Singing Songs and Flying stars on Princes Bridge, Melbourne

Tuesday 17 January 2012, 5pm

A commemoration of this day six years ago, when forty-three West Papuans beached their traditional canoe at Mappoon in far north Queensland and asked for political asylum.

The maritime odyssey of forty-three West Papuans was unique: from Jayapura in the north of West Papua to Sorong in the west to Meruake in the south, then across the treacherous Arafura Sea. Australian Customs torched their beautifully hand-crafted boat, but Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone recognized their political claims.

Australia’s recognition of their claims of ‘well-founded fears of persecution under the Refugee Convention’ generated a remarkable treaty between Canberra and Jakarta. Signed by the Howard government in 2006, legislated by the Rudd government in 2008, the Lombok Treaty enshrined ‘non-interference’ as a principal, effectively of human rights abuses, contradicting our obligations under the Rome Statue that were embedded into Australian domestic law with the International Criminal Court Act 2002.

Political analyst Hugh White told a parliamentary inquiry in 2007 that Article 2.3 of the Lombok Treaty was ‘an error’ that ‘goes well beyond Australian law and Australia’s political culture’ (Hansard, Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, 26 March 2007). Only recently has its consequences begun to attract public attention (ABC The Drum, Lombok: our promise to say nothing 11 Jan 2012, Dr Kayt Davies).

Thus, we have a bizarre situation on Princes Bridge today where Morning Star flag-fliers are in accord with international and domestic law but breaking the terms of Australia’s precocious Lombok Treaty with Indonesia.

Meantime, in West Papua, the independence movement has managed what most non-Papuans had always considered impossible. That is, it now has the institutional capacity to speak the political with one voice; wrought on 19 October 2010 when the Federated Republic of West Papua elected a president and prime minister. The Indonesian Republic immediately launched an incriminating round of military actions and incarcerated President Forkorus Yaboisembut and Prime Minister Edison Waromi, replicating Dutch Police Actions against Republik Indonesia between 1945 and 1949. (In contrast to Republik Indonesia, which only ever represented Java and Sumatra, the West Papuan institution is demonstrably representative of mainstream society across the territory).

ENDS