Turning the Tide of the Bandung Spirit: Pan-Africanism for West Papua and East-Timor

Paper Abstract: The Afro-Asia Conference of 1955 in Bandung immediately inspired a variety of progressive movements on the Asian and African worlds. Afro-Asia countries and their people, who were once colonized nations, imagined and aimed for a new world free from imperialism, colonialism, and many other kinds of oppression. However, the promises do not come without controversy. As the birthplace of the Bandung Spirit, Indonesia claimed territory in two areas: East Timor and West Papua. One became independent, while another is still under Indonesian colonization. This paper will discuss some important moments of the independence movement in these two places and their connection to Africa.

Revolutionary leader Amilcar Cabral of Guinea-Bissau inspired East Timorese anti-colonial movement activists greatly throughout Indonesian colonialism. The leaders of the Papua independence movement attempted to get active solidarity from the African continent throughout the 60s–80s period. Pan-Africanism is the foundation since the Papuan Community is the African diaspora in the Pacific. One of the specific support was the opening of the RPG (Revolutionary Provisional Government of West Papua New Guinea) coordination office in Dakar, Senegal in 1975. By discussing those histories of resistance, this paper shows the reverse flow of anti-colonial spirit, or Bandung Spirit, from African countries that have shaped the independence movements in West Papua and East Timor, up to the present.