Defending the honor of the Papuan Nation

General Bernard Mawen (armed) accompanied by his staff John Koknak (in camouflage uniform) @Ben Bohane

Why We Stand With the TPNPB: A Clarification from ULMWP

By Markus Haluk, Secretary of ULMWP

A journalist once asked me, “Why does the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), a non-violent movement, consistently condemn the Indonesian military but never criticize the Papuan guerrillas?” This is a loaded question—one that reveals the bias of a narrative shaped by the occupier rather than the occupied.

To answer it, one must begin at the root of the conflict. The West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) is not a terrorist group; it is one of the oldest resistance forces in the world, born in the crucible of bloodshed during the 1965 Manokwari massacre, when Indonesian soldiers opened fire indiscriminately on Papuan civilians. The TPNPB was not created out of ideological fervor, but out of necessity—to defend a people under siege, a land under occupation, and a culture threatened with extinction.

Let us be absolutely clear: the violence in West Papua did not begin with Papuan resistance. It began with Indonesian invasion. It continues through militarized repression, extrajudicial killings, arbitrary arrests, rape, cultural erasure, and economic dispossession. In such a context, resistance is not only legitimate—it is inevitable.

The TPNPB acts as a shield for a defenseless people. Despite Jakarta’s propaganda machine portraying them as criminals, the TPNPB enjoys grassroots support because they are seen not as aggressors, but as protectors. Their targets are carefully chosen: military and police forces, not civilians; state infrastructure serving extractive oligarchs, not public welfare. In 2018, when they attacked workers in Nduga, it was not random violence—it was based on credible suspicions of covert intelligence operations. The same logic applied in Intan Jaya, where military-backed mining interests threatened ancestral lands.

More importantly, TPNPB does not carry out violence outside Papua. No bombs in Jakarta, no gunmen in Surabaya, no attacks in Makassar or Medan. If they were terrorists, as Jakarta claims, we would see terror across the archipelago. But we do not. That distinction matters.

Yet despite repeated calls for negotiation, Indonesia has refused to engage in dialogue. Who, then, sustains the cycle of violence? Who truly fears peace?

As the ULMWP, we have chosen non-violence not because we dismiss our armed brothers and sisters, but because we believe that the moral high ground can still be a weapon. However, we reject the colonial logic that demands we denounce our own freedom fighters while remaining silent on the daily terror committed by the Indonesian state. We stand for Papuan unity in all its forms of resistance—civil, diplomatic, and armed—because they are all responses to the same injustice.

Quoting Mahatma Gandhi, “If I had to choose between cowardice and violence, I would choose violence. But if I were given the choice between fighting with violence or non-violence, I would definitely choose non-violence.” Our path is non-violent, but it is not naive. We do not beg for sympathy; we assert our right to exist. Without respect for those in the mountains and forests who have borne arms for over six decades, we would betray the very history of our struggle.

Since our founding in 2014, the ULMWP has worked tirelessly to expose to the world what Indonesia seeks to bury: a slow-burning genocide that threatens to erase us as a people and a nation. The Indonesian regime wages genocide—the systematic killing of black Melanesians; ecocide—the destruction of our sacred forests and rivers; and ethnocide—the erasure of our languages, customs, and clans. This is not rhetoric. This is reality.

We fight because we have no choice. We resist because we want to live. Our cause is not separatism—it is survival. We do not ask the world for permission to be free. We demand the right to exist.

Papua is not a province. It is a nation under siege. And as long as one Papuan breathes, this struggle will never end.