Activists staged a sit-in at the offices of Thales in Sydney on Thursday, claiming the company's Bushmaster armoured vehicles were linked to war crimes in West Papua.
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Around eight members of the group Peace in Papua occupied the building's lobby carrying photos of people they said had been killed in the contested territory and calling for the company to recall their weapons.
Thales has a factory in North Bendigo where Bushmasters are made.
The Peace in Papua activists said the Bushmasters, and also Thales' FZ 68 missiles, were being used by Indonesian forces in the military's fight against the independence movement in the territory, also known as Irian Jaya or simply Papua.
Amnesty International recorded at least 56 cases of suspected unlawful killings with 93 victims in West Papua in the three-and-a-half year period to August 2021, which it said "typically took place as result of unnecessary or excessive use of force during security operations".
From January to June 2021 Amnesty said more than 6000 people had fled their homes in fear for their lives amid ongoing conflicts between the security forces and armed pro-independence groups in the region.
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Peace in Papua spokesperson Lilli Barto said the Indonesian military was also working with unscrupulous companies to exploit natural resources in the region.
"Logging companies are buying up the forests where people live, then they send the army in to drive people off the land so that it can be logged," she said.
"Then when the forest is gone, they turn it into palm oil plantations.
"The military protects the property rights of the companies at the expense of the human rights of the people."
Ms Barto told the Advertiser the protesters wanted to expose the role Australian-based weapons companies were playing in "a long and extensive history of really brutal violence" in West Papua, and had chosen December 1 - West Papuan independence day - to target Thales.
She claimed Thales was one of "multiple companies" making weapons in Australia to sell to the Indonesian forces and was "implicated in the war crimes committed by their customers".
Under the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC), which Thales has adopted as part of its corporate social responsibility plan, the business is obliged to "make sure [it is] not complicit in human rights abuses".
A spokesperson for Thales said there was no basis to the claims made by the protesters.
"All Australian defence exports are subject to strict export controls regulated by the government," the spokesperson said.
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