Since Indonesia’s occupation of West Papua, an estimated 100,000 Papuans have been killed. Killings, torture, rapes and arbitrary arrests are commonplace. Whole villages have been razed in reprisals against real or imagined separatist sympathisers.
West Papua contains vast mineral and timber wealth and is therefore seen as vital to the Indonesian economy. A heavy army presence protects projects there, including the American and British owned Grasberg mine.
Government officials have spoken of ‘breeding the Papuans out of existence.’ Now, the emergence of an HIV/AIDS epidemic, with infection rates 15 times the national average, make this threat a terrifying possibility. Most Papuans remain completely unaware of this deadly disease and how to protect themselves against it.
Please write to Indonesia’s President using this text or your own words:
