Historical records about West Papua begin in the VII century. In that century it was recorded that Sriwijaya traders had arrived in this area and stated that West Papua was part of the Sriwijaya kingdom which they named Janggi.

This information is understandable considering that at that time the Sriwijaya kingdom was a trading center and a center for Buddhism which was related to the Chinese and Indians.

With its strong fleet, Sriwijaya visited Maluku and West Papua to trade spices, perfumes, pearls and bird of paradise feathers.

The Chinese yearbook mentions that the King of Sriwijaya named Maharaja Sri Indrawarman had sent his envoy to the Chinese emperor and presented beautiful bird feathers.

Meanwhile a Chinese traveler named Chon You Kwa wrote, that in the Indonesian archipelago there is now an area called Tungki and is part of the Moluccas. If the name tungki is used to mention the name Janggi, then this strengthens the statement about the relationship between West Papua and the Sriwijaya Kingdom.

Historical records in the Kertagama Country Book written by Mpu Prapanca (1365) West Papua are included in the Majapahit or the eighth Majapahit region. In verse XIV, the words Ewanim are found which according to some scholars of language are the designation for onim, while cyan for the second kowiai is located in Bintuni Bay, District Level II Manokwari District. And this proves that the ethnic groups in Papua Jaya have had relations with the ethnic groups in the West, namely the kingdoms of Ternate, Tidore and Bacan in Maluku.

A statement that can show that Papua Jaya was once the territory of the Sultans of Tidore and Bacan, as said by Koentjaraningrat and Prof. Dr. Harsya W. Bachtiar in his research which was disclosed in a book entitled :”West Papua Residents”: that the first meeting between the indigenous people of West Papua and people from outside the area occurred when the sultan of Tidore tried to expand his colony.

In the XIV century, the north coast to the west of the bird’s head area to Namatota (Kab. Fak-Fak) in the south, as well as the surrounding islands became the territory of the Sultan of Tidore. The area includes the Raja Ampat Islands in the present Sorong Regency area, as well as the Fakfak area and along the coast of Bintuni Bay in the present Manokwari District Level II Region.

To expedite the running of the government, the Sultan of Tidore appointed four figures as Korano who governed the people in their respective areas on behalf of the Sultan of Tidore. The relationship of governmental power between the Tidore kingdom and its territories, is marked by the obligation to pay taxes annually to the Tidore Kingdom, through a newspaper appointed by the Sultan.

Arrival of Europeans

The entry point for Europeans to Papua was the Maluku Islands. Bilveer Singh in Papua: Geopolitics and the Quest for Nationhood quoted on Saturday 31 August 2019 writes, the Portuguese were the first nation to enter Maluku and dubbed this island the Spice Islands. Since the Europeans smelled the spice ‘treasure’ from Maluku, they came and continued to West Papua, which is located at the head of Papua Island, which is close to Maluku.

Since the colonial era, the Papua region was believed to be part of the power of the Tidore Sultanate which also controlled the spice trade in the eastern archipelago. Starting from the Spaniards, Portuguese, French, Germans, British to the Dutch took turns setting foot on the island of New Guinea. The area also had successive claims, although only Germany, Britain and the Netherlands are known to have taken a keen interest.

The first Westerners to see the North coast of Papua were two Portuguese sailors Antonio D. Anease and Francisco Sorreano in 1511, on their voyage looking for spices, but they did not land on that beach. Don Jorge De Manezes, a Portuguese sailor, was the first Westerner to land, he named this island New Guinea. The word Papua comes from the ancient Malay language “Papuwah” which means people with curly hair.

The first person who gave the name New Guiena to the island of Papua was Ynigo Ortis De Restes, a Spanish national, when he anchored at the mouth of the Membramo river on the north coast of Papua. Ynigo Ortis De Retes named it Nueva Guinea, because it saw its black population like the inhabitants of the West African coast. The designation given by De Retes is written on maps of the XVI century in Latin form, namely “Nova Guinea” and on Dutch maps “Nieuw Guinea”. while the French called the mainland of West Papua as the Cape of d’Urville but there were also French explorers who called it Bougainville. Then the Germans called it Humboldt Bay. In historical records, the naming of Papua and New Guinea is usually used together.

One of the first occupations of New Guinea by Europeans was carried out by Spanish sailors. Bilveer Singh writes, in mid-1529, the first Spaniard to occupy West Papua, namely Alvaro de Saavedra, intended to sail to Mexico. At that time de Saavedra landed on the north coast of Papua. This sailor stayed for a month in Papua and named this land Isla de Oro, which means Golden Island, because of his fascination with the land of Papua.

