FRWP Open Day on 6 December 2020 featured interviews with the President and the Prime Minister of the new West Papua Transitional Government, with Australian federal Greens Senator Janet Rice, and with Dr Joe Toscano (West Papua Rent Collective). It included a candle ceremony for Natalie Adadikam (founding member of WP Womens Office in Docklands) and a memorial for recent political martyrs in West Papua; conducted by Rev. Robert Stringer, with presentations by ULMWP Executive Jacob Rumbiak, Catholic Bishop Hilton Deakin, and Mr Clovis Mwamba from the Democratic Republic of Congo. The day concluded with the planting of a Kurrajong Bottle Tree on Melbourne City Council land at 838 Collins Street in remembrance of UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld (1953-61) and his 1961 Decolonisation Program for West Papua.
Letter from Jacob Rumbiak (Spokesperson, United Liberation Movement for West Papua) to Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne, which outlines the current situation in West Papua, includes some [devastating] Special Autonomy data, and outlines the rationale for Australia to encourage Indonesia to commence talks with the ULMWP under the auspice of a third party.
On 10 December 2017, the West Papua Womens Office in Docklands launched its exhibition 'World War II in West Papua' at the Australian Catholic University Art Gallery in Brunswick St Fitzroy. The exhibition was part of the Sampari Art Exhibition for West Papua. Former ABC journalist Margaret Coffey compèred an impressive lineup of speakers that included Jacob Rumbiak from the Federal Republic of West Papua, Ross Himona (ret.) from the New Zealand Army, and Lance Collins (ret.) from the Australian Defence Force.
This fully referenced photo-essay, of thirty-six (A4) pages in PDF downloadable form, provides an overview of the West Papuan people and their unique environment, their Dutch colonial history-including the devastating impact of World War II and their industrious twelve-year period as a Non-Self-Governing Territory as they worked with Dutch personnel preparing for independence that had been legislated in Holland for 1971. The second half of the presentation documents the deleterious effect of the Indonesian occupation. The final pages outline what West Papuans are doing to liberate themselves from Indonesia, and how the non-Papuans of the world can help.
On 5 October 2020, the West Papua Womens Office shared stories and memories of founding-member Natalie Adadikam who died, in her home, on 28 September 2020. Natalie was the heart and soul of the office; a warm and generous muma who made people feel comfortable and cared deeply for those who sought her assistance. Her faith and trust in Jesus, and her commitment to the freedom of West Papua moved and influenced everyone who came in contact with her.
The United Liberation Movement for West Papua begs UN to discipline Indonesia against waging more war against Papuans, as Jokowi lectures General Assembly about ‘territorial integrity’
This webinar is a memorial for UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld and the Decolonisation Program that he prepared for West Papua in 1961. It also explores the UN's 1961 military operation in the new Democratic Republic of Congo. The program for West Papua was designed to prevent Indonesia from taking over the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Netherlands New Guinea and to deliver the West Papuans their right of self-determination. The mission in the Congo was designed to de-escalate the brutal bloody conflict over the new state’s mineral resources. Both were overwhelmed by the extraordinary competition between capitalism and communism commonly known as the Cold War. What was the outcome of the two UN missions? The Secretary-General was killed. The Democratic Republic of Congo nose-dived into an authoritarian state. West Papua, a Melanesian nation and a UN Non-Self-Governing Territory, was illegally transferred to Indonesia, a state on the verge of political and economic collapse.
An international online summit on Sunday 13 September 2020 commemorates the work of Dag Hammarskjöld, UN Secretary-General, 1953-1961—a global champion for the fair treatment of colonised and emerging states. Academics and political leaders based in Europe, the United States, West Papua, the Pacific and Africa will honour Mr Hammarskjöld’s inspiring leadership and work on decolonisation, in particular his work for the emerging state of West Papua, and his principle of ‘a peoples right of sovereignty over their land’.
