Leaflets Against Guns: The Silent Rebellion of West Papua

On a quiet morning of August 12, a group of 21 young Papuans stepped into the streets, not with weapons, but with leaflets. 

Their hands trembled—not from fear, but from conviction. The printed pages they distributed bore a call for a peaceful protest, a simple cry against a silence that had lasted too long.

They were members of the Komite Nasional Papua Barat (KNPB), a youth-led movement that has become a voice in the wilderness, crying out against decades of colonial shadows. Their protest was aimed at the memory of a day that changed their homeland forever: August 15, 1962.

It was on this day, 63 years ago, that the infamous New York Agreement was signed. Orchestrated by the United States, brokered with the Netherlands, and eagerly signed by Indonesia — but without a single Papuan voice at the table. This agreement transferred administrative control of West Papua to Indonesia, bypassing the most basic principle of human rights: the consent of the governed. For the Papuan people, this wasn’t a negotiation — it was a betrayal.

But the young activists on that August morning weren’t only protesting the past. They were also remembering an insult that still burned in their hearts — the racist attack in Surabaya in 2019. On that day, Indonesian nationalists, backed by state forces, stormed a Papuan student dormitory. They hurled stones, threats, and a word that still echoes like a wound: *"monkeys."* That single word crystallized decades of systemic racism faced by Papuans across Indonesian society.

And so the young protesters marched. Twenty-one of them. Twenty-one voices of defiance. Twenty-one bodies standing against the machinery of an entire state. And the state responded with force.

They were arrested, dragged away by heavily armed police and soldiers—armed not just with guns, but with decades of impunity. What danger did leaflets pose to a state bristling with military might?

The Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) reacted swiftly. Its spokesperson, Joe Collins, issued a sharp rebuke:

"Canberra should be urging Jakarta to control its security forces in West Papua, otherwise we will see more arrests and more human rights abuses."

Collins warned of a familiar pattern: arrests, beatings, torture — and the weaponizing of treason charges against those who dare to dream of freedom.

For Markus Haluk, Executive Director of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), the arrests symbolized something even darker.

"What the police are doing today to the KNPB is a blockade of democratic space," he said.

"Racism in West Papua is still happening: 60 years of Indonesian occupation—isn't it synonymous with systemic racism in all areas of life?"

He continued, his voice as steady as it was somber:

"There is no justice, no peace, no prosperity and no future for the Papuan people in Indonesia. The time has come for West Papua to return to the fold of Melanesia and to seek with it a democratic solution to self-determination, independence and political sovereignty."

These young Papuans with their leaflets may seem insignificant—mere dots in the face of a nation-state. But history has always been written not by the silent, but by the stubbornly hopeful. By those who refuse to be erased. By those who, in the face of tanks and lies, keep printing truth on fragile sheets of paper.

And so, the leaflets fly. The message spreads. The struggle continues.