{"id":247424,"date":"2020-03-07T09:53:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-07T14:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=247424"},"modified":"2020-03-07T09:53:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-07T14:53:00","slug":"villagers-flee-to-escape-shootings-in-indonesias-papua","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/03\/07\/villagers-flee-to-escape-shootings-in-indonesias-papua\/","title":{"rendered":"Villagers flee to escape shootings in Indonesia’s Papua"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Yapen island, Papua, Indonesia (Photo By Selfiana Nussy at Dutch Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A weeklong shootout between security forces and a rebel group near the world’s largest gold mine in Indonesia’s easternmost Papua region has caused nearly 2,000 villagers to flee, officials said Saturday.<\/p>\n

The clashes, which began Feb. 29 near the Grasberg copper and gold mine in Papua province, have killed a police officer and injured three others, Papua police chief Paulus Waterpau said.<\/p>\n

Rebels in Papua have been fighting a low-level insurgency since the early 1960s, when Indonesia annexed the region that was a former Dutch colony. Papua was formally incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a U.N.-sponsored ballot that was seen as a sham by many.<\/p>\n

The mine, which is nearly half owned by U.S. Freeport-McMoRan and is run by PT Freeport Indonesia, is seen by separatists as a symbol of Indonesian rule and it has been frequent target for rebels.<\/p>\n

Waterpau said attackers believed to be members of the West Papua Liberation Army, the military wing of the Free Papua Organization, ambushed a police patrol from a hill on Feb. 29, killing one officer and injuring two others.<\/p>\n

In a second attack, gunmen shot at a police car on Tuesday, injuring another officer, he said.<\/p>\n

The attacks occurred in the mining town of Tembagapura in Papua, where the rebels have been fighting a low-level insurgency for independence.<\/p>\n

A local disaster mitigation agency chief, Yosias Lossu, said buses owned by PT Freeport Indonesia evacuated a group of 258 villagers from Banti and Kali Kabur villages on Friday. Another 699 people, mostly women and children, were evacuated early Saturday.<\/p>\n

He said about 800 villagers from Longsoran, Batu Besar and Kimbeli villages were evacuated to a police headquarters in Tembagapura on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost women and children are scared and feel intimidated by gunfire near their villages,\u201d Lossu said.<\/p>\n

A National Liberation Army of West Papua commander, Lekagak Telenggen, said in a statement released Saturday that they are responsible for the attacks in Tembagapura.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will keep fighting until PT Freeport Indonesia stops operating and closes,\u201d Telenggen said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A weeklong shootout between security forces and a rebel group near the world’s largest gold mine in …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":247425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247424"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":247426,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247424\/revisions\/247426"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}