[imc-sheffield] Free West Papua (UK): We need your help in SHEFFIELD!

Thu Feb 14 12:50:26 PST 2008

FREE WEST PAPUA CAMPAIGN (UK)

www.freewestpapua.org <blocked::http://www.freewestpapua.org/> 

Dear friends in Sheffield!

We're not from Sheffield...we're from the South Pacific (via Oxford).... but
we desperately need help from the people of Sheffield.

Sheffield now holds the dubious honour of donating to a grateful nation the
current UK Foreign Office Minister responsible for the UK's relations with
Indonesia, one Meg Munn ... MP for Sheffield Heeley since 2001.

Meg Munn may be a thoroughly nice person when she's back in Sheffield, but
when she's sat behind her Foreign Office desk in Whitehall she's helping "to
protect the UK's national interests in Indonesia" by supporting the
Indonesian military's brutal occupation of West Papua.

In West Papua's case, Britain's "national interests" largely take the form
of New Guinea's resource riches (natural gas [BP], copper & gold [Rio Tinto]
& the second largest surviving tropical rainforest after the Amazon).

And that's where the good folk of Sheffield come into the picture. Your
words from Sheffield (and especially from Sheffield Heeley) can reach Meg
Munn in a way that's just not possible for the rest of us crying in the
wilderness at the other end of the M1.

Below is an e-mail we're asking (begging) everyone in Sheffield to send to
Meg Munn MP (marked "FROM SHEFFIELD" in capital letters). 

Meg Munn has recently written a letter in support of Indonesia's illegal
annexation of West Papua via the 1969 "Act of Free Choice" (known by Papuans
as the Act of NO Choice). The letter is copied below and I must warn you
that it's not pleasant reading. We need you to tell Meg Munn what you think
of it!

If you would like to read what actually happened when Suharto's Indonesia
occupied West Papua in 1968/69, aided and abetted by his friends in London,
Washington & Canberra, you might like to take a look at the article "The UN
& the Act of Free Choice" by British historian, Dr John Saltford at:
http://www.angelfire.com/journal/issues/saltford.html
<blocked::http://www.angelfire.com/journal/issues/saltford.html> 

And once you've sent your e-mail/letter to Meg Munn, we also need your help
to see how we can start bringing the Free West Papua cry onto the streets of
Sheffield. 

If possible, we'd like to be singing some West Papuan ukelele freedom songs
(banned by Indonesia) outside Meg Munn's constituency surgery in Heeley and
asking as many of her constituents as possible to tell her that they're not
happy with the UK's policy of supporting Indonesia's military occupation of
West Papua ... a policy which she's helping to put into practice down in
London. 

If you're in Heeley or in another part of Sheffield and you'd like to help
us in any way (big or small) to get a Free West Papua demo in Heeley up and
running, please e-mail me on samoxen at dsl.pipex.com or phone me on 07891
235112.

Solidarity!

Richard

Richard Samuelson

Free West Papua Campaign, Oxford, UK.

 <http://www.freewestpapua.org/> www.freewestpapua.org

Below is a letter to Meg Munn MP. Please read it carefully and if you agree,
SEND IT BY E-MAIL &/OR POST to these addresses: 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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E-MAIL Meg Munn MP NOW on  <mailto:msu.publicin at fco.gov.uk>
msu.publicin at fco.gov.uk

copied to me at samoxen at dsl.pipex.com
<blocked::mailto:samoxen at dsl.pipex.com> 

If you are a CONSTITUENT of Meg Munn MP in Sheffield Heeley, e-mail her on:
<mailto:munnm at parliament.uk> munnm at parliament.uk

WRITE TO MEG MUNN MP NOW at:

MEG MUNN MP,

PO BOX 4333,
SHEFFIELD, S8 2EY

&/or

MEG MUNN MP,

2nd Floor, Barkers Pool House, 

Burgess Street, 

SHEFFIELD, S1 2HF 

&/or

MEG MUNN MP,

House of Commons,

LONDON SW1A 0AA 

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To MEGG MUNN MP,

Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office 

& Member of Parliament (Labour & Co-operative Party) for Sheffield Heeley
since June 2001

February 2008

Dear Ms Munn,

On 14 January 2008 you put your name & reputation to a letter about the
illegal Indonesian annexation of WEST PAPUA (copied below). 

INDONESIA'S BIG WEST PAPUA LIE is that in 1969 the West Papuans 'freely
chose to become part of Indonesia' in a 'democratic vote' cruelly called the
"Act of Free Choice". 

In August 1969, Brigadier-General Ali Murtopo, special envoy of the
Indonesian dictator Suharto, speaking to West Papuans selected to take part
in the "Act of Free Choice", made this brutal threat:

"This is what will happen to anyone who votes against Indonesia. Their
accursed tongues will be torn out. Their full mouths will be wrenched open.
Upon them will fall the vengeance of the Indonesian people. I will myself
shoot them on the spot."

And at the same time, Suharto sent this clear order to his military forces
in West Papua: 

"See that the [act] on West Irian's [Papua's] future status will yield a
clear pronouncement in favour of Indonesia."

Your letter seeks to support INDONESIA'S BIG WEST PAPUA LIE even though your
Foreign Office advisers know full well that it is a blatant, bare-faced lie.
Their predecessors knew it was a lie in 1969 (just look through the British
telegrams from that time sent from your Embassy in Jakarta) and they know it
is a lie now. Two of your Government colleagues have already admitted as
much: 

"[In the Act of Free Choice a] 1,000 handpicked representatives . were
largely coerced into declaring for inclusion in Indonesia". (Foreign Office
Minister Baroness Symons, House of Lords, 13 December 2004.) 

"We recognise that it [the Act of Free Choice] was extremely flawed". (UK
Government spokesperson, Baroness Royall, House of Lords, 8 January 2007

Are you aware that had either of these two statements been made by a West
Papuan man or woman rather than by British Government Ministers, he or she
would now be serving a 10 or 15 year sentence in some God-forsaken
Indonesian prison . or worse. Daring to disagree with the Soviet-style
"official version of history" in Indonesian-occupied West Papua is to put
your - and most likely also your family's- life in danger. You are now
officially a "separatist", and in the blindness of Indonesian nationalism,
torturing and preferably killing "separatists" is every good Indonesian's
patriotic duty. 

During the past 39 years, thousands of West Papuans who bravely stood up for
the truth of how they know their country has been stolen from them by
Indonesia in the "Act of Free Choice" have had their teeth kicked out, their
hair and penises burnt, their breasts hacked off, their vaginas slit, their
babies ripped from their wombs and their still breathing bodies tossed like
rubbish into mass graves.

I wonder if you knew all this when you put your name & reputation to that
letter on 14 January? One thing I can say for sure is that your Foreign
Office advisers do. Look into this now. I urge you to find out for yourself.
And when you have, I call on you to say what you honestly believe to be true
about the "Act of Free Choice" face to face to Benny Wenda, leader of the
West Papuan independence movement in the UK, whose own father, Kulog Wenda,
was one of the Papuans forced, compelled, coerced to vote for Indonesia in
1969 - with an Indonesian gun to his head.

This is not a matter of mere historical or academic interest.  The truth
about the "Act of Free Choice" is paramount to whether a new nation - West
Papua - can be born out of the blood of 45 years of Indonesian occupation &
oppression. Once you've found out the facts for yourself, you will then have
a free choice: to continue supporting INDONESIA'S BIG WEST PAPUA LIE or to
give to an entire people the CHANCE to CHOOSE FREEDOM?

Yours sincerely,

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14th January 2008

Our reference: 53976

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH

>From the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State

Robert Wilson Esq. MP

House of Commons

London SW1A 0AA

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your letter of 12 December on behalf of your constituent .
about Papua.

The Act of Free Choice took place in Papua in 1969. A group of 1,000 Papuan
representatives, who were given the responsibility to make the choice on
behalf of the Papuan people, voted to remain part of Indonesia.

The British Government of the day supported the Act of Free Choice, as did
the United Nations and almost all members of the international community.

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative at the time reported that
"in accordance with Indonesian practice" the population had "expressed their
wish to remain with Indonesia".

Thus Papua became an integral part of the territory of Indonesia.

We do not support a re-visitation of the 1969 Act of Free Choice.

As I have set out in my previous replies to your letters on behalf of your
constituent, and as stated in Parliament most recently by Lord Malloch-Brown
on 13 November[2007], the UK respects the territorial integrity of Indonesia
and does not support independence for Papua.

We believe that full implementation of existing Special Autonomy legislation
is the best way to proceed towards a sustainable resolution to the internal
differences and the long-term stability of Papua.

Yours sincerely,

MEG MUNN

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