This morning's top story in the JakartaGlobe reads "Papua Tribal Leaders Speak Out Against OPM Anniversary Celebrations", it explains that "Tribal leaders in Papua urged residents not to fly the Morning Star flag in commemoration of the Free Papua Movement's July 1 anniversary, warning that the flag -- which is banned in Indonesia -- will only provoke further violence in the restive province".
Among those quoted in the article is Bion Tabuni who is the brother of recently slain pro-democracy activist Mako, purportedly saying "People should not answer Lambert's call. It hasn't even been 40 days since Mako Tabuni died. Don't further our sorrows with these actions."
What has caused such terror & today's deadly choice? Fifty years of terror, hundreds of thousands of people killed and untold numbers of women raped while Indonesia harvest's West Papua's resources and pushes not one, but hundreds of unique cultures and languages to the brink of extinction.
President Eisenhower did not know the details of the "military industrial complex" when he asked Americans to resist the undue influence of a corrupt section of corporate America, but it is likely that the President did know that industrialist Mr Robert Lovett had asked Kennedy to appoint Lovett's family friend McGeorge Bundy as the U.S. national security adviser.
Thus began this 50 years of terror in West Papua.
Today the people of West Papua face yet another terrible choice, do they again fly their beloved Morning Star flag in hope that other nations will hear their voice, or do they remain silent and hope to survive until some angel can rescue them ?
I hope the American people will one day become that angel, will ask Washington to relinquish it's support of Indonesian colonialism which the Kennedy family drafted on the advice of Mr Bundy, I hope my friends in America will one day say enough is enough by saying no to the slaughter of my Melensian friends.
And I ask readers to please consider the below Manifesto of independence which the nationally elected New Guinea Council issued nine months before Washington succeeded in having them sold to Indonesian rule:
Manifesto First Papuan Peoples' Congress, October 19, 1961
We, the undersigned, residents of the western part of Papua, representing various groups, tribes and religious denominations, knowing that we are united as a people and a nation,
DO HEREBY DECLARE
To all our fellow countrymen that we,
I. in pursuance of Article 73a and b of the Charter of the United Nations;
II. on the strength of the declaration of principle regarding the independence of non-self- governing territories and peoples, as laid down in the resolution No. 1514 (XV) adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations at its Fifteenth Meeting from September 20 to December 20 1960;
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