West Papua’s road to 'independence', following the Timorese lead?

An Al Jazeera report on the protests and rioting in Papua this week in response to the racist attack in Surabaya. 

The groundswell of regional support continues to grow in the Pacific - and also globally - for West Papuan self-determination, writes DAVID ROBIE. The latest repression only adds to this momentum.

INDONESIA’s harsh policies towards West Papua ought to be scrapped. Whatever happened to the brief window of enlightenment ushered in by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo in 2015 with promises of a more “open door” policy towards foreign journalists and human rights groups?

They were supposed to be seeing for themselves the reality on the ground. But apart from a trickle of carefully managed visits by selected journalists after the grand announcement – including two multimedia crews from RNZ Pacific and Māori Television in 2015 – no change really happened.

And the serious media freedom and human rights violations remain rampant.