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| Fijian Prime Minister, Frank Bainimarama sickeningly shakes hands with Indonesian war criminal, Secretary of the Ministry of Co-ordination, Political, Legal and Security Affairs Lieutenant-General Langgeng Sulistiyono after accepting a bribe of $500,000. |
January 11, 2014
We have both some very grim and very positive news to report concerning West Papua and the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).
As predicted, Indonesia has once again bribed the leaders of
Melanesia in a desperate effort to try to cover up their ongoing
genocide and illegal occupation of West Papua and to try to stop West
Papua joining the very influential regional body, the Melanesian
Spearhead Group (MSG) which will be an essential and struggle changing
moment when West Papua joins. They have also denied access for the
leaders of the Melanesian countries to visit West Papua but have
insisted that they go to Java and Bali alone.
In response the Government of Vanuatu (which strongly supports West
Papua) has issued a strong protest letter to Indonesia and released a
bold press statement confirming that they will refuse to cooperate with
Indonesia if they continue to twist and pull the internal affairs of
Melanesian nations over West Papua.
In the meanwhile, the leader of the West Papua National Committee
(KNPB), Victor Yeimo has issued a statement from behind Indonesian
prison bars, calling on MSG not to betray the people of West Papua
stating that “if the Melanesian leaders are more supportive of the
Indonesian colonial powers than the people of West Papua then they have
betrayed the people of Melanesia.”
Background to the issue
West Papua joining MSG is one of Indonesia’s greatest fears and right
now they are doing all that they can to try and stop any support for
West Papua from the leaders of our brothers and sister Melanesian
countries. A starting move of Indonesia’s was by managing to cheat its
way into getting “Observer status” at MSG. This gives it even more
influence with which to interfere with the internal politics of
Melanesia.
Last year, an MSG summit was held in Kanaky to determine whether West Papua would join or not. Though throughout the year, there was widespread support for West Papua’s joining, Indonesia pulled the strings at the last moment by sending an enormous delegation to Kanaky, suspected bribery of the Prime Minister of Fiji and suddenly meeting with the Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea.
As a result, whilst all the other countries voted in favour of the
motion, Papua New Guinea and Fiji did not, thus barring West Papua from
joining MSG in 2013. It was agreed instead at Indonesia’s insistence
that before a decision could be made, a delegation of every country had
to visit Indonesia so that Indonesia could try and prove that the
situation in West Papua was peaceful to avoid any sympathy from fellow
Melanesian countries. Indonesia claimed that “This was not a Melanesian
issue but an internal issue for Indonesia”.
It was finally agreed that a delegation from every country would
visit Java at the same time and then visit West Papua at the same time
to discuss with the Indonesian government and to see first-hand what the
human rights situation in West Papua really was.
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| Tens of thousands of West Papuan people demonstrate throughout West Papua during all of 2013, asking the Melanesian Spearhead Group for full membership as fellow Melanesians |
Indonesia breaks the promises and bribes the MSG leaders
Towards the end of 2013, Indonesia began inviting not a delegation
from MSG to Indonesia as a whole as had been agreed but instead,
extended private invitations to the leaders of the various Melanesian
countries alone who would come to Indonesia to have dinner with the
Indonesian president where he would try and persuade the leaders that
such support for West Papua was not necessary.
Indonesia itself has in fact admitted that this is to try and
strengthen ties with MSG over West Papua. Indonesian Deputy Minister of
Foreign Affairs, Vishnu Ward announced recently “To strengthen
relationships with MSG Indonesia, Indonesian Foreign Minister invited
the MSG to come to Indonesia. To exchange experiences and provide an
opportunity to see and better understand the development in Indonesia,
including Papua and West Papua.”
This was by no means the end of such broken promises. Indonesia has
today announced that it will not allow any delegates or leaders of the
countries to visit West Papua as part of the official MSG agreement last
year. The official MSG delegation to West Papua will also not in fact
even be welcomed to meet with any West Papuan civil society groups. This
is obviously a clear attempt to halt any Melanesian leader seeing
first-hand what is really happening on the ground inside West Papua and
to try to prevent the mass protests in support of West Papua joining MSG
that would inevitably happen within West Papua whenever one of the MSG
delegations arrived.