"United Liberation Movement for West Papua ~ its mission, activities, achievements" was presented by Jacob Rumbiak to the International League of Peoples Struggle Webinar on 28 July 2020.
During the Covid 19 lockdowns, the West Papua Womens Office in Docklands launched the Dag Hammarskjöld-West Papua Living Memorial project to recall the Decolonisation Program prepared by UN Secretary-General Hammarskjöld for the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Netherlands-New Guinea (West Papua). The Secretary-General planned to introduce the program to the 1961 UN General Assembly, but was assassinated on 18 September 1961 near the border of the Democratic Republic of Congo where he was mediating post-independence conflict. Without his authoritative and influential presence, members of the General Assembly succumbed to Indonesia's machiavellian advances to incorporate the Non-Self-Governing Territory, and didn't pass the Decolonisation motion. Instead a so-called 'peace treaty' between Indonesia and the Netherlands was drawn up and implemented, which ultimately created an Indonesian colony out of a Melanesian nation.
Since the 2015 publication of Greg Poulgrain's 'The Incubus of Intervention: conflicting Indonesia strategies of John F. Kennedy and Allen Dulles' we have known that UN Sec-General Dag Hammarskjöld was about to introduce a Decolonisation Program in Netherlands New Guinea whereby the West Papuan people would be recognised as the sovereign owners of their land, and UN officers would assist an independent West Papuan government for five years. Hammarskjöld intended to present the program to the 1961 General Assembly. His assassination three days before the Assembly meant the motion was debated without his authoritative and influential presence, and didn't garner two-thirds majority support. The UN’s failure to adopt a policy of self-determination for West Papua opened the way for an American diplomat—appointed by Acting Sec-General U Thant—to mediate an agreement that facilitated Indonesia’s incorporation of West Papua.
ULMWP Spokesperson Jacob Rumbiak reports on Jakarta's refusal to listen to its governor's COVID warning to halt flights from Jakarta to West Papua, and Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto exacts his appointment-promise to exterminate and extinguish the Papuan independence movement.
As Defense Minister (and former general) Prabowo Subianto escalates Indonesia’s war against West Papuans, the Jokowi government is under pressure to respond to the recommendation of its provincial government to negotiate peace and self-determination with the United Liberation Movement for West Papua.
'West Papua 1942-2022: the legals, politics, and the only way forward' by Jacob Rumbiak by Jacob Rumbiak is a 50-page fully referenced image-and-text study guide of the West Papuans’ experience of World War II, and as a progressive UN Non-Self-Governing Territory during the 1950s; Of UN Secretary-General Hammarskjöld's assassination and the UN's subsequent failure to uphold the West Papuan's self-determination project; Of Indonesia's belligerence and the nefarious behaviour of CIA Director Allen Dulles in taking over the Papuans' homeland. It includes legal commentary on the New York Agreement (1962—69) and a detailed rebuttal of the claims Indonesia used to justify its colonisation of the Papuans’ richly resourced territory. The final section outlines West Papuans’ most recent resistance and nation-making, including raising a transitional government and being listed on the UN Decolonisation Agenda (what Dag Hammarskjöld wanted to do in the 1961 UN General Assembly).
The legal papers in this post set out the principles of International Law relating to the New York Agreement (1962-1969) by which Indonesia, the Netherlands, and the United Nations, all pursued by the United States of America, aborted the decolonisation project of the Non-Self-Governing of Netherlands New Guinea, via UNGA Res. 1752 (XVII) in 1962 and UN Res. 2504 (XXIV). UN Res.2504 in 1969, passed unanimously by the UN Member States (84,0) formally "noted" but did not formally reject the result of the "Act of Free Choice" which was not an act of self-determination, but a web of intrigue, bribery, duress by threat, and coercion by propaganda and fraudulent promises in which 1025 carefully selected, indoctrinated and controlled members of West Papua's indigenous population of almost 800,000, under the close scrutiny of armed Indonesian security personnel, agreed unanimously to commit their peoples to integration of their homeland with the State of Indonesia.