On October 29, Indonesian Marines detained three alleged members of the West Papua National Liberation Army-Free Papua Movement (TPNPB-OPM) in Maybrat Regency, Southwest Papua. Indonesian military officials identified one of the detainees, Matius Aisasior, as a TPNPB battalion commander affiliated with the OPM network of Denni Moss. According to Indonesia’s ANTARA news agency, the military alleges that the group was involved in attacks against security posts and workers on the Trans-Bintuni road project, as well as intimidation and violence against Indigenous Papuans. Lieutenant General Lucky Avianto, commander of Indonesia’s Joint Regional Defence Command III, said the arrests occurred without resistance and described the military’s approach as “persuasive.”
The conflict occurs in Indonesia’s Papuan provinces, which occupy the western half of the island of New Guinea. Papua New Guinea, an independent sovereign state, occupies the eastern half. Papuan independence organizations commonly use the term “West Papua” for the Indonesian-controlled territory and seek its independence from Indonesia. This discourse article uses “Papua” and “Indonesia’s Papuan provinces” when referring collectively to the Indonesian-administered region.
Across Papua, Indonesian security forces face armed groups seeking independence from Indonesia. Violence, military operations, population displacement, development initiatives, political mobilization, and competing claims about civilian casualties now intersect within the same operational environment. Control of territory remains consequential and so does the ability of the Indonesian state, Papuan armed groups, local communities, and political actors to establish credible accounts of events, maintain civilian confidence, define legitimate authority, and influence audiences beyond the battlefield.
An Armed Conflict with a Civilian Center of Gravity
The scale of civilian displacement illustrates the human consequences of the conflict and the difficulty of establishing a shared operating picture. On October 19, the Papua Special Committee of Indonesia’s Regional Representatives Council reportedly found that approximately 124,000 Papuans remained internally displaced by armed conflict. The committee also reported 59 deaths during 2026, including 43 civilians. Schools and healthcare services have reportedly been disrupted in conflict-affected areas as teachers and medical personnel leave insecure districts, according to Human Rights Monitor’s reporting on the committee’s findings.
Even the number of displaced people is contested. Local authorities reportedly provided the committee with estimates of roughly 22,000 displaced people during meetings in Timika in September. Human Rights Monitor estimated that at least 127,031 people were internally displaced by late August. Indonesia’s Deputy Human Rights Minister Mugiyanto Sipin had previously acknowledged preliminary government figures of approximately 122,000 displaced persons. These differing estimates illustrate the difficulty of establishing the scale of displacement across remote and insecure areas of Papua. The discrepancy demonstrates a fundamental challenge in Papua. Basic facts about the conflict remain difficult to establish.
Population movement can alter local economies, disrupt governance, separate communities from traditional land, weaken access to state services, change intelligence networks, and affect perceptions of security forces and armed groups. Schools that cease operating, clinics that lose personnel, villages that empty, and civilians who cannot safely return home all influence the political environment in which legitimacy is contested. The Indonesian state faces a security environment shaped by armed activity and civilian perceptions of political authority. Captured commanders, seized weapons, insurgent casualties, governance, development, displacement, and civilian security each influence the trajectory of the conflict. Tactical activity occurs within communities whose interactions with state institutions and armed groups continually shape perceptions of legitimacy.
A Dispersing Operational Environment
Recent reporting also suggests that the geography of the conflict is evolving. An October 26 assessment by Human Rights Monitor described armed conflict between July and September as geographically dispersed, identifying Intan Jaya as a continuing conflict area while documenting violence and displacement in Yahukimo and other districts. The organization reported military operations involving helicopters, drones, and increased security deployments in portions of the central highlands. These accounts require continued independent verification, particularly given the difficulty of accessing remote conflict areas.
The physical terrain compounds the problem. Papua’s mountains, forests, isolated settlements, and limited transportation infrastructure create conditions favorable to small armed formations capable of dispersing among difficult terrain. Infrastructure simultaneously acquires political and military significance because roads, airfields, communications networks, mines, schools, and government facilities connect populations to the state while providing potential targets for insurgent activity.
The October arrests illustrate this interaction. Indonesian military officials allege that Aisasior’s network participated in attacks against workers associated with the Trans-Bintuni road project. Infrastructure in such an environment carries several meanings at once. Jakarta can present roads and public projects as mechanisms for economic integration, mobility, state presence, and development. Armed separatist organizations can interpret the same infrastructure through the lens of Indonesian political control and territorial consolidation. Local communities can assess projects according to security, economic benefits, land rights, disruption, and their relationships with government institutions. The resulting contest concerns the political meaning attached to state presence.
The Information Battlefield
Indonesia’s Human Rights Minister Natalius Pigai made this dimension unusually explicit in September. Pigai publicly discussed what he characterized as a battle of public opinion between the Indonesian government and TPNPB-OPM. He argued that the government was losing ground because Papuan armed groups could rapidly release claims accompanied by photographs or other material through social media. As reported by Kompas and translated by the Asia Pacific Solidarity Network, Pigai emphasized the need for credible government information.
His comments identify a central problem of contemporary irregular warfare, information velocity and institutional credibility interact. A violent incident can produce multiple narratives within hours. TPNPB-OPM can issue its account, while Indonesian military and police organizations can issue another. Local residents, activists, churches, journalists, government officials, and human-rights organizations may provide additional information. Images and claims can circulate internationally before investigations establish what occurred.
A September incident in Yahukimo demonstrates the problem. TPNPB-OPM initially alleged that Indonesian forces shot ten civilians returning from a gold-panning site near Samboga Village and reported that six had died. Subsequent reporting documented six wounded civilians who were evacuated for medical treatment, illustrating how competing and evolving accounts can complicate efforts to establish basic facts surrounding violence in Papua.
The incident carries operational consequences. When audiences cannot determine who was killed, who initiated violence, whether victims were civilians or combatants, or whether available evidence is reliable, uncertainty becomes part of the conflict itself. Each incident can influence attitudes toward the Indonesian government, security forces, separatist organizations, human-rights groups, and external actors. Credibility therefore functions as an operational resource, as a government statement that audiences consider reliable can reduce uncertainty following a contested event. Contradictory, delayed, or unsupported information can create space for alternative narratives. Armed groups face the same credibility problem. Claims that are subsequently disproven can undermine their authority, while documented evidence can amplify their messages among sympathetic audiences. The information contest in Papua consequently involves the cumulative credibility of institutions and organizations across repeated incidents.
From Domestic Insurgency to Regional Diplomacy
This conflict’s information environment extends into the Pacific. At the United Nations General Assembly in September, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Matthew Cooper Wale called for independent scrutiny of allegations concerning human-rights violations in Papua and reiterated calls for Indonesia to permit access by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Vanuatu also raised concerns involving Indigenous rights, displacement, environmental effects, and activists.
Indonesia rejected the characterization presented by Pacific states. In its right of reply before the UN General Assembly, Indonesia argued that discussion of Papua should account for violence attributed to armed separatist groups against civilians and public-service personnel. The Indonesian representative also maintained that allegations of human-rights abuses are addressed through national institutions and legal processes.
Regional institutions are also engaged. Human Rights Monitor reported that the Melanesian Spearhead Group renewed efforts in 2026 to seek access to Papua for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. These developments create an external audience for events occurring in remote Papuan districts. An encounter between a small military patrol and an armed group can generate consequences reaching Jakarta, Pacific capitals, Geneva, and the United Nations. Civilian casualty allegations can become diplomatic issues. Displacement statistics can shape international advocacy. Photographs and videos distributed through social media can enter political debates before governments complete investigations.
Legitimacy as an Operational Requirement
Papua demonstrates how physical operations, governance, information, and political authority interact within irregular warfare. Indonesia retains extensive state capacity and security forces. TPNPB-OPM operates through dispersed armed formations with varying local commands and political relationships. The political trajectory of the conflict also depends upon the population living between these actors. For Jakarta, security operations intersect with governance, civilian protection, development, credible communication, and the political incorporation of Papuan communities. For separatist organizations, armed resistance intersects with efforts to demonstrate political legitimacy, maintain civilian support, communicate grievances, and persuade external audiences.
Violence against civilians can damage either project. That harsh reality gives Pigai’s comments about the information contest significance within communications strategy and the broader conflict. His emphasis on credibility identifies the connection between information and legitimacy. Rapid information dissemination can establish an initial account of an event. Sustained authority develops when audiences repeatedly find information credible.
The Indonesian Regional Representatives Council’s Papua Special Committee has called for a national evaluation of the government’s Papua strategy and advocated an investigation, reconciliation, or dialogue mechanism. Reporting on the committee’s findings suggests that the conflict is generating debate inside Indonesian institutions about the political and humanitarian consequences of the current approach.
