Kidnapped pilot Philip Mehrtens a reminder of the war in West Papua
While international attention has focused on the pilot, another “kidnapping” last month went largely unreported: the arrest of West Papua’s Governor Lukas Enembe.
Kidnapping can never be condoned, but context is important. In a region completely cut off from international media and scrutiny, West Papuans have few avenues to publicise their struggle. This is another desperate cry for international intervention since the UN and regional powers have failed them. The UN bears much responsibility since its fraudulent Act of Free Choice in 1969 officially handed West Papua to Indonesia.
Papuan separatist rebels with New Zealander pilot Phillip Mark Mehrtens, who they took hostage in early February.Credit:AP
More than 50 years later, it appears we can never offend Indonesia even as its military operates with impunity in West Papua. Why are we forging closer defence ties with Indonesia, which maintains strong military and security links with Russia, attacks regional interests and undermines our Pacific “step up”?
Locals believe Indonesia was most likely behind a massive cyberattack on Vanuatu recently which brought down the entire government’s intranet, paralysing its ability to function online for six weeks. This was the most serious cyberattack on any Pacific nation so far and feels like an “Estonia moment” – when that Baltic country became the first nation to come under a sustained cyberattack, by Russia.
For decades Jakarta, Washington and Canberra have been complicit in the greatest injustice found in our immediate region – allowing Indonesia to continue its brutal occupation of West Papua unhindered so as to profit from its considerable resources, mainly by US-owned Freeport which operates the world’s largest gold mine there.
Mehrtens is held by independence fighters who stormed his single-engine plane shortly after it landed on a small runway in Paro in remote Nduga district, Papua, Indonesia.Credit:AP
In the end, American corporate interests in West Papua should not be allowed to trump legitimate Australian and Pacific security interests at a time when building a regional Pacific alliance to counter China (and Russia) is the main game. Indonesia seems not to have got the memo and does not appreciate how much criticism Australia gets in Melanesia because of its appeasement of Indonesian aggression. Thus, Pacific nations seek to minimise Indonesian influence while welcoming Chinese engagement.
At a time Australia is pushing its climate change credentials, it seems unconcerned the most significant ecocide going on in our region is the destruction of West Papuan rainforests by oil-palm conglomerates. This is happening in the second-largest wilderness area in the world after the Amazon basin.
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Just across the sea from us, 4 million West Papuans remain hostages to war, greed and timid diplomacy. No-one comes out of this long-running tragedy looking good; not Indonesia, not the UN, America, Australia or the paralysed Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), supposed to represent Melanesian interests.
Some see West Papua as “the Ukraine of the Pacific”. So it’s ironic that Australia is helping faraway Ukraine but not the one next door to us whose struggle is equally justified and ultimately more consequential for us.
In West Papua, we remain on the wrong side of history, and humanity.
Ben Bohane is a Vanuatu-based photojournalist and producer who has reported the Pacific since 1994. He is co-founder of the Australian war photography collective DegreeSouth.
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