Solidaritas Merauke Declaration

Solidaritas Merauke| 14 March 2025

This declaration is the result of our collective work in the Solidaritas Merauke Movement. It is a result from the shared stories of our collective suffering and trauma caused by state-corporate crimes, especially in the name of National Strategic Projects (PSN), which occupy and dispossess our living space and defile what we hold sacred.

The destruction and extinction of our indigenous life, knowledge and spirituality continues to expand. We are losing our identity, our historical memory of who we are, our sacred places, our kinship with the land and nature. We are losing our sources of food, our sources of medicine, our sources of livelihood and independence of work. On top of that, we are subjected to discrimination, forced labour, physical violence, intimidation and criminalisation. This catastrophe should be called an emergency for the sake of the people.

It is clear that this ongoing suffering and catastrophe is a reflection of colonialism that is being sugar-coated through a patchwork of laws and regulations. It is ironic that in the face of the robbery of people's wealth, the coercion and use of the force of law, political, economic and military power, false promises of prosperity, the destruction of human bodies and the exploitation of humans over humans, people are to be comforted with ‘free nutritious food’ program.

We, Solidaritas Merauke, declare our total rejection of the ploy that grabs people's wealth through policy reform. We demand a total halt to the National Strategic Project (PSN) and other projects in the name of national interest that clearly victimise the people. The perpetrators of state-corporate crimes must return all the stolen prosperity of the people and immediately restore the health and living space of the people in all areas sacrificed in the name of national interests.

No island is too big or too small to have its landscape damaged. If these glaring signs of catastrophe are underestimated, there will surely be an unprecedented acceleration of social-ecological chaos of the islands from Papua to Sumatra.

Merauke, 14 March 2025