In his New Year’s message to supporters around the world and back home in West Papua, Mr. Wainggai – speaking in PNG Pijin – urged supporters to speak up against Indonesian colonial oppression and human rights violations, which he said continued unabated in West Papua. As we reported earlier, more than seventy West Papuans have been killed by the Indonesian military and police in 2022, including four West Papuans who were lured to a remote area in Mimika, executed and dismembered by members of Indonesian special forces. If this killing was done in other countries, the international community would be outraged, but in West Papua such killing is being ignored or buried by the government.
He also asked why people paid so much attention to the war in Ukraine when Indonesia is responsible for half a million deaths in his homeland since Indonesia occupied it in 1969. Indonesia and other Pacific Islands jointed the western world in condemning Russia, yet they are silent about the ongoing human suffering in West Papua.
Mr. Wainggai also thanked the governments of the United States, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, Marshall Islands and others, for highlighting the ongoing human rights crisis in West Papua. Referring to the recent Human Rights meeting in Geneva, Mr. Wainggai praised these governments for putting Indonesia on the spot. However, he pointed out that no matter what happened in these international meetings, violation of their rights continue unabated.
34 years on, Mr. Wainggai said things haven’t change since the death of his uncle in 1996. His uncle Dr. Thom Wainggai was killed because he exposed Indonesian corruption, illegal occupation of West Papua, and other various crimes he’d witnessed throughout his life as a young student and a renowned West Papuan scholar. Things they killed Dr. Thom for are still going on in West Papua. One thing Dr. Thom stressed in his time as a leader of the West Papuan ‘Nonviolent Movement’ is that fact that West Papuans are entitled to various rights protected by international law; something Indonesia denied West Papuans for decades. Among those rights, is the right to an independent West Papua. And it was because of this, they killed him. Mr. Wainggai said that West Papuans are afraid to speak out because of fear of being killed too, or send to prison for many years.
In closing, he urged his people to join the struggle and continue the legacy left behind by their former leaders. “We fight together until we gain our independence,” he urged his people. In this fight, Mr. Wainggai mean the peaceful struggle against a violent occupying force – Indonesia.
Today, Mr. Wainggai continues his work as West Papuan representative to the UN and the US government. And he calls on all freedom-loving people around the world to stand up to injustice against his people, and to call for the Indonesian government to allow investigators to visit West Papua, and let West Papuans vote for their own self-determination.