The Guardian 22 March, 2006
West Papuans need our solidarity
An urgent appeal has been made to the Australian Government, calling for it to protest against the ongoing violent oppression by Indonesian troops in West Papua.
A military crackdown is under way in the wake of the violent ending of a Jayapura demonstration last week.
Reports indicate that riot police opened fire on the demonstrators using rubber bullets and possibly live ammunition as well as tear gas and water cannons.
In the ensuing melee four security officers were killed and dozens of student demonstrators injured.
There have been 68 official arrests so far with possibly many more unreported.
The security forces are conducting a campaign of terror against the community at large. Eyewitnesses report that the police went around a university campus and theological seminary firing at random.
Many students and other young people have gone into hiding or have fled into the jungle in fear of their lives.
Poverty amid plenty
This tragic episode is symptomatic of the profound impact on the West Papuan people of years of marginalisation, poverty and repression.
The current crisis situation has arisen following a series of rolling demonstrations against the US-owned Freeport McMoran Mine. Freeport is both the world’s largest gold and copper mine, and the world’s largest open cut mine.
While Freeport is a huge earner for the Indonesian regime — bringing in more than $33bn between 1992 and 2004 — the people of West Papua live in dire poverty and are dying from preventable diseases, an epidemic of HIV/AIDS and even from starvation.
Freeport’s funding of the Indonesian military has contributed to the gross human rights abuses. Thousands of the indigenous Amungme and Kamoro people were displaced so that the mine could operate and in the process devastate their tribal lands, forests, farms and rivers.
Sold out for gold
The people of West Papua have suffered under foreign domination since first colonisation 1828.
West Papua’s right to self-determination was recognised by the Netherlands in 1952 and plans for independence were set in motion. The province elected its first parliament in 1961 and was on track to become a fully independent country by 1970.
However, in order to protect a gold mining lease signed in 1960, the USA — supported by Australia — struck a deal with Indonesia that forced the Netherlands to instead hand the province over to Indonesian "administration" in 1962.
Indonesia fully annexed West Papua after a sham "referendum" in 1969 in which only 1,054 Papuans were allowed to vote — at Indonesian gunpoint.
During the past 44 years Indonesia has brutally suppressed the independence movement, with over 100,000 killed and countless thousands more being jailed and tortured.
However, in contrast with Indonesia’s bloody 24-year occupation of East Timor, the plight of West Papua is rarely mentioned in the international press.
Australia must speak out
Given the Indonesian military’s dire record of human rights atrocities and the impunity of the soldiers and officers responsible, it is essential that people around the world call on their governments to pressure Indonesia to withdraw all their military forces from West Papua and seek a peaceful end to the crisis.
Guardian readers are asked to write to Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and demand that Australia speaks out. (see sample letter)
You can post the letter to:
Hon. Alexander Downer, MPPO Box 6022
House of Representatives
Canberra ACT 2600
or send it by email to:
A.Downer.MP@aph.gov.au
(emails must include postal address for reply)