Recently we’ve published stories on Iranian Freedom Fighters and now West Papuans. Why?
For the last six years we have often longed for our stories to be heard internationally.
Well surely if we want to be heard by others, we also have to be prepared to listen.
~MGG
When we aired this show, people in the comments kept telling us how their uncles were in New Guinea during the war. Several of them stated how they died there.Uncles.
Chances are young men who had not yet fathered a child. Young men whose story—that would travel back who knows how far—mother, father, mother, father after father, all of them surmounting the obstacle course of their lives at least long enough to bring a child into the world, until the last page of this lost story ended in the jungles of Papua.
Did they have dreams that they had to accept they would never realise? Did they make peace with a god before God accepted them? Or did they die with the last question that most fallen soldiers, if they had time enough to ask, ask before death’s collecting: Why?
We’ll probably never know. And yet years later, in this interview about the people of Papua, these lost uncles—nameless—are mentioned in a comment.
Can you imagine the grief in our society after the war? No wonder there are so many shrines. No matter how small the town or shire, there is always a shrine, with its list of names attached.
The people were so broken, they used the sacrifices of these men to build the foundation of our cultural identity. An identity that wasn’t questioned or challenged until covid.
But the ANZAC legend is interwoven with other stories of courage, determination and empathy.
One of those is of the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels.
The native people of what is now called West Papua. A people who came to our aid when our situation was dire.
During World War II, Papua New Guinean ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels’ carried 750 wounded up/down the Kokoda Trail. They prioritized feeding patients & built shelter with 4 sleeping on each side at night. No known injured soldier was ever abandoned by the Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels, even during heavy combat.
Men who held our injured soldiers back to base, who carried the severely injured on stretchers across the mountains, over the hand-made bridges spanning serious and unknown rivers, and through jungles that must have felt like they would never end.
There are many who claim that if it wasn’t for the efforts of these people, we might not have won the war in New Guinea.
And if we had lost, what sort of cultural identity would we have ended up with?
Now though, in their time of need, according to the investigations of Julian King, not only are we completely ignoring the genocide of these people by the Indonesian forces, but we are supplying the weapons and the training for those forces.
If you were watching this history like it was an SBS movie, what would you think of us, as a culture, that this is how we are repaying those who once risked everything to save us?
Or rather, if this is true—then beneath the fading lie of the identity we grew up with, who, as a people, are we?
~Michael Gray Griffith
The Bio of Julian King
Julian King holds a Honours 1E degree in Applied Geology, a Distinguished Record in Ecology, a Masters in Social Anthropology and is currently completing a PhD on West Papua’s failed decolonisation. He is a board member of the Bellingen Environment Centre (BEC) and founder of the West Papua Research Group with the Australian Association of Pacific Studies.
Julian has been involved with the West Papuan liberation movement Organisasi Papua Merdeka (OPM) or Free Papua Movement for over 25 years assisting the former OPM Spokesperson the late Dr Otto Ondawame at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Sydney. Julian is currently the OPM’s legal officer and assists the OPM Diplomatic Spokesperson Mr Amatus Douw.
Julian has published peer-reviewed papers detailing: how West Papua legally remains a Non-Self-Governing Territory, albeit abandoned by The Netherlands and annexed by the United Nations and Indonesia;1 the breaches of international law covertly perpetrated by the United Nations in denying West Papua’s independence;2 and pathways to justice under international law;3 and argues that Western governments, on behalf of foreign multinational corporations, are responsible for the ongoing genocide where the loss of life in the Territory is now in the millions.4
After highlighting corruption over the Timor Gap oil dispute between Australia, East Timor, Conoco Philips and the United Nations in 2004 while undertaking doctoral research in East Timor, the Australian and East Timorese governments attempted to murder Julian via ambush, running his vehicle off a cliff. Having failed, he was then framed by the Police who placed ammunition in his house and charged him with Terrorism.5 The Dili National Court found the Police guilty of fabricating evidence and the case was dismissed.6 After announcing a case of defamation against President Ramos Horta – who labelled Julian a Terrorist – and seeking compensation, he was illegally deported.
Julian’s Presentation
More recently – after documenting human rights abuses including aerial bombings, torture, and extrajudicial killings in West Papua in 20227 and labelling Australia and other Western governments complicit in genocide for the supply of military hardware and training – a covert programme by ASIO and the Australian Federal Police Counter-terrorism Unit in 2023 led to Julian and Amatus being framed and charged with attempting to supply weapons to the OPM.
Over a ten-year period, these ASIO/AFP personnel acted as West Papuan activists, journalists, environmental consultants and shipping agents in a covert pre-orchestrated programme of entrapment. During this period Amatus and Julian were liaising with the governments of New Zealand, Australia, the United Nations regarding a New Zealand pilot taken hostage by the OPM in 2023.
Despite legal challenges and ongoing surveillance, Julian remains actively engaged in advocacy and pushing for international accountability over West Papua. While completing his PhD, he also manages the BEC’s West Papua Legal Campaign with Jomo Hutaa in Ghana to bring West Papua’s case of derailed independence, ongoing genocide and Western government complicity before the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
