It's fucked. & it's especially fucked that Australia won't do shit because Papua & Bougainville were both regular stops for Australian blackbirding/slave ships. Australia also invaded parts of Papua in the 19th century & set up sugar plantations using "indentured" labour. For a while those areas were considered parts of Queensland. They were only abandoned when Japan tried to use Papua to invade Australia in WW2. Almost 6000 Australian soldiers died holding them back & the only reason the numbers weren't a lot higher is that Papuans were helping them navigate the terrain & rescuing the wounded
http://kokodahistorical.com.au/histo...zy-wuzzy-angel
The Papuans were recruited to work as labourers, carriers and scouts for both sides and executed their tasks in conditions of extreme heat and wet. Teams of carriers brought Australian supplies to the frontlines and carried seriously wounded and sick soldiers back over the track to Owers? Corner.
In retrospect the Papuans had little reason to be loyal to their Australian colonial masters, who often treated them as second class citizens in their own country. Nonetheless many worked until they dropped. It is said that no living soldier was ever abandoned by the carriers, not even during heavy combat. Their compassion for the wounded and sick earned them the eternal gratitude of the Australian soldiers, who called them ?Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels?
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