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West Papuans testify

By Jason MacLeod - posted Friday, 15 January 2016


Rather than acknowledge the truth, they tell lies.

The perpetrators are promoted not punished, while the victims are dragged into court.

Some of us have spent years in prison. One of us was jailed for 15 years simply for raising our Morning Star flag.

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Over years we have faced one injustice after another and then another.

There has been violation after violation since 1963. Entire villages have been destroyed. And Papuan people have been turned against other Papuans.

Injustices continue to this day. Today we face human rights violations, economic injustice, and every week thousands more migrants come in white ships and planes. We are becoming a minority in our land.

Those who resist face continuing discrimination. We are excluded from employment, education and health care. And for women, it has been worse.

They suffered the rapes and assaults and then even more. They were shamed by their own families and often marriages broke apart. These are forms of double injustice and women's suffering that no one should ever have to face.

These are just some of the injustices that we are testifying to today.

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We want the world to know about this.

We also want to testify to the effects of these injustices

Some of our bodies bear the scars.

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This testimony was written in collaboration with Mama Tineke and Daniel Rayer, two West Papuan activists who survived the Biak Massacre, and David Denborough from the Dulwich Centre. It contains the voices of many of the people of West Papua Jason has collaborated with and is in part based on a similar testimony developed for the Biak Massacre Citizens Tribunal.



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About the Author

Jason MacLeod is an organiser, researcher and educator. He is the author of the just-published book Merdeka and the Morning Star: civil resistance in West Papua.

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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