The Morning Star flag of Papua has been raised in Port Moresby to commemorate a 1997 proclamation of independence by activists opposed to the region being part of Indonesia.
Below is an extract from an article published on the Sunday Morning Herald Website:
A flag banned from being raised in Indonesia flew in Port Moresby today as activists called on Australia and other nations to support the province of Papua's independence from Jakarta.
Around 120 people gathered in the Papua New Guinea capital for the raising of the Morning Star flag of Papua to commemorate a 1997 proclamation of independence by activists opposed to the region being part of Indonesia.
They also heard a message from West Papua New Guinea National Congress president Michael Kareth, now living in exile in the Netherlands.
Kareth made the independence proclamation on November 27, 1997, in the offices of the president of the European Parliament in Brussels.
The raising of the Morning Star flag is banned in Indonesian Papua, which became part of Indonesia in 1969 following a US-backed "Act of Free Choice" later approved by the United Nations.
Those opposed to Indonesian control say the Melanesian people were never given the right to choose independence for the former Dutch colony.
At today's ceremony, three Papuan youths dressed in white raised the flag as the gathering sang the Papuan anthem and then stood in silence to remember Papuans killed in the independence struggle.
A statement from Kareth was also read out calling on the US, the European Union, Australia and New Zealand to support independence for Papua because the "special autonomy" promised by Indonesia was not working for Papuans.[…]
