1) Indonesia Reviewing Whether to Label Papua Armed Groups Terrorist or Not
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - Indonesian Presidential Chief of Staff Moeldoko said that authorities are reviewing suggestions that the Papuan armed criminal group (KKB) should be labeled or categorized as terrorist.
The idea was voiced by the National Counterterrorism Agency Head Comr. Gen. Boy Rafli Amar following the death of the Regional Intelligence Agency Chief Brig. Gen. I Gusti Putu Danny Nugraha Karya who was shot by the rebel group on Sunday, April 25.
Moeldoko opined that criminal acts committed by the KKB had entered a new phase. Moreover, it had started to lead to terrorism acts, causing a sense of insecurity, fear, and even lead to murder among the community.
“So there is a suggestion to no longer use the term of KKB but terrorists. The input is still being studied together,” said the former military commander in a written statement today.
The government, he went on, would be more assertive in enforcing the law after the death of the Regional Intelligence Chief. “As ordered by the President that there is no place for KKB in Papua and all corners of the country,” he remarked.
Moeldoko said the government ensures that the handling of Papua KKB would not conflict with the values of human rights as it is carried out in a measured manner with a legal approach. This is in line with President Jokowi’s instruction during the plenary cabinet session on Tuesday, April 27.
Read: Police Yet to Deploy More Personnel after Papua Intelligence Chief Killed
DEWI NURITA | BUDIARTI UTAMI PUTRI
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https://www.thedefensepost.com/2021/04/28/indonesia-gun-battle-papua-rebels/
The Defense Post
3) Indonesia Says 10 Killed in Gun Battle With Papua Rebels
At least 10 people were killed in a gun battle between police and rebels in Indonesia’s restive Papua region, authorities said, in an apparent retaliation for the execution of a top intelligence chief.
The hours-long shootout Tuesday in remote Puncak district ended with nine guerrillas and a police officer dead, while two more officers were wounded, police said.
“We ambushed the area after confirming their whereabouts,” Papua police spokesman Ahmad Musthofa Kamal told AFP on Wednesday.
Police said they believed the dozens-strong rebel faction was responsible for the Sunday slaying of General I Gusti Putu Danny Karya Nugraha, who headed Papua’s intelligence agency.
But rebel group spokesman Sebby Sambom dismissed the report of rebels being killed as a ‘big lie’ and ‘propaganda.’
AFP could not independently verify the claim by security forces.
Conflicting reports are common in Papua — a resource-rich but impoverished island, which shares a border with Papua New Guinea just north of Australia — where a low-level insurgency aimed at breaking away from Indonesia has simmered for decades.
The spike in tensions comes after Indonesian President Joko Widodo this week ordered security forces to pursue rebels for the general’s death. Papuan separatists have claimed responsibility for his killing.
Indonesian security forces have for years been dogged by allegations of widespread rights abuses against Papua’s ethnic Melanesian population including extrajudicial killings of activists and peaceful protesters in their efforts to crush the rebel groups.
In recent weeks, security forces ramped up military operations in Puncak district after rebel groups killed soldiers and teachers, torching several schools and a helicopter.
A former Dutch colony, Papua declared itself independent in 1961, but neighboring Indonesia took control of the region two years later with the promise of holding an independence referendum.
The subsequent vote in favor of staying part of Indonesia was widely considered a sham.
An Indonesian police officer and five Papuan independence fighters were killed in an ongoing clash between security forces and a rebel group in restive Papua province, authorities said Wednesday.
The clashes began early this month in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua province after rebels set fire to several schools and shot to death two teachers in Beoga village in Puncak district.
Police, military and intelligence forces joined together to find the attackers, who authorities believe belong to the West Papua Liberation Army, the military wing of the Free Papua Organization.
Rebels in Papua have been fighting a low-level insurgency since the early 1960s, when Indonesia annexed the region, a former Dutch colony. Papua was formally incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a U.N.-sponsored ballot that was seen as a sham by many.
Papua police chief Mathius Fakhiri said a joint military and police force killed five of the Papuan fighters in a battle with dozens of rebels armed with military-grade weapons as well as axes and arrows in Makki village Tuesday. He said a police officer was shot in his stomach and died while two others were injured.
Security forces managed to evacuate the body and injured officers to a hospital in nearby Mimika district near the mining town of Tembagapura on Tuesday while the joint force was hunting other rebels who fled to the jungle, Fakhiri said.
Sebby Sambom, a spokesman for the liberation army, who was earlier confirmed the police claim, changed his statement after receiving latest information from a National Liberation Army of West Papua commander, Lekagak Telenggen, who told him that all five victims who died during the clash were civilians.
“There are no casualties on our side, this is all public deception,” Sambon said. “Indonesian security forces have stormed several villages in Puncak district and shot villagers, many died and injured.”
Tuesday’s clash happened two days after Papua’s intelligence agency chief Brig. Gen. Gusti Putu Danny Nugraha was shot in his head and died in a rebel ambush. The ambush occurred while the general was patrolling Dambet village in Puncak district with 13 other personnel on motorcycle after rebels set fire to an elementary school and houses in the village.
President Joko Widodo has ordered government forces to hunt down the rebels.
“I emphasize that there is no place for armed criminal groups in Papua and in all corners of the country,” Widodo said in televised remarks on Monday.
