Word: papuan
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Though eager to cut their losses, the Dutch insist that they have a moral responsibility to prepare New Guinea's primitive Papuans for self-government. They have set up a network of village schools, entrusted social legislation to a year-old, elected Council (16 Papuan, 12 Dutch members), and given natives administrative responsibility for more than half the area they control. The country now has its own national anthem, My Country, My Papua, and a red-white-and-blue flag. At a cost of $1,500,000, Dutch officials have organized a West Papuan Volunteer Corps (motto: I PERSEVERE...
...Guinea's natives, who slaughtered thousands of Japanese during World War II, vow that they will repel any Indonesian invasion. Says a top Papuan politician, Councilman Nicolaas Jouwe: "Indonesia keeps talking of Dutch colonialism, but at the same time they deny us our right of independence, our own future, our character and our flag...
...territory of the Netherlands Indies." There were loopholes, however, providing "special arrangements" for regions not wanting to join the Indonesian union. The Dutch did withdraw from some 3,000 islands inhabited by 95 million people, but under the treaty loophole held onto New Guinea, on the ground that the Papuan inhabitants are ethnically, linguistically and religiously different from the Indonesians and (claimed the Dutch) do not really want to belong to Indonesia. The Dutch also held that New Guinea could serve as an asylum for some 200,000 Eurasians of mixed Dutch and Indonesian blood who might not wish...
Sunken Millions. To the Indonesians, the continued Dutch occupation of barren, poverty-stricken New Guinea represents the loss of one-sixth of the land area of Indonesia, and, valueless or not, they want it. As for the 700,000 Papuan inhabitants of New Guinea, many of them living deep in impenetrable jungle valleys are unaware that there is either a Netherlands or an Indonesia, much less a dispute. The few educated Papuans seem inclined toward independence but recognize their present inability to stand alone...
...Netherlands, Foreign Minister Luns is propelled toward negotiation by the obvious reluctance of the Dutch to get involved in a pointless colonial war. A majority of the Cabinet also backs negotiations but a stubborn and potent minority, including Luns himself and Home Affairs Minister Edzo Toxopeus. wants Papuan self-determination guaranteed by the Indonesians before sitting down to the conference table. In Indonesia, Sukarno is restrained by the fact that an invasion of New Guinea is a far more risky military operation than was the Indian walkover in Goa. Should the invasion fail, Sukarno might well be overthrown...