Paris climate change pact ‘not enough to save us’, warns Fiji PM

Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama closing UN Oceans Conference… “Paris Agreement not enough to save us”. Image: The Ocean Conference

Current national contributions by countries to the Paris Agreement on climate change are not enough to save the Pacific, says Fiji’s Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama.

“We have to try to persuade the rest of the world to embrace even more ambitious action in the years to come, because we all know that even the current national contributions to the Paris Agreement are not enough to save us,”

he said, addressing Pacific leaders as the UN Oceans Conference came to a close in New York last week.

As the incoming president of COP23, Bainimarama called on the Pacific and its leaders to stand by him and demand decisive action, as climate change was an issue of critical importance to the region’s collective future.

“I want your input. I need your input. And I want every Pacific leader beside me as we demand decisive action to protect the security of our people and those in other vulnerable parts of the world.”

Bainimarama also outlined his worry that America’s decision to abandon the Paris Agreement may also encourage other nations to either back away from the commitments they have made or not implement them with the same resolve.

“We are all, quite naturally, bitterly disappointed by the decision of the Trump Administration to abandon the Paris Agreement,” he said.

“Not only because of the loss of American leadership on this issue of critical importance to the whole world, but because it may also encourage other nations to either back away from the commitments they have made or not implement them with the same resolve.

“But something wonderful is also happening. The American decision is galvanising opinion around the world in support of decisive climate action.

‘Widespread rebellion’
“Other nations and blocs like China, the European Union and India are stepping forward to assume the leadership that Donald Trump has abandoned. And within America itself, there is a widespread rebellion against the decision the President has taken.”

Bainimarama said dozens of American state governors and city mayors were banding together with leaders of the private sector, civil society and ordinary citizens to redouble their efforts to meet this challenge.

“So while the Trump Administration may have abandoned its leadership on climate change, the American people haven’t.

“Next week, I will go to California to meet the Democrat Governor Jerry Brown and sign up to the climate action initiative that he is spearheading. I am also in contact with his Republican predecessor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, who shares Governor Brown’s commitment.

“The point is that on both sides of American politics, we have friends who are standing with us in this struggle. And I am inviting both Governor Brown and the famous ‘Terminator’ to come to our pre-COP gathering in Fiji in October, where we hope they will join us in a gesture of solidarity with the vulnerable just before COP23 itself in Bonn the following month.”

The Paris Agreement, which Fiji has ratified, sets out a global action plan to put the world on track to avoid dangerous climate change by limiting global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius.

Nasik Swami is a reporter with The Fiji Times

June 17, 2017 0

West Papua Problem Will Only be Solved in Melanesian Way, by Melanesian Leaders

West Papua Liberation Army (WPRA) Secretary-General, towards the end term of his office before the secretariat-general office is being ended by its Commander in Chief, Gen. WPRA Mathias Wenda, made a public statement last night that “West Papua Problem Will Only be Solved in Melanesian Way, by Melanesian leaders“, in reply to written questions sent by PMNews (Free West Papua News at papuapost.com via Email and Mobile Text Message.

PMNews: Hello, this is from PMNews again, we would like to ask some questions in relation to current development of West Papua independence campaign. It was reported recently that the Solomon Islands Prime Minister as the Chair of Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG) has toured and met other Melanesian leaders, except the PNG Prime Minister. What do you make out of this development?

WPRA: We thank to God, Almighty, creator of our Melanesian Islands, particularly the home of Melanesians, the Isle of New Guinea, and to our Melnaesian leaders, who are already standing up for their own people and our common identity as Melanesians.

About the current progress of MSG Chair meeting other MSG leaders, we are really grateful that this is happening. About MSG Chair not yet met PNG Premier, please PMNews,do not worry about this. This is exactly we call “The Melaensian Way”. The most obvious feature of the “Melanesian Way” is: UNPREDICTABLE. Please not it, Melanesians are unpredictable, what we do always unpredictable. When Barack Obama, Donal Trump, T. May, Joko Widodo say something, then most of us will be able to predict what they mean and what they imply at the same time. But when Melanesian peoples say something, they can mean something totally different, it is just unpredictable.

PMNews: United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) was promised to be accepted as Full Member of the MSG by early 2017, but this did not happen. Do you think this is also related to “The Melanesian Way”?

