Wenda blames nurse s death on Indonesian military crackdown for Papuan mining, palm oil asiapacificreport.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from asiapacificreport.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
WEST PAPUA’S liberation movement leader Benny Wenda hit out today at a “crackdown order” by Indonesian President Jokowi Widodo, accusing him of waging a genocide against the region’s people.
Mr Widodo was responding after the regional head of the Indonesian State Intelligence Agency (BIN), Brigadier General I Gusti Putu Danny Karya Nugraha, was shot dead during a visit to the Beoga district, where Indonesia is conducting counterinsurgency operations.
“I have ordered the military and police chiefs to pursue and arrest members of the armed criminal group,” Mr Widodo said in a televised statement on Monday.
“There’s no place for armed criminal groups in the land of Papua and the entire nation.”
23 February 2021Politics
In August 2020, seven West Papuan political prisoners, held in Jakarta for protesting outside the Indonesian Presidential Palace, were released early following an international campaign. They received a rapturous reception on their return. Thousands gathered to greet them – a demonstration of the widespread opposition to Indonesian rule in this province on the island of New Guinea. A year earlier, hundreds of thousands marched, rioted and burned down state buildings across the country during a month-long uprising. Emboldened by this resistance, in December the largest West Papuan independentist group declared a provisional government-in-waiting, ready to form the world’s newest nation state. Jakarta’s political and media elites promptly went into meltdown. A star line-up of Indonesian officials, from the head of the military to the security minister, clamoured to denounce the liberation movement and its leader, the newly appointed Interim President Ben