Benny Wenda: New massacre in Intan Jaya
June 9, 2025
A massacre has taken place in Intan Jaya Regency, with at least four West Papuan civilians dead and seven missing.
Fresh details are now emerging of the Indonesian military operation, which took place in Sugapa and Hitadipa districts on 13th May 2025. Soldiers shot indiscriminately at villagers during a clash with the TPNPB, who reported that they suffered four casualties – fourteen less than the eighteen dead claimed by Indonesia. Given Indonesia’s longstanding practice of labelling every civilian they murder at ‘KKB’ – armed criminal group, Indonesia’s euphemism for every Papuan who defends their land – this suggests that the true number of civilians killed may be closer to fifteen. The victims of the TNI’s brutality included a child, a 75-year-old elder, and two women, Hetina Mirip and Tapamina Tapani. Soldiers buried one of the women in a shallow grave to disguise their crime. To add to this depravity, they surrounded her grave with landmines to blow up any relatives who came near. These are the tactics the occupying regime uses to destroy my people.
Over 1000 Intan Jaya villagers fled the chaotic violence, adding to the 87,000 West Papuans who are currently internally displaced, forced to live as refugees in the bush by countless Indonesian military operations. In a video, a Papuan elder is faced down by Indonesian soldiers in full military gear as she describes how her village has been occupied and destroyed by the TNI. Is she a security threat to Indonesia? How long will Pacific leaders entertain Indonesia while they kill their own people?
Intan Jaya refugees are victims of one of the world’s worst, and most secretive, humanitarian crises. More and more of our people are being forced to leave their homes to make way for ecocidal industrial projects. It is no coincidence that Intan Jaya is home to the Wabu Block, a gigantic gold mine spanning an area the size of Jakarta – in West Papua, business interests and military action are closely connected.
Wabu Block is a reminder that West Papua is on the frontline of the global climate crisis. The sugarcane and bioethanol project in Merauke – the world’s largest deforestation project – will alone more than double Indonesia’s emissions. By supporting the ULMWP and our Green State Vision, by supporting these villagers in Intan Jaya through the West Papua boycott campaign, you are fighting for the future of planet earth. But I will say this directly: any climate action that does not include West Papua is pointless.
Indonesia’s current military escalation – in Puncak, Intan Jaya, Nduga, but also in non-Highlands Regencies like Meraukeand Raja Ampat – is designed to secure Indonesian and corporate interests in West Papua. The ULMWP calls on the world to condemn this massacre and stop investing in West Papua until Indonesia complies with its international obligations and facilitates the visit to West Papua by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, demanded by over 110 UN member states. I also call on the Indonesian government to immediately allow the UN visit; to withdraw their military from the Highlands allow the IDPs to return home; and to facilitate an end to the violence through a self-determination referendum.
Ultimately, this is the only path to peace in West Papua.
Benny Wenda
Interim President
ULMWP
