fPcN interCultural:

friends of Peoples close to Nature

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

This is the 54th 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 by the East Timor and Indonesian 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.

Summary:
* International Parliamentarian Group (IPWP) Concerned about West Papua Convenes in London
* Peaceful Papuans Beaten, Detained for Welcoming Launch of IPWP; Indonesian Parliamentarians Protest Launch
* Papuan Religious Leaders Call for Dialogue between Papuans and Jakarta over Fraudulent 1969 "Act of Free Choice"
* Greenpeace Calls for Moratorium on Logging in West Papua*
* The Failure of TNI "Reform"
* U.S. Academic Testimony to US Congress Regarding Impact of Freeport Operations on The Papuan People

The Indigenous Portal is an outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS . WSIS was a two-phase series, United Nations (UN) sponsored summit about information and communication. The Geneva Summit in December 2003 laid the foundations with a Declaration of Principles and a plan of action. The Tunis Summit aimed to monitor and evaluate progress on the action plan and devise an agenda that will target goals for achievement by 2015. From these events came the WSIS Declaration and Plan of Action, as well as the Declaration and Plan of Action of the Global Forum of Indigenous Peoples and the Information Society.

Indonesia's renowned military show again and again how brutally oppressive they are on the small island of Biak, just off the coast of West Papua. In the 1998 Massacre.

ress Release: for immediate release & circulation
INTERNATIONAL PARLIAMENTARIANS FOR WEST PAPUA

At the Houses of Commons, London on 15th October 2008 at 3pm, will be the launch event for a historical international gathering of Parliamentarians, in support of self determination for the native people of West Papua.

Exiled West Papuan independence leader Benny Wenda will be joined by Melanesians & Parliamentarians from across the world for the launch of 'International Parliamentarians for West Papua'.

Please assemble in Parliament Square for 2pm.

The Guarani Indians of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso do Sul suffered a setback last week when FUNAI, the government's Indian affairs department, suddenly suspended studies being carried out to identify their territories.

FUNAI’s president Mercio Meira arrived in the state capital to be greeted by a demonstration of farmers opposed to Guarani land rights.
After a tense meeting with the state governor and rural producers' associations, Meira temporarily suspended the studies. Survival has just received reports that they have been resumed.

A month-long blockade of logging roads by indigenous people in the state of Sarawak, Malaysia set to protest illegal logging on their communal lands is about to be broken up by police.

More than 100 indigenous Kenyah people gathered at the blockade site on the upper Moh River on the island of Borneo claim that the blockade is their only way of calling on representatives of the Samling Timber Company and government authorities to have a consultation and meet with them to listen to their problems and demands.

The film describes a journey into the bush of Paraguay on the search for the last remain Indians, the Ayoreos. The film is made by fPcN Germany.