Today marks the 55th anniversary of the July 1, 1971, Proclamation of the Republic of West Papua, declaring the people of Papua to be free and independent in their own homeland. Yet the struggle for freedom, self-determination, and the sovereignty over their land, life, and culture continues.
No child should ever have to grow up under the shadow of fear, and violence. The systemic racial discrimination heavily marginalizes the youth, leaving them highly susceptible to infant and child mortality. There is a denial and severe neglect of basic public health services and educational facilities. Under the guise of military operations, thousands of individuals including Indigenous youth are subjected to forced displacement, leaving them to struggle for survival without access to food or humanitarian aid.
Different forms of attacks have evolved throughout decades yet they yield the same destructive aftermath, including death, violation of human rights, displacement, exploitation of natural resources, and ancestral land grabbing. Just recently, another Indonesian drone strike in Danggoa Village, Intan Jaya Regency, severely wounded two Papuan women. This attack displaced 3,000 more Papuans, adding to the 122,000 civilians currently fleeing Indonesian military operations. Similarly, they have also targeted civilian areas in Indigenous West Papuan Territory, including refugee camps and villages, which has forced residents from different villages to seek safety in the surrounding forests. The Indonesian occupation army has increasingly relied on unmanned aerial vehicle strikes as their primary strategy. These lethal operations were not out in the public because Indonesian authorities were also believed to have cut internet access for a number of days, which prevented civilians from reporting what was happening locally to the outside world.
As the world continues to be deaf about their suffering, the inhumane acts against them persist. Silence drowns out the truth, if the fascist state silences the situation, we have the power to make their plight audible through our collective voices. Accordingly, the Indigenous youth are taking direct, concrete actions to defend their rights and secure their future by joining mass mobilizations, proactively participating in gaining and sharing vital knowledge to empower their own people and inform the global community, and amplifying silenced voices in their creative ways by connecting with fellow youths across the globe to discuss advocacies in their respective communities about protecting ancestral lands and fight for sovereignty.
The Asia Young Indigenous Peoples Network recognizes that the proclamation of independence for West Papua served as a clear expression of the peoples’ deep-seated hope and desire for liberty and self-governance. As Indigenous youth across Asia, we call upon youth, activists, and allies to raise solidarity with the West Papuan struggle. We must organize, speak out, and dismantle the ruthless imperialist machine and the violent, systemic oppression designed to systematically erase West Papuans.
The Indigenous youth firmly stand at the frontlines of today’s resistance against systemic injustice, carrying forward the struggles rooted in the wisdom and pain of their elders’ history and with the hope of reclaiming the sovereign, sustainable future that the Indigenous children of tomorrow deserve.
