Convenor, West Papua Action Canterbury and a member of the national West Papua Action Aotearoa network.

New Zealand claims to be a Pacific neighbour, but badly sells short West Papua, a fellow Pacific nation, by putting trade & security deals with Indonesia (which has occupied West Papua for over 60 years) ahead of human rights for West Papua. In that sense, external trade and security arrangements exert a strong degree of foreign control over so-called independent Aotearoa-NZ. During Poto Williams' term as an MP, she told me that the then Labour government's front bench was dominated by "tradies" (trade advocates) over those for human rights. Under the present "Coalition of Chaos" it's unlikely to be any different.

Currently the two-way trade between NZ & Indonesia is worth $3.3 billion annually. Indonesia is presently the world's tenth biggest economy and expected to shortly become the sixth. Much of that wealth is robbed from West Papua with its largest gold mine in the world, the second largest copper mine and extensive palm oil plantations carved out of rain forests that the indigenous West Papuans are so dependent on. In addition to trade, NZ regularly updates its security arrangements with Indonesia. As a consequence there is little hope of NZ changing its policy under both National and Labour of viewing West Papua as an "integral part of Indonesia".

Back in the 1950s Indonesia was agitating for the Netherlands to cede West Papua as the remainder of the previous Netherlands-controlled East Indies. The Netherlands held out, claiming that West Papua, like its neighbouring Papua New Guinea (occupying the other half of the island of New Guinea) belonged more in the Pacific Melanesian family of nations than Asia.

In opposition to Indonesian aspirations, the Dutch were preparing West Papua for independence by granting the country a legislative council, a flag and anthem and introducing its leaders to Pacific-wide forums and networks. At the same time, Indonesia was leaning towards Russia and a concerned USA fearing Indonesia might go communist, lobbied the United Nations to grant Indonesia a temporary trusteeship of West Papua pending a UN supervised referendum in 1969.

Dubbed by West Papuans the "Act of No Choice", Indonesia rigged the 1969 referendum in its favour which the UN foolishly endorsed. Brutal repression of West Papuan aspirations for independence followed, with, to date, over 100,000 West Papuans killed and thousands more imprisoned and tortured. Not surprisingly, a "Free Papua Movement" developed and it's this group, variously known as OPM/TPNPB, which is holding hostage the NZ pilot Philip Mehrtens who worked for an Indonesian airline flying regularly into West Papua.

Negotiations continue for the release of Mehrtens with OPM/TPNPB likely to comply if NZ will make some significant statement of support for West Papua's self determination. Given NZ's growing dependence on trade and security deals with Indonesia, this is unlikely to happen. NZ did sign up to a Pacific Islands Forum request that Indonesia allow the United Nations Human Rights Commission into West Papua to investigate alleged breaches of human rights, but NZ has refused to repeat this request unilaterally.

Trade & Security Deals Trump Human Rights

Instead, NZ has signed trade and security deals with Indonesia that prioritise such deals well ahead of human rights concerns. A few years ago I wrote to Winston Peters, then (as now) the Minister for Foreign Affairs, pointing out that our even handed approach to both Taiwan and China hasn't impaired our trade with China and suggesting that we could do the same towards both Indonesia and West Papua. My letter resulted in a patsy acknowledgement but nothing more!

We were late in acknowledging the right of independence for Timor Leste and we are also dragging the chain again in regard to West Papua. We claim to be a Pacific nation but are ignoring the cries for fairness and freedom of West Papuans and the Kanaky people of New Caledonia. In so doing. we are allowing the foreign powers of Indonesia & France (aided and abetted by other foreign powers) to exercise an extraordinary degree of foreign control over our so called independent Aotearoa-New Zealand foreign policy.

Watchdog - 166 August 2024