An exhibition of twenty-nine works by Australia's most gifted and beloved cartoonists published in 2006 after the arrival of forty-three asylum seekers from West Papua. The cartoons narrate and amplify the war-of-words between Canberra and Jakarta, and between Australian politicians, over the refugees' claims of genocide and Indonesia's racist militarized rule. That Australia's media moguls published their employees' works suggests that they too believed it was time to question Australia's long-standing support of the Indonesian colonial occupation.
'We fought in the Jungle: my guerrilla struggle in New Guinea in the Second World War' is the English translation of em>Vij Vochten in het bos a WWII memoir by Sergeant Maurits Christiaan Kokkelink, which was published in Amsterdam in 1956 but never reprinted, and was found in a second-hand bookstore in Ljouwert, capital of the far northern province of Friesland.
Thirty-one colourful informative slides prepared by Dr Jemima Amery-Gale of some of the wondrous indigenous flora and fauna facing increasing threat of extinction from mining, logging, conversion of rainforests to palm oil plantations, and the black market trade in West Papua.
Majority support for listing West Papua on UN Decolonisation Agenda despite the Indonesian government rolling out tanks, commandoes and police onto the streets of Manokwari and Jayapura
A presentation by American anthropologist Dr Eben Kirksey to FRWP Office in Docklands on 8 April 2018, which included drone-footage of the huge area of the Marind tribes' land that is being deforested for palm oil plantation. Eben explained its devastating effect on the fragile environment, and demonstrated how palm-oil based products is mostly consumed by populations in non-palm-oil producing countries.
This extended essay is about two unique Australians and the startling symbols they employed to demonstrate their support of West Papuans right to self-determination. Army Officer (ret.) Barbara Tipper's fused-glass sculpture of a baby turtle in the Raja Ampat Islands was a feature of the 2015 Sampari Art Exhibition for West Papua. Dr Jon Kozeniauskas, who bought the sculpture, is a Collins St dental specialist. In October 2000 used his Giallo Moderno Ferrari to carve out media space for West Papua which the Australian government had surreptitiously shut down after East Timor's independence in 1999. In 2001 he bought a baby pig for independence leader Jacob Rumbiak, which in a few months changed the delusory perception of West Papuans as Indonesians of Southeast Asia to West Papuans as Melanesians of the Pacific.
On 15 May 2015, on the eve of the Melanesian Spearhead Group Summit in Honiara (Solomon Islands), Revd Dr Andreas Loewe, Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne, joined Revd Heather Patacca and the FRWP Women’s Office in a sunset Prayer Vigil for West Papua. This photo-essay includes the glorious images taken by acclaimed Australian photographer Dean Golja during the moving prayer service.
Bishop Hilton Deakin, who is well known for his support of East Timor's liberation from Indonesia, launched Greg Poulgrain's new research 'The Incubus of Intervention: Conflicting Indonesia strategies of John F. Kennedy and Allen Dulles' at the Federal Republic of West Papua office in Docklands on 3 May 2015, and at Trades Hall on 15 May 2015 during an assembly of the Australian trade union movement to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal Republic of West Papua. Bishop Hilton's review is reproduced here in audio and transcript formats, along with photos from the launch at the Melanesian Spearhead Group Seminar in Honiara (Solomon Islands) on 15 June 2015.
A Peace-making Ceremony for West Papuan leaders at Fatumaru Bay on 1 December 2014, before the Solidarity March to the Malvatumauri National Council of Chief's Nakamal in Saralana Park. The ritual was led by Maraki Vanuariki Peace-Chief Masato and Chief Morris Kaloran, whose formal relationship with West Papua began in November 2002 with the Sanap Waintaim Ceremonial on Australian Aboriginal land in Maribyrnong and All Saints Anglican Church in St Kilda (Melbourne). The two nations' Kastom and Faith based relationship deepened with the Unity Declaration in Port Vila on 1 December 2007 by the West Papua National Authority, Port Vila Council of Chiefs, and Maraki Vanuariki Council of Chiefs. The ritual in 2014 was pivotal to the success of the Vanuatu Government's 'Reconciliation and Unity Summit for West Papuan Leaders' and the formation of a united representive body to draw up West Papua's application to join the Melanesian Spearhead Group in June 2015
On 28 November 2014, the Maraki Vanuariki Council of Chiefs, representing the Tongoa-Shepherd Islanders from the SHEFA Province of Vanuatu, renewed its kastom and political relations with the Federal Republic of West Papua in a welcome ceremony organised by the council's women's group. Chief Morris Kaloran initiated the renewal in 2002 on Australian Aboriginal land during the Sanap Wantaim Ceremonial in Melbourne. Relations deepened during the Council's Summit for West Papua in Port Vila in 2007, which concluded with the Unity Day Declaration by the West Papua National Authority, Port Vila Council of Chiefs, and Maraki Vanuariki Council of Chiefs. This ceremony in 2014 opened the West Papua Leaders Summit on Reconciliation & Unification (hosted by Vanuatu’s National Malvatumauri Council of Chiefs, Vanuatu Government, Vanuatu Christian Council of Churches, Pacific Conference of Churches) that oversaw the formation of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP).
Photo-essay of the Procession of Gifts and Solidarity March that opened the Vanuatu Government's 'Reconciliation and Unity Summit for West Papuan Leaders' on 1 December 2014. The ground-breaking Summit concluded with the establishment of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), a representative coordinating body of West Papuans tasked with underwriting their nation's application to join the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG). The Summit was sponsored by the Vanuatu Government and moderated by the Malvatumauri National Council of Chiefs, Vanuatu Christian Council, and Pacific Conference of Churches. On 4 February 2015, the Vanuatu Government, surrounded by these influential institutions, lodged the application with the MSG Secretariat in Port Vila.
This photo-essay (30 slides) is of a two-week summit in Vanuatu that culminated with a ground-breaking ‘Unity Day Port Vila Vanuatu Declaration’ signed by the Maraki Vanuariki Council of Chiefs, the Port Vila Council of Chiefs, and the West Papua National Authority on 29 November 2007. The declaration differed from previous iterations between the two peoples in that it was organised by influential Vanuatu chiefs, not elected politicians, and by the West Papua National Authority with its own history of political struggle (as distinct from human or cultural rights). The declaration set the long-term agenda for foreign support of the West Papuan struggle, because it rendered the Vanuatu Government responsible for sponsoring West Papua onto the UN Decolonisation List, for listing West Papua with the Melanesian Spearhead Group, Pacific Islands Forum and the Africa Caribbean Pacific Group, and for hosting a peace conference between Indonesia and the West Papua National Authority.
