Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Chapman of Darlington on 27 January (HL3999), whether they have examined the evidence of the use of chemical weapons by Indonesian forces in West Papua included in the documentary film Frontier War recently released by Paradise Broadcasting.

I refer the Noble Lord to my response to Parliamentary Question HL3999 on the 27 January 2025.

The Noble Lord may be referring to allegations from 2018 of the use of white phosphorus by the Indonesian Armed Forces towards civilian population in Papua. While the use of white phosphorus as a weapon does not fall under the Chemical Weapons Convention and is not a matter for the OPCW, contemporary media reports suggested that it was used in a manner that may have violated international humanitarian law. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) monitored these allegations at the time and found no compelling evidence of white phosphorous being used in an illegal way.

The FCDO continues to monitor all reports of violent incidents in the Papua region. We regularly raise human rights issues, including the protection of civilians in Papua, with the Indonesian government.

The Minister for the Indo-Pacific, Catherine West, visited Indonesia in January 2025 and raised the human rights situation in Papua in her meeting with the Coordinating Minister for Law and Human Rights.