The government of the Philippines and the University of the Philippines say they do not support a meeting discussing the issue of independence for West Papua.

"For its part, the University of the Philippines has indicated it will not support the issue of Papua being raised at the conference," said foreign affairs spokesman Mary Natalegawa, who was contacted by SH Saturday morning.

He warned against the meeting getting bigger. "It's important that we don't exaggerate the importance of the meeting," said Marty, emphasising that the meeting is only being attended by around 20 people from groups which are primarily anti-Indonesia.

The fifth "International solidarity meeting on West Papua" co-ordinated by Max Doris (sic.) from West Papua Extention (sic.) (Ireland) together with Carmen Memen (Luzon) got under way Friday (29/4) evening.

Matters to be discussed include West Papua freedom, and will be made clearer, today Saturday. A SH source said that from around 30 NGOs and individuals present last evening, four were from Indonesia. One was known to be from Jakarta and three others from Jayapura, Papua.

Each NGO (including nationals from Ireland, the Philippines, America and Australia) had to pay $130 per person. The meeting itself, as well as discussing the results of the preceding fourth meeting, also discussed new agenda items, including the hastening of West Papuan independence.

Earlier, the Indonesian government had asked the Philippines government to ban the meeting. The request was conveyed by the Indonesian embassy to the Philippines ministry of foreign affairs...

The head of the DPR, Agung Laksono, meeting with the head of the Philippines parliament, Franklin Dilon, also appealed through the Philippines parliament to prevent the meeting which in the view of Agung Laksono will affect the stability of Indonesia.