The Papua conflict is due to an Independence Movement by the Indigenous people of West Papua in the Indonesia eastern island Papua. A predominant amount of the fighting occurs within Papua and West Papua provinces on the island of New Guinea. Since the withdrawal of the Dutch colonial administration in 1963, the Free Papua Movement (OPM), a militant Papuan-independence organization, has conducted a low-level guerrilla war against the Indonesian state, targeting the Indonesian military and police, as well as engaging in the kidnapping of both (non-Papuan) Indonesian settlers and foreigners. West Papuans have conducted various protests and flag-raising ceremonies for independence or federation with Papua New Guinea, and accuse the Indonesian government of indiscriminate violence and of suppressing their freedom of expression. Hundreds of thousands of West Papuans have been killed by the Indonesian military since 1961.
Famous quotes containing the word conflict:
“If work and leisure are soon to be subordinated to this one utopian principle—absolute busyness—then utopia and melancholy will come to coincide: an age without conflict will dawn, perpetually busy—and without consciousness.”
—Günther Grass (b. 1927)