The report revealed that military business is perpetuating the conflict. The Myanmar military (Tatmadaw) has funded its massive military operations and carried out gross violations of human rights in Rakhine state through local and foreign corporate funding since 2016, the report said. The military’s economic interest in armed conflict zones is also prevalent in other Southeast Asian countries, including Indonesia.

During the New Order period, the Indonesian Military (TNI) was deeply involved in various legal and illegal businesses in troubled provinces, mainly Aceh, Maluku, former East Timor and Papua. The armed conflict in Nduga, Papua, also poses concern over the military’s economic interests. Two examples are the trans-Papua road project in Nduga and the illegal distribution of ammunition in Papua’s central highlands.

Then-president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed Presidential Regulation No. 40/2013 assigning the military as the principal party to work and secure the trans-Papua project under the Public Works and Housing Ministry. The administration of President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has reinforced the TNI’s involvement in the Papua highway project, even though many Papuans have raised concern over the massive military presence.

Given its human rights record in Papua, most indigenous Papuans are concerned the military, through its massive deployment, could abuse its coercive power over indigenous Papuans, particularly in the