News
A Historic Choice: ULMWP President Benny Wenda Pacific on the 2024 Pacific Islands Forum
August 26, 2024
The 2024 Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) Leaders’ Meeting is a critical moment for Pacific leaders to show courage and leadership on one of the biggest issues facing our region: West Papua. It is time for PIF to reaffirm their 2019 call for a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights visit to West Papua. It has now been […]
President Wenda: Pacific leaders should not trust war criminal Prabowo
August 23, 2024
As President of the ULMWP, I condemn the meeting between incoming Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto and Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape. Melanesian leaders cannot trust this dangerous war criminal. Prabowo may speak softly, but he is complicit in genocide. Tens of thousands of West Papuans and East Timorese were killed under his jurisdiction while he […]
President Wenda: Indonesia is lying about the death of New Zealand pilot
August 16, 2024
As President of the ULMWP and on behalf of the people of West Papua, I am calling on the world to pay attention to the firm denial by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) that they killed the New Zealand pilot Glen Malcolm Conning. I again mourn his tragic death and all for the Indonesian military in order […]
Benny Wenda: Indonesia put New Zealand pilot in danger, ULMWP mourns his death
August 6, 2024
The ULMWP is aware of reports that the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) has recently killed a New Zealand helicopter pilot named Glen Malcolm Conning in Alama, Mimika Regency. If true, I condemn this killing in the strongest possible terms. We mourn Conning’s death and do not want any more blood shed on West Papuan land. […]
Benny Wenda: Happy 44th Independence Day to Vanuatu
July 30, 2024
On behalf of the people of West Papua, I wish Vanuatu a happy 44th Independence Day. I was greatly honoured to attend the Independence Day celebrations in Port Vila. The event was a profound display of Melanesian solidarity, as Prime Minister Charlot Salwai acknowledged the ongoing colonial occupations of West Papua and Kanaky. Salwai’s national […]
Benny Wenda: Jokowi leaves a legacy of failure and bloodshed in West Papua
July 24, 2024
As Jokowi’s Presidency comes to an end, it is time to reflect on his legacy in West Papua: ecocide, military impunity, and a total failure to address the root causes of our issue. On his fifteenth visit to West Papua, Jokowi posed with ethnic Indonesians wearing Papuan headdresses – only days after his soldiers murdered three […]
Benny Wenda: Massacre in Puncak Jaya shows West Papua is a time bomb
July 24, 2024
The brutal killing of three Papuan civilians in Puncak Jaya shows that occupied West Papua is a ticking time bomb, and under Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto could become another East Timor. The names of the victims were Tonda Wanimbo, Dominus Enumbi, and Murib Government. Their murders were followed by riots in Puncak Jaya, as enraged indigenous residents protested in […]
Benny Wenda: Mass displacement in Paniai
June 19, 2024
Indonesian state terrorism in West Papua continues. In the latest internal displacement, over 5000 Papuan civilians in Paniai have been forced to flee their homes by yet another Indonesian military raid. Men, women, and children have scattered, some of them hiding in the bush, some sheltering in a local Catholic Church compound. Fifteen villages have been completely […]
Human Rights Abuses in West Papua (video)
June 12, 2024
Warning: this video contains graphic and violent images
All Eyes on Papua: President Wenda statement
June 10, 2024
For years, West Papuans have been telling the world that we are the victims of two connected crimes: genocide and ecocide. Over 500,000 Papuans have been killed since the Indonesian occupation began in the 1960s, while millions of acres of ancestral land – forests, rivers, and mountains – have been destroyed and poisoned for Indonesian and corporate […]