? REPORTAGE: 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.
? Nyheter: The United Liberation Movement for West Papua (U.L.M.W.P.) forms a provisional government to achieve a referendum and an independent nation. President is Benny Wenda, chairman of the U.L.M.W.P.
? Nyheter: Three high school students on their way home to celebrate Christmas and to see their families were found shot dead in the West Papuan central highlands. Domestic human rights activists lay blame for the atrocities on Indonesian military. The killings occur in a politically sensitive moment—and send a haunting echo from a massacre of minors, in 2004.
? Nyheter: Abiy Ahmed, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, is underway to cast Ethiopia into civil war. It is not the first time that Nobel Peace Prize laureates leave the ceremony in the winter brisk Norwegian capital of Oslo, and instead of building peace increase violent conflicts. Other recipients were already in full swing on the battlefield at the time of their announcements.
? REPORTAG: In 2017, João Lourenço took office as the new President of Angola, thus ending his predecessor José Eduardo dos Santos’ 38 years as the occupant of the presidential palace in the capital of Luanda. The former Defense Minister promised reforms and a better tomorrow for all Angolans—but above all; a major overhaul of the country’s political and financial corridors, hampered by nepotism and corruption.
? REPORTAGE:
Although then-UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld’s fatal plane crash occurred in the heart of Africa, amidst a bloody conflict in the newly independent republic of Congo—the motives behind a potential sabotage of the DC-6 aircraft, which resulted in 16 people’s death, might be found elsewhere. Where Southeast Asia ends, and Oceania begins.
? REPORT: The Indonesian state has cracked down on free speech ever since the western half of New Guinea became of interest to the Southeast Asian nation. Independent media voices are censored, there are systematic internet blackouts, and foreign reporters are deported, banned—or they die.
? Nyheter:
Sweden and Indonesia deepen military ties amidst West Papua conflict. Indonesian defense minister Prabowo Subianto—accused of human rights violations in the 1990s democratic uprising and occupied East Timor—wishes to further deepen the ties to its Scandinavian partner.
? REPORTAGE:
It is 5 P.M. on Sunday, September 19. Baptist reverend Yeremia Zanambani and his wife, Miriam Zoani, leave their home in the town of Hitadipa, in West Papua’s isolated central highlands, for a walk to the neighboring village of Bamba to feed their pigs.
