Australian author and human rights advocate for West Papuan self-determination, Jim Aubrey, recently sent an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the federal parliament. In the letter, Aubrey highlights what he calls Australia’s many years of alleged failure in foreign policy towards West Papua, including support for “impunity for Indonesia’s litany of every universally known classification for crimes against humanity.” Aubrey called on the government to correct these failings with a Royal Commission to investigate Australia’s role in supporting Indonesia’s “unlawful military occupation and annexation of West Papua” and Indonesia’s “six decades of crimes against humanity.” In the letter, Aubrey emphasizes that unlike Timor-Leste, which gained its full independence in 2002 after 24 years of brutal Indonesian occupation, West Papua remains under Indonesian rule after a contested “Act of Free Choice” plebiscite in 1969. The consensus vote for Indonesian rule by handpicked Papuan elders purportedly under UN supervision has been challenged ever since by both peaceful Papuan activists and a war of liberation fought by the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB-OPM) as not representing a genuine expression of self-determination by Indigenous Papuans. Aubrey’s open letter was accompanied by an image of two child victims of an atrocity in West Papua.
