožmberk Castle itself is some 25km south of CK).
Cloak BridgeOne of the most distinctive architectural features which connects the Upper Castle with the Castle Theatre is the Cloak Bridge which has apartments and a viewing platform resting on huge, stone arched foundations resembling viaducts.
Centrum has lots of cobblestoned back lanes full of cafés and bars, but something also worth visiting is the museum dedicated to the Austrian Expressionist artist Egon Schiele whose edgy, controversial figurative works earned him the ire of the socially conservative burghers of Český Krumlov during the two years he lived in the city (just before WWI).
CK – the rivers runs through it!CK is a pleasant, picture postcard sort of place, stocked to the rafters with tourist trade wares. The Vltava which looked more like a stream than a river where we were, apparently has rafting listed among its visitor activities. Judging by how still and tranquil the water was, unless its about “slo-mo” rafting, the serious stuff must be a long way downstream from the city weir.
Not long ago I was doing an exploratory walk around “The Rocks” precinct, one of the first parts of Sydney Cove settled by the 1788 colonists and an area much changed since the PT (pre-tourism) days when it was a considerably less congenial and decidedly un-swanky part of town to dwell in. At Dawes Point, on the hill immediately under the southern pylons of the Harbour Bridge, I noticed an information stand next to the old battery site and erstwhile observatory which makes reference to an 18th century conflict between the empires of Britain and Spain that had an association with that very spot, Dawes Point.
The stand contains a timeline which includes the following short narrative: 1790 Britain fears an attack on the colony from Spain, which disputes Britain’s claim to New South Wales. Spain backs down in the dispute.
This curious snippet of information came as a surprise and prompted me to look further into this little known chapter in early Australian colonial history. I was aware of course of the French interest in New Holland (as it was known in the 18th century) with the explorations of Botany Bay by La Perouse in the 1780s, but the idea of a Spanish connection with the earliest days of European settlement in Australia was completely new to me.
(Former) Officers’ Quarters, Dawes Pt ⬇️
Dawes Point née Maskelyne
The Dawes Point story begins with the arrival of the First Fleet in Port Jackson in 1788. Naval engineer Lt William Dawes came on the Sirius as the colony’s astronomer with orders to construct an observatory, optimally located on a narrow promontory near Sydney Cove. Dawes named the point (which now bears his name) Point Maskelyne after the then Astronomer Royal at Greenwich, London. The peninsula Dawes chose in 1788 for the designated lookout had been home to the local, indigenous Cadigal clan for 1000s of years and known to them as Tar-ra.
http://www.7dayadventurer.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/image-28.jpg”> Dawes Point, Sydney Cove[/captionIn addition to an observatory, Point Maskelyne/Dawes Point was soon put to use as a powder magazine✽, a cemetery and it’s most substantial role, as a defence battery – in fact the first line of defence for the colony against the enemies of the British Empire. The original battery was pretty rudimentary but the fortifications were strengthened in 1819 by Francis Greenway utilising the plentiful supply of local sandstone. Greenway’s formidable castle-like structure was actually more impressive in appearance than in reality … the famous colonial architect constructed a kind of faux castle that was mainly just facade! [Johnson 2003].
Anglo-Spanish flashpoint
The incident that triggered a new crisis in 18th century Anglo-Spanish relations with ramifications for the fledgling colony in Botany Bay is known as the Nootka Sound incident. Nootka Sound was an important Spanish trading base on Vancouver Island on the North American north-west coast. In 1789 the Spanish commander at Nootka seized two British merchantmen (ships) anchored in the Sound and arrested the crews for infringing the sovereign territory of Spain. As far as Spain was concerned the British ships had unlawfully transgressed upon its imperial sphere of influence. Madrid had long claimed the entire Pacific Ocean region as a Spanish mare clausum (Legal Latin = “closed sea”). This was a double source of annoyance to the Spanish Crown with the British already earning Spain’s ire by establishing the colony in Nueva Holanda two years earlier. The Spanish claim of the Pacific as its mare clausum was based on the 1494 Papal-sanctioned Treaty of Tordesillas which allocated everything west of a meridian point drawn through the Americas to the Spanish Crown. Madrid viewed the recent British foothold on the “Great Southern Land” as a potential and very real threat to Spain’s existing Pacific colonies (Philippines, Mexico, Chile, Argentina and Peru) [King 1986; Johnson 2003].
