The author of a new book about how West Papua is an international issue, concerning the purview of international systems says there is sound international legal basis for the United Nations to review the way Papua was incorporated into Indonesia.
Transcript
A member of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua has written a book about how West Papua is an international issue, concerning the purview of international systems.
The book, 'The World's Richest Islands of West Papua: Under International System in the 21st Century' was recently published by the Liberation Movement's Pacific ambassador, Amatus Douw.
Mr Douw says there is sound international legal basis for the United Nations to review the so-called Act of Free Choice, the controversial UN-sanctioned referendum by which Papua was formally incorporated into Indonesia in 1969.
He told Johnny Blades that West Papuans were never consulted by Indonesia, the Netherlands and the US in the 1962 New York Agreement which paved the way for the transferral of sovereignty.
AMATUS DOUW: The result of this New York agreement is an international resolution 2504. It was only 86 states that agreed (to it). But the other 34 states made statement that they never agreed because they recognised that the process was unlawful. The process at that time, 1962 to 1969, there was no United Nations presence to prepare for the Act of Free Choice itself. And one case was Indonesia, he go out from his membership to the United Nations, automatically the United Nations wasn't there. So this created a momentum used by Indonesia to facilitate the Act of Free Choice. So no United Nations official or diplomat was there.
JOHNNY BLADES: And that was supposed to be the case, that the UN were going to be on the ground, preparing West Papuans for this process.
AD: Yes. One of the United Nations diplomats, he was watching (the eventual referendum) in 1969. He strongly opposed the result of the Act of Free Choice. He said that it (the referendum result) only represented 1025 people from different tribes in West Papua. But our population (at the time) was 900-thousand.
JB: Do you believe that the United Nations still has a role to play in resolving the issues around West Papuan self-determination?
AD: Yeah I think... I look at the current developments of our West Papua diplomacy, specifically in the Pacific regions. I always remember in 2011, during the Pacific Islands Forum, the UN leader Ban Ki Moon, he said on the media that the West Papua case should be discussed at the United Nations de-colonisation committee. So the case already in the United Nations. So United Nations can act to review the Act of Free Choice, because the United Nations is a neutral body.
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