Transcript
OCTO MOTE: And so you can imagine once the president's order, the military is all over in West Papua. From Timika, Paniai, Wamena. The Highlands are full with military. And they can really do it without any control, any journalists present there.
JOHNNY BLADES: The attack on the road workers was always going to prompt a bigger troop deployment, wasn't it?
OM: Yes. Look at how it happened This guy who was the commander. The head of this construction company, he provoked, he violated the agreement. The TPN (West Papua Liberation Army) said want to celebrate our national day (1st December) so please respect us. Therefore they asked them to leave. It was agreed among the employees. That's why many of them leave the project area. But this guy he said no. Instead of fulfilling the agreement he said no (to the employees) you have to continue work. So some leave and some continue work. Second, there was a demanding from the OPM asking for the security reason while they are doing celebration, you cannot take pictures of the people. Obvious. Any situation, any leader will ask the same thing, Indonesians would do the same thing. You are doing military guerrilla operations, between you and the other military, so of course you will not allow anybody to take any pictures. This is their military base. If somebody come in to Pentagon, someone who you do not invite, and they take pictures of what's going on, will the US military allow? No, no military will allow. You cannot even come closer to those facilities. And the third thing he does, when these prayers, these celebrations (are underway by the Papuans) he took the front, and by sitting there he knows he will get attention from local minister. Because that's our custom, the first piece of meat, pork, the minister give it to him. Even though he didn't contribute anything. The OPM brought the pig. So all this provocation is premeditated.
JB: But could there have been a better way to respond than killing these people?
OM: They already know that these are the military. They already asked them to leave, or don’t be there. Some leave and some don't. So why some left and some still here? And so they are suspicious of them. And because every year around December 1st, military and security in the entire West Papua always build up. The OPM is a professional military organisation. Direct or indirect, these, the ones that were killed are related to military. The OPM conducted investigations before they killed them.
I was not surprised when many villagers already flee to the forest. Also, it is sad that the church, except the Kingmi church, there is no condemnation, there is no kind of rally to stop this. It is really upsetting about this reality of ignorance by church. And in the middle of this, I really appreciate the role that was played by (Papua's) governor (Lukas Enembe) who was standing up and speak and defend his people, even though Jakarta again threatened him. He can be killed any time by any way. But he took a risk because he has to protect his people. He offered how to deal with this peacefully, but no, as a colonial they want to wipe out innocent people.
JB: The TNI (Indonesian military) says that civilians are not being targeted...
OM: John, that's a big lie. How do you make a distinction first of all between the civilians and the guerrilla? The delegation that was formed by the provincial government, they were there in order to try and track down the three Indonesians that were missing. What they found was Papuan bodies in the ground. That's not a guerrilla person, this is innocent villagers killed.
They just wipe Papuans out. They know that this a part of slow motion genocide, because when you're dealing with a small group of population, you don't have to kill them at once. You just by doing these kind of operations, naturally people (who flee to the bush and stay there for extended time) will die from malnutrition, like a normal death. As well as this kind of accident, you just ignore it with the policy on health that people can easily die, and so they don't take blame for it. but this is a very well planned slow motion genocide that Indonesia is doing.
