Benny Wenda's craftiness helped Vanuatu to meet KT HAM

Benny Wenda's craftiness helped Vanuatu to meet KT HAM

Seeing Vanuatu's actions, Indonesia strongly condemned the small country which secretly included the leader of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), Benny Wenda, in his delegation when meeting the High Commissioner (KT) of the United Nations Human Rights (UN) in Geneva, Switzerland, last year.

"Indonesia strongly condemns Vanuatu's act of deliberately deceiving the Human Rights Summit by taking manipulative steps through infiltration of Benny Wenda into the Vanuatu delegation," said the Indonesian Ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Hasan Kleib, on Tuesday (1/29/19) last year .

During the meeting, Benny submitted a West Papua independence referendum petition that was claimed to have been signed by 1.8 million people. The submission of the petition occurred when the Vanuatu delegation was conducting an honorary visit to the UN Office for the Human Rights Summit in Geneva. The honorary visit was carried out in the framework of discussing Vanuatu's annual Universal Periodic Review (UPR) report at the UN Human Rights Council.

Unexpectedly, Vanuatu included Benny in his delegation without the knowledge of the UN Human Rights Summit. According to Hasan, Benny Wenda's name was not included in Vanuatu's official list for the UPR. Even the UN Office for Human Rights KT was very surprised at Beny's presence at the time, considering that the meeting was solely intended to discuss UPR Vanuatu.

"Vanuatu's actions are highly commendable and very incompatible with the fundamental principles of the UN Charter. Indonesia will never back down to defend and defend the sovereignty of the Unitary Republic of Indonesia," Hasan said.

To reporters in Geneva, Benny claimed to have submitted the petition signed by 1.8 million people to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet. Benny said that under the Indonesian government, Papuans did not have freedom of opinion, expression and assembly.

He also considers the only way to get that freedom is through the petition, which is claimed to have been signed by nearly three-quarters of a total of 2.5 million Papuans. During the meeting, Benny also asked Bachelet to send a fact-finding team to Papua to investigate allegations of the use of chemical weapons in the easternmost part of Indonesia.