Civilian Resistance and the Failure of the Indonesian Counterinsurgency Campaign in Nduga, West Papua.

• Author: Wangge, Hipolitus Ringgi

Indonesia, a country of more than 17,000 islands and 1,000 nationally identified ethnicities, (1) has faced many internal challenges to its doctrine of "unity in diversity" since its birth as an independent nation-state in 1945. In an attempt to suppress these challenges to its perceived territorial integrity, Indonesia has deployed its armed forces [Tentara Nasional Indonesia, Indonesian National Army or TNI)--the most powerful in Southeast Asia (2)--to the conflict zones within its borders. West Papua, (3) counted by Indonesia as its easternmost province, is host to an ethno-nationalist independence movement that has been simmering since the territory's annexation by Indonesia in 1962. Although the leaders of the West Papuan independence movement, the OPM (Organisasi Papua Merdeka, Free Papua Movement), are largely committed to a strategy of nonviolence, (4) violent conflict has occasionally flared up in hotspots across the territory. Skirmishes are fought by the armed wing of the OPM known as the TPN-PB (Tentara Pembebasan Nasional Papua Barat, National Liberation Army of West Papua), often in response to TNI provocations.

One of these hotspots is in the regency of Nduga where conflict between the TNI and the TPN-PB has been ongoing since late 2018. The conflict in Nduga was sparked when members of the local TPN-PB killed sixteen Indonesian construction workers who had observed, against the TPN-PB's wishes, an event in which the TPN-PB raised the West Papuan nationalist Morning Star flag. The killings prompted swift Indonesian military reprisals, resulting in mass internal displacement of local citizens, local retaliations and a mounting sense of discontent that the army has been unable to quell.

This article addresses a paradox that the case study of conflict in Nduga highlights. The Indonesian army is strong in terms of the number of personnel, (5) military training, (6) and the quality and number of weapons it possesses; (7) the TPN-PB has none of these attributes. As a result, the latter has not been able to inflict large or lasting damage on the former. In fact, having only weapons of limited capacity (primarily bows and arrows, and weapons stolen from the TNI), and little opportunity for sophisticated military training in the bush and on the run, the TPN-PB is of more symbolic than military value to supporters of an independent West Papua. (8) Yet, despite the deployment of large numbers of TNI personnel (9) to Nduga since the end of 2018, indigenous resistance in the area persists. Given this vast power gap between the two opposing forces, how is it that the TNI has failed to extinguish the TPN-PB's localized, comparatively poorly-resourced effort at opposing the presence and rule of the Indonesian state in Nduga?

This article contends that one of the main reasons for the TNI's inability to stamp out opposition in Nduga is its failure to take into account the agency of the local citizenry. It is not solely the TPN-PB that resists the TNI in Nduga (or elsewhere in West Papua, for that matter). Civil society, sometimes in support of the TPN-PB, sometimes acting on its own, plays an important role in maintaining resistance through its strategy of active non-cooperation with the occupying forces. Scholarship examining the behaviours and perceptions of the indigenous people "on the ground" (rather than in diaspora) who are caught up in the conflict over West Papua's independence, and what means they have to respond to TNI counterinsurgency operations, is still limited. (10) This article seeks to remedy this gap in the literature on West Papua. (11)

The article first outlines how this study was conducted. Second, it provides a brief introduction to the key actors in the Nduga conflict, canvassing their goals, ideological affiliations and modi operandi. Third, the article explains why the TNI has been unsuccessful in its attempts to win the "hearts and minds" of the local population in Nduga and therefore has so far failed in its counterinsurgency mission. Finally, it details the types of active non-cooperation indigenous Nduga have used to counter the TNI's attempts at establishing the authority and legitimacy of the Indonesian state in the region.

Methodology

One of the authors (Wangge) conducted eight months of intensive fieldwork in Jayapura and Wamena, using participant observation while working with persons who had been displaced in and outside of Nduga as a result of the conflict. While interviewing research participants, Wangge documented indigenous perspectives on the government's counterinsurgency operations. He interacted with Nduga residents who sought refuge in neighbouring areas, mainly in the Jayawijaya region. In collecting data, Wangge participated as a volunteer to assist the displaced Nduga in Wamena, the capital of the Jayawijaya region, for three months. He interviewed sixty displaced Nduga residents as well as teachers, human rights activists, local government officers and other volunteers in areas affected by the conflict. Wangge was part of a human rights coalition that produced a report on the armed conflict in Nduga. As a member of this team, he received a series of reports about alleged human rights abuses committed by the TNI from local churches and the medical team working in Nduga. The data from Wangge's research is used in this article to support our argument that the agency embedded in local civil society cannot be overlooked when it comes to understanding the dynamics of conflict in Nduga, a mistake that the TNI continues to make.

Origins of the Recent Conflict in Nduga

When Indonesia, formerly the Dutch East Indies, won its independence from the Dutch in 1945, its leaders were keen to include West Papua, a territory that had also been administered by the Dutch (although separately from the former Dutch East Indies) within its national boundaries. The Netherlands, however, hoping to retain a stronghold in the Pacific, had different plans for "its" half of the island of New Guinea, and began to prepare indigenous West Papuans for independent statehood. Following international pressure, in 1962 the Netherlands was forced to hand over control of the territory to the United Nations (UN). The latter was mandated to oversee a referendum in 1969 in which West Papuans were to vote for independence or official annexation by Indonesia. The referendum, known internationally as the Act of Free Choice but by Papuans as the Act of No Choice, is widely acknowledged as a sham. (12) The UN turned a blind eye to the underhand way in which Indonesia carried out the vote, handpicking less than one per cent of edthe West Papuan population to vote for integration with Indonesia under the threat of violence. Since the annexation, West Papuans, under the leadership of the OPM, have maintained a struggle for independence from Indonesia. Successive Indonesian regimes have responded by cracking down on dissent, assassinating West Papuan leaders, torturing and killing West Papuan citizens and committing cultural genocide in West Papua. (13)

While several Indonesian presidents have stated a commitment to resolving the conflict in West Papua, none have been prepared (or have been able) to address the political injustices which, to Papuans, lie at the heart of the matter. (14) When Joko Widodo (also known as Jokowi) came to power in 2014, he asserted that improved economic development in the region, rather than attending to political grievances, was key to resolving the conflict. (15) Part of President Jokowi's strategy to develop West Papua has been to initiate the construction of a Trans-Papua Highway which will connect the disputed territory from its border with Papua New Guinea at Merauke to its west coast at Sorong. The road project--which involved scant indigenous consultation or participation, and which will facilitate unwanted non-indigenous migration to the territory and increase access for agribusiness companies to West Papua's natural resources--has generated deep resentment among West Papuans who are being dispossessed of their land and culture as a result of the project. (16)

Tensions between Indonesian road construction workers and indigenous Papuans came to a head in late 2018. In mid-November 2018, the TPN-PB operating in Nduga sent a letter to Joni Arum, the co-ordinator of the construction workers in the area working for PT Istaka Karya (a Jakarta-based engineering firm). The letter demanded the workers cease all construction activities in Nduga before 1 December 2018, the day on which West Papuans celebrate their hoped-for independence each year by raising the Morning Star flag. Arum, however, did not respond to the letter and the workers remained in the area. (17) To add insult to injury (from the TPN-PB's perspective), Arum, accompanied by twenty-four of his workers, attended the independence ceremony (held in the Yigi district of Nduga) uninvited, and allegedly took photographs. This was viewed by local participants as offensive. In response, the TPN-PB, led by local commander Egianus Kogeya, captured the twenty-four workers (Arum was not with them--he had already departed the area by this time).

Having seized the workers' phones, Kogeya came across a number of text messages shared between Arum and the TNI regional commander in nearby Wamena. This raised suspicions among the TPN-PB that Arum and some of his workers were collaborating with the TNI. (18) As a result, on 2 December, Kogeya and his followers killed sixteen of the men they had captured. (19) On the basis of allegations only, and without strong evidence, the killings were met with a strong response from the Indonesian security forces, which, on 4 December, launched an initial counterinsurgency operation deploying up to 1,000 military and police officers (20) in Nduga.

The violence perpetrated against the local population (see Figure 1 for number of deaths and their causes) has engendered further local...