The West Papuan people need all the support from the international community they can get.


On behalf of the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA — Sydney), I am writing to you concerning the issue of West Papua.

It was disappointing that concerns for the human rights situation in West Papua were not mentioned in last year’s Pacific Islands Forum communique, as it has been in previous years.

I congratulate the Forum on granting observer status to Tokelau, joining New Caledonia, East Timor and French Polynesia.

The granting of observer status to West Papua is one of the issues we would like to raise.

I understand that at the 2005 Forum, it was decided to adopt a policy which “establishes a new category of associate membership which governs the admission criteria and entitlements for associate membership and observer status”.

We believe the time is now right for West Papua to be granted observer status at the Forum.

We point out that the Melanesian people of West Papua have always been considered part of the Pacific Community.

Netherlands New Guinea as West Papua was then known, was a member of the South Pacific Commission (now known as the Pacific Community) and Papuan leaders continued to participate in SPC meetings until the Dutch ceded their authority to the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) in 1962.

Since last year’s Forum meeting, the human rights situation has continued to deteriorate in West Papua.

West Papua people face great challenges including human rights abuses, exploitation of their natural resources (with little or no benefit to themselves), in danger of becoming a minority in their own land and a possible HIV/AIDS epidemic.

The West Papuan people need all the support from the international community they can get.

The Pacific Islands Forum can help the West Papuan people by:

• Granting observer status to West Papua. By granting observer status, West Papuan representatives can dialogue with Indonesian representatives at the ‘Post-Forum Dialogue’, to try and solve the many problems in West Papua.
• Seeking support from the Indonesian government for a Forum fact finding mission to West Papua to investigate the human rights situation in the territory.
• Encourage the Indonesian government to release all political prisoners as a sign of good faith to the West Papuan people.
• Urge the Indonesian government to control its military and police in the territory and to remove all non-organic troops.
• Encourage the Indonesian government to dialogue with the West Papuan leadership, to work towards peacefully solving the many issues of concern in the territory.
• Urge the Australian government not to be involved in the training of the Indonesian military and in particular, the Indonesian special forces troops such as Kopassus.

AWPA believes that by their very nature, troops such as Kopassus will always be used in conflict areas such as West Papua and such training will only increase the danger to the West Papuan people.

We also urge the Forum to encourage the Australian government (as one of the best resourced countries in the region) to support the West Papuan people in the areas of health and education programmes, and to support not only West Papua but all Forum countries economically, by involving the people of these countries in a guest worker scheme.

Such a scheme would be of enormous benefit to the people of the Forum countries.

—Joe Collins
Secretary
Australia West Papua Association
Sydney
Australia