The following media release was issued by the Federal Republic of West Papua on 18 July:

The Indonesian government has claimed it is releasing the president and prime minister of the Federal Republic of West Papua (FRWP) on Monday 21 July. President Forkorus Yaboisembut and prime minister Edison Waromi were convicted of treason, along with Selfius Bobbi, Agus Kraar, and Domiinikus Sorabut, after the 3rd Papua Congress established the independent state of West Papua on 19 October 2011.

Jacob Rumbiak, FRWP minister for foreign affairs, believes president Yudhoyono should use the final months of his office to negotiate with the FRWP executives he has just released. “Edison and Forkorus were elected by the West Papuan people to negotiate our status as an independent state, and the president should be talking with them under the formal auspice of a UN Security Council member like Australia. Otherwise his country will humiliate itself again, as it did in East Timor in 1999.”

Rumbiak believes president Yudhoyono is obliged to release all the other Papuan political prisoners. “There are another 76 West Papuan political prisoners illegally incarcerated on convictions of treason; president Yudhoyono needs to release them before his second term finishes in October”.

Minister Rumbiak said Waromi and Yaboisembut are being released on the same day that the new president of Indonesia is being announced. “General Prabowo’s brother, the influential businessman who funded the general’s election campaign, warned (former American president) Clinton not to visit Jakarta next week. “He would be safe in West Papua,” said Rumbiak, “because the FRWP has 8,000 West Papuan police well capable of protecting him, as well as the Indonesian citizens who live with us”.

Minister Rumbiak, speaking from the Federal Republic of West Papua’s new five-star-energy office in Docklands (Melbourne), wants Greg Moriarty, the Australian Ambassador in Jakarta, to visit Waromi and Yaboisembut in West Papua next week. “As Indonesia’s key financial sponsor, with a seat on the UN Security Council, Australia has a duty to protect our heads of state,” he said.