Wansolwara Voices for West Papua

April 21, 5:30pm - 8:30pm
Mānoa Campus, Halau o Haumea Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies

The Grasberg mine in West Papua, owned by US company Freeport-McMoRan, is the largest gold mine and third largest copper mine in the world. The profits of this mine depend upon US-endorsed Indonesian military occupation, the murder, imprisonment, and forced labor of indigenous peoples, and the dumping of thousands of tons of toxic waste into local river systems.

During the illegal occupation by the Indonesian government since 1969, over 500,000 West Papuan civilians have been killed in an attempt to suppress the West Papuan independence movement and protect corporate mining, logging, and palm oil interests. Foreign journalists and human rights workers have been banned from entering the country, creating a terrible silence around this genocide, and the “modern world” continues to blithely benefit from the bits of copper and gold essential to the constructing of our electronic devices and the building of our cities.

Join us for a night of art and performance for justice, stretching across our great and powerful Oceania.

Hui of Pacific activists and artists in Honolulu, Wellington, Aotearoa/NZ, and Suva, Fiji are uniting across Oceania to lament and rage against this genocide, connecting our different communities’ struggles for sovereignty and demilitarization, standing with West Papua across our “wansolwara,” our one salt water, with furious aloha.

Sponsored by: Gladys Kamakakūokalani ʻAinoa Brandt Center for Hawaiian Studies, Pacific Tongues, UH Mānoa Creative Writing Program, UH Mānoa Indigenous Politics

#wansolwara #webleedblackandred #hawaiibleedsblackandred #papuamerdeka #freewestpapua


Event Sponsor
UH Manoa Creative Writing Program, Mānoa Campus

More Information
(808) 358-0871, hawaiibleedsblackandred@gmail.com

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