TNI Launch Military Operation in West Papua Highlands

Kasus puncak jaja 2010

A major military operation has been launched in West Papua following the ambush of an Indonesian military patrol last week, reports said on Tuesday.
A West Papua Media stringer in Puncak Jaya, West Papua, has received reports from local human rights activists, church officials, and an adjutant to West Papuan National Liberation Army (TPN-PB) leader Goliat Tabuni that more than 600 Indonesian Army (TNI) troops have been conducting combat operations in the Tingginambut area since July 4.
West Papua Media editor Nick Chesterfield said sources had said that troops from the 753 Nabire battalion had surrounded Tabuni’s headquarters and reportedly attacked nearby villages.

He said the battalion had stopped work on the TNI Bakti social mission project rebuilding houses that had been burned in Puncak Jaya in 2010, a day after the soldiers were shot in Kalome village.

“Because of the speed with which witnesses and villagers said people working on the house-building project dropped their tools and picked up their guns, it certainly seems like a spontaneous reaction by the military to events on Tuesday,” Chesterfield said.

He added that they have been unable to confirm what triggered armed men in Kalome to allegedly ambush in the TNI patrol. The attacks left three soldiers with gunshot wounds.

“Something had to have happened to for three people to stand up like that,” Chesterfield said.
Because international human rights monitors and journalists are currently banned from entering West Papua, reports of abuse by Indonesian military forces are very difficult to verify.

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