[align=left]FREE WEST PAPUA CAMPAIGN
Oxford, 20th April 2007

Dear friends of West Papua,

Sometimes you just get a feeling that a demonstration really has got through to the people you're demonstrating against. At our demo at the BP meeting last Tuesday (17.4.07) in London, our West Papuan singing, drumming and ukulele music quite literally got right through the bricks of the building and could be heard as the BP executives made their speeches!

If there is one thing which FWPC stands for above all else, it is to do everything we can to get the true voice of grass roots West Papuans heard .especially by people who could (if they chose to) make a real difference in the struggle for a free, just and peaceful Papuan future .. such as BP. On Tuesday, with the help of some very good UK friends of the West Papuans people, we did just that. Hugh Dowson, a tireless investigator into British, Australian and US collusion with the Indonesian occupations of East Timor and West Papua, read out loud Benny Wenda's powerful letter to Senator George Mitchell, Chairman of the Tangguh Independent Advisory Panel [TIAP] (copied below) in front of everyone .including the former Indonesian Ambassador to Australia, Sabam Siagian.

Other friends showed their solidarity with the cause of West Papuan independence by going into the BP meeting wearing stickers we'd given them with the words "Free West Papua!" above a Morning Star flag (which if they'd done in the BP project area in West Papua would have landed them with a 15 year jail sentence . or worse).

To see a FWPC "Photo News" page of the demo on our website,
visit: http://www.freewestpapua.org/index.p...0&Itemid=2

To see the "bleeding papua!" flyer we handed out to 400 people on the day, including many who took them inside with them into the BP meeting, visit: http://www.freewestpapua.org/index.p...3&Itemid=5

Unlike the majority of the UK population, the BP executives working on their natural gas project (in West Papua, Indonesia or here in the UK) know all about Indonesia's bloody oppression of the people of West Papua and have made the conscious choice to say as little as possible about it. Together we MUST & WILL make them speak out. Last Tuesday was a very good start.

A heartfelt thank you from Benny Wenda and all of us at FWPC to everyone who joined us on the day .. and also to all our other friends in the UK and around the World whose spirits we could feel so strongly with us.

Our next demo will be outside BAE Systems' AGM in London on Wednesday 9th May (together with CAAT [the Campaign Against the Arms Trade]). As you can imagine, we'll have quite a lot to say to the people who supply Hawk jets to the Indonesian military. More details will follow soon. Join us if you can!

Papua Merdeka!
Free West Papua!

Richard

Richard Samuelson
Free West Papua Campaign, Oxford, UK.
http://www.freewestpapua.org

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This is where we fail in my opinion, we (prehaps the GAC and other groups) should have been at this protest with them and shown our support.

Its the same thing we're fighting at the end of the day, be it in South America, Africa or w.Papua.