On Wednesday, December 14, 2022, Mr. Herman Wainggai (CEO of WPHRC, D.C) and friends gathered at the front gate of the Indonesian embassy in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the ‘Declaration of the Independent State of West Melanesia’, and to call on the Indonesian government to respect and recognize West Papuans’ rights to self-determination.
Mr. Wainggai began his speech by drawing attention to the history of how Indonesia came to take possession of West Papua. He began with the New York Agreement (NYA), which was an agreement signed by UN powerbrokers (USA, Britain, the Netherlands, and Indonesia) without the consent or the participation of the indigenous people of West Papua. As such, Mr. Wainggai called that election a “total sham.” He noted that less than 1% of West Papuans were sequestered, coached, and coerced to vote in favor of Indonesia. He said that the people of West Papua in 1969 “rejected” the election. And then he said, “we reject that election today!”
Mr. Wainggai went on to explain the important of December 14 to his indigenous people. He stated that on December 14, 1988, his uncle, Dr. Thom Wainggai and more than seventy tribal leaders declared West Papua the ‘Independent State of West Melanesia‘. He said that that the declaration infuriated the Indonesian government that they arrested his uncle, convicted him of “subversion” and sent him to prison for 20 years. Dr. Thom was murdered in 1996 serving only 8 years into his 20-year prison term. Mr. Wainggai argued that “no amount military intimidation” would change the fact that West Papuans are a free people of the ‘independent state’ of West Melanesia.
Solution to the conflict
There are solutions to the ongoing conflict in West Papua, but Mr. Wainggai believes that there’s only one solution. He said that the Indonesian President Widodo should know that the only solution to the conflict in West Papua is for the Indonesian government to allow the West Papuan indigenous people to vote for their own “self-determination.” It was should have been done in 1961, instead it was hijacked and robbed by the Indonesian government. Without this, Mr. Wainggai argued that “there will no peace” for as long as West Papuans are alive and well.
In closing, Mr. Wainggai appealed to friends around the world, and his people back home, to stand with him and support him and other West Papua leaders. He also quoted Martin Luther King, Jr., who said that the worse thing is for friends to be quiet or do nothing. He also remembered those who went before him; those who died for the struggle of West Papua, saying that the people of West Papua “remember them” and will continue to honor their memories by keeping the pressure on Indonesia.
Mr. Wainggai was arrested and jailed for six months, and later rearrested in 2002 and jailed for two more years. In 2006 he escaped from West Papua on a homemade boat to Australia. Today, he lives in Washington, D.C. working with the George Mason University (GMU), and represents West Papuan interest to the US government, and the UN.