Posts falsely claim 'United Nations to lead Papua independence boycott'

This article is more than one year old.
Published on May 16, 2023 at 12:35
5 min read
By AFP Indonesia

A video has been viewed hundreds of thousands of times after it circulated alongside a false claim that the United Nations will lead nations to boycott Papuan independence. But the clips used in the video show unrelated events. As of May 16, 2023, the UN has not made any statement in relation to boycotting Papuan independence. An international relations expert called the claim "irrational and sensational".

The claim was shared in a video posted here on Facebook on May 9, 2023, where it has been viewed more than 179,000 times before it was removed.

A narrator can be heard in the video saying in Indonesian-language: "The UN will bring 193 nations to boycott Papua's independence! Jokowi will terrorize the allies of the criminal armed groups!"

The post's Indonesian-language caption repeats the claim.

The 10-minute, 17-second video contains clips showing Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo meeting UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, a summit between Jokowi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and leaders from other countries.

Screenshot of the false post, taken May 11, 2023

Indonesia’s restive easternmost region of Papua has been the scene of a decades-old rebel insurgency aimed at gaining independence from Jakarta after it took control of the former Dutch colony in the 1960s (archived link).

Indonesia calls armed Papuan separatists "criminal armed groups". In February 2023, the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), the military wing of Papua's main separatist group, took responsibility for the kidnapping of a Susi Air pilot Philip Mehrtens (archived link).

The video has also been viewed more than 36,000 times after it was posted alongside a similar false claim on YouTube here and here.

But there has been no UN statement about boycotting Papua independence as of May 16, 2023.

No UN intervention

The UN’s latest statement about Papua, published March 1, 2022, called for an end to alleged human rights abuses against indigenous residents in the region (archived link).

The report by three UN Special Rapporteurs Francisco Cali Tzay, Morris Tidball-Binz and Cecilia Jimenez-Damary called for urgent humanitarian access to the Papua region and urged the Indonesian government to conduct full and independent investigations into the abuses.

Teuku Rezasyah, an international relations expert from Indonesia’s Padjadjaran University, called the claim "irrational".

"The idea of eradication of Papua's KKB by the UN and 193 nations is bombastic, irrational, and sensational," he said.

Vidhyandika Perkasa, a researcher at the Jakarta-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), said that while a UN boycott of Papua independence was "technically" possible, it would be a long process, typically initiated as a response to a specific incidence of conflict (archived link).

"The UN has its mechanism. They have to gather the assembly, they have to get agreement from member nations before they decide to hold an intervention in Papua," he told AFP on May 11, 2023.

Out-of-context clips

Keyword searches found that the video includes several out-of-context clips from various meetings between Jokowi and other world leaders.

At the seven-second mark, the video shows scenes from the 2018 ASEAN Leaders Gathering in Badung, a regency in Indonesia's Bali province.

The original video can be seen here on the official YouTube channel of Indonesia's Ministry of State Secretariat, uploaded on October 12, 2018 (archived link).

The theme for the gathering that year revolved around the region's implementation of the UN's sustainable development goals (SDGs) and overcoming development gaps in the region (archived links here and here).

There were no official reports that Papua independence was mentioned at the meeting.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and the genuine video from the Indonesian Ministry of State Secretariat (right):

Screenshot comparison between the false video (left) and the genuine video from the Indonesian Ministry of State Secretariat (right)

At the five-minute, 31-second mark, the false video shows Jokowi meeting his Chinese counterpart, Xi, at the 2014 APEC Economic Leaders Meeting in Beijing.

It was posted on the YouTube channel of Hi China, run by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV, on November 11, 2014, titled: "President Xi Jinping welcomes leaders at the 2014 APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting" (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and the genuine video from Hi China (right):

Screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and the genuine video from Hi China (right)

At the five-minute, three-second mark, the false video shows Jokowi walking with Xi, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Brunei's Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah. It was taken from another clip from the 2014 APEC meeting.

The genuine video was uploaded on the YouTube channel of RTVMalacanang, the Philippine presidential broadcaster, on November 11, 2014 (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and the genuine video from RTVMalacanang (right):

Screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and the genuine video from RTVMalacanang (right)

The APEC leaders discussed regional economic development during the 2014 meeting (archived link). There are no official reports that Papua was mentioned during the event.

AFP previously debunked misinformation about a video claimed to show fire at a government office in Papua in 2020 here, as well as another video claimed to show an Islamist organisation burning the West Papua flag in the region here.

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