According to Bilveer Singh, the next Spanish sailor to arrive on the mainland of Papua was Ynigo Ortiz de Retes who sailed on the Sint Juan ship and landed on the north side of New Guinea which leads to the Mamberamo River. In Bilveer Singh’s account, it was at this point that Ortiz de Retes was raising the Spanish flag on 20 June 1545.

Unlike his predecessor, Ortiz de Retes, when he saw the Papuan mainland, he remembered the Guinea Islands on the west coast of Africa, so he named the Papuan mainland the name Neuva Guinea or New Guinea, as well as in honor of the King of Spain. When he set foot in Papua, Ortiz de Retes claimed that the land belonged to the King of Spain. However, Spain was harassed by the Dutch colonialists who were in Maluku. Later, the Dutch were able to drive out the Spaniards so they couldn’t sell spices to Europe. Because they lost to the Dutch, the Spaniards were expelled from Maluku and Papua, they were expelled to Manila in 1663.

On October 25, 1793, the British through Captain John Hayes from the East Indies Company occupied Papua as a warning and tribute to King George III. At that time the British Empire troops occupied the area now known as Manokwari and Captain John named their occupied land as New Albion and built a wooden fort. Captain John named the fort Coronation Fort. But they only lasted two years in 1795. The reason was a two-year epidemic and tribal wars that made British troops uncomfortable and decided to move from West Papua.

Division by the Netherlands, England, and Germany

Behind the British, the Dutch were just about to start seriously occupying the island of New Guinea in 1828. To anticipate competition with the British, the Dutch chose to turn around to the south coast of the island of New Guinea and build the Du Bus fort with the aim of annexing West Papua. King Willem I’s birthday.

Apparently the Dutch unit in Fort Du Bus had to experience a series of sufferings similar to those experienced by the British. H.W. Bachtiar, through his paper “The History of West Papua”, quoted Colonel Antonie Haga’s notes from the military service for the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which mentioned various health problems and fatalities due to disease outbreaks nesting in inadequate wooden fort buildings.

In the end, the first Dutch fort in West Papua had to be abandoned and demolished around 1836. Unwilling to lose its symbol of sovereignty in the wilderness, the Dutch unit decided to install stakes for the Kingdom of the Netherlands along the southern coast of Papua Island. Bilveer Singh in Papua: Geopolitics and the Quest for Nationhood (2008, p. 19) mentions that the symbols of the Dutch heritage have never been recognized by Britain or other European countries.

In 1848, the Dutch fortified their borders from the threat of German and British controlled areas in eastern New Guinea. The Netherlands arbitrarily draws 700 kilometers of border along 141 degrees of longitude. This maneuver created a problem. Because the withdrawal of this border only applies to the coastal territory of West Papua while there is no certainty for the inland areas.

The issue of territorial division reappeared in 1863 when the British asked the Dutch to respecify their territories in East Indies. To save Dutch sovereignty in Papua, the colonial government in Batavia then published a history book entitled Nedelandsch Nieuw Guinea en de Papoesche Eilanden (1884). The book detailing Dutch activities in Papua since the 16th century was indeed published solely to show that Papua had long been under the rule of the Tidore Sultanate in North Maluku with the Netherlands as intermediary.

The book indirectly wants to show that Papua cannot be simply occupied by other European nations. However, a number of records say that Tidore’s claim of power over West Papua, which was mentioned by the Dutch, is actually only theoretical. Notes of Maluku Resident B.J. Haga, who Bachtiar managed to gather, even denied that the indigenous Papuans felt they were part of the Tidore Sultanate. The influence of Tidore is only felt in the Raja Ampat Islands, the Onin Peninsula and around Kainama.

In 1883, the Dutch position was weak and as a result Papua was divided into three powers namely the Netherlands, Germany and England. With this division marked the colonization of Papua. The Dutch who had raised their flag in Papua in 1678 got more than half of the western area of Papua. England got the east and north of New Guinea while Germany got the south of New Guinea.

The First Dutch Colony in Papua

After trying to ignore the eastern East Indies for nearly decades, the Dutch returned at the end of the 19th century. Competition to expand colonial territory among European nations then forced the Netherlands to take action against Papua.

However, the competition for colonizing Papua became increasingly fierce, forcing an agreement to be made in 1895. Bilveer Singh wrote that on May 16, 1895, the Dutch and British governments agreed to discuss the division of Papua’s territory as stated in the Staatsblad van Nederlandsch-Indie document 1985 Number 220 and 2021. Western part (West Papua) belonged to the Netherlands, while the eastern part (Papua New Guinea) was handed over to the British. Meanwhile, the northeastern part of New Guinea Island had been under German rule for approximately 10 years.

