The Festival wrote to the embassy:

"Thank you for your message. The composer is well-known as a political activist through his music, and is widely respected both for his beliefs and his musical skills.

"However we realise that the title 'Papua Merdeka' is very provocative for your Embassy and for the Indonesian Government. As so, for this festival concert, at our request, the composer is willing to substitute another of his works, a piece in which Indonesia receives no mention at all.

"Thank you for drawing the problem to our attention, and we hope the resolution is satisfactory.

Best wishes"

Martin says: "I did not agree to substitute another work. In an effort to help the Festival out of a hole it had dug for itself, I offered to think about a possible solution in which clarinettist Ros Dunlop played my piece Weapons of Mass Distortion in the concert and I talked about and presented Papua Merdeka in my paper at the Conference - I would let them know my decision in a couple of days' time. That way the piece - and its concerns about the destruction of West Papuan culture, the theft of the West Papuans' resources, and the beatings, rapes, and murders of indigenous West Papuans by the Indonesian military - would still be aired. With no further ado, the Festival ran with the first part of my as-yet-unsubmitted proposal, informing me that the second part would be a "breach of (the) trust" that the Embassy and the Festival now enjoyed. But since I had not agreed to that arrangement, and since there is no trust between the Embassy and me to breach, I said that I would go ahead with my proposed paper.

"In 2005 there was a 60th birthday concert of my music. I wrote in the program:

'I have often been criticised for bringing politics into music [always, as it happens, by people whose political views are vastly different from mine]. My response is usually along the lines of this: [a] why not?;

[b] composing a piece of music is already a political act;

[c] if the plight of the people in East Timor, say, inspires me to compose, then as a composer trying to reflect in music, as honestly as possible, my relationship to my time and place, I should not ignore that impulse;

[d] … I don't want to fiddle around writing abstract pieces while the world transforms itself into an ugly authoritarian market place of everything except ideas (but I would love to get back to abstract music, one day, and I applaud those who compose pure, beautiful music, bringing light into the darkness);

[e] I still have the right, I think, as a citizen of a democracy, to express my views in whatever forum I can get access to; and

[f] I don't see the offending pieces as overtly political but, rather, as pieces that show, or try to show, humanitarian or humanistic concern.'

"That still applies … Throughout history there are many instances of composers pushing a particular political line in their pieces, operas, songs etc, some obvious, some less so. Most of my "political" pieces use images, and hence are more confronting than pure audio, even text-based, pieces. I hope they promote thought, even discussion, by audience members (this has certainly happened many times in the past), and that people will feel free to venture alternative views. If the Indonesian Embassy in New Zealand disagrees with the views expressed in Papua Merdeka it is free, as far as I'm concerned, to distribute leaflets at the concert arguing that the Act of Free Choice in West Papua really was free, that the indigenous West Papuans are enjoying full human and political rights, and that their forests, mineral wealth, fisheries etc are not being plundered and destroyed."