Susana Tuisawau Suva May I express deepest appreciation for the emergence of the issue of the indigenous people of West Papua (Province) into our public discourse and media. I welcome the column by Davis and the Reverend James Bhagwan in the media. The reason for my appreciation is that all have been silent for so long – all defenders of human rights in our region, including New Zealand and Australia. For here are our very own indigenous Pacific brothers and sisters and neighbours who have gone through the sad experience of not being given the right to self determination. That is, the right to declare their own independence from the colonial rule of the Dutch government – while their fellow Pacific brothers and sisters of Papua New Guinea (PNG), Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and the independent islands of Micronesia and Polynesia enjoyed this right without raising any question about the denial of this right to West Papuans. Instead, West Papua was, through that very well-known so-called “Act of Free Will” plebiscite (referendum) in 1969 organised by the Indonesian military where 1025 hand-picked people were forced at gunpoint to vote for integration to Indonesia – found themselves unilaterally declared being part of Indonesia. This was despite the fact that the indigenous Papuans were being prepared for independence by their Dutch colonial masters and were on the UN list of Pacific non self-governing countries for decolonisation (Later they somehow were taken out of that UN list). I consider myself privileged to be personally a part of a team that also initiated the bringing of some international attention to the plight of West Papuans through the trade union movement in 2003 while serving as Secretary General of the Council of Pacific Education (COPE). I am proud to say here that the teachers’ unions of the Pacific Islands, together with their fellow counterparts from Australia and New Zealand and with our very own Fiji Teachers Union and the Fijian Teachers Association as initiators, played a very active role. They stood in solidarity when we the Pacific delegations of teachers’ unions initiated a motion which was tabled by our very own, Tevita Koroi (President of FTA), at the 2003 Asia Pacific Conference of Education International (The world umbrella body of Teachers’Unions) highlighting the plight of West Papuans and seeking support for the advocacy of their rights to self determination world-wide through the teachers unions. All unions voted for the motion except the delegation from Indonesia who abstained. We understood their position. We highlighted the various implications the denial of the rights of indigenous West Papuans would have on the lives of their children, teachers and education in general. For you see, for us teachers, any “legitimised oppression of the people” is clearly the most cruel abuse of all. This is because of its strong potential to distort the young children’s mind; their value system and perception of what is right and what is wrong and what should be acceptable behaviour by their society. From the limited information I may have about the background of West Papua (and I stand to be corrected here), I feel that we Pacific people should be justified in raising the following questions. 1) Why was it that after the West Papuans were prepared for independence after their colonial masters – the Dutch government pulled out, was the occupation of West Papua by Indonesia allowed? Why were their rights not respected by the world as were the rights of PNG brothers and sisters? 2) Why was West Papua taken out of UN’s Decolonisation List? What was the rationale? 3)Why were the only two Pacific nations on the UN Decolonisation Committee, PNG and Fiji, not effective in getting the right to self determination of their West Papuan brothers recognised and realised? 4) Where do the defenders of human rights of New Zealand, Australia and the Pacific stand when it comes to the case of West Papua and its historical background and the rights of its indigenous peoples to self determination? How was its transition from colonial rule to occupation and annexation by another power justified and by whom? fijisun.fj/2014/01/24/west-papua-2/
Posted on: Sun, 26 Jan 2014 03:00:46 +0000
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