News and statements

March 20, 2026 in Statement On behalf of the ULMWP and the people of West Papua, I condemn Indonesia’s cruel and humiliating arbitrary arrest of twelve West Papuans in Tambrauw Regency this week. The arrests took place on the March 18th, after Indonesia conducted military operations in the Fef and Bamus Bama districts. People were dragged out of their homes, tortured, and detained without any warrants or explanation. This is how Indonesia treats West Papuans, as less than human. The twelve men arrested in Tambrauw have been labelled TPNPB and stigmatised as terrorists and criminals by the Indonesian colonisers. But…

February 19, 2026 in Statement The Indonesian government is tricking the world about its practices in West Papua. The Cessna plane the TPNPB fired upon in Boven Digoel was not a civilian plane, as the police spokesman misleadingly stated, but part of a security operation. Indonesia is again disguising their military activity as civil activity. They are also willfully breaching the no-fly zones established by the TPNPB. The occupied conflict areas in which the TNI are not permitted to fly have been very clearly marked out by the TPNPB. This is the same pattern Indonesia used in 1977, when Indonesia…

February 10, 2026 in Statement In yet another flagrant breach of international law, Indonesia has bombed a makeshift refugee camp in Puncak Regency. This is part of their ongoing campaign of terror in the West Papuan highlands, with their Airforce having relentlessly attacked the region since January 31st. According to Human Rights Defenders on the ground, the Indonesian military used drones to drop bombs on the refugee camp in Kembru District, forcing civilians from nine villages to flee into the forest. These are mostly women (some of them pregnant), children, and elders: defenceless people who have already been displaced from…

January 21, 2026 in Statement The following statement by ULMWP President Benny Wenda was read out at the picket outside 10 Downing Street against UK PM Keir Starmer’s meeting with Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto: On behalf of the ULMWP and the West Papuan people, I want to state very clearly: the UK government should not be welcoming the war criminal Prabowo Subianto. Prabowo is complicit in genocide in East Timor and West Papua. As a General of Kopassus, he led the Kraras massacre, in which over 300 innocent Timorese people were slaughtered. Some accounts have alleged that he personally tortured…

January 12, 2026 in Statement Indonesia is totally unfit to hold the Presidency of the UN Human Rights Council. How can Indonesia lead on human rights, when they are hiding from the world their sixty-year occupation of West Papua, with five hundred thousand men, women, and children dead? How can Indonesia lead on human rights, when their President is a war criminal who is complicit in genocide in East Timor and West Papua? Prabowo personally tortured East Timorese men, and presided over indiscriminate massacres of Indigenous people from Kraras to Mapenduma. He has never apologised or been held accountable for…

December 16, 2025 in News The final West Papua All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) of 2025 was held in the House of Commons yesterday (15/12/2025).  Chaired by Alex Sobel MP (Labour), the APPG was attended by MPs Anneliese Dodds (Labour), Jeremy Corbyn (Your Party), Lord Richard Harries, and addressed by ULMWP President Benny Wenda and Spokesperson Raki Ap. President Wenda gave an outline of the current situation in West Papua, while Mr Ap updated MPs on the environmental devastation being wreaked across West Papua by ecocidal Indonesian developments like the Merauke PSN.  Groups including the ULMWP and West Papua People’s Liberation Front…

December 2, 2025 in Speech Below is the full version of the speech that ULMWP Interim President Benny Wenda gave at Oxford Town Hall on December 1, 2025. Wa wa wa wa wa. In the name of Yahweh, in the name of our West Papuan ancestors, and in the name of the bones of our suffering, I open this December 1st—our day of celebration and reflection—by remembering all the West Papuans who have been killed over the past year. Today we gather in Oxford Town Hall, far from our homeland but united in spirit. I wish to express my deep…

The Road to Home is now available to stream online in high definition. This award-winning documentary tells the story of Benny Wenda, the Nobel Peace Prize–nominated West Papuan independence leader, and his ongoing struggle for self-determination. Following his escape from an Indonesian prison in 2002, where he was held as a political prisoner, Wenda has continued his tireless advocacy for justice. Directed by Dominic Brown of Dancing Turtle, the same filmmaker behind Forgotten Bird of Paradise, the film was made over two years with exclusive access to document this remarkable journey. After screenings at festivals, events, and on television, The…

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…