2) What Color Was He? The Killing of Deris Kogoya
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Free Papua Movement (OPM) group has reported that one of its members, Bumi Walo Enumbi, died during a military operation conducted by the Indonesian Military (TNI) on Saturday, May 10, 2025. Sebby Sambom, a spokesperson for the OPM's armed wing TPNPB-OPM, confirmed this incident.
Sebby suspected that the military operation was not conducted solely by TNI soldiers, alleging the involvement of local residents who were purportedly utilized by security forces in their crackdown on the group. "TNI couldn't have acted alone; it was a collaboration with local people who were spying," he stated when contacted on Sunday, May 11, 2025.
According to him, the military's actions against his group are viewed as an act of war, and he asserted that the OPM would retaliate against security forces in Papua. "We promise to retaliate, to attack the army and police," he declared.
The TNI's operation targeting the OPM militia took place in Kalome Village, Ilamobrawi, Puncak Jaya Regency, Central Papua Province. The operation resulted in the death of Bumi Walo Enumbi, identified as a leader of the OPM's Yambi region.
Head of Information for the XVII Cenderawasih Regional Military Command, Colonel Inf Candra Kurniawan, reported that Bumi Walo had attempted to flee. "So he was shot, neutralized, which resulted in his death," Kurniawan said on Sunday, May 11, 2025.
He added that Bumi Walo Enumbi's body had been handed over to the authorities and his family. During the operation, the military also secured several pieces of evidence, including a pistol, three mobile phones, 100 arrows, machetes, axes, the Morning Star flag, and OPM documents.
Candra stated that Bumi Walo Enumbi was on the police's wanted list (DPO), having been listed by the Puncak Jaya Police since April 25, 2024.
Bumi Walo Enumbi was reportedly involved in several shooting incidents on April 7, 2025, which resulted in the deaths of a member of the Puncak Jaya Police and a retired police officer. The leader of the Yambi region OPM was also allegedly involved in the shooting of a motorcycle taxi driver in 2024.
In a separate statement, Media Commander of the TNI's Habema Task Force, Lieutenant Colonel Inf Iwan Dwi Prihartono, affirmed that the operation against the OPM group was carried out in a measured and precise manner. He emphasized that this action reflects the TNI's commitment to maintaining security stability and protecting the people of Papua from armed terror threats.
According to Iwan, the OPM's actions have targeted not only security forces but also civilians, citing propaganda on social media as a tactic to undermine democratic integrity and worsen the situation in Papua.
"This disrupts stability and slows down development in Central Papua," he said. He urged the public to remain calm and not be easily swayed by information disseminated by the OPM.
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3) Anthony Albanese lands in Indonesia for first trip abroad since election win
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has landed in Indonesia as he begins his first overseas trip since his resounding election victory on May 3.
It won't be a long visit — Mr Albanese will only spend one full day on the ground in Jakarta before flying to Rome to meet European leaders and attend the pope's inauguration mass.
But it will still have plenty of symbolic weight.
By making Indonesia his first destination, Mr Albanese is sending a clear (if predictable) signal about his key foreign policy priorities for his second term.
Mr Albanese will also be intent on cementing his relationship with Indonesia's sometimes mercurial President Prabowo Subianto, who looks certain to exert more control over major foreign decisions than his predecessor Joko Widodo.
Why visit Indonesia first?
Almost every prime minister since John Howard has made their first overseas visit to Jakarta in the wake of seizing power, and Mr Albanese seems to be doubling down on this informal tradition.
Mr Albanese made his first bilateral visit to Indonesia after winning the 2022 election, and now he's repeating that gesture in 2025.
Gatra Priyandita from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute says Mr Albanese wants to make sure Jakarta understands that Indonesia remains "a key priority" for the government.
"The government is interested in signalling that Australia is a part of Asia and Australia still prioritises its relationship with key South-East Asian states," Mr Priyandita told the ABC.
Just before boarding the plane to Jakarta, Mr Albanese told reporters in Perth he was making Indonesia his "first port of call" because "there's no more important relationship than [the one] we have with Indonesia".
Expect Mr Prabowo to roll out the red carpet for Mr Albanese in return, as well.
Australia doesn't loom as large in the Indonesian government's consciousness as it does in ours, but we're still seen as both a significant partner and a regional power.
Security opportunities abound
Defence and security cooperation will be a key priority for the prime minister on this visit, particularly in the wake of the Chinese navy's partial circumnavigation of Australia and the vast strategic uncertainties ushered in by Donald Trump.
The government is racing to strengthen strategic and defence ties with a host of major countries in the region, from Japan to India, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Last year, Mr Prabowo travelled to Canberra to sign a major security agreement between the two countries, which was hailed as a landmark moment in the relationship.
Mr Prabowo is less cautious than his predecessor, Mr Widodo, and more interested in positioning Indonesia as a major player both regionally and globally.
That could open up new opportunities for Australia, which wants to use the defence agreement to build more strategic trust with Indonesia, as well as expand joint military exercises and build more interoperability between the armed forces of both countries.
Expect all of this to be firmly on Mr Albanese's agenda when he sits down with Mr Prabowo.
Limitations to becoming full allies
Still, while Australian politicians and officials might harbour sky-high ambitions for the defence relationship, they're also realistic about its limitations.
There are still some deep cultural gaps between the two countries, and some Indonesian officials remain wary about deepening military cooperation with Australia in the wake of the 1999 East Timor crisis.
Indonesia also remains firmly non-aligned: Mr Prabowo has made it clear that Indonesia does not want to be involved in "any geopolitical or military alliances" and this agreement doesn't change its traditional neutrality.
After all, Indonesia has recently moved to join BRICS (with Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and expanded its long-standing military ties with Russia.
During the election campaign, Defence Minister Richard Marles scrambled to get his Indonesian counterpart on the phone after reports surfaced suggesting Russia was trying to base long-range military aircraft in Papua.
Jakarta was quick to rule out that prospect.
But Mr Prabowo's unpredictability can cut both ways, and Australia will have to keep on watching Jakarta and Moscow's relationship very closely.
ASPI's Gatra Priyandita says it's "very difficult" for Indonesia and Australia to ever become true allies, in large part because there are still "deep strategic divergences" between them.
"On the one hand, both countries do recognise the threats arising from the rise of China. On the other hand, though, they have different perspectives on how to respond to it," he said.
"Australia obviously has moved towards leaning closer to the United States through its AUKUS and Quad arrangements.
"Meanwhile, in Indonesia, at best, the United States is seen as a necessary balancer to China, but at worst a predatory great power."
The hard graft of economic cooperation
Geopolitics and hard power won't be Mr Albanese's only preoccupation in Indonesia.
Mr Albanese will want to continue the slow and sometimes grinding task of trying to expand Australia's economic ties with its rapidly growing neighbour.
When Mr Albanese visited Jakarta for the first time after being sworn in three years ago, he met with the then-president, Joko Widodo, who was famously obsessed with super-charging Indonesia's development ambitions.
At that time, experts said "the road to Jokowi's heart would be business and investment".
Australia has poured considerable effort into expanding economic ties with Indonesia and the region since then, including through commissioning a major new strategy to increase investment in the region.
t's far too early to judge the success of this strategy, but the returns so far have been patchy.
"Australia wasn't able to offer Jokowi much in terms of economic transactions, and so he didn't pay much attention to it," said Associate Professor Marcus Mietzner from the Australian National University.
Mr Priyandita said that while the economic relationship was on a "positive trajectory", there had been "no exponential change" in business ties.
"It's very much market-driven. The government cannot really force businesses to trade in Indonesia," he said.
Perhaps one opportunity can be found in an imperative: both Indonesia and Australia are hugely vulnerable to climate change, but remain economically reliant on fossil fuel exports.
Both countries are also trying to find a way to capitalise on new markets springing up around clean energy; Indonesia's vast nickel exports are already crucial to global supply chains, although the local environmental costs are also vast.
Andrew Hudson from the Centre for Policy Development says Australian capital and expertise could play a crucial role in Indonesia's own transition, which could open up significant financial opportunities for Australia as well.
"Both Australia and Indonesia have complementary strengths on the energy transition," he tells the ABC.
"What Australia can really contribute is really capital and money, but also knowledge and expertise.
