by Tim Flannery
PART VI
JAYAPURA AND BEYOND
TWENTY-THREE
Peace and prisons
The island of New Guinea is divided into two nearly equal parts. The eastern section consists of the mainland of Papua New Guinea, while the west comprises Irian Jaya, the former Dutch colony that is now a province of the Republic of Indonesia.
Since 1969, when Irian Jaya was incorporated into Indonesia, it had been difficult and at times impossible for researchers to work there. I made my first attempts to go to Irian Jaya in 1984, writing to LIPI (the Indonesian Government science organisation) requesting permission to undertake a program of wildlife research there. But no reply ever came to my letters. I now know that at that time obtaining permission for such work was, to all intents and purposes, impossible. And without a formal permit to undertake research, one cannot obtain funding—so I was unable to proceed with my plans.
By the late 1980s, however, the political situation had relaxed to the point where it was possible to consider carrying out faunal survey work in the province. This was a most exciting prospect, for Irian Jaya was (and indeed remains today) a great blank spot on the map of zoological exploration.
Even today, Irian is not the kind of place where one can wander at leisure. All visitors (be they researchers, tourists or Indonesians from outside the province) need a police travel document to enter. The document (called a surat jalan) lists the localities which may be visited by the letter-holder and is checked and validated at every town or community through which one passes or visits.
Geoff Hope once again played an important role in my life in providing yet another research opportunity. He had opened the door to Papua New Guinea for me—and now, in 1990, he also handed me the keys to Irian Jaya.
Geoff had been invited to Irian Jaya by the University of Cenderawasih (remarkably, the province, which has just over a million inhabitants, boasts two university campuses). He was intending to set up a unit to study alpine ecology. This invitation was extremely useful, as it allowed him to travel to many areas he could otherwise not reach.
Both of us had long been aware of some fossils discovered by a missionary high in the mountains of the central range. The fossils were reportedly found in a cave, which was rumoured to be full of the bones of large extinct marsupials.
In 1989 Geoff and his partner Bren Wetherstone had visited the site, and thought it might be a significant fossil locality. To reach it they had undertaken an exhausting round trip, on foot, of over 250 kilometres through the rugged mountains of central Irian Jaya. The first-hand knowledge they thus gained of the site was to provide the opportunity I then needed to make contacts both within LIPI and Irian Jaya which would allow me to undertake fieldwork there.
Investigating a fossil site is quite a different prospect from undertaking wildlife research. Wildlife is protected in Indonesia and one needs a number of permits from various agencies in order to undertake such work. Fossils are not covered by this legislation. So I could quite justifiably ask for funds to visit Irian to look at fossils and not be hampered by the need to obtain a visa to research wildlife.
In early 1990 I received the funding necessary to mount an expedition to examine the cave and Geoff, Bren and I were ready to set off. This was the beginning of the greatest adventure of my life. Indonesia seemed incredibly exotic, and once again I experienced the thrill and frustration of entering a culture whose customs and language were entirely new. Not since my first visit to Papua New Guinea had I felt such a rush of anticipation and high adventure.
As I flew into Jayapura, the provincial capital, I was struck by just how similar it is in its setting to Port Moresby. Both were established in rain shadow areas where grassland predominates. Around Jayapura, very poor soils derived from oceanic crust rocks help exclude forest and promote grassland. Also, both Port Moresby and Jayapura are set on the edge of beautiful harbours and framed by a backdrop of mountains.
Despite these similarities in natural setting, I find Jayapura incomparably more beautiful. As one lands at the great, American-built airstrip of Sentani, the green Cyclops Mountains seem to rise impossibly abruptly from the coastal plain. They reach a height of 2,000 metres before plunging dramatically into the sea a few kilometres to the north. Between mountains and town lies Lake Sentani, a complex freshwater lake which resembles Sydney Harbour in its profusion of bays, beaches and inlets. It is surrounded by a low, undulating plain, which can become unbearably hot during the middle of the day. Near the lake or sea, however, one is often cooled by delicious evening breezes.
