Breakaway leader Benny Wenda will use meeting in Tuvalu to push for UN vote on Jakarta’s control of province

Human rights violations and political independence in West Papua are set to command debate at this week’s Pacific Islands Forum (PIF), where Papuan independence leader Benny Wenda will urge government leaders to support the “Free Papua” campaign amid recent escalating political violence.

Exiled from Papua, but now an official representative attached to the Vanuatu government’s delegation, Wenda is campaigning for a United Nations general assembly resolution next year that will re-examine the controversial 1969 Act of Free Choice vote that formalised Indonesian control of the province.

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Wenda told the Guardian the human rights abuses and civil repressions that currently blight the province are a “cancer inside the heart of the people of the Pacific”, but that major powers in the region choose to ignore it for geo-strategic and economic regions.

Indonesia – not a member of the Pacific Islands Forum, but a “dialogue partner” attending this week’s forum – regards West Papua as an integral and indivisible part of the Indonesian state.

Quick guide West Papua Show Hide What is West Papua? Papua and West Papua form the western half of the island of New Guinea and is officially part of Indonesia. The government in Jakarta maintains Papua and West Papua are integral and indivisible parts of the state of Indonesia: this position has the support of major powers in the region and around the world. Known as Irian Jaya until 2000, it was split into two provinces, Papua and West Papua, in 2003. They have semi-autonomous status. The provinces have suffered from systemic underdevelopment but they are rich with natural resources, including gold, copper, and timber and generate billions of dollars for Indonesia. Why is independence a big issue? Political control of the region has been contested for more than half a century and Indonesia has consistently been accused of human rights violations and violent suppression of the region’s independence movement. The people indigenous to the province are Melanesian, ethnically distinct from most of the rest of Indonesia and more closely linked to the people of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia. So how did it become part of Indonesia? Formerly the Netherlands New Guinea, Papua was retained by the Dutch after Indonesian independence in 1945 but the province was annexed by Jakarta in 1963. Indonesia formalised its control over West Papua in 1969 when its military hand-picked 1,025 of West Papua’s population and compelled them into publicly voting in favour of the takeover under a UN-supervised, but undemocratic, process known as the Act of Free Choice. The British and Foreign Commonwealth Office reported at the time “the process of consultation did not allow a genuinely free choice to be made”, while the US embassy reported it was “unfolding like a Greek tragedy, the conclusion pre-ordained”. How much support does the independence movement have? Many Papuans regard the Indonesian takeover as an illegal annexation. In 2017, an illegal petition calling for a free vote on independence, signed by 1.8 million people (about 70% of the Papuan population) and secretly carried around the provinces, was presented to the UN’s decolonisation committee, and the human rights commissioner. Is there an armed struggle? The Free Papua Movement has led a low-level insurgency for decades. That insurgency has long been the rationale for significant Indonesian military involvement in Papua. With the heightened police and military presence, there have been reports of security force abuses including extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, excessive use of force and mistreatment of peaceful protesters. Dozens of Papuans remain behind bars for peaceful demonstration or expressing solidarity with the independence movement. West Papuan sources have claimed white phosphorous, a banned chemical weapon, has been used to attack civilians, though this has not been categorically proven. This claim has been strenuously denied by Indonesia. Is there any outside support for independence? There has always been concern about the annexation of the region. A report in 2004 by the International Human Rights Clinic at Yale Law School said Indonesian military leaders “began making public threats against Papuan leaders … vowing to shoot them on the spot if they did not vote for Indonesian control”. In May 2019, the then UK government’s minister for Asia and the Pacific, Mark Field, described the Act of Free Choice as an “utterly flawed process”, but said there was no appetite in the international community to revisit the question of the legitimacy of Indonesia’s control. The Free West Papua movement has strong support from Melanesian neighbours, in particular Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands, but regional powers, such as Australia, support Indonesian control of the province.

Indonesian-controlled Papua and West Papua form the western half of the island of New Guinea. Political control of the region has been contested for more than half a century and Indonesia has consistently been accused of human rights violations and violent suppression of the region’s independence movement.

West Papuan sources say violence in the region is worsening, protesters have been beaten and jailed, and there have been claims white phosphorous, a banned chemical weapon, has been used to attack civilians. This claim has been strenuously denied by Indonesia.

