Talk:Kostrad

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Indonesia cannot be said to have "liberated" Western New Guinea in 1960. It had never owned it before and the Dutch were arranging a peaceful transfer of the area to the Papuans. Whatever the rights or wrongs of Indonesian control of Western New Guinea, the terminology should reflect that it hadn't previously controlled it. Grace Note (talk) 04:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

"Takeover" won't do either. This implies that the Indonesians took over control of Western New Guinea from the Dutch. They did not. They did not peacefully acquire control. They invaded and dispossessed those who were in control of it. They would not have needed this particular paramilitary organisation is they did not, after all. This is described as a "conquest" in English. Any replacement term must include this concept. One can dispute the rights and wrongs of Indonesian control of Western New Guinea, but one cannot dispute that it took it by force. Grace Note (talk) 06:01, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Force was a component of the take over. But, there was also adminstration, politics, and international diplomacy involving other powers (to use my words). Was it all ethical, moral, just or legal? maybe or maybe not, it's not for us as wikipedians to judge, and our editing should reflect this. The point being that it wasn't force alone as the edit suggested (nor was it the same as the East Timor situation as many like to make out. For these reasons, this is indeed an improvement on "conquest" and "liberation", but not completely sufficient in my opinion. I will think of further refinement, if you don't do so in the meantime. :-) kind regards --Merbabu (talk) 06:14, 28 March 2008 (UTC)