“The groundswell of anger that has fuelled the demonstrators was sparked by an incident in the Javanese city of Surabaya on the weekend, where nationalist groups goaded Papuan students with racist taunts, calling them ‘monkeys’, ‘pigs’ and ‘dogs’.
“The exiled West Papuan leader, Benny Wenda, said the subsequent arrests of the Papuan students in Surabaya had ‘lit the bonfire of nearly 60 years of racism, discrimination and torture of the people of West Papua by Indonesia’.”
Read more about the ongoing protests and the history of the West Papuan struggle for self-determination here: https://
Check out our film, “Wantoks: Dance of Resilience in Melanesia,” to learn more about West Papua and other movements in Melanesia: https://
[Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons.]