United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon waves to West Papua protesters during last week's Pacific Islands Forum in Auckland. Photo: Karen Abplanalp / PMC
Pacific Scoop:
Report – by Nigel Moffiet
West Papuan independence leaders have called on United Nations General Secretary Ban Ki-moon to address human rights abuses and “systematic genocide” suffered by the indigenous Melanesian people at the hands of Indonesian authorities during his visit to Auckland this week.
In his address at the University of Auckland, Ban highlighted North Africa and the Middle East saying that the world’s current political events are happening at “an especially crucial time as we face an increasingly complex set of realities”.
West Papuan independence leaders say they are disappointed but not surprised that the human rights abuses suffered in their region have once again gone unmentioned.
Road to peace
Gathering on Tuesday evening, the leaders spoke of the road to peace and how the Pacific Island Forum leaders can help.PIF 40 years logo
Green MP Catherine Delahunty was at the meeting and expressed the Green party’s support for the people of West Papua.
“We think the New Zealand Government should be taking a leadership role in setting up a dialogue between the Indonesian government and the leaders of West Papuan independence groups to start working on a pathway to self-determination,” she says.
She says she has addressed this issue in Parliament by setting up a small cross-party group called Parliamentarians for West Papua.
“Whenever there are international visitors I can bring focus to the issue.”
She says the New Zealand and Australian governments are failing to address issue because of sensitive diplomatic and economic ties with the Indonesians.
‘Economic oppression’
It is “a crude, economic form of oppression”, she says.
West Papua Coalition for Liberation Secretary General Rex Rumakiek says the UN has a responsibility to address the issue in West Papua given its failure to supervise the Act of Free Choice in 1969 which saw Indonesia take control of the territory.
“The very fact that Indonesia became part of West Papua was because of mistakes made by the UN itself,” he says.
He says the Act allowed Indonesia to handpick a little over 1000 men out of a population of nearly one million to vote for self-determination.
Rumakiek says although the UN is not doing enough to address the issue, he is hopeful events like the Pacific Islands Forum could change that.
“We are claiming for our rights to be restored, but we are also reasonable. We are willing to negotiate directly with Indonesia, and the Pacific Islands Forum is the best way to negotiate,” he says.
Lack of UN response
2005 Nobel Prize nominee and West Papuan human rights campaigner Paula Makabory says she is frustrated at the lack of response from the UN on human rights issues in West Papua.
“We would like the UN to send more workers to monitor and make sure that Indonesia upholds the human rights of West Papua.”
Makabory says human rights abuses include ongoing torture and killings. Simply raising the West Papuan flag will land a 10 to 15-year prison sentence she says.
One man who suffered directly at the hands of the Indonesian military is West Papuan independence campaigner Amatus Douw.
2005 Nobel Prize nominee and West Papuan human rights campaigner Paula Makabory. Photo: Nigel Moffiet/PMC
Douw arrived by boat to Australia in 2006 along with 43 other refugees fearing for their lives.
No return to West Papua
As an active campaigner for West Papuan human rights he says he was targeted by the Indonesian authorities and his name eventually ended up on a military black list.
“I can no longer go back to West Papua because of my involvement in the independence struggle. If I go back to West Papua I will be killed.
“I have seen with my own eyes many West Papuans who have been killed by the Indonesian military including relatives and friends,” he says.
Joe Collins, Sydney Secretary of the Australia West Papua Association, says the Indonesian military is generating fear in West Papua in order to stop the protestors.
Collins says a recently leaked document to the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age showing Indonesian Kopassus Special Forces listing West Papuans who are labeled as “separatists” shows the extent of the problem.
“It’s basically a hit list of human rights defenders.
“This document also shows the level of spying that goes on in West Papua,” he says.
Collins says that the West Papuan struggle is one of the last great conflict issues in the Pacific which is being ignored by most governments.
He says the issue is a burden on the Australian government who acknowledges Indonesian control of West Papua and fails to address the issue of Melanesian self-determination.
Rumakiek says the struggle for West Papuan independence is a “total struggle through every level of society”.
“Our culture, our resources, our rights, everything is suppressed,” he says.
Population and cultural “genocide”
Rumakiek says the Melanesian population is decreasing and their culture is being destroyed – a situation he refers to as “genocide”.
“We are also losing our land and when you lose your land you are gone.”
Makabory says through the loss of land the Melanesian people of West Papua are also losing their culture and identity on top of a decreasing population, forcing them to ask the question: “are we under systematic genocide?”
Former member of the Fijian parliament Ema Tagicakibau says she is a strong supporter of the rights of the Melanesian people of West Papua.
She says it is “incomprehensible and unacceptable that in this 21st century we still find an ethnic group of people who are under the control and subordination of a colonial power”.
Tagicakibau says it is unfortunate the people of West Papua have been cut off from their strong cultural ties to the pacific region as a result of colonial control.
Meanwhile, Delahunty says she would like the New Zealand government to see more sense on the issue given, along with the Australian government, “they are showing a lack of leadership”.
Nigel Moffiet is a Postgraduate Diploma in Communication Studies student on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University.
Former Fijian MP Ema Tagicakibau, West Papua Coalition for Liberation Secretary General Rex Rumakiek, and Joe Collins, Sydney Secretary of the Australia West Papua Association. Photo: Nigel Moffiet/PMC