President Biden was to meet 18 Oceania leaders from across the South Pacific during a now cancelled visit to Papua New Guinea May 22, instead he will cut his work tour short to resume in-person debt talks with congressional lawmakers. While Biden was set to become the first sitting US president in at least a century to visit the island nation, West Papuan Lewis Prai Wellip was not optimistic that the needs of West Papuans would have been addressed.

West Papua shares the island of New Guinea with Papua New Guinea, in Oceania, near Australia. Reminiscent of the 1863 agreement between Europeans to peacefully carve up Africa for their own needs and without regard to the indigenous people, The Netherlands in 1898 colonized the western part of the island of New Guinea and called it West Papua. The eastern half of the island is the now independent nation of Papua New Guinea.

Wellip still wants Biden to address the United States’ role in handing West Papua to Indonesia instead of granting it the opportunity for self-determination. He explained, “No-one bothered to question the US government regarding the key role that US government played in the illegal 1962 New York Agreement, which resulted in the transfer of the administration of West Papua from the Netherlands to the United Nations Temporary Executive Authority (UNTEA) and later to Indonesia.” 

The New York Agreement, written without any inclusion or representation of West Papuans, "paved the road for this slaughterhouse. My people call this agreement The Gateway to Hell," wrote Organisasi Papua Merdeka (Free Papua Movement) chairperson Jeffrey Bomanak in an open letter to Biden. Merdeka is the Indonesian word for freedom.

Wellip believes the area’s natural resources played a heavy role in the decision making. Five years after the New York agreement, the U.S. mining corporation Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold began creating the world's largest gold and copper mine while the native population was dispersed. “Freeport and the Indonesian government signed the business contract without the consent and knowledge of the elected leaders and people of West Papua,” he added.

Biden is still expected to attend the 49th G7 summit in Hiroshima, Japan, May 19 – May 21. The G7 Summit is an international forum held annually for the leaders of the G7 member states of France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada, and the European Union (EU).

After his meeting May 22, he was to meet with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) — Australia, India, Japan and the United States — in Sydney on May 24. Noticeably, India is also a member of BRICS, Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which is challenging America’s economic dominance.

While Biden was looking to maintain and mend fences with Oceania, in China’s backyard, Lufa-Apo feels he may be creating a new problem. “If the US government is turning a blind eye on West Papua's fight for freedom, then obviously West Papuan leaders will have no hesitation to approach China for help.”

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See Also: An Open Letter - To President Joe Biden, from Jeffrey Bomanak, Free Papua Movement

From Our Archives: West Papuans in Oceania Seek Freedom Like Other African People