Citizen Media and Civil Resistance in West Papua
ENDANGERED JOURNALISTS
umbrella group that united the three largest coalitions of resistance groups inside
the country. Perhaps the most visible sign that the struggle has become inter-
nationalised occurred at the Melanesian Spearhead Group meeting in Honiara
in June 2015 when the ULMWP were accepted as observers (MacLeod 2015).
A vibrant social media, sticker and poster campaign ‘Bring West Papua Back
to the Family' was widely taken up by solidarity groups in Papua New Guinea,
Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. When West Papuan leaders travelled to
Honiara one of the first things they did was establish relationships with journal-
ists from the two dailies, The Solomon Star and the Island Sun, assisted by the
local solidarity group 'Solomon Islands for West Papua'. The ULMWP also or-
ganised their own press secretary, the eminently capable Joey Tau, who helped
place 140 separate stories in the Solomon Star and the Island Sun plus addition-
al stories in other media outlets across the Pacific. In private and public, MSG
leaders were clear: their people demanded that Melanesian leaders accept West
Papua as members. After the MSG the ULMWP then went on to successfully
push the Pacific Island Forum to call for a human rights fact-finding mission.
Conclusion
Since 1998, nonviolent means for addressing Papuan grievances and pursuing
Papuan aspirations have been used more regularly and more extensively than
violence or conventional political activity. In July 1998 Papuans kept the flag
flying, hoping it would herald independence. Local media were too scared to
report the story and foreign media were completely unaware it was happening.
Seventeen years later, in 2015, the movement has matured into a co-ordinated
international force, committed to a strategy of nonviolent resistance and diplo-
macy with citizen media at its heart. The struggle has gone from international
obscurity to an important agenda item at sub-regional and regional forums.
Although at the time of writing, the formation of the ULMWP is still
recent, it remains, in my view, the most significant event in the history of Papuan
resistance. Eschewing brittle hierarchical forms of organisation, the ULMWP has
established a decentralised network structure with visible leadership based out-
side the country and a hidden collective leadership structure inside the country.
To date the secretariat seems to be negotiating this complex inside/outside ar-
rangement with mature agility. As a result of this visible unity and coordination
provided by the five-member executive, the ULMWP is attracting broad-based
support from allies across the Pacific.
Merdeka ("freedom') may still be a distant dream, but it is one that is more
alive than ever before.
50 PACIFIC JOURNALISM REVIEW 22 (1) 2016View entire presentation