Interim President: Indonesian military wreaking havoc in Intan Jaya
April 9, 2025
Indonesia have launched a number of deadly military operations in Intan Jaya in recent weeks.
The first bombing took place in Eknemba Village on March 29th, committed by two fighter jets taking off from Timika airstrip. At 6:59PM in the evening, two separate TNI jets dropped more bombs and fired six rockets on Ndaugi village. Following this, four rockets were fired at Mount Puya Agapa, and then four on Zanamba Village.
A total of thirteen bombs were dropped as the TNI wreaked havoc across rural Intan Jaya. This is one of the most advanced militaries in the region, dropping bombs and firing rockets at mountain villages, on houses with sago rooves. These operations were supposedly justified by the presence of TPNPB fighters in the villages. How can the alleged presence of guerillas justify bombing defenceless hamlets where women and children and living?
Intan Jaya has been at the centre of the ongoing humanitarian crisis the military has inflicted on my people since 2018. Only months ago, an elite military unit slaughtered three children and a mentally disabled man in the Regency – crimes that no one has yet been held accountable for. The previous year, two children were shot and one killed by Indonesian soldiers during a firefight with the TPNPB. Intan Jaya residents have suffered grievously under the current President, the war criminal Prabowo and his predecessor, Joko Widodo. They urgently need the Indonesian military to withdraw, so the displaced can return to their homes and rebuild their lives in peace.
The people joining armed groups in West Papua are not well armed or funded by international networks. They are merely seeking to defend their homes against an illegal foreign occupation that is threatening to wipe them out.
It is the TNI who have displaced over 100,000 people over the past six years; it is the TNI who have driven more than 1000 Papuans – mostly women and children – to their deaths in the bush; it is the TNI who occupy and burn schools, hospitals and churches, depriving countless innocent civilians of healthcare and education.
Indonesia is the real terrorist in Tanah Papua. This has been true ever since their initial invasion in 1963; ever since, they have wiped out more than 500,000 of us, a still in-motion genocide hidden from the world by a six-decade ban on international media and NGOs. This disaster will continue until we are finished – or until the world intervenes, and demands Indonesia recognises our right to self-determination.
To the Indonesian government the ULMWP issues the following demands: 1) Allow Amnesty International, other NGOs, and foreign media to report freely from West Papua; 2) immediately allow the visit to West Papua by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; 3) withdraw your military from West Papua and allow the IDPs to return home.
Benny Wenda
Interim President
ULMWP
