ASIA-PACIFIC Colonized by Indonesia since the 1960s, West Papua and its interim president Benny Wenda continue to fight for independence, and to pay tribute to the hundreds of thousands of Papuans tortured and killed by the Jakarta army.
He has traded his feather headdress for a suit and tie, de rigueur in the greyness of London, but not his smile, happy to answer questions from L’Humanité . Because even in exile, Benny Wenda cries out in silence, fights against indifference. The interim president of West Papua , the half of the island that is occupied by Indonesia, has spent decades denouncing the abuses suffered by his people and the omerta orchestrated by Jakarta.
Since 1969 and an “act of free choice” that left them none, between 150,000 and 500,000 inhabitants have been killed by the Indonesian army, accustomed to bloodbaths and other anti-communist purges. The election in February 2024 of the general and war criminal Prabowo Subianto does not help matters. In the bush, the armed groups continue to fight, and Benny Wenda is counting on the international community to lift the Papuan taboo.
What is the current situation in West Papua?
These past few years have been quite difficult. You should know that since 2018 and until today, Indonesia has been conducting frequent military operations in West Papua, which remains an occupied territory, where more than 500,000 men, women and children have been killed by the Indonesian army since the 1960s. We no longer count the abuses we suffer because of our isolation in the Asia-Pacific region. Racism, ecocide, genocide, we are still experiencing them today.
Between 60,000 and 100,000 people have become internally displaced, for example in the villages of Intan Jaya (in the centre), Maybrat (in the west), Oksibil (on the border with Papua New Guinea, editor’s note), and many others. Most of the time, children do not go to school since the school buildings are used by the Indonesian army. Our churches are burned. Our pastors are murdered. In West Papua, 95% of the inhabitants are Christians, a proportion that is due to European colonization. That is why Indonesia sees the Papuans in this way: because we are black, Christian, in a word different.