Melbourne researcher into satellite-communication and surveillance Jacob Grech claims Australia is ramping up arms exports to Indonesia at a time when Indonesia is stepping up its militarism in West Papua.
鈥淲est Papuans are being shot and villages bombed because Indonesian law makes no distinction between 鈥榯errorism鈥 and 鈥榮eparatism鈥,鈥 Grech explained at the West Papua Rent Collective Open Day at the Federal Republic of West Papua (FRWP) office in Docklands on August 5.聽
Grech described how Australia is complicit in the continued dispossession of indigenous West Papuans: 鈥淚ndonesia is the second biggest importer of Australian-made arms and other defence exports 鈥 and [Prime Minister] Malcolm Turnbull has just committed $3.8 billion of Australian taxpayers money so that Australia can become the tenth biggest arms exporter in the world鈥.
Indigenous West Papuans are often the target of these imported arms. Australian Special Forces and Federal Police also assist Indonesian police, military and 鈥榓nti-terrorist鈥 forces in their training.
A 鈥渟low motion鈥 genocide has been occurring in West Papua resulting in more than 500,000 鈥渕issing鈥 indigenous people since 1963, when the United Nations officially handed the administration of West Papua to Indonesia.
The West Papua Rent Collective is a group of Australians who are investing in West Papua鈥檚 future as an independent Melanesian state.聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽聽
Membership to the organisation helps pay the rent on the FRWP鈥檚 office in Docklands, undoubtedly to the annoyance of the Australian government that is bound by the Lombok Treaty to outlaw any display of West Papuan separatism or independence within its borders.聽
Three times a year, Rent Collective 鈥榮hareholders鈥 are treated to an informative talk, a delicious Dapur Sampari lunch and live music by The Neighbours, the office house band.聽
[If you would like to join the revolutionary West Papua Rent Collective, contact the FRWP Women鈥檚 Office on frwpwomensoffice@gmail.com or ring 0420 250 389.]