http://www.islandsbusiness.com/2013/3/politics/the-plight-of-west-papua/
The plight of West Papua The ‘dirty secret’ of the region By Jason Brown March 2013 T Benny Wenda plinks away at the strings of his ukulele, painted in muted colours not unlike an Obama poster. Soft, early evening light filters through the wooden blinds as Wenda continues tuning his instrument, taking a breath from an endless tour by now two decade old. Wenda is in Auckland, New Zealand, where news has just come through that the Speaker of Parliament is banning him from speaking about West Papua. Banning Wenda had the opposite effect to that intended—limiting exposure for his message as a “freedom fighter” towards independence of West Papua, from Indonesia. Across the room, his lawyer, Jennifer Robinson, greets early arrivals. Later, she tells Radio New Zealand International: “Unfortunately for Indonesia, it’s counter-productive for them to cut off information.” Instead of silence, local media pounced on the drama du jour, eagerly highlighting the fact that the new speaker had yet to have his first day on the job. Notoriously parochial, the New Zealand media had until last month largely ignored the plight of West Papua, despite estimates of as many as half a million Melanesians, mainly Christians, killed by security forces from Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation. Protestors outside the Pacific Islands Forum in 2011, for example, barely got a glimpse on national television news. “This is an issue which basically is the dirty secret of the Pacific, that no one wants to talk about,” said Green MP Catherine Delahunty. In Parliament, during Thursday question time, Delahunty challenged Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully to outline what advice he got and gave over the Wenda visit. Said McCully: “What I was asked about was whether I thought it was a good fit with the policies of this government for National members to co-sponsor a meeting at which Wenda would be the guest speaker, and I expressed the view that it would not.” McCully said he had been advised of Wenda’s visit by the New Zealand embassy in Jakarta, capital of Indonesia. He went on to claim that “good progress” had been made on human rights issues in Indonesia, including West Papua. Delahunty questioned what “confidence can the public have that he as Minister of Foreign Affairs will raise human rights issues in his dealings with Indonesia when he is willing to suppress the right of Papuans to speak in our Parliament?” Probably not much. West Papua is a deeply sensitive and murky issue for western powers, including Australia and New Zealand, who nervous about their northern neighbour. Indonesia has vast reserves for its military, planning to spend US$1.5 billion to upgrade its weaponry, including US$280 million for new tanks, possibly Leopards from Germany. Western powers originally embraced Indonesia as an Asian bulwark against the spread of communism from China. Now the role appears ready for reprisal with announcements from the US of a “pivot” back towards the Pacific in response to an increasingly influential presence by China across the Pacific Islands region. Against this geopolitical background, Wenda recounts his early memories as a child, including the rape of an aunt by a member of the Indonesian military forces and the torture of an uncle, hanging him from his wrists and beating him. “They told him that since he was a Christian, he would be hung up like a Christian,” says Wenda. Arrested, tried and convicted in 2001 for a crime committed while he was out of the country, Wenda managed to escape from Indonesian forces. Lawyer Robinson was in West Papua at the time of the trial as an exchange student and witnessed the legal team for Wenda walk out in protest at the rigged proceedings. Over a decade later, Robinson is still by his side, including helping him have an Interpol “red” alert lifted after Indonesia called for his arrest as a terrorist. “Frankly it’s…”, she pauses to consider the right words …“outrageous that the ban has been put in place in a country with freely and democratically elected representatives.” New Zealand, however, is not alone in shutting out the people of West Papua. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
