West Papua police confiscate locally assembled firearm in raid

Illegal firearm in West Papua

Manokwari, West Papua (ANTARA) – The West Papua Provincial Police seized a locally assembled revolver during a raid in Maruni, Manokwari District, West Papua Province, on April 30, 2021.

Chief of the West Papua Provincial Police Inspector General Tornagogo Sihombing stated in Manokwari on Thursday that the police had arrested two people, identified by their initials as CA and EM, on charges of possessing the illegal firearm.

Sihombing noted that the two suspects were under interrogation, pending further legal proceedings.

The firearm was intended as an item of dowry, he revealed

The practice is contrary to the local culture. If domestic conflict were to ever erupt in future, then the suspect would misuse the firearm.

Hence, Sihombing appealed to the West Papua community members, who still keep firearms as an item of dowry, to surrender them over to the police or military office to prevent any misuse.

During the raid, the police also seized an airsoft gun from an individual, identified by his initials as HP, and a rifle from an individual, identified by his initials as AR.  

The two-week-long raid ended on May 5, 2021.

Related news: Several armed Papuans end resistance: Papua police chief

Illegal firearm in West Papua news source: ANTARA NEWS

Notes:

Located on the western half of the island of New Guinea and long racked by a simmering violent separatist insurgency, Papua encompasses Indonesia’s two easternmost provinces.

A former Dutch colony, West Papua was formally incorporated into Indonesia in 1969, after an undisputed vote of about 1,025 representative tribal leaders. The result of the plebiscite was overseen and endorsed by the United Nations.

Since the democratization in 1998, especially since 2007, democracy by mean of elections has been introduced to increase political participation in Papua and West Papua. The fact that the leaders of Papua and West Papua provinces are democratically elected by the people has strengthened the legality of West Papua as a province of Indonesia.

Please also read: Free West Papua