Indonesia In West New Guinea

The Australian Broadcasting Commission’s senior newsman in Papua-New Guinea, Geoffrey Luck, recently became the first Western journalist to visit the 17th province of the Indonesian republic—West New Guinea—since Indonesia took over administration there on May 1, 1963.

Many journalists had earlier asked in vain for visas to tour the Territory. Luck’s visit for three weeks in August-September permitted the first close investigations of conditions in an area which was the cause of so much bitterness for 13 years between Indonesia and the Netherlands. The bitterness almost brought this corner of the South Pacific to a state of open war.

Luck reported that no restrictions had been placed on him in West New Guinea and that he had been given a great deal of assistance wherever he went. He did not have a guide constantly at his elbow, or one anxious to provide a car to take him only where it was considered he should go. Luck in fact found there was a shortage of private transport and he thumbed lifts, took buses, or sometimes walked.

In three weeks he estimates he walked 50 miles.

Luck’s assignment was to bring back to Australia a full picture—in radio broadcasts and on TV film—of what was happening inside West New Guinea and he was selected to do the job because he had made two previous tours. On the first, on October, 1962, he reported the departure of the Dutch and the arrival of the UN Temporary Exective Authority; and in May, 1963, he saw the country transferred to Indonesian adminstration.

Starting on this page is an interview with Luck given to a Port Moresby correspondent.