Benny Wenda: Tackling climate change means fighting for West Papuan freedom
October 16, 2024
Two gigantic ecocidal developments have been launched in West Papua, showing again that Indonesia’s occupation of West Papua is a threat to the entire world.
In Merauke, Indonesia have broken ground on the biggest deforestation project on earth, covering an area bigger than Switzerland, the Netherlands, or Israel and Palestine put together. Five million hectares of ancestral Papuan forest, destroyed and replaced by sugarcane and bioethanol fuel production. The criminal Joko Widodo calls this ‘food security’ for Indonesia, but this is occupied West Papuan land: we did not consent to our forests being chopped down for Indonesia’s food security. Indonesia’s green transition is being paid for by West Papuan blood.
Indonesia have also started production on another ecocidal development in Merauke – one million hectares of palm oil production. Over 200 excavators have already been sent to the area to begin clearing the forest. Despite this, Indonesia’s Energy Minister Bahlil Lahadalia says that there is ‘no forest in the middle of Merauke… only eucalyptus [trees], swamps and savannas.’ This is a repetition of the racist idea that West Papua is an empty land, just waiting for Indonesian ‘development’. West Papuans do not want Indonesia’s colonial development. We want freedom.
Development equals death in West Papua. Indonesia have already sent five battalions – over 5000 soldiers – to secure their colonial interest in Merauke. In South Merauke West Papuans have risen up to defend their land, refuse colonial investment, and demand the boycott of Indonesian goods. Huge military operations will be launched in response, to protect the plantations from the indigenous people who live there. More Papuans will be murdered and displaced, adding to the 79,000 who are currently living as refugees in their own land, and the over 1100 who have been killed by Indonesian militarisation since 2018.
Already, the military is moving from village to village in West Papua, frightening civilians and handing out instant noodles to families whose forest is being destroyed. Merauke will be transformed into a warzone, just like Intan Jaya or Nduga. Churches and schools are abandoned and turned into military posts. After the teachers flee, the soldiers come in and indoctrinate Papuan children in Indonesian nationalism.
I am reminded of my childhood in 1977, when Indonesia bombed my village and brutalised my family. When I emerged from the bush I went back to school in my village, but I saw that Indonesian teaching was erasing West Papuan culture and trying to wipe out our history. The Morning Star is replaced by the Indonesian flag, Papuan languages with Bahasa, sago with rice. The creeping genocide being committed against us is both cultural and physical, conducted by international corporations and the Indonesian government.
These Merauke mega-projects are a wake-up call for the so-called environmental movement. You have a choice: accept climate catastrophe or fight for a free West Papua. Indonesia is destroying the world’s third-largest rainforest quicker and more brutally than ever before. Our forest is a lung of the world, you cannot breathe without it. West Papua is the frontline of the battle against climate change, and our Green State Vision is one of the most important weapons we have. You cannot ignore us any longer.
Benny Wenda
President
ULMWP
