Indonesian Settler Colonialism in West Papua

Abstract

During the late 20th century Indonesia resettled 300,000 farmers to the restive province of West Papua, transforming its demographic composition. Such resettlement, or ‘transmigration’, was quite limited until the mid-1980s and restricted to only certain areas of West Papua. What accounts for the incidence of transmigration? Using a panel of all transmigration, ethnic cleansing and demographic change data in each regency of West Papua during 1964-2000 compiled from confidential government sources, I show that, after an aborted Papuan uprising in 1984, Indonesia cleansed and settled its border with Papua New Guinea to forestall cross-border insurgent activity. I then show that after the Grasberg gold mine was opened in 1990 Indonesia cleansed and settled the area around the mine. This paper provides the strongest evidence yet that transmigration has been strategically used by Jakarta to defeat secessionist insurgents and to secure control over Papua’s rich resource base.

Keywords: Transmigration; Ethnic cleansing; Indonesia; Settler Colonialism; West Papua