Indonesian security forces have killed at least six people, including two children, in Dogiyai regency in West Papua, allegedly in retaliation for the killing of a police officer by an unknown assailant on March 31.
After arriving at the scene of the police officer’s death, on the morning of March 31, police and military fired indiscriminately into nearby markets and public spaces. They expanded their killing spree to nearby villages until April 2, while maintaining military patrols to restrict people’s movements.
An elderly woman with a disability, a high school student and an 11-year-old boy were among those killed. At least two people, including a 12-year-old, were critically injured by the police shootings.
Joe Collins, spokesperson for the Australia West Papua Association, said that civilian deaths in West Papua by the Indonesian military “is not unusual”.
“The security forces can act with impunity in the [occupied] territory,” Collins said. “During military operations, people flee in fear for their lives to the jungle and other regencies.”
Human Rights Monitor’s latest report found that, as of late March, more than 100,000 people were internally displaced due to military operations and armed conflict.
Indonesia has occupied and controlled West Papua since 1963, after Papuans declared independence from the Netherlands.
Indonesia has brutally repressed West Papuan anti-colonial resistance, while systematically destroying and displacing Papuan communities.
It has been described as a “slow-motion genocide”. “The human rights situation in West Papua continues to seriously deteriorate,” Collins said. “The territory is a colony of Jakarta, with ongoing human rights abuses being committed against Papuans by the security forces and the massive exploitation of the territories’ natural resources, including the destruction of forests for palm oil and sugarcane plantations, particularly in the Merauke region.”
Merauke is the site of what has been described as the “world’s largest deforestation program” — a massive agro-industrial estate in occupied West Papua, which has been established by violently displacing people and enforcing a brutal military occupation.