AFTER YEARS of protest against the Indonesian occupation and the multinational despoilation of their land the Free Papua Movement has resorted to taking scientists into custody in order to get international recognition.
It is a tactic that has worked. West Papua has now made its way onto the worto meard agenda.
West Papua was annexed by Indonesia after a ballot by gunpoint in 1969. This opened the tribespeople from their ancestral lands and to begin digging for minerals.
Now Freeport-RTZ (FP-RTZ Is a US/UK multi-national) are sitting on the biggest copper and gold reserves in the world.
There has been mass resistance among the villagers to the exploitation and the consequent environmental pollution.
The problem was great exac. erbated in 1995 when FP-RTZ worn a conson. Their Interests expanded from 11,000 to over 2,6 million hectares. sively for the tribespeople. Dis. placement of thousands is sure to follow to the lowland Timika area where others have been resettled and have faced human rights abuses and murder.
The unit that has detalned the sclentists is led by Kelly Kwallk who has been active since the late 1970s. The Free Papua Movement has not as yet Issued a statement on the deten. tion and the unit is hiding in a reSince 1994 they have been mounting peaceful actions in the form of flag raising—a tradiPapuans to express their identity. They have been Ignored.
In one final attempt Kelly Kwalik organised a flag raising ceremony - which in the past has led to the Indonesian armed forces killing those taking part -on Christmas Day 1995.
No international press or ob. servers attended. It was followIng this that the detention plan was hatched.
According to Carmel Budiardjo of TAPOL, the Indonesia Human Rights organisation, the scientists are in no the Indonesian KOPASSUS troops - Infamous for their brutality in East Timor - who are being sent to West Papua to lind the unit.
Carmel Budlardjo argues that "The Labour and trade unIon movement In Britain needs to pur pressure on the british Government to end Its political and economic support for the Indonesian Government and to campaign for the ending of the Indonesia occupation of West Papua." The West Papuans ur. gently need international soli-