GUEST BLOG: Maire Leadbeater – West Papua in the spotlight for tragic reason

The spotlight is again on West Papua following the killing of New Zealand pilot Glen Conning. His sad and untimely death came just as there was renewed hope that his fellow New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens might finally be released by the armed resistance fighters who have held him since February 2023.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it is seeking information about the circumstances of Glen’s death and in the meantime the accounts from the remote and heavily militarised Mimika region are somewhat contradictory.  A spokesperson for the OPM (Free Papua Movement) has rejected any claim that his group was responsible.  Local human rights groups have condemned the killing and called for a free and fair investigation.

It is understandable that the apocalyptic scale of the Gaza tragedy has eclipsed the coverage of other conflicts.  But sadly, the ongoing killings and mass displacement of civilians in West Papua never seems to attract the media attention it deserves.  Undoubtedly, this has a lot to do with the fact that Indonesia has succeeded in ensuring that the territory is off-limits to international journalists.

There are commonalities between the situation in Gaza and West Papua. One commonality is occupation, and another is the New Zealand Government’s quiescent response.  The International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal has not led New Zealand to join most of the world in recognising Palestinian statehood.

For West Papua the legitimacy of Indonesia’s claim to sovereignty over West Papua has been repeatedly challenged by leading international law scholars. Historical documents and Papuan testimony make an unassailable case that the 1969 so called ‘Act of Free Choice’ held in West Papua was fatally flawed and in no way met international UN standards for an act of self-determination.  Only just over a thousand Papuans were allowed to ‘vote’ and they were all heavily coerced. New Zealand’s ambassador to Indonesia was there to observe and report on a part of the process which he described as of ‘questionable morality’.

New Zealand’s foreign policy has always favoured Indonesia at the expense of the West Papuan people.  It is inexcusable that we continue to train Indonesian military officers despite the military’s record of abuses in West Papua.  Indonesia has got away with stalling a visit from the UN Human Rights Commission for several years, after initially agreed to facilitate such a visit.  

Yan Christian Warinussy, a prominent Papuan human rights lawyer, opened the first day of the London hearings of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal in late June.  His testimony set the stage for a three-day hearing of evidence of the state and environmental crimes committed against the people of West Papua.  The Tribunal isn’t an official court, but it has a prestigious history going back to the Russell Tribunals on Vietnam (1966-67) and on the dictatorships in Latin America (1973-76).  Within weeks of his return, Warinussy was shot (fortunately not fatally) in a public place by an unknown gunman.  The attack on Warinussy highlighted the well-documented risks faced by human rights defenders especially to those who give testimony to UN and other international forums.  

Despite the severe curtailment of freedom of expression, social media campaigns have made headway.   The hashtag ‘All Eyes on Papua’ campaign (a riff on # All Eyes on Rafah) circulated widely publicising the Papuan struggle to reject deforestation and oil palm plantations, as well as the lawsuit filed by two indigenous communities against the destruction of their customary land.

New Zealand politicians like to talk about the ‘rules-based order’ but duck for cover when confronted with the most egregious flouting of United Nations precepts and international legal opinion.  It is time for a # All Eyes on Aotearoa campaign.

Maire Leadbeater is a human rights activist.