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PAPUA:
‘KOPASSUS’ OFFICER ADMITS, “ONE OF MY SOLDIERS KILLED
INDEPENDENCE LEADER ELUAY”
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Missionary
Service News Agency
February
05, 2003
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PAPUA: ‘KOPASSUS’ OFFICER
ADMITS, “ONE OF MY SOLDIERS KILLED INDEPENDENCE LEADER ELUAY”
Politics/Economy, Standard
An officer of the notorious ‘Kopassus’ special forces, for the
first time admitted that one of his soldiers killed the Papuan
independence leader Dortheys “Theys” Hiyo Eluay. In the first
public admission that the military was behind the killing of
Papuan independence leader, an Indonesian army officer, Lt. Col.
Hartomo, told a court martial on Wednesday that one of his men
strangled the politician.
Theys Hiyo Eluay was abducted by unidentified men on 10 November
2001 and his body was found the following morning in Koya, close
to the border with Papua New Guinea. Lt-Colonel Hartomo told the
tribunal in Surabaya that one of his subordinates, Private Ahmad
Zulfahmi, asphyxiated Mr Eluay after failing to convince him to
drop plans to seek independence for the restive Indonesian
province.
The death of Mr Eluay, who led a peaceful independence campaign,
sharply increased the distrust felt by Papuans towards Indonesian
security forces, which are often viewed as occupiers. It also
prompted foreign activists to intensify their push for an
independent Papua.
According to the reconstruction of Col. Hartomo, the homicidal
rage of Zulfahmi exploded because he failed to convince
‘Theys’ to abandon the project of an independent Papua from
Indonesia. But when Mr Eluay resisted their pleas, Private
Zulfahmi tried to silence the screaming politician by putting a
hand over his mouth. Mr Eluay was alive and alone in his car when
the soldiers drove off, testified the second defendant Lt
Supriyanto.
The day after, Zulfahmi reported to his superior and telling him
what had happened. Hartomo, who is one of the 7 accused for the
‘Eluay’ case, confirmed that he has nothing to do with the
murder. On the night that ‘Theys’ was killed, he had attended
a dinner hosted by the Indonesian army's special forces unit in
Jayapura, administrative capital of Papua.
Former Dutch colony, later administered by Jakarta following a
provisional accord signed in 1963 under the aegis of the United
Nations, West Papua (at the time called Irian Barat or West Irian)
passed definitively under Indonesian sovereignty in 1969 with a
referendum labelled as a “farce” by independence activists.
Since then the region is torn by separatist rebellion of the OPM
(Movement for Free Papua), strongly repressed in the 70’s and
80’s by the Indonesian military. [BP]
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