Afterwards, the Resident of Maluku in his report urged the colonial government to start seriously governing West Papua. However, this decision led to colossal waste. The colonization of West Papua, which was vast and covered in tropical forests, was considered a burden on the budget and experts. This agreement marked a new round of Dutch colonialism over the lands of Papua and West Papua until the 20th century.

Although reluctant at first, the Dutch Parliament felt that a local government on the south coast of West Papua should be established immediately. This decision was made suddenly to respond to the headhunting carried out by the Tugeri tribe who are free to enter and exit the West Papua-Papua New Guinea border on the south coast. The activity of this tribe was considered to threaten the territorial division agreement between the Netherlands and England.

The Dutch decided to establish the first government center in Merauke and Fakfak. The first administrative offices in the two pilot areas were established exactly three years after the borders of West Papua and Papua New Guinea were ratified, in 1898 to be precise. Robert C. Bone Jr. in his research report wrote that the Dutch colonial government had to spend around 115,000 guilders to establish regional administration in Merauke and Fakfak.

In 1909, Manokwari was designated as the administrative center of the assistant resident, which was inhabited by around 270 Dutch people. In the following years, the Dutch colonial government began to develop plans to bring people from Java to the main cities in West Papua through a colonization program. The presence of these Javanese people was then empowered to help build a network of administration, agriculture and trade that benefited the colonial government.

Because the influence of Dutch power was stronger than that of the Tidore sultanate over West Papua, the Tidore sultan was forced to accept the Dutch will with an agreement to surrender the territory in the form of “korte verklaring” on June 3, 1909.

Even though West Papua was considered a Dutch colony since 1898, real power only materialized at the end of the nineteenth century. Initially the Dutch ignored this area, because it was considered less profitable. But after threats and competition arose from Americans and other Europeans in an effort to expand their respective colonies, the Dutch began to focus their attention seriously on the West Papua region.

To strengthen the government of the Dutch East Indies in the Papua Jaya region, the first government post was formed, based in Manokwari. Thus, apart from being the first city where the Bible entered West Papua, the city of Manokwari was also the first embryo of government history in the Papua Jaya region and then to Fakfak.

The two government posts mentioned above are still directly under the Maluku residency based in Ambon.

In subsequent developments, the status of the two government posts was upgraded to Afdeling, namely:

1. Afdeling Noord Nieuw Guinea, (North West Papua) with its capital in Manokwari which covers the area of Sorong to Jayapura.

2. Afdeling west Nieuw Guinea (Western West Papua), whose capital is Fakfak, covering an area stretching from Fakfak to Merauke.

Independence of the Republic of Indonesia

After Indonesia’s independence was proclaimed on August 17, 1945 with a state jurisdiction covering the former Dutch colonial territory (Dutch East Indies), since then it has been legally and recognized by the outside world the establishment of the Republic of Indonesia which has territory from Sabang to Merauke.

In historical reality it turned out to be different, because the West Papua region turned out to be different, because the West Papua area was still controlled by the Dutch, even though through several agreements up to the Round Table Conference in 1949 in The Hague Netherlands and as a result Indonesia received a temporary arrangement for the position of Papua West by the Netherlands for a period of one year. And then it turned out that this provision was not fulfilled by the Dutch Government, in which West Papua was still not returned to the Indonesian Government.

However, the struggle to return Papua to glory between 1950 and 1953 continued, especially through bilateral negotiating tables within the Indonesian-Dutch Union. After these efforts proved to be fruitless, since 1954 followed by the unilateral cancellation of the Round Table Conference agreement by Indonesia in 1956.

In 1956, Indonesia formed the Province of West Papua as a result of the cabinet of Ali Sastroamidjojo, Moh. Roem and Idam Chalid (the results of the first election in 1955). The inauguration of the formation of the West Papua Province coincided with the 39th anniversary of the independence of the Republic of Indonesia on August 17, 1956, covering the West Papua region which was still occupied by the Dutch and the Tidore, Oba, Weda, Patani and Wasile areas in North Maluku. As the first Governor appointed by the Sultan of Tidore, Zainal Abidin Syah, who is based in Soasiu and his inauguration was carried out on September 23, 1956.

In August 1956 the Government of the Republic of Indonesia appointed 3 members of the People’s Representative Council as representatives of the people of West Papua. They are: Silas Papare, Mohamad Padang and A.B Karubuy. However, the province of West Papua, this struggle, even though it has a number of governments in the form of governors, Regional Heads, Regional Government Councils and other offices, remained inert until the end of its life.

