From June 27-29, 2024, the PPT held a session in London at Queen Mary University (QMU) to give voice to the peoples of West Papua and to examine Indonesia’s responsibility in the increasing violence and repression against them and to the detriment of the environment. The session had been requested in February under an urgent procedure by the QMU’s Center for Climate Crime and Climate Justice and several Indonesian and international associations committed to defending human rights and the environment in the region.
As stated in the preliminary statement, in addition to the need to make even more visible a tragic situation that has been substantially marginalized in official public discourse and political action, the West Papua case must be seen as an example of the international community’s inability and unwillingness to recognize and respond to peoples’ fundamental right to existence and self-determination:
“West Papua represents an exemplary case of the extension, against all evidence of non-legitimacy, of a colonial logic in which the very existence of historically and culturally independent peoples is denied, and their identities, values and cultures are structurally ignored and violated with impunity.”
The declaration will be presented in its final form at the 54th session of the UN Human Rights Council to be held in Geneva in September 2024.