Papua separatists claim to have shot dead US pilot
A separatist group in Papua has claimed to have shot and killed a US pilot who brought Indonesian soldiers into a “conflict zone”.
West Papua Liberation Army (TPNPB) spokesman Sebby Sambom claimed in a statement that the group’s fighters in Yahukimo regency shot dead pilot Nicholas F. Goselin and set fire to a plane operated by Indonesian airline PT AMA in the village of Balinggama.
There was no immediate comment from the Indonesian military or the US embassy.
The General Directorate of Civil Aviation of the Ministry of Transport said that the plane was carrying a pilot and seven passengers.
In its statement, the Ministry said that communication with the personnel on the runway was lost after the pilot reported that the plane had landed.
Papuan police’s Cartenz Peace Task Force unit said they were still working to confirm the condition of the pilot and seven passengers and expected to send a team there on Friday.
Sambom said the plane was targeted for allegedly violating the TPNPB ultimatum, which bans civilian flights from entering areas the separatist group considers to be its operational zones.
The spokesman claimed the civilian planes were used to transport Indonesian military personnel and logistics to the remote interior of Papua and said the pilot was killed because the plane continued to operate despite the group’s warning.
The allegations could not be independently verified.
Sambom called on Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto to launch international talks aimed at resolving the decades-old conflict in Papua, which separatists say has resulted in civilian deaths and mass displacement.
“The shooting down of the American pilot is the result of the failure of the Indonesian, US and Dutch governments, as well as the United Nations, to address the root causes of the 64-year conflict in Papua,” the group’s spokesman said in a statement. he said.
He also called on the United Nations to facilitate talks involving representatives of the Indonesian government, TPNPB and Papua, and warned that the group would target other civilian aircraft it believed were assisting military operations in the region.
Clashes between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian security forces are common in the impoverished region of Papua, a former Dutch colony in the western part of New Guinea that is ethnically and culturally distinct from most of Indonesia.
Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 in a United Nations-sponsored vote that was widely thought to be fraudulent.
A low-level rebellion has flared since then.
The conflict escalated last year, with dozens of rebels, security forces and civilians killed.
