Indonesian military kills Christian evangelist in Papua
Indonesian security forces shot dead a Christian evangelist and a teenager in separate operations in Indonesia's restive Papua region, adding to a mounting civilian death toll that has drawn a rare public rebuke from the country’s own human rights minister and pushed a local official to strip off his official uniform in grief and protest.
Elianus Agimbau, a 20-year-old worker of the Evangelical Tabernacle Church’s Damsik Kupia congregation in Agisiga district, was killed Monday, according to UCA News.
The killing occurred in Intan Jaya regency, part of the mountainous Central Papua province where an armed independence movement has fought the state for decades.
Agimbau was traveling toward Sugapa, the regency capital, amid deteriorating security conditions, Intan Jaya’s top elected district official, Regent Aner Maiseni, was quoted as saying.
The evangelist’s body was found the following day in bushes near a military post.
That same day, Daud Hagisimijau and Kiko Hagisimijau from Titigi village were shot and wounded while operating an excavator at the construction site of St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church, Maiseni said.
On Wednesday, the body of Okto Tigau, 19, was found near the Rajawali Habema military post in Mamba village. The body had multiple gunshot wounds to the chest and abdomen, a severed left ear, and injuries consistent with torture.
Indonesia’s Human Rights Minister Natalius Pigai called on the commanders of the Indonesian military to control their personnel in Papua.
Pigai, a Catholic, reportedly said that almost every day innocent civilians were dying, stressing the need for a human rights-oriented approach to minimizing civilian casualties. His ministry would closely monitor the situation, he said.
Regent Maiseni staged a public protest on Wednesday near Tigau’s body by removing his official uniform in front of mourning family members and villagers.
In a video of the protest, his voice trembling, Maiseni said he was removing the uniform as a sign that Papuan hearts were laid bare and bleeding at seeing children murdered without cause.
Military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel M. Wirya Arthadiguna reportedly claimed that four people were detected moving covertly toward a military post at night and ignored warnings that were issued. He alleged that the approaching group opened fire.
Tigau was a deputy operations commander of the separatist West Papua National Liberation Army, or TPN-PB, and a machete was found near his body, Arthadiguna claimed.
Sebby Sambon, a spokesman for the TPN-PB, accused the Indonesian military of carrying out attacks that targeted civilians.
The killings add to a long and disputed conflict over Papua, the western half of the island of New Guinea.
The Netherlands relinquished the territory to a brief United Nations administration in 1962, and Indonesia took full control after a 1969 vote known as the Act of Free Choice, in which about 1,000 handpicked Papuans, under military supervision, endorsed integration.
Independence activists dispute the vote’s legitimacy and have waged a low-intensity insurgency ever since through the Free Papua Movement and its armed wing.
Foreign journalists and international rights defenders face heavy restrictions on entering the region, making independent verification of events difficult.
Rights groups estimate that tens of thousands of Papuans have been displaced by fighting in the Central Highlands, and the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has put the number of internally displaced people at between 60,000 and 100,000.
Fighting has intensified since President Prabowo Subianto took office in October 2024.
