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Free West Papua Political Prisoners Campaign Team

February 19, 2017 Amy Frazier, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
By Amy Frazier. Arlington, VA - The Free West Papua Political Prisoners Campaign Team is a team of nonviolent activists at George Mason University and the surrounding areas led by Herman Wainggai, former political prisoner and leader of Nonviolent Struggle in West Papua. West Papua is the Western half of the 2nd largest island in the world. It is located in the Pacific Ocean and borders the independent nation of Papua New Guinea. In 1962 after the New York Agreement, temporary authority of the formerly Dutch land was given to Indonesia against the wills of the indigenous peoples of West Papua. The United Nations “Act of Free Choice” in 1969 made West Papua the 26th providence of Indonesia. The name of this Act is deceiving however because the Indonesian government used the procedure of ‘musyawarah,’ which is a consensus of ‘elders,’ and the people of the country were not given a choice about the future of their country.

Reflections: Forty-One Years After Invasion Day

December 18, 2016 Pam Sexton, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
By Pam Sexton for East Timor and Indonesia Action Network. This December 7, I bent down in Timor-Leste to apologize for the crimes of my government against the East Timorese people. On that day in 1975, U.S.-armed and -trained Indonesian troops launched their illegal invasion. I feel a deep sadness and shame that my government has not yet formally and responsibly acknowledged its support for crimes committed here on that day and the 24-year Indonesian occupation which followed. An important first step would be for the U.S. to declassify and release all its records related to Indonesia and its invasion and occupation of Timor-Leste. As a citizen of the United States, I have a responsibility to learn and respond to injustices done by my own government.

End Impunity For Suharto’s Crimes In Indonesia, Timor-Leste

July 1, 2016 Celestino Gusmao, www.etan.org , , ,
By Celestino Gusmao for East Timor and Indonesia Action Network. Jakarta - Indonesia recently held a symposium on the violent events of 50 years ago which brought the Indonesian General Suharto to power. The results were inconclusive as the dictator’s defenders denied the massacres and attacked those who want Indonesia to finally deal with its blood past. The tragedy of 1965-1966 is part of a long history of massacres by the Indonesian military. As East Timorese, we know very well the brutality of the Indonesian dictator’s regime. I was born after the initial Indonesian invasion in 1975, but grew up under the occupation. As a young student, I saw the Indonesian military intimidate and abuse youth suspected of supporting East Timorese independence. We were not safe anywhere: Suharto’s troops would seize us at home, school or on the streets; many were never seen again. I watched helplessly as soldiers murdered my cousin, Luis Gusmaõ Pereira, in a public market in Triloedae-Laga.

Major Democracy Mobilization In West Papua, Police Crackdown

May 31, 2016 Staff, www.westpapuamedia.info , , ,
By West Papua Media. Indonesian police have arrested scores of West Papua National Committee (Komite Nasional Papua Barat) members around Papua on May 30, as Papuan civil society is gearing up for a day a mass mobilizations to sustain pressure brought on by the massive May 3 rallies, where Indonesian security forces beat hundreds of people and arrested close to 2300 people. KNPB members across Papua were handing out pamphlets calling on West Papuan society to rally on May 31 for international mediation to allow West Papuans to exercise their universal human rights of Self-Determination, long denied by Indonesia. The May 31 rally will also be demonstrating Papuan support for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) bid for full membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group, which was due to meet in Port Moresby this week, but the meeting has been postponed.

New Documentary – ‘West Papua: a Hidden Genocide’

April 8, 2016 Sam Gollob and Josh Leong, www.joshlongstudios.weebly.com , , ,
By Sam Gollob and Josh Leong. Encounter the struggle, suffering, and injustice in West Papua through the eyes of Nobel Peace Prize nominee, Herman Wainggai - a formal political prisoner and escapee living in exile. His visceral and emotional experiences convey the brutal realities of the hidden genocide currently taking place in West Papua. Recalling his early childhood, his prison time, and his dramatic escape from the West Papuan border, relive the journey Herman has taken to freedom. Filled with faith, determination, tragedy, and resilience, Herman’s eye-opening narrative reveals to the world a genocide masked by deception, and silenced by oppression.

Protest Against Japanese Funding For Coal Power Plant In Indonesia

April 8, 2016 Luke, www.dcindymedia.org , , ,
By Luke for DC Indy Media - On the 31st of March, climate activists showed up at the Japanese Embassy to demand that the Prime Minister Abe reject plans for Japanese governmental funding of the planned Batang coal burning power plant in Indonesia. For four years Indonesian activists have stopped the plant and defended the land at the price of arrests and human rights violations. No bank will touch it, so now funding is being sought from the Japanese government.

Indonesia Committing Secret Genocide In West Papua

December 13, 2015 Benny Wenda, www.freewestpapua.org , , ,
By Benny Wenda for FreeWestPapua.org. Yapen, West Papua - I am full of grief to learn reports that 4 more West Papuan people were killed and 8 more shot in cold blood by the Indonesian military and police in Yapen last week. According to recent reports, on 1st December the Indonesian military raided Wanampompi village in the Angkaisera district on Yapen Island. The villagers were simply raising the West Papuan national flag and peacefully commemorating West Papua National Day, which is marked internationally with a Global Flag Raising. But while hundreds of people around the world were able to freely raise the West Papuan flag and show their support for West Papua’s freedom, West Papuans were arrested beaten and killed just for doing so.

