Women raise the Morning Star Flag to honor West Papua

Pacific and Maori Women raise the Morning Star Flag to honor West Papua December 1st

On Thursday December 1st 2016, 5:30pm at the reserve on the corner of Waterfront Road and Coronation Road, Mangere Bridge in Auckland, a collective of Maori Morning Star flag, a flag banned within Indonesian administered West Papua.

Oceania Interrupted is an Auckland-based collective of Māori and Pacific women who use visual and performance art to raise awareness about the ongoing human rights abuses and atrocities committed within West Papua.

West Papuan people are constantly terrorised by the Indonesian military, paramilitary police and intelligence agencies, while movements of journalists and humanitarian workers are excluded or tightly restricted. Despite risking long jail sentences West Papuans continue to mobilise and raise the banned Morning Star flag on 1 December.

Oceania Interrupted formed on December the 1st in 2013 in response to the need to raise awareness of the situation of the active colonisation and ongoing human rights abuses committed against the indigenous people of West Papua.

The performance is entitled “Self Determination - Free West Papua” and is the 10th in a series of 15 actions Oceania Interrupted is committed to producing. 15 is a relevant number as it is represents the years of the sentence handed down to those who raise the Morning Star flag.

West Papuan people are constantly terrorised by the Indonesian military, paramilitary police and intelligence agencies, while movements of journalists and humanitarian workers are excluded or tightly restricted. Despite risking long jail sentences West Papuans continue to mobilise and raise the banned Morning Star flag on 1 December.

Oceania Interrupted will join a day of mass action worldwide, with demonstrations planned to raise the Morning Star flag in Melbourne, Sydney, London, The Hague, West Papua, and many other places.

Oceania Interrupted member, Leilani Salesa says, “On December 1st Oceania Interrupted comes together to empower collective action for a Free West Papua. We raise the Morning Star flag with the knowledge that West Papuans who raise the flag face harsh penalties and brutal consequences. Arrests, of peaceful protesters by the Indonesian military have already begun. Oceania Interrupted stands with West Papuan people and we perform in solidarity for a Free West Papua.”

West Papua

West Papua forms the western half of New Guinea and neighbours Papua New Guinea. Since 1963 when Indonesia took military and territorial control, the ongoing conflict has led to more than 100,000 deaths. Papuan campaigners say they are experiencing ‘slow genocide’.

The military in Indonesian-occupied West Papua has committed human rights abuses against the indigenous Papuan population for over half a century. The abuses include killings, beating, gross mistreatment of peaceful protesters and the routine practice of torture. The loss of life and the multiple impacts of a brutal colonial rule on health and the environment amount to a ‘slow genocide’.

Peaceful resistance to Indonesian rule is now the norm – but youthful Papuan demonstrators are subjected to violence and arbitrary detention. Innocent civilians are targeted as a deliberate policy of terrorising the population and suppressing dissent.

Indonesian authorities severely restrict the access of foreign journalists to visit and report on what is happening in West Papua. But thanks to mobile phones the crimes committed by the military are not hidden.

ENDS

© Scoop Media