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Statement by the Pacific delegates

Green Left Weekly - May 6, 1998

The following resolution was proposed by Rex Rumakiek, from the Free Papua Movement, on behalf of the conference participants from the Pacific region, and was adopted by acclamation.

We delegates from indigenous Pacific, from Te Ao Maohi (French Polynesia), Aotearoa (New Zealand), Australia, Bougainville, Papua New Guinea, West Papua and East Timor, wish to remind delegates again that dispossession, social injustice, economic inequality and dis-empowerment of people across our region are perpetuated by continued colonial domination and are now aggravated further by capitalist expansion.

We ask for the support of delegates for our campaign to have the following issues raised at the South Pacific Forum:

1. self-determination and independence for all colonised peoples of the Pacific;

2. the continuation of the mandate of the United Nations decolonisation committee; and

3. an end to resource exploitation and environmental destruction in the South Pacific.

We are made painfully aware that similar injustices are committed against people everywhere. We therefore take this opportunity to pledge our solidarity with the peoples' movements and struggles you represent.

Please take home with you to your people and your beautiful countries the warmest greetings from the indigenous people of the Pacific.

Your struggle is our struggle.