Translator: Meredith Law Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Not many lawyers would say that they feel inspired
by the courage and the dedication of the people they represent.
Fortunately, that is how I feel.
Today, I want to tell you the story of someone who has inspired me.
A person who I've acted for as a lawyer, but also as an advocate more broadly.
Someone who's become a friend.
A person who has taken on powerful state and corporate interests
with little more than an internet connection
and a very committed group of volunteers.
A person who has an uncompromising commitment to justice
and has been the target of intense propaganda by powerful opponents.
A person who has been the subject of an Interpol Red Notice
and has unjustly spent significant periods of time in solitary confinement.
A person whose political asylum case
is listed among the most controversial in modern history.
I'm talking about Benny Wenda
and his struggle for self-determination for West Papua from Indonesia.
The person and the cause who taught me
the meaning of what Julian Assange means when he says,
"Courage is contagious."
It was little over a decade ago
that I went to live in Indonesia as part of my university studies.
I wanted to make a difference.
I wanted to do human-rights work.
As a proactive student - or, many would say, a big nerd -
I read everything there was to know and took every course at my university
on Indonesia, on human rights, on Indonesia's politics.
I read broadly, I followed events in East Timor closely.
But by the time I got to Indonesia in 2002, East Timor had it's independence.
And so my supervisor said, "Why don't you go to West Papua?"
I thought that I knew everything there was to know
about major human rights issues in Indonesia.
But all I knew about West Papua was where to locate it on a map.
It barely rated a mention in the media.
There was very little written about it academically.
And so I started hanging out on my campus with West Papuan students and activists.
They weren't difficult to spot.
Papuans are ethnically Melanesian and very different from Indonesians.
They have dark skin and curly black hair.
They taught me about West Papua, its history, its politics, its people,
about Indonesian occupation and oppression.
This week marks 50 years since Indonesia occupied West Papua.
Since that time, it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of Papuans
have been killed or disappeared by the Indonesian military.
Their natural resources stolen by multi-national corporations
with the backing of the Indonesian government.
And all of this, right here, in Australia's backyard.
I was absolutely intrigued.
How could I have not known about this?
It was as this naive 21-year-old student that I first heard about Benny Wenda.
I was going out to Papua to volunteer for his small human rights organisation,
and some activists had asked me to try to locate him.
I found him -
under arrest,
hogtied in a darkened cell, tortured,
facing conviction for a crime he did not commit
because of his political leadership of an organisation
that peacefully advocates for independence from Indonesia.
Outside of the prison, his young family,
his wife Maria and his baby daughter Koteka,
were being harassed by Indonesian security forces
and were forced into hiding.
Inside the prison, Benny had been offered inducements to give up his cause,
promised release if he did so.
But he refused, knowing that that might mean his death.
I started working on his defense team.
As a foreigner, I was unable to visit him there in prison.
I was myself the subject of intense surveillance by the Indonesian authorities
and threatened with arrest and deportation,
but every day, I attended his trial.
It was blatantly unfair and rigged.
No credible evidence was adduced
to support the charges that have been bought against him.
And every day, as you can see in this photograph,
his supporters would line the path from the courtroom to the police vehicle
to show him their support,
knowing the consequences of public association with him.
Late at night, his supporters would come to visit me
to deliver notes that Benny had written me from prison.
I saved this one all of these years.
In it, Benny asked me to raise awareness about West Papua in Australia.
Neither of us could have known then that I would be standing here today.
But just before verdict in his trial,
a bomb exploded in Bali, killing hundreds of people,
including 88 Australians.
Reluctantly, I was forced to leave Indonesia and to leave West Papua.
I left with the knowledge that with my help,
his young family was now in the relative safety
of refugee camps across the border in PNG.
But Benny remained in prison.
Conviction seemed inevitable.
I left not knowing if I'd see any of them ever again
or whether they'd see each other ever again.
But days after returning to Australia, in despair, I heard the great news.
Benny had escaped from prison
and not only that,
he had made it across the border into PNG
and was on his way to the UK where he was going to claim asylum.
I dropped everything, got on a plane to London.
I wrote a witness statement to support his application,
detailing what I had seen in his trial
and that application was successful.
As impossible as it had seemed just months beforehand, there we were,
Benny, his wife Maria, and their baby daughter
reunited at Heathrow Airport.
But for now return to West Papua was impossible.
In granting Benny asylum,
the British government recognized that if he were to return to Indonesia,
his life would be at risk.
So the family settled in Oxford, and as it happened,
I ended up living and studying in Oxford as well.
From there, Benny formed the "Free West Papua" campaign,
and he would say to me,
"One day, I will return a free man to a free West Papua."
I really wanted to believe him, but it felt impossible.
And as a student in the hallowed halls of Oxford,
it felt impossibly naive to promote his cause.
I would pamphlet my college with his "Free West Papua" fliers.
But the issue had no traction.
Foreign journalists are banned in West Papua, and they still are today.
The Indonesian government continues to maintain
that there are no political prisoners in West Papua.
But we know for a fact, as you sit here today,
there are at least 40 West Papuan activists unjustly detained
in Indonesian prisons.
