Mark Colvin: For the first time a coalition of West Papuan nationalist groups has been given formal diplomatic recognition.
The United Liberation Movement of West Papua has been granted observer status at a regional grouping of Melanesian countries. It happened at the Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders' summit in Solomon Islands.
The West Papuans say the move will help shine light on human rights abuses committed by the Indonesian military and open the door for negotiations with the Indonesian government.
The ABC's Pacific Affairs reporter Liam Fox is at the conference in Honiara. I asked him if the West Papuans were disappointed at not getting the full membership of the MSG that they'd been pushing for.
Liam Fox: No they're not, and that's despite the fact that all week they've been saying full membership is what they wanted, despite the fact that three of the MSG members – the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, their governments had said that they won't be backing full membership of West Papua, but when the decision was made public this morning they weren't disappointed.
The – being granted observer status that the MSG allows observers to speak at the final meeting of the leaders' summit of the MSG and they took that opportunity with both hands this morning. They used it to outline the oppression of West Papuans by the Indonesian government, the Indonesian military and police and they also said that this now paves the way for equal negotiations with Indonesia at future MSG meetings.
Here's a little bit of what the liberation movement's Octavianus Mote had to say.
Octavianus Mote: For 53 years we have endured the most severed human rights violations – torture, killing, disappearance, rape, arbitrary arrest and detention. The lives of at least 500,000 people have been taken. There are women, children and men. That is why today is so important to ask. We might not be a full member of the MSG but a door has opened to us. We will sit across in a table from Indonesia as equal.
Mark Colvin: So obviously that brings up the question of Indonesia's position. It's had its membership of the Melanesian Spearhead Group upgraded from observer to associate member. So how does that leave the balance of power between the two?
Liam Fox: Well given associate membership is a rank higher on the rung of the ladder of membership status if you like. There's full membership then associate membership then observer. So Indonesia currently sits above West Papua.
The, as I mentioned, there were a number of speeches at the final session this morning. Each of the five leaders of the MSG countries were given an opportunity to make a short speech and perhaps the most insight into the decision making process came from Fiji's prime minister Frank Bainimarama. He said there were a number of core elements around which Fiji made its decision to grant West Papua observer status and to grant Indonesia associate membership status.
Here's a little bit of what he had to say.
Frank Bainimarama: For our part Fiji has been guided by a number of overriding principles in approaching the West Papua issue. The first and foremost of this is that Indonesian sovereignty over West Papua cannot be questioned. The province is an integral part of Indonesia so that when we deal with West Papua and its people, MSG has no choice but to deal with Indonesia in a positive and constructive manner.
Mark Colvin: That's Frank Bainimarama from Fiji.
Well Liam Fox, what about on the ground? It's all very well for these things to happen in a talk fest in the Solomon Islands but will it make any difference in West Papua itself?
Liam Fox: That remains to be seen I guess. What it will allow is for some negotiations, they may be indirect to start with, but negotiations to start between Indonesian representatives and West Papuan representatives at the MSG.
What the MSG have said about the nature of the memberships handed to both Indonesia and West Papua is that West Papua will be there to the West Papuan Liberation Movement rather will be there to represent West Papuans who live outside Indonesia and that Indonesia will be represented at the MSG in future by the governors of the five Papuan provinces.
Now it's interesting, the West Papuans were asked will they be able to talk to these governors? They said in a press conference after their speech this morning that they don't regard these people as representatives of the West Papuan people. They're not, they don't have a mandate to represent them, as some members of the MSG have said. But they've said they will talk to them.
They won't view them as West Papuan leaders though, they will view them as representatives of the Indonesian government and it's yet to be seen how direct those negotiations were but even this morning when these speeches were being made by various people, the vice minister for Indonesia's foreign affairs was there in the room and he had to listen like everybody else to what the West Papuans had to say, so some form of negotiations has really already started.
Mark Colvin: Pacific Affairs reporter Liam Fox.