The October 29 arrests may disrupt one TPNPB network in Southwest Papua, but their strategic significance will depend on subsequent developments. Security operations can remove commanders and constrain armed organizations. However, it’s civilian security, the return of displaced communities, functioning public institutions, credible investigations of alleged abuses, and perceptions of state authority that will ultimately shape political outcomes.
Papua’s conflict is fought through patrols, ambushes, arrests, infrastructure, governance, diplomacy, social media, and competing accounts of events. Each interaction contributes to perceptions of authority. The central contest concerns the exercise of power, the communication surrounding its use (influence), civilian protection, and the maintenance of legitimacy. The narrative environment and physical operations continually shape the same political struggle.
Jayapura, Jubi – Forest and land fires (karhutla) should not be attributed solely to El Niño and climate change, but must also be examined in the context of economic activities and corporate expansion that contribute to environmental destruction, said Franky Samperante, executive director of the Pusaka Bentala Rakyat Foundation.
Samperante made the remarks while presenting a paper titled Scapegoating Forest Fires: Natural Phenomena and the Capitalocene during an online public discussion by the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) Indonesia and AJI Jayapura on Friday, October 30, 2026.
The discussion focused on forest and land fires in South Papua province under the theme Environmental Impacts, Community Protection and Stakeholder Responsibility. It was broadcast on AJI Indonesia’s YouTube channel.
“Why is this happening? Because the state, corporations and certain members of the public continue to blame forest and land fires on the El Niño phenomenon and climate change. In reality, these fires are also caused by excessive human activities,” Samperante said.
He explained that, according to scientific assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), human activities are the main driver of global warming and climate change. These activities include the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation, agricultural expansion, large-scale livestock production and industrial activities.
He said the issue must also be examined through the lens of social, economic and political inequalities that allow natural resources to be exploited on a massive scale. The concept of the Capitalocene, he explained, highlights the close relationship between ecological crises, capitalism and production systems driven by profit and capital accumulation.
“Responsibility for the environmental crisis cannot simply be placed on communities, particularly those who are themselves victims of environmental destruction,” he said.
Samperante said data collected and analysed by his organisation showed that companies belonging to the Korindo Group and PT Tunas Sawa Erma held oil palm plantation concessions covering more than 200,000 hectares. In addition, three timber logging companies held concessions covering more than 300,000 hectares.
“Taken together, these companies hold oil palm plantation and timber logging concessions across South Papua,” he said.
He also raised concerns about the development of sugarcane plantations and the bioethanol industry. The projects, he said, involved approximately 560,000 hectares of forest and land allocated for business development in South Papua and several other regions. These included Sorong and South Sorong regencies in Southwest Papua province, as well as Teluk Bintuni regency in West Papua province.
“These are the actors contributing to climate change and the climate crisis, which in turn have implications for forest and land fires,” he said.
Samperante said the expansion of these industries could not be separated from Papua’s long history of natural resource exploitation. This includes oil and gas extraction, gold and mineral mining, oil palm plantation, timber logging and business operating under the banner of nature financialization.
He said South Papua had increasingly become a target for large-scale food and energy projects since the development of the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate (MIFEE), which was later continued through the Food Estate programme as part of the National Strategic Projects (PSN).
The programme has since been further promoted through government policies supporting biodiesel and bioethanol production, including the expansion of sugarcane plantations.
However, the projects have raised concerns over spatial planning inconsistencies, the protection of conservation areas and recognition of Indigenous customary territories, including those belonging to the Yei people.
“Global markets are looking for alternative energy sources to serve their industries and economic interest. South Papua is the region being sacrificed,” he said.
“If we look at how these projects are being developed, the underlying approach has not changed. They continue to operating within a capitalist paradigm, using particular commercial actors.”
Samperante said his organisation’s monitoring of National Strategic Projects in South Papua had identified more than 53,000 hectares of deforestation between 2024 and September 2026. It had also recorded more than 8,000 hotspots across Papua between January and October 2026.
“We monitor these development using satellite imagery and integrate the findings with data from the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG),” he said.
Samperante also presented documentation of fires in several areas targeted by National Strategic Projects and extractive economic activities between July and October 2026, including within company concession areas. One photograph showed piles of timber burning in Wanam in September.
In October, residents also reported the burning timber piles in an area operated by PT Murni Nusantara Mandiri, directly in front of the company’s camp.
“There was no response or prevention effort. The fire was allowed to burn across the entire area. This is a modus operandi and pattern sometimes seen in fires within concession areas, where burning is carried out to facilitate business expansion,” he said.
He said burning practices within concession areas needed to be investigated, as they could be linked to companies seeking to reduce costs and accelerate land clearing for commercial purposes.
Samperante stressed that Indigenous communities should not be made scapegoats for forest and land fires, noting that local communities had traditional knowledge and practices for managing and controlling fire.
He said Indigenous communities in several parts of Merauke were familiar with the use of firebreaks to prevent fires from spreading. They also maintained local climate calendars to anticipate dry seasons and potential fire risks, allowing them to prepare mitigation measures.
According to Samperante, traditional land-clearing practices carried out by Indigenous communities were limited in scale and guided by local knowledge and fire-control techniques.
“These practices are different from the large-scale fires found in several corporate concession areas,” he said.
He said law enforcement must not focus solely on small communities but should also investigate companies responsible for large-scale forest clearing and management.
“In our view, corporations should be the target because they are the ones controlling all of this,” he said.
Another speaker at the discussion, Paschalina Rahawarin, director of the Wasur Lestari Papua Foundation (YWLP), said South Papua was facing an increasingly serious threat from forest and land fires.
She said the province, which had not traditionally been widely recognised as one of Indonesia’s main fire hotspots, had now become one of the country’s worst affected areas.
“Fires have affected various ecosystems, from savannas and scrubland to wetlands and forest areas in Merauke, Mappi and Boven Digoel,” Rahawarin said.
Between January and July 2026, an estimated 41,789 hectares of land in South Papua showed signs of burning, she said. Merauke recorded the largest affected area, with 33,609 hectares.
“Furthermore, as of September 24, 2026, 2,977 hotspots had been recorded in South Papua, the highest number in Indonesia,” she said.
She added that fires had also affected Wasur National Park, a conservation area where approximately 8,708 hectares had been burned by August 2026. The figures, she said, demonstrated that South Papua had become a new epicentre of forest and land fires in Indonesia.
“In mid-October 2026, BMKG detected 573 fire hotspots in South Papua. Of these, 304 were in Merauke regency,” she said.
Rahawarin said the widespread fires threatened not only vegetation but also wildlife habitats. Animals were losing their habitats and food source as savannas, scrubland and forests burned. Smoke from the fires could also spread to surrounding areas, affecting air quality.
Other environmental consequences included declining water quality, particularly in water sources that communities relied on for their daily needs.
“From a health perspective, exposure to smoke from forest and land fires increases the risk of respiratory illnesses among communities,” she said.
According to Rahawarin, 333,470 cases of acute respiratory infections (ARI) had been recorded in fire-affected areas across Indonesia as of October 21, 2026.
“Those at greatest risk are children, older people, pregnant women and people with existing lung or heart conditions,” she said.
She said the situation was particularly concerning for people living in remote villages. Long distances from health facilities and limited transport access made it difficult for residents to obtain medical treatment when experiencing smoke-related health problems.
Beyond the environmental and health impacts, Rahawarin said forest and land fires also threatened the livelihoods of Indigenous communities. Sago groves, village gardens, forests, savannas, wetlands and rivers were all essential part of Indigenous people’s living spaces and provided important source of food.
“Ten districts in Merauke regency had been affected by forest and land fires as of October 9, 2026,” she said.
The vulnerability of local communities was further compounded by land clearing for National Strategic Projects, which targeted more than 50,000 residents across 40 villages. Indigenous women, she said, faced particularly complex impacts because of their important role in managing household food supplies.
Rahawarin said measures needed to address the fires included monitoring hotspots and extreme weather conditions, conducting joint patrols with communities, mapping fire-prone areas and preparing firefighting equipment and response teams at the village level.
She said rapid responses were essential when fires broke out, requiring the involvement of village firefighting teams and authorities.
Affected communities also needed masks, clean water, medicines, evacuation assistance, health education and accessible medical services.
She stressed that efforts should go beyond extinguishing fires and include restoring damaged ecosystems and community livelihoods.
“Assistance and community support are being carried out in collaboration with village governments, authorities and several organisations,” Rahawarin said.
However, she said communities in the region continued to face dual pressures from forest and land clearing for National Strategic Projects.
“Through this public discussion, we hope to raise collective awareness of the forest and land fire crisis in South Papua and encourage everyone to pay greater attention to this issue,” she said.(*)
