News and statements

September 1, 2025 in News, Statement Indonesia is in chaos, as massive protests have erupted over corruption, economic hardship, and police brutality. I call on all my people to get ready for another escalation back home. West Papua is ready to depart from this dying empire. This time, the protestors’ conflict is not only with the TNI, but with the DPR, the Parliament that is supposed to represent them. The Indonesian government is showing that they do not have the trust of their own people. How can they claim legitimacy over a different nation, illegally occupied for sixty years? Protests…

July 10, 2025 in Statement https://www.ulmwp.org/implementing-democracy-before-independence-ulmwp-inaugurates-thousands-of-representatives As President of the ULMWP Provisional Government, I welcome the Legislative Council’s first Plenary Session, which was held this week in Jayapura. After a year-long recruitment process, the ULMWP has now inaugurated 250 Senate Members, 350 Legislative Council Members, and 1740 Regional Council members: more than 2300 official representatives in total, ranging from the President and Prime Minister, to the seven regional Executives, all the way down to the level of village, tribe and clan. Over 3000 West Papuans attended the proceedings. Prime Minister Edison Waromi and I later took our oaths at the…

February 5, 2025 in Statement Dialogue with Indonesia is not the answer for West Papua. The ULMWP has a clear stance on the question of dialogue: not until self-determination is on the table. West Papua is a colonised nation, not a province of Indonesia. We will not become another Aceh. The only long-term solution is for us to be allowed a genuine act of self-determination through an internationally-supervised vote. As proven by the 2017 People’s Petition, the West Papuan people speak with one voice in demanding our freedom through a self-determination referendum – exactly what we were denied in 1969….

January 21, 2025 in Statement A rogue Indonesian military unit is roaming Intan Jaya Regency, slaughtering West Papuans at will. Yonif Raider 509 Balawara Yudha have killed at least four West Papuan civilians so far, including three minors. They are acting with total impunity, clearly confident that their crimes will not be punished by the TNI command or their genocidal President. As shown by a new Human Rights Monitor report, their actions are part of a broader, ongoing crime against humanity being committed in Intan Jaya, constituted by widespread killings, mass displacement, and the destruction of homes and other infrastructure….

A massive wave of forced displacement is happening in West Papua, as Indonesia ramps up its military operations ahead of Christmas. In multiple regencies, including Yahukimo, Maybrat, and Intan Jaya, thousands of West Papuans have been forced to flee into the bush by the sudden arrival of Indonesian soldiers into their villages. The entire region of Oksop has been emptied of people. As the GIDI Church said in their statement, the military is acting with total impunity, murdering innocent children and killing civilians just for having dreadlocks. Women and children are going hungry in the forest. They are in grave danger this Christmas: over 1200 Papuans have been killed…

Douglas Gerrard on how Indonesia’s genocidal occupation of West Papua is written out of history. Douglas Gerrard22 November 2024 From 1935 to 1936, Mohammad Hatta was interned in Boven Digoel, a Dutch concentration camp for Indonesian communists and nationalists in modern-day West Papua. Together with Sutan Sjahrir, another key figure in the pro-independence organisation Perhimpunan Indonesia, Hatta was the victim of an obstinate colonial policy that refused to brook any compromise with the native desire for freedom. Here, deep in the New Guinea rainforest, Indonesia’s future leaders played football, fought dysentery and malaria, and watched as their fellow inmates made…

December 9, 2024 As Interim President of the ULMWP, I welcome the release of the judgment of the Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) on West Papua. After testimonies from West Papuans on the ground and legal and academic experts, the PPT found Indonesia guilty on all four counts: This judgment is a total vindication of everything the West Papuan liberation movement has been saying for decades. We are not safe with Indonesia. If we continue to be denied our right to self-determination, everything that makes West Papua unique will disappear. The PPT that the Indonesian state guilty of ecocide, of rapidly destroying our…

Below is the full version of the speech that ULMWP Interim President Benny Wenda gave while opening the Oxford Green Fair at Oxford Town Hall on December 1, 2024. In the name of Yahweh, in the name of the West Papuan ancestors, in the name of the bones of our suffering, I would like to open this December, this day of celebration and reflection, by remembering all those West Papuans who have been killed over the last year.  Thank you to the Green Party for inviting me to open this Fair, and particularly to Lord Mayors Craig and Elise. The…

December 1st will mark the 63rd anniversary of West Papuan Independence Day and the inaugural raising of our national flag, the Morning Star. On behalf of the ULMWP and the West Papuan people, I call on our supporters everywhere to show your support for our struggle by raising the Morning Star. Whether in your house, your workplace, the beach, the mountains or anywhere else, please raise our flag and and send a picture to [email protected]. By doing so, you give West Papuans strength and courage and show us we are not alone. The situation in occupied West Papua is on…

In his first official visit to West Papua, the War Criminal Prabowo Subianto travelled to Merauke to oversee the ecocidal plantations that are destroying millions of hectares of virgin rainforest. West Papua’s forest is a lung of the earth. Even if you have never heard of West Papua before, our forest allows you to breathe. And yet governments that claim to be tackling climate change continue to support Indonesia as they destroy it. The UK government recently signed a ‘critical minerals deal’ with Indonesia, at the same time as the occupier committed to destroying an area of our forest bigger than Wales. It is a sick…