low-level battle for independence \u2060from Indonesia<\/a> has \u2060long raged in the \u200bresource-rich western half of Papua, where attacks by independence fighters have grown deadlier and more frequent as they have procured better weaponry.<\/p>\nYusuf Sutejo, \u200ca spokesperson for Indonesia\u2019s joint police-military operations in Papua, confirmed that a plane with an American pilot carrying \u200cseven passengers had been found burned at an airport in Yahukimo, but he could not confirm whether it had been attacked by rebels or whether the pilot had been killed. All the passengers were Papuans, he said.<\/p>\n
Q&AWhy is there unrest in West Papua?Show<\/p>\n
The Indonesian provinces of Papua and West Papua share an island with Papua New Guinea, and its indigenous population has been engaged with a low-level insurgency with Indonesia for about half a century.<\/p>\n
After the departure of Dutch colonisers, and disagreement between Papuans, the Netherlands, and Indonesia, the United Nations sponsored a treaty appointing Indonesia as temporary administrator.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In 1969 a UN resolution affirmed the so-called \u201cAct of Free Choice\u201d\u2013 a referendum which saw 1,026 hand-picked West Papuans vote to remain with Indonesia, but which has been repeatedly dismissed by international observers as unrepresentative and coerced. <\/p>\n
Indonesia maintains the regions have always been Indonesian and the resolution simply affirmed its sovereignty.<\/p>\n
A guerrilla separatist movement grew and violence has continued ever since, with claims more than half a million West Papuan people have been killed, as well as countless arrested and injured, and villages destroyed. Indonesia is regularly accused of human rights abuses, which it denies.<\/p>\n
In recent years the West Papua cause has gained increased support from regional neighbours, including Vanuatu, Tuvalu, and the Marshall Islands, but a 2017 independence petition \u2013 signed by 1.8 million West Papuans and smuggled out of the country to the UN\u2019s decolonisation committee \u2013 was rebuffed as outside its mandate.<\/p>\n
Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n
Sebby said the attack in the Balinggama district of Yahukimo was a message to the Indonesian and US government for \u201cfailing to address the root causes of the conflict in \u200cPapua between the Indonesian military and the West Papua National Liberation Army\u201d. He said rebels would start conducting attacks if Indonesia kept allowing civilian aircraft to \u200benter rebel-controlled red zones of Papua.<\/p>\n
Rebels carried guns and axes and raised the Morning Star flag, a symbol of independence, while announcing the attack, according to a video sent by TPNPB.<\/p>\n
The US embassy in Jakarta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
Indonesia\u2019s transportation ministry said the plane had carried \u2060one pilot and seven passengers and had flown to Yahukimo from Wamena, another \u200bcity in Highland Papua.<\/p>\n
It \u200bsaid communications had ceased after the plane \u200blanded. The aircraft is owned by the airline operator PT AMA, whose planes carry food, \u200bfuel and mail \u200cto remote villages in \u200bPapua, according to its \u200bwebsite. PT AMA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
In February 2023, Papuan rebels kidnapped a New Zealand pilot, Phillip Mehrtens, after he landed a small commercial plane in the remote, mountainous area of Nduga in Highland Papu. They freed him<\/a> in September 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Separatist rebels in Indonesia\u2019s restive easternmost region of Papua have shot dead an American pilot and set a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":775726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-775725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}