Nestled into Lake Sentani's bays and perched upon her islands are myriad little settlements composed of traditionally thatched houses. These are often all but obscured by the coconut palms, hibiscus, breadfruit trees and sundry other plants that surround each cluster of huts. The steep, grassy slopes leading to the water are everywhere punctuated by neat gardens. The waters of the lake are still relatively clean (although they are increasingly threatened by pollution), and are home to such exotic creatures as the gigantic freshwater Sentani sawfish (which reaches several metres in length) and tiny, jewel-like Sentani rainbow fish, both of which are unique to this body of water.
Jayapura is perched near where the lake approaches the sea. There, a series of pretty white-sand beaches, hills and islands stretch into the distance. The town itself is unfortunately built around a creek which is now horribly polluted, resembling in sight and smell the filthiest open drain in Jakarta. A ramshackle collection of tin-roofed huts on stilts cluster around this drain, while more modern buildings (including a comfortable large hotel) line the main streets.
We found simple, clean accommodation in an old Dutch colonial house in a suburb called Dok Lima ('Five Dock’ in English), which received its name during MacArthur's occupation in 1944. The house, which overlooked the bluest of seas, was shaded by great, orchid-filled banyans. Its verandah received a cool evening breeze.
Buying spicy, freshly cooked satays from a passing street vendor and enjoying them while taking in the view, I felt I was in paradise. Later I learned that the satay seller was rumoured to be in the employ of the Indonesian military, and was paid to keep a watch on foreigners. Ah, the bittersweet nature of Irian.
As I began to explore Jayapura on that first trip, my sense that I had been transported into some kind of nirvana was only strengthened. Throughout the week we spent there, the weather was balmy. Transport and accommodation, although basic, were inexpensive and clean, and fragrant Asian food was available almost everywhere at ridiculously low prices.
One of the best fish restaurants I have ever eaten at is perched over the waters of the bay, right in the centre of the town. The attentive owner, a man from Flores, insists that his customers choose their fish fresh from an ice-filled barrow kept at the restaurant entrance. Coral trout, potato cod and a dozen kinds of brilliantly coloured reef fish lie beside trevally, mackerel and flounder. Your selection is barbecued instantly over hot coals, and served with a delicious sweet black sauce. Washed down with icy beer (which even today is brewed according to Dutch tradition), the repast is worthy of the best restaurant of any great city. But no great city could ever provide the brilliant phosphorescence of Humboldt Bay, or the mild breezes and myriad stars of a clear tropical sky.
Having spent a great deal of time in Port Moresby, I was struck most forcibly by the fact that Jayapura was a safe town. I did not see high fences topped with razor wire, or hear vicious dogs barking behind them. There were no armed guards in front of shops, and no heavily fortified compounds protecting a besieged elite. On several occasions we found ourselves walking the streets at 3 a.m. in perfect safety. For anyone used to life in Port Moresby, this was an impossible luxury.
But even during this first visit, when language was such a barrier, and I was viewing this new world through rose-coloured glasses, the cost at which this security was purchased did not entirely elude me. As we drove from the airport to town we saw an imposing prison beside the road.
A few freshly dug graves were prominent at the end of a row of older mounds. They were undoubtedly meant to be a warning. The police and military were evident in every street (although in this respect Jayapura is not so different from the rest of Indonesia), and armed military posts were located on all of the major roads leading to and from the town. The arrogant young soldiers who manned them could be incredibly rude to approaching Melanesians.
The other striking thing was that, after a mere twenty years of rule from Jakarta, Jayapura had become a truly Asian city. Just as the food was delightfully Indonesian, the shops had a distinctly Asian appearance. The pasar in the middle of town is as labyrinthine and crowded as any in Java, while the stream outside it is as polluted as Jakarta's Ciliwang River. Melanesians are loath to foul their waterways, and one rarely sees such a disgusting sight elsewhere in New Guinea.
