GARY JUFFA | Sharp Talk
I am encouraged by the vast improvement in the use of social media by Papua New Guineans who have realised the power of this medium for communication, education, awareness and coordination of actions for the greater good.
Our people are actively using social media in a more responsible manner. It has saved lives, found lost children, reported crime and highlighted issues of concern and I predict will influence the next elections in 2017 significantly.
Many elected leaders do not like social media. That's why they are not on it. Or at least as themselves. Some do read it. Many want to regulate it. I am of the opinion that, as leaders, we placed ourselves in positions where we will attract critical attention and that comes with the territory.
I also believe social media is the necessary counter to controlled manipulated mainstream media. It can and must be used for also addressing wrongs in this country, region and indeed the world at large.
It is a far more powerful means for the people to influence decisions than any other. Mainstream media are bought and manipulated by those who pay. Social media belong to the people. That is why efforts are being made - at the behest of powerful corporate forces - to regulate the internet.
This article is about the need to be constantly and continuously striving to collectively correct the situation in West Papua - a heinous act of inhumanity carried out with the complete complicity of the powers that now control the globe and proclaim to be the protectors of freedom and democracy.
In reality, they are protectors of those who finance and control them and whose puppets they are.
I remind all of us that just across the border we share with Indonesia is a Melanesian people just like you and me who have dreams and aspirations and who wish to be part of the free world but who are suppressed and oppressed in the most horrific manner and tortured and killed.
All this with the complete knowledge of the West, the United Nations and the other global entities that are part of the current empire that manages the matrix we live in.
I want to highlight the amazing contrast in the recent events that have occurred in West Papua and those in Paris. In West Papua, sometime in December 2014, five students were brutally killed by Indonesian government forces while protesting the bashing of a 12-year old West Papuan boy by soldiers.
Other harsh and brutal acts of violence followed against West Papuans in keeping with the trend since the United Nations, without consideration of the interests of the West Papuan people and at the behest of the United States, gave West Papua to Indonesia in 1965.
Literally hundreds and thousands of Melanesians have died at the hands of the military and intelligence services of the West-sponsored Indonesian government.
Reporting by Western media since 1965 has been miniscule.
Today, thanks to improvements in technology especially the internet, substantial truths are seeping out and invading the world. No longer can Indonesia and the West hide this genocide under the veil of pseudo-democracy.
Photos, videos, testimonies and statements of fact are now available. A people suppressed and oppressed, our people, are now finally heard.
Meanwhile in Paris, a shocking act of brutal terror has occurred. Twelve people were murdered. The West has been in a frenzy since. No one denies that murder in whatever form is wrong but there is a stark contrast with what is happening in West Papua, which goes almost unnoticed by the West and the UN.
The mainstream media – largely owned and manipulated by corporate forces - are now having a field day. Images of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon condemning the Paris massacre flood our TVs and mobile devices.
So did Ban Ki Moon condemn the killings in West Papua? No. Neither has our PNG government. Our ministers visited Indonesia last year and many great things were said about opportunities to trade.
One minister wanted to bring electricity across the border to PNG and said so in various statements. It did not eventuate. I am told interesting events transpired after hours and scandals were covered up.
The fact is that our people across the border need us, just as African Americans in the USA needed Martin Luther King Junior to speak for them, West Papuans need us.
This year, to step up efforts to bring attention to the plight of West Papua, I intend to write a letter to the UN and every other organisation that needs to understand that the West Papuan people are being killed and brutally imprisoned against their will and need to be free.
When I complete the letter, I hope you will join me by placing your signature on it.
Speak about West Papua to everyone who needs to know - family, friends, colleagues, neighbours - and raise concern. Share everything you can about West Papua whenever you can.
Attend meetings and forums and commit time to give our West Papuan people the freedom that you and I enjoy. And speak to your members of parliament to raise the issue and, if they don't, vote in someone who will.
Besides West Papua, there are a number of other issues I am concerned about. You can read about them here.
It’s an ambitious agenda, but it is achievable. Make your vote count in the 2017 elections. Social media will influence the outcome. Everyone reading this can influence others and is in some way a leader.
Many people do not have access to social media but they will listen to those who do. Why? Because it is you who pay for the deaths, births, marriages and other important events and situations of concern that we as Papua New Guineans from families and clans and tribes are obligated to meet.
Today, if we are suffering, it is because of the decisions made at the last election. Five minutes of lamb flaps, beer na hamamas go tulait and five years of misery. We must change the trend!
Some people have said that we should remove all current MPs and vote in a fresh lot. I agree. I am willing to make way for those who can work together to take back PNG, no one must be deemed indispensable.
I may not succeed in 2017 but if we do not attend to the issues of concern then we will not own the future.
We will relegate future generations to spectatorship, subservience and misery. And we will be no better off than our brothers and sisters in West Papua. By choice. Our choice.Taim bilong paitim garamut