Credible local sources in West Papua have reported that Indonesian troops have razed a village while conducting a massive offensive against National Liberation Army guerrillas of Goliat Tabuni.
Undercover local human right sources have claimed that at 1530 local time on December 3, two platoons from the “Coconut” brigade of Gegana Brimob anti-terrorist police, set fire to a church, houses, and guard houses in the village of Wandenggobak.
Reports from credible sources have claimed that at least one full battalion of Kostrad soldiers (1500 combat soldiers), plus two companies of Kopassus special forces who were deployed to Yakuhimo and Wamena ahead of the December 1 demonstrations and flag-raisings, were launching a full-scale military assault on villages in the highlands. Local human rights sources have also claimed heavy weaponry, artillery, helicopters and fixed wing aircraft are being used in the assault, greatly increasing the risk for civilian casualties to occur.
A media academic specialising in Asia-Pacific affairs condemned New Zealand news coverage on West Papua and other Melanesian issues at a journalism education conference in Australia this week.
Professor David Robie, director of AUT University’s Pacific Media Centre presented a paper called “Creative Commons and a Pacific media ‘hub'” in which he offered four recent case studies, including a scathing criticism of NZ media coverage about the Freeport mine strike and brutal crushing of a peaceful Papuan People’s Congress by Indonesian security forces with the loss of up to six lives in October.
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