NZ Speaker's Wenda ban puts focus on West Papua
23 February 2013
JOHNNY BLADES | Radio New Zealand International
BENNY WENDA HAS BEEN LIVING in the United Kingdom since escaping from Indonesia in 2003 after being arrested for promoting West Papuan independence.
In 2011, Interpol issued a red alert on him at the request of Indonesia but, following an investigation, it was removed last year.
Now free to travel again, Benny Wenda had been touring widely, sharing his people’s experiences of rape, torture and murder by security forces and the militarisation of his homeland.
“I never go back to West Papua. If I go back (now) I’m a dead man so (I’ll wait) until my people are free and I’m free. I just want to go a free man and see my people.”
Touring with Benny Wenda is international human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson, known for her work representing Julian Assange.
Ms Robinson had been working in Papua a decade ago when she met Mr Wenda incarcerated in solitary conditions as a political prisoner.
Inspired by his and other West Papuans’ commitment to freedom in the face of ongoing violence in the Indonesian region, Ms Robinson helped establish the International Lawyers for West Papua movement.
She said calls for West Papuan self-determination have a sound legal basis and cannot be silenced.
“Of course Indonesia has avoided any sort of international adjudication on the issue because they know that they’re in the wrong,” Ms Robinson said.
“Legally speaking, West Papua is in the right, and has the right to self-determination that was denied to them in 1969. International law is on their side. The difficulty is getting it into an international forum where that matter can be decided.”
That difficulty was demonstrated in the New Zealand context when the country’s new Speaker of parliament refused to allow Mr Wenda access to parliament to speak about the plight of West Papuans.
David Carter’s refusal stemmed from advice he said he received from government officials deeming the Wenda visit inappropriate.
Subsequent fallout from the Speaker’s decision meant that the West Papua question has had unprecedented exposure in New Zealand mainstream media.
The Green MP, Catherine Delahunty, accused the Speaker of going against the spirit of parliament.
“It’s not good enough to just say well you can do this in your caucus room,” she said.
“I wanted to hold a forum which included other political parties where they have shown an interest in this issue. This is an issue which basically is the dirty secret of the Pacific that no one wants to talk about.
“The facility called parliament belongs to all parliamentarians and, without fear or favour, we should be able to hold events in this facility.”
Another opposition MP, Labour’s Maryan Street, was also disappointed.
“He is a representative of West Papuans. He is recognised internationally as that,” she said.
“He has been a guest of the UK parliament, the European Union parliament and a guest at the United Nations. Why can’t he be hosted at the New Zealand parliament even if the government does not agree with his position?
“The issue of independence of West Papua from Indonesia is very sensitive for Indonesia. It’s like talking about Tibet for the Chinese. I’m very aware of those sensitivities. But there’s no reason why this man’s perspective should not be heard in parliament which is meant to represent multiple voices, not just the voice of government.”
New Zealand Foreign Minister, Murray McCully, denies he advised the Speaker to place the ban on Benny Wenda.
Mr McCully said his office advised a couple of MPs of the ruling National Party against co-sponsoring the proposed event but the new Speaker, David Carter, was not one of them.
“We’ve worked very hard over some years now to insure that the human rights agenda is moved forward in Indonesia, particularly in West Papua,” Mtr McCully said.
“We have quite an active dialogue with the Indonesian authorities about human rights issues and I want to engage in that sort of diplomacy, not megaphone diplomacy - and that’s what I think was being suggested here.”
Benny Wenda ended up giving his address on West Papua at the Victoria University Law School, just across the road from parliament.
After their speeches, he and Jennifer Robinson fielded questions.
Amid those contributing to some heated discussion was Indonesia’s ambassador in New Zealand, Antonius Agus Sriyono.
The ambassador told the audience that reports of violence in Papua were exaggerated.
Referring to the dubious UN-sanctioned Act of Free Choice under which West New Guinea was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969, Mr Sriyono said that the world cannot turn back the clock and change history.
Indonesian officials claim outside access to Papua is restricted because of the dangers posed in a region where separatism and tribal conflict demand a military presence.
Benny Wenda claims Jakarta tries to discredit Papuan groups actively pushing for self-determination as willing participants in ongoing violence.
“Only this is the safe way to campaign for peace and the world could hear our cry for freedom,” he said.
