Dutch New Guinea (6): Irian Barat (2)

The Indonesian postal service issued separate stamps for the former territory of New Guinea until 1970 under the name Irian Barat. In the spring of 1966, President Sukarno was forced to resign, and in 1967 he formally handed over power to General Suharto. After Sukarno's resignation and Suharto's accession as president of Indonesia, the name of the territory was changed to Irian Jaya. With this, the territory became a province of Indonesia. On August 17, 1968, a series of four stamps featuring images of flowers was issued. On August 17, 1945, Indonesia had declared independence. Coincidence or not? Nothing refers to that historical event. On the same day, four stamps featuring images of animals were also issued. The depicted animals are found in Australia and Irian Barat. Postage due stamps with the inscription IRIAN BARAT in black also appeared on August 17, 1968. These postage due stamps were not issued without this inscription either. The year 1968 is included within the pentagon. The Indonesian postal service has not issued any postage due stamps for the country itself with this year. I did find a stamp, imperforate and without the inscription IRIAN BARAT, but I do not know how it entered the trade. The yellow color is very different from that of the postage due stamp with the inscription. Printing residue, too? Two propaganda stamps were issued on October 1, 1968. The text Setia pada Ikrar means: faithfulness to the promise. Musyawarah besar rakyat translates roughly to: deliberations of the people. Api means fire and Trikora is secession. All this commemorates the plebiscite on the future of Irian Barat on May 9, 1964. A series of five stamps featuring images of woodcarving from Irian Barat was issued on April 15, 1970. On the stamps, Irian Barat was abbreviated to IB. And on April 30, 1970, the lower values ​​also appeared with images of woodcarvings. To conclude, two more stamps were issued on October 26, 1970, featuring images of the lory and a bird of paradise. With that, the New Guinea adventure came to an end. The promise made by the Netherlands that this territory would become independent was not kept. Under political pressure!