Enarotali, Jubi – The commander in chief of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), Damianus Magai Yogi states that Indonesia and Papua are equal in the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG).
Therefore, Yogi said, when Indonesia wanted to discuss the fate of Papua, he hoped that the two parties could sit together at the MSG table.
“We, Indonesia and Papua, are equal in the MSG. Therefore, the TPNPB hopes that we will sit together at the MSG table. Let the MSG settles it,” Damianus Magai Yogi told the head of the Papua office of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM Papua), Frits Ramandey, in a closed meeting on Wednesday, August 24, 2022.
Yogi said that as long as Papua was still a part of Indonesia, Papuans would not be safe. He said that his family members, for example, were often threatened with being shot dead whenever they wanted to shop at the market or seek health treatment in the city.
“That means we in Papua have no peace. Indonesia still sees us as enemies so we spend our entire lives in the forests. What if we agree to sit down to talk about peacebuilding? And then let’s just live separately in each nation,” he said.
Frits Ramandey expressed his gratitude for Damianus Magai Yogi as Yogi had received him well in Enarotali. Ramandey and Yogi further discussed both parties’ willingness to resolve gross human rights violations in Papua.
As a member of the Monitoring and Negotiation Team for a number of humanitarian events in Papua, Ramandey also conveyed his mission to Michelle Bachelet as the High Commissioner of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
“On behalf of Komnas HAM Papua and as a part of the Monitoring and Negotiation Team, I have met in Geneva the High Commissioner of the UN Human Rights Council, Michelle Bachelet. I told her about this mission and she supported it as it is an effort to resolve human rights violations that have occurred in Papua,” he said. (*)
