Memorial honours UN secretary-general

A PLAQUE remembering former United Nations secretary-general Dag Hammarskjöld has been reinstalled at Pioneer Park after suspected vandalism.

The original plaque was laid on 18 September 2021, and members of the Free West Papua Ballarat Support Group installed its replacement on the same date last weekend.

Sunday was the 61st anniversary of Mr Hammarskjöld, and 15 others, dying in a plane crash over northern Rhodesia.

Had he not been killed, or allegedly assassinated, Mr Hammarskjöld was expected to launch a decolonisation project in West New Guinea.

Local Free West Papua advocate Dr Lance Collins is East Timor’s former head of military intelligence and said the many “bloody decades” in the region could have been avoided if the UN secretary-general lived beyond 1961, and led the organisation to its “highest ideals.”

“The sham 1963 UN-sponsored plebiscite, that delivered half of New Guinea and its people to occupying Indonesian troops, might have been conducted differently,” he said.

“He died… when flying to negotiate a ceasefire between the government of the Congo and Katangese secessionists.

“A great many more people around the world had their lives stolen as a result of that crash on 18 September, 1961. We should not forget.”

The Free West Papua Ballarat Support Group exists to stand in solidarity with the West Papuan people who some say are being persecuted by the Indonesian military, and are seeking freedom.

Some West Papuan refugees have chosen to seek asylum in Victoria because of the prevalence of the Free West Papua campaign and the local support group meets at Ballarat Trades Hall each month.