The West Papua Film Festival had its genesis when Jubi Media, a West Papuan owned and run media organisation based in Jayapura, West Papua, under the leadership of renowned journalist and editor, Victor Mambor, commissioned five documentary films on the contemporary situation in West Papua. These films were shot and edited over a twoyear period by some of Indonesia’s leading documentary film makers. They were launched in Jakarta and Jayapura in late 2023. The WPFF in Australia is the international launch of this important series of films.
West Papua mini film festival
These films are important because they show life in West Papua as it really is: the struggles that people face in everyday life amidst a litany of human rights abuses from the encroaching influence of Indonesian state forces such as the TNI (Indonesian Military) and Police; the expansion of the mining and oil palm industries; the creeping dispossession and destruction of traditional lands; the influx of non-Papuan settlers from other parts of Indonesia; the challenge to get basic government services such as health and education, and the continuing economic marginalisation of the area’s original Melanesian inhabitants.
This is important because the information that the Indonesian public receive through mainstream media is skewed against the Papuan people. There is pervasive and deliberate misinformation about the situation in West Papua. Consequently, the Indonesian government continues using military force to try to ‘resolve’ the conflict in West Papua by hunting down Papuan fighters, defined as ‘terrorists’, with the TNI occupying large areas of the mountainous interior of the country. More than 60,000 internally displaced people (IDPs), refugees, have fled their homes in the last few years and live in extremely poor conditions with little access to food, shelter, schools or health services. This situation is continuing.
Misinformation comes in several forms, including through biased TNI press releases and the intentional creation of ‘bots’ and false personas in social media, which is examined in detail by Victor Mambor in the next chapter. This false and biased information is picked up as fact by mainstream Indonesian media to create a false and biased representation of West Papua, which in turn informs the Indonesian public perception of life in the region.
An example of this is where TNI press releases report that Indonesian soldiers are helping teach students in remote highlands schools. The image is one of the benevolent state helping underprivileged students in their education. From the Papuan view these soldiers are an military occupying force that destroys churches, schools and people’s houses; that shoots and tortures people accused of helping separatists, and causes tens of thousands of people to flee to safety. The students, far from being helped by the soldiers, drop out of school in fear and a whole generation is missing out on critical years of education. Where the Indonesian public see one ‘reality’, the West Papuan people suffer in another completely different reality.
Another example, which Victor discusses in detail, is the creation of fake Papuan social media users who echo the Indonesian government views. Contentious issues such as the recent splitting of West Papua into five separate provinces (strongly resisted by most West Papuans); the historical integration of West Papua into Indonesia; the state of government services and importantly, basic human rights amid massive resource development projects, are all portrayed as if they have a large body of support amongst the West Papuan people. Which they do not. Mainstream Indonesian media picks up and quotes these false social media naratives and so the Wayang puppet play of an imagined reality continues.
The films in the WPFF show the true story of West Papua. The main target audience is the Indonesian population, which is why they are in Bahasa Indonesia with English sub-titles. The films’ aim is to influence Indonesian public opinion so that the situation is seen as one of crisis, that West Papuan people are suffering in myriad ways under oppressive government policies and that the only way that these dire issues can be addressed is through dialogue and not through the continual escalation of military and state violence.
Whereas changes in Indonesian government policy will only come through pressure from a better informed Indonesian public – informed by accurate and non-propogandist media reporting – the international community has a role to play too, particularly in Australia. West Papua has been a non-issue in Australia for decades as governments of all persuasions prioritise good relations with Indonesia over the human rights of the West Papuans. Even before the Lombok Treaty of 2006 Australia has played a supportive role in training, supplying and in some cases funding Indonesian military and para-military forces. The Lombok Treaty itself, a security agreement between Indonesia and Australia, came about in the wake of a boatload of West Papuans landing in Queensland who were swiftly granted political asylum by the Howard Government. This infuriated the Indonesian Government and the Indonesian Ambassador was briefly withdrawn from Australia.
Now in 2024 the Australian government is looking for closer military ties with Indonesia as regional diplomatic arrangements undergo realignment in consequence of China’s massive expansion in the AsiaPacific. Australia is therefore a player in the West Papua conflict. What influence can Australia, or the Australian public, have on this conflict? The most useful thing would be to increase international pressure to allow the United Nations Human Rights Commission to undertake a fact-finding mission to West Papua. This proposal, which Indonesia has agreed to, was requested by the Pacific Islands Forum (of which Australia is a member and therefore a signatory of the PIF 06 communique) in 2018.
What influence can Australia, or the Australian public, have on this conflict? The most useful thing would be to increase international pressure to allow the United Nations Human Rights Commission to undertake a fact-finding mission to West Papua. This proposal, which Indonesia has agreed to, was requested by the Pacific Islands Forum (of which Australia is a member and therefore a signatory of the PIF communique) in 2018. Multiple requests by the UNHRC for access to West Papua have since been denied by Indonesia on various grounds (including during the Covid pandemic) and it is yet to take place. Such a mission could be groundbreaking, firstly in providing an unbiased report on the situation from a UN body, and secondly by suggesting ways out of the morass in which West Papua (and Indonesia) has been stuck for decades. Dialogue might even replace bullets as the status quo.
Indonesia is a country of international significance: the fourth largest nation on earth and the largest Islamic one. It is increasingly a global player, for instance pushing for the human rights of Palestinians trapped in the horror of the current conflict in Gaza. With international influence comes responsibility and it is time that the human rights mess in Indonesia’s back yard, and in Australia’s backyard as well, is addressed. It is hoped that the WPFF will play some role in helping this process by throwing light on this hidden catastrophe.
The West Papua Film Festival comprises six films, five made by Indonesian and West Papuan filmmakers and one by an Australian. Together they take us on a rare bird’s eye view of life in West Papua. The festival also features expert talks and Q and A sessions with some of the directors and people behind these documentaries engaging with audiences. The WPFF is a series of events across Australia that intends to shed light on a little known, but deeply troubling, human rights catastrophe on Australia’s doorstep