Viktor Kaisiepo

Kaisiepo was diagnosed with an incurable illness in 2009. He died in Amersfoort, Netherlands, on 31 January 2010, at the age of 61.

In May 2000, Viktor Kaisiepo made his first visit to West Papua since the family left in 1962. Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, who was elected in 1999, had introduced a more open form of government in Indonesia since the fall of Suharto. Wahid had changed the name of Indonesian-controlled Western New Guinea from the Indonesian Irian Jaya to the previous name, Papua.

Kaisiepo saw an opportunity to travel back to West Papua during Wahid's presidency. In May 2000, Kaisiepo flew back to West Papua for the first time in thirty-eight years. Kaisiepo first flew from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to the island of Biak, the home of the Kaisiepo family.

Markus Kaisiepo won a seat on the New Guinea Council in the elections held in January 1961 and took office in April. The Dutch government under pressure from the United States in 1962 decided to transfer administration of the territory to the United Nations while Indonesia was petitioning the United Nations to appoint Indonesia as the administrator. Markus Kaisiepo moved his family, including Viktor, to the Netherlands soon after the hand-over was announced.

Viktor Kaisiepo (14 September 1948 – 31 January 2010), also spelled Victor Kaisiepo, was a Netherlands New Guinean-born Dutch activist for West Papuan independence and self-determination. His family fled West Papua when its administration was transferred to Indonesia, and he lived in the Netherlands thereafter.

Kaisiepo was born in the Netherlands New Guinea in 1948. Kaisiepo's family, known as the Kaisiepo clan, was originally from Biak, an island in Cenderawasih Bay just north of New Guinea. His father, Markus Wonggor Kaisiepo (1913–2000), a minister and elementary school teacher for the Dutch Reformed Church Mission and former official in the Dutch New Guinea colonial government, was an advocate for West Papuan self-determination. His father's cousin, Frans Kaisiepo, was an advocate for Indonesian annexation of West New Guinea, and became a national hero of Indonesia.

The United Nations in 1948 had noted with satisfaction that Indonesia was an independent state, and that the Netherlands New Guinea (West New Guinea) was a separate Dutch colonial possession. From 1949 the Netherlands resisted Indonesian demands for the Netherlands New Guinea which the Netherlands asserted was Melanesian with predominate Christian and animist traditions separate from Indonesia.