Jim Buckell – Pressure from the Indonesian Government has forced RMIT University to withdraw official support for a conference on West Papuan independence scheduled for later this month.

The co-sponsor of the conference, the New Internationalist magazine, has transferred the venue to the Victorian Trades Hall after RMIT refused to allow it to proceed on campus at Storey Hall.

The university's Globalism Institute had been involved in convening the conference. RMIT's pro vice-chancellor for research and innovation, Neil Furlong, said last night it was "not appropriate that universities formally endorse activities such as conferences and forums where criticism on matters pertaining to the sovereignty of other nations is intended". "It is in this context, and in respect to our body of international students and their broad cultural backgrounds, that RMIT University has decided not to host the West Papua conference."

A spokesman for Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said RMIT had behaved in a cowardly manner. "Australians had a right to hear about the plight of West Papuans," the spokesman said. Senator Brown would approach the university to reverse the decision.

It is understood the cash-strapped university is fearful that it could be threatened with cuts to its education programs in Indonesia or that fee-paying students from Indonesia might be discouraged from attending RMIT. RMIT expects to enrol 1465 Indonesian students this year. It does not keep figures on provincial origin, so cannot account for numbers from West Papua.

Indonesia is a significant source of fee-paying students for Australian universities. Last year almost 10,000 Indonesian students were enrolled, making it the fifth-highest source country, behind Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia and China. The Australasian editor of New Internationalist, Chris Richards, said yesterday that Indonesia was in the process of reversing its earlier position granting a degree of autonomy to West Papua.