Support the call for a UN investigation in West Papua!
In the official communique of the 50th Pacific Island Forum (PIF) in August 2019, Pacific leaders raised concerns on human rights abuses in West Papua and strongly encouraged Indonesia to finalize the timing of the visit by the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights to West Papua.
Vanuatu Prime Minister Bob Loughman had again raised this in the 75th UN General Assembly pointing to the lack of progress on Indonesia’s part in heeding the PIF’s recommendation.
In response, a diplomat from Indonesia's permanent mission at the UN accuses Vanuatu of violating the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs. It had also boasted of human rights instruments it had ratified such as the elimination of racial discrimination, seemingly unaware that it was the very issue of racism that had sparked the massive uprising last year.
West Papua is in a state of humanitarian crisis. No amount of state-backed hoax or fake social media accounts can change the fact that thousands of Indigenous Papuans were, and continue to be, displaced from their lands because of military counter-insurgency operations or just blatant state and corporate land-grabbing.
We challenge the Indonesian Government to prove the truthfulness of its response with regard to promoting and protecting human rights of its citizens by allowing UN bodies to conduct an independent investigation on the human rights situation in West Papua.
We also advise that it reads back on the UN Charter that it had proudly referred to and see that the right to self-determination is written on the very first article of that charter - a right it had been depriving West Papuans for over 50 years.
Reference:
Deewa Dela Cruz
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