2) Vanuatu's Shefa province recognises West Papua government
3) Indonesian logging camp torched in West Papua
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1) PNG govt urged to take stronger stand on West Papua
12:25 pm today
Papua New Guinea's government has been urged by a prominent MP to develop a stronger policy on West Papua.
Powes Parkop, the governor of PNG's national capital, said the government shouldn't keep ignoring the crisis in the neighbourng Indonesian-controlled half of New Guinea.
In a series of questions in parliament to Foreign Minister Soroi Eoe, Parkop described the government as having done little to hold Indonesia to account for decades of human rights abuses in West Papua.
"Hiding under a policy of 'Friends to All, Enemy to None' might be okay for the rest of the world, but it is total capitulation to Indonesian agression and illegal occupation.
"It is more a policy of seeing no evil, speaking no evil and to say no evil against the evils of Indonesia," Parkop said.
Aside from supporting calls by the Pacific Islands Forum for Jakarta to allow a UN Human Rights Commissin team to visit West Papua, PNG's government has not raised concern about the escalating conflict in the neighbouring region, particularly near the international border.
The 1986 Treaty of Mutual Respect, Friendship and Cooperation between PNG and Indonesia firmly established Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua, which is now divided into two provinces.
The treaty also provided for reciprocal respect for territorial integrity. However, decades of unresolved political conflict in West Papua has had major spillover impacts on PNG.
The common border region has been exploited for trafficking drugs, guns, contraband and illegal labour. While indigenous communities on both sides have traditional crossing rights, thousands of West Papuans have melted into PNG seeking refuge from the excesses of the Indonesian military
Many Papua New Guineans feel sympathy for the plight of West Papuans, whose homeland's incorporation into Indonesia in the 1960s remains controversial and the cause of ongoing armed conflict.
However, Parkop said the PNG government's long silence on the denial of West Papuans' right to self-determination has been based on fear, and was not the morally correct approach.
PNG's Prime Minister James Marape raised a point of order over Parkop's questioning, saying parliament's standing orders didn't allow questions challenging government policies by making inferences and assumptions.
Furthermore, Eoe said a statement on the government's policy would be forthcoming after discussion in cabinet.
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2) Vanuatu's Shefa province recognises West Papua government
11:21 am today
Vanuatu's Shefa province is recognising Benny Wenda as the interim president of a provisional West Papuan government.
In a country that has historically been the most vocal in support of West Papuan self-determination rights, Shefa province is the first authority in the country to officially recognise an independent West Papua government.
Wenda, a West Papuan pro-independence activist who fled persecution in his homeland under Indonesian control, was granted asylum in the United Kingdom in 2003.
A year ago, as the head of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, Wenda announced that it was forming a 'Provisional Government' of West Papua, with him as the interim president.
Shefa's recognition of that government was announced by the Secretary General of Shefa provincial government, Morris Kaloran, to mark the 60th aniversary of West Papua's declaration of independence which was soon overshadowed by a controversial US-brokered agreement which paved the way for Indonesia to take control of Papua.
Kaloran said the ULMWP Provincial Government and its Interim President were the legitimate representatives of the people of West Papua and their struggle.
In a symbolic gesture, Shefa province had already adopted the indigenous Melanesian people of West Papua and their struggle for self determination and liberation from Indonesian rule.
"The destiny of our two Melanesian peoples of West Papua and Vanuatu is joined. The West Papuan people remain enslaved and colonised in 21st century, subject to discrimination, assassination and military operations," Kaloran said.
"Their gallant freedom struggle, under the guidance and leadership of the ULMWP Provisional Government, is moving ever closer to victory. Until the people of West Papua are, no one in Melanesia is free.”
Indonesia's government opposes the ULMWP's claims to represent West Papuans, saying the people of the Papuan provinces of Indonesia have democratic rights like other people in the republic.
Both Indonesia and the ULMWP have been granted membership in the Melanesian Spearhead Group, whose full members Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and New Caledonia's Kanaks have expressed a wish for Jakarta to engage in dialogue with West Papuans about their grievances.
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Extract from In brief: News from the Pacific
1:25 pm today
3) Indonesian logging camp torched in West Papua
West Papua Liberation Army members outside the torched base camp of Indonesian logging company PT Bangun Katu Irian Photo: Supplied
The West Papua Liberation Army says it has torched the base camp of a logging company in Maybrat regency.
A faction of the pro-independence army has released photos of some of its members outside the burning premises of Indonesian company PT Bangun Katu Irian.
But police say the arson attack was done by an employee of the company, and that investigations are underway.
Local Papuan communities have protested against the activities of logging companies who they say are destroying traditional livelihoods without a social license.
Maybrat has been one of the focal points of armed conflict between the Liberation Army's guerilla fighters and Indonesian security forces, with thousands of villagers displaced after violence escalated in September.
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