Over the past three years, Indonesia has increased its military presence in West Papua with 21,000 troops—not including the addition of installed intelligence personnel or units of the special forces of the infamous Kopassus.

Executions of civilians, accused of guerrilla involvement, continue to spread terror and displacement among civilians while the outside world remain silent and a passive bystander alongside the decades-long conflict and humanitarian human rights catastrophe.

“Sending more troops to West Papua will not solve any problems, it only creates new ones,” an anonymous source, tells Global Magazine.

By Klas Lundström

WEST PAPUA One of the many video clips that have reached Global Magazine the past weeks depicts a well-equipped Indonesian army, shortly after reaching the port of Jayapura, in northern West Papua.

The camouflage-clad soldiers sing patriotic songs, triumphantly and convincingly—carrying, lining up and sorting out equipment for an ongoing war. Soon shipped to the front, in isolated mountain ranges and jungle pockets, wherever theenemy is found.

Either, as recent history shows us, in the shape of children on the way back home from school or retired religious leaders en route to feed the pigs,—in short—it could be anyone.

“Sending more troops to West Papua will not solve any problems, it only creates new ones,” an anonymous source tells Global Magazine.

The person is far from alone in providing the Global Magazine with disturbing images, patriotic videos and horrifying testimonies to an escalating situation—one where civilians find themselves increasingly trapped and cornered amidst the laws of violence that has become rule, rather than an exception. The person, also, is not alone in hesitating to speak up, even after being promised total anonymity in providing opinion and a witness account.

“The situation has degenerated completely,” the person laments.

Supporters of the independence of the West Papua shout slogans during a rally commemorating the 59th anniversary of the failed efforts by Papuan tribal chiefs to declare independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1961, in Jakarta, Indonesia, Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2020. Indonesia took over West Papua from Dutch colonial rule in 1963 and formalized its sovereignty over the region in 1969 through a vote by about 1,000 community leaders, which critics dismissed as a sham. A separatist group called the ”Free Papua Movement” has battled Indonesian rule ever since. AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim

Escalating conflict

Since December 2018, Indonesia has increased its military presence in West Papua by 21,000 soldiers: not including personnel from intelligence units or the special unit of Kopassus, notorious for its documented war crimes in East Timor.

The ongoing, and escalating, military conflict and humanitarian crisis that has forced more than 40,000 civilian West Papuans to flee with the deaths of some twenty Indonesian road construction workers in the central highlands: a stronghold of the West Papuan guerrilla movement Organisasi Papua Merdeka (“Free Papua Movement”, the OPM). Employees of the state-owned Indonesian construction company was caught photographing an OPM ceremony and were shortly after executed, suspected of espionage.

What followed after these atrocities was mere senseless and politically sanctioned violence—criticized and categorized as stumbling close to genocide by, among others, Amnesty International, with witness accounts regarding Indonesian use of chemical weapons against civilians—while the conflict was neither reduced, nor did the Indonesian government display any kind of openness to dialogue with the guerrillas or endorsing the decades-old demands for West Papuan independence.

“Indonesia has set out to crush us, once and for all,” a source tells Global Magazine.

A Submissive Outside World

In the eyes of Indonesia—and, hence, also Western democracies—West Papua remains a “domestic affair.” As a result, the outside world’s slumbering interest and faint criticism of Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s arrogant attitude to the conflict is subdued, while West Papuan civilians in the thousands remain harassed, persecuted, beaten and even killed, without any legal consequences inflicted upon the ones responsible.

The latest example to this occurred on March 6, when a young student named Melianus Nayagau was killed in the Sugapa District, in Intan Jaya – one of the hotspots where war is raging between guerrillas and the Indonesian army. This is a portion of the West Papuan highlands that has long remained inaccessible terrain for independent journalists and aid organizations, while housing large-scale economic interests to both Indonesian and Western companies.

Per Suara Papua—one of few independent local media outlets—Nayagau was summarily executed by Indonesian security forces, and his body abandoned. Despite confirmation of Nayagau’s student activities, he was shot dead, accused of guerrilla involvement—after which entire villages fled to nearby forests.

