DEBATE: Is Australia doing enough to support West Papua?
Location
Yarra Room, Melbourne Town Hall
About
In the Melbourne City Council's glorious Yarra Room, public identities debate a long-standing contest between Australia's human rights obligations and the need to safeguard our geo-strategic security.
West Papua is Australia's nearest neighbour, just 67 kilometres across the Torres Strait, yet we have maintained a national silence on the atrocities endured by the Indigenous Melanesians of West Papua people since 1962 when the United Nations illegally and amorally transferred the administration of its Non-Self-Governing Territory to Indonesia.
The debate will lift this vexatious issue above the parapet in Canberra and encourage politicians to view our relationship with Indonesia more critically, especially now that the West Papuans' inspiring resistance-and-nation-making imperatives have incited motions of support by the Pacific Islands Forum, African Caribbean Pacific Group, and the parliaments of the United Kingdom, Spain, The Netherlands, Portugal, and the European Union.
West Papua is Australia's nearest neighbour, just 67 kilometres across the Torres Strait, yet we have maintained a national silence on the atrocities endured by the Indigenous Melanesians of West Papua people since 1962 when the United Nations illegally and amorally transferred the administration of its Non-Self-Governing Territory to Indonesia.
The debate will lift this vexatious issue above the parapet in Canberra and encourage politicians to view our relationship with Indonesia more critically, especially now that the West Papuans' inspiring resistance-and-nation-making imperatives have incited motions of support by the Pacific Islands Forum, African Caribbean Pacific Group, and the parliaments of the United Kingdom, Spain, The Netherlands, Portugal, and the European Union.