WPRA: You are absolutely right. You got it now. That is exactly why I said, we are Melanesians, and we are unpredictable.What we do is the same as the modern world do things. Melanesians are Melanesians. West Papua Issue is now Melanesian Issue, and we are now already dealing with it. Do not do things in Melanesia according to the Western mindset. It will have a counter-productive outcome.

PMNews: Does it mean Melanesian leaders can make promises but then it is OK if they do not deliver?

WPRA: You were already good in previous question, but now you got it wrong in this question. PLEASE: Do not focus on semi-membership and full-membership. That is western mind. Please focus on “membership”. Full stop. ULMWP is ALREADY a member of the MSG, full stop.

Be thankful, work on it, cultivate and nurture communication and collaboration with Melanesian leaders, our own leaders. Do not treat PNG Premier and Solomon Premier as different peoples. They are just one: Melanesian leaders.

West Papua just born into Melanesian family, a new born baby. Do not ask for food yet, milk first. Work first, cultivate first, nurture first, then things will evolve automatically and naturally. We are not talking about other peoples. We are talking about our own Melanesia and Melanesians. Think in Melanesian Way, Act in Melanesian Way.

PMNews: Elaborate more on the “Melaensian Way” that you are talking about.

WPRA: Just one short story. If you want a girl from another clan, what do you normally do? You must behave, you must show yourself capable man, know how to build house, make garden, and be a man, a husband. If your thinking and behavior is like a small kids, no woman will be willing to marry you, no clan will approve you to get their daughter.

You do not need to go around, you do not need to go to their men’s houses and put notice and distribute leaflets asking for support for your marriage with the girl. You do not need to ask other boys to join you in your demonstration. That will make the whole thing counter-productive, right?

What you should do is “behave”, do things that Melanesian peoples do in order to get attention, and in order to get support!

When we Melanesians live long time in the west, then we forget our own Melanesian Way. This is why we say we are Melanesians, but we do in western way. “Our Voice is like that of Jacob’s, but our skin feels like that of Esau’s”. What a game we are into now.

Get out from there. Be Melanesians, do things in Melanesian Way.

Everything is already on the right track. Nothing to worry about. Just TRUST….

Trust in God and His miracles;
Trust in Melanesia and Melanesian leaders’ wisdom
Trust in Yourselves as Melanesians in West Papua.

And then…

As far as possible, avoid to trust opinion from Non-Melanesian(s), because they have their own interests and we do not want them to change our course into their course;
As far as possible, DELETE doubt in yourself, and in your own Melanesian peoples, because that is the deadliest disease that we can have in order to destroy us Melanesians and our future; and
Only then, you can have the capability to absorb and comprehend ideas and suggestions from outside Melanesia, and then you can properly make use of things coming from outside.

PMNews: Your advice is not really easy, because we are in a globalised world, out West Papuan leaders now live in the West and we do not know what things they are getting from there and what things they want to use to Free West Papua.

WPRA: The right Melanesian leaders from West Papua will choose to live in one of Melanesian states, just like what Any Ayamiseba and The Late Dr. OPM John Otto Ondawame did. If they choose to live in the western countries, we will surely know that they dot not FULLY represent West Papuans, but they PARTLY represent non-Melanesians as well.

PMNwes: Any advice for Melanesian youths in West Papua and all over Indonesia?

WPRA: Not now, nothing to say for them right now.

Since 2004, WPRA has already been active in building bases for Free West Papua Campaign across Melanesian states. Since 2006, or ten years ago, we already have moved the Field of West Papua Political Match from Western New Guinea to Eastern New Guinea. Therefore, the match now is happening in PNG, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Kanaky and Vanuatu, not in West Papua or Indonesia anymore.

There is no comment for spectators. When there is a match, people normally give comments on the match, not on the spectators. Thank you.

January 27, 2017 0

MSG meetings in Vila not expected to decide on Papuan bid

A series of Melanesian Spearhead Group meetings are taking place this week in Vanuatu’s capital to look at the group’s membership guidelines.

Last month, the MSG secretariat scheduled this week’s meeting in Port Vila for leaders of its members to discuss a West Papuan bid for full membership.

However there will not be a leaders summit component at this week’s meetings, with the expectation that they will now meet early in the new year.

An Indonesian captures the Melanesian Spearhead Group proceedings, 20 December 2016 in Port Vila, on device. West Papuan representatives Benny Wenda and Octo Mote (MSG observers with the United Liberation Movement) in foreground. Photo: Supplied

But today in Vila, MSG senior officials met, and tomorrow the group’s foreign ministers are to meet, to discuss the findings of a constitutional committee that has reviewed MSG rules on membership.

