West Papua Action

Moana Nui Action Alliance (MNAA-CA), West Papua Action, January 17, 2012.

On January 17th, 2006, forty-three West Papuans circumnavigated their homeland before beaching their traditional canoe ‘Exodus’ on the Australian mainland at Mapoon in far north Queensland. In solidarity with the 43 who have risked their lives to expose the corruption and human rights abuses in West Papua by Indonesia, and in support of their 50 year struggle for independence,  the Moana Nui Action Network will be staging an action at the Indonesian Consulate in Los Angeles.

Draft of West Papua statement

West Papua, lying just off the northern coast of Australia and east of Indonesia is part of a Pacific ethno-linguistic region called Melanesia by its early Western scholars. Melanesia comprises over 300 indigenous peoples with distinctive ethno-linguistic features. Currently, West Papua is struggling for independence from Indonesia and, in the interim, suffers serious and ongoing human rights abuses. The United States has been complicit in this abuse leading us to demand an end to this complicity here, as in the rest of the Pacific.

West Papua harbors the US-based Freeport-McMoRan Gold and Copper mine that was imposed on it via U.S.-Indonesian collaboration. It is the largest gold mine, and the third largest copper mine in the world. As happens throughout much of the world, it is the very abundance of these mineral resources that has unleashed the violence that is being committed against the people of West Papua. The reason: powerful extractive and financial interests in both the US and Indonesia are determined to control the mine and its surrounding area. In 2005, the New York Times reported that Freeport had paid over $20 million to the Indonesian military to protect their control over mineral resources.

Last month at the conclusion of the APEC conference in Hawaii, President Obama visited Indonesia meeting there with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. Obama raised the issue of West Papua where, in recent months, the killing of independence activists resumed and human rights abuses by Indonesian security forces continues.
In the words of President Yudhoyono, Obama ”explicitly” stated that he respected Indonesia’s sovereignty over the territory, which was incorporated into Indonesia after a highly contested referendum in 1969.

In 1960 United Nations General Assembly Resolution (1514) was passed. The “Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Counties and Peoples” granted self-determination to numerous territories that had been under colonial rule. One year later West Papua, which was transitioning out from under Dutch rule flew their national flag, “The Morning Star”, and set up their own parliament. A mere two years later, in 1962, the neighboring Indonesian army, under President Suharto, tragically began its campaign of “disappearances” and other human rights violations, which continue to this day.

Leading up to the 1969 “referendum” referred to earlier, the Indonesian military hand picked approximately 400 indigenous West Papuans and 600 Indonesians as delegates to vote in favor of re-colonization. These delegates, under threat from the Indonesian army and other agents, unanimously endorsed political integration with Indonesia. After nearly 150 years of occupation by the Dutch, British, Germans, and Japanese, then, West Papua was once again denied her independence.

At their meeting last month, Obama and Yudhoyono signed a bilateral agreement wherein the United States will hand over 24 Excess Defense Article F-16s to the Indonesian air force. F-16 flight and aircraft maintenance training will be provided for Indonesian pilots and work crews in the United States.

We call on President Obama to place people over profits and do what he must to impress upon President Yudhoyono to stop all human rights violations by his security forces. Just as in the 1980s when US civil society mobilized for divestment in South Africa to end Apartheid, we further call upon President Obama to call upon President Yudhoyono to assure that Indonesia observe the rights that are guaranteed to the indigenous people of West Papua in, among other instruments, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which Indonesia pledged to support at the UN General Assembly in 2007.

Further, since Obama spent his childhood years in Indonesia and claims to have a unique relationship with its people, we call upon him to denounce the ongoing violence in West Papua sanctioned by the Yudhoyono regime and to allow for the indigenous majority of West Papua to move forward their long-maintained struggle for self-determination to the decolonization committee at the United Nations.

[i] Perlez, Jane. “ The Cost of Gold | The Hidden Payroll: Below a Mountain of Wealth, a River of Waste,” New York Times. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/27/international/asia/27gold.html?pagewanted=all) Dec. 27, 2005

[ii] Daniel Flitton and Tom Allard, Nusa Dua, Indonesia. “Yudhoyono quizzes Gillard on US marines” Sydney Morning Herald. (http://www.smh.com.au/world/yudhoyono-quizzes-gillard-on-us-marines-20111119-1not3.html#ixzz1fxw5a900) November 20, 2011

[iii] Brundige, Elizabeth, et al. “Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua:

Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control” Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the

History of Indonesian Control, April 2004.

[iv] West Papua Indigenous Organization. New York Agreement.

(http://oppb.webs.com/nyaagreement.htm)

[v] The White House, Office of the Press Secretary. “Fact Sheet: Excess Defense Article (EDA) F-16 Refurbishment” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/18/fact-sheet-excess-defense-article-eda-f-16-refurbishment) November 18, 2011