West Papua’s 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: “These 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 they’ve lived for thousands of years, which has now resulted in ecocide.
“This is a signal to the countries who are dealing with Indonesia, especially those in the Pacific region, to take notice of who they’re dealing with and how they are basically allowing Indonesia to continue the colonial project in West Papua, the human rights violations, and also ecocide.”
West Papua is the western half of the island of New Guinea, home to the world’s third-largest rainforest. It is rich in natural resources, including the world’s largest gold and copper mine as well as extensive reserves of natural gas, minerals and timber.
It was part of the Dutch East Indies for a couple of centuries, but in 1963, in controversial circumstances, the territory was handed over to Indonesian control. As a result, say the campaigners, West Papua’s Indigenous Melanesians have not benefited from this wealth. They have been under occupation by Indonesia since 1963, facing repression the ULMWP describes as a “hidden genocide”.
West Papuans say more than 500,000 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 world’s largest palm oil exporter, is now breaking ground in West Papua on the world’s biggest single palm oil plantation, as well as a sugar cane and biofuel plantation that will be the largest deforestation project ever launched.
According to reports, companies behind the Tanah Merah project plan to establish palm oil plantations in the country’s east across more than 140,000 hectares (346,000 acres) – an area twice the size of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. At the same time, Indonesian authorities have plans to turn Merauke, in the south, into a 2m-hectare site for the production of 2.6m tons of sugar and 244m litres of bioethanol each year.
“West Papuans’, especially the ULMWP, position is very clear: we are a modern-day colony,” said Ap, speaking from the Netherlands.
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“Indonesia hijacked the right to self-determination in 1962 when the Netherlands and Indonesia signed an agreement without any consultation in West Papua … After that, in 1969, there was a so-called referendum, which wasn’t fair, which wasn’t under international law, one man, one vote: just 1,025 men were handpicked at gunpoint to vote for integration to Indonesia.
“So this is the foundation of the Indonesia’s colonial project. When we became part of Indonesia against our will, basically the genocide unfolded.”
A spokesperson for Nestlé, which produces KitKat, Smarties and Aero chocolate, said: “Nestlé has strict standards towards ensuring a deforestation-free palm oil supply chain. This is through a combination of tools, including supply chain mapping, certification, satellite monitoring and on-ground assessments. Any such allegations are taken very seriously and duly investigated.”
Mondelēz, which produces Oreos and Ritz crackers, and Procter and Gamble, which produces the Herbal Essences and Pantene brands, did not respond to requests for comment.
