Chairman says VCC will take up West Papua case

Vanuatu Christian Council (VCC) Chairman, Anglican Bishop James Ligo, says the VCC will take up the West Papua case in its Annual General Meeting next week, emphasising its firm stand to work with the new Government to make West Papua its priority.

He says the VCC is taking up the case because it has become clear that the caretaker Government of Prime Minister Sato Kilman has gone astray from the original focus of the Founding Fathers of the Struggle that called for the people of West Papua to be free of Indonesian slavery to decide their own destiny.

As the Chairman of VCC, the Bishop says he does not see any reason at all why the Government has not taken up the plight of the “brothers and sisters” of West Papua.

“The caretaker Prime Minister used a metaphor to say that if you want to tame a lion, you must not isolate it but keep it close to you. But I want to add that a lion is unpredictable and very dangerous, and will attack you and kill you if you allow it to wander in the neighbourhood,” Bishop Ligo says.

He says VCC wants to know what kind of assurance Indonesia has given to the MSG to acquire observer status at its meetings.

“We can’t entertain somebody that kills our brothers and sisters everyday then take him onboard to as an observer on the Melanesian Spearhead Group of countries,” he says.

“We that make up the VCC will work with the new Government to consult and pursue ways to free the people of West Papua who are getting killed every day by the Indonesian military,” he says.

Bishop Ligo says VCC will take West Papua issue to the Pacific Council of Churches Meeting in Honiara, Solomon Islands next year and even as far as the World Council of Churches and the Decolonisation Committee of the United Nations.