Attacks by rebels in several districts in Papua have spiked in the past year, including in the Grasberg mine. The Grasberg mine’s vast gold and copper reserves have been exploited for decades by U.S.-based Freeport-McMoRan, damaging the surrounding environment while providing significant tax income for the Indonesian government.
But indigenous Papuans have benefited little and are poorer, sicker, and more likely to die young than people elsewhere in Indonesia.
Reporting by Alfian Kartono for the Associated Press from Jayapura, Indonesia. Associated Press writer Niniek Karmini in Jakarta, Indonesia, contributed to the report.
Nine separatist rebels and a policeman were killed in fighting in Indonesia’s Papua province, officials said Wednesday, after Jakarta vowed to come down hard on the insurgents who killed the government’s regional intelligence chief – an army brigadier general – on Sunday.
Fighting broke out between government security forces and the insurgent group in Puncak regency on Tuesday, said Iqbal Alquddusy, spokesman for Operation Nemangkawi, a joint military-police task force to hunt down the Papuan rebels.
“Based on our findings on the ground during a firefight at the hideout of the Lekagak Telenggen criminal group, it is clear that nine of them were shot dead,” Iqbal told BenarNews. He was referring to Lekagak Telenggen, the general operations commander for the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement separatist organization.
Two policemen were also injured in the fighting, police said.
Papua police spokesman Ahmad Musthofa Kamal said security forces managed to overrun the rebel hideout at Maki village in Gome district.
“After the joint forces entered the hideout of the armed criminal group … a gunfight erupted, forcing them to retreat and leave the Maki village,” he said in a statement about Tuesday’s fighting.
The rebels denied that nine of their comrades were killed Tuesday.
“We have verified the information with personnel on the ground in Gome and Mayuweri districts and it turns out that none of our personnel were shot,” TPNPB spokesman Sebby Sambom said in a statement.
“It’s public deception,” he said. “They are losing. They are being defeated by our forces.”
Some residents in Puncak regency have fled their homes amid the fighting, said Jones Douw, a Papuan human rights activist and head of the justice and peace department at the Kingme church. The congregation is spread throughout Papua and West Papua, deeply impoverished neighboring provinces whose populace is largely Christian.
“People are fearful. Some of them have fled to the forest,” Douw told BenarNews by phone on Wednesday from Timika, a town in Mimika regency that is home to the Grasberg Mine, the world’s largest gold and copper mine.
“In Puncak’s main town, people can’t go to their farms. Church activities have been disrupted by the fighting,” he added.
Jubi.co.id, Papua’s main news website, also reported that residents in several districts of Puncak had left their homes and sought refuge at churches.
“People are having difficulties getting foodstuffs and need medical personnel to treat people who are sick. Some of them have been sick since before they left,” the news portal quote a source as saying.
President’s office: ‘We can’t ignore human rights’
The fighting broke out a day after President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo ordered a crackdown on the separatist group after insurgents killed Brig. Gen. I Gusti Putu Danny Nugraha Karya, who headed the Papua regional operation of the State Intelligence Agency (BIN), over the weekend.
“I have ordered the military and police chiefs to pursue and arrest members of the armed criminal group,” the president said in a televised statement on Monday.
The brigadier general was the highest-ranking Indonesian military officer to die in the conflict, which has simmered for decades in the far-eastern Papua region.
Putu Danny was visiting Beoga – a district in Puncak – to assess the security situation after recent violence there, when insurgents ambushed his convoy, the intelligence agency said.
TPNPB claimed responsibility for shooting dead the general.
The group had also said it was behind the killings of four civilians, including two teachers and a 16-year-old schoolboy, claiming they were spies for the government.
In Jakarta, national police chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo ordered his personnel to press ahead in their hunt for the rebels.
“I have instructed all task-force members on duty to continue to pursue the armed criminal group in Papua. The state cannot be defeated,” he said.
Meanwhile, Moeldoko, the presidential chief of staff, defended the government’s counter-insurgency campaign in Papua, saying it accorded with human rights principles.
“We have to be firm, but we can’t ignore human rights,” Moeldoko said in Jakarta.
He said the government was prioritizing dialogue involving religious, cultural and indigenous communities.
His remarks came after human rights watchdog Amnesty International warned Monday that the government’s response to the violence in Papua must not lead to more rights abuses, amid calls by nationalist politicians for Jakarta to crush the rebels.
“Human rights are constitutional obligations so they must be a priority in every state policy. Putting aside human rights is not only against international law but also unconstitutional,” Usman Hamid, director of Amnesty in Indonesia, said in a statement.
Moeldoko said the government was still considering a proposal to designate the armed separatists as a terrorist group.
“The group has resorted to acts of terrorism, creating an atmosphere of insecurity, fear, and even murdering Papuan people. There have been suggestions to use the term terrorist,” Moeldoko said.
In March, the head of the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), Boy Rafli Amar, told a parliamentary hearing that crimes committed by the separatist group should be categorized as acts of terrorism because the rebels were using violence, threats, and firearms, as well as causing widespread fear in society.
In 1963, Indonesian forces invaded the Papua region – which makes up the western half of New Guinea Island – and annexed it.
Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a U.N.-administered ballot known as the Act of Free Choice. Many Papuans and rights groups said the vote was a sham because it involved only about 1,000 people.
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