OPM Fighters ‘Tired of Living in the Jungle,’ Ready to Settle in Villages, Papua District Head Claims

Jakarta Globe, Banjir Ambarita, December 19, 2013

West Papuan students shout slogans during a rally in Surabaya on Dec. 2, 2013,
 demanding the independence of West Papua province from Indonesia. (EPA
Photo/Fully Handoko)

Jayapura. The head of Papua’s Puncak Jaya district claimed on Thursday that the majority of the members of the local Free Papua Movement (OPM) faction — known as the National Liberation Army and led by Goliath Tabuni — have decided to leave the group and return to their villages.

“According to the confessions of underlings of Goliath Tabuni, they’ve grown very tired of living in the jungle for years,” district head Henock Ibo told local journalists in the Wamena district center on Wednesday. “They’ve gotten very, very tired.”

The OPM is an an outlawed militant separatist organization.

Henock said that as many as 100 of Goliath’s men had participated in a Dec. 11 Christmas celebration in Puncak Jaya, along with local officials and residents. He said his administration had invited Goliath to join in the event, which also marked the district head’s one-year anniversary in office, but the separatist leader refused to show up.

Henock said that those 100 men had returned to their villages and were learning to live like the other villagers.

He said his administration would train them to become members of the local public order agency (Satpol PP) and would build 100 homes for them.

“The Papua governor is also helping to build habitable houses for them,” Henock said, according to local media site bintangpapua.com.

Ferry Marisan, director of Papua-based rights group Elsham, expressed doubts over Henock’s claim.

No media reports have quoted any of the supposed former OPM member, Ferry said.

“That’s a one-party claim by the district head,” he told the Jakarta Globe. “We cannot be sure of that yet.”

With 100 member gone, Henock said, Goliath’s OPM group would consists of only 15 members.

“I think the [security] situation will improve now,” he said

The Papua Legislative Council in Jayapura said they welcomed the news and praised officials in Puncak Jaya for their work.

“We need to appreciate the Puncak Jaya district head for continually establishing communications with [the OPM members], so that they have now chosen to return among the people,” council deputy speaker Yunus Wonda said on Thursday.

He said the government needed to continue to direct attention toward the former OPM members so that they would not return to the separatist group.

Yunus urged Indonesian security personnel to make efforts to understand local culture and the character of the Papuan people in dealing with separatist movements.

“We wish for synergy to be built and, more importantly, [there should be] no suspicion of one another,” Yunus said. “Don’t focus on power. If there’s a problem, settle it well by building communications.”

The OPM, which fights for the independence of Papua and West Papua from Indonesia, is divided into factions, including one led by Goliath, which Indonesian security personnel have accused of being responsible for a string of attacks against police and soldiers over the past few years.