Vanuatu PM Addresses UN on Human Rights in Papua
Jayapura. Vanuatu's prime minister has addressed the United Nations, urging a resolution to investigate allegations of human rights violations in Papua.
Speaking at the UN Human Rights Council, Prime Minister Moana Carcasses Kalosil accused the Indonesian government of abuses in Papua, and the international community of "neglecting the voices of the Papuan people, whose human rights have been trampled upon and severely suppressed since 1969."
Citing rights abuse findings by the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) as well as academics and NGOs, Kalosil said Indonesian security forces had carried out a "litany of tortures, murders, exploitation, rapes, military raids, arbitrary arrests and dividing of civil society through intelligence operations."
Kalosil said he was "unable to sleep well at night," and his sense of Melanesian solidarity was stirred, he said, when video footage surfaced in 2010 of bound Papuans being kicked in the head by uniformed Indonesian soldiers.
Film of separatist Yawan Wayeni bleeding to death after apparently being disemboweled by police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) officers who recorded the gruesome death on camera also received a mention in the speech, which centered around a call for the UN council to adopt a formal resolution mandating an investigation into the human rights situation in Papua.
With implied reference to the world's largest gold and copper mine run by Freeport, Kalosil said "It is clear that the Melanesian people of West Papua were the scapegoat of Cold War politics and were sacrificed to gratify the appetite for [Papua's] natural resources."
Kalosil, whose speech noted President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's pledge to hold a Papuan dialogue, has been outspoken in his opposition to Indonesia's participation in the Melanesian Spearhead Group. The MSG is an intergovernmental organization that groups Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu for the purpose of political and trade talks.
Instead of Indonesia's head of state participating in the MSG as an observer, Kalosil's government would rather see the Vanuatu-based West Papua National Coalition for Liberation be given membership to represent the people in Indonesia's Papua provinces.
Last month Vanuatu reiterated its stance on Papua by refusing to join an MSG delegation of foreign affairs ministers who visited Papua and Maluku. Vanuatu Foreign Minister Edward Natapei told Radio Australia that he believed the agenda for the foreign ministers' meeting had been "hijacked" by Indonesia.
He added that Vanuatu would only participate if the delegation was given the opportunity to meet civil society groups, pro-independence groups, church leaders and other groups concerned with human rights violations in West Papua.
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