Papuan rebel fights a war without weapons from a land without food

Ypsi, Papua New Guinea (AFP): Weru Nongganup says he leads a battalion of West Papua independence fighters, but he has no weapons, only bows and arrows, and lives in exile in a bark hut, sometimes living on potato leaves.

Nungganub and a few members of his Moyo tribe fled their homeland in 2019, crossing the unmarked Indonesian border in search of relative safety in remote western Papua New Guinea.

He says 700 men now live under his command, surviving by growing crops on muddy land donated by the government while dreaming of the independence of West Papua – an elusive goal since Indonesia seized control of the western half of the island of New Guinea 60 years ago.

“If there were weapons, we would have gone to war,” Nungganup, a battalion commander in the Free Papua Movement, told AFP as he squatted in a hut alongside his deputy.

“But there are no weapons. If we use an arrow once, they use a machine gun.”

West Papua’s rebels have waged a low-level insurgency against the best-armed and best-trained Indonesian forces for decades while they struggled to gain international support.

Today, frustration, extreme poverty and alleged rights abuses have emboldened hard-line Indonesians in a fragmented independence movement who want more direct military action.

The insurgents have stepped up their fight, targeting road contractors, as well as schools and clinics they say have links to the military.

In April, they killed the head of Indonesian intelligence in Papua, dramatically escalating tensions.

Jakarta responded by designating all the separatists as “terrorists”, sending more troops into the region and launching a series of bloody retaliatory attacks.

The UN envoys expressed “grave concern” that Indonesia’s response was excessive and appeared to “reflect a broader pattern of racism” targeting indigenous Papuans.

In the past year, they cited allegations of torture and killings of civilians in Papua and the displacement of tens of thousands more.

They also expressed concern that Jakarta had intermittently cut off internet access and de facto banned all foreign journalists from the region, making independent verification difficult.

The Indonesian government did not respond to requests for comment, but the security chief, Mahfouz, said this month that Papuans are equal citizens of Indonesia.

“The Papists are our brothers like the Javanese, Sumatran, Buginese and Achenian people,” he said.

Nongganop might be lucky to be alive.

He fled after signs he was about to be taken by the terrifying Indonesian security forces, known as Kopassos, who regularly patrol border villages.

He and his deputy give the names and details of several Papuans who have died or disappeared from their area in suspicious circumstances in recent years.

“They carried out secret killings,” he said, blaming Indonesian security forces.

“It’s a one-sided system. They don’t care about people. Three people from Kopassos came with a car and an armored truck to pick me up from my house. So we ran away.”

He wishes someone would give them weapons so that they could fight, but no one has since decades of conflict, leaving them traditional, homemade weapons used for hunting: bows, arrows and spears.

And for people like Nongganop, life in the poor western province of Papua New Guinea has been tough, and survival is a battle in itself.

Yapsi, also called the “new site”, is a difficult place for subsistence farmers.

The land is poor, plants do not grow well, malnutrition and tuberculosis are common.

Children cannot go to school easily and are forced to play among the tarpaulins bearing the names of the various UN agencies that provide modest assistance.

Many of those who arrived in 2019 have already crossed the border back to Indonesia, despite the risks.

“It’s hard to find enough food. There is no food,” said Nungganup, adding that for some the situation was too much.

“They were hungry. They couldn’t stand it.”

Nungganup admits that the way home is closed to him, at least for now.

Indonesian security forces know who he is, he says, and he will be in danger if he returns.

“I’m afraid to go back,” he said.

I will wait here for independence and then I will return.”

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