Sentenced to many years in prison for raising a flag ?

Semuel Yaru and Luther Wrait from West Papua were arrested in November 2009. They had raised the forbidden ‘Morning Star’ flag of West Papua in order to protest against the Indonesian occupation of the western part of the island of New Guinea. They are now faced with an unfair trial and many years in prison on the grounds of ‘undermining the authority of the state.’ Also, well-known Papua independence activists are being deliberately persecuted: Markus Yenu, the leader of the ‘West Papua National Authority’, the independence movement for the native people in Manokwari, one of the largest towns in West Papua, was arrested twice within a few days at the end of April 2010. He had co-ordinated a peaceful demonstration in Manokwari on 22nd April.

For around 50 years the Papuan people have been campaigning for self-determination and humanitarian treatment. West Papua should have been granted its independence from the Dutch colonial power in 1961. Instead of this, it became subject to two years rule by the United Nations before then being annexed by Indonesia. A referendum, demanded by the United Nations, the so-called ‘Act of Free Choice,’ was held in 1969. However, the electorate of only 1025 hand-picked men was forced, via repression, threats and use of physical violence and blackmail, to vote for the continuance of Indonesian rule.

Since then, the native peoples have been treated with continuous persecution and violence. Indonesia controls West Papua and its wealth of natural resources with severe police and military directives. Indonesia is systematically promoting the immigration of non-local peoples, so that the Papuans will become a minority in their own homelands. They are being culturally uprooted and their basic living conditions destroyed. The Indonesian government is using all its power to deny independence to the West Papuans, and to ensure that this resource-rich area should at all costs be integrated into the Indonesian state. They want to give land development rights to mining companies such as Freeport McMoran Copper and Gold Ltd, and palm oil industries have signalled their readiness to participate. In order to promote on the world markets the highly valued tropical hardwoods, as well as other raw materials such as copper, gold, nickel, oil and gas, 25 per cent of the rainforest has been cleared. For this to happen, the native Papua tribes, to whom the land traditionally belongs, are being dispossessed. No account is being taken of the dispossessed peoples, nor any compensation for the farming lands which are being taken away from the Papuans . Those who do not voluntarily agree to move, are being forced out by severe military threats and bulldozers.

Through its imprisonment and brutal treatment of peaceful demonstrators, the Indonesian government has shown that it wants to wipe out the emergence of any independence movements. Formal concessions for the Papuans are often disregarded by the military and police officials, and the native peoples are regarded as a minority by the rest of the Indonesian population. The present situation threatens to get worse, as the police and military presence in West Papua is planned to be strengthened. It has been estimated that since the beginning of the Indonesian occupation of the half of the island, around 200,000 Papuans have been violently killed. Through a wide-ranging travel ban for foreign journalists and human rights observers, the Indonesian authorities are trying to keep the terrible situation hidden away from the outside world.

Therefore, please support our appeal to the Indonesian President Susilo Bambang for the immediate release of Semuel Yaru, Luther Wrait and Markus Yenu.

Link for the On-line appeal