Baliem at the end of the world

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A friend of the receptionist on Legend Hostel in Makassar took me to the airport. He call himself the pen man-his trademark is pencollecting and for a special example he will give you a discount on transport, maybe even a freebee. We talked about corruption. He told me that police sometimes set up roadblocks where the carkeys are confiscatet. You get it back as soon as you have paid 20 000 or something like that. One highranking official in the department of justice said in the capitalpress that corruption flurish in virtually every branch of the governmentmachinery. He also say the anticorruptionlaws are usless because it is no political will to do anything, all the talking is just talk. Corruption has been a part of the culture. A report stamped Indonesia as the 7th most corrupt country in the world. The press daily publis new cases of corruption, as a tourist reading the english version of the Jakarta Post or Tempo online i found lot of “goodies” . the same will you, believe me! One example-a controlcomitee for finances made a major investigation, in first quarter of 2003 they found 1435 cases equal to 300 000 workersallaries. Or the story about the bou caught for a minor trafficoffence. Police took his drivinglicence pluss 50 000 rupiah. When his father followed him to the court, they were offered an “outside the court settlement” of the case-ranging in price rom 75-125 000, some of those offering were infact judges. There are under the table elements in distributing constructionpermits. It is possible to bribe yourself to lower taxation. Use your fantasy-you will still be surprised!

I board the plain to Jayapura on New Guinea. Indonesias eastern frontier. We went via Timika, the servicetown for the huge Freeportmine up in the highland. Timika is a good old fashioned companytown. The town is mostly run by the company witch act like a kvasigovernment. Jakarta seems to be satisfied with collecting taxes. They don’t care mutch about what goes on there. The mine itself sit on 4700 meters above sealevel. 700 000 tons of rock are excavated daily, producing 21 kilos of pure gold. We cross the island, below is the green junglecarpetwitch is one of the last unexplored areas on the planet. Down there it is likely that tribes unknown to us still go on with their lifes the ancient way.

Jayapura was anightmare of full hotels. In the last budgethotel i got the last room. Hotel Jayapura mostly is geared for local travellers, and are a little sceptical towards western tourists because of previous experiences. The roomstandard here is henhouse and it is noisy. On the other hand-it is a great place to meet locals witch are everywhere. Expect to cawl under their drying laundry on your way to the toilet.
This time my stay in Jayapura is a very short one, i want to go to the Baliemvalley in the interior of Irian Jaya. But first i need to get my surat jalan-travelpermit-from the policestation.I fill in a form and learn that the ight person only arive “later”. I am recommended to take a walk and return to the policestation “later”. Witch i do. It is saturday today, but surat jalan are issued on saturdays as well-for an extra fee. The right one arrive at 11, start to beat on an antique typewriter witch might be a leftover from the last days of the dutch era. He must search all over the policestation to find glue to attatch my passportphoto to the form.It take a while before he return with a gluedrop on his finger and a victorious expression on his face. My suran jalan is stamped and i can go to Merpati airlines office. Going there before visiting the police is waste of time-you won’t even be able to book a ticket without a properly stamped surat jalan-it is the first thing they ask for. With a ticket in my hand, i travel the 30 kilometers to Sentani, where the airport is. Close to the airport there is a decent hotel close to the quiet airport. Businesstime there mainly is the morning. The airport originally as buildt by the japanese and taken over by the americans. At one point a full wing of B-29 superfortresses were stationed here.