In typical Indonesian manner, concrete policemen stood at busy intersections, their stern, unblinking eyes staring out of their pink faces, while black-painted guns bulged at their hips. Street vendors with their warungs (Indonesian versions of Harry's Cafe de Wheels) dotted the street, while becaks (trishaws) and minibuses crowded the pot-holed roadsides.
Melanesians were still in evidence, but it appeared that over half the population of the town already consisted of transmigrants from elsewhere in Indonesia. I saw no signs of hostility between the two groups. Indeed there appeared to be some remarkable signs of racial harmony, such as pairs of Melanesian and Asiatic men walking down the street together, engaged in friendly conversation.
Another striking thing about Jayapura was the number of illegal immigrants from Papua New Guinea I met there. At first I could not understand why they had left their own free country to live in a nation where Melanesians did not rule, and where their lives, if they were discovered, might be endangered.
Gaining entry to Irian was certainly no problem for them. Jayapura is located only a few kilometres west of the border. The opportunities for crossing are many, for the border is poorly marked and runs through jungle for much of its length. Once in town, the immigrants readily blended in with the population, since many already spoke a smattering of Bahasa Indonesia.
The Papua New Guinea border crossers seemed eager to meet Europeans. Those I encountered in Jayapura usually approached me secretively on a bus or in a market, whispering a few words of Pidgin to test how I might receive them. Most were from the border areas, such as Vanimo or Yapsiei, where I had worked extensively, and we often had a few acquaintances in common. They had been drawn to Jayapura by cheap food, clothing and other goods. These were to be had for a fraction of the price paid in Papua New Guinea, and doubtless a thriving illegal trade is plied across the border.
Some of these people were in Jayapura for a brief visit, but others had already stayed for many months. All lived in great fear of detection, and more than one expected death if discovered.
The few days we spent exploring the environs of Jayapura were full of excitement. One day we hired a minibus and drove to the site of General MacArthur's headquarters in the foothills of the Cyclops Mountains. MacArthur had a mansion built on the spot, and based himself there for many months during the Second World War. Although there is nothing left of his house today, the visit made a deep impression on me, for the commanding view from the place explained something essential about this extraordinary man.
The site permits a sweeping panorama of the Sentani plain. There, way below, stretches the airstrip. When seen from this point, it is clear that the single runway still in use at the modern airport of Sentani is just one tiny portion of a vast, now largely abandoned airfield complex which was built during the war. About five enormously long landing strips appear to have been constructed for the Americans’ use. The present runway, long as it is, takes up less than half the length of just one of these strips.
Standing there, I imagined the scene as it must have appeared fifty years ago. Hundreds of great silver bombers, filled with thousands of tonnes of lethal cargo, would have lined up on the tarmac. I imagined MacArthur standing on his balcony, radio in one hand, the other raised ready to give the command for take-off. With a gesture he sent the huge bombers on their mission to wreak vengeance upon those who had shamed him so vilely at Corregidor. Musing on the imagined scene, I began to feel in my bones the megalomania which must have driven the general.
We drove back along the shore of Lake Sentani, passing a number of well-constructed, colonial-style houses perched by the water. Each was surrounded by gardens of croton, frangi-pani and hibiscus. They were, I was informed, one beautiful brothel after another. Another army is now occupying the Sentani plain, and apparently several of these establishments are reserved for its exclusive use.
Years later I was to learn from a medical orderly that the crew of a Thai fishing vessel caught illegally in Indonesian waters was held in Jayapura for almost a year. During that time its members roamed freely through the town. Prior to being released, they were all given a medical check. Twelve of the fifteen crew tested positive for HIV.
As we drove along I wondered how rapidly change would come to Jayapura. I thought of the great Sentani sawfish, which is already threatened by pollution and overfishing, and of the picturesque, sleepy Melanesian villages which were all that existed here just half a century before.
TWENTY-FOUR
Traces of tundra
After waiting for several days, we were informed that our surat jalans were ready to be picked up at the police headquarters in Jayapura. We were permitted to proceed to the mountains!
