PIANGO hopes UN sec-gen will act on West Papua

Transcript

The executive director of the Pacific Islands for Non-Governmental Organizations hopes that the United Nations Secretary-General will act on growing concern about ongoing rights violations in West Papua.

Emele Duituturaga says she met unofficially with Ban Ki Moon at one of the roundtable meetings at the recent World Humanitarian Summit, and presented his assistant with a report by a Catholic church West Papua fact-finding mission.

A spokesman for Mr Ban said that contrary to some media accounts, there was no record of any documents regarding Papua being officially handed over to the Secretary-General.

However, Ms Duituturaga says she gave the report to his people.

EMELE DUITUTURAGA: Well, I had the opportunity to meet him at a round table meeting. We shook hands, I showed him the report, mentioned it, but he wasn't in a position to take it from me, so  presented it to his assistant secretary-general, who was going to submit it to his office.

JOHNNY BLADES: What do you hope to achieve by getting the report, We Will Lose Everything, into Ban Ki Moon's hands

ED: Well he needs to pay attention. The Pacific is calling for it. Not just in the Pacific. There are meetings of parliamentarians in the United Kingdom. It's now become a world issue. And you know, it's very heartening to see Ban Ki Moon denounce violations in other parts of the world, and it's just a matter of time. He needs to pay attention to the issue of West Papua and send an independent fact-finding mission so that we can all establish what's really going on.

JB: And you, in your address, spoke about West Papua - is that right?

ED: I highlighted it because one of the areas of focus at the world humanitarian summit, is the need to report on human rights violation. And PIANGO made that commitment, with respect particularly to West Papua. And so we see it as a human rights crisis. There's a lot of coverage, there are publications now, out for the public, calling for attention to what has now been termed a genocide. Also PIANGO has made representations with other NGOs to the Pacific Island forum leaders, it was one of the five top key issues discussed by the forum leaders. A fact finding mission was to have been undertaken this year and we have again made representations officially through the Pacific Island forum calling for a UN intervention and a special repertoire.

JB: At the summit you probably saw and heard a lot of evidence about horrible stuff happening around the world, things that need urgent action - where does West Papua stand in that, from what you've seen in that global context?

ED: Well, we've heard from the West Papuans themselves and they're saying ti's a very, very serious and a very, very dangerous situation right now, that needs to be attended to immediately. So it's very high on the humanitarian and human rights violation list as far as we're concerned.