Media release-MSG Silver Jubilee celebrations –Should not forget West Papua

Australia West Papua Association (Sydney)

Media Release 27 Jan 2013

MSG Silver Jubilee celebrations –Should not forget West Papua

The Australia West Papua Association congratulates the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) on the official launching of its Silver Jubilee celebrations in Port Vila on the 28 January. We also congratulate the MSG on its past successes and on it's increasing importance around the Pacific region. 

Joe Collins of AWPA said “the MSG showed its visionary policy in supporting the people of Kanaky (New Caledonia) to be a member of the MSG represented by the Front de Liberation Nationale Kanak et Socialiste (FLNKS).  

We now urge the MSG to show the same support for the people of West Papua”.

We believe the MSG can play an important role in helping facilitate dialogue between representatives of the West Papuan leadership and the Indonesian Government. The West Papuan people have been calling on the international community for years to support such dialogue as a way of solving the many issues of concern in West Papua.

We urge the MSG to support those representatives of the West Papuan people involved in the self-determination struggle being granted full membership at the next MSG Summit to be held in New Caledonia (Kanaky) in 2013. 

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AWPA uses the name “West Papua” to refer to the whole of the western half of the Island of New Guinea.  However, “West Papua” at this time is divided into two provinces, Papua and West Papua.