Indonesia called off military hostage rescue at NZ urging
Indonesian forces had surrounded a group of Papuan insurgents holding a New Zealand pilot hostage and were poised to mount a rescue operation when the NZ government asked them to call off the attack, the country’s chief security minister has revealed.
Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Mahfud MD said on Tuesday security forces “know the location and coordinates” of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) rebels who seized Philip Mehrtens earlier this month and continue to hold him captive in Nduga district, a remote highlands region in Indonesia’s eastern most island.
The group, the armed wing of the Free Papua Movement, have said they seized the Christchurch-born pilot shortly after he landed his small passenger plane in the area to bring international attention to their decades-long struggle for independence from Indonesia, and will not release him until Jakarta accedes to their demands.
The Indonesian government says the Papuan region — which shares an island with the sovereign state of Papua New Guinea — belongs “constitutionally and legally” to Indonesia and will not be ceded under any circumstances.
Negotiations between civilian Papuan officials and the rebels entered their third week on Wednesday, even as authorities over the border in PNG contend with their own hostage crisis after armed criminals seized an Australian professor and two researchers from a southern highlands village on Sunday.
The two incidents are not related.
Mr Mahfud told CNN Indonesia security forces had already tracked down the Papuan rebel group, which has claimed responsibility for a number of violent attacks on state workers in restive Nduga in recent years, and were poised to strike when the operation was called off. He did not elaborate on when that occurred.
“We had them surrounded, but as soon as we wanted to move, the New Zealand government came to us and asked for no acts of violence”, fearing a violent rescue operation would turn the kidnapping into an international matter, Mr Mahfud said.
“(If it became) an international issue, we would lose a lot. Therefore, we are still handling it, and we are waiting, hopefully there will be a solution,” he added.
Last week, the rebels released photos and footage of Mr Mehrtens surrounded by armed Papuan fighters, and in some images had him posing with the banned West Papuan Morning Star flag of independence.
In one video the 37-year-old urges the Indonesian military to leave the region formerly known as West Papua, but since cleaved into five provinces.
“The Papuan military has taken me captive in the effort to fight for Papuan independence. They have asked for the Indonesian military to go home back to Indonesia and if not I will remain captive or my life is threatened,” Mr Mehrtens says.
The rebels insist Mr Mehrtens remains in good health and on Wednesday, issued an open letter calling for the “urgent intervention” of UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres to resolve what it described as one of the “longest wars on record”.
The letter highlights successive UN failures, including its failure to submit a 1962 Dutch government report on Papuan progress towards decolonisation — which led the following year to Jakarta’s annexation of the resource-rich former colony — and UN acceptance of the 1969 referendum in which 1,025 Papuans were hand-picked to vote in favour of Indonesian control.
The group has urged Mr Guterres to “bring this ongoing war to the attention of the United Nations Security Council for action” so that West Papuans may “finally enjoy ‘complete independence and freedom”.
But it also warned that “in the meantime, the people of West Papua will continue to pursue their legitimate struggle for independence ….by ‘all necessary means at their disposal’.”
Additional reporting: Dian Septiari
AMANDA HODGE
SOUTH EAST ASIA CORRESPONDENT
Amanda Hodge is The Australian’s South East Asia correspondent, based in Jakarta. Previously based in New Delhi, she has lived and worked in Asia for more than a decade covering social and political upheaval from… Read more
Indonesian forces had surrounded a group of Papuan insurgents holding a New Zealand pilot hostage and were poised to mount a rescue operation when the NZ government asked them to…