Vanuatu PM’s speech spotlights Indonesian Papuan atrocities and Pacific ‘blind eye

Vanuatu Prime Minister Moana Carcasses Kalosil (left) with Papuan journalist
Victor Mambor in Noumea. Photo: Tabloid Jubi

By DAVID ROBIE

SHAME on New Zealand politicians. With the courageous exception of the Green Party’s Catherine Delahunty, most of the rest offer a shameful silence over Indonesia’s human rights violations in West Papua.

The Melanesian brothers and sisters of the colonised region, forcibly invaded by Indonesian paratroopers in 1962 and annexed under the fraudulent United Nations “Act of Free Choice” in 1969, have suffered under Indonesian atrocities and brutal rule ever since.

But it took the Prime Minister of Vanuatu,  Moana Carcasses Kalosil, to take the podium at the United Nations Human Rights Council and condemn Jakarta for its past and ongoing crimes in West Papua, before the world took notice.

This not only shames New Zealand, it also exposes most Pacific leaders for their lack of spine over Papuan human rights.

When Vanuatu became independent from the British and French joint colonial condominium, better known as “pandemonium”, in 1980, founding Prime Minister Father Walter Lini was a champion for West Papuan independence.

New Caledonian rugby star in French line-up against New Zealand

                               Benjamin Fall and other French rugby players speak out. 

NEW CALEDONIAN lock Sébastien Vahaamahina, 21, will play his fourth rugby test for France in the start of the the three-match series against the New Zealand All Blacks at Auckland's Eden Park on Saturday.

Sébastien Vahaamahina ... test debut.

The Perpignan player toured Argentina last year but this is his first run-on test.

Bordeaux-Bègles fly-half Camille Lopez - who almost singlehandedly demolished European champions Toulouse 41-0 in February will also make his test debut.

Coach Philippe Saint-André has also handed Perpignan wing Adrien Planté his first international start while on the other wing Maxime Médard returns to win his 33rd cap, almost four years to the day since scoring the winning try in Dunedin - the last time France beat the All Blacks in New Zealand.

Les Bleus will have a fresh faced half-back pairing as Racing Metro scrum-half Maxime Machenaud joins Lopez in the starting XV. Both are just 24.

Luc Ducalcon is at tighthead prop in the absence of stalwart Nicolas Mas, who is still recovering from injury.