JUBI, 6 June 2012
The bupati (head) of the district of Jayawijaya, Jhon Wempi Wetipo, has expressed his deepest regret at brutal actions taken by members of the 736 Wamena battalion who went on the rampage, damaging a number of government facilities, following the death of a soldier who had been set upon by local people.
He said that the correct way to respond to the attack of one of their colleagues was to hand the case over to the police for the matter to be handled in accordance with the law.
‘I very much regret what happened in Honai Lama, seeing it spread to the city. Facilities that have been built by the government should be guarded by forces of the state, not destroyed,’ he said.
‘What is the purpose of such actions? It means just destroying things that have been built with money from the people’.
He said that the various government authorities in the district will hold a meeting to discuss what needs to be done in this matter. The facilities that were destroyed included some offices and a shopping mall that had only just been built.
He said that the attacks on members of the security forces had occurred after local people were infuriated because two men on a motorbike knocked down a young child.
One of the soldiers who was attacked has since died after a stab pierced his heart. The other soldier is in a critical condition afer been stabbed in the chest.
Following the atack on the soldiers, dozens of their colleagues went on the rampage in the town of Wamena and the situation became uncontrollable. ‘Even the police were unable to do anything.’
[Translated by TAPOL]
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West Papua Media Alerts 
Today I posted a detailed report of the atrocities committed by Indonesia’s military forces and police forces upon West Papua’s citizens, to one of the many on-line forums serving the Australian region of the Pacific.
This forum comment now presents a copy of my email letter of which I did send to our Federal minister for Foreign Affairs.
There is no place on Earth where this sort of constant almost daily life-threatening violent action occurs, the many brutal bashings, the murderous shootings et al, of which the government in Indonesia do deny as having so regularly taking place.
Acts of genocide are common-place events in much of West Papua.
Soon, very soon this inhumane treatment at the direction of President Susilo Bambang Yudohono will see West Papua become the most intensive supervised place on our planet.
This murder and brutality must be halted immediately.