In yet another flagrant breach of international law, Indonesia has bombed a makeshift refugee camp in Puncak Regency. This is part of their ongoing campaign of terror in the West Papuan highlands, with their Airforce having relentlessly attacked the region since January 31st.
According to Human Rights Defenders on the ground, the Indonesian military used drones to drop bombs on the refugee camp in Kembru District, forcing civilians from nine villages to flee into the forest. These are mostly women (some of them pregnant), children, and elders: defenceless people who have already been displaced from their homes by previous military operations. Following this, Indonesia cut the internet in the region, preventing people from sharing information about the attacks or safe areas of refuge. It is only a matter of time before West Papuans begin dying as a result of these attacks, as thousands have over the past five years while living in the bush without adequate food, water, or medical care.
Indonesia is using their full range of occupation strategies during this offensive: forced displacement, indiscriminate targeting of villagers, and information blackouts.
It is an international disgrace that Indonesia has been chosen to lead the UN Human Rights Council. How can Indonesia lead on human rights when they are dropping bombs on refugees? Their presence on Donald Trump’s Board of Peace is yet another hypocritical joke. Indonesia asks for justice for displaced Palestinians while displacing hundreds of thousands of Indigenous West Papuans.
The Kembru assault was followed by another vicious attack on a Papuan civilian on February 2nd, when the military shot and killed the unarmed Pit Nayagau during a raid in the Sugapa district of Intan Jaya. Meanwhile, on Biak Island, West Papuans continue to resist plans to expel them from their land to be replaced by a space station. The National Aeronautics and Space project has been threatened for over twenty years now, with a new new version of it now emerging. It would be a environmental and humanitarian disaster for Indigenous West Papuans. They will be forced to leave their homes, gardens they have tended for generations, to make way for yet more ecological destruction.
Once again, I ask Pacific leaders to stand for West Papua and condemn this brutality. This new bombing campaign proves what the ULMWP hads been saying for many years: we need international intervention to stop this genocide.
On behalf of the ULMWP, I demand:
- That Indonesia immediately allow a fact-finding mission by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, as has been demanded by over 110 UN member states.
- That Indonesia lift the media blackout and facilitate access to journalists, NGOs and aid organisations.
- That Melanesian and Pacific leaders urgently demand and pressure Indonesia to facilitate UN access to West Papua.
Benny Wenda
President
ULMWP
Body of Pit Nayagau
Refugees fleeing Puncak
Smoke from Puncak bombings
Recovered munitions