6 am. I am ready to go at the airport. Flights to Wamena, the aministrative center of the Baliemarea, leave early because it usually get cloudy in the highland later in the day. Wamena has no electronical inflightequipment so the visual flying rules apply. Outside the window, Merpatis F-27 propellplain are abandoned. Activity concentrate around small twinengine transportplains witch is Wamenabound too. No road go up there, everything myst be transported with plains making things conciderable more expensive in Wamena than in Jayapura. Today seems to be the big fuelday. Barrel after barrel are rolled onboard and secured. One by one the transporters take off and dissappear. I wait and wait a little more. Only when we should have been in Wamena long ago, things start to happen. The door is opened, and a crazy crowd explode out of the terminalbuilding running for a proper seating. No securitycheck on this flight.
In Wamena the airport is filled with an ocean of people. People of a differnt kind than i have seen so far on the trip. Negroide faces dominate. They belong to the local tribes Dani and Lani witch has farmed this area for 5000 years, but their local roots grow 20 000 years back in time. As soon as the engines are stopped, they surround the aircraft itself. In the crowd there is an old lady, barechested with a betelread mouth. She toutch my groing. Bagus-good-she say and is gone like a ghost. What doesen’t dissappear is the persistent horde of more or less untrustworthy touristguides swarming like bloodthirsty mosquitos. One of them are even to bad forthis crowd, commonly known as the most hyenalike guideforum in this corner of the world. He was chased away with stones and swearing in a multitude of languages. Later i learned he had been in prison for stealing from clients. Before i could go outside Wamena, my surat jalan had to bestamped at the local policestation. The “stamper” weren’t there. Return Tomorrow was the clear message.

I got one of Wamenas cheapest rooms-still it costed four times the normal price virtually everywhere else in the country. But at least the hotel offer the rare view of a crashed transportplain standing with its nose in the ground just beside the airstrip. It has rested there for a while, there are no sign suggesting its removal sometime soon.
In the communal room of the hotel sit two austrian trekkers just returned from a once in a lifetime trek. They are very enthusiastic. But they had one problem-the guide had run away with the porters sallaries, and now he porters went to them to get their money. At the moment they discussed how to find the guy witch probably had taken cover somewhere in or near Wamena.He live in Jayapura, but he for sure hadn’t left the area. His only escapepoint-the airport-is easily monitored.
I intended to take a trek myself and soon was involved in my own increasingly interresting negotiations. A full delegation of guides sat around the table, drawing and explaining. In particulary explaining why the other guides itineraries was so emptyheaded. But there were no agression between them, no angry outbursts. Only a compassionate smile now and then, discrete headshaking and indexfingers knocking on forheads. After quite some time i have an itinerary that might or might not work written down. Now it was the economynegotiation witch almost instantly became just as entertaining as it was absurd. We had come to the foodbudget. The guide claimed i needed 400 000 rupiah a day for rice to myself, him and a porter. I estimated the local price for dry rice to be around 3000 per kilo, he didn’t protest. Simple mathematics on a papertissue told me he expected us to eat exactly 44,444 kilo of dried rice per person per day. The awake reader might find this amount surprisingly big. So did i. My guide looked at the numbers, nodded his head eagerly.
“correct my friend, no doubt about that-ju are very clever my friend”.
“Is one porter supposed to carry all the rice for a full week alone?” I woundered. The guide looked at me like i was a very slow child.
“Of course, it is porters job carry things for payment. Thats why we have the porter”.
The porters here must be very strong” i commented.
“Oh yes, they start carry as small child, become very strong, not like the soft lowlanders”. “And you must like food a lot” i continued.
“Yes, like food-tell me who don’t love the food” I went brutal, cut trough and got a deal. One week, one million! But in the end-this time i didn’t do my intended trekking.

After the dusty and noisy Jayapura, Wamena is like a silent oasis with crystalclear air. Some bemos run in the town, but mostly becacks take care of the interntransport. They also know wery well how to take care of your money. Most of the population are “orang transmigrasi”, people moved here from the overpopulated parts of Indonesia-mainly Java and Bali. This peoplemovingprogram has created lot of sparks around the country and infact it has enough explosives hidden in it to blow the country apart under the right circumstances. The native population mostly live outside Wamena. I met a few native males only wearing the traditional penisgourds selling rediciolusly overprized souvenirs in the streets. 50 000 for a curved pigtooth forexample. It was quite a depressing sight actually. To me they looked more like sort of culturalprostituted natives than genuine natives, despite natives is what all of them are.
In Wamena you find most of the services found in a larger city, only here it is “smallsize”. Only the police and military barracks are size large. The reason is not at all comforting-this is Indonesias fist, they are here for one reason only- to keep the natives down so the sivilised Indonesia can expand. You will get more about that later.
Wamena has a relatively large shopping and marketareas, and some well kept livingquarters with white one or two storey stonehouses with flowers outside. The streets are wide and mostly clean.