Global Flag Raising For West Papua’s Freedom

November 28, 2015 Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org , , ,
By Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. The struggle in West Papua is intimately related to international agreements like the TPP because West Papua is rich in mineral resources. West Papua has been under brutal Indonesian military control for the past fifty years and extraction is taking place against the will of the people. Indonesia is the largest island nation and the fourth most populated country in the world. Indonesia is a large exporter and plans to join the TPP. If it does so, the struggles of the West Papuans will be even harder as there will be greater legal standing for transnational corporations to destroy the environment, and with that, their way of life which is closely connected to the Earth. I invite you to learn more about this struggle and to show your support for the West Papuan people on Tuesday December 1 by raising a West Papuan Flag and sharing a photo of that. Spread the word. We cannot continue to ignore the genocide of the West Papuan people.

Challenging Australia’s Refugee Narrative

June 25, 2015 Janni Blakarly, www.aljazeera.com , ,
By Janni Blakarly in Al Jazeera - At a desk amid the stacked boxes and clutter sits Ramesh Fernandez, the founder of RISE: Refugees Survivors and Ex-Detainees, an organisation that provides services to refugees and advocates for policy change. Fernandez is a passionate man who talks slowly but with purpose. He fled Sri Lanka as a political refugee in 2001. After a harrowing 15-day boat journey to Australia, he spent three years in some of the country's most infamous immigration detention centres on remote islands and on the mainland. Fernandez said as former refugees, they bring a unique perspective to the work providing services such as housing, material needs, and language support to those who have recently arrived. "We have been through the settlement process, been through crossing borders. We know what sort of projects are needed and how they are going to impact the community. We don't have focus groups because this is our lived experience," he said.

Indonesian Women Take Environmental Protection Into Their Own Hands

August 13, 2014 Amantha Perera, www.ipsnews.net , , ,
Aleta Baun, an Indonesian environmental activist known in her community as Mama Aleta, has a penchant for wearing a colourful scarf on her head, but not for cosmetic reasons. The colours of the cloth, she says, represent the hues of the forests that are the lifeblood of her Mollo people living in West Timor, part of Indonesia’s East Nusa Tenggara province. “The forest is the life of my people, the trees are like the pores in our skin, the water is like the blood that flows through us…the forest is the mother of my tribe,” Aleta told IPS. “If I were a man, I would have been arrested and thrown in jail by now. Because we women stand together, police are reluctant to act like that.” -- Suryamani Bhagat, founder of the Torang tribal rights and cultural centre The winner of the 2013 Goldman Environmental Prize, she represents an expanding international movement against environmental destruction helmed by humble, often poor, rural and tribal women. For many years, Aleta has been at the forefront of her tribe’s efforts to stop mining companies destroying the forests of the Mutis Mountains that hug the western part of the island of Timor.

Australia, Indonesia Attack WikiLeaks For Publishing Censorship Order

August 1, 2014 Nadia Prupis, www.commondreams.org , , , ,
After WikiLeaks released a secret gag order in Australia blocking the country's media from reporting on a massive political corruption scandal, international leaders are evading culpability and scrambling to control the narrative. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, whose name was included in the gag order, denied involvement in the case and asked Australia to be transparent in its investigation, which implicates several Australian bank executives and international heads of state in a multi-million dollar bribery scheme. “We are shocked by the report by WikiLeaks," Yudhoyono said in a press conference. "Given the facts I have obtained, the report is hurtful." The court order, issued by the Supreme Court of Victoria in Melbourne, blocked news agencies from reporting on the investigation looking into subsidiaries of the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and government officials in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam. RBA subsidiaries Securency and Note Printing Australia are accused of paying off high-ranking officials from 1999 to 2004 to secure the supply of Australian-style polymer bank notes to the governments of Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam and other countries.

The Most Important Labor Strike in the World Is Happening Right Now

October 31, 2013 David Callahan, space4peace.blogspot.com , ,
Millions of workers across Indonesia are joining a national strike this week to press for a higher minimum wage and universal health coverage. This is actually a big deal for Americans, not that any of us are paying a lick of attention. Why does a giant strike in Indonesia matter? Because the United States stands to benefit from the rise of a global middle class that can buy high-end American goods and services, and we also stand to benefit as the cost of labor rises in developing countries, making American workers more competitive.

US History of Overthrowing Elected Leaders

June 23, 2013 Andy Piascik, www.ctpost.com , , , , , , , , , ,
One dramatic change in the last 50 years is the consistent opposition of the American public to such interventions. This was perhaps best illustrated in the 1980’s when U.S. solidarity movements undoubtedly prevented greater bloodshed in South Africa, El Salvador, Nicaragua and possibly other places. One striking feature were the thousands who travelled to work alongside Nicaraguan peasants as well as to serve as a human shield, knowing the U.S. backed contras were less likely to murder Americans. The intelligentsia here, if it ever reported this remarkable phenomenon, surely prefers to forget; people in Nicaragua and the rest of Latin America, not to mention the Washington planners of contra terror, most definitely have not.
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