http://www.petitiononline.com/westpap/petition.html

To: Kofi Anan, Secretary General, United Nations

JUSTICE AND SELF-DETERMINATION FOR WEST PAPUA (IRIAN JAYA)

A CALL FOR A GENUINE ACT OF SELF-DETERMINATION FOR PAPUANS

BACKGROUND

In November 2001, two senior UN officials, including the head of the UN mission to oversee the handing-over of West Papua to Indonesia, admitted that the Act of Free Choice was a sham - 'a whitewash, designed to appease the Americans and the Indonesians'.

West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea. The independent nation of Papua New Guinea (PNG) makes up the eastern half.

In 1949, when the Dutch East Indies became Indonesia, the Dutch colonial power excluded West New Guinea as it was then called, and started to prepare it for independence. WNG was predominately Melanesian, unlike the rest of the East Indies. Australia, at the time, supported independence for West Papua.

In 1961 Indonesia invaded West Papua. In 1962 the United States, fearing that Indonesia was leaning toward communism, forced Holland to sign the New York Agreement, which handed West Papua over to Indonesia for a period of six years, to be followed by an act of self-determination.

In 1969 Indonesia conducted the sham Act of Free Choice, in which only 1025 Papuans from the population of 800,000, voted, under threat of having their tongues cut-out, to remain a part of Indonesia. Shamefully the UN sanctioned this vote, and West Papua became the province of Irian Jaya.

Church groups estimate that since 1961, 400,000 people have been killed or disappeared under the brutal Indonesian military occupation. Murder, torture, rape, summary detentions and destruction of entire villages, continues to this day.

Since 1988 Papuans have carried on a non-violent struggle for justice in West Papua, despite the horrific acts of violence and intimidation by Indonesian security forces. On November 10 Chief Theys Eluay, an important Papuan leader, was assassinated by the Indonesian military in yet another attempt to destroy the Papuan's inspirational struggle for a peaceful solution.

AFTER 40 YEARS IT'S TIME FOR A GENUINE ACT OF SELF-DETERMINATION FOR WEST PAPUA.

We the undersigned call on the United Nations to immediately institute a timeline for a referendum for the people of West Papua.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

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