The British colony at Port Jackson at the time was far from securely rooted. On Malaspina’s visit to Sydney in 1793 (see below), the Spaniard noted the widespread opinion within the colony that it would be closed down. Displeasure among the early fleeters were rife, many were unhappy with the deprivations and daily struggle and wanted out. London newspapers were not optimistic about Sydney’s prospects. Until the colony got on its own two legs, it was quite a close-run thing [Hall 2000].
The 1494 treaty divvying up the Americas between Spain and Portugal ⬇️
Spain had good reason to worry about the threat Britain posed to its diverse Pacific possessions, but it was also concerned about Tsarist Russia’s imperial ambitions in the region. Russia had established settlements in Alaska which had spread south as far as California (also in Hawaii) and it appeared likely to encroach on Spain’s American territories.
Britain at the time was determined to get in on the lucrative North American fur trade (seal and especially sea otter pelts). American fur traders (and sailors on Captain Cook’s 3rd Expedition) achieved very high prices for North Pacific otter pelts in Canton (Guangzhou)[Johnson 2003]. A British trading base on the north-west Pacific coast would obviate the need to make the long haul from Calcutta to reach these rich fishing waters. The recent, successful colonisation of both Botany Bay and Norfolk Island also encouraged Britain to establish a presence at Nootka Sound [King 2010]. Accordingly the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, realising that Britain had a pretty weak legal claim to the territory that was to become British Columbia, played the bluff card and belligerently demanded redress from the Spanish for ‘illegally’ holding the British crewmen and allegedly mistreating them. Parliament mobilised for war and made plans to attack the Spanish at Nootka Sound.
(Source: Pharmaceutical Journal)
The part of these developments which connected back to the Botany Bay colony is that Britain’s strategy involved using Port Jackson as a cog in the war operations. The Admiralty redirected frigates bound for New Holland to the conflict zone on the north-west coast. Governor Phillip was instructed to replenish supplies for the Nootka Sound military expedition from Sydney Cove [Gough 1980].
During the period of the war crisis there were also plans to have a small contingent of marines and convicts from Botany Bay travel to Nootka Sound on The Discovery to establish a settlement on the north-west coast [King 2010].
The recently independent United States also had commercial ships in and around Vancouver Island at the time of the Nootka Sound incident, and was an interested onlooker in the Spanish-British conflict. The American government expressed the view that in the event of war Britain would target Spanish ports on the Mississippi including New Orleans which would bring the conflict dangerously into the vicinity of US territory [Niles Weekly 1817].
Eventually, Spain backed down to the bellicose British. Negotiations followed resulting in a series of Nootka Sound Conventions. Spain acquiesced to British demands, conceding that all nations were free to navigate and fish in the Pacific, and to trade and settle on unoccupied land. The conflict’s resolution was a coup for British mercantilism and diplomacy.
There were several developments that affected the dissipation of Spain’s resolve to oppose the English incursion into the realm of “New Spain”. Madrid has anticipated support from Bourbon France, however this proved to be not forthcoming. The onset of the French Revolution in 1789 dissuaded France in its state of turbulence from embroiling itself in a war against Britain at the time. Spain found itself further isolated after Prussia and Portugal allied themselves with the British on the issue.
Dissipation of tensions
Ultimately, war between Spain and Britain was averted. By the late 1790s the growing threat to Europe was Napoléon…tensions between Britain and Spain dissolved when the two enemies became allies in the new, common fight against the über-ambitious French general.
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By 1795 a weakened Spain had completely abandoned its trading post at Nootka Sound, leaving Britain free to do business in the north Pacific. Vancouver Island and the whole territory (British Columbia) eventually became a crown colony of Britain (1849).
Malaspina scientific and spying mission
The averting of the war crisis over Nootka Sound did not remove Spanish anxieties over the British presence in the Pacific. In 1793 a large Spanish expedition undertaking maritime scientific exploration reached the shores of Sydney harbour. Funded by the Spanish crown, the expedition had set out from Cadiz in 1789 visiting South America, the Falkland Islands, Mexico, Alaska, the Philippines, Tonga and New Zealand, in addition to the infant New South Wales colony. The catalyst for the expedition, proposed and led by Alessandro Malaspina, was the knowledge that Russia was hatching similar plans for a scientific exploration of the Pacific. The Mulovsky Expedition, as it is known, was also intended to annex the North American littoral region from Vancouver to Alaska in the name of the Russian empress. The expedition however was cancelled due to the outbreak of the Second Russo-Turkish War in 1787.
The Spanish expedition carried with it an elite collection of scientists and artists but Malaspina’s mission had a secret, political purpose as well. Madrid was anxious to learn what Britain’s real purpose was in establishing the colony in New Holland. Malaspina’s instructions were to also ascertain how advanced the Port Jackson settlement was. Malaspina respectfully courted and charmed the authorities in Sydney (Lt Gov Grose) as a cover for his spying activities during the month the frigates were anchored in the harbour. His men collected botanical specimens and other scientific knowledge and sketched drawings of the scenery and the townsfolk including the local Eora (Aboriginal) people [King 1986].
Upon his return home Malaspina reported back to the Spanish government that the New South Wales settlement was well established and warned that it posed real dangers to Spain’s Pacific possessions. Malaspina noted that Port Jackson could be used as a base for privateers to cut the colonial lines of communication between Manila and Spanish America, and to launch raids on the Peru and Chile colonies from. He concluded that Spain had no real chance of supplanting the British in Port Jackson [Olcelli 2013].
Britain’s foothold in the western Pacific was an ongoing concern for the Spanish, so much so that they considered a pre-emptive strike on the NSW colony. Proposed by José de Bustamante (military governor of Paraguay and Montevideo) and approved by King Carlos IV in the early 1790s, the Spanish scheme was to launch an 100-boat assault on Port Jackson from its base in Uruguay. The armada, armed with the new, “hot shot” cannon, ultimately did not proceed [Pearlman 2015].
PostScript: British eyes switchfrom Spain to France
By around the turn-of-the-century, 1800, with Spanish imperial power on the wane, Britain had much more reason to be concerned about the aggression of Napoléon in Europe … France had supplanted Spain as the focus for British security at Dawes Point and the fledgling and distant New South Wales outpost.
Dawes Pt battery ca.1875 ⬇️
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✽ the storage room still exists, located under the Harbour Bridge southern pylon, where in the formative years of the colony a secret stock of explosives was kept for use in defending the town against enemy warships [Compagnoni 2015]
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References:
BM Gough, Distant Dominion: Britain and the Northwest Coast of North America, 1579-1809, (1980)
AW Johnson, ‘Showdown in the Pacific: a Remote Response to European Power Struggles in the Pacific, Dawes Point Battery, Sydney, 1791-1925’, (Sydney Harbour Authority 2003) www.sha.org/uploads/files/sha
RJ King, ‘Eora and English at Port Jackson: a Spanish View’, (1986), www.press.anu.edu.au/2016/02/articles054
RJ King, ‘George Vancouver and the Contemplated Settlement at Nootka Sound’, The Great Circle, 32(1), 2010
L Olcelli, ‘Alessandro Malaspina: an Italian-Spaniard at Port Jackson’, Sydney Journal, 4(1), 2013
J Pearlman, “Spanish plan to ‘invade’ the British colony in Australia in the 1790s with 100-vessel armada”, 26-Jan 2015, www.telegraph.co.uk Niles Weekly Register, No 19 of Vol XII, 5 July 1817
T Compagnoni (video), ‘Gunpowder Magazine Hidden Beneath Sydney Harbour Bridge’, 07 September 2015,www.huffpost.com
From the first, inchoate Papuan calls for independence (Merkeda) and separation from Indonesia, the West has conveniently chosen to ignore the justness of the West Papuans’ right to self-determination and a post-colonial future. There has been a mixture of motives for these omissions – revolving largely around an insurance policy of political self-interest and opportunities for economic self-gain. Over the past half century Australia, the US and the UN have at different times ably served the Indonesian cause in Western New Guinea (WNG).
The US manipulated the 1962 negotiations between the Netherlands and Indonesia (the New York Agreement) and undercut the Dutch position essentially for ideological self-interest. After overtures and military hardware from the USSR to Sukarno were warmly received in Jakarta, the need to keep Indonesia in the anti-communist camp became critical to Washington’s thinking of the day. The support for Indonesia’s designs on West Irian later lucratively opened the door for US mining companies (I have already outlined how Freeport Copper and Gold, in conjunction with the Suharto regime, richly profited from the mineral-saturated province).
