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 57 Papua related websites or webpages with the general themes of:

NEWS AND CURRENT AFFAIRS IN PAPUA

Newsgroups and "chat" rooms

One of the least expensive and most efficient ways to source information from the internet is through a newsgroup. With newsgroups, short text messages are sent directly to subscribers which keeps online time to a minimum and removes the need to visit or search webpages. In the past few 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 transcribe some 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 (most Dutch researchers and activists can utilise English language resources). Typically these newsgroups are open to any interested individual (or organisation) with an email address and are free of charge.

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. Kabar-Irian maintains several moderated (edited) newsgroups in English and Indonesian available as daily postings or in a digest format (see www.kabar-irian.com/news/index.html where these messages are also archived). The two most popular unmoderated (unedited) news or "chat" groups (both with around 200 subscribers) are the "West Papua News" list (formerly reg.westpapua, now at www.topica.com/lists/WestPapua) and "Kabar-L" (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irianjaya). Discussion on some of these chat groups can be read without subscribing (use a local search at www.egroups.com or visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/irianjaya, http://groups.yahoo.com/group/westpapoea or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/free-papua). 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). While these groups are unmoderated, they tend to concentrate on the distribution of news about Papua or on specific Papua-related issues.

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)

News, newspapers, broadcast media and "clearing houses"

Linked to major Indonesian media consortiums, the Cenderawasih Pos (ID: www.cenderawasihpos.com) and Timika Pos (ID: www.indomedia.com/timikapos) are the two leading Papuan daily newspapers and they both have websites in Indonesian. Other Papua-specific newspapers with an online presence include Jayapura's daily Papua Pos (ID: www.papuapos.com) and the West Papua Courier, a Dutch language newsletter published for the Papuan community living in the Netherlands (www.westpapua.nl). For the most recent news about Papua online visit the InfoPapua portal (ID: www.infopapua.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) 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 (www.insideindonesia.org, Papuan special edition at www.insideindonesia.org/edit67/edit67.htm).

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. Local searches at the websites of Radio Republik Indonesia (www.rrionline.com), Australian'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 worldreport (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: http://www.nindja.com) or "Watch Indonesia" in Germany (DE/UK: home.snafu.de/watchin).