The Dutch officially established the “Papuan Council” on April 5, 1961. So the Indonesian government was forced to increase its confrontation in the military sphere. This shows the seriousness of the Indonesian government to liberate the West Papua region from Dutch hands by force of arms. Right on December 19, 1961 in Yogyakarta President Soekarno as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces issued a declaration of war against the Dutch position in West Papua.

On January 1, 1962, Presidential Decree No. 1 of 1962 was issued concerning the formation of a new form of West Papua Province. This Presidential Decree repealed Law no. 15 of 1956 and all state regulations based on this law.

Thus ended the struggle for the province of West Papua which lived from 1956 to the end of 1961. President Soekarno issued order No. 1 of 1961 article 1 stipulating that the Residentie Nieuw Guinea which was created and was still occupied by the Dutch, was now formed into a New Province of West Papua. New City (Hollandia) was designated as the capital of West Papua Province, New Form, which is located on the mainland of Papua Jaya. Baru (Hollandia) which is located on the mainland of Papua Jaya.

Furthermore, the composition of the Regional Government will consist of a governor who is a native of West Papua accompanied by a deputy governor, the Regional People’s Legislative Assembly and the Daily Command Board. As long as the struggle for the liberation of West Papua (Papua Jaya) is still ongoing, all officials will be appointed by the President of the Republic of Indonesia. Likewise, the number of members of parliament as well as their powers, duties and obligations are also determined by the president.

According to the conception of the Government of the Republic of Indonesia, West Papua Province is an autonomous province. However, since the takeover of West Papua from the Netherlands has not yet been completed, the implementation of the autonomy was completed with a confrontation of arms.

Indonesia in preparing and conducting military operations from the eastern Indonesian territory of West Papua, the President as Commander in Chief of the Supreme Command for the Liberation of West Papua, issued Decree No. action, accompanied by staff of the Regional Government of West Papua Province in a new form. This command was directly led by Major General Suharto and based in the city of Ujung Padang. These provincial activities were subsequently organized in cooperation with the military, as a result of the military confrontation and the landing of Indonesian guerrillas in West Papua.

New York Agreement

The Dutch position in West Papua became increasingly shaky. The Dutch were no longer sure that they would be able to defend the territory if the Republic of Indonesia carried out large-scale military operations. The Netherlands is willing to hold negotiations with the Republic of Indonesia regarding the procedure for handing over West Papua to Indonesia, based on the proposal of the United States diplomat, namely Ellsworth Bunker.

In July 1962 negotiations began to take place under the guidance of the UN Secretary General, namely U. Thant and Ellsworth Banker. Finally, on August 15, 1962, a historic signing was held, called the “New York Agreement”. In this agreement it was attempted that Indonesia’s demands to include the West Papua region under the control of the government of the Republic of Indonesia were fulfilled by the Dutch through a period of governmental transition organized by a third party, namely the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) and the Indonesian side as well. recognize and carry out Dutch demands regarding granting the right to determine opinions for the people of West Papua to regulate their own territorial status, carried out no later than 7 years after the handover of power.

Another point in the New York agreement which is closely related to the handover of West Papua from Untea to the Government of the Republic of Indonesia as follows:

After the ratification of the agreement between Indonesia and the Netherlands, no later than October 1, 1962, the authorities from the United Nations Government Agency (UNTEA) received government from the hands of the Netherlands. At that moment the Dutch flag was lowered, which meant that authority over the area was handed over to UNTEA.

1. The interim UN government will use Indonesian personnel, both civilians and security tools for the sons of West Papua themselves and the remaining Dutch officers who are still needed

2. Indonesian troops remain in West Papua which is under the control of the United Nations Interim Administration.

3. Starting from that time, the Dutch armed forces were gradually returned to UN control and were not allowed to be used for military operations.

4. Between West Papua and other Indonesia, free passage applies.

December 31, 1962 Indonesian Airport began to fly next to the UN airport.

The repatriation of Dutch civilian and military members must have been completed on May 1, 1963 and no later than on that date the Government of the Republic of Indonesia officially accepted the UN interim Administration. Thus, on May 1, 1963, the government of the Republic of Indonesia began to run its administration in West Papua.

In accordance with the Dutch will set forth in the New York agreement, namely that the people of West Papua were given the right to express their opinion after 7 years of handover of West Papuan authority from the UN interim government to Indonesia, then on 14 July 1969 to 2 August 1969 a Popular Opinion was held in West Papua. The result is that the people of West Papua still choose to join the Republic of Indonesia. Thus the territory of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia has been intact again in a real way from Sabang – Merauke