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INDONESIA-PAPUA-UNREST
Burnt, stabbed, beaten: Indonesian police detail Papua deaths
JAYAPURA, Indonesia, Sept 25, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Most of the 32 people killed
in riots that paralysed Indonesia’s restive Papua region this week died of
stab wounds, blunt force trauma or burns, police said Wednesday, after one of
the deadliest eruptions of violence in years.
Thousands fled to shelters following the outburst of bloodshed that saw
civilians burned alive in buildings set ablaze by protesters on Monday, and
clashes between demonstrators and security forces.
Papua, on the western half of New Guinea island, has seen weeks of protests
fuelled by anger over racism against indigenous Papuans by people who have
migrated from other parts of Indonesia, as well as fresh calls for self-rule
in the impoverished region.
Weeks of protests broke out across Papua and in other parts of Indonesia
after the mid-August arrest and tear-gassing of dozens of Papuan students,
who were also racially abused, in the country’s second-biggest city,
Surabaya.
The fresh violence this week was reportedly sparked by racist comments made
by a teacher towards students in unrest-hit Wamena city, but police have
disputed that account.
On Wednesday, local police said the chaos had subsided in Wamena, leaving a
trail of burnt-out buildings and charred cars in its wake.
“The situation in Wamena is now under control,” said Papua police spokesman
Ahmad Mustofa Kamal.
“Most victims had stab wounds, blunt object injuries and severe burns,” he
added.
Kamal said 28 people were known to have died in Wamena, where hundreds
demonstrated and burned down a government office and other buildings on
Monday. Some 66 people were injured, police said.
A soldier and three civilians also died in the provincial capital Jayapura,
where security forces and stone-throwing protesters clashed Monday.
The soldier was stabbed to death and three students died from rubber bullet
wounds, authorities have said, without elaborating.
On Tuesday evening, the district head office in Yalimo, near Wamena, was
set ablaze, police said.
The United Liberation Movement for West Papua described this week’s
violence as a “massacre” and said that 17 Papuan high school students had
been gunned down by Indonesian security forces.
Neither the military nor the separatist movement’s claims could be
independently verified.
Conflicting accounts are common in Papua and the government appears to have
renewed a region-wide Internet service shutdown.
Jakarta has said the riots were meant to draw attention to Papuan
independence at this week’s UN General Assembly.
A low-level separatist insurgency has simmered for decades in the former
Dutch colony after Jakarta took over the mineral-rich region in the 1960s.
A UN-sponsored vote to stay within the archipelago in 1969 was widely
viewed as rigged, but Jakarta has long refused to consider another
referendum.
The majority of Papuans are Christian and ethnic Melanesian with few
cultural ties to the rest of Muslim-majority Indonesia.
BSS/AFP/FI/ 1352 hrs