A spokesman for the Indonesian government said Jakarta was “not at all happy” West Papua had been included on the formal agenda for the forum leaders’ meeting in Tuvalu, and warned the move would establish a precedent for interference in other countries’ domestic affairs.

“Developments in Papua and West Papua province are purely Indonesia’s internal affairs. No other country, organisation or individual has the right to interfere in them. We firmly oppose the intervention of Indonesia’s internal affairs in whatever form.”

The West Papuan delegation was expected to arrive for the forum at the weekend, but were unable to board flights to Tuvalu from Fiji. On Sunday, Enele Sopoaga the prime minister of Tuvalu, and Dame Meg Taylor, secretary general of the PIF, said they had no idea what had happened. It appears the problem was an administrative one on the part of the Vanuatu government, with whom the west Papuan delegation were meant to be travelling.

At a meeting of the region’s foreign ministers last month, Vanuatu successfully pushed to have the issue of West Papua formally included on the Pacific Islands Forum agenda, over the vociferous objections of Australia.

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Wenda said while the Pacific’s regional powers, Australia and New Zealand, are vocal critics of rights abuses around the world “they never talk about West Papua”.

“We are human beings who want to live in peace, but we are discriminated against because others want to depopulate our place and take our resources.

“Australia has a big responsibility in the region. Australia needs to look at this as their own issue, as a regional issue, because it will never go away in the eyes of the people. This issue is like cancer inside the heart of the people of the Pacific.”

Wenda said the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) he leads ultimately seeks a free and fair vote on secession from Indonesia. “We have never exercised our right to self-determination, that has been denied us. We are not seeking violence, we seek our rights peacefully, to decide for ourselves our future. Let us vote,” Wenda said.

Last year’s Pacific Islands Forum communique stated: “Leaders recognised the constructive engagement by Forum countries with Indonesia with respect to elections and human rights in West Papua.”

Wenda is seeking a similar, if not stronger, united commitment from the Pacific bloc this year, ahead of a campaign to have the UN pass a resolution next year mandating the re-examination of the UN-supervised Act of Free Choice.

Along with climate change, the issue of West Papua is likely to set Australia in opposition to its Pacific island neighbours at this week’s forum.

Australia is strongly supportive of Indonesian sovereignty over Papua, while the independence movement has widespread support among Pacific island nations - particularly Melanesian neighbours Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands - where it is seen as a continuation of the decades-long decolonisation movement across the region.

A spokesman for Australia’s foreign affairs department said: “Australia recognises Indonesia’s sovereignty over the Papua provinces, as stated in the Lombok Treaty of 2006. Australia will not support efforts that undermine Indonesian sovereignty over Papua in any forum and will not associate itself with any PIF communique to that effect.”

The spokesman said Australia regularly raised human rights concerns with Indonesian authorities, including regarding the Papua provinces.

The Indonesian government spokesman said discussion of West Papua at the forum this week would create a “negative precedent to openly discuss the domestic affairs of other countries… we believe no countries will accept that”.

The spokesman said Papua had self-governance rights through its special autonomy status and democratically elected leaders that participated in Indonesian political system. “In the 2019 elections, the turn out in the province of Papua and West Papua was 88% … 94% of the vote was in favour of president Jokowi’s administration. This high turn-out reflects the strong recognition of the Papuan people’s political aspiration and their faith towards the democratic process in Indonesia.”

The people indigenous to West Papua are Melanesian, ethnically distinct from most of the rest of Indonesia and more closely linked to the people of Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and New Caledonia.

Formerly the Netherlands New Guinea, Papua was retained by the Dutch after Indonesian independence in 1945 but the province was annexed by Jakarta in 1963.

Indonesia formalised its control over West Papua in 1969 when its military hand-picked 1,025 of West Papua’s population and coerced them into voting in favour of Indonesian annexation under a UN-supervised, but undemocratic, process known as the Act of Free Choice.

Known as Irian Jaya until 2000, it was split into two provinces, Papua and West Papua, in 2003. Those provinces have semi-autonomous status.

In May this year, the then UK government minister for Asia and the Pacific, Mark Field, described the Act of Free Choice as an “utterly flawed process”, but said there was no international appetite to revisit the question of the legitimacy of Indonesia’s control.