West Papua and Pity the Indigenous: International Failure
Noriko Watanabe, Sawako Utsumi, and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
Pity the indigenous Papuans who are persecuted in their homeland decade after decade at the hands of Indonesia. This colonialism is rubber-stamped by all nations who continue to sell military arms to Indonesia – and equal shame on regional nations who stand by and tolerate the diktats of Indonesia.
President Benny Wenda of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) pointedly said, We are murdered, tortured, and raped, and then our land is stolen for resource extraction and corporate profit when we flee.”
Earlier this year, a rare graphic footage of Indonesian soldiers persecuting a Papuan was caught on camera. This footage – since Indonesia invaded this nation many decades ago – is a microcosm of how Indonesia crushes the indigenous Papuans decade after decade.
The Guardian reports, “Graphic footage of a West Papuan man bound in a water-filled barrel and being beaten and cut with knives by Indonesian soldiers has drawn a rare apology from the commander of Indonesia’s military in the province.”
Wenda said, “I ask everyone who watches the video to remember that West Papua is a closed society, cut off from the world by a sixty-year media ban imposed by Indonesia’s military occupation. How many victims go unnoticed by the world? How many incidents are not captured on film? Every week we hear word of another murder, massacre, or tortured civilian. Over 500,000 West Papuans have been killed under Indonesian colonial rule.”
Peter Prove (Director of the World Council of Churches Commission – International Affairs) said, “Our event is focusing on the human rights situation in West Papua, which I think probably qualifies as the worst and longest standing human rights and humanitarian crisis that most people have never heard of—and we haven’t heard of it for a very specific reason.”
Prove continued, “It’s not an accident; it’s a deliberate consequence of the lack of access that Indonesia allows for representatives of the international community to the territory.”
Leonardo Ijie (Human Rights Lawyer – West Papua) said, “Civil society is criminalized, arrested, jailed, and hit with treason charges from the security apparatus.”
Ijie also said, “Land grabbing by the Indonesian government is pervasive.”
Papuans are overwhelmingly Christian and ethnically different from the Javanese – who dominate mainly Muslim Indonesia. However, for decades, the world continues to stand by and tolerate the massacres of Papuans, Javanese colonialism, the exploitation of Papuan resources, and other brutal facts on the ground to take place in West Papua.
UN News reports (2021), “Between April and November 2021, we have received allegations indicating several instances of extrajudicial killings, including of young children, enforced disappearance, torture and inhuman treatment and the forced displacement of at least 5,000 indigenous Papuans by security forces.”
The major trading partners of Indonesia include America, China, Japan, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines. However, none of these nations care about the human rights crisis in West Papua. Also, Australia focuses on the military and geopolitical angle to the detriment of the Papuans – while caring about distant Ukraine.
Papuan civilization, culture, ethnicity, history, and religion have nothing in common with the colonial occupiers of Indonesia. Accordingly, the human rights of Papuans in their homeland need to be addressed regionally and internationally – if not, another indigenous community will be crushed and marginalized to the point of no return.
Benda said, “Indonesia doesn’t want the West Papuan people — they only want our resources.”
West Papua needs to break free.
Paradise Bombed – Video documenting the hidden West Papua (Important video to watch about West Papua)
https://www.ipwp.org The International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP)
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