“So that’s why when they come out in their peaceful way, Indonesia creates violence to discriminate them, (label them) this violent group or this terrorist group, whatever. But actually not. It’s Indonesia which is creating then violence in West Papua.”
Jennifer Robinson claims there is increasing international awareness of Papua despite an effective ban on foreign media and a crackdown on civil society operations in the region.
“But unfortunately for Indonesia, it’s counter-productive for them to cut off information,” she said.
“They continue to assert that these allegations of human rights violations are exaggerated or overstated. If that’s the case, then let international organisations and journalists verify the fact, that can only improve the situation.”
Murray McCully says Indonesia has made great progress in addressing human rights issues, but there’s still work to be done in Papua.
However the Minister has been urged by the New Zealand based Indonesian Human Rights Committee to send a multi-party fact finding mission to Papua.
It says there is a clear precedent with a similar group, led by a National Party MP, visiting East Timor in 1994 when it was still under Indonesian occupation.
Please read the following letter that I recently emailed to Senator Bobb Carr regarding West Papua.
Senator Carr, I hope you hang your head in shame one day. Your views about West Papua and the West Papuan Indigenous people who are unable to defend their basic human rights are "incredibly patronising and incredibly arrogant". (Good on Senator Di Natalie for having the guts on challenging Carr on West Papua). If you have spent any time in PNG like I have, you would understand that the Indigenous West Papuan people are the same Melanesian race as their brothers and sisters in PNG.
The innocent West Papuans blood is on your hands and the ALP due to you and your political party's complicity with the Indonesian government. Senator Carr, you must be aware that the Indonesian government bribes the financially poorer PNG army and police along the border, (though this trend is changing for the better), to send back refugees so that the West Papuan Indigenous people are unable to and have no chance at ever challenging their democratic right to make decisions for themselves from exile.
Where does the UN Charter on Human Rights and The Jakarta Declaration on Health Promotion, tie in with this? Google this, seriously what a farce!
Next time your defence minister decides to send military hardware over to Indonesia, i.e. Military transport planes, ask first what the TNI intends to use them for? Silencing and suppression of the West Papuan activists? What about Detachment 88?
The shame goes on for the Australian Government.
This situation in West Papua mirrors the tumultuous events in East Timor prior to and during the 1999 election since independence from the documented brutal Indonesian rule.
I wrongly assumed that you and the ALP would have learned from history, i.e. East Timor, not to repeat the same mistakes and have the blind eyed foreign policy that previous Australian governments have had and still do, (West Papua under your government), to simply appease Jakarta.
At least the Howard government righted the wrong with standing up to Jakarta into giving the East Timorese the right to end the brutal Indonesian rule, that they had endured for almost a quarter of a century.
The West Papuan Indigenous activists and their supporters should not be imprisoned, shot, murdered, raped and mysteriously disappear from their communities for simply raising the Morning Star flag and exercising their democratic right for simply holding peaceful demonstrations so as to have the opportunity to the right for self determination.
Once again, what is the Geneva Convention on Human Rights for? Does it not apply to West Papua?
I'm sure your Indonesian counterpart would say that the West Papuan supporters have a very good imagination, as” Marty”( Raden Mohammad Marty Muliana) Natalegawa has said previously.
I, along with the growing Australian and other foreign supporters of West Papua will not stop with our democratic right to voice our concerns over the treatment of the defenceless Indigenous West Papuans, until they are given the right to self determination, unlike the sham "Act of no choice" in 1969.
Is it possible that you are just extremely ignorant of this situation in West Papua? If this is so, please Senator Carr, google West Papua and discover the truth for your own political and humanitarian benefit, and please have the courage and morale backbone/spine to stand up to Jakarta. (Not at the expense of the Indigenous West Papuans).
Why has Jakarta expelled the Red Cross (please correct me if I am wrong) and other foreign organisations, media etc? Does Jakarta have something to hide?
In conclusion to this short but poignant discussion, we should never be silenced when it comes to the basic human rights of humanity; we must keep fighting for the Indigenous West Papuans and never stop until they are given the right to self determination.
I would appreciate it if you could respond and answer these issues that I have raised in this email to you Senator Carr.
Yours sincerely
Aaron Wallbank
Posted by: Aaron Wallbank | 28 July 2013 at 11:00 AM