With a stamped surat jalan i was ready for a trip into some nearby villages. A bemo drop me off on the dusty countrysideroad close to Aikima, one of the danivillages easily reached from Wamena. I walk trough the sweetpotatoefields to Suroba, the neighbouring village a kilometer away. The road from Pasar Baru in Wamena make a bow so on the map, the distance to the airport in Wamena isn’t more than 7 kilometers, probably less. Despite the small distance measured in meters, this is a totally differnt world. Depite the villagers are used to visitors and have good contact with Wamena, i get a feeling of having entered another time. The village is at the edge of a forested area, the livingunits spread in the terrain look like small fortresses. It consist of a massive wall buildt of logs and twigs wowen together to an impenetrable barrier. The only entrance is a little gate a meter above the ground. Inside there is a central square surrounded by a pighouse, the mens house, the womens house and a cookinghouse. The houses are solid buildt in straw and twigs and a framework of solid stakes. There are no nails and no modern ropes in the construction. Everything is tied together using barkfibers and flexible twigs.

The danis are heavy smokers, they consume whatever brand and amount they are offered, and they are happy to signal a wish for an offer to turn up. Bottomline-bringing something to smoke is more or less demanded. I am invited for a chat in the cookinghouse where three men sit without any work to do. In the cookinghouse there are five cookingpits, one for each family i was told, where the obligatory ubi-swetpotatoes-are boiled. It is not regular fireplaces. The food is buried together with glowing charcoal or hot rocks and left to cook. It is a very safe method witch demand little supervision once everything is buried. The food cook itself and no sparks kan cause disaster. In this village, the chief has set up a little touristhut outside the “fortress”. I am told that this one is occupied by some other tourists tomorrow so i can’t stay there. But if i want to, i can sleep in the mens house itself. We agree that tomorrow i return with my backpack-and tobacco. Lot of tobacco i declare. They showed their concent with the typical rapidly repeated “oeh-oeh-oeh”.
I continue my stroll towards Dugum, the next village half an hour away. A little boy show me the way to the bridge crossing a river. It is constructed of crossed poles driven into the riverbottom. The crosspoints are tied together with barkfibers. On it rest a roughly made plank-20 centimeters wide, working as the walkway. Crossing definitely require some balance if one is heavily loaded with carrybaskets like the women often are.

With the exeption of two young men sitting entertaining themselves with a stringinstrument, Dugum is empty. Loud shouting from the forested hillside tell me where to look for them. Something must be going on up there. Something turned out to be transport of building material to a church witch will be buildt just outside Dugum. I sat down on a restingground filled with singing danis.Their worksinging is very similar to that of the africans. A rythmical choir where one take the lead while the other follow. They are very united in their singing, when they start singing after a break it is like everybody are controled by one brain. I never really figured out how they were able to start their singing exactly in the same moment, even when looking in different directions, i never saw or heard any signal given in advance. It is something wild and primitive-in the good sence of the word-over it, and it toutches a forgotten instinct in me. When some of the porters started to move after their rest, i got a spontane idea and picked up a lonely beam laying on the ground. The danis applauded, started singing and cheered me with their “oeh”. It was a popular idea i soon regretted, the long beam weighted at least 40 kilos, the trail is steep and slippery and lined with trees doing their best to catch my beam. And it is two kilometers or so to the constructionsite. Finally-i have almost nothing between my shoulder and the frictioning beam. But along the trail lot of danis sit and encourage the passing packannimals, including me. Now there is no way i can drop that dammed beam! I survive and get myself a dinnerinvitation. For the occation a large earthoven has been buildt inside a large “fortress”.Lot of peeople will be eating here today, also many from neighbouring villages.
Little by little the square is filled with people, i am one of the few lucky souls with indoorsitting in the mens house. Pleasant since it is rain in the air. The women start to dig away grass, stone and earth to uncover the boiled sweetpotatoes witch had been underway the whole afternoon. But before we can eat, there is a longlasting prayingsession. Christianity has infected this tribe too, their belief is a mix of christianity and traditional belief. One man start to talk like a large waterfall while crying. Suddenly everybody-men, women and children- cry. I understand less than nothing. Another guy say something and everybody stop crying in a moment. I still understand nothing. Now the sweetpotatofiesta can begin and a mountain of quartkilos ubi are buildt up on the green grassfloor inside the mens house. The voicebuzz is replaced by silence. The danis enjoy their ubi ubi in silence.

