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FREE WEST PAPUA CAMPAIGN

http://www.freewestpapua.org

P.O. Box 656, Oxford, OX3 3AP England, U.K.
Tel: +44(0)7766 875009
office@freewestpapua.org

15th March 2007

PRESS RELEASE

An urgent message from LONDON to all Melanesians!
from West Papuan independence leader BENNY WENDA
in response to the article in The Nation, PNG, 12th March 2007

"West Papuans urged to rebuild homeland".

"Don't sell our People to the enemy
for just a plate of rice today!
NO, we must be thinking about
tomorrow & FREEDOM!"

The Nation, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.
Monday March 12th 2007
West Papuans urged to rebuild homeland

By HARLYNE JOKU

WEST Papuans living in Papua New Guinea and abroad for the past 40 years can
now return to rebuild their homeland, Logohu award winner and PNG journalist
Franz-Albert Joku said in Port Moresby at the weekend.

1.How can West Papuans return to rebuild our homeland when Indonesia is
still destroying our homeland, killing, torturing, raping and intimidating
our People, polluting our environment, damaging our way of live, damaging
our identity, damaging our culture, damaging our customs and damaging our
homeland itself? Yes, we Papuans want to rebuild our homeland and of course
we know we are able to rebuild our homeland but we cannot do it until our
People and our Land are FREE!

Mr Joku appealed to the West Papuans fighting for independence in the bush
and in the mountains to reach a compromise and work together under the new
special autonomy process. Mr Joku was speaking at a West Papuan community
gathering at the Erima Parish, Gordon, last Saturday. He had just returned
last week to Port Moresby after negotiating with Indonesia's Jakarta and
Papua province government officials on the special autonomy and how West
Papuans in PNG and abroad could participate.

2. We West Papuans in the jungles, in the towns, in the villages and
overseas are not in a struggle for Autonomy, development, infrastructure or
for billions of Rupias.

The West Papuan People fighting for more than four decades and sacrificing
hundreds of thousands of their lives are fighting for their country, their
identity, and their fundamental rights.

He said under the special autonomy, West Papuans would be have 85% freedom
to empower themselves on their own land. He said now, a positive pace had
been set and the special autonomy process passed by the Indonesian
government in October 2001 was beginning to work.

3. We Papuans know that life under Special Autonomy is not safer or better
than before Autonomy. In fact, Special Autonomy has brought great disaster
to our People. Why? Because, from 2001 until today, under Special Autonomy,
thousand of Papuans are being killed, tortured, intimidated and forced to
flee into hiding in the jungles of Puncak Jaya or across the border into
Papua New Guinea.

Indonesia is using money from the Special Autonomy fund to pay the
Indonesian military to kill us. Under Special Autonomy there is no guarantee
for the Papuans to live freely in our own homeland. With so much
intimidation and killing, how can we Papuans return safely to our homeland?

Under Special Autonomy Law, Indonesia is even trying to wipe our homeland,
West Papua, off the map! Jakarta knows we Papuans are stronger as one
People, so they have tried to split one Papuan brother from another brother
by dividing us into three provinces. But Indonesia will never win. We
Papuans know who we are. It doesn't matter what Indonesia puts on a map. We
are West Papuans! "One People, One Soul!"

Leaders were being elected in a democratic process, he
said. Mr Joku said the PNG Government supported the new autonomy process and
officials would be liaising with the Indonesian government and the Papua
province government to register West Papuans who fled Indonesia in the
1960s, 1970s and 1980s who agree to return home.

4. All the Papuans who are now are in exile overseas or refugees in PNG will
indeed return to our homeland, but only when the time comes for our dreams
to become reality. The returning exiles will be a symbol that the time for a
Free West Papua has arrived!

The "leaders" who are elected under Special Autonomy are not part of a
democratic process. This is simply money politics. The elections are just
meaningless formalities because they take place under a frame work set up by
the Indonesian government and overseen by the Indonesian military. Do you
think there can be any surprises under this system? No, the people who
become so-called "leaders" are chosen and paid for by Indonesia. They are
simply the long hand of the Indonesian government and military, of that I
have no doubt.

All those Papuans who have become "leaders" under Special Autonomy don't
have any real power. They are just puppets of Jakarta. But because they are
Papuan, even though they are working for the Indonesian government, the
Indonesians don't trust them with real power. I am not angry with these
Papuans. I'm just very sorry for them.

Indonesia knows that if they ever gave us Papuans real power and real
democracy we will straight away vote for full independence. That's why
Indonesia just puts puppet Papuans in their colonial government in West
Papua.

What does it mean that the Papua New Guinea government supports Special
Autonomy? Frans Albert Joku and his friends in the Indonesia military are
asking the PNG government to support Indonesia killing the West Papuan
people and using the Special Autonomy fund to do it. So that means he is
asking PNG indirectly or directly to support the GENOCIDE OF THE MELANESIAN
RACE in WEST PAPUA.

He said although their (West Papuan) fathers had demanded political
independence, the Indonesian government had given special autonomy. He
appealed to educated West Papuans not be spectators of the autonomy process
but make it work, adding there was freedom of speech, movement and
elections. "Not like before when people were ruled under the barrel of a gun.

5. In West Papua today under Special Autonomy, the West Papuans are becoming
a minority in our own Land, because of killing, starvation and intimidation.

In West Papua there is no freedom of assembly, no freedom of speech, no
freedom to hold political opinions, no freedom to form Papuan political
parties. If you speak out against Indonesian military terror or in favour of
independence, you can expect 20 to 30 years in prison.

