fPcN interCultural:

friends of Peoples close to Nature

(some names and data are replaced with XXX for security reasons!)
I just wanted to send through a quick update on the situation in West Papua. I just arrived after spending the last 8 weeks (November and December 2008) there making an undercover documentary with a friend. We managed to smuggle alot of very powerful video footage out of the country, and come back with a very strong message from the people of West Papua - their desire for freedom and readiness to act by whichever means to achieve it is burning more brightly now than at anytime in recent history. Below is a brief summary of our trip and our time at an OPM (the West Papuan guerilla force) training camp in the XXX region.

Benny Wenda, leader of the koteka Tribal Assembly and his wife Maria Wenda, Serogo, Brother and Roger Harmar who are the Lani Singers appear on BBC radio Londons Saturday night show a world in London hosted by Dj Ritu. They perform music from the new Lani Singers album and some traditional West Papuan music. Benny also talks about his story and about the struggle in West Papua for independence from Indonesia as well as talking about West Papuan traditions and music culture.

Vice President of the current opposition partly in Vanuatu, Reuben Ishmael, Chief of Masoen Maramanu Tinapuna, from the 'Shepherds Alliance' party, speaks for a free and independent West Papua. And independence for all Melanesians

Abel David M.P from the 'Shepherds Alliance' party in Vanuatu speaks for West Papua & other colonised peoples of Melanesia and the world.

At the 'car wash'...modernity and traditional culture collide in the Baliem Valley.

The "car wash" in the remote Baliem Valley of Indonesia's Papua region is not as innocent as it seems at first glance, and just decades ago anything like it would have been inconceivable.

A fertile basin gouged out of jagged mountains, the valley has been in contact with the outside world only since the end of World War II. Everything, from clothing to metal, money and medicine is new here.

At the "car wash" on a quiet intersection in Wamena town, homeless men and boys from the villages squat by the roadside in the midday sun, drinking and waiting for cars and motorcycles to roll up.

Washing the cars brings in some money, but the real money comes from sex with the drivers. Seeing a camera, the workers point and laugh at friends lying drunk and unconscious on the ground.

This is the 55th in a series of monthly reports that focus on developments affecting Papuans. This series is produced by the non-profit West Papua Advocacy Team (WPAT) drawing on media accounts, other NGO assessments, and analysis and reporting from sources within West Papua. This report is co-published with the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) Back issues are posted online at http://etan.org/issues/wpapua/default.htm Questions regarding this report can be addressed to Edmund McWilliams at edmcw@msn.com.

Contents:
* Thousands of Papuans Demonstrate Peacefully, Calling for Independence
* Papuan Academics call for a Human Rights Court and Reconciliation Commission for West Papua
* Papuans Peacefully Demonstrate against Militarism
* Secession Threats Raised in West Papua and Elsewhere over Passage of Islamic Law-Based Legislation
* Papuan Governor Suebu to Launch Anti-HIV/AIDS Campaign as the Disease Spreads Explosively in West Papua
* Papuan Governor Suebu Describes "Special Autonomy" Implementation as "Chaotic"
* National Seminar Discusses "Marginalization" of Papuans; Racism Cited as An Underlying Cause

Original footage of the 'first contact' between Papuan highlanders and Australian gold prospectors in the 1930's, together with reflections from surviving participants on their swift introduction to Western colonialism.

ETAN Responds to the Wall Street Journal

by John M. Miller (National Coordinator, ETAN)

A recent Wall Street Journal Asia editorial urged its readers to watch the “low-profile” but important issue of the U. S. military relationship with Indonesia. The Journal (“Obama's Indonesia Test,” Nov. 20) repeated the widely-discredited case that re-engagement with the largely-unreformed and unrepentant Indonesian military was the best way to promote reform and human rights. It called on President-elect Barack Obama “to stand down liberal Senators and interest groups” like the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) and Amnesty International for seeking conditions on military assistance to Indonesia.

The editorial acknowledges the obvious, stating “Indonesia's military has certainly had human-rights problems in the past,” but urges the incoming administration to forget about them in the name of building an alliance on the “global war on terror.” We have certainly seen what ignoring international human rights concerns during the Bush years has accomplished (Guantanamo, torture, “extraordinary rendition,” etc…).

The West Papuan community and their supporters in Australia are holding grave fears for the safety of Yunus and Anike Wainggai. We have reasonable suspicion that their disappearance is linked to an ongoing and high-level Indonesian intelligence operation involving the disappearance of other refugees. Anike and Yunus, went missing from their public housing flat in Collingwood Melbourne on Saturday 15 November 2008.

The Lani Singers interview and music that went out on BBC Radio 3, in September 2008