Feeling rather demoralized, I had the wonderful opportunity
of meeting Archbishop Desmond Tutu on a retreat during my time at Oxford.
I spoke to him about West Papua, a cause he supports,
and a cause that he has raised at the United Nations.
I asked him,
"During the darkest times in Apartheid, what was it that got you through?"
He took my hand, and he said to me simply,
"History is long, but know that justice will prevail."
Benny's believe was equally firm, both in his cause and in me.
He would say to me, "Adik," which means little sister in Indonesian,
"Adik, don't you worry, you are my witness.
You have seen with your own eyes what Indonesia has done to my people.
Focus on your studies.
One day, when you are a big-name lawyer, you'll help us."
At the time, it seemed ridiculous.
But it wasn't so long afterwards this is where I found myself.
Benny and his wife just smiled, in fact, they laughed at me,
and they said, "I told you so."
But by now, Benny's campaign was gaining momentum.
He'd been compared to José Ramos-Horta, called the Nelson Mandela of West Papua.
Members of parliament around the world were signing up to support his cause.
So Indonesia issued an Interpol Red Notice for his arrest
for the very same politically motivated charges
for which he had been granted asylum.
They stopped his international travel,
extended their political persecution across borders,
and this gentle person ended up on the terrorist watch list.
So, we challenged Interpol.
It took us two years, but my witness statement from 2003
served as supporting evidence in having that notice removed.
I'd now become a lawyer, but I'd also become Benny's witness.
And today, things have changed.
Benny can now travel, and after his last international tour,
Papua New Guinea announced opening its first ever "Free West Papua" office.
The Prime Minister of Vanuatu was recently forced to resign,
in part due to failure of his government to support West Papua's cause.
An impossible cause now seems possible.
10 years ago, Benny was in prison.
He escaped,
evaded Indonesian persecution, sought refuge in the UK,
beat an international warrant,
established the legal basis for West Papua's claim
to self-determination from Indonesia,
and an international solidarity campaign.
Today, we travel the world together, speaking to members of parliament,
and he continues to say, with utmost confidence, as he always has,
"My people will be free."
But most people still say it's impossible.
The political and economic interests that are stacked up against West Papua
are too great.
But this is about the law.
I may have been a witness, I may also have been his advocate,
but I'm a lawyer,
and I'm here to tell you today, with utmost certainty,
that the law is on West Papua's side even if the politics aren't.
They have the right to self-determination under international law,
a right that was denied to them in 1969.
That law will not change,
politics can,
politics will.
Many of you may be proud about the role Australia played
in ending Indonesian violence in East Timor.
It wasn't so long before we led that peacekeeping force
that our then Foreign Minister Gareth Evans said,
"East Timor would never have independence."
He said, and I quote,
"Whether you like it or not, there's no point in chasing after an aspiration
that can never be satisfied."
Just last year, Bob Carr said the same of West Papua.
He said Australia supports Indonesian sovereignty.
By the time Australia stepped in to help East Timor,
more than one-third of its population had been killed.
One-third, all of you,
killed by the Indonesian military.
Will we allow West Papua to suffer the same fate?
I believe in change.
It may seem like a distant prospect,
it may seem impossible,
but as a great leader who has also suffered exile and imprisonment put it,
"It always seems impossible until it's done."
But we cannot act if we do not know.
Before I went to live in Indonesia, I knew nothing about West Papua.
Before you came here today, you maybe knew nothing about West Papua.
But we have to get more information into the public domain
so it's harder for governments not to act.
And this is not impossible.
It is something that we can all do.
In 2012, Bob Carr gave a speech in Australian parliament about West Papua,
and he was right about one thing.
He said not one country in the world supports West Papuan independence.
But in 2013, he is wrong.
Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and other Pacific and Melanesian states
are changing their tune.
It takes inspiring and dogged leaders like Benny Wenda to drive a movement
and to give those around them hope.
Individuals can help to change the world, but they can't do it alone, they need us.
They need us to think about what has changed and what is possible,
not only obstacles.
Once we realize we can help to create change, how can we not?
What are we waiting for?
I hope in years to come,
I'll be able to visit a free West Papua and see Benny there,
and that my adik, his children,
will have the opportunity to know their own country.
But people still say it's impossible.
Does that change my view of my work or what I do?
Absolutely not,
because there's no passion to be found in settling for a life
that is less than the one that you're capable of living.
Meeting Benny Wenda changed my life.
Going to West Papua changed my life.
It inspired me.
It unleashed in me a conviction that the impossible is possible
and that standing idly behind the face of injustice is unthinkable.
I hope and I believe that meeting Benny Wenda will do the same for you.
Ladies and gentlemen, Benny Wenda.
(Applause)
Benny Wenda: Thank you, Jen.
Thank you, everyone, for listening to my story.
But it is not only my story, it is the story of a nation,
of men and women and children
who do not have the freedom that you enjoy in everyday life.
Please tell your friends,
your family and your government about this
because the West Papua story is now your story.
Without your support, without your help,
my people will never be free.
Please support to free my people,
and I will go back a free man
from where I came from.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)