West Papua 2010 Aircraft minisheet. Plane

West Papua 2010 Aircraft minisheet. Plane

The newly-proclaimed Republic of West Papua issued an attractive stamp to celebrate their national airline, WESTPAPAIR.

The stamp shows an airliner with the West Papua flag on its tail.

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Only one stamp is shown in the photo, but the auction is for a full miniature sheet of ten stamps, with inscribed margins.

West Papua's Philatelic Agency is in Melbourne.

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The Free Papua Movement (Bahasa: Organisasi Papua Merdeka, abbreviated OPM) is a nationalist organization established in 1965 to seek independence for Western New Guinea from Indonesia. The country was administered by Indonesia from 1962. And before that by the Dutch, as Netherlands New Guinea.

Although the Netherlands had insisted the West New Guinea people be allowed self-determination in accord with the United Nations charter and General Assembly Resolution 1514 (XV) which was to be called the "Act of Free Choice"; the New York Agreement instead provided a 7 year delay and gave the United Nations no authority to supervise the act. The transfer's legitimacy was not recognized by the Papuan population, the majority of whom continued civil disobedience by raising the West Papua Morning Star flag each year on the 1st December although this action was illegal under Indonesian law.

In October 1968, Nicolaas Jouwe, member of the New Guinea Council and of the National Committee elected by the Council in 1962, lobbied the United Nations claiming 30,000 Indonesian troops and thousands of Indonesian civil servants were repressing the Papuan population. According to US Ambassador Galbraith, the Indonesian Foreign Minister Adam Malik also believed the Indonesian military was the cause of problems in the territory and the number of troops should be reduced by at least half. Ambassador Galbraith further described the OPM to "represent an amorphous mass of anti-Indonesia sentiment" with "possibly 85 to 90 percent [of Papuans], are in sympathy with the Free Papua cause or at least intensely dislike Indonesians".