1) Fiji rights coalition slams ‘betrayal’ of West Papua for Indonesian benefits
By Anish Chand in Suva
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka and Fiji’s coalition government are “detached from the values that Fijians hold dear”, says the NGO Coalition on Human Rights in Fiji (NGOCHR).
The rights coalition has expressed deep concern over Rabuka’s ongoing engagements with Indonesia.
“History will judge how we respond as Fijians to this moment. We must not stay silent when Pacific people are being occupied and killed,” said NGOCHR chair Shamima Ali.
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She said Rabuka was extended a grant of $12 million by Indonesia recently and received proposals for joint military training.
“Is Fiji’s continuing silence on West Papua yet another example of being muzzled by purse strings?”
“As members of the Melanesian and Pacific family, bound by shared ancestry and identity, the acceptance of financial and any other benefit from Indonesia—while remaining silent on the plight of West Papua—is a betrayal of our family member and of regional solidarity.”
“True leadership must be rooted in solidarity, justice, and accountability,” Ali said.
“It is imperative that Pacific leaders not only advocate for peace and cooperation in the region but also continue to hold Indonesia to account on ongoing human rights violations in West Papua.”
Republished from The Fiji Times with permission.
Pope Francis did not visit the Christian-majority region of Papua during his Asia tour last September; however, his concerns and gestures regarding the plight of Papuans have provided them with a renewed perspective on the Church.
The first Jesuit and the first Latin American pope, during his 12-year papacy, achieved something that no other pope has done for the Papuans, the Christian-majority indigenous people of the western half of New Guinea Island, which is part of Indonesia.
Pope Francis became popular among Papuans as they began to see him as a champion for the cause of poor, marginalized, and oppressed people like them worldwide. They expect the next pope to follow in his footsteps.
Papuans expect the next pope to build on Pope Francis’ two actions, which have left an indelible mark on their conflict-torn region, regarded as the most underdeveloped part of Indonesia.
In a historic first, Francis appointed two native Papuan priests as bishops — Yanuarius Teofilus Matopai You of Jayapura in 2022 and Bernardus Bofitwos Baru of Timika — just two months before his death.
The appointments followed years of demand for native bishops in the region, where the Catholic faith arrived more than a century ago.
The demand has grown louder in recent years, as many Papuan Catholics feel that their bishops from other parts of Indonesia, and even the Vatican, do not care enough about their aspirations, plight, and challenges.
Most Indonesian bishops assigned to Papua have remained silent about human rights violations and social injustices in light of the Indonesian government’s apparent disregard for Papuans’ rights.
The violations are linked to the government’s efforts to suppress the Free Papua Movement, which has persisted in the region since the 1960s and advocates for self-determination.
Baru, a leading rights activist advocating for an end to violence between security forces and armed rebels in Papua, is scheduled to be ordained as bishop on May 15.
The Papuans felt abandoned as the local Church hierarchy, based in the Indonesian capital, consistently aligned with the government.
“The official stance of the Catholic Church on the Papua issue is very clear, namely to support the government’s stance, because it is guaranteed by international law,” the hierarchy’s de facto head, Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo of Jakarta, said once.
A recent example is Archbishop Petrus Canisius Mandagi of Merauke supporting the controversial state-backed food projects in southern Papua, despite the Papuans’ rejection of the initiative. The projects reportedly aim to seize land from Indigenous people, including members of the archdiocese.
Francis’ visit to Asia last September marked a second defining moment for Papuans and offers lessons for the Indonesian hierarchy and the heads of the Vatican bureaus.
Many Papuans believe that Francis expressed his love for the indigenous people by visiting Vanimo in Papua New Guinea, just across the border from Indonesian Papua. This visit enabled many Papuans to cross the border to see the pope.
Francis’ visit to Indonesia did not include a stopover in Papua or even mention Papua, apparently due to the insistence of Indonesian bishops, who did not want to upset the government.
