AUCKLAND (Indonesian Human Rights Committee/Pacific Media Watch): Three West Papuan civil and human rights leaders are travelling to New Zealand to address a "road to peace" forum on the eve of the Pacific Islands Forum in Auckland next month.
"The indigenous Melanesian people of West Papua have been forced to live under Indonesian military rule since the early 1960s, but yearn to be part of the Pacific family again," said the organisers, Auckland-based Indonesian Human Rights Committee, today in a statement.
The three leaders are:
Dr John Ondawame (West Papua People’s Representative Office in Vanuatu)
Rex Rumakiek (secretary-general, West Papua National Coalition for Liberation - WPCNL)
Paula Makabory (Institute of Papuan Advocacy and Human Rights - IPAHR, Australia, and ELSHAM West Papua. She is one of 1000 peace women who were nominated for the Nobel Prize in 2005).
Where: MacLaurin Chapel, 18 Princes St, Auckland (corner of Princes Street and Waterloo Quadrant)
Time: 7.30 pm, Tuesday, 6 September 2011
The next day a West Papuan solidarity conference will be held at the AUT University marae.
The Pacific Islands Forum meets in Auckland 6-9 September at Sky City.
* Contact: Indonesia Human Rights Committee, Box 68-419 Newton,
Auckland 1125 or email: maire@clear.net.nz
Pacific Media Watch
