Today, October 14th 2019, is indigenous peoples’ day to Native Americans. We would like to celebrate this day in honor to all indigenous peoples around the world by announcing a new Sinchi Fund beneficiary: the Free West Papua Campaign.
The Free West Papua Campaign exists to inform the world about the ongoing genocide in the nation West Papua and to raise awareness and support for West Papua’s full freedom through self-determination. West Papua is a country just 250km North of Australia, which has been under brutal Indonesian military occupation since the independence of Indonesia in 1945. Over 500,000 indigenous Melanesian West Papuan people have been killed yet much of the world remains blind and/or uninformed due to media censorship.
Enduring decades of systematic genocide, the people of West Papua continue to struggle for freedom and their right to a referendum. Sinchi supports the Dutch branche of the Free West Papua Campaign, led by West Papuan and independence advocate Raki Ap, with a grant to spread awareness about the genocide of the West Papuan people. It’s proven very difficult to create media attention for the human rights violations taking place in the country. Our incentive is to create better access to reliable news sources for the situation in West Papua. This takes place in the form of documentation and the creation of media outlets.
For more information on Free West Papua Campaign, go here: freewestpapua.org
For our Dutch followers:
