1) Sorong Residents Protest Palm Oil Company’s Harvesting on Disputed Land
IN PACNEWS READING TIME: 3 MINS READ JUNE 8, 2026 0 Author : Gamaliel Kaliele Editor : Nuevaterra Mambor
Sorong, Jubi – Residents in Sorong Regency, Southwest Papua, have protested against palm oil company PT Inti Kebun Sejahtera (IKS) for continuing to harvest palm fruit on land that remains under dispute in Klalik Village, Klaso District.
One resident, Roy, said the community was disappointed that the company had continued its operations despite ongoing objections from landowners. “Since January, we have maintained a blockade on the area as a form of protest because our concerns and rights have never been properly addressed. Yet the company continues to enter the disputed land and harvest palm fruit as if there were no problem,” Roy said on Sunday.
According to Roy, the community initially agreed to allow the company to use the land for a nursery. However, residents later alleged that the company expanded its activities and converted the area into a palm oil plantation without obtaining consent from the customary landowners.
He said the dispute dates back to 2006, when the company began clearing land in several plots that formed part of community-owned plasma plantation areas. The clearing, he claimed, was carried out without prior notification to local residents who held rights to the land.
Roy said residents sought compensation of Rp150 million during mediation efforts held in February 2026. The figure was calculated based on the company’s use of the land from 2006 to 2025.
During negotiations, the community later reduced its demand to Rp250,000 per hectare per month for an agreed period.
“We have tried to find a compromise. Initially, we requested Rp150 million based on nearly two decades of land use. We later reduced our demand to Rp250,000 per hectare per month and even agreed to limit compensation calculations to the company’s operations between 2020 and 2025. However, our demands have yet to be addressed,” Roy said.
In addition to compensation issues, residents have questioned the lack of clarity regarding land boundaries, arguing that a transparent verification process involving Indonesia’s National Land Agency (BPN) is necessary.
Community members have repeatedly requested a new land survey to verify the legal boundaries between community-owned land and areas claimed by the company. According to residents, that request has not been fulfilled.
“People are asking why an area that 400 hectares was once around, is now shown on maps as only about 260 hectares. What happened to the rest of the land? The company must explain what happened to that land,” Roy said.
The disputed land is located within a former transmigration settlement area established in 1988, where approximately 200 transmigrant households were allocated land by the government.
Roy said each household originally received about two hectares, bringing the total distributed area to roughly 400 hectares.
“Today, much of that land is under dispute, and some of it has been reclaimed by Indigenous communities,” he said.
He added that residents have pursued various avenues to resolve the conflict, including dialogue and mediation, but no definitive solution has been offered by the company.
Residents are now urging both the Sorong Regency administration and the central government to intervene in what they describe as a long-running agrarian conflict.
They argue that government involvement is essential to prevent the dispute from escalating further and to ensure that the company ceases operations on the contested land until community grievances have been resolved in accordance with the law.
“We are not opposed to investment. However, investment should not come at the expense of people’s rights,” Roy said.
“We remind PT Inti Kebun Sejahtera not to continue harvesting on land whose legal status remains disputed. We will continue defending our rights until there is clarity and justice.”
Meanwhile, Ambrosius Klagilit of the Papua Legal Aid Institute (LBH Papua Pos) in Sorong said the issue should not be treated as an ordinary land dispute but as a matter involving the fundamental land rights of local communities.
“The state must not allow a company to continue profiting from land whose ownership and status are still being challenged by the community,” Klagilit said.
He argued that the company should suspend all activities in the disputed area until a fair and transparent resolution is reached.
“If there are still unresolved objections and demands from the community, company operations should be temporarily halted until a lawful and transparent settlement is achieved,” he said.
Klagilit added that both regional and national governments have a legal obligation to ensure that business activities do not undermine community rights.
According to him, allowing the conflict to continue unchecked would reflect weak state oversight of problematic investment practices.
He further warned that if residents’ demands continue to be ignored, LBH Papua Pos Sorong will pursue legal action and advocacy efforts measures to safeguard community rights. (*)
2) Indonesia. Militarism on the rise amid censorship over West Papua
by Duncan Graham | Jun 8, 2026 | Comment & Analysis, Latest Posts
Listen to this story 7 min
Australians are rightly concerned with violent abuses of powerless people far away in the Middle East. Yet next door, similar evils thrive. Duncan Graham reports from Indonesia.
The Indonesian military’s interference in high school and university education is threatening the next generation’s knowledge of the world and how issues affecting their lives are being erased.
