West Papuans recently announced a foundational consensus on their legal defence and right to declare national sovereignty, thereby asserting their fundamental human rights and ancestral ownership of land. (The consensus has global significance in that West Papua remains on a scale similar to the Amazon in terms of what is being lost - diversity of local species and tribal societies, and the amount of oxygen produced by the "lungs of Asia".)

This consensus (see 3 links below) bodes well for West Papua, as does the formation of International Parliamentarians for West Papua and International Lawyers for West Papua earlier this year. May their prayers soon lead to peace. Tom

PAPUAN NATIONAL CONSENSUS, May 14, 2009
We the leaders of the Papuan Nation, from various positions within the struggle for Papuan nationhood, met in solidarity and friendship...

ETAN's West Papua Report June 2009 on Allvoices.com open media site

REPORT TO THE UNITED STATES ON THE PAPUAN CONSENSUS May 20, 2009
First, we would like to congratulate Congressman Faleomavaega for his being selected again as the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific. And we would like to thank him and other members of Congress, especially Congressman Patrick Kennedy, Donald Payne and Senator Patrick Leahy for their efforts to bring peace to West Papua and other regions of the world. This is a report on the current situation in West Papua, with regards to the recent successful effort in West Papua to produce a Papuan Consensus document.