The license to treat original Australians like dirt was built into the constitution, and modern Australia struggled to look at aborigines, the landowners of Australia, in the eye. An official apology was offered to bridge the Australian society in a world mad with human rights issues.
Yet, it is a question that begs to be answered and Minister Rimbink Pato will one day be forced to apologise to an independent West Papua because the tide of history is changing. The pace is elastic, but West Papua will be free.
The Asian Human Rights Commission which investigated genocide in West Papua used the following definition.
Definition of Genocide:
The crime of genocide is defined under international law as ‘any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group;(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.’
Although the prohibition against genocide is manifested in the form of international treaties such as the Genocide Convention and the ICC Rome Statute, it does not apply only for countries that have ratified such treaties. The prohibition against genocide amounts to a peremptory norm – elsewhere also referred as jus cogens.
Consequently, no derogation shall be permissible and each state is legally obliged to comply with this prohibition. A state has the obligation to prevent and punish genocide and this obligation should be fulfilled by the international community as a whole, as it has the legal interest in the prevention of genocide (obligations erga omnes).
Out of nowhere, with no context, PNG’s Foreign Minister Minister Rimbink Pato says PNG will maintain its relations with Indonesia even if international community is aware of genocide taking place in West Papua. It would mean PNG is committing a war crime too due to its silence over West Papua, especially the Minister responsible for not telling Indonesia to account, and side – track the issue at hand. This relationship is not normal, never will be. The Minister’s correct language is interpreted to mean that there is no genocide in West Papua, and therefore he is complicit to a war crime already. Indonesia’s secret war across the border that it tries to conceal to the outside world, despite the silence on what needs to be done about West Papua, is on the table of the international community and the opportunity to address West Papua issue differently is here, now.
Which way, Rimbink Pato?
For more information:http://freewestpapua.org/go/1302
