Papua, Indonesia.

... Papua ... Irian Jaya ... West Irian Jaya ... West Papua ...

Papua Barat, Teluk Cendrawasih, Papua Selatan, Papua Utara, Pegunungan Tengah

West Papua, Cenderawasih Bay, South Papua, North Papua and Central Highlands provinces

An annotated guide to 94 Papua related websites or webpages with the general themes of:

NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS IN PAPUA

Newsgroups and 'chatrooms'

One of the least expensive and most efficient ways to source information from the internet is through a newsgroup. With newsgroups, email text messages are sent directly to subscribers which keeps online time to a minimum and removes the need to visit or search webpages. For years this has been the most popular way for people (and organisations) with an interest in Papua to share information and ideas with one another. At present several newsgroups on Papua collate news daily from major newspapers and news services within Indonesia and abroad. They also rely on individuals within Papua and elsewhere in Indonesia who may even transcribe local news stories into digital formats which can then be sent by email to newsgroups for distribution. Indonesian language news deemed to be of a high priority may be translated either in Indonesia or by the newsgroup's host into other languages for wider circulation, usually in English, Japanese or German (many Dutch researchers and activists utilise English language resources). Typically these newsgroups are free and open to any interested individual (or organisation) with an email address.

While subscriptions to newsgroups focussed on Papua/Irian Jaya have grown in the past few years, this service continues to be provided by a few well established and popular lists. Kabar-Irian (www.kabar-irian.com), the news group offered by www.irja.org Inc. has posted news to those interested in Papua/Irian Jaya since 1994 (not to be confused with the 'shadow' site www.kabarpapua.com, see Section 6 of this VL). Kabar-Irian posts English news about Papua daily and in a digest form (see www.kabar-irian.com/news/index.html where these messages are archived). You can also find (or subscribe to) the monthly "West Papua Report" at ETAN’s website (http://www.etan.org/issues/wpapua/default.htm). A key online resource is Dr. John MacDougall's fully-searchable Apakabar news archive, with 5000+ articles on Papua and a staggering 175,000 on Indonesia from 1990-2002 (http://www.library.ohiou.edu/indopubs).

The oldest and most popular unmoderated (unedited) newsgroup on Papua is Reg.westpapua. Since the early 1990s, this newsgroup has networked activist organisations like Tapol and ETAN. The newsgroup only acquired a web-presence in 2000 when it was recast as the "West Papua News" list (the emails from 2000 - early 2006 are available at http://lists.topica.com/lists/WestPapua). Since March 2006, the newsgroup has again become known as Reg.westpapua and is now hosted by Riseup.net (see https://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/reg.westpapua). This list can be read without subscribing, as can other more general lists on Indonesia with significant Papua content, like Indonesia-act (http://lists.topica.com/lists/indonesia-act@igc.topica.com). Others, like "Kabar-L" (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irianjaya), http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irianjaya, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/westpapoea or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/free-papua have less frequent postings and some require your membership for access). It is easy to subscribe or unsubscribe to these newsgroups and they don't forward your email to advertisers for spamming of junk mail (unsolicited advertising).

It would be wrong to assume that "chat" groups involving people living in Papua or Papuans abroad are necessarily focussed on political or social concerns in Papua. Some "chat rooms" serve as important forums for children and adults alike to get together and share all sorts of ideas about life, their cultures, interests and experiences. Some of these include Anak Papua (www.geocities.com/toshimdp), Anak Irian (www26.brinkster.com/anakpapu/Default. asp), Lingkaran Abepura (http://lingkaran-abe.org), IRC Jayapura (www.playing.at/jayapura) and the Young Papuan's lifestyle page (http://comentgaul.com). Another way for people to express their thoughts on Papua is through personal homepages. While many of these relate to personal experiences in Papua (examples of this are listed in the later sections on tourism and WWII), some feature pages specifically directed to contemporary debates about Papuan politics or culture (although not always by Papuans). Examples range from the homepage of Waruno Madhi (see http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/~wm/PAP/#IRBA1 for Papua content) or Jos Marey's reflections on the history of Papua (www.initiativesofchange.nl/17apr02.html) to "Bob and Earthman" (http://earthpeople1.freeyellow.com/index.htm#tag1) and the website of Julius Minggus (www.minggus.8m.com).

Blogs and bloggers

WeB-logs (Blogs) related to Papua are an increasingly popular way to share information about the region. Many bloggers are discovering this convenient way of managing web-content makes it easier to sustain their web-presence. The Institute for Papuan Advocacy and Human Rights (Elsham Papua) launched its website almost a decade ago (see www.geocities.com/elshamnewsservice or www.elshamnewsservice.tk) has now switched to blogging to promote its work (see http://elshamnewsservice.wordpress.com and http://ipahr.wordpress.com). Other NGOs in Papua, like Alliance of Democracy for Papua (ALDP, see http://kegiatanaldp.blogspot.com), YABIMU (http://yabimu.blogspot.com) and the SIMAPI Foundation (http://simapi.blogspirit.com) have followed suit. Blogs are also used by activist and solidarity groups like PapuaPost (http://papuapost.multiply.com, a shadow site for www.papuapos.com, see above), by individuals with an ambivalent relationship to the pro-Papua movement (see Papua House at http://mambruk.wordpress.com or WestPapuaPoint at http://westpapuapoint.wordpress.com) and those who assert a different kind of freedom for Papua based on an understanding of the 'objective situation' (see FreeWestPapua http://westpapuafree.wordpress.com).

Blogs are of increasing importance for researchers working in the region, with the LIPI researcher Muridan Widjojo (http://www.blogger.com/profile/17115136651701559704) leading the way with his "Diary of Papua" (http://muridan-papua.blogspot.com), which includes the recent "Roadmap for Papua". Other blogs, like Papua Prospects (http://indonesiannewguinea.blogspot.com), the critical Papuan Education Community (http://pendidikanpapua.blogspot.com), Conservation Papua (http://konservasipapua.blogspot.com) and a blog for Melanesian researchers (see http://themelanesian.org/?cat=5, for WP content) are all useful additions to existing web-resources on Papua. Individual blogs with opinion pieces on Papua are also increasingly prominent, including those of: a former Australian Democrats Senator (Andrew Bartlett, see http://andrewbartlett.com/?cat=16), Ellya Alexander Tebay (http://ellyapaintertebay.blogspot.com), Emanuel Goo (http://emanuelgoo.blogspot.com), Okto Pogau (www.oktopogau.blogspot.com) and others like PapIndo (http://papindo.wordpress.com). Blogs are also used as forums for groups to exchange ideas and thoughts, such as the Papuan Kid's Forum (see http://papuaxxx.wordpress.com). Finally, some Papuan Christians and their ideas are now represented in blogs, such as a movement for Papua Liberation Theology (http://teologipapua.blogspot.com) and the eclectic Sarera blog (http://sarera.blogspot.com). See also Section 7 of the Papua Virtual Library.

News, newspapers, broadcast media and 'clearing houses'

Online access to published news sources on Papua has improved significantly in the past few years. Today several Papuan daily newspapers available, including the Cenderawasih Pos or Cepos (at www.cenderawasihpos.com, see the 'versi cetak' for a PDF version of the newspaper and its 'radar' links for more regional news), Papua Post (www.papuapos.com) and Timika Pos (www.indomedia.com/timikapos). The online news site Infopapua (www.infopapua.com) is also still in business. The Papua Pos and Infopapua sites should not be confused with their 'shadow' sites (see http://papuapost.com and www.infopapua.org, see also Section 6 of this VL). Some print media from within Papua is now also available via blog sites, including newspaper clippings from Papua (http://klipingpapua.wordpress.com) and blog version of Bintang Papua (http://bintang-papua.blogspot.com and a reincarnated web-only version of Jubi, the Papua weekly tabloid from the early 2000s (http://tabloidjubi.wordpress.com or http://tabloidjubi.com). TIFA Papua, the weekly newspaper founded by the Catholic church during the Dutch era, folded in part as a result of direct competition with Jubi. An attempt to resurrect TIFA in a blog format in 2006 appears to have failed (see http://tifapapua-online.blogspot.com). And don't miss the excellent new blog initiative, giving rare voice to Papuan women (http://suaraperempuanpapua.wordpress.com).

