As Pacific Islands Forum Leaders gather in Honiara this week, civil society groups from across the region have renewed calls for concrete action on West Papua and Kanaky’s decolonisation.
In an open letter ahead of the 54th Forum Leaders’ Meeting, regional CSOs urged leaders to:
- Fulfill outstanding commitments by inviting a UN Human Rights mission and fact-finding delegation to West Papua;
- Ensure rapid humanitarian responses through neutral mechanisms, including PIF and civil society-led missions;
- Champion a mediated ceasefire and adherence to international humanitarian law.
Incoming PIF Chair and Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele confirmed the issue remains on the Forum’s standing agenda.
“We will have an interaction with civil society on this matter, but yes, West Papua is a standing agenda item, and we will discuss it further,” he said.
PIF Secretary General Baron Waqa acknowledged both West Papua and New Caledonia as “very sensitive issues” before leaders.
“These are matters our leaders have been tackling every year. It all depends on how leaders deliberate on them during this meeting,” he said.
West Papuan activist and freedom advocate Raki Ap, who visited Honiara ahead of the Forum with his documentary The Promise, called on Pacific leaders to act with courage.
“Melanesia will never be free until West Papua and Kanaky are free,” he declared, highlighting decades of human rights abuses and resource exploitation in his homeland.
Ap condemned global powers’ silence, pointing to the world’s largest gold and copper mines in West Papua as the true drivers of Indonesian and international interests.
“Our people have been tortured, killed, humiliated as monkeys, and denied their rights. More than 500,000 have been killed, our history erased, and our children brainwashed,” he said.
United Liberation Movement West Papua President Benny Wenda said it’s a critical time where the Pacific Islands leaders are needed the most to act for the vulnerable people.
“At this critical time, the ULMWP is urging Melanesian and Pacific leaders to reaffirm their 2019 communique call for Indonesia to allow immediate access for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights to visit West Papua.
“More than 110 UN members have demanded such a visit. Yet Indonesia continues to block access, defying the will of the international community and undermining PIF itself.”
Meanwhile, New Caledonia’s pro-independence movement, the FLNKS, has rejected the proposed Bougival Project, describing it as a setback that undermines the decolonisation roadmap established under the 1988 Matignon and 1998 Nouméa Accords.
FLNKS President Christian Tein, in a letter to the Melanesian Spearhead Group, warned the Bougival plan entrenches French control while offering only cosmetic reforms.
“It neither guarantees sovereignty nor ensures genuine emancipation of the Kanak people. It amounts to democratic recolonisation,” he wrote.
FLNKS raised concerns over the lack of a clear timetable for independence, diluted citizenship provisions, absence of transitional justice, and an economic pact controlled by France. The party also warned of the risk of rolling back political gains secured since 1998.
Their stance echoes the findings of the PIF Troika Mission in 2024, which noted the disputed 2021 referendum undermined by Kanak non-participation and recommended international mediation.
Both West Papua and Kanaky remain central to the Pacific’s unfinished decolonisation agenda, an issue Forum leaders will face directly as they meet under the theme “Iumi Tugeda: Act Now for an Integrated Blue Pacific Continent.”