West Papua and Pity the Indigenous: Endless International Failure
Kanako Mita, Sawako Utsumi, and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
Spare a thought for the Indigenous Papuans, who have endured decades of persecution in their own homeland under Indonesian rule. This ongoing form of colonialism is enabled by nations that continue to supply arms to Indonesia—just as troubling is the silence of regional powers that accept Jakarta’s authority without challenge.
President Benny Wenda of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) stated bluntly: “We are murdered, tortured, and raped, and then our land is stolen for resource extraction and corporate profit when we flee.”
The Papuan people are overwhelmingly Christian and ethnically distinct from the Javanese, who dominate the largely Muslim Indonesian state. Yet for decades, the international community has stood by, tolerating the massacres of Papuans, the imposition of Javanese colonial rule, the ruthless exploitation of Papuan resources, and other brutal realities on the ground in West Papua.
Indonesia’s major trading partners—including the United States, China, Japan, India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and the Philippines—remain largely silent on the ongoing human rights crisis in West Papua. Australia, meanwhile, prioritizes military and geopolitical ties with Jakarta, often turning a blind eye to Papuan suffering, even as it expresses strong concern for human rights violations in faraway places like Ukraine.
The Guardian reports, “West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea, home to the world’s third-largest rainforest. It is rich in natural resources, including the world’s largest gold and copper mine as well as extensive reserves of natural gas, minerals and timber.”
The Guardian continues, “West Papuans say more than 500,000 of their people have been killed by the occupation in the past six decades, while millions of acres of their ancestral lands have been destroyed for corporate profit.”
Papuan civilization, culture, ethnicity, history, and religion are distinct from those of the Indonesian state, which continues to assert control over the region. It is essential that the human rights of the Papuan people are acknowledged and addressed—both regionally and internationally—before their identity and future as an Indigenous community are further endangered.
The Indigenous peoples of West Papua seek liberation from decades of Indonesian colonial domination, oppression, and exploitation. Their right to self-determination and freedom from external control is long overdue and urgently demands recognition by the international community.
Benda said, “Indonesia doesn’t want the West Papuan people — they only want our resources.”
The documentary “Paradise Bombed” by Kristo Langker exposes the harsh realities of the ongoing crisis in West Papua. It highlights several villages targeted by Indonesian bombings and illustrates how food insecurity and brutal living conditions are systematically used to break the spirit of the Papuan people.
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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