At the time of the so-called “Act of Free Choice” in 1969, Ortiz Sanz, the UN’s official observer at the plebiscite, allowed Indonesia free rein to determine how the poll would be conducted. Jakarta chose a form of consultation with community elders known as Musyawarah, rather than the “one man, one vote” principle. The Musyawarah system (allowing less than 0.2 per cent of the population to vote) flagrantly breached the 1962 New York Agreement. Jakarta then employed its military muscle on the ground to intimidate (and in some cases bribe) a select sample of Papuan voters into allowing integration of the WNG territory into Indonesia. The UN effectively sold the Papuan majority “down the river” by rubber-stamping the manifestly fraudulent result. As John Saltford noted, “U Thant and the UN Secretariat allowed the UN to involve itself in a dishonest process which deliberately denied the Papuans political and human rights”.
In the lead-up to the West Irian vote Washington again endorsed the Indonesian position as the correct one. US national security adviser Henry Kissinger echoing the earlier, dismissive tone uttered by President Kennedy on Papuan self-determination, advised Nixon that “independence was meaningless to the Stone Age cultures of New Guinea”. Interestingly Kissinger later became a member of the board of Freeport and a key lobbyist of the Indonesian government on behalf of the New Orleans-based multinational!
Australia right through the fifties to the early sixties backed the Dutch plan to facilitate self-determination for WNG, slowing bring the colony to a state of readiness for self-determination, and presumably self-rule. Australia was far more conservative about how long this would take for both parts of New Guinea to achieve. The Netherlands however went ahead, from the 1950s on it started building indigenous political structures, trade unions, etc, with a view to possible self-rule for WNG sometime around 1970.
Canberra’s support for this option was more about blocking Indonesia’s designs on the territory than about advancing the interests of the Papuans. Australia’s strategic focus in the (still) Eurocentric fifties was on the avoidance of having an Asian power (especially one with a leader showing leftist tendencies) sharing a land border with any territory administered by it. At this time Australia was responsible for the Territory of Papua New Guinea in the eastern half of the island (later granted independence in 1975), and there had even been some discussion of a pan-Papuan Melanesian Union – although it is debatable how seriously this was ever mooted [R Chauvel, ‘Australia’s strategic environment: the problem of Papua’; JR Verrier, ‘Origin of the Border Problem’].
The US’s involvement in Indo-China in the cause of anti-communism steered the Liberal government in Canberra in a different direction. To counter Soviet influence on Indonesia the Kennedy and Johnson administrations put their support first behind the Sukarno regime, and after it fell, the Suharto regime as “a bulwark against the spread of communism” in south-east Asia. Australia, in what was increasingly becoming its default position, followed the US line … accommodating Indonesia’s wishes on West Irian would uphold the status quo and maintain the regional balance.
Aust & Indonesia discuss mutual interestsIn addition to being a supporting pillar in Washington’s Cold War ‘army’, Canberra had its own, more immediate, regional geo-strategic considerations concerning WNG. In 1962 the Menzies government changed tact on the issue. This happened because external affairs minister Garfield Barwick persuaded the cabinet to switch sides. Australia’s immediate defence concerns were still focused on the dangers inherent in “an arc of instability” existing to the north, but Barwick argued, that the creation of an independent micro-state (that would probably not be viable) within the orbit of a large, emerging Asian powerhouse with an axe to grind, was the worst result for Australia [R Chauvel, ‘Australia’s strategic environment: the problem of Papua’].
The Menzies government rationalised that letting Jakarta have the former Dutch New Guinea colony would satisfy the Indonesians’ territorial ambitions*. And already there were signs in Canberra’s thinking that the integration of Dutch New Guinea into Indonesia was a done deal waiting to happen. As Barwick’s successor as EA minister Paul Hasluck revealing put it in 1965, the process of self-determination need not amount to a plebiscite but can merely be “an act of ascertainment” [cited in W Henderson, West New Guinea: The dispute and its settlement].
The Government of Australia raised no objections to Indonesia’s reliance on a grotesque, wilfully skewed plebiscite in 1969 to meet its desired ends. In fact the new Liberal-Country Party external affairs minister Gordon Freeth endorsed Jakarta’s symbolic consultative process. Without blinking the Gorton government in Canberra subsequently and routinely endorsed the Indonesian takeover of the territory.
