‘We Are Not Cowards’: The Struggle to Keep West Papua’s Liberation Honest and Human

‘We Are Not Cowards’: The Struggle to Keep West Papua’s Liberation Honest and Human

The ULMWP affirms that legitimate leadership remains in West Papua, close to the people living under occupation. Markus Haluk rejects claims of divided leadership, stressing that the struggle is not about military force or exile politics, but grounded work and moral integrity for West Papuan independence.

An audio-visual track recently released online features two senior figures from West Papua’s armed resistance accusing the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP) of “divided leadership” and calling for the organization to be dissolved in favor of the “unique leadership” of the so-called West Papuan provisional president, Benny Wenda, based in the United Kingdom. Within hours, social media was abuzz with claims that the independence movement was fracturing. From within West Papua, however, ULMWP leaders swiftly issued a firm statement rejecting the allegations and reaffirming that the movement’s legitimate leadership remains rooted in the homeland.

“We are not cowards, not liars, not seekers of power or position,” declared ULMWP Executive Secretary Markus Haluk in a written response. “The leadership of the ULMWP is in the homeland — among the people who live, work and suffer for freedom every day.”

His words were not only a defence of institutional legitimacy. They were a declaration of moral vision — and a warning about the kind of independence West Papuans must fight for. In a political landscape marked by decades of colonial control, military repression and exile politics, Haluk’s statement offered something rare: a reminder that the struggle for national liberation can still be guided by conscience.

A Movement Rooted in the Land

For most people outside the Pacific, West Papua’s struggle for independence is a distant, often misunderstood conflict — a decades-long quest by the Indigenous Melanesian peoples of the western half of New Guinea to free themselves from Indonesian rule. Yet for those inside the territory, the battle is not just for sovereignty; it is for the survival of an identity and a way of life.

The ULMWP, formed in 2014 as an umbrella body uniting various political factions, has become the main voice of the independence movement in regional and international forums. Its leadership structure includes an Executive Committee based in West Papua itself, led by President Menase Tabuni, alongside international representatives who handle diplomacy abroad.

Haluk, one of the movement’s most consistent civilian leaders, insists that the heart of the struggle must remain within the homeland. Over the past year, ULMWP activists have held regional and district-level conferences — known locally as Konferensi Wilayah and Konferensi Daerah — designed to rebuild democratic participation from the ground up.

“Each region is organising its own structures,” Haluk explained. “We are focusing on real work: strengthening people’s participation, preparing them politically, building unity at the village level. That is what liberation looks like in practice.”

This is the kind of slow, quiet work that rarely attracts global attention but forms the backbone of every successful independence movement. In West Papua, where political gatherings are often surveilled or suppressed by Indonesian security forces, it is also an act of defiance.

The Distance Between Exile and Homeland

Haluk’s statement was prompted by remarks from the armed wing of the movement, the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), and by tensions with the so-called Provisional Government (PS) led by Benny Wenda, a long-time activist based in the United Kingdom.

The ULMWP and Wenda’s government-in-exile were meant to represent different arms of the same struggle — one focused on domestic organisation, the other on diplomacy. But in practice, their relationship has become strained.

Haluk revealed that efforts to reconcile the two sides had already been underway. Under the encouragement of the Government of Vanuatu, one of West Papua’s strongest regional allies, both camps agreed in mid-2024 to meet and discuss unification. Wenda was contacted directly, and both sides — the Provisional Government and ULMWP — confirmed their willingness to sit down.

A facilitator was appointed. Dates were proposed. September 2024 was chosen for the meeting, based on Wenda’s own request. But when logistical arrangements began, Wenda withdrew, citing the result of a 2023 congress in Jayapura, which he claimed had already affirmed his leadership as “president” of West Papua.

From that moment, the talks collapsed. “We were ready, and we remain ready,” said Haluk. “The ones who withdrew were not us.”

For the movement’s supporters, the episode illustrates the deeper tension between leadership in exile and leadership on the ground. The first often speaks the language of diplomacy, appealing to Western governments and human rights organisations; the second speaks the language of survival, of ordinary Papuans navigating daily life under occupation.

The distance between those worlds — physical, political, emotional — is widening. Haluk’s intervention is, in part, a call to close it.

Between the Gun and the People

The other source of controversy comes from the TPNPB, the armed wing of the resistance, which continues to carry out attacks on Indonesian security forces and infrastructure. While some see them as defenders of the West Papuan people, others fear their tactics invite further militarisation and reprisal.

Haluk’s statement did not attack the TPNPB directly, but it carried a subtle rebuke. The liberation of West Papua, he implied, cannot depend solely on the barrel of a gun.

History offers countless examples of liberation movements that replaced one authoritarian order with another — revolutions that promised freedom but delivered new forms of domination. For Haluk, that is not the future West Papua needs.

