Free West Papua Now

Break Free from the Chains of Discrimination and Oppression! Free West Papua Now!

With highest salute and strongest solidarity, the International Indigenous Peoples Movement for Self-determination and Liberation (IPMSDL) stands with the struggle of the peoples of West Papua! In their growing call to defeat all forms of racism and discrimination rooted in colonial and imperialist oppression, IPMSDL stands with West Papua until the ultimate achievement of its independence.

The unfolding of massive protest actions in Manokwari, Sorong, Jayapura, Wamena, Fakfak and various other cities in Papua, expanding up to Sulawesi, Java, Sumatra and Nusa Tenggara in Indonesia, is sparked by the unjust arrest and racial insults to Papuan students in East Java by Indonesia state forces and ultra-nationalist groups. But even before this, a looming resistance born out of historical oppression and deepest desires for West Papua’s liberation has long sought loud outcry.

The issue of West Papua’s self-determination, the question of national subjugation and struggle for independence is an urgent and decisive concern, as its majority is comprised of Indigenous Peoples, and as peoples oppressed by a ruling group and power of different nationality.

By Indonesia’s subversion of 1969 UN’s referendum towards West Papua’s independence from Dutch colonial rule, Indonesia imposed its own system and militarized the whole West Papua – the most militarized region in Indonesia with more than 45,000 troops. The referendum, deemed as a ‘fixed land grab,’ is said to take away 500,000 lives of West Papuan. And after five decades, the continuing human rights violations and killings threaten to wipe the Papuans.

West Papua’s subjugation to Indonesia assured the plunder of natural resources by multinationals and local ruling classes and reactionaries such as the continuing operation of the world’s destructive gold mine, US-company Freeport, and million hectares of palm oil plantations among others. Indonesia’s heavy militarization and transmigration policy lead to the genocide of the West Papua society.

Stripping them of their right to determine their own destiny, to choose their own political status and to determine their own form of economic, cultural and social development, West Papuans have become ‘second-class’ citizens of a country not historically their own. The discrimination and inequalities West Papuans suffer goes beyond racist insults but ultimately the denial of ancestral lands and resources, and of their pursuit to freely determine their own existence and development outside an oppressive system.

And the more oppressed a nation, the greater it seeks separation to fully realize and exercise its fundamental rights and freedoms.

We call to wave the flag of struggle not against the people of Indonesia, but against imperialism and local reaction, in solidarity with the majority of Indonesians, with the Indigenous Peoples and advocates, different sectors, oppressed masses, rights defenders and advocates of peace and freedom across the globe who similarly are oppressed by the ruling colonial and imperialist system. Now that the militant struggle of West Papuan people is developing in various forms, international solidarity is needed now more than ever. As history unfolds as our West Papuan brothers and sisters leap forward global recognition of the justness of their struggle, international solidarity becomes a global responsibility!

End Indonesia’s occupation in West Papua!
Pull out Indonesian troops from West Papua!
Free West Papua!
Struggle for Self-determination and liberation!

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