I end my excursion in Jiwika further up the valley. Here they store one of the mummies after leading members of the tribe. This man, witch has been dried and smoked, ended his life around 1670 and has been kept in the family ever since. His home is a cupboard in the menshouse. Looking at the face of a “savage” alive in the mid 17th century-mindbogggling. Sadly this is a touristmachine, and a noteprint to the owners. You get your photo after a donation-a large donation mind you, then it is time to leave unless you have a good reason to stay. Tobacco increase hospitality, but one is still a customer only.
In the hills behind Jiwika there is a saltexreactingsite worth visiting. Here the danis extract salt from a spring issuing saltwater of salinity similar to seawater. The evaporationmethod used elswhere is not used here, the cool highlandclimate make it too innefficient. Instead dried leaf and stems from banana and other plants are soaked in the saltwater and left to try on the rock. When dry, it is burned. The ash is then used as salt.

In the morning Wamenas airport is an entertaining place worth linger around. Then a chain of transportplains arrive wih everything a town need. Newspapers, fuel, technical gear, food. The moment a plain has landed it is surrounded by people witch has nothing to do with the unloading. Despite the chaotic conditions, the plains usually are ready for take off for Sentani in 15 minutes. Less than two hours later, the same plain might be back again with a new load. The arrival of the passengeraircraft trigger extra curiosity. Everybody run to the parkingarea when it arrive. Police have a relaxed attitude to this anarchy as long as people are more or less away from the engines when they start again. It would be a little embarrassing for them if somebody is decapitated while they are on duty. But they have one strict rule that even is enforced from time to time. No pigs or people on the path crossing the airstrip when something roll on it. It has even been invested in a warningsirene witch sometimes can be heard. Visiting Wamena airport is quite similar to visit a steamshipquay in the good old days of transatlantic crossings. Attatched to the “large” airport is a small one belonging to MAF-Missionary Air Fellowship. They operate small singleengine aircrafts going to destinations nobody else fly to. Tourists can join in, but have low priority and the service is expensive. They use the main runway but have their own miniparkinglots and taxiways. It look like a dollhouseairport. Pilotuniforms with golden stripes look a little out of the way on that side of the fence.

I am back in Suroba, safely installed in the menhouse. It is three meters or so in diameter and beehiveshaped with two low floors. In the roof there is a hatch up to the sleepingroom where some of the householdmembers sleep. The rest of us sleep on the ground. In the livingroom there is fresh grass on the floor, a fireplace in the middle of the room, a couple of wooden racks to hang things on. From the roofbeams small items dangle; tobaccopouches, nosejewelery, a mouthharp. Tied to a wallbeam is a bow with arrows. It is simple and not laminated like the northamerican indianbows. The arrowhead is sharp bamboo, a dangerous veapon in trained hands. They are used for hunting only these days-in this and nearby villages, but in more remote areas, rumours of tribal wars are not uncommon. The bowstring is made of plantfibers.
One of the men demonstrate “dani rokok”,danistyle sigarets. When they shop on their own, they buy hardly compressed tobacco, it is almost like a stone and dirt cheap. From the stone they scrap powderlike tobacco witch they roll into dried leafs where most of the centralnerve has been removed. After the demonstration, everybody look at me with hope in their eyes. “Rokok anybody?” i ask, well aware of where things are heading. “oeh-oeh-oeh” clearly confirm my suspicion. Danis are generally very friendly, but they have an unbelievable appetite for tobacco and cash. In Baliem there has been established a chargingtradition witch is annoying quite often, they eat your resources if they can, but it simply has been part of their culture, they still are the friendly danis. It might sound contradicting to you-it is contradicting. But it is true. But i sort of understand one of the austrian trekkers witch treated a nasty wound a dani came to him with-“pouring iodine into that wound was satisfying”, he said.

