Steve Rushton – Indigenous people in West Papua face systematic murder and destruction of their lands. They were colonised by Indonesia in the 1960s. West Papua is the western part of the island of New Guinea – home to the world's third largest rainforest. Indonesia argues it is "developing" West Papua, yet in reality over 500,000 people have been killed or disappeared after Indonesia invaded in 1963, officially annexing the land six years later. Indonesia state and environmental violence is committed in collusion with corporate interests, especially mining and palm oil plantations. This was made clear at a three-day tribunal held in London in late June.
London's Queen Mary University hosted a Permanent People's Tribunal (PPT), the 53rd session of its kind and first about West Papua. It combined legal scholars, right-defending NGOs, and West Papuans in exile, with eye-witnesses from West Papua connecting via online calls. These tribunals examine international law, but cannot enforce their judgement. Instead, this is about giving a voice to the deliberately silenced – creating pressure for meaningful change. For instance, it will add more weight behind calls for UN monitors to be allowed to visit West Papua.
The judging panel of six was made up of human rights and legal experts from across the world. They found Indonesia culpable on all four charges made in the indictment. In summary: stealing West Papuans lands; systematic and racialised violence to further industrial development; wholescale destruction of West Papua's ecosystems; and colluding with foreign governments and corporations. Although beyond the tribunal's scope and remit, the evidence made it clear full independence is needed to safeguard West Papuans and their land. Yet, this is a distant horizon.
Bloody Abepura and neocolonial violence in West Papua
"We were sleeping in a university boarding house and were shocked by the presence of the police," explained one eye-witness via translation over Zoom to the tribunal. "The police shot at the wall, then dragged everyone outside," he explained about events in 2000 in Abepura, in north-east West Papua.
The man – anonymised to protect him from further retribution – explained how they dragged students out from male and female boarding houses. They were forced into a truck at gunpoint. In the police station they were separated and tortured.
The eyewitness explains: "It was very inhumane: One victim could not see anything, blood all over his face." He saw another man being beaten with a shovel: "He told me to keep alive, [saying] 'I'm going to die'".
The police and military questioned why the women would attend a university, and threatened to massacre all the women, the witness recounts. "It was very sadistic." He witnessed the murder of two women. More students and locals were indiscriminately rounded up and taken to the police station for torture.
This incident is called Bloody Abepura. It happened in December 2000 after an attack allegedly by pro-independence West Papuan highlanders at a nearby police post which killed two officers and a security guard. In reaction, Indonesian military and police forces raided the university dorms and rounded up locals. They killed three students, detaining around a hundred, many severely tortured
From the safety of a London university campus, this was just one eye-witness account of violence and terror facing West Papuans still there today. The tribunal heard from survivors of the Biak Massacre in 1998; Bloody Wamena of 2003; the mutilation case in Mimika; forced land-grabbing for palm plantations and how security forces, both military and police, violently displaced people to create conflicts to enable corporations to take over lands. The witnesses – at grave personal risk – told the tribunal their accounts of rape as systematic tool of repression, unlawful killings, political assassinations, the occupation of their homes and lands and other atrocities.
Violence, beginning with Dutch colonialism in 1898, continues until today. The tribunal gave a face and voice to these attacks beyond the horrendous statistics. In addition to the killing and disappearances of around 500,000 West Papuans, an estimated 77,000 are displaced, due to state violence.
In their interim verdict, the judges concluded that the evidence "presented before this Tribunal constitute only the visible peak of the iceberg of State crimes committed in the region as a means for furthering industrial development." Many eye-witnesses described what is happening as a "slow genocide."
Capitalist extraction and racialised violence
The indigenous population's broad denial of access to justice is one element of institutional racism in West Papua. Prosecutor Fadjar Schouten-Korwa, a West Papuan human rights lawyer living in exile in the Netherlands, summarised further institutional racist policies substanitated with further testimony. These included Indonesian's transmigration, moving Indonesians to take over West Papua; politically excluding West Papuans; a de-facto Apartheid system in education; and state-driven land grabs and violence against West Papuans.
The Indonesian state has created a racist narrative where indigenous people were defined as "primitive" and needing industrial development, several witnesses described. In this racialised system any critics of Indonesia are defined as "separatists", or "terrorists". Anti-racism protests on behalf of the West Papuans are violently attacked. Many West Papuans are charged with treason, frequently simply for raising the pro-independence Morning Star Flag.
