27 Oct 2006

Call for Forum mission to Indonesia's Papua province

11:05 am on 27 October 2006

There's a call for the Pacific Islands Forum to send a fact finding mission to Indonesia's Papua province.

In the communique at this week's summit, Pacific leaders welcomed progress towards autonomy in Papua but raised concerns at violence and called for the root causes of conflict to be addressed by peaceful means.

Fiji's Nationalist Vanua Tako Lavo party has been backing the self- determination movement and its leader, Iliesa Duvuloco, says they are happy Papua has not been ignored, but wanted a stronger statement.

He says a mission compromised of Forum leaders could determine the truth of reports about military brutality.

"A team to go there to assess, locally, on the spot, on the ground the actual - you know they can interview the people, the nation, or the West Papuan leaders and the people about what exactly is happening, rather than receiving all the conflicting information, you know."