Protest erupts after Indonesian military kills 3 suspected independence fighters in Papua

Dozens of protesters took to the streets in Indonesia’s Papua region on Wednesday, a day after the military killed three people it claimed were armed pro-independence fighters.

The military said its forces killed the three men on Tuesday in the Mulia district of Puncak Jaya regency. It identified them as members of the Free Papua Movement, which seeks Papuan independence from Indonesia, and said they were armed and had resisted capture. 

An insurgent group spokesman denied the men were members.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Candra Kurniawan said one of the men, Teranus Enumbi, had been hunted by Indonesian security forces since 2018 for “cruel and sadistic attacks,” including shootings and killings of civilians and security personnel. 

“The Indonesian military and police will continue to maintain stability in the region by protecting and serving the community,” Kurniawan said. “Law will be enforced.”

Sebby Sambom, a spokesman for the West Papua National Liberation Army – the armed wing of the independence movement – said the information provided by the military was false and that the deceased were not members of the liberation army.

“The shooting of civilians is a violation of human rights,” Sambom told BenarNews. 

Papuans protested at the hospital where the bodies of the victims were taken and the Puncak Jaya police station in Central Papua province, demanding an explanation for why the three were killed.

“We don’t accept the military’s response to the community’s demands regarding the shooting of three civilians, allegedly by members of the [infantry battalion] Raider 753 Task Force,” said one resident who declined to be named for security concerns.

Representatives of victims’ families have called for a transparent investigation into the shooting and for those responsible to be held accountable.

Papua police spokesman Ignatius Benny Ady Prabowo declined to comment.

Insurgency

An insurgency has simmered in Papua since the early 1960s when Indonesian forces invaded the region, which had remained under a separate Dutch administration following Indonesia’s 1945 declaration of independence from the Netherlands.

Indonesia argues its incorporation of the mineral rich territory was rightful under international law, because it was part of the Dutch East Indies empire that is the basis for Indonesia’s modern borders.

Papuans, culturally and ethnically distinct from the rest of Indonesia, say they were denied the right to decide their own future and are marginalized in their own land. Indonesian control was formalized in 1969 under a United Nations-supervised referendum where a little more than 1,000 Papuans were allowed to vote.

Lawyer shot

In a separate development on Wednesday, a lawyer and human rights activist said he was being treated in a hospital after he was shot by an unknown assailant in Manokwari, a town in West Papua province.

“Thank God, I’m all right. I’m undergoing an observation in the hospital,” Yan Christian Warinussy, a lawyer and spokesman for the Papua Peace Network, told BenarNews in a text message. 

Frits Ramandey, the head of the Papua branch of the National Commission on Human Rights, said Yan suffered a chest wound in the incident, which occurred as he was leaving a bank.

“He is in good condition,” Ramandey told BenarNews.

Amnesty International condemned the attack.

“The shooting was an act of terror against Yan personally and his lifelong work,” it said in a statement sent to BenarNews. “Amnesty urges the authorities to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice to be held accountable.”

West Papua police chief Inspector Gen. Johnny Edison Isir said officers were investigating the shooting, local media reported.

Pizaro Gozali Idrus in Jakarta contributed to this report.