Civil war in Papua

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Civil war in Papua is a civil war in Indonesia since 1984. It involves the Free Papua Movement and the government of Indonesia. The FPM seeks indepenence for the Indonesian provinces of West Irian Jaya and Papua, which are mostly located on the western half of the island of New Guinea. Confusingly, the island is also known as Papua, and the territory in question is also known as Western New Guinia. Papua New Guinea is an independent state on the eastern half of the island.

In 1984 OPM staged an attack on Jayapura, the provincial capital and a city dominated by non-Melanesian Indonesians from elsewhere in the archipelago. The attack was quickly repelled by the Indonesian military, which used it as a pretense for broader counterinsurgency activity. This triggered an exodus of Papuan refugees, apparently supported by the OPM, into camps across the border in Papua New Guinea.

In the mid-1990s, the organization gained renewed prominence and greater support among indigenous Papuans. This was fueled in large part by anger over the actions of the gold mining corporation Freeport-McMoRan, which is accused of environmental destruction and of supporting human rights abuses by the Indonesian military. In separate incidents in January and August 1996, OPM captured hostages, both European and Indonesian, first from a research group and later from a logging camp. Two hostages from the latter group were killed, and the rest were released.

In July 1998 the OPM raised their independence flag at the Kota Biak water tower on the island of Biak. They stayed there for the following few days before the Indonesian Military broke the group up using force. Reports of a massacre have since surfaced.

This Indonesia-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.