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uman rights defenders and analysts have again raised their concerns over what they see as “excessive security measures “ in the restive province of Papua following two recent incidents in Abepura and Timika that reportedly led to at least nine deaths.

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) on Friday questioned the involvement of the military in securing the Third Papuan People’s Congress in Abepura, which was deemed by the government to be “subversive”. The congress ended in chaos and was followed by the discovery of six bodies behind a military post, according to the commission.

The six victims, according to the human rights watchdog, were James Gobay, 28, Yosaphat Yogi, 28, Daniel Dakepa, 25, Maxsasa Yewi, 35, Yakob Samonsabra, 53, and Pilatus Wethipo, 40. The police, however, announced that they only found three bodies.

It should be the police alone who uphold security in the country, not the Indonesian Military (TNI), commission chairman Ifdhal Kasim told The Jakarta Post.

The congress turned ugly after the participants hoisted the Morning Star flag — a symbol of Papua’s independence movement — and the authorities began to fire warning shots into the air to disperse the assembly.

The commission has set up a team to investigate the incident.

“The validity of the presence of the TNI during the joint-operation [to guard the congress] should be analyzed. Did the police really need assistance from the TNI? Because the congress was actually nonviolent and [the participants] were unarmed,” Ifdal said.

Ifdhal further argued that although the police could ask for assistance from the TNI, they should do so in exceptional circumstances only, such as situations where the police were perceived to be incapable of acting alone.

He said that there should be a clear explanation on when the police deemed themselves “incapable” and thus in need of military assistance, especially with regard to police’s handling of the Papuan People‘s Congress.

“The basic task of the police is to maintain domestic security, while the TNI’s [basic task] is to deal with defense matters. In [the Papua case], it should have been the National Police who were in the forefront,” he said.

On Friday, unidentified gunmen shot dead three people in Timika, Papua, the police said. They were two goldminers and a driver.

Muridan Satrio Widjojo, a researcher at the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) who conducted intensive research on Papua, also questioned the authority of the TNI to intervene in Papua and described the TNI’s intervention as a “political decision”. “The TNI does not have such authority [to intervene at Papua]. The intervention of the TNI in Papua was a political decision. They do not have such authority and thus should not have joined the operation,” he added.

The LIPI researcher also said that the “excessive” numbers of TNI personnel guarding the region had deteriorated Papua’s political situation, as the TNI frequently applied repression and violent methods to deal with the Papuans.

“Many human rights [of the Papuans] have been violated and the political situation there is becoming worse. The presence of the TNI only breeds problems in Papua,” Muridan said.

Al Araf, a researcher from human rights watchdog Imparsial, revealed in his book, Papua Security: Implications of Security Approaches to Human Rights Conditions in Papua, that currently there are around 14,000 to 16,000 members deployed to guard Papua, a region whose population stands at only around 3 million people, or about 1 percent of Indonesia’s total population.

Imparsial said that the conditions in Papua were very similar with that in Nangroe Aceh Darussalam when the government imposed a military emergency situation to crack down on the Free Aceh Movement (GAM). At that time the government deployed 30,000 personnel to the province, which was populated by about 4 million people. (sat)