The laissez-faire Australian policy towards Indonesia’s oppressive neo-colonial treatment of its Papuan province and people continues to the present. In fact recent Australian governments have been frantically trying to curry favour with Indonesia, making pronouncements on the West Papua issue that at times sound uncomfortably close to appeasement. In late 2013 the then Australian PM, Tony Abbott, obsequiously reassured the Indonesian president at the time (Yudhoyono) that his government would do everything in its power to stop protestors using Australia to criticise Indonesian treatment of Papuans in the province (“as a platform for grandstanding against Indonesia” as he phrased it) [S Rollo, ‘Ending our pragmatic complicity in West Papua’].
For Indonesia’s part it too has a new president, ‘Jokowi’ Widodo, who has expressed a greater interest in the troubled province than his predecessors, and has made some limited concessions. In 2015 he released five Papuan political detainees and lifted restrictions on foreign correspondents within the provinces** (although this has been put in doubt by later contradictory statements).
It is too early to say if Jokowi’s ascension will signify real improvements in the Papuan community’s situation. Both Wahid and Habibie in the Papuan Spring interlude committed themselves to reforms but these did not really materialise. Even with genuine goodwill and intent on the part of the president, it has been shown in Indonesia that the political and military elites can block the way to meaningful changes occurring.
The Indonesia/West Papua conflict has reached a kind of impasse. Indonesia believes that Western New Guinea belongs to it. It sees itself as the rightful heir and successor to the Dutch East Indies empire. It is in possession of that last piece of the East Indies jigsaw and it has the title deeds (albeit tainted) to it in the shape of the 1969 UN-sanctioned plebiscite! Jakarta fought hard diplomatically and by other means in the 1950s and 60s to get West Papua and it is not prepared to relinquish this prize, as far as it is concerned it is non-negotiable! External criticism and talk of “human rights” in West Papua is sternly viewed as interference with Indonesia’s internal affairs.
Melanesian worldThe Papuans, through different lens, see it otherwise. They view the Indonesian identity as an external impost on their Melanesianness, they see themselves as ethnically and culturally distinct from the many other parts of the archipelago. The separatist rebels know that they can never defeat the Indonesian Army militarily, but so barbaric and oppressive is the war Indonesia is waging against militia and civilians alike, that OPM and other pro-independence elements would never give up the struggle whilst they still have any means to resist. The Papuans also have right on their side, they know that the 1969 vote that was supposed to demonstrate the population’s will was an undemocratic, tokenistic process with a transparently contrived result.
Whilst Indonesia persists with its discriminatory practices, behaving as an occupational power with its terror and torture tactics against the Papuans, it can never hope to win the hearts and minds of the population. The great majority of Papuans, from their everyday experiences with Indonesian authority, live with the realisation that, without any say in the matter, they have gone from one form of colonialism (Dutch) to another, more oppressive, colonialism (Indonesian).
Like other intractable conflicts around the world it cries out for mediation by a third-party. Comparisons are often made with the Timor/Indonesia conflict which dragged on for decades and at times seemed a pretty hopeless cause for the East Timorese before they finally achieved their freedom. One vital difference between the two though is that the UN supported Timorese independence, but with West Papua the UN has has never given diplomatic recognition to the Papuans’ cause***.
Jakarta refuses to even contemplate granting the West Papuans sovereignty. On a pragmatic level, unlike Timor, they’ve got too much invested in the provinces. Moreover the government has a profound belief in its right to the western Papuan land, based on the ideological underpinning that it sees itself as the natural and therefore rightful heir to the Dutch East Indies – which the western portion of New Guinea was part of (another key difference to Timor-Leste which was a Portuguese colony before the Indonesian invasion).
Indonesia is doing all it can to isolate the Papuan independence movement in the region, applying pressure to dissuade other nearby Pacific states from accepting West Papua into the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). However, someone needs to encourage Jakarta to enter into a dialogue on autonomy for Papua with OPM/pro-independence representatives and to convince it that it is in its interest to do so – otherwise the situation will just perpetuate as a stalemate with further bad PR for Jakarta and a very costly exercise of never-ending military occupation draining the Indonesian coffers … and the issue will continue to cast a shadow over the Indonesian Republic’s human rights credentials.