I take a look at the ubifields surrounding the village. Sweetpotato is the foundation of ther culture, and it arrived here 1200 years ago. It is a southamerican plant so my question is:how did it get here that early? It is an interresting question with no certain answer given so far. I suspect that this might be living proof of ancient journeys defying the establish truth about early human travel. Worldwide there are more than 8000 varieties of sweetpotato, in New Guinea 5000 are registered. In a typical ubifield, 40 or more might be present. Ubi is not only ubi to the danipeople. Some varieties only can be eaten during certain events, other can only be eaten by certain groups of the society. Some ubivarieties can’t be eaten by nursing women. In the fields, barechested women are busy diging up todays ubiration and maintaining the fields with diggingstics of wood or metal. Some work with small children tied on their back. Daily maintainance is the womens job, while the male members of the village have breaking new land as their main agricultural task.
The danis are physical. They greet you with long, almost everlasting handshakes when chanting their “oeh”. Often elderly daniwomen i never had seen in my life simply came up to me to get and give a hug.
I am invited for lunch by an elderly couple. I got-big surprise-UBI!!! A purple variety this time. So far i only have eaten white and yellowish ubi. Another novelty is the sharply red thick juice pressed from a small palmtree growing in the square.
A woman arrive from the field with a basket filled with ubi. She distribute it among the pigs in the pighouse. A shortlasting but unbelievable noise breaks out. The danipeople take good care of the pigs, it is their monetary standard. The status of a man is defined from how many pigs he has. The dowry is paid in pigs, typically four or five pigs for each wife. Danimen are allowed several wifes-as many as his pigfortune allow him to pay for.

I am back in Jayapura with a ticket for the brand new PELNI liner Nggapulu witch leave monday istead of sunday as i thought. Meaning 24 hours extra in dusty little Jayapura. Luckilly one doesen’t need to go far away to find some relaxation, going to nearby Pantai (beach) Hamadi a ten minutes bemoride from downtown Jayapura is enough. The beach is dessertbrown and make a kilometerlong arch ending in forest. Outside there are two inviting little islands well within swimmingdistance. This is one of the hollidayspots for the locals so it can be crowded. Today seabirds and a few surfers are my only company. My perspective on the visit today is historical. Pantai Hamadi was the site of one of the largest landingoperations in the Pasific during WW2, still it is almost a foorgotten one. Maybe because the casualties were unusual small. The beach still display remains from the operation-a Willys jeep, an almost buried tank. The remains of a buldoozer, probably left here by the fameous seabees- the legendary engineerunit active whenever and wherever something needed to be repaired or constructed in the Pacific war. Roads, harbours, airstrips. Seabees took care of it, often under extreme conditions. Early morning on april 22nd 1944, the americans attacked Tanah Merah 50 kilometers away, Tanjung Ria on the other side of Jayapura-Hollandia as it was named back then-and finnally Pantai Hamadi west of Jayapura. The landingforce was huge. General Macarthur had 37500 combatsoldiers, mainly from 24th and 41st US infanterydivision. In addition he had 18000 soldiers in various supportunits-including the seabees. Each of the attackunits had a group of destoyers and a rocketvessels whose task was to clean the beach before the infantery was sendt in. The total navyforce counted 28 destroyers, two heavy and three light cruisers. In addition he had task force 78 with small escortcarriers and task force 58 with large carriers. The americans had succeeded in tricking the japanese into believing the mainattack would come in another area, in Hansa bay. Large japanese units and most of their plains therefore had been moved away from the Jayapuraarea. The remaining japanese aircrafts had been smashed by B-24 Liberatorbombers in the days before the landing, so the sky was clean and sound. The resault was little resistance and little bloodshed. Most of the american casualties during the operation actually was a resault of “friendly fire”-fire from their own soldiers. In a few days the whole region was in american hands, the japanese troops present in the area during the attack either were captured or driven away. This became an important stepstone for the american attack on the Philippines.