A wide range of general Indonesian news is now available over the world wide web following the lead of online media groups like Detik.com (ID: www.detik.com). While most major Indonesian newspapers like Kompas (ID: www.kompas.com), Republika (ID: www.republika.co.id), the Surabaya Post (ID: www.surabayapost.co.id), Sinar Harapan (ID: www.sinarharapan.co.id) and Suara Pembaruan (ID: www.suarapembaruan.com) offer comprehensive online editions in Indonesian, several newspapers with a strong expatriate readership like The Jakarta Post (www.thejakartapost.com) and the Indonesian Observer (www.indoexchange.com/indonesian-observer) offer reasonably complete English language news. The Jakarta Post also has an extensive news archive accessible through its homepage (although you have to register). Look up "Internews Indonesia" for more Indonesian and English news sources online (www.internews.or.id). There are also a range of magazines which have regular articles about Papua available in English such as Tempo (www.tempointeractive.com or ID: www.tempointeraktif.com) and Gatra (ID: www.gatra.com) and others published outside Indonesia including the Far Eastern Economic Review (www.feer.com) and Inside Indonesia (especially special issues on Papua, Nos. 67 and 94, see www.insideindonesia.org).

In the Netherlands, the KITLV (Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde or Royal Institute for Linguistics and Anthropology) has daily news on Indonesia which incorporate "Kabar-Irian" reports (http://iiasnt.leidenuniv.nl:8080/DR/ByDay) while NRC-Handelsblad, a Dutch language daily newspaper has a growing Papuan archive (www.nrc.nl/W2/Lab/Papoeas). Australian newspapers also have been making more regular features of events in Papua and most have recent news available online (for example www.theaustralian.com.au). In Japan there is significant Papuan content at the Indonesian Cultural Plaza website of the "Gamma" journalist Seichi Okawa (www.harapan.co.jp/indonesia/gbi/gbi_index.htm - you will need an extended character set for your web browser to make sense of this site).

Television and radio news networks are also joining the www information revolution and many now offer multimedia streaming of news and current affairs with occasional Papua content (see, for example, Dutch television and radio interviews related Nicholas Jouwe March 2009 visit to Papua). Local searches at the websites of Radio Republik Indonesia (www.rrionline.com), Australia's national broadcaster (www.abc.gov.au) and the World News website of Australia's Special Broadcasting Service (www.theworldnews.com.au) will turn up a variety of contemporary multimedia reports on Papua as will similiar searches on the Radio Netherlands world report (wereldomroep at www.rnw.nl which has a special feature on Aceh and Papua at www.rnw.nl/ranesi/html/promo_fawp.html). BBC One (BBCi at www.bbc.co.uk) also has regular news reports on Papua and a search here links to the BBC WorldService (Short Wave radio) which has followed closely political developments in Papua over the past few years. Webpages about alternative radio featuring Papua can be found in the Netherlands at Radio Papua Nieuwegein (http://home.planet.nl/~papu/SPPGN.htm) and Radio Tjampoer Adoek (http://home.planet.nl/~kotte027)

Formal and informal regional networks are often valuable for news about Papua and its near neighbours (use local search engines on these sites to find Papua related content). These networks include university research programs like “Coconet” at the University of Queensland (www.uq.edu.au/coconet), the South Pacific Information Network at the Australian National University (http://sunsite.anu.edu.au/spin) and the “ Pacific Islands Report” of the East West Center at the University of Hawaii (http://pidp.ewc.hawaii.edu/pireport), all with good current and archived resources on Papua and the region. Other “clearing houses” are alliances of non-government organisations working to enhance awareness of specific regional issues, such as the European Centre on Pacific Issues (www.antenna.nl/ecsiep), the Pacific People's Partnership (formerly the South Pacific People's Foundation at www.pacificpeoplespartnership.org), or the Southeast Asian Science Policy Advisory Network (www.icsea.or.id/sea-span/index.cfm). These more critical reports on events in the region are also available through informal networks like the “Alternative Indonesian news" in Japan (JP/ID/UK: www.nindja.com) or "Watch Indonesia" in Germany (DE/UK: www.watchindonesia.org).

If you want to look for work in Papua and West Papua provinces, try CareerJet Indonesia (www.careerjet.co.id), UN Jobs (http://unjobs.org) or other international development portals like the Australian Development Gateway (www.developmentgateway.com.au).