This further intervention by the state of Indonesia is in clear violation of the agreement.
The government of Vanuatu, which has been the most spoken of any
world government in supporting West Papua was especially appalled by
this violation and the Deputy Prime Minister, who is also the Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Edward Natapei, announced that Vanuatu has sent an
official letter of protest to the MSG Secretariat of the Indonesian
government’s invitation.
World famous West Papuan political prisoner, Filep Karma, (who is in
serving a 15 year jail sentence under Indonesian law simply for raising
the West Papuan national flag), calls upon MSG to also visit the West
Papuan political prisoners who are currently scattered in several
prisons in Papua.
“I ask, in the MSG leaders later visit to Papua in order to visit the Papuan Political Prisoners,” said Filep Karma on Thursday (9/1).
Another famous West Papuan political prisoner, Victor Yeimo, who is
the Chairman of the West Papua National Committee (KNPB) asked the
Indonesian government to open widely without isolating the reality of
the problem that happened in Papua. He said that MSG Leaders should be
given the freedom to meet with anyone Papuan people to understand the
problems facing Papua issue for integration with Indonesia. Victor said
recently on behalf of his organisation “We welcome and look forward to
welcoming MSG Leaders in Papua,”
Following the recent huge rise in support for West Papua in both the
Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) and in the Melanesian public, the
Indonesian government has given the Chairman of MSG 500,000 dollars.
This is a very symbolic figure, Indonesia has paid Fiji about 1 dollar
to try and forget the brutal murder of each of the 500,000 Melanesian
West Papuans the Indonesian government has murdered during their 50 year
illegal occupation of West Papua. That is the value of a Papuan life in
the eyes of the Indonesian government. One dollar per person.
The Indonesian government steals about 1.82 million dollars a day from Melanesia through the Freeport gold mine alone.
Fiji government officially ignores West Papua after accepting the money
The current Chairman of MSG is the Prime Minister of Fiji, Frank
Bainimarama, who is regarded by many people as a military dictator. He
has had a much closer relationship with Indonesia than any other
Melanesian head of state and he has been effectively bribed by Indonesia
several times previously to keep out support for West Papua.
Bainimarama received the money on behalf of the Melanesian Spearhead
Group from the Indonesian government’s Secretary of Coordinating
Ministry for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Lt Gen Langgeng
Sulistiyonho (who is also a general in the Indonesian military) in Suva,
Fiji on Wednesday 8th January.
On the same day, Langgeng Sulistiyono announced that “With regards to the issue of West Papua — it is part of our issue, so we have to tackle it by ourself because it is part of our sovereignty,”
Bainimarama also admitted that the money given was a way to “further strengthen relations with Indonesia”.
If Indonesia is doing this because it cares about Melanesia, why has
it waited until now to make a donation? And why does it chose Fiji to
give it to as opposed to say Vanuatu?
Only a day later, the Fijian Defence Minister, Joketani Cokanasiga,
after being silent on the issue for so long, suddenly announced that
said “he would leave the matter of West Papua to the Indonesian
Government to deal with.”
“Our policy is never to interfere with other people’s internal affairs,” he said.
“I believe there is a delegation from MSG going up to see West Papua — we maintain our very strong stand that if anything should happen, it should emanate from Indonesia rather than us going outside and getting them.”
“I believe there is a delegation from MSG going up to see West Papua — we maintain our very strong stand that if anything should happen, it should emanate from Indonesia rather than us going outside and getting them.”
To support West Papua, Government of Vanuatu refuses to cooperate with Indonesia
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| Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Moana Carcasses Kalosil shows his full support for a free and independent West Papua and raises the West Papuan Morning Star Flag |
However, there is also very good and positive news to come from this week as well.
Unlike the Fijian government, which has accepted all of Indonesia’s
terms over West Papua, including bribery and said that it will ignore
the plight of the West Papuan people so that it maintains good relations
with Indonesia, the government of the Republic of Vanuatu yesterday
announced that they would not participate in the MSG Ministerial Fact
Finding mission to West Papua which was scheduled to be held from
11-15th January 2014 and therefore would not willingly cooperate with
the Indonesian government over this West Papua issue as they are so
obviously pulling every string of Melanesian politics to try and stop
support for West Papua.
Vanuatu announced yesterday in an official press statement “The
Vanuatu Government believes that while the visit is carefully designed
to “promote Economic ties and development cooperation” between Indonesia
and the MSG countries, it should be structured to meet the purpose for
which the MSG leaders had agreed to in Noumea during the Summit.”
They added “There are also concerns about Human rights abuses in the
West Papua and while this visit is not to investigate allegations
against human rights abuse, meeting with the people is absolutely
necessary as it has the potential to bridge any information gap between
the Governing authorities and those that are being governed.
The Vanuatu Prime Minister, Hon Moana Carcasses Kalosil had written an urgent letter to the Chairperson of the MSG, Mr. Victor Tutugoro raising the concerns of his Government that the important mission to West Papua must allow the inclusion of meetings with the indigenous people of West Papua, in particular the Chiefs and the churches in order to hear what the people have to say about the authenticity of WPNCL and other concerns which the West Papuans may have. These are concerns of the leaders at the summit. Getting views from the Indonesian authorities alone may not be truly reflective of the concerns which the leaders will want to know before they could make a final determination on the membership of West Papua into the MSG.
The Vanuatu Government had insisted during the MSG Senior Officials Meeting and the Foreign Ministers’ meeting that any program of visit to West Papua must include strong participation of the civil society who are the people that are most directly affected. “
“It is not an easy decision for the Government to make at this stage,
but it has to be taken in order to uphold the integrity of the decision
of the MSG leaders. What is decided by the MSG leaders must be
respected and all MSG member countries are fully obliged to ensure that
the decision by their leaders is not subordinated by any element. These
are Sovereign decisions of Sovereign States of Melanesia.”
This is a truly brave and fully respected statement which we welcome 100%. The government of Fiji might have accepted blood money to backstab West Papua, but the government of Vanuatu shows that they are true children of Melanesia, putting their fellow Melanesian before their money.
Free West Papua Campaign statement on developments
The statements of the Government of Vanuatu over West Papua have
continued to be overwhelmingly positive and right for the people of West
Papua.
We fully support such statements and are entirely grateful to the
government for taking such a bold stand for their Melanesian brothers
and sisters in West Papua.
In such a way, Vanuatu has proved itself as a true son of Melanesia.
Indonesia’s sinister involvement in the Melanesian Spearhead Group in
such manners as this is a clear attempt by the Indonesian government to
interfere and sabotage our Melanesian nations to stop any support for
their fellow Melanesian people of West Papua including by bribing our
own Melanesian leaders.
It is Indonesia, which has no right whatsoever to interfere with our
internal Melanesian affairs such as with our people of West Papua.
It is Melanesia, which has to tackle this issue as it is part of Melanesian sovereignty, not Indonesia.
Since when did Indonesia have any right to bribe our leaders and tell
us which fellow Melanesian wantoks we do have or do not have the right
to support?
This is a true disgrace and the government of Indonesia but also more
shockingly to the government of Fiji, especially Mr Bainimarama and Mr
Cokanasiga must be truly ashamed of themselves that they are selling
their own Melanesian people down the river for little more than blood
money.
We fully condemn this outrageous and blatantly illegal string pulling
by the Indonesian government in trying to stop the truth coming out
about the genocide and illegal occupation they are still committing
inside West Papua every day.
But the Melanesian people rising up to support their family in West
Papua. The Indonesian government cannot stop them. Not with 500,000
dollars. Not with all the money in the world. This is about more than
money. It is about truth, justice and freedom.
History will record those who thought 500,000 dollars would buy silence over the genocide of 500,000 West Papuans.
With our Melanesian brothers and sisters, we will succeed
We know that you, the true brothers and sisters of Melanesia just
like Vanuatu and as with all our friends around the world, will always
stand up for your fellow people in West Papua, and that it is with your
support, that West Papua will finally join the Melanesian Spearhead
Group and further to the Pacific Islands Forum and that ultimately, West
Papua will join the world as a member of the United Nations and at last
as another free brother of Melanesia.
Help to pave the way for full freedom for West Papua and so all of Melanesia.
Thank you very much for all your support
MELANESIA MUST RISE UP!
Papua Merdeka!
Free West Papua Campaign
Source : www.freewestpapua.org
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