In central Jayapura there is a whole city of warungtents in the evenings, only a fraction is open during daytime-but you will for sure never starve. I had a great lunch, and the same monent i came out of the warung, a man came out of the neighbourwarung-must have looked like we were connected with a shaft. He had round “auntglasses” and a mustach. He invite me into his warung and ask me to sit down. This place serve kueh and tea and is the perfect spot for an unformal chat, the buzzling, busy world stay on the other side of the canvas. He speak english very well, and for a while we talk about this and that before he sems to get to a point. His point is todays situation on Irian Jaya. The relations between the natives on Irian and the indonesian authorities, and the independencedream boiling just below the surface-on the surface sometimes. Do i want to hear more? I certainly did, actually i had hoped for something like this to happen. My informator suggested we continued in the evening in a more secluded spot. “Too many long ears here. Not good” he said. I returned to my hotel woundering what the evening would be like-was it an interresting meeting or a creative robbery? The latter wouldn’t be very typical Indonesian. Outside the touristed areas sutch things almost never happen.

I am picked up at the hotel and walked to a dark little park at the waterfront. This is for sure one of Jayapuras more suspect quarters this time of the day, but i feel safe with my company witch now has a friend with him. In this park a huge woman have her business-selling palmwine from big plasticcontainers. The drinks are distributed in liquorbottles. Allready this early, some palmwinecorpses litter the park. They must have been harddrinking to get into that condition-provided palmwine was the only reason. In any case, this highly unofficial bar is a great place for some conspiration. My host order Madame into activity and soon we have a few comforting bottles to hold around. He present his friend, a medical student. “The future healthminister of Irian Jaya” he jokingly explain. He spend “a bottles time” entertaining his guests with his linguistic capabilities, it looks like he know a phrase in every language on the planet. German, arabic, spanish. He said something in finnish, and on perfectly pronounced sweedish he concluded that “svenska flickor kyssar bra”-sweedish girls are good kissers. I gave him a similar, but a little more juicy norwegian phrase witch he memorized. A good reason for a new drink. Nasdrovje-cheers in russian- he suddenly say, the first time i heard that word. Later i have learned that this pronouncation isn’t entirely correct, but he knew the usefull word and made sure we knew it too, thanks to plenty of practicing. “Oh-i looove russian language”, he said. His face looked like he loved something totally different! A new bottle is “started” . He declares businesstime and start a long leicture.
“Indonesia is a colonist just as the dutch was”. He speaks quietly but with a strong engagement and strong feelings. “We are treated like secondclass inhabitants in our own country. Look at the people, they are different. The only thing we have in common is the previous dutch occupation. Our entire culture is different-from one end of it to the other.”
It started in 1961 when the dutch were pressed to give up Irian Jaya-or Papua as locals prefer to call the province-and hand over the control to UN. Indonesian troops started moving in and already in1963 Indonesia had full control. All the way from governorlevel to villagelevel. But Indonesias control was founded on military power, not the peoplewill. “The act of free choise” in 1969 would do something with that, it was said. This process was nothing but play for the audience. 1025 natives from all over the province were picked by indonesian authorities. They learned some phrases in bahasa indonesia, like “i don’t like the dutch”. The phrases then had to be resitated in public. The natives were tricked into believing Indonsia supported full Papuan independence. They were more or less forced to sign the act of free choise document. Everyone badly regretted it later when the realities appeared, and everyone felt used and stepped on. Armed with “folkwill”, indonesian authorities now do exactly what they want. The ancient culture is molested by introducing indonesian laws, rules and routines. Familyplanning is introduced, and bahasa indonesia become mandatory. In the 70’s, Operation Koteka is launched. It’s goal: dressing up the native, and like so many places where a native culture systematicly is demolished, the church eagerly participate. One of the ministers say “now the natives are going to get down from the trees, even if we have to drag them down”. Adult natives with the personal inegrity and pride all adults have are told by the soldiers to change to a cleaner shirt, or “cut your hair”! Way of things is-obey or be arrested and interrogated. Oposition is regarded a criminal offence.
The transmigrasiprogram reach Papua. It involve the moving of hundreds of tousands people from the most densely populated provinces to the outposts of the country. Transmigrasipeople-“orang transmigrasi” can be found many other places than Papua. On Sulawesi they are quite a few, and in Kalimantan i talked with a transmigrasigirl from Java-she longed home. “All things are so different here” she said. A very important motif for trying to make Papua a “true” indonesian province, is the naturalresources found here-minerals and timber. That the most important aspect of the program isn’t the orang transmigrasi is easy to guess from the way they are treated. A conciderable number live under bad conditions with very little governmental aid. They are told to start with agriculture, but nobody tell them how to do it. They try the methods they are familiar with from Bali and Java, and fail. The big difference is the soil, witch is very fertile where they come from, while the junglesoil in Papua is poor. Actually they encounter the same problem encountered everywhere jungle is cleared. Junglesoil usually is not fertile! The natives know how to do it, but their knowledge isn’t brought to the orang transmigrasi.

