By Cindy Trinh
Impunity Watch Reporter, Oceania

MANOKWARI, West Papua – A prominent West Papuan human rights lawyer, Yan Christian Warinussy, plans to go on a speaking tour throughout Australia to promote the need for a peaceful solution to the problems in Indonesia’s troubled Papua region.

Warinussy, who won Canada’s John Humphrey Freedom Award in 2005 for his promotion of human rights and democracy, says that the situation in West Papua has been “left to deteriorate far too long.”

He says that the Special Autonomy status granted to Papua by Indonesia in 2001 has proven a failure. Not only that, the heavy militarization of the region has worsened the security situation.

Warinussy stressed the need for dialogue between Jakarta and Papuan representatives.

The need for dialogue became more apparent with the death of Kelly Kwalik, the West Papuan leader and advocate for human rights, on December 16, 2009. A press released from the Indonesian Human Rights Committee (IHRC) called for New Zealand’s support for dialogue in the wake of Kwalik’s death.

Since the death of Kwalik, the territory has experienced an outpouring of grief and anger within the Papuan community.

The IHRC called on Prime Minister John Key and Foreign Minister Murray McCully to support the calls for dialogue to avert further tension and violence in West Papua.

Similar to Warinussy, the IHRC stressed the need for mediated dialogue between Papuan representatives and Jakarta.

However, not much change has happened since the IHRC made its press release public, and Warinussy fears that the human rights situation in Papua continues to deteriorate even more.

He stated: “The human rights situation in West Papua is not good until now. The Special Autonomy, we cannot use that to solve the problem. We need to make peaceful dialogue between Indonesia and Papua – to think again, to plan again, to make sure.”

For more information, please see:
Solomon Star – West Papuan rights lawyer calls for peaceful dialogue with Jakarta – 25 February 2010

Radio New Zealand International – West Papuan rights lawyer calls for peaceful dialogue with Jakarta – 25 February 2010

Scoop Independent News – West Papua: Dialogue Needed Between NZ and Jakarta – 24 December 2009