Indonesia–Papua New Guinea border

Three empires and one meridian

A proclamation in 1828 claimed part of New Guinea for the Dutch Crown. It described the territory only vaguely, as lying between the meridian of 141°E and the Cape of Good Hope in the island's northwest.^[1] Twenty years later a Dutch decree extended the rule of the Sultan of Tidore, in effect a Dutch protectorate, to the land between the 141st meridian in the south and Cap Bonpland, east of Humboldt Bay, in the north.^[1]

In 1884 Britain declared a protectorate along New Guinea's southern coast east of the Dutch boundary, and Germany annexed the northern coast.^[1] A London agreement of April 1885 divided the British and German territories with a series of lines that met the 141st meridian at 5°S.^[1] That left one line still to settle: the one between the Dutch and the British.

Britain and the Netherlands signed a convention at The Hague on 16 May 1895. It started the boundary at the mouth of the Bensbach River on the south coast and ran it north along that meridian to the Fly River. It then followed the Fly's thalweg (the deepest channel of the river) until the river met 141°E, and ran up 141°E to the point where the British, Dutch and German territories met.^[1]

“The boundary between the British and Netherland possessions in New Guinea starts from the southern coast of the said island at the middle of the mouth of the Bensbach River, situated at about 141º1'47.9" of east longitude (meridian of Greenwich).”^[1]

From colonies to two countries

The land east of the line changed hands several times. Germany took direct control of German New Guinea in 1899. After the First World War, Britain accepted a League of Nations mandate over it in 1920 on behalf of Australia.^[1] British New Guinea in the south became the Territory of Papua and passed to Australian administration in 1906. In 1949 Australia joined the two into the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.^[1]

West of the line, the Netherlands East Indies became independent as Indonesia on 28 December 1949, except for Netherlands New Guinea.^[1] Under an agreement between Indonesia and the Netherlands signed in New York on 15 August 1962, the United Nations ran the territory from October 1962. Indonesia took over its administration in May 1963.^[1] In 1969 eight consultative assemblies voted for the territory to stay in Indonesia, and on 19 November 1969 the UN General Assembly took note of the Secretary-General's report on the vote.^[1] Indonesia called the province Irian Jaya until 2000, when President Wahid renamed it Papua.^[2]

Papua New Guinea became self-governing on 1 December 1973 and fully independent on 16 September 1975.^[1] It inherited a border that Australia and Indonesia had already surveyed and agreed.

Marking the line in 1973

On 12 February 1973 Australia and Indonesia signed an agreement that fixed the line more precisely, using markers placed by a joint survey. In the north the border is the 141°E meridian, from the coast at 2°35′37″S south to the Fly River. It then follows the Fly's thalweg to 6°53′33″S, and from there runs down the meridian of 141°01′10″E to the south coast.^[1] The Fly River stretch is the only bend in the whole line. You can see it on the map as the small bulge halfway down.

The survey placed 14 meridian monuments along the border, ten on 141°E and four on 141°01′10″E.^[1] Until the 1980s those 14 markers were the only ones along its entire length.^[2] Earlier surveys in the 1960s had found that the line ran right through the middle of at least one village, and that several villages the Dutch had run were actually in the Australian territory. As late as 1980, a village counted in Papua New Guinea's national census turned out to be inside Indonesia.^[2]

People across the line

Most of the border region is thinly settled, except the area from the Fly River bulge to about 100 km north of it. Language groups, land rights, kinship and trade all cross the line.^[2] A border agreement between the two governments, first drawn up in 1973 and revised in 1979 and 1984, allows crossings for traditional and customary purposes, such as making sago, hunting and visiting family.^[2] In the 1980s a survey found that in two census divisions of Papua New Guinea's Western Province, 47.8% and 30.3% of adults had been born in Irian Jaya.^[2]

In February 1984 an uprising by Papuan nationalists in Jayapura failed, and a military crackdown followed. Thousands of people then crossed into Papua New Guinea. By 1986 between 10,000 and 12,000 were living in camps along the border.^[2] Many were later resettled at East Awin in Western Province.^[2] The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, set up the Iowara camp there in 1989 and later handed it to the Papua New Guinea government.^[4] In 2023 the International Catholic Migration Commission put the total number of West Papuans in Papua New Guinea at about 12,000, and said the country still had no national policy for them.^[4]

Incursions, a treaty and new border posts

The poorly marked line has been crossed by accident and on purpose. In mid-1982 Indonesian military patrols crossed into Papua New Guinea seven times, and in 1984 Indonesian troops destroyed houses and gardens in a hamlet on the Papua New Guinea side.^[2] In 1983 it was found that Indonesia's trans-Irian Jaya highway crossed into Papua New Guinea at three points. The sections were closed off 16 months later.^[2]

In October 1986 the two foreign ministers signed a Treaty of Mutual Respect, Friendship and Cooperation. Each side agreed not to threaten or use force against the other, and not to let its territory be used for hostile acts against the other.^[2]

The main road crossing is at the northern end, between Skouw in Indonesia and the village of Wutung in Papua New Guinea, on the road from Jayapura to Vanimo.^[3] Skouw was Indonesia's first integrated cross-border post in Papua. A second, at Sota near Merauke in the south, was opened by President Joko Widodo in 2021.^[5] In 2024 goods worth Rp50.45 billion were exported to Papua New Guinea through Skouw, mostly household goods.^[3]