1) Three die in attacks in Indonesia's Papua

  

2) Papua New Guinea to build closer ties with Indonesia 

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https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7682190/three-die-in-attacks-in-indonesias-papua/ 

1) Three die in attacks in Indonesia's Papua   

By Alfian Kartono  

Updated March 31 2022 - 9:31pm, first published 9:26pm 

 

 

 

A government soldier, his wife and an independence fighter have been killed in two separate attacks in Indonesia's restive Papua province, security officers and a rebel spokesperson say. 

Clashes have escalated in eastern Indonesia's Papua province since last year, when rebels set fire to several schools and killed two teachers in a village in Puncak district. 

 

Attackers from the West Papua Liberation Army, the military wing of the Free Papua Organisation, fatally shot a soldier, killed his wife by slashing her neck, and injured their two children in an assault at a house on Thursday morning in Elelim village in Yalimo district, said Papua deputy military chief Candra Kurniawan. 

The soldier's wife, a midwife who helped indigenous Papuan women give birth, died on the way to a clinic, Kurniawan said, adding that police and military forces were searching for the attackers, who fled into the jungle. 

Rebel spokesperson Sebby Sambom confirmed that the group's fighters carried out the attack, saying it was part of their struggle for independence from Indonesia, which they accuse of conducting a genocidal campaign against Papuans. 

Separately, Indonesian security forces on Wednesday fatally shot a local rebel commander, Toni Tabuni, who was resisting arrest in a raid in Nabire district, and arrested another rebel who was with him, Papua police spokesperson Ahmad Musthofa Kamal said. 

He said Tabuni was allegedly involved in at least nine deadly attacks on security forces and civilians, including an Indonesian brigadier general, two teachers and a health worker who worked for a COVID-19 task force. 

Shortly after Tabuni died, rebels set fire to nine classrooms in a school in Intan Jaya district and badly injured two teachers. Sambom said the attack was in retaliation for Tabuni's death. 

"We don't need schools and development organised by Indonesia which is just an image to cover up the killings and genocide in Papua," he said in a recorded message sent to The Associated Press. "We can do it ourselves if Papua is independent." 

Papua, a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea, is ethnically and culturally distinct from much of Indonesia. Conflicts between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian security forces are common. 

Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a UN-sponsored ballot that was widely seen as a sham. Since then, a low-level insurgency has simmered in the region, which is divided into two provinces, Papua and West Papua. 

Australian Associated Press 

 

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https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/464364/papua-new-guinea-to-build-closer-ties-with-indonesia 

2) Papua New Guinea to build closer ties with Indonesia 

 

3:51 pm on 31 March 2022   

Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape had confirmed his government will finalise up to nine agreements with Jakarta to strengthen its relationship with Indonesia. 

Marape is in Indonesia with a delegation of more than 70 people - mainly representing the business sector - to meet with his counterpart President Joko Widodo. 

He was expected to discuss a proposed partnership with the Indonesian Petroleum company - Pertamina - for alternative sources of fuel among a number of issues on the agenda during the visit which ends on Friday. 

Marape said the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two countries "will greatly complement Papua New Guinea's future socio-economic agenda and reap tangible outcomes in the immediate to long term." 

But PNG Think Tank Group executive director Samson Komati said Marape had his priorities mixed up. 

"We have all these problems here in the nation and you have the Prime Minister leading a delegation like this when our house is not in order, he is going overseas. It is a very wasteful exercise I think," Komati said. 

Komati said government departments were struggling to carry out their core functions because money allocated to them by the state had not reached them. 

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