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12 January 1955—

Creating a Zone of Peace

West Papua, the westernmost province of the large island of New Guinea, has its share of troubles. Part of the Dutch East Indies colony for over a century, it was claimed by Indonesia in 1949 after the Dutch gave up sovereign claims to the island. The Indonesian occupation that succeeded the Dutch one lasted some twenty years, finally ending when a UN-sponsored referendum allowed Papuans to decide whether to stick with Indonesia or to form a separate state. Although they chose to remain with Indonesia, a breakaway movement that favored independence rejected the decision. Since that time, West Papuans have endured years of civil warfare between the guerrilla separatists and the Indonesian armed forces.

To make matters worse, ethnic Indonesians, most of whom are brown-skinned and Muslim, tend to treat dark-skinned Papuans, who are predominantly Christian, as second-class citizens. This racial and economic discrimination continues to fuel the guerrillas’ resistance to the government. It also prompts abuse of Papuans by the Indonesian military’s anti-terrorist strike force, which arbitrarily targets churches, schools, and private Papuan homes. Displaced villagers whose homes and livelihoods have been destroyed are forced to flee into the jungles.

Rev. Benny Giay, an indigenous Papuan, has spent years trying to make West Papua a “zone of peace” by working for trust and reconciliation between his people and the native Indonesians. An evangelical minister who earned a doctorate in anthropology from a Dutch university, Giay rejects the violence practiced by the separatists while at the same time refusing to condone Indonesian persecution. But he believes that nonviolent resistance is a more effective response to the oppression than civil war, whose primary victims are innocent men, women, and children. So his efforts have been focused on educating West Papuans to take on leadership roles in their communities and writing and speaking about Muslim persecution of Papuan Christians to let the world know what’s going on.

One of Giay’s most successful campaigns at nonviolent empowerment was the founding of West Papua’s first seminary in 1986. Prior to that time, Christian ministerial candidates were forced to travel far from West Papua to be educated at foreign institutions. Giay’s seminary focuses on offering seminarians educational opportunities that emphasize the principles and methods of liberation theology. He believes that the homegrown training they receive best prepares them for future public leadership in a land that, for all practical purposes, is under military occupation, and whose best chance of liberation is through active nonviolence inspired by gospel principles.

Giay has suffered for his peace work. Many of his books have been banned by the Indonesian government, he has sometimes been arrested, and he regularly receives death threats. But he continues his labors for the “New Papua” he envisions: a land where light-skinned Muslims and dark-skinned Papuans live together without rancor or persecution.