Britain and other Global North countries, especially the US and Australia, were implicated in collusion with Indonesia. This includes Britain exporting its PREVENT strategy, a policy criticised by Amnesty International for amounting to a "thought police" attack on civil liberties, with racist and discriminatory impacts. In testimony, Jacob Smith from Rights & Security International drew on this NGO's report from April 2024, explaining how UK authorities have trained Indonesian military and police units in counter-terrorism measures. These units were then implicated in human rights violations.
The Indonesian state commits this violence to assist corporations, the tribunal heard. The country is the world's largest palm oil producer. One victim of land grabbing in West Papua explained how illegal logging by a corporation initially opened up lands. Then the company would return, name changed, to fully destroy the forest for palm oil.
Palm oil plantations are rapidly expanding in the area of Maybrat, north-west West Papua. Here Indonesian authorities have cleared people, including to displacement camps, under the auspices of fighting separatists and counter-terrorism. In reality, palm oil firms have accelerated their takeover of lands near the deserted villages. This violence in particular threatens women and children, who make up the majority of those forced to become refugees in their own country. Palm oil in West Papua also drives child labour.
Many international corporations profit from this systemic violence, including British firms, alongside Indonesian corporations. One such British firm is Jardine Mathesonand Niche Jungle, London-based asset managers, according to research by Professor David Whyte. He is also the co-director of the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary University, one of the event's sponsors.
The oil company BP and its Liquified Natural Gas facility at Tangguh shows again how capitalism and state violence are interlinked. Professor Whyte told the tribunal as part of the prosecution team: "BP has its own security force, but also makes payments for military and police protection". One investigation by New Matilda found that the private company which manages BP's local security force is "... run by retired Indonesian army and police' and that this led to "... targeting peaceful social movements in Bintuni Bay'."
Scars visible from space
The deep connections between corporations and colonialism were again made clear with reference to the Grasberg mine. This four kilometres wide opencast mine is one of the largest mines in the world for both copper and gold. Yet locals are impoverished; the ecosystem decimated. US company Freeport-McMoRan signed a deal with Indonesia for control of mining concessions in West Papua in 1967, two years before West Papua formally became part of Indonesia, in a "botched" independence process. Neither the deal, nor independence process, respected the free consent of the people – a constant theme to this day through corporate land grabs.
Freeport-McMoRan and Indonesia's relation set the tone for the last 60 years. Locals were displaced. The jobs went to Indonesians, who moved to new cities and towns. As Professor Stephen Eichhorn from University of Bristol among others testified, Freeport from the start "wholly supported and finance the violence, whether by police, military or private militia."
Grasberg's scale means astronauts can photograph this sacrifice zone from space with a regular camera. INTERPRT are Norwegian-based researchers that show human and ecological crimes through images and data. Throughout the tribunal they put those giving testimony on the map, introducing the different parts of West Papua. In their testimony, they showed satellite images showing the destruction of the Grasberg mine over time, with its pollution killing the river downstream all the way to the sea.
Indonesia ignored an invitation to present a defence to the PPT. Instead, a detailed defence statement based on the country's public statements and policies had been prepared by the organisers. It asserted that the country does respect indigenous rights and are trying to alleviate poverty by "engineering economic growth and development."
Indonesia paying lip-service to working in the interests of West Papuans was a theme repeated across the three days. This was the case especially with the Special Autonomy law. The Orwellian nature of this law was criticised throughout proceedings, for promising more devolution, yet in reality being a instrument for divide and rule and further attack on West Papuan rights.
Raki Ap, international spokesperson for the Free West Papua Campaign told in the tribunal how his family fled West Papua after his father's political murder. In an interview during a break from proceedings, he explained: "We have had so-called autonomy for more than 10 years. [The legislation] describes how West Papua should have a say regarding what's happening on their lands, regarding economic funds, regarding social issues. But still, it's the central government in Jakarta who steer all policies about West Papua. Then they brought in so-called autonomy plus, which is failing again."
After asking questions throughout and three hours deliberating, the judges released an interim statement finding Indonesia culpable on all charges. It set out how devastating Indonesian control was for West Papua – yet whilst the tribunal's scope was broad, it did not include making a pronouncement on independence.
Raki Ap in interview explained why independence is the only way to escape this situation: "If independence is not there, we won't have control. If this is not resolved, we will disappear as a people and culture. Connect all these stories, all these reports, all this data and without independence, we will lose everything. Looking at the behaviour of the Indonesian government and those corporations, there is no true commitment in respecting our rights. So the only way that the West Papuans can restore and stop the injustices is by gaining full independence."
West Papuan Solidarity campaigns