Australia is the obvious candidate as mediator, but this prospect is problematic on several levels. Australia is hamstrung by the 2006 Lombok Treaty which commits it to support Indonesia’s hold on West Papua, and relations with Indonesia are as sensitive as they probably have ever been. But more germane, both the current Australian government – and the opposition – lack the will to intervene on behalf of the Papuans. A long-delayed justice and a fair deal for the Melanesian population of Papua is just not on Canberra’s radar, rather its priorities lie more in shoring up its bilateral relationship with Indonesia to safeguard its trade and security interests and in heading off the possibility of new influxes of asylum seekers coming to Australian shores.
* in fact soon after Indonesia had secured its temporary mandate over WNG in 1962 it provoked a confrontation (Konfrontasi) over Borneo with the newly formed Federation of Malaysia, a conflict leading to military involvement from Britain, Australia and New Zealand.
** characteristic of a regime trying to keep its unsavoury authoritarian practices under wraps Indonesia has consistently maintained a media blackout for decades, restricting information on Western New Guinea reaching the outside world (intended to keep the rest of Indonesia in the dark as much as the wider world).
*** in a previous post on West Papua I outlined the negative role played by the UN in hampering the indigenous New Guineans’ free expression of their wishes in the 1969 Referendum on the territory’s future.
References:
R Chauvel, ‘Fifty years on, Australia’s Papua policy is still failing’, Inside Story, 27 Sept 2012
R Chauvel, ‘Australia’s strategic environment: the problem of Papua’, Agenda, 11(1), 2004
G Harvey, ‘The Human Tragedy of West Papua’, The Diplomat, www.diplomat.com
S Rollo, ‘Ending our pragmatic complicity in West Papua’, The Drum, ABC-TV, 28 Oct 2013, www.abc.net.au
J Saltford, ‘Act of Free Choice’, Independent Parliamentarians for West Papua, www.ipwp.org
JR Verrier ‘Origin of the Border Problem … to 1969’ in RJ May (Ed.), Between two nations: the Indonesian-PNG border and West Papuan nationalism.
‘Is West Papua another Timor?’, Parliament of Australia (Current Issues Brief 1 2000-01), Dr JR Verrier, 27 Jul 2000
Street upon street packed with outdoor beer taverns
Bratislavsky Hrad from Staré Mêsto
Malaspina scientific and spying mission
Upon his return home Malaspina reported back to the Spanish government that the New South Wales settlement was well established and warned that it posed real dangers to Spain’s Pacific possessions. Malaspina noted that Port Jackson could be used as a base for privateers to cut the colonial lines of communication between Manila and Spanish America, and to launch raids on the Peru and Chile colonies from. He concluded that Spain had no real chance of supplanting the British in Port Jackson [Olcelli 2013].
The US manipulated the 1962 negotiations between the Netherlands and Indonesia (the New York Agreement) and undercut the Dutch position essentially for ideological self-interest. After overtures and military hardware from the USSR to Sukarno were warmly received in Jakarta, the need to keep Indonesia in the anti-communist camp became critical to Washington’s thinking of the day. The support for Indonesia’s designs on West Irian later lucratively opened the door for US mining companies (I have already outlined how Freeport Copper and Gold, in conjunction with the Suharto regime, richly profited from the mineral-saturated province). 
Canberra’s support for this option was more about blocking Indonesia’s designs on the territory than about advancing the interests of the Papuans. Australia’s strategic focus in the (still) Eurocentric fifties was on the avoidance of having an Asian power (especially one with a leader showing leftist tendencies) sharing a land border with any territory administered by it. At this time Australia was responsible for the Territory of Papua New Guinea in the eastern half of the island (later granted independence in 1975), and there had even been some discussion of a pan-Papuan Melanesian Union – although it is debatable how seriously this was ever mooted [R Chauvel, ‘Australia’s strategic environment: the problem of Papua’; JR Verrier, ‘Origin of the Border Problem’]. 
Like other intractable conflicts around the world it cries out for mediation by a third-party. Comparisons are often made with the Timor/Indonesia conflict which dragged on for decades and at times seemed a pretty hopeless cause for the East Timorese before they finally achieved their freedom. One vital difference between the two though is that the UN supported Timorese independence, but with West Papua the UN has has never given diplomatic recognition to the Papuans’ cause***.