Indonesia: West Papua

Lord Avebury Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am grateful to the noble and right reverend Lord for his question. We are discussing these matters with the Indonesian Government. We know they are committed to trying to carry this process forward. It is a matter of them putting their money where their mouth is because Papua and West Papua receive by far the largest chunk of the regional funds from the central government. They want to carry this forward. I think the message of the noble and right reverend Lord is the correct one and we shall continue to encourage a constructive dialogue, as I have described.

[Lord Avebury]

Considering that, after many years of struggle and destruction of the economic potential, the Government of Indonesia came to an agreement with the people of Aceh on devolution, will the Foreign Office ask Jakarta to refrain from arresting and imprisoning dozens of people in West Papua for so-called subversion and at least have discussions with the OPM to see how the benefits of mineral exploitation, including BP’s LNG project in Bintuni Bay, could be more widely shared with the people?

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

On my noble friend’s final point, my understanding is that not only BP but Rio Tinto and other major investors are determined to work out ways in which the benefits can indeed be shared more widely with the people. My noble friend is absolutely right about that. We have raised queries about some of the arrests—there was one over displaying the wrong flag or something like that—and the size of the sentences seemed disproportionate. We are aware of these worries and we shall continue to raise them with the Government.