Following a rebel assault at their camp in the unrest-plagued Papua area about two weeks ago, six traditional gold miners went missing. On Saturday, Indonesian security authorities announced that they had found their remains.
According to Faizal Ramadhani, a member of the national police who leads the joint security force, gunmen assaulted a gold panning camp in the Yahukimo area of Highland Papua province on October 16, murdering seven workers and setting fire to three excavators and two vehicles.
A two-hour gunfight broke out between the rebels holding the camp and members of the combined military and police security forces a few hours later, according to Ramadhani.
The assault has been attributed to the military branch of the Free Papua Organization, the West Papua Liberation Army.
Following the evacuation of the camp by Indonesian security personnel, eleven workers who had hidden in the bush were safely brought back. Only one corpse was discovered, however; the six other victims had been listed as missing until their decomposing remains were discovered early on Friday morning next to a river, a short distance from the camp. According to Ramadhani, four of the bodies suffered knife and gunshot wounds, while two of the bones were burnt.
It was the most recent of many violent episodes that have occurred in Papua in recent years, where clashes between native Papuans and Indonesian security personnel are frequent occurrences.
Rebel spokesperson Sebby Sambon verified that the assault was executed by the group’s fighters. He said that the organization had sent a warning to all employees, threatening to include them in the ranks of Indonesian security forces, if they continued to work on government projects in Indonesia or in traditional gold mining regions.
“The attack on October 16 at Yahukimo’s gold panning camp is the fault of the West Papua Liberation Army,” Sambom said in a statement sent to The Associated Press on Saturday. “Because they belonged to Indonesian intelligence and were outsiders.”
The Indonesian government is attempting to promote economic growth in order to quell the separatist movement, while having a long-standing policy of sending Javanese and other Indonesians to reside in Papua.
Papua, a former Dutch colony in western New Guinea, is different from much of Indonesia in terms of ethnicity and culture. Indigenous Papuans and Indonesian security personnel often clash.
1969 saw the incorporation of Papua into Indonesia after a UN-sponsored election that was mostly seen as fraudulent. Since then, the area—which was split into five provinces last year—has been the scene of a low-level insurgency.
In the last year, there has been a sharp increase in attacks, killing several insurgents, security personnel, and civilians.
According to information gathered by Amnesty International Indonesia, between 2018 and 2022, at least 179 civilians, 35 Indonesian soldiers, nine police officers, and 23 fighters for independence died in conflicts between rebels and security forces.