"Indonesia offers scale — it's almost 300 million people and it's on track to be one of the biggest economies in the world."
Nurturing a close relationship with Jakarta and taking advantage of the opportunities Indonesia offers is rarely easy work, but for Australia it's still absolutely critical.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s visit to Indonesia comes at a pivotal time as Jakarta prepares to vault into the ranks of the world’s biggest economies.
President Prabowo Subianto has made the astonishing promise to raise economic growth from 5 per cent to 8 per cent. Indonesia is the world’s 18th largest economy and the fourth-most populous country, with some 290 million people, and the president wants to make it the world’s fourth-biggest economy by 2045.
Peter Hartcher, the Herald’s political and international editor, says the centre of Prabowo’s agenda is to provide free, nutritious meals daily to all school-age children and pregnant and nursing mothers – a mammoth effort to feed more than 80 million people. He has made huge budget cuts, including rationing of electricity to government ministries. Another target is funding for schools and universities and to widen the scope of the military in civilian affairs, a move that has galvanised student protests and raised the spectre of the Suharto years of military dictatorship.
Canberra’s awareness of Indonesia’s new importance to Australia was revealed by Albanese during an effusive phone call after being re-elected, in which he told Prabowo he wanted Jakarta to be his first visit, not Washington DC or Beijing.
Three years ago, Indonesia was Albanese’s second foreign trip, after Japan, when Labor was elected. The new Labor government subsequently concentrated on rebuilding bridges with China after the relationship was damaged during the Morrison years, when Beijing imposed trade sanctions in 2020 on $20 billion worth of Australian imports.
Relations across the Pacific also required repair. Historically, Australia had enjoyed close relationships with the island nations, but Coalition governments relegated them to second-order status until the security deal between China and the Solomon Islands on the eve of the 2022 federal election shook us out of our torpor, and the Albanese government recalibrated attention on the Pacific.
Now with China and Russia seeking more influence over Indonesia, and US President Donald Trump’s confusing tariff ploy perceived as hostile trade treatment, the Australian connection to Jakarta is more vital than ever.
ANU professor emeritus Greg Fealy says Prabowo will want to talk to Albanese about trade and investment. Australia and Indonesia already have a free trade agreement, but both nations are eager to explore critical mineral collaboration.
Hartcher reports Albanese sees scope for much more trade liberalisation with Jakarta and intends to discuss the prospects for the Sun Cable project to deliver renewable power to Indonesia. The $30 billion project will collect solar energy from northern Australia and run it through an undersea cable to Singapore. But it must transit Indonesian waters and there could be scope for some of its electricity to be sold to Jakarta in an offtake.
Despite underlying tensions, our two countries share a dynamic friendship that has endured through conflict and catastrophe. These are certainly heady days to our north, and it is time Indonesia came back into Australia’s focus after being slightly off our radar.
Governor Dominggus Mandacan made the announcement while opening the Regional Development Planning Conference in Manokwari, West Papua, on Wednesday. The event focused on the 2026 Regional Government Work Plan (RKPD) and special autonomy planning.
He stated that the first priority is to improve access to and the quality of basic public services, while expanding social protection coverage across communities in the province’s seven districts.
The second priority focuses on strengthening a productive and inclusive regional economy based on local potential. The third aims to enhance food security and self-sufficiency through sustainable development in agriculture and fisheries.
“The fourth program targets the strengthening of socio-cultural resilience and maintaining regional security and stability,” Mandacan remarked.
The fifth priority is to advance bureaucratic reform, making the government more transparent, efficient, accountable, and digitally based.
The sixth program seeks to optimize the use of special autonomy funds to empower indigenous Papuans and promote equitable development.
Lastly, the seventh priority emphasizes developing basic infrastructure and strengthening inter-regional connectivity.
“Inter-regional connectivity is essential for achieving equitable public services and supporting economic growth,” the governor stated.
Mandacan emphasized that the conference serves as a platform to align central government policies with regional programs that address local community needs.
He affirmed that the success of these seven priority programs will depend on support and coordination from all provincial and district-level regional apparatus organizations (OPD).
“This ensures that regional development planning is conducted in a targeted, measurable, effective, and efficient manner,” he concluded.
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