LAKSAMANA.Net, November 27, 2003 10:34 PM
Pan-African Group Urges Papua Referendum
Laksamana.Net - A group called the Pan-African Coalition for the Liberation of West
Papua (PACLWP) has called on black communities around the world to help the
people of Papua achieve self-determination.
Following is a press release issued by PACLWP on November 25, 2003.
Pan-African Coalition for the Liberation of West Papua (PACLWP)
November 25, 2003
For Immediate Release
DEMONSTRATION AGAINST INDONESIA'S GENOCIDE AND COLONIALISM OF
THE WEST PAPUAN PEOPLE
"Pan-African Coalition for the Liberation of West Papua calls on the Black
Communities around the world and international community to intervene in the Survival
of the West Papuan People"
West Papua, the western half of the island of New Guinea in the South Pacific, is
home to 250 indigenous ethnic groups who are Melanesians. West Papua had been
colonized by the Dutch for 90 years when in the 1960s, it fell victim to the "cold war"
and was handed over to Indonesia by the United Nations with very strong support from
both the John F. Kennedy Administration and the government of the Netherlands
through a very fraudulent process called the 'Act of Free Choice' in 1969 that involved
only 1025 people out of a total population of 700,000 people.
During the voting at the UN General Assembly in 1969 as a result of the 'Act of Free
Choice", African countries such as Ghana, Senegal, etc strongly opposed the results
of the vote calling it as another form of colonialism practiced against their black
brothers and sisters of West Papua. Furthermore, the leading African- American civil
rights organization 'National Association for the Advancement of Colored People'
(NAACP) sent a letter to the UN Secretary General, U Thant protesting the 'Act of
Free Choice' and urged the UN to review its own conduct.
For more than four decades now of Indonesia's military rule over West Papua, it has
committed serious crime against humanity, genocide, massive exploitation of its rich
natural resources and devastation of the environment. According to ELSHAM, the
West Papua Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy, more than 100,000
West Papuans have been killed or disappeared at the hands of the Indonesian military
and police since the annexation. Today nearly 1.5 million West Papuans share the
territory with some 775,000 Indonesians brought into
West Papua through a discredited transmigration program funded by the World Bank,
the Asian Development Bank and many western governments.
Indeed, a Yale University research project investigating international genocide, in a
report released this Spring, concluded that "throughout the past forty years, the
Indonesian government has shown a callous disregard - and, at times, an intentional
and specific malevolence - "for the basic human rights and human dignity of the West
Papuan people." The Yale project researchers conclude that the Indonesian
government's actions - perpetrated in large part by the Indonesian armed forces
(Tentara Nasional Indonesia or TNI) - against the West Papuan people "constituted
crimes against humanity and could rise to the level of genocide."
This ongoing brutality against the people of West Papua, family planning that forces
West Papuans to limit their population growth, transmigration, health-care problems,
etc, created by the Indonesian Government and it's brutal and racist military, has
impacted West Papuans in such a way, that it has caused demographists to state,
'the West Papuans are going through a process of DEPOPULATION'. According to
them if there is no immediate efforts to stop this situation, West Papuans will be
extinct in their own land within the next 25 to 30 years. "The people of West Papua
are struggling to survive as a people and as a nation in the face of 40 years of brutal
Indonesian military oppression," said John Rumbiak a prominent West Papuan human
rights advocate who is now a visiting scholar at the Center for the Study of Human
Rights, Columbia University.
In response to this ongoing genocide and colonialism by Indonesia over our black
West Papuan brothers and sisters, and to commemorate the anniversary of the
independence day of West Papua 1st December, 'The Pan-African Coalition for the
Liberation of West Papua' will organize a demonstration out in front of the Indonesian
Consul General Office 645 South Mariposa Ave (on the corner of Mariposa Ave and
Wilshire Blvd) in Los Angeles. This action will take place on November 28th, 2003 and
December 1st, 2003 10:00 am to 12:00 noon both days.
"Come and join us in the demonstration for Free West Papua. The suffering of our
West Papuan brothers and sisters today are evidence of on-going oppression and
racial-discrimination against black people around the world. It is the time to share and
express our solidarity with the West Papuans for their dignity, justice and freedom,"
appealed Harold Green, coordinator of PACLWP.
The Pan-African Coalition for the Liberation of West Papua is an organization
comprised primarily of members of African descent from a broad spectrum within the
African Diaspora. It is a vehicle by which people of African descent irrespective of
political, religious, ethnic, cultural or other organizational affiliations, can come
together and demand the right for self-determination for the people of West Papua.
For more information on PACLWP and it's campaign on behalf of the people of
West Papua, please contact Harold Green at 323-291-4114 or e-mail PACLWP at
paclwp@msn.com
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