From the Battlefield to the Palace: Prabowo’s Ascent, West Papua’s Descent

From the Battlefield to the Palace: Prabowo’s Ascent, West Papua’s Descent

On February 15, American journalist Allan Nairn — a longtime observer of Indonesian politics — sounded the alarm on social media:

"After a decade of shielding generals from prosecution for torture and murder, Jokowi has now succeeded in making the worst of them -- Gen Prabowo -- Indonesia's next president."

This grim warning came just hours after Prabowo Subianto clinched a decisive electoral victory. With over 50 percent of the vote, in a country with more than 205 million registered voters, Prabowo is now poised to become the next president of the world’s third-largest democracy.

But behind the democratic façade lies a darker truth: Indonesia is about to be governed by a man repeatedly implicated in war crimes, disappearances, and systemic repression — a man whose vision of “order and progress” is drenched in blood.

The Making of a Militarized Oligarch

Prabowo was born into wealth and power. His father was a prominent economist; his family owns vast tracts of land — plantations, mining concessions, industrial estates. He married into the Suharto dynasty, becoming the son-in-law of the brutal dictator who ruled Indonesia with American backing from 1966 to 1998. It is through this connection that Prabowo rose quickly through the ranks of the military, shielded by impunity and buoyed by cronyism.

But his wealth and elite connections are not what define him. What defines Prabowo is his role in some of Southeast Asia’s darkest chapters.

In East Timor — a territory brutally occupied by Indonesia — Prabowo led the notorious Kopassus special forces unit. His command was implicated in numerous atrocities, including the 1983 massacre in Kraras, where hundreds of civilians were slaughtered. A United Nations-supported investigation cited his unit’s role in these crimes.

In West Papua, Prabowo’s legacy is just as grim. He led Operation Mapenduma in 1996, a campaign ostensibly aimed at freeing hostages but which evolved into a wider military assault. The result? Villages razed, civilians tortured, freedom fighters executed. For many Papuans, Prabowo’s name is synonymous with terror.

A War Criminal in a Suit?

When the Suharto regime crumbled in 1998, Prabowo’s career appeared finished. He was dishonorably discharged from the military after allegedly orchestrating the kidnapping and disappearance of pro-democracy student activists. Some of them were later found dead. Others remain missing to this day.

But instead of facing trial, Prabowo reinvented himself. With a rebranding campaign fueled by populist rhetoric and nationalist bombast, he reemerged as a political contender. And in 2019, President Joko Widodo — who once promised to hold human rights violators accountable — appointed him as Minister of Defense.

The result has been catastrophic, especially for West Papua.

Under Prabowo’s leadership at the Ministry of Defense, West Papua has become a militarized zone. Entire rural regions are under siege. Armed forces have flooded the highlands, accusing civilians of separatist sympathies. The media is largely barred. The exact number of deaths is unknown, but the Human Rights Monitor and Papuan Church Council estimate that 70,000 people have been displaced*since 2019. Schools, homes, and churches have been burned. Children have died in hiding from preventable diseases.

This is not a counter-insurgency. This is collective punishment.

West Papua: A Powder Keg Under Prabowo

Now that Prabowo will ascend to the presidency, the worst may still be ahead. His statements during the campaign were chilling in their simplicity. He dismissed criticisms of military brutality. He blamed "foreign meddling" for West Papua’s unrest. He repeated the old formula: repression plus infrastructure.

"My plan is to uphold the law, strengthen the apparatus there, and accelerate economic development."

Translation: more soldiers, more roads, more mines — and less room for dissent.

The idea that economic development can pacify a colonized people is not just naive — it's dangerous. For West Papuans, "development" often means dispossession: palm oil plantations replacing ancestral forests, mining operations polluting rivers, and Papuans pushed to the margins of their own land. Under Prabowo, the militarization of development will likely escalate into a full-scale crackdown.

As Indonesian human rights lawyer Veronica Koman warned, electing Prabowo is like "pouring gasoline on the fire." The fire she speaks of is decades of structural violence, racism, and colonial occupation — a fire Prabowo has helped ignite again and again.

The Price of Power: For Whom Does Democracy Work?

Indonesia prides itself on being a democracy. But the election of a man accused of war crimes raises serious questions: What kind of democracy whitewashes mass murder? What kind of democracy elevates generals over victims? What kind of democracy silences its colonized peoples with bullets instead of ballots?

The tragedy of West Papua is not just Indonesian. It is global. It is a tragedy of forgotten voices, corporate interests, geopolitical indifference — and now, of a bloodstained general rising to the highest office in the land.

If history is any guide, Prabowo’s presidency will not bring peace. It will bring further militarization, further displacement, and possibly a new wave of massacres. And as the world looks away, the cries of West Papua will once again be swallowed by the roar of helicopters and the silence of complicity.