| Home | Bookmark | Tell | Active petitions in over 75 countries | Follow GoPetition |
Petition Tag - west papua
West New Guinea is the western part of the island of New Guinea in South Pacific Ocean. This island was controlled by Dutch Kingdom since 1898 to 1962 and they called Netherlands New Guinea. After established New Guinea Council in 1961, they changed it name to Papua Barat (West Papua).
The preparation of Decolonization in West New Guinea was cancelled by US and UN because Freeport intervention to exploited the Mineral Mountain in Grasberg Mine.
But then, this island was annexed by Indonesia and was controlled by Indonesia since 1 May 1963 until this year 2012. The Indonesian called it Irian Barat then changed it to Irian Jaya since 1976. But then, they changed to Papua and divided into two Province that is Papua and Papua Barat (West Papua).
Contact Info
Email admin@oppb.org
Website http://www.oppb.org
http://www.oppb.webs.com
http://www.colonywestpapua.info
http://www.wpik.org
2. The International Red Cross must have full access to West Papua! 
West Papua is one of the poorest areas in Indonesia where most of the people live at subsistence level with appalling health, welfare and education problems. This despite its vast reserves of copper, gold, oil, gas, and virgin hardwood forests. None of the profit from plundering these resources goes to the people of West Papua.
We support the West Papuans in their right to self determination to decide their own future. However, there is an excessively high number of Indonesian troops and military style police (estimates range between 12,000 - 30,000; we are unable to confirm these numbers due to lack of transparency) stationed in this region. There is no open and free access to the country.
The Red Cross is an impartial independent organisation with an exclusive humanitarian mission. Since 1949 the Red Cross has had an international mandate conferred on it by the Geneva Conventions, which task the ICRC with visiting prisoners, organising relief operations, re-uniting separated families and similar humanitarian activities during armed conflicts.
The Statutes of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement encourage these organisations to undertake similar work in situations of internal violence, where the Geneva Conventions do not apply.
3. Don't Train Indonesia's Deadly Kopassus
The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) is opposed to U.S. training of Indonesia's notorious Special Forces (Kopassus). More than any other unit in the Indonesian military, Kopassus stands accused of the most egregious human rights violations.Journalist Allan Nairn has recently exposed Kopassus involvement in political murders in Aceh in 2009. Tell the Obama administration not to train Kopassus.
The history of Kopassus human rights violations, its criminality and its unaccountability before Indonesian courts extends back decades and includes human rights and other crimes in East Timor, Aceh, West Papua and elsewhere. The crimes of Kopassus are not only in the past. A Human Rights Watch report published last spring details ongoing Kopassus human right violations in West Papua.
In 2008, the Bush administration proposed to restart U.S. training of Kopassus. the State Department legal counsel reportedly ruled that the ban on training of military units with a history of involvement in human rights violations, known as the Leahy law, applies to Kopassus as a whole. This ruling should stand.
See the letter organized by ETAN and signed by more than 50 U.S. organizations - including School of Americas Watch, Pax Christi, Peace Action - opposing training for Kopassus
http://www.etan.org/news/2009/07kopassus.htm.
For updates see ETAN's website - http://www.etan.org
4. Resolve the West Papuan Crisis
Little know it, but at least 100,000 Papuans (one sixth of the total population) have been killed during the occupation of the Indonesian Government since 1963. Many more have been "disappeared" or starved to death from forced relocation to inhospitable areas.
It's almost impossible to document the exact number of victims, since academics, human-rights defenders and journalists are targets themselves of intimidation, torture and murder.
This sickens me how the Australian Government will do nothing about this crisis, refusing to get involved while our neighbours are massacred by Indonesian Military and Police Personnel.
Help stop the genocide in West Papua and force the Australian Government to get its act together and support our brothers next door.
(Information obtained from 'Why the Indonesian occupation of West Papua constitutes genocide'
Submitted by KamReed on March 30, 2004, from WestPAN - http://www.westpapua.ca/?q=node/69. For further reading, this article gives insightful information on the Indonesian occupation of West Papua)
Two residents attempting to hoist West Papua's Morning Star independence flag in the coastal city of Sorong were shot dead by Indonesian police on July 28.
More than 15,000 pro-independence supporters staged a peaceful protest in the West Papuan town of Manokwari on July 30 to mark the 1969 "Act of Free Choice" which resulted in West Papua's "integration" with Indonesia. Protesters covered a monument commemorating the referendum with black cloth saying it was "a monument to a historical lie".