Candle-lit silent Vigil for West Papua

Tonight, in the remote Highlands of West Papua, the Indonesian-occupied western half of New Guinea island, up to 15,000 Papuan refugees are huddling together to keep warm in caves or make-shift shelters on the frozen foothills of the glacier-topped Puncak Jaya -- at 5,000 meters high, the tallest mountain in Australasia. They are starving and terrified children and elders, mothers and fathers.

Sometime last week, they were herded into the mountains like cattle by Indonesian soldiers firing machine guns at them from helicopter gunships as they ran for their lives. For now, we can't be sure exactly how many Papuans have been shot dead, but we know the names of some of them. We do know that at least two elders, a church pastor, a woman and two children - unarmed, innocent civilians -- were gunned down in cold blood by Indonesian soldiers as they fled.

Below them in the valleys, the Papuan villages lie in ruins. Indonesian soldiers have torched their homes and churches, ripped up the crops from their fields and killed their animals in a frenzy of deliberate vengeful destruction. Nothing is left. There is no life.

Now the 15,000 Papuan refugees are encircled by thousands of the very same Indonesian soldiers who have just murdered their loved-ones and destroyed their homes and churches. The Indonesian military has formed a strict cordon around the Papuans. No Papuans are being allowed out and no Papuans are being allowed in to bring the food, medical supplies and warm clothes which are all now desperately needed. Not even church pastors are being allowed through to tend to the sick, wounded and starving.

"People run to the mountains. Now they need food, yeah? Now, they need food," one Papuan pastor, Revd Socratez Sofyan Yoman, has told Radio Australia, crying out to the outside world to come to their help.

Tragically, we know that so far 15 Papuans have died on the mountainside of Puncak Jaya, of starvation and exposure …most of them were childreen. We don't know, but by now, many more Papuans have most likely died.

But we have to tell you that tragedy and destruction is nothing new for the people of West Papua. In fact, for 41 years, shootings, rape, torture, disappearances, intimidation and imprisonment without trial have been a regular brutal feature of life … and death ... under Indonesian military occupation. As always, we can't know the exact numbers, because human rights organisations and foreign journalists are banned from West Papua, but Amnesty International has estimated that to date at least 100,000 Papuans have been killed since Indonesia took over control from the Dutch in 1963. That's 10% of the Papuan population, murdered. Some would call that genocide?

For 41 years, the Indonesians have quite literally got away with murder. In 1969, they rigged the result of the Act of 'Free' Choice referendum, which was supposed to be the Papuans' chance to choose between Indonesia or independence. Instead of one person, one vote, the Indonesians hand picked a mere 1,025 Papuans and forced them at gun point to vote for Indonesia. Some who refused had their tongues cut out or were dropped onto their villages from helicopters as a warning to others. And during all of this the UN and the western powers, including Britain, the USA and Australia watched on, knowing full well what was going on … but doing nothing to intervene. IIn fact the rest of the world accepted the result and washed its hands of the whole West Papua "problem".

But now, unlike then, the people of West Papua have friends and supporters around the world. International support for the Papuan cause is growing by the day. There is now a strong united voice of Papuans and their international friends, calling for a new referendum in West Papua in which this time every adult Papuan can choose between continued rule by Indonesia or full independence.

During the Act of 'Free' Choice in 1969, two young Papuans escaped across the border into the then Australian colony of Papua New Guinea. They were determined to fly to New York to tell the United Nations the truth of what was happening in their so-called "referendum". But as they were about to board a plane to America, the two Papuans were stopped and imprisoned without charge … by the Australians.

However in 2004, no-one can stop the truth from being told and that is why we will be outside the Indonesian Embassy on Wednesday night from 5pm, in silent solidarity with our 15,000 Papuan brothers and sisters who are suffering and dieing on the mountainside of Puncak Jaya, but with faith and hope that one day they or their children will come down from the mountain into a free West Papua.

Please join us if you can.