The documentary Pesta Babi (Pig Feast) has been banned by civic authorities and soldiers from three locations: the public Mataram University (Lombok Island, alongside Bali), North Maluku, and Yogyakarta in Central Java.
Intimidating discussions of the film are pushing students away from inquiry, the core of all learning. They’re turning into sheep.
The Indonesian producers say their film “chronicles the struggle of indigenous Papuans to defend their ancestral lands and forests from the threat of food security projects or food estates. “The documentary also exposes the involvement of business circles, palm oil conglomerates and the Indonesian Military in government-backed national strategic projects.”
A news account of the Mataram Uni banning read: “Efforts at negotiations between the committee and several student organisation officials yielded no results, and an argument ensued. The campus authorities were unwilling to compromise and remained firm.
The event was then forcibly broken up without any justification.
Last month, another screening of the film by the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) and the Society of Indonesian Environmental Journalists in Ternate City, North Maluku, was closed by Lieutenant Colonel Jani Setiadi, claiming social media rejections of Pesta Babi.
(Ternate is 1,660 km northeast of Mataram. West Papua is a further 500 km east of Ternate, a volcanic island in the Maluku group. There are about 17,500 islands in the Indonesian archipelago.)
“There’s been a lot of opposition to this film screening on social media because many people think it’s provocative,” Jani reportedly said. He was formerly a deputy commander of an infantry battalion.
“… the joint screening [should] not go ahead considering that issues of ethnicity, religion, race and intergroup relations issues in North Maluku are highly sensitive and easily politicised.”
AJI Ternate Chairperson Yunita Kaunar alleged Jani’s orders were “an act of intimidation against legitimate civilian activities.
“If every critical work is considered a threat and then silenced, then democracy is in a dangerous situation. The state must not be afraid of discussions and documentaries.”
In late April in Yogyakarta, a scheduled showing at a Catholic venue was cancelled without reason. The Central Java city is Indonesia’s cultural HQ.
Army influence
These episodes amplify concerns that Indonesia is being run by the army,
freed from the barracks by their boss, disgraced former general now President Prabowo Subianto.
Now he’s back in the top job and militarising the Republic of 285 million – that’s 11 to one Aussie. There are just three other nations with more people – India, China and the US.
Though trained to kill, be-medalled officers in the Tentara (military) Nasional Indonesia have been taking over the jobs of peaceful civilian bureaucrats. No appropriate experience or qualifications? No worries, it’s the discipline that’s needed.
Now the men in khaki have turned censors, shutting down screenings of the 57-minute Pesta Babi.
The soldiers from Java watching out for spears and jungle-track ambushes in West Papua tend to be Muslims; pig products are haram (forbidden), so meals aren’t shared with the Christian locals.
That ensures convivial sit-downs to talk peace are rare.
West Papua suppression
West Papua has been shut to foreign journalists for decades. Twelve years ago, activists in London claimed:
“Dozens of demonstrators dressed in black gathered outside the Indonesian Embassy today to lead the global protest against West Papua’s 50-year-long isolation. The demonstration was organised by TAPOL (an international organisation for Indonesian political prisoners) and Survival International, supported by Amnesty UK and the Free West Papua Campaign.
“The rally was one of 22 protests around the world calling for free and open access to Indonesia’s most secretive region.”
More than 83,000 soldiers on rotation and carrying modern weapons have been trying to put down bow-and-arrow guerrillas protesting possession of West Papua and its enormous mineral riches.
The Grasberg mine has one of the world’s largest reserves of gold and copper. It’s a joint venture among the governments of Indonesia, Central Papua, and the US company Freeport-McMoRan.
In colonial times West Papua was the Netherlands New Guinea. It was taken over by Indonesia in 1969 after a referendum of 1,025 hand-picked ‘leaders’ claimed they wanted Jakarta’s control. It was called the Act of Free Choice, retitled by cynics as the Act Free of Choice.
The population is now an estimated 5.6 million. About two-thirds are Christian.
Pig Feast
Scenes in the Pesta Babi film show villagers opposing the destruction of the jungle, erecting large crucifixes. The most impactful vision has a colossal barge laden with scores of new yellow front-end loaders crawling off the deck, rolling onto land and bashing into the green bush.
Indonesian journalist Made Supriatma, a Visiting Fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, was due to comment:
“Once a Papuan speaks, even through film, it’s banned. And this ban occurs in a place owned by the Catholic Church … that should give those silenced by the authorities a chance to speak.”