It’s understood there won’t be a decision on the full membership application by the United Liberation Movement for West Papua this week.

Fiji prime minister Frank Bainimarama listens to a speech at the plenary session of the Melanesian Spearhead Group leaders summit in Noumea in 2013. — Fiji’s prime minister and foreign minister Frank Bainimarama is not in Vila for this week’s MSG meeting, but a leaders summit to decide on West papuan membership is expected early in the new year. Photo: RNZI / Johnny Blades

In a sign of the sensitivity around the issue within the MSG, leaders have this year deferred a number of summits where West Papuan membership was a priority item.

The Sub-Committee on Legal and Institutional Issues was tasked by MSG leaders at their Honiara summit in July to clarify guidelines for observer, associate and full membership in the group.

The MSG’s five full members – Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and New Caledonia’s FLNKS Kanaks Movement – have been divided over whether to grant full membership to West Papuans.

The United Liberation Movement for West Papua was granted observer status in the MSG last year but its bid for full membership has been deferred pending clarity on the guidelines.

United Liberation Movement for West Papua representatives outside the Melanesian Spearhead Group secretariat, 20 December 2016. Photo: Supplied

The Liberation Movement’s leaders, including Octo Mote, Benny Wenda, Rex Rumakiek and Jacob Rumbiak are in Port Vila for this week’s meetings.

Representatives of Indonesia, which has associate member status at the MSG, are also present.

December 21, 2016 0

Gen. Wenda: West Papua is Ready to Function as a Postmodern Nation-State

Following the signing of West Papua Revolution Constitution by the West Papua National Parliament in September 2016, Gen. TRWP Mathias Wenda urges United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) to follow it up according to the order of the constitution that says,

“ULMWP shall form a Transitional Government or Revolutionary Government or Provisional Government of West Papua within 90 days after the constitution takes into force”.

It is important for all Melanesian leaders and tribal elders to understand, that I myself as an elder, would like to invite all Melanesian elders to pray for us in West Papua so that ULMWP has the ability and bravery to declare a “West Papua Provisional Government” not long from now. This is important in order for us Melanesian leaders and for the ULMWP to have a stronger position within international law in our South Pacific Region.

By declaring our West Papua Revolutionary Constitution (WPRC) on 13 September 2016, on the day we celebrated the 9th anniversary of UN Declarations on Indigenous Populations that was passed by the UNGA on the 61-session dated 13 September 2007. The UN Declaration on Indigenous Populations, particularly on Article 3. clearly stipulates

Indigenous peoples have the right to self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

All UN Documents and primarily UN Charter clearly guarantees the rights of all human society in the world, individuals and groups to determine their/our future. And what we Melanesians are doing now in West Papua is just in accordance to these principles, in order to implement the basic values of the United Nations and to appreciate our human civilization that have rejected any forms of slavery and colonization with any reason.

West Papuans are fighting against Indonesian colonialism not because we hate the Malay – Indos.

What we are doing is to respect the values and principles of the UN and to end manipulation and lies that have been colonizing and suppressing, terrorizing and obliterating Melanesian peoples all the way from Fiji to Sorong.

West Papua was invaded militarily beginning from the December 19th, 1961’s Triple Command of Indonesian President. The Western World was not interested in taking risk of Communism expanding to South Pacific region after failure to defeat communist influence in South East Asia, particularly Vietnam and Indonesia.

We human beings in this planet have said “Good Bye” to Communism. The threat from Russia is no longer to do with communism anymore. The eastern block is now already part of our human history. And yet, the impacts of the Cold War Era is still disturbing and deadly to Melanesians in West Papua, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji and Kanaky. Papua New Guinea and Fiji have been reluctant lately, to acknowledge us West Papuans as one race, wan solwara, wan graun and wantok, not based on their choice, but they are presented day and night, back and forth, by forces and threats from outside Melanesia, pressuring them to accept whatever happened in the past and its consequences, however insulting and deadly it is to our race as human beings.

Only until June 26, 2015 that we all Melanesians have declared our dignity and integrity as human race on this planet, on the South Pacific Region, that Melanesians are all united as one race and one family under our house called MSG. We indeed acknowledged the reality of God’s creation that we are created as Melanesians, not as Indonesians. What we are doing is God’s will, based on the laws and principles of God from creation. West Papuans are not Indonesians, we are Melanesians, and this is according to what God has created. Let us agree with God and work towards social-engineering projects being actively and massively, with a lot of resources being executed in West Papua since 1961.

