Catherine Delahunty – A few weeks ago, the West Papua Liberation Army released Phillip Mehrtens, the New Zealand pilot they'd held captive for 19 months.

The release was a huge relief for his family and friends and was celebrated in parliament with a government motion to the House.

Many people had worked behind the scenes for that outcome. I was glad that both our former and current foreign affairs ministers, Nanaia Mahuta and Winston Peters, appeared to have strongly encouraged a peaceful outcome.

But the credit for the handover lies with his captors and with local West Papuans in the highlands. From what we'd seen in the international media as well as from our local sources, the West Papua Liberation Army had been keen to release Mr Mehrtens for months before it happened, and were looking for a safe way to do that. It appears the release was negotiated through local Papuan people at some risk to themselves.

Mr Mehrtens was captured by a part of the West Papua Liberation Army after he landed his plane in a remote part of the highlands, an area known to be dangerous. His captors were hoping to gain both publicity and bargaining power with our government and the wider world to pressure Indonesia to start independence talks. (That didn't happen.)

Watching the news coverage after the release of the pilot became known, I was struck by the media's lack of interest in the West Papuans and their situation. I understand, of course, why reporters here would be interested in Mr Mehrtens' personal story and wellbeing – and, to their credit, some media did ask me to explain the West Papua political situation in a sound bite.

But most displayed little to no curiosity about West Papua, and no one from "mainstream media" asked me in-depth questions about the plight of the people of the West Papua highlands after so many years of violent occupation. They were more concerned with trying to track down the Mehrtens family for interviews and reporting the details of his ordeal.

Of course, it was good to see Philip Mehrtens safely returned to his family, and in reasonable health. But it would have been good to see some interest from the media in the ongoing ordeal faced by the people he lived among for 19 months.

In the area where he was held, the last two years have been far from peaceful.

We know there's been an expansion in the bombings of villages by the Indonesian military, and in the torture of Papuans, state-sanctioned killing and increased military occupation in recent years. There were unconfirmed reports of Indonesian military bombing in the area just three days before the release of Mr Mehrtens. And 10 days after the release of Mr Merhtens, there are confirmed reports of an additional five Indonesian army battalions being moved into West Papua. A battalion is around 800 soldiers in this context.

I am haunted by the lives that do not matter to us. There are more than 80,000 people displaced in the highlands of West Papua. Driven out by Indonesia's bombing and on-the-ground attacks on their villages, these civilians live in limbo on the edge of other communities that cannot feed and house them. There is hunger, disease, and trauma. We watch in horror, as we should, when people in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon lose their homes and lives. Yet we ask no questions about our neighbours in West Papua.

Why do these neighbours' lives mean so little to us?

In a world where technology has given us unprecedented access to the lives of others in every corner of the world, why do we still only see western white people across this region as having important and valuable lives? The story of West Papua is the story of so much more than 19 months in the forest.

Some people are listening and standing in solidarity. I was recently on a panel to discuss the importance of brown and black lives in struggles across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa (the Pacific Ocean) and indeed the world. It was a privilege for me to be alongside passionate and informed Indigenous speakers from Palestine, Sudan, Hawaii, Aotearoa, Atiu and Papua New Guinea. We were all inspired by the Zoom presentations from two West Papuan activists, one of whom is still in West Papua. Solidarity with Kanaky was a strong theme. The meeting was led by two tangata whenua wahine, and I could see the future of the region in the hands of these brilliant younger leaders.

Everyone on that panel except me had experienced both personal racism and the collective assault on their culture. White racism has done its best to poison relationships across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa and the world – promoting how to hate yourself and each other, rather than unite to end colonial rule. The deaths in Sudan, Palestine, Kanaky and West Papua were sitting with us in that meeting. But also the strength and power of solidarity which can lead to resistance to the militarism and environmental vandalism from Hawaii to West Papua.

I talked a bit about whose lives matter and the kidnapping of West Papua as a country. West Papuans are fighting a huge multinational push to extract resources in the region. Their country is rich with minerals, oil, gas, and forests – and beneath those chopped and burning forests, vast areas of soil are being converted into palm oil plantations and sugar cane fields. Climate chaos is being fuelled by this destruction of the "lungs of the Pacific".

Capitalism relies on such colonisation of peoples and lands. It's an old, ugly story, from Captain Cook to the rainforest timber Kwila boards from West Papua that might be on your deck.

The "rebel soldiers" label is another stereotype used often in the pilot story. There is both violent and non-violent resistance in West Papua, and acts of desperation to stop roads being built for multinational and Indonesian military takeover of resources and communities. Governments and media sometimes use the "freedom fighters" label to describe struggles for sovereignty, but not when it's West Papua and Kanaky.

Aotearoa needs to remember the so-called "rebel soldiers" who resisted the colonial troops across Aotearoa. When they stopped selling land to the Crown, rapacious settlers demanded both raupatu and a land court. It was for privatisation and pasture, which is not so different from the multinational palm oil and gold mining in West Papua today.

I'm glad that a civilian survived a kidnapping, as civilians should not be pawns in struggles for freedom. But I can't stop thinking about the 80,000 people driven from their villages and gardens, their traditional lands, in Papua. The children will carry that trauma all their lives. The women carry the body memory of assaults and abuse.

The adults whose fathers died in this unnamed war on their land are all looking for a way to make the world pay attention to the state torture and bombing that's happening there right now. No international negotiators, minister to minister memos, or powerful foreign embassies are advocating for their safety or human rights. Or at least no white governments.

Papua's Indonesian rulers have imposed a media ban on West Papua, but it's not only media bans and ignorance that keep the silence in this region. It's also a choice made by people in power who have no interest in justice. I know that successive New Zealand governments have long known what is going on behind the rhetoric of supporting Indonesia's territorial integrity. But when will a colonial settler-based system stand up for Indigenous independence anywhere?

Don't hold your breath.

Today, October 20, Indonesia welcomes a new president, Prabowo Subianto, a former military general with a trail of alleged war crimes to his name. This will be a dark day for West Papua. Our government will no doubt send warm congratulations.

There are those among us who went to Club Med New Caledonia and ignored the Kanaky struggle because we were "on holiday". And there are also those who, while they care about the ordeals of individual citizens like Philip Mehrtens, are comfortable ignoring the daily threats to the people of Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa from militarism, resource exploitation and foreign occupation.

It's very good that Phillip Mehrtens has the support of family and friends and a Give a Little page to help him readjust from the traumatic 19 months of dislocation.

But what about the people who pay every day in West Papua because their lives do not matter?

[Catherine Delahunty is a Pakeha activist and former Green MP. She mainly works in campaigns against multinational goldmining in Hauraki and is active in the national solidarity network for a Free West Papua.]

Source: https://e-tangata.co.nz/reflections/west-papua-whose-lives-matter