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INDONESIA-PAPUA-RIOT
Thousands riot in Papua, parliament building torched
MANOKWARI, Indonesia, Aug 19, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Riots broke out and a local
parliament building was torched in Indonesia’s restive Papua region on
Monday, as thousands protested against the weekend detention of dozens of
Papuan students.
Demonstrators took to the streets of Manokwari, the capital of West Papua
province, bringing the city of some 130,000 to a standstill as its civic
building was nearly reduced to ashes.
Some protesters set fire to shops and vehicles, knocked down street signs,
and threw rocks at government buildings, according to an AFP reporter at the
scene, who estimated several thousand demonstrators were present.
Indonesia’s security minister Wiranto, who goes by one name, appealed for
calm and said there would be an investigation of the incident that triggered
the unrest in Manokwari as well as protests in several other Papuan cities on
Monday.
“This has clearly disrupted our unity as a nation,” he said.
The riots marked the latest flashpoint in a region hit by a decades-old
insurgency against Indonesian rule and allegations that its security forces
committed widespread rights abuses against its ethnic Melanesian population.
Papua shares a border with independent Papua New Guinea (PNG), just north
of Australia.
A former Dutch colony, it declared itself independent in the early
Sixties, but neighbouring Indonesia took control of the resource-rich region
following a UN-sponsored independence referendum that was widely viewed as a
sham.
In Manokwari, three police officers were injured by rock-throwing
protesters, authorities said. It was not immediately clear if any
demonstrators were injured. Local schools were shut for the day.
Anger boiled over at reports that authorities tear-gassed and detained
some 43 Papuan university students in the Southeast Asian nation’s second-
biggest city Surabaya on Saturday — Indonesia’s independence day.
Local media and Papuan activists said police in riot gear stormed into a
dormitory to force out students who allegedly destroyed an Indonesian flag.
Police said the students were briefly questioned and set free.
Television footage on Saturday also showed a different group of protesters
demonstrating against the students and shouting racial slurs about Papuans.
The unrest comes after two Indonesian security personnel were killed over
the past month in clashes with separatist rebels.
Last year, the National Liberation Army of West Papua, part of a grouping
of rebels fighting for Papuan independence, killed at least 19 construction
workers at a remote jungle camp in Papua.
The employees of a state-owned contractor had been building bridges and
roads as part of efforts to boost infrastructure in the impoverished region.
BSS/AFP/ARS/1706 hrs