Indonesian authorities have confirmed the death of Melianus Nayagau, but contrary to local testimonies they claim the student was tied to the guerrillas—and thus political prey which, despite being unarmed and an de facto Indonesian citizen, could be shot dead and abandoned without any legal consequences for or political objections to those responsible of the deed.

A Spiraling Opinion

President Widodo, currently riding his second and final term, finds it all the more challenging to convince local West Papuan representatives, organizations and religious movements of the value of an extension of the “Special Autonomy” status that ruled in the eastern tip of Indonesia for the past twenty years. Not being able to extend the deal, it leaves Indonesia’s ruleover the former Western New Guinea hung out to dry without legitimacy—merely holding on to the outcome of “Act of Free Choice,” from 1969, as its sole justification for political and economic supremacy.

But even far away from the West Papuan highlands, jungles and poverty-stricken cities, in the Indonesian capital Jakarta, criticism is voiced against the central government’s colonial policy.

“The discourse about the future of Papua has come to the fore now that the government and the House of Representatives have moved to revise the 2001 law on special autonomy for Papua. The revision is pressing in particular because the special autonomy fund scheme to accelerate development in Papua and West Papua provinces will expire in November of this year,” the editorial board of the Jakarta Post wrote on 15 March.

Along with the appropriate headline, “Give peace a chance in Papua.”

Peace, on the other hand, has never been given the chance to shine in the geographical junction between Southeast Asia and Oceania. Instead, President Widodo has increased his political and military stakes, seemingly convinced to decisively wipe out any military or peaceful resistance to Indonesian rule over West Papua before leaving office.

Opposing the now 21,000 Indonesian stationed military personnel, stands the second generation of resistance. One consisting of “young Papuans, who were born under Indonesian rule” and “are as reckless as the older ones, who were born during the Dutch rule, if not bolder and more frustrated with Indonesian rule,” an Indonesian human rights activist, with in-depth knowledge and experience of the conflict, tells Global Magazine.

The student Melianus Nayagau was killed on March 6 in the Sugapa District, in Intan Jaya – one of the hotspots where war is raging between guerrillas and the Indonesian army. Photo: Suara Papua

“Full-Scale War”

Nevertheless, the conflict has metamorphosed since late 2018, per a number of sources with whom Global Magazine has spoken.

The conflict is “no longer a potential powder keg in low-intensity form,” but rather a full-scale war where guerrillas fight a modern-equipped army—e.g., equipped with weapons produced in Sweden—in the highlands and jungles while police crush peaceful manifestations and university meetings in urban areas.

“It’s really like in Avatar,” a young West Papuan tells Global Magazine. “We’re suffering the real live-version of the movie.”

Calling the conflict by its proper name would be a good start, and an important one—for several reasons, Theo Hesegem, President of Papua Justice and Human Integrity Foundation, wrote in an essay for Asia Pacific Report. “Perhaps, according to the president, the humanitarian crisis in Papua is considered an ordinary thing, not an extraordinary thing, so that Jakarta always sends troops to carry out military operations in Papua,” he wrote.

Furthermore, Theo Hesegem adds, President Widodo owes his own voters some clarity. Civilian Indonesians have in increasing numbers begun to display signs of weariness of the drawn-out conflict and have shown open support for an independent West Papua.

Moreover, the outside world stands much to gain from more clarity. The United States, Australia, China, and the European Union are all heavyweight political players who, for decades, have passively stood by, never intervening or preventing further human rights abuses in West Papua, never crying out against politically sanctioned and economically motivated land grabbing for mining, palm oil plantations and timber industries. Let alone calling a sincere halt to the countless expulsions, persecutions and bans of any gesture or whispers about West Papuan independence.

A military solution to the conflict, which has been the target for all Indonesian governments—both dictatorial and democratically elected throughout the years—is far from being achieved, despite the 21,000 installed military personnel since December 2018.

“The central government might have to find a solution peacefully with OPM leaders to find a better solution for West Papua, instead of sending troops as the only solution since 1962,” a source tells Global Magazine.

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