The Indonesian occupiers have never treated us Papuans as human beings.
Indonesian racism thinks of us as animals. Mr Joku is wrong. Indonesia is
still ruling us "under the barrel of a gun"!

If all goes as expected under special autonomy, between seven and nine years
time, Tanah Papua will be more advanced in development than PNG," he said.
The meeting was a first of a series of meetings in Port Moresby for the West
Papuan community to discuss the special autonomy process. The next meeting
is set for next month.

6. My deep worry is that in 10-30 years time, we West Papuan Melanesian race
will be facing EXTINCTION in own homeland. The Indonesian military is now
everywhere in West Papua. The military is searching for and killing Papuans
even in the most remote highland, jungle or swamp areas

My fear is that we West Papuans will be wiped under Special Autonomy! Please
know that NOW, at this very time, the Indonesian military is systematically
killing Papuans, village by village; by poisoning, by strangling, by
shooting, by beating, by kicking, by stabbing, in the towns, in the
villages, in the jungles, in the highlands, by the coast, in the jails, in
hospitals, in churches and in their own homes. There are lots of methods and
lots of places where Indonesians are killing Papuans.

And do any of the perpetrators of all this violence against Papuans ever
face trial and punishment in the Indonesian courts? NO! All over West
Papua, there are Indonesian murderers walking free, whilst Papuan victims
suffer in prison. And these killers are called "heroes" by Indonesia! Does
Mr Joku really believe there is justice for Papuans under Special Autonomy?

How can we West Papuans ever trust the Indonesian government? The root
problem is still there today: Indonesia doesn't care about the West Papuan
people. Indonesia only cares about our natural resources.

I, Benny Wenda, as a West Papuan independence leader & Chair of the Koteka
Tribal Assembly am urging you, Frans Albert Joku, not to sell my People like
slaves into the hands of the Indonesian military.

Their lives are very important to me and to all Papuans, more important than
the money you got from the Indonesia military to deliver this message from
Jakarta to our People in PNG. That money is red with West Papuan blood!

I am telling you, Mr Joku, that we West Papuans will stay in the jungles, in
the refugee camps and in exile overseas, working day and night for our
People, until we return to our homeland on West Papua's Day of Liberation
from Indonesian colonial rule!

God Bless Papua New Guinea!
God Bless West Papua!
God Bless Melanesia!

ENDS

Editors' note: West Papua, just 150 miles north of Australia, is the western
half of the island of New Guinea and borders the independent state of Papua
New Guinea. Following the 1962 Indonesian invasion, Indonesia staged a sham
"referendum" (the 1969 "Act of Free Choice") in which a mere 1,026 Papuans,
out of a then population of 800,000, were forced at gun-point to vote 100%
in favour of annexation by Indonesia.

Benny Wenda is available for interview on +44(0)7766 875009

The FREE WEST PAPUA CAMPAIGN is a UK based group working
alongside Benny Wenda for West Papuan independence from Indonesia.

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Yeah... they'll all be dead soon anyway so it won't matter. niceone.gif

Its only the same thing that we're going though, would be a waste of resources for someone to grab their hand before they fall off the cliff and accept them as part of our extended family orat least do enough to let their oppressors know that we're all watching.

An address from a South African leader would waste vital seconds I'm sure.

I mean... why did the Freewestpaupa group even bother put it up on a Pan-African email topics list anyway?

confused3

They're, ''not African'' and don't want to be, ''claimed'' they must've made a mistake and emailed CONSTANTLY on the wrong topics list.

When I say CONSTANTLY I mean I've had to not post up all of their appeals for help over the last few months as things get worse in the region, they've been sending out emails at least three times a week appealing for help and trying to get peoples attention.

This is where I start ''browbeating'' knowing fool well that no matter what I say, no matter what I explain to you about the Paupans you'll sit there like a stubborn child and refuse to take anything on.

Here goes;

And it doesn't matter to them or other people that many Africans are dying from similar strife. They can be part of our "extended" family just not our immediate family. Sorry, but Africans get the priority of this one

What work do you do in your community to even talk about priority? InI are always first in my eyes but I'm not blind and know my history enough to understand tha Pan-Africanism is a global thing and it dosen't take much to support others who recognise what is going on worldwide enough to support us when they can. Its easy to take out a community one by one but if they recognise a common cause they can't be oppressed and can work, tradebetween one anotherin support of themselves.

I have no doubt they arejust postingon black sites. If they are in desperate need of world attention that means they are posting on everyone's site and not just African centered sites. Sure everyone becomes "black" when they want our help but as soon as they get our help they will no longer be black. How are you sure that a Papuan post this. Maybe a white person post this.

No, just like various other groups out there they'll be posting on Human rights websites trying to get peoples attention becuase they're about to be wiped out and recognise that we have enough clout to at least invite them to group meetings on issues of the same matter or have a leader or two show support at some meeting or another... help them in any way possible because to see or hear about them being wiped out in totality wouldn't be a good thing.

This is where you sound like my kid brother and not want to listen while someone tells him something of importance.

Surprise me please....

Apedemak wrote:
You are wrong. I have listened but it is not of my importance. Papuans are not my concern. Africans and Africans in the diaspora is.

Good.

Now all you have to dois read up on whats happening on a global scale and realise that we are a global people, as in we are pretty much everywhere and that theres nothing wrong with having allies who relate to us and our cause. Also that as we in the Carib and what not are also seperated from Africa dosen't make us any less African.

I'm not putting anyone above my own people by posting and acknowledging what is happening to us on a wide scale from the Aborigionees to the the South Americans we're all oppressed by the same peoples.

Apedemak wrote:

Allies are a good thing. To bad some of US are too primative to comprehend.