MEDIA STATEMENT, 20 August 2018
Indonesia bleeding-out in West Papua as Jakarta moves to shut down three ‘resistance’ faculties at Cenderawasih University in Jayapura, West Papua
A powerful video released by ULMWP Spokesperson Jacob Rumbiak shows hundreds of new students at Cenderawasih University in West Papuan rhythmically chanting their refusal to enrol on Open Day until they are acknowledged as Melanesians not Indonesians. Another records the President of the Student Legislative Council successfully advising Indonesian Police to move outside the gates of the university.
View videos at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAfeIm6O9Wc&feature=share
For three days Jakarta’s notorious security agencies and their militia had been bludgeoning West Papuan students in universities across the archipelago, trying to force them to raise the Indonesian flag. The response of the Melanesian nation’s youngest intellectuals, dressed in their crisp white jackets and snappy Morning Star bracelets, was in dramatic contrast and an elegant inspiring expression of non-violent resistance. Predictably, several student-leaders and lecturers were arrested and incarcerated.
While the Jakarta Government was bullying students—in Jayapura, Abepura, Waena, Manokwari, Sorong and Merauke, as well as in Bali, Ternate and Ambon (Maluku), Manado and Makassar (Sulawesi), Surabaya, Malang, Jogjakarta, Semarang, Jakarta and Bandung (Java)—into honouring Indonesia’s independence day (17 August 1949), the students were condemning the UN New York Agreement (15 August 1962) that transferred the administration of their homeland to Indonesia. In Surabaya, the military bashed and tried to shoot forty-nine students and destroyed their dormitory.
Indeed, Cenderawasih University was built three months after the New York Agreement was signed, driven by New Guinea Council members (principally Herman Wayoi, W. Inury, Dirk Ayemseba) wanting to extract something out of the betrayal of the Papuan self-determination project, which the Netherlands had registered with the United Nations in 1950.
That the Indonesian state, in 2018, enobles the bashing of students and the razing of their digs by threatening to shut down three ‘resistance’ faculties at Cenderawasih University, should pause the good burghers of Melbourne and Monash universities from opening faculties in Indonesia (as reported on ABC News on 31 January 2018).
Jacob Rumbiak
Spokesperson, United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP)
