Leader opens new chapter

 By SHEILA MALKEN

THERE is insufficient knowledge about issues affecting West Papuans, tribal leader and free West Papua campaigner Benny Wenda says.

“Why have the West Papua people been suffering in the past 50 years,” Wenda asked.  

He said the root problem of a West Papuan is the act of no free choice compared to other countries.

Wenda is in Papua New Guinea to launch the free West Papua campaign office-PNG Chapter, in Port Moresby.

This entity will coordinate and centralise awareness and advocacy efforts in PNG.

Wenda said he was campaigning peacefully to raise this issue worldwide.

“People are being killed, tortured and imprisoned. This is a regional issue and we recognise PNG as the official battle ground in the liberation of West Papua,” he said.

A campaigner, who accompanied Wenda and his wife to the country from the US, Harry Jenkinson, said PNG needed to stand up for their brothers (West Papuans) as there had been injustice and people were suffering.

“You all must stand up and help, we cannot ignore it anymore and let our families suffer,” Jenkinson said.  

The core objective of that campaign was to create awareness and educate Papua New Guineans on the plight of Melanesian people in West Papua under the oppressive Indonesian colonial rule, Wenda said.