Papuans protest in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta
Photo: BBC

It is a crime against humanity to play down the Western powers and co-opted Indonesian imperialism war being waged against the indigenous Black people, the true owners of Papua Guinea while misleading the world on the true narrative about the suffering of indigenous Black people, writes Nafshiyah Ndahimana.

In an article published on the BBC website on Tuesday, September 24 titled ‘West Papua: Day of violence sees at least 27 dead’ by Jonathan Head, BBC southeast Asia correspondent, Black indigenous people are portrayed throughout the article as ‘students’, ‘protesters’ and ‘mob of students’.

Papua Guineans people originated from Africa more than 40 000 years ago and arrived in Papua Guinea way before current Indonesia rulership, and before the instruments of White supremacy and colonialism such as the United Nations and Western-owned media outlets existed.

In recent years, Afro-descent Papua Guineans have been wrongly diluted in the ‘Melanesian’ racial group. Another way of suppressing them as Black African natives of West Papua Guinea, a way of also suppressing their Papua birthrights for land ownership and suppressing their right for self-determination.

Black Papuans are currently risking their lives to claim the independence of their land from Indonesia, by doing so, they are fighting an ideological struggle against Indonesia, a Dutch colonial construct and a puppet of the global White Supremacist economic system.

Indonesia is indeed a puppet of White supremacists on the international scene as the Indonesian government is allowing Australians and Indonesian companies and their American partners to jointly operate gold, silver and copper mines in West Papua, one of the poorest provinces of Indonesia. These activities never profit Black Papuans and are damaging at an environmental and social level, while only profiting current neo-colonialist countries.

In addition to these riches being looted from Black Papua through more than 20 mines operated mostly by foreign companies and Indonesia, the neo-colonialist puppet, severe abuse of human rights by Indonesian military are regularly reported in the media and Black Papua Guineans are manipulated and oppressed so that they can migrate elsewhere.

We, the people of African descent across the world, believe that there is no need for Black Papuans to ‘reconcile’ with the Indonesian government as the article seems to suggest.

Black Papuans are rightly fighting for their rights and the Indonesia government must be removed from West Papua Guinea along with the Western powers. It is also important that Black/Afro descent own the narrative about their history and current affairs in this world so that White supremacist- owned media outlets stop spreading re-engineered news and manipulative perspectives that favour the imperialist agenda of the rulers of the Western world.

We are asking BBC to stop portraying the Black Papuans fighting for the independence of their land as a ‘mob of students’. They are not a ‘mob’ they are instead a dignified people, part of the GLOBAL AFRO / BLACK FAMILY, fighting against White supremacist powers and their Indonesia co-opted government currently looting the riches of their Island.

Nafshiyaha is a blogger & activist at: https://www.making-africa.com