At the same time as orang transmigrasi arrive in large numbers, natives are forced to leave their homes in the chilly highland and go to the malariainfested lowland. When the Freeportmine was opened, five local tribes had to move. They got little or nothing in return. The Freeporttown Tembagapura was once the homeland of the amungmetribe. Today they are barely tolerated. Some of them work for the families of the Freeportworkers, but they don’t get money. When i was in the country, their sallary was rice. In the 1980’s, natives started to die in the area-their water was mercurypoisoned-nobody had ever told them about it. That said-the company, certainly not the government-took some countermeasures. This forced moving is very destructive to the native identity. Their way is to settle in an area and become a part of the land. At the same time, the land becomes a part of them. They “talk” with it and are bounded to it trough their ancestors.

Every local-meaning native- i discuss the situation with-and thats quite a handfull-many are surprisingly open about the issue, tell me exactly the same: We want our freedom. Preferably without any violence and fighting, but if we have to fight-we will!! One of my guides in Tana Toraja said something similar. He said that if his life get turned upside down because of this transmigrasiprogram, he would lift weapon. It is not an uncommon thought in the outskirts of Indonesia that the government think only about Java and its close surroundings as Indonesia-the rest of the provinces are there only to serve.

Natives already have been fighting-that’s exactyly why there are so many soldiers in Wamena. Friendly to you and me, but what actually go on in the closed areas-that’s another story. Tourists are banned to trek in certain areas die to securityreasons. I know that it is risky out there, but concern about tourists health is only one side of it. The most important side-i think-is that tourists might see and hear things Jakarta doesen’t want them to observe! Areas not patroled by the army were open to us-even if there were rumours about tribal wars!
In 1964 OMP-The Movement For Papuas Liberating was founded. It has two branches. The military one witch has been rather active in periods, including in the Baliemarea. Often it is bows against automatic weapons. The other part, the sivilian part, work with intelligence and work with creating an international and national opinion. Some have even infiltrated buraucacey, using their positions there to the advantage of the cause. The OMP vision about the government in a liberated Papua is local democracy with a tribal council under a chieftaincouncil. They think an ordinary government will be like all other ordinary governments they have had anything to do with-corrupt. But they are aware of the possibility tat one tribe might take a leading position-like one have seen over and over again in Africa. They also is aware of the present lack in educated people.
I suspect that my informator actually is a member of the sivilian OMP, i ask discretely if he has “connections”. He gets busy with the bottles desperatly in need to be filled again. Finally he say something meaning something like “a man gonna do what a man gotta do”.

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