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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.
WP Open Day, 11 Dec 2022, Paul Stewart’s ‘All the Rage’
Louise Byrne
Posted in Australian Politics, Books, Campaigns, Culture, Featured, History, Memorial, Music, Open Days, United Nations, West Papuan Government
Photos, slides, videos, speeches and documents associated with the launch of Paul Stewart's book 'All the Rage' (Melbourne Books, 2022) during the West Papua Open Day in Docklands (Victoria) on 11 December 2022, including Paul being interviewed by his publisher David Tenenbaum from Melbourne books, and a pictorial summary of Paul's battles with Prime Minister Howard over Indonesia's occupation of East Timor and West Papua. The day also included Jacob Rumbiak updating about the current conditions in West Papua, and Australia and America's unprecedented criticisms of Indonesia's behaviour in West Papua (UN Periodic Review, 9 November 2022). This Memorial for Martyrs were West Papua's Filep Karma, and two Australians, Bishop Hilton Deakin (Patron of the West Papua Office in Docklands) and John Lawrance who was instrumental in the opening of the office in 2014.
Pig, symbol of justice and peace in West Papua
An engaging photograph, a short story, and two fascinating ABC-Radio interviews about the importance of pigs in the religious and social life of the highlanders of West Papua.
Exhibition of WW2 in West Papua, ACU Art Gallery, Dec 2017
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.
West Papua’s return to the UN: fulfilling Hammarskjöld’s legacy
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.
What is the United Liberation Movement for West Papua?
"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.
Dutch guerilla’s memoir of WWII in Netherlands (West) Nieuw Guinea
'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.
West Papua, Annette Culley, ‘State responsibility in international law’
This legal paper by Annette Culley for the Federal republic of West Papua office in Docklands (Victoria, Australia) affirms that States have a responsibility to protect all those within their territory; that third States have a right and obligation to complain of wrongful acts committed by a sovereign State; and finally, that sovereignty comes under question where a people within a sovereign state are subject to alien subjugation or serious violations of their human rights. This 24,000-word publication (100 x A5 pages) is downloadable (below) and can be quoted providing that the usual creditations are incorporated.
Federal Republic of West Papua publishes important new legal book
This new publication, 'WEST PAPUA: Decolonization, Boundaries and Self Determination' by Annette Culley, traces the shift in international law during the twentieth century from states' rights to people's rights, and how the norms of jus cogens (rules that cannot be derogated from) have broadened to include self-determination, genocide, slavery, torture, murder and the disappearance of individuals. It brings together all the UN resolutions, and principles, and rules that have been applied, or ignored, in the case of West Papua’s occupation, and analyses the relationship between occupied West Papua and international law. The booklet (160 x A5 pages) can be downloaded and printed, and can be quoted with the usual creditations.
3rd Papuan National Congress, Declaration
On 19 October, Prokorus [normally spelt Forkorus] Yaboisembut was elected President
of West Papua, and the evangelist Edison G. Waromi was elected Prime Minister.
Following the elections, Prokorus Yaboisembut read out the Declaration of a new
state—the Federal State of West Papua, the symbol of the state—the Mambruk Bird, the
currency—the guilder, the national anthem—Hai Tanahku Papua, the national
languages—Pidgin, Indonesian Malay, Papuan languages, and English, and the
geographic territory.
The Declaration stated: “On this day, 19 October 2011, we proclaim the full
independence and sovereignty of our state, and therefore the State of Indonesia must
speedily end its occupation of Papua. All components of the leadership elected at the
Third Papuan People's Congress shall immediately discuss the basic principles of the
State of West Papua”.
West Papua’s Right to Self-Determination
In this five-thousand word paper for the 2001 Festival of Ideas in Adelaide, Jacob Rumbiak examines three international agreements and three Indonesian regulations, via which over-rode Dutch-funded self-determination policies and projects, and the West Papuans right to be consulted, and independence, were consciously ignored.
Reflections from behind the Iron Bars of Indonesia
A moral appeal on behalf of the Jayapura Five, first published in West Papua Media.
- 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