From Radio New Zealand

A West Papuan guerilla commander has visited Vanuatu and participated in a special Morning Star Flag raising ceremony yesterday to mark the anniversary of the West Papua declaration of independence in 1961.

Uri Joweni is the military senior commander of the rebel OPM Free West Papua Movement and has been a key target of the Indonesian security forces in Papua.

Uri Joweni made a clandestine trip from Papua, travelling through Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands to reach Vanuatu where he is the guest of the Port Vila-based leadership of the West Papua National Coalition for Liberation.

Today he is scheduled to meet Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Moana Carcasses.

Mr Carcasses recently called on the United Nations to appoint a Special Representative to investigate alleged human rights abuses by Indonesian security forces in the Papuan provinces of Indonesia and for their political status to be revisited.