Papuans who could not afford the flight to Jakarta to see the pope found Vanimo to be the closest place where they could meet him. He chose Vanimo to feel the pulse of the Papuans.
He also did not upset the Muslim-majority Indonesia, where he was widely popular for fostering Christian-Muslim harmony, a hallmark of his pontificate.
Francis proved that church leaders can find ways to understand and communicate with their marginalized communities, even if exploitative systems attempt to block them.
The tragedy is that Indonesian bishops remain confined within their narrow nationalistic views, which prevent them from recognizing Papuans as equal individuals and Christians deserving of dignity and rights.
The Papuan Church, which has long been dominated by Indonesian clergy, has done little to protest the state’s exploitation of this resource-rich region’s forests and minerals, disregarding the fundamental rights of Papuans to live on their land.
Just as Francis stood for the rights and dignity of the poor and oppressed, the new leader of the Church has a responsibility to confront the timidity of the Indonesian hierarchy, who believe that supporting the oppressed would make them targets of the state.
The Vatican must also support the two native Papuan bishops in representing their Papuan Catholics without permitting them to be overshadowed by the other 36 non-Papuan bishops in the country.
With thanks to Union of Catholic Asian (UCA) News and Ryan Dagur, where this article originally appeared.
Published on 14th May 2025 in the Fiji Sun
3) OF GONGS AND CYMBALS
Dr Robert Wolfgramm
Melbourne
Prime Minister Sitiveni Rauka can posture and prattle all he likes, ultimately he is a man of empty words, a “sounding gong” and a “clanging cymbal.” That is how the Apostle in I Corinthians 13 (Revised English Bible) describes people who lack authentic love - the essential love for their suffering fellow humans.
Actually, gongs and cymbals are central to Indonesian religious and ceremonial culture, and they are all Rabuka seems to hear as he dances to Jakarta’s musical score on West Papua.
It is an appalling indictment on his record, that the Fijian PM, having given public expressions of support for the trapped and oppressed Melanesian population of Indonesia, i.e. most West Pauans, returns from his overseas-trip to Jakarta by apologizing for that militarised regime’s mistreatment of its Melanesian people. “See no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.” is all he can do when its money he wants from foreign neighbours.
This is diplomacy the Rabuka way, and it comes in the face of decades of authenticated reports, and authoritative research showing atrocities and repression of human rights of West Papuans under indonesian control.
Instead of putting his weight behind international efforts that are already abroad and pushing for reopening the case of West Papua in the UN, and for a reinstatement of Melanesian sovereignty in their vanua, the Fiji PM passes by “on the other side” of the road - as the priest and the Levite did in the parable told by Jesus (Luke 10). He doesn’t want to know.
Should we be surprised that after visiting the West Papua office in Melbourne in recent years and learning firsthand of their plight from refugees there, that after receiving delegations of West Papuan leaders since coming to office, that after being lobbied this year by local Fijian and other Pacific-Islanders in solidarity with their Melanesian brothers and sisters, Rabuka is again twisting and turning like a snake on the run? That he doesn’t want to know?
Well, not really. When I speak to Fijians about what they think of him and his government this time around, they all express disappointment about his failure to deliver on what they hoped would be policy reforms and constitutional changes that entirely repudiate the “coup culture” that he himself instigated on his day back in 1987.
This seemed to be his appeal to supporters a few years back when his personal ambition saw him swing from leading SODELPA to leading his own People’s Alliance party without so much as a beg-your-pardon. Now, the picture is of one who appears indebted to an informal military alliance with parliamentary remnants of the defunct “Fiji First” party.
Rabuka’s legacy will not be the medals and awards he thinks he has earned through public service, but a tangled web of unfulfilled promises in and out of public life. He imagines Fiji is his plaything, but popularity offers no legitimacy if it is not substantiated by values, if it is not built on integrity, if not defined by commitments to human rights and efforts for achieving justice. Without values that demonstrate concern and love for others, taking the “safe” option through self-preservation reduces politicians to becoming mere gongs and cymbals, empty expressions of self-love.
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