But we had still not jumped through all the official hoops set for us. At Wamena, we would need to secure yet another travel pass to continue on to the tiny settlement of Kwiyawagi. From there, the fossil cave which was our objective was only half a day's walk away.
Sentani airport is a chaotic place. There are no queues and few clues at the counters as to which flights are going where, or when they depart. On some secret signal, which we apparently failed to perceive, crowds of people rushed the counters—only to be ignored by staff.
Finally, our height (and probably our colour and helplessness) brought rescue in the form of a courteous official, who took our tickets and luggage and handed us our boarding passes. Our surat jalans were stamped, and hand luggage checked to ensure that we were not carrying alcohol into the highlands. Concern that the Irianese may obtain alcohol prompts such measures, which even extend to the numbering of beer bottles in Jayapura. Only a bureaucracy as byzantine as Indonesia's, surely, could try to keep track of the fate of individual bottles of beer!
In terms of its location and infrastructure, Wamena is Irian Jaya's equivalent to Mount Hagen. With the exception of the mining town of Tembagapura, it is the only substantial settlement in the Irian highlands. It is still entirely reliant on aircraft to maintain contact with the outside world, and this relative isolation means that it retains a more Melanesian character than Jayapura.
This will soon change, though, for the Indonesian Government is rapidly constructing a road from Jayapura to Wamena. From there it will turn west, running the entire length of the central highlands, and terminate at the town of Nabire on Geelvinck Bay. The very heart of Irian will be exposed to the outside world by this highway. The task of construction in the vast expanse of forest, floodplain and abrupt foothills which lie between Jayapura and Wamena is enormous. And, while building the road might be technically feasible, one wonders at the cost of keeping it open in tectonically unstable Irian Jaya.
From the air, my first view of Wamena was a broad, grassy valley dotted with traditional Dani hamlets surrounded by incredibly neat and extensive sweet potato and vegetable gardens. Then came the town itself: an untidy, rusting conglomeration of tin-roofed buildings whose streets were laid out in a grid pattern. The silver minaret on the mosque gave it a distinctively Javanese appearance, even from above.
In the streets of Wamena, you see an extraordinary mixture of humanity. Proud Dani men, still holding fiercely
to their traditional dress of koteka (penis gourd) tied at its base to a protruding testicle, stalk down the street, beards thrust forward and hands clasped behind their backs. Nervous-looking Muslim women, the oval of their face the only flesh visible in a sea of cotton, whisk gracefully by, while military men in immaculate and tight-fitting uniforms swagger confidently down the middle of the road.
Surely it is a perverse twist of fate that has put a nation of mostly Muslim, mostly Javanese, people in control of a place like Irian Jaya. You could not imagine, even if you tried, two more antipathetic cultures. Muslims abhor pigs, while to highland Irianese they are the most highly esteemed of possessions. Javanese have a highly developed sense of modesty. They dress to cover most of their body and are affronted by overt sexuality. For most Irianese, near-nudity is the universally respectable state. Moreover, men from the mountain cultures of western New Guinea wear their sexuality proudly. The long penis gourd often has the erectile crest of the cockatoo attached to its tip, just in case the significance of the upright orange sheath is missed.
Javanese fear the forest and are happiest in towns. They attach much importance to bodily cleanliness, yet pollute their waterways horribly. Irianese treat the forest as their home. Many are indifferent to dirt on the skin, yet, through custom, protect the ecological health of their forests and rivers. Javanese respect of authority is typically Asian in its obsequiousness. Irianese are fiercely intolerant of attempts at domination. No Dani man would ever let another lord it over him as a tuan (prince) does a Javanese petani (peasant).
It is hardly surprising that these differences have led to an explosive social situation. Unless these two very different cultures can come to respect each other and find some common ground, the situation can only lead to an escalating conflict. Indonesia will then face a protracted civil war which will make East Timor look insignificant by comparison.