Thousands of acres of rainforest is being cleared to produce palm oil, used in popular NestlΓ© and MondelΔz brands
West Papuaβs Indigenous people have called for a boycott of KitKat, Smarties and Aero chocolate, Oreo biscuits and Ritz crackers, and the cosmetics brands Pantene and Herbal Essences, over alleged ecocide in their territory.
All are products that contain palm oil and are made, say the campaigners, by companies that source the ingredient directly from West Papua, which has been under Indonesian control since 1963 and where thousands of acres of rainforest are being cleared for agriculture.
More than 90 West Papuan tribes, political organisations and religious groups have endorsed the call for a boycott, which they say should continue until the people of West Papua are given the right to self-determination.
Raki Ap, a spokesperson for the United Liberation Movement for West Papua, which is overseeing the call, said: βThese products are linked to human rights violations, in the first place, because West Papuans are being forced, with violence, to get off the land where theyβve lived for thousands of years, which has now resulted in ecocide.
βThis is a signal to the countries who are dealing with Indonesia, especially those in the Pacific region, to take notice of who theyβre dealing with and how they are basically allowing Indonesia to continue the colonial project in West Papua, the human rights violations, and also ecocide.β
West PapuansΒ say more than 500,000Β of their people have been killed by the occupation in the past six decades, while millions of acres of their ancestral lands have been destroyed for corporate profit. Indonesia, already the worldβs largest palm oil exporter, is now breaking ground in West Papua on the worldβs biggest single palm oil plantation, as well as a sugar cane and biofuel plantation that will be the largest deforestation project ever launched.
βWest Papuansβ, especially the ULMWP, position is very clear: we are a modern-day colony,β said Ap, speaking from the Netherlands.
βIndonesia hijacked the right to self-determination in 1962 when the Netherlands and Indonesia signed an agreement without any consultation in West Papua β¦ After that, in 1969, there was a so-called referendum, which wasnβt fair, which wasnβt under international law, one man, one vote: just 1,025 men were handpicked at gunpoint to vote for integration to Indonesia.
βSo this is the foundation of the Indonesiaβs colonial project. When we became part of Indonesia against our will, basically the genocide unfolded.β