Antipodean support for the Papuans has mainly come from NZ where activism thrives, though there are some supporters across the Ditch. Parramatta’s Catholic Outlook newsletter commented:
“The Papuan Church, which has long been dominated by Indonesian clergy, has done little to protest the state’s exploitation of this resource-rich region’s forests and minerals, disregarding the fundamental rights of Papuans to live on their land.”
In early May, seven young Papuans in the Central Highlands were injured – one seriously – when police allegedly opened fire on a parade of school graduates displaying the banned West Papuan nationalist Morning Star flag.
The National Indigenous Times reported a government spokesman claiming, “Local authorities in close relations with civic groups, including church authorities and traditional leaders, are currently trying to conduct a thorough investigation regarding the incident.”
Observers of the 60-year conflict between indigenous tribesmen and imported troops estimate more than 100,000 West Papuans have been killed since the Indonesian takeover.
Indonesian researchers have been “mapping the violence that has occurred, in part inspired by the massacre mapping project of Indigenous people in Australia by the Guardian and the University of Newcastle.”
No sign yet that Jakarta sees the ongoing hate and anger as needing attention. That will require so many deaths the world starts to notice. Whether that would include the Australian government is questionable.
Duncan Graham has a Walkley Award, two Human Rights Commission awards and other prizes for his radio, TV and print journalism in Australia. He now lives in Indonesia.
3) West Papuan 'Pig Feast' documentary subject files police complaint against director
Audio
Play Duration: 8 minutes 57 seconds8m
Presented by Hellena Souisa
A documentary about the displacement of indigenous West Papuans to make way for massive state-backed agriculture projects has caused a huge stir in Indonesia.
Some public screenings of 'Pig Feast' in Indonesia have been shutdown by military but it still has more than 13 million views on YouTube since its release in March.
Now one of the West Papuans featured in the documentary, Yasinta Moiwend, has changed her story and even laid a complaint against the film's director with police.
Journalist Hellena Souisa from ABC Indonesia has spoken to Yasinta's family who say they're shocked by her behaviour.
"The family suspects she may have changed her position under pressure or intimidation," she said. "[They] also questioned how Yasinta was suddenly able to travel to Jakarta, pay for accommodation and legal representation."
4) 18-year-old Papuan girl killed in suspected military drone strike in Lanny Jaya Regency
8 June 2026 / 2 minutes of reading
An 18-year-old Papuan girl named Mrs Penti Weya was reportedly killed by a suspected drone-delivered explosive in Wunapunggu Village, Melagi District, Lanny Jaya Regency, on the morning of Sunday, 7 June 2026. According to various sources, the explosion occurred in a civilian residential area. Mrs Weya sustained lethal injuries as a result of shrapnel during the attack, including extensive wounds to her left and right arm, face and chest. Following the incident, relatives cremated the body in accordance with local customs (see photo below, source: independent HRD).
According to reports received from local sources, Indonesian military personnel (TNI) allegedly conducted an aerial operation using an unmanned drone over Wunapunggu Village on the morning of 7 June 2026. The drone reportedly dropped an explosive which exploded right next to Mr Penti Weya, causing fatal injuries. The explosion also left a crater at the scene (see photo on top, source: independent HRD) and triggered panic amongst local residents, many of whom reportedly fled the area fearing further attacks. At the time of writing, no official statement has been issued by the TNI regarding the incident.
Local sources reported that further reported that aerial operations in the Melagi District area remained ongoing following the incident.
Human rights analysis
If confirmed, the deliberate or indiscriminate use of explosive weapons in or near civilian-populated areas raises serious concerns under international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL). Parties to an armed conflict are required to distinguish at all times between civilians and military objectives and to take all feasible precautions to minimise civilian harm. Attacks directed against civilians or carried out without adequate precautions may constitute serious violations of IHL. The reported killing of Mrs Penti Weya also engages Indonesia’s obligations under Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which protects the right to life. The use of lethal force resulting in civilian deaths must be subject to a prompt, effective, independent and impartial investigation capable of establishing the facts, identifying those responsible and providing accountability and remedies to victims’ families
Following the deadly attack on 7 June 2026, relatives cremated Mrs Penti Weya’s body in accordance with local customs
Detailed Case Data Document ID: HRM-CAS-075-2026 Region: Indonesia > Highland Papua > Lanny Jaya > Melagi Total number of victims: 1
#
Number of Victims
Name, Details
Gender
Age
Group Affiliation
Violations
1.
1
Penti Weya
female
18
Indigenous Peoples
execution, right to life, unlawful killing
Period of incident: 07/06/2026 – 07/06/2026 Perpetrator: Republic Indonesia > Indonesian Security Forces > Indonesian Military (TNI) Issues: security force violence, women and children
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