Giovanni Torre – The flag of West Papua was raised around the world on Monday for West Papuan National Flag Day, including at Leichhardt Town Hall in Sydney.
In 1961 the Morning Star flag, representing the West Papuan nation, officially flew for the first time – in what was then the Dutch colony of Netherlands New Guinea.
Supporters of self-determination for West Papua joined together on Monday for the annual Morning Star flag raising at Leichhardt Town Hall; the 19th year in a row that the West Papuan flag was raised above the historic building in Sydney's Inner West on Gadigal Country.
Australia West Papua Association (Sydney) said in a statement that "all through West Papua, across the Pacific island nations and in many countries around the world, West Papuans and their supporters rise the Morning Star flag on this day".
"In Indonesian-occupied West Papua, the brave people who raise the flag will be risking arrest, beatings and even death for this act," they said.
West Papuan Jack Warisyu, who raised the flag in Sydney, told the gathering: "West Papua is on our doorstep, only 200 miles from the Australian border, and it is very sad that the Albanese government keeps on denying the our fight against injustice, against discrimination, against human rights abuse just for our right to self-determination."
The Australia West Papua Association said "the human rights abuses" in West Papua "continue today.
"The situation in the territory continues to deteriorate. There are ongoing clashes between the security forces and the TPNPB, with casualties on both sides. West Papuans continue to be arrested, intimated and killed by the security forces. A number of military operations have taken place in the past few years. During these operations house are burned causing villagers to flee, traumatised and in fear for their lives," the Association said.
Looking back at the first time the Morning Star flew in 1961, the Association noted: "As the Dutch prepared to give the West Papuan people their freedom, it is one of the great tragedies that at their moment of freedom it was cruelly crushed and West Papua was basically handed over to Indonesia in 1963 by the international community".
"A betrayal of a whole people. Sixty-four years later, the West Papuan people are still struggling for their right to self-determination," their statement said.
Netherlands New Guinea (also known as Dutch New Guinea) was part of the Dutch East Indies until the independence of Indonesia in 1949. The Dutch argued through the United Nations and other channels that the indigenous population of Dutch/Netherlands New Guinea represented a separate ethnonational group from the people of Indonesia and should not be absorbed into the Indonesian state. It became a distinct entity.
Elections were held in January 1961 and the New Guinea Council took office on 5 April 1961, to prepare for full independence by the end of the decade. The Council selected a new national anthem and the Morning Star as the new national flag on 1 December, 1961.
On 19 December that same year, Indonesian dictator Sukarno issued the Tri Komando Rakjat (People's Triple Command), calling the Indonesian people to defeat the formation of an independent state of West Papua, raise the Indonesian flag in that country, and be ready for mobilisation at any time.
On 15 January, 1962, Indonesian forces attacked West Papua but were repelled by the Dutch. In March, the Indonesian government sent paratroopers and special forces into West Papua covertly, but they were again defeated by the Dutch with support from the indigenous West Papuan population.
Ultimately, facing mounting international diplomatic pressure – including from the United States – and the prospect of a full scale Indonesian invasion, the Dutch re-entered negotiations and agreed to a proposal on 28 July 1962 for a staged transition from Dutch to Indonesian control via UN administration, on the condition that a plebiscite would be held on the future of the territory.
Indonesia took control of West Papua in May 1963, subsequently holding – under new leader Suharto in 1969 – a plebiscite called the "Act of Free Choice"; conducted under immense pressure by Indonesian military forces. For the vote, the Indonesian military selected just over 1,000 Melanesian men and women out of an estimated population of 800,000 as the Western New Guinea/West Papua representatives for the vote, which "unanimously" voted to join Indonesia. The vote is referred to as the "Act of No Choice" by supporters of West Papuan sovereignty.
Successive Australian federal governments have supported the Indonesian occupation of West Papua, just as they supported the Indonesian occupation of Timor-Leste (East Timor) until the establishment of the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor in 1999, which led to the country's full independence on 20 May, 2002.
Source: https://nit.com.au/01-12-2025/21582/morning-star-rises-to-mark-west-papuan-national-flag-da