Supporters of self-determination for West Papua joined together on December 1 for the annual Morning Star flag raising at Leichhardt Town Hall.
This is the 19th year in a row that the West Papuan flag was raised above this historic building in Sydney’s inner west.
On this day, all across West Papua, the Pacific island nations and other countries around the world, West Papuans and their supporters raise the Morning Star flag — a symbol of their struggle for independence.
However, in Indonesian-occupied West Papua, Joe Collins from the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA), said the brave people who raise the flag “will be risking arrest, torture and even death for this act”.
The Morning Star flag was first raised on December 1, 1961, while West Papua was still under Dutch colonial rule. However, in 1963, West Papua was occupied by Indonesia and, in 1969, the United Nations gave legitimacy to the Indonesian occupation through a fake act of self-determination.
“Indonesia held a ‘referendum’, which they called the Act of Free Choice but West Papuans call it the ‘Act of No Choice’,” Collins said. “Only 1025 West Papuans were chosen to vote in this ‘referendum’. Basically, under the gun, they were forced to integrate into Indonesia.”
Susan Connelly, a Josephite nun, recounted her meeting with a West Papuan woman who was one of these chosen 1025. “She was taken away from her family — her husband and four children — and she was kept for a week with the other [chosen] people and told of the wondrousness of coming under Indonesia.
“On the day of [the ‘Act of Free Choice’] she was taken to a hall full of West Papuan people and given a megaphone to read out a statement that said she supported Indonesian occupation of West Papua. She read it out. I would have read it out too because all around the walls [of the hall] were Indonesian soldiers with their guns at the ready.”
Dr Anne Noonan, from AWPA, told the gathering: “I am a doctor and I can tell you that there is a genocide going on in West Papua. They are being displaced all the time for mining or forestry ... and they are dying much faster than Indonesians.”
“In West Papua now, the situation is getting worse,” Collins said. "There are ongoing military operations and just on October 15, 15 people were killed in a military operation and last week there was a drone attack.
“The situation is escalating. There are over 100,000 internally displaced people driven out by Indonesian military operations.”
West Papuan Jack Warisyu, who raised the Morning Star flag, told the gathering: “West Papua is on our doorstep, only 200 miles from the Australian border, and it is very sad that the Albanese government keeps on denying our fight against injustice, against discrimination, against human rights abuse and for our right to self-determination.”
[See this film and forum on Wednesday December 3 — West Papua’s Food Estate — An assault on land and people — at the Resistance Bookshop, Shop 4, 22–36 Mountain Street, Ultimo NSW, 2007.]