Separatist rebels take a New Zealand pilot hostage in Papua

JAYAPURA, Indonesia (AP) – Separatist rebels set fire to a small plane carrying six people after it landed at a remote airport in Indonesia’s troubled Papua province and took its pilot, a New Zealand national, hostage early Tuesday, police and police said rebels.

Rebel spokesman Sebby Sambom said pro-independence fighters from the West Papua Liberation Army, the military wing of the Free Papua Organization, stormed the plane shortly after it landed at Paro in Nduga, a mountainous district.

Sambom said the fighters, led by group commander Egianus Kogeya, set the plane on fire and seized its pilot, Philips Max Martin, as part of their fight for independence. He called for all flights to Nduga to be suspended.

“We took the pilot hostage and are bringing him out,” Sambom said in a statement. “We will never release the pilot we are holding hostage unless Indonesia recognizes Papua and frees them from Indonesian colonialism.”

Sambom did not provide the pilot’s location and the status of the five passengers, including a young child, was not immediately clear.

Conflicts between indigenous Papuans and Indonesian security forces are commonplace in the impoverished Papua region, a former Dutch colony in western New Guinea that is ethnically and culturally distinct from much of Indonesia. Papua was incorporated into Indonesia in 1969 after a UN-sponsored election that was widely viewed as a sham. Since then, a low-level insurgency has been brewing in the mineral-rich region, which is split into two provinces, Papua and West Papua.

Papua Police spokesman Ignatius Benny Ady Prabowo said soldiers and police officers were searching for the pilot and passengers.

The plane, operated by Indonesian airline Susi Air, was carrying about 450 kilograms of supplies from an airport in Timika, a mining town in neighboring Mimika district.

Conflict in the region has intensified over the past year, with dozens of rebels, security forces and civilians killed.

Last July, gunmen believed to be Separatist rebels killed 10 traders arriving from other Indonesian islands and one indigenous Papuan. Sambom later claimed responsibility for the murder and accused the victims of being spies for the Indonesian government.

Last March, armed rebels killed eight technicians repairing a remote telecommunications tower. In December 2018, at least 31 construction workers and one soldier were killed in one of the province’s worst attacks.

Flying is the only viable way to reach many areas in the mountainous and jungle-covered easternmost provinces of Papua and West Papua.

The Associated Press

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