November 19, 2007 by Rudolph Ryser.

                                                                                        19th November 2007

The West Papua National Coalition for Liberation (WPNCL) has called on the President of Indonesia, Dr. Haji Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to enter into peace talks aimed at resolving the long standing problems of human rights abuses and related problems in West Papua.

On 12th October 2007, Secretary General of the WPNCL, Dr. Otto Ondawame, wrote directly to President Yudhoyono, as well as presented a letter of request for dialogue to the Indonesian delegates to Pacific Islands Forum Dialogue Partner Meeting on 18th October this year in Tonga.

The WPNCL was established at a meeting of leaders of West Papuan political and social groups in September 2007. It is the sole and legitimate representatives of the people of West Papua and gives a single voice to the shared aspirations of the people of West Papua.

Since 1998, Indonesia has undergone a process of transition from authoritarianism and militarism to democracy and, for the most part, peace. However, West Papua has been largely excluded from that process. The Secretary-General of the WPNCL, Dr. Otto Ondawame said the WPNCL now seeks to bring democracy, justice, peace and freedom to the people of West Papua.

‘As a part of Indonesia,’ Dr. Ondawame said, ‘our beloved land of West Papua has had neither peace nor freedom. The attempt by the Government of Indonesia to resolve this problem by establishing Special Autonomy for West Papua has failed, being too little, inadequately applied, and effectively dismantled. For these obvious reasons, the Special autonomy has been rejected by the people of West Papua and demanded for new just and democratic referendum’.

‘There continues to be human rights abuses by the TNI and police, including the murder, torture and disappearance of West Papuan political activists, and the regular intimidation of ordinary West Papuan people. There are also the continuing problems of very low levels of development, the illegal expropriation of many West Papuan people from their hereditary lands, the lack of adequate compensation, and the destruction of the West Papuan natural environment,’ Dr.Ondawame said.

‘When the people of West Papua have attempted to express concern over these legitimate issues, they have been beaten, arrested and tortured, and often murdered and disappeared, Dr. Ondawame said. ‘It is time for the people of West Papua and Indonesia to work out a better way to address these problems’

To this end, the WPNCL has formally invited President Yudhoyono, or a delegation on his behalf, to enter into meaningful dialogue to seek a resolution to these and related issues.

For further information, contact:                                                                                                                     

Dr. Otto Ondawame, Tel: +678 23614, +678 75832 (Mb).                                                                               
Paula Makabory, +61(0)402547517;   Fax: +61(0)395435843                                                                                     Octovianus Mote +1 203 5203055

Technorati Tags: OPM, West Papua, peace talks

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November 19, 2007 by Rudolph Ryser.

As I looked out of my window flying from  Monterey, Mexico to Houston, Texas one afternoon two weeks ago I looked out on a landscape that once contained hundreds of ejidos, now vacant…emptied out under the pressure of the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and the United States. Ejidos were guaranteed under the Mexican Constitution to return land to indigenous Mexicans as a part of a massive land reform program fought out in a revolution led by Emilio Zapata.

Since the Mexican Revolution descendants of the original peoples of this land produced their own food, shared benefits in common and sold the excess of their produce to earn some money for things they could not make–largely a subsistence economy that ensured life and happiness. Indigenous Mexicans were once again–since the Spanish invasion of the 1520s–living as producers and consumers of their own self-sustaining goods and services.  That all came to an end when under pressure from the United States, the World Trade Organization and the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Mexican government repealed the ejido system guarantees against land alienation.  In 1997 25% of the ejidos were sold mainly to large corporations and the community members became consumers and low wage workers (about 35 cents US per hour) (mainly in American companies along the northern border of Mexico) producing products for the world market.  Self-sufficient people were once again turned into dependent consumers…unable to feed and house themselves.  Is it any wonder that mostly Mexican Indian people cross the US border to secure jobs that pay substantially more to help feed family members back home?

I am sitting in the city of Puerto Vallarta today looking out across the skyline filled with derricks with pulleys and long cables lifting cement, tiles, windows and other building materials to new hotels and office buildings.  Workers from the country-side now come into town on buses, in the back of pickups and in dump trucks to sweat and labor to build the new city growing on top of the old village that was located on the east shore of Banderas Bay.

A few people in Mexico, mostly those descendant from Spaniards, have become fabulously wealthy and others moderately wealthy while the vast majority of Mexico’s indigenous peoples (about 70% of the population) try to play catchup economics–the possibility of which remains illusive at best.  Indeed, the trickle down doesn’t and hasn’t trickled down.  Mainly those who once produced the food, clothing, housing and other life supporting goods have been alienated from their role as producers–forced now to become laborers and consumers rushing into Wal-Mart to gather up moderately priced goods manufactured in China.

While Mexico is experiencing a building boom is several cities, and a few have become fabulously rich, the vast majority, the descendants of Mexico’s Aztec, Zapotec, Mixe, Maya and other nations have rapidly lost their main food source (maize) to Monsanto Corporation, their livelihood to corporations buying up their land for massive farms to produce export soybeans and their capacity to determine their own future.  The only exception to this general rule is the choice and the risky effort on the part of many Indian people to cross the US/Mexico border to perform back breaking work in the United States for wages that help sustain their families back home.

The Americans helped create this mess in the last twenty-five years.  This is not the new economy.  This is the old economy of the 19th century writ in the 21st  century.

The irony is that as I write today, siting in a Mexican city that is booming, this is a day Mexicans celebrate their Revolution that was to bring new freedoms and self-reliance back to the majority of the people.  Today, however, there is less to celebrate in Mexico as the people, mostly the Indian people, suffer.

Technorati Tags: mexico, Indians, NAFTA, Mexican Revolution, economy

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November 19, 2007 by Jay Taber.

“I will tell you something about stories. They aren’t just entertainment. Don’t be fooled. They are all we have, you see, all we have to fight off illness and death.”

—from Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko

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