Department of Foreign Affairs Immigration and Trade
West Papua: Pilgrimage to Canberra, March 2024
A delegation from the West Papua Office in Docklands (Victoria) visited Canberra for Greens Senator Janet Rice's Valedictory (farewell) Speech in Parliament House on 26 March 2024, and to host a Remembrance Ceremony at the Netherlands Australian War Memorial on 27 March 2024 for Dutch, West Papuans and Australians who worked together in West Papua during World War Two. In the post is a link to Senator Janet Rice's full valedictory speech (22') and also to the debate 'Is Australia doing enough for West Papua' (Janet was the 3rd speaker on the 'no' team) in the Melbourne City Council's prestigious Yarra Room in October 2023.
Tribute to Kevin Buzzacott from West Papua
Kevin Buzzacott (b 1947), Aboriginal elder of the Arabunna nation and a highly valued supporter of West Papua's independence, died on 29 November 2023, and was buried in Alice Springs on 22nd December 2023. This entry (8 slides) is a record of his moral support and activism for what he insisted was Australia's 'responsibility to care for our brothers and sisters from across the water.'
Book Launch: Clovis Mwamba’s ‘The Meteorite Memos’
Launch of Clovis Mwamba's book of poems and essays 'The Meteorite Memos' during the West Papua Open Day in Docklands on 26 November 2023. Clovis, a teacher, activist, and politician in the Democratic Republic of Congo, wrote the poems on flattened cigarette packets while he was a political prisoner in a secret military camp in Kinshasa in 1998-1999. The Meteorite Memos opens an archive of atrocity and is therefore a human rights document; but also points to a profoundly influential African initiate knowledge system. The post also includes video-excerpts of a Cabaret Burlesque 'West Papua & The Congo' performed to highlight the forces that create war and genocide in West Papua and The Congo. These two nations share the roots of most decolonizing struggles, but are also bound by the catastrophic effect of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarksjöld's death in the Congo on the unholy and illegal denial of West Papua's registration as a UN Non-Self-Governing Territory in 1961.
Cuba and Fiji for West Papua
This post contains biography of the two speakers at the West Papua Open Day on 17 September 2023: Laura Canet Mulén, from the Higher Institute of International Relations in Cuba, and Dr Robert Wolfgramm from Fiji, with a link to twenty articles about West Papua in the Fiji Daily Post between 2005 and 2006 when he was Editor-in-Chief. The post also includes documentation pertaining to our Memorial to Dag Hammarskjöld (1961), the Nieuw Guinea RAAD (1962), and Helena Grunfeld (2023). Hammarskjöld was the UN Secretary-General (1953-1961), the New Guinea RAAD was the parliament of West Papua's Non-Self-Governing Territory before the Indonesian occupation, and Helena Grunfeld was a Swedish-Australian activist who worked at the West Papua Womens Office in Docklands. The post also features photos of the beautiful works donated to Dr Toscano's Auction for the West Papua Rent Collective by Queensland visual artist Susan Zela Bissett and Victorian wood sculptor David McKenzie.
The Hammarskjöld-West Papua Files, 26 March 2023
During the first Open Day in 2023 in the Docklands office, Anglican Bishop Philip Huggins was presented with the Hammarskjöld-West Papua Living Memorial files, including sixty (two-minute) videos of the tree-planting ceremonies around the world. Bishop Huggins, the first Australian to plant a memorial, promised that the Anglican Communion Permanent Representative to the United Nations would personally present the files to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, UN Assistant-Director Gillian Triggs, and the UN 75 Committee. The documentation is designed to remind UN executives, bureaucrats and member-states of the mistake they made in 1961-1962 in transferring the administration of West Papua (then Nederlands Nieuw Guinea) to Indonesia. The entry includes videos of the presentations by Bishop Huggins and Jacob Rumbiak, descriptions and links to the papers in the package for UN Sec-General Guterres, and a link to all the 2-min videos of tree-planting ceremonies from around the world.
WP Open Day, 11 Dec 2022, Paul Stewart’s ‘All the Rage’
Photos, slides, videos, speeches and documents associated with the launch of Paul Stewart's book 'All the Rage' (Melbourne Books, 2022) at the West Papua Open Day in Docklands (Victoria) on 11 December 2022. Includes Paul's interview with publisher David Tenenbaum, and Jacob Rumbiak talking about Australia and America's unprecedented criticisms of Indonesia in West Papua on 9 November 2022 in the United Nations. Also links to historical media articles and other relevant documents.
Debate: Is Australia doing enough to help West Papua?
IS AUSTRALIA DOING ENOUGH TO SUPPORT WEST PAPUA? A public debate sponsored by the Melbourne City Council in its glorious Yarra Room on 30 October 2022; convened by Fiji-Australian author Bernie Goulding, and summarised by Monash University’s China specialist Dr Jonathan Benney. West Papua is Australia's nearest neighbour, yet we have maintained a national silence on the atrocities endured by the Indigenous Melanesians of West Papua since 1962 when the United Nations illegally passed on the administration of its Non-Self-Governing Territory to Indonesia. Despite the republic's systematic racist policies and crimes-against-humanity, the West Papuan people have maintained extraordinary and inspiring resistance-and-nation-making, which was recognised in 2019 by the Pacific Islands Forum (including Australia and New Zealand), the Africa Caribbean Pacific Group and the parliaments of the United Kingdom, Poland, the Netherlands, Spain, the European Union.
2015 MSG in Honiara: West Papua out of the dark into the light, and what’s happened since
This entry recants the extraordinary development for West Papua facilitated by Solomon Islands Prime Minister's intervention at the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) in Honiara in 2015, which as the West Papuans say 'brought us out of the darkness, into the light'. A 62-page photo-and-text essay demonstrates the intense lobbying by the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) before the Summit; the pride of Pacific Island activists and politicians in pursuing their Melanesian kin's liberation project; the extraordinary courage of men, women and children in West Papua who chose to demonstrate their unity and support; prayers in churches around the world; Australian unions galvanising behind UN Principles to support the ULMWP application to join the MSG. The entry concludes with a summary of Australia and New Zealand's continuing support of Indonesia's colonisation of West Papua.
Letter Writing for West Papua
Join the WP Womens Office Letter-writing Competition to Australian politicians, especially members of the Senate Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, urging them to (i) Persuade Indonesia to allow the UN fact-finding mission to West Papua which it agreed to in 2017, and ii) Shift Australia's policy from supporting Special Autonomy to voting 'yes' for a motion in the United Nations registering West Papua on the Decolonisation List.
One Small Step for Australia; One Big Leap for West Papua
This report outlines Dr Joe Toscano's policies (with costings) as an independent candidate for the Victorian Senate in Australia's 2020 Federal elections. Dr Toscano has been a political activist for as long as he has been practicing medicine, and is also a well known public broadcaster. He developed his suite of freshingly progressive policies during years of thinking about the world and being politically active within it. His policies include a commitment to pursuing an Independent Foreign Policy so that the Australian Government can support West Papua's self-determination and independence.
- Live Blog: 2023 December 1 West Papua Independence Day protests and commemorations
- Indonesian Police arrest 4, beat & shoot rubber bullets to disperse Mako Tabuni’s assassination commemoration in Jayapura
- HRD Analysis on Oksibil-West Papua Armed Conflict
- HRD Report: Information on Internally Displaced People in West Papua – Oksibil
- Extension of Special Autonomy Law Number 21 of 2001 for West Papua by Indonesian Parliament: A One-sided Policy implementation
- Permintaan mendesak kepada saksi garis depan dan sumber dari WestPapuaMedia untuk memaksimalkan liputan internasional tentang Darurat Kemanusiaan di Ilaga, Intan Jaya dan Nduga
- Families of TNI victims in Ilaga, Puncak call on Indonesia to stop killing them in open video plea