At UNGA yesterday, Indonesia pledged to recognise Israel if they in turn recognise a Palestinian state.

Prabowo’s words are yet another act of Indonesian hypocrisy, playing with self-determination on the world stage while violently denying West Papuans this right at home. I ask again: what is the difference between West Papua and Palestine? Why do one people deserve statehood while another deserves endless occupation?

Indonesia’s claim on West Papua is based on a fraud. We declared our independence in 1961, in a ceremony that was witnessed by UN members including the UK, the Netherlands and Australia. The invasion the following year stole our sovereignty from us. The 1969 Act of No Choice involved only 1025 West Papuans – less than 0.2% of the population – being forced to vote against independence at the barrel of a gun. More than 500,000 West Papuans have since lost their lives in our struggle to right the wrong of 1969.

Prabowo’s speech was full of shameless hypocrisy. He stated Indonesia’s commitment to fighting climate change – and yet they are right now clearing land in West Papua for the world’s largest deforestation project. He used UNGA to pledge to “build a world where the weak do not suffer what they must but live the justice they deserve”. And yet academic experts agree that Indonesia is committing a genocide against the weak and voiceless in West Papua. Only this month the Indonesian military murdered civilian Sadrak Yahome after anti-racism protests in Yalimo, triggered by the racist abuse of a Papuan student by an Indonesian settler.

How can Prabowo be against Israeli settlement of the West Bank when he has ramped up Indonesian settlement of West Papua?

Pacific leaders should respond at UNGA by reminding the world of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in West Papua, where over 100,000 civilians are currently displaced. They must again demand, in line with the recent PIF communique, that Indonesia stop blocking the visit of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to West Papua. They must expose the secret of West Papua.

Benny Wenda
President
ULMWP

ULMWP delegation at UNGA