Prabowo or Jokowi, a referendum is still the only solution

As Prabowo Subianto takes office as Indonesian President, the ULMWP restates its basic demand for an internationally-mediated referendum on independence.

The continued violation of our self-determination is the root cause of the West Papua conflict. Only a referendum can resolve our issue.

This is a frightening time for my people. Prabowo is complicit in genocide in West Papua and East Timor. As a Kopassus General, he committed many massacres in occupied East Timor, while in West Papua he was responsible for the Mapenduma Disaster and the many innocent lives lost in the aftermath. His family’s interests in palm oil and mining have since brought further destruction to our forest, mountain, and rivers. In Indonesia, business, military, and politics are three heads of the same beast.

The appointment of a West Papuan, Natalius Pigai, as Minister for Human Rights is pure PR that does nothing to reduce the threat of Prabowo’s Presidency. This is a classic diversion tactic used by colonisers all over the world. We will not be fooled by token representation while our people are killed and our forest is destroyed.

As world leaders travelled to Jakarta for the inauguration, the Indonesian state against ramped up its ecocidal destruction of the Papuan rainforest. In Merauke, Indonesia has launched the biggest deforestation project ever created, and has deployed 5000 additional troops to protect their colonial investment. There are two interlinked crimes occurring in West Papua: ecocide and genocide. Over 500,000 West Papuans have been killed under Indonesian rule, many of them under Suharto’s New Order dictatorship.

Now, the ghost of Suharto has returned: Prabowo was the dictator’s son-in-law, and played a key role in his administration. The New Order might be gone but the mindset and culture of the Indonesian military is the same. The TNI still act with total impunity in West Papua. Even under the supposed ‘reformer’ Joko Widodo, the Indonesian state refused to prosecute the child-murdering soldiers who committed the 2014 Paniai massacre.

I warned in 2014 that Widodo was bringing false hope to West Papua. Since then, we have suffered a massive increase in militarisation, with over 100,000 Papuans displaced and more than 1000 dead due to TNI operations since 2018. The only answer, then and now, is to fulfill our right to self-determination. I therefore repeat to Prabowo the demands I made many times to his predecessor:

1. Withdraw your military from West Papua and allow civilians to return home;
2. Allow international and domestic media to report freely from West Papua;
3. Immediately allow the long-delayed visit to West Papua by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights;
4. Find a permanent solution to the West Papua issue by allowing an internationally-mediated independence referendum.

As President of the ULMWP, elected by the West Papuan people, I am ready to sit down with President Prabowo, elected by the people of Indonesia. Instead of another decade of killing and displacement, we can meet as equals and peacefully discuss ending this decades-long war and securing peace in West Papua. Further military force cannot resolve this conflict: self-determination is the only possible solution.

A referendum is not only my demand or the demand of the ULMWP. It is the demand of the entire West Papuan people: the 2017 Papuan People’s Petition supporting self-determination was signed by 1.8 million West Papuans, over 70% of the indigenous population. Our commitment to liberation has never been stronger. For the good of both our peoples, let us find a long-term solution to this issue.