Yogya – Papua students from the Papua Student Alliance (AMP) in the Central Java city of Yogyakarta held a protest action to commemorate Trikora at the zero kilometre point intersection in front of the central post office on the afternoon of Friday December 19.

The action disrupted the flow of traffic in the area. Earlier, the protesters held a long march from Jl. Kusumanegara to the zero kilometre point.

Currently they are giving speeches and have formed a circle in the centre of the intersection. “Withdraw TNI [Indonesian military] from the Land of Papua! Investigate the human rights violations that have occurred in Papua”, said one of the speakers.

The protesters also brought a variety of banners with messages such as, “Reject the integration of Papua through the 1969 Pepera” and “Reject the deployment of the TNI to Papua”.

Notes

1. Trikora – After the Dutch announced the formation of a Nieuw Guinea Raad on April 1961, with the intention of creating an independent Papuan state, Indonesia’s founding President Sukarno declared military confrontation in his Tri Komando Rakjat (TRIKORA, Triple Commands of the People) speech in Yogyakarta on December 19, 1961.

2. Pepera – The so-called “Act of Free Choice”, the 1969 UN sponsored referendum that saw 1,025 hand-picked delegates vote in favor of West Papua’s integration with Indonesia.

[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the report was “Mahasiswa Papua di Yogja Tolak Pengiriman TNI”.]

Source: http://www.tribunnews.com/regional/2014/12/19/mahasiswa-papua-di-yogja-tolak-pengiriman-tni