Right now, since 13 September 2016, West Papuans now already have a Constitution that will guide us towards a free and independent West Papua. We invite all Melanesian leaders to understand and cooperate, in order to promote a United Melanesia that is based upon the Values and Norms, Customs and Traditions of Melanesian peoples that we inherited from our ancestors.

This very Provisional Constitution of West Papua clearly states that the citizens of West Papua Nation-State are (1) spiritual beings, (2) plants, (3) animals, (4) matter and human beings who live and share the Western half of the Isle of New Guinea. This constitution is based upon Melanesian values and philosophy, that acknowledges the existence and rights of all communities of beings, including human beings, regard all communities of beings as part of our life, see the forests as our homes, see the animals as our fellow beings, see the spirits of the living and of our ancestors nurtures our lives, honour and worship God in His Spirit, and respect and protect the rights of matters like rivers, gold, timber, soil as fellow beings that should be respected and treated accordingly.

This very Provisional Constitution of West Papua also states that the National or Official Language of West Papua nation-state is Tok-Pisin and the National Currency is Kina West Papua.

We are standing based on our Melanesian norms, values and philosophy, and following our Melanesian brothers and sisters today who already have their independent nation-states. We are going to have our National Government soon, because we already have our National Parliament and Our National Law in place.

As the Commander in Chief of West Papua Revolutionary Army (WPRA) and as the Elder of my own Lani Triba, I would like to invited the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of Solomon Islands, Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of Vanuatu, Rt. Hon. Prime Minister of Fiji, Rt. Hon. Leader of FLNKS, and Leaders of ULMWP that

We fully trust and rely on you all, and look forward to what the future brings from your kind wisdom and leadership in liberating our occupied land by Melayo – Indonesians;
We look forward to sit and stand-up, talk and work together hand-in-hand to fully liberate West Papua from colonialism.
West Papua is the westernmost part of Melanesia, and without West Papua, our own entity as a human race is not complete and we are socially and culturally paralyzed. West Papua independence is per-requisite towards a stable, peaceful, prosperous and powerful Melanesia. Those who against West Papua independence are the ones who want to colonize, manipulate and exploit our Melanesian race and our resources, of course for their own sake not for us Melanesians.

West Papua is our hope for our future. We are looking forward to establish a post-modern nation-state that is based fully on our Melanesian wisdom, based on our Melanesian norms and values, and our system of governance.

We are ready to step into running West Papua Government that will coordinate and organise our movement towards full independence and sovereignty.

Please receive our warmest greetings and salute, from the jungles o New Guinea.

Issued at: The Central Defense Headquarters of the West Papua Revolutionary Army

On date: 10 October 2016

———————————————————–

Commander in Chief of WPRA

Mathias Wenda, Gen. TRWP
NBP:A.001076

October 20, 2016 0

Indonesia says it has backing of PNG and Fiji at MSG

Radio NZ – Indonesia’s Co-ordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs minister says Jakarta has won the backing of Fiji and Papua New Guinea for its push to be a full member of the Melanesian Spearhead Group.

Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan toured the MSG countries last week and says Indonesia should have a larger presence in the South Pacific as parts of the archipelago share the same cultural values with Melanesia.

The Antara news agency says the minister was told by Fiji’s foreign minister, Ratu Inoke Kubuabola, that his government would support Indonesia boosting its status from associate to full membership.

Fiji Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama receives a 5 million US dollar cheque from Indonesia's Coordinating Political, Legal and Security Affairs Minister Luhut Pandjaitan. — Indonesia’s government minister Luhut Pandjaitan presents post-cyclone reconstruction aid to Fiji PM Frank Bainimarama. Photo: Fiji Sun

PNG’s foreign minister Rimbink Pato also showed his support for Indonesia being a full member.

Mr Pandjaitan says being a full member will strengthen Indonesia’s position in the MSG.

Following his Melanesia tour, the minister said he would propose assigning a Foreign Ministry official to engage with Pacific neighbours and advance Indonesia’s commitment to resolving complicated issues surrounding West Papua.

He says Indonesia needs to maintain good relations with the MSG countries because those nations have influence.

Mr Pandjaitan says if the MSG countries get the wrong information about Indonesia they will end up taking it to the United Nations.

April 6, 2016 0