“A struggle based only on force, or on military logic, risks producing a new fascism,” one senior ULMWP official said privately. “We do not want to build an independent West Papua where people still fear authority — even if that authority is our own.”

This idea resonates across Melanesia, a region where traditional leadership is rooted in consensus, dialogue, and communal balance. The Papuan struggle, Haluk argues, must draw on these indigenous democratic values, not on imported models of power. “Our movement is not built on the idea of conquering others,” he said. “It is built on the dignity of our people.”

Why Integrity Matters in a Liberation Movement

There is something profoundly human about Haluk’s insistence that the ULMWP’s work continue quietly, despite the noise of accusation and division. It is a refusal to let political intrigue overshadow the lived experience of occupation.

For nearly six decades, West Papua has been under Indonesian control, following a deeply contested process of integration in the 1960s. Since then, the region has seen waves of military operations, resource extraction, and demographic transformation. Many Papuans feel like strangers in their own land.

In this context, moral clarity becomes a strategic asset. Movements that lose it often collapse from within. Haluk’s declaration — “We are not cowards, not rule-breakers, not seekers of position” — reads like an oath of integrity. It signals that the ULMWP’s legitimacy does not come from charisma or military might but from consistency, patience, and accountability to the people it represents.

In a world where so many nationalist movements have been hijacked by ego or opportunism, this emphasis on ethical leadership is striking. It reminds international observers that West Papua’s struggle is not only political but civilisational — a call for a way of life based on truth, communal solidarity, and respect for the land.

The Quiet Strength of Grounded Leadership

Inside West Papua, ULMWP’s work continues under constant surveillance. Community organisers operate with limited resources, often moving between villages to avoid detection. Church networks provide shelter, education, and moral support.

This embedded, community-based leadership contrasts sharply with the imagery of exile politics — press conferences in London or protests at the United Nations. The former is largely invisible but deeply rooted; the latter is visible but often detached.

The ULMWP’s emphasis on konferensi — conferences at the local and regional level — is not bureaucratic theatre. It is a process of civic reconstruction. Each meeting brings together representatives from traditional councils, churches, youth groups, and women’s organisations. They discuss not only independence but also health, education, land rights, and the meaning of governance after independence.

This, Haluk argues, is where the real work of nation-building begins. “We are preparing the people to govern themselves,” he said. “Freedom must be learned and practised long before it is declared.”

It is an approach that echoes the anti-colonial movements of the past — from India’s village-based self-rule advocated by Gandhi to the grassroots comités de barrio of Latin America. Political freedom, these movements taught, must begin with the empowerment of the ordinary citizen.

The Weight of Exile Politics

To understand the frustration behind Haluk’s statement, one must also understand the long and complex history of West Papuan politics in exile.

Since Indonesia’s controversial annexation of West Papua in 1963, many of its intellectuals and leaders have fled abroad — to Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Australia, and later to Europe. In exile, they established organisations to keep the cause alive, lobby international institutions, and raise awareness of human rights abuses.

Their contributions have been immense. Without the advocacy of exiled leaders like Benny Wenda, West Papua’s plight might never have reached global platforms such as the United Nations or the Pacific Islands Forum. Yet exile has its costs. Distance can distort perspective. The more years pass away from the homeland, the harder it becomes to speak with the voice of those still living under repression.

In that sense, the ULMWP’s emphasis on homeland leadership is not a rejection of diplomacy but a demand for balance. “We need international advocacy,” said one youth leader from Wamena, “but we also need leadership that knows what it means to walk through a military checkpoint every day.”

For Haluk and his colleagues, this is the crux of the matter. Leadership is not a title or a media presence; it is a shared risk.

The Price of Misunderstanding

Western coverage of West Papua often flattens the story into a simple binary: peaceful protesters versus a brutal Indonesian military. While that framing captures the reality of state violence, it overlooks the complexity of West Papuan politics.

There are multiple factions — political, military, religious, and cultural — each with its own networks and histories. What unites them is the aspiration for self-determination. What divides them are questions of strategy, leadership, and legitimacy.

Haluk’s statement seeks to dispel the perception that these divisions are fatal. Instead, he frames them as growing pains of a maturing movement — one learning to navigate democracy under occupation. The danger, he warns, is not disagreement itself, but the exploitation of disagreement by those who wish to weaken the cause.

That risk is real. Indonesian intelligence operations have long been accused of exploiting and amplifying internal rifts within the movement. Public disputes among West Papuan groups often serve the interests of those who seek to weaken the cause, creating the appearance of chaos and undermining international confidence in the struggle for self-determination.

Militarisation and the Shadow of Fascism

Among the most striking lines in Haluk’s response is his warning against the drift toward authoritarian methods within the independence movement. “We are not people who break rules or seek power for ourselves,” he said — a sentence that doubles as a critique of any future that reproduces the very structures of domination Papuans have endured.

This is not merely rhetoric. Around the world, movements born in the name of liberation have sometimes evolved into regimes of control. The cycle is familiar: oppression breeds resistance; resistance breeds militancy; militancy, once victorious, consolidates itself through coercion.

In the West Papuan context, the risk is heightened by decades of militarisation. Many young West Papuans have grown up amid violence — seeing authority expressed through uniforms and guns. For some, militarism feels like the only language of power available.

Haluk’s argument cuts against that tide. Independence, he suggests, must mean more than the transfer of sovereignty; it must mean the birth of a political culture based on consent rather than command. “If we win by copying the methods of our oppressors,” said one ULMWP organiser, “we have not truly won.”

In this sense, Haluk’s intervention is both political and philosophical. It is a call to liberate the imagination — to envision a West Papua that is free not only from Indonesia but from the logic of domination itself.

Faith, Culture, and the Moral Centre of Resistance

The moral dimension of the West Papuan struggle is deeply intertwined with its cultural and religious identity. The vast majority of West Papuans are Christian, and the Church has played a complex role — sometimes prophetic, sometimes cautious.

Haluk, who has long worked alongside church networks, often frames the struggle in ethical terms rather than geopolitical ones. His language echoes both liberation theology and indigenous spirituality: the idea that freedom must be rooted in justice, and justice in truth.

In villages across West Papua, local pastors and catechists have become de facto human rights defenders. They document abuses, mediate conflicts, and keep communities united in faith and hope. This moral infrastructure — invisible to most outside observers — sustains the movement far more effectively than social media campaigns or international statements.

It also shapes its character. West Papuan nationalism, unlike many modern independence movements, is less about ethnic exclusivity than about restoring harmony between people and land. “To free the land is to free ourselves,” one elder told me during fieldwork in the highlands years ago. That vision continues to guide leaders like Haluk, who see liberation not as revenge, but as restoration.

The Regional Dimension

While much of the world remains silent on West Papua, the Pacific has not forgotten. Nations such as Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu have long championed West Papuan self-determination in international forums.

Haluk’s clarification about the failed reconciliation effort makes clear that Vanuatu’s government played a key mediating role, trying to unite the movement’s factions. The fact that one side withdrew at the last moment frustrated many Pacific leaders who have invested years in solidarity diplomacy.

For them, a united West Papuan front is essential to advance the cause at the United Nations and within the Melanesian Spearhead Group (MSG), a regional bloc that has debated granting West Papua full membership. Division only weakens their case.

But as Haluk’s statement reminds the region, unity cannot be built on illusion. It must rest on accountability and shared commitment — not on self-proclaimed titles or symbolic gestures abroad. The West Papuan fight for freedom is not a revolution by remote. Leadership, Haluk insists, must remain close to the people who bear the daily cost of the struggle.

A Struggle for Human Dignity

More than anything, Haluk’s declaration returns the conversation about West Papua to its moral core. For him, independence is not a trophy to be won, but a process of reclaiming dignity. It begins in the everyday courage of those who continue to organise, teach, pray, and hope under the shadow of repression.

When he insists that “the leadership of ULMWP is in the homeland,” he is saying something larger: that the authority of a liberation movement must flow from the people who bear the cost of liberation.

The image of the exiled leader or the revolutionary soldier may dominate headlines, but the true face of West Papua’s struggle is found in its teachers, mothers, students, and elders who sustain the idea of freedom without fanfare. Their patience, not their anger, is what gives the movement its moral weight.

Freedom Without Fascism

Markus Haluk’s statement could easily have been a routine clarification about leadership disputes. Instead, it became a manifesto for integrity in resistance. In his quiet insistence that the ULMWP remain focused on local organisation rather than power struggles, he reminded the world of something vital: that liberation must be measured not only by the end it seeks but by the means it employs.

West Papua’s path to freedom may be long and uncertain. The geopolitical odds are immense. Indonesia, backed by powerful allies and driven by economic interests in the region’s vast natural resources, shows no sign of relinquishing control. Yet within this asymmetry, the moral strength of the West Papuan people continues to grow.

Haluk’s message to his fellow leaders — at home, abroad, and in the forests — is clear: unity is not a slogan; it is a discipline. The movement must remain grounded in truth, service, and humility. Otherwise, independence will only reproduce the structures of domination it seeks to overthrow.

“We are not cowards, not liars, not seekers of power,” Haluk said. “We are people of the land, and our struggle is for the life of the land and its people.”

For those who have followed West Papua’s long and painful story, those words cut through decades of confusion. They remind us that the world’s last great decolonisation struggle is not only about territory, but about the human soul — about the fight to remain free, even before freedom is achieved.

Wim Anemeke