I was pleased to speak about West Papua on a panel at a conference of the Peace and Justice Project today in London.  

The theme of the panel was ‘Homes, Land, and Dignity’ – all topics that are very relevant for West Papua, where our homes and land are being stolen, and our dignity violated by the genocidal Indonesian occupation.  

I spoke about the ongoing genocide and ecocide occurring in West Papua. As I said this week, genocide and ecocide are deeply connected in West Papua – Indonesia kills our people in order to access and steal our resources.  

I also appealed to the crowd to support the new boycott Indonesia campaign, which was announced by the Pacific Conference of Churches last year. Our brothers and sisters in the PCC called for a boycott of Indonesian products – like Indomie, Indonesian coffee, and holidays in Bali – until they facilitate a visit to West Papua by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. As was showed in South Africa under Apartheid, a boycott shows that people power can fight against a colonial regime like Indonesia. All people must support this boycott until Indonesia facilitates a UN visit and allows the world to see the genocidal situation they have created in our land. 

The Peace and Justice Project was set up by Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the Labour Party, who was one of the original signatories of the International Parliamentarians for West Papua (IPWP) in 2008. Jeremy is a longtime supporter of West Papua and introduced the issue into the Labour Manifesto for the first time in 2019. 

Benny Wenda