Unidentified person shoots at two students in Papua’s Puncak District

Shooting case in Papua

Jayapura, Papua (ANTARA) – The police confirmed on Saturday that an unknown individual shot at two students in Puncak District, Papua Province, on Friday, resulting in the death of one of them.

Chief of the Papua Provincial Police Inspector General Paulus Waterpauw spoke of having instructed the Puncak District Police to investigate the shooting case.

Waterpauw explained that the topographical condition of the scene of shooting in Sinak, Puncak District, would delay the arrival of the police there.

The victims are students of a senior high school in Puncak District, he stated.

The police had yet to establish the identity of the culprit since their probe into the case is yet ongoing, he remarked.

Earlier, Chief of the Joint Regional Defense Command III Colonel I.G.N. Suriastawa reckoned that an armed criminal group was behind the shooting of two civilians in Sinak.

One of the victims, identified as Amanus Murib, is in a critical condition, while the other victim, identified as Atanius Murib, died, he stated.

“Based on the report we have received, the shooting involved an armed criminal group,” he remarked.

Source : ANTARA NEWS

Notes

 What was the nature of the West Papua issues ? Was this issue a case of decolonization or incomplete decolonization of Indonesia ?

West Papua was a bilateral matter between the Netherlands and Indonesia regarding an incomplete process of decolonization of the Netherlands East Indies. West Papua was neither a separate entity nor a non-self-governing territory detached from the Netherlands East Indies. The problem arose when the Netherlands insisted on maintaining its presence in the western half New Guinea. At the beginning, there was no international dimension to this problem until Indonesia brought the issue to the United Nations in 1954 after all bilateral means had been exhausted. Therefore, it would not be relevant to draw a comparison between East Timor and West Papua as the crux of the problem is totally different. East Timor was recognized by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory, with Portugal as the administering power, while West Papua remained an resolved question of decolonization of Indonesian territory of what was once the Netherlands East Indies. It was the disruption of the Dutch decolonization process in 1949 that led to struggle of more than a decade by Indonesia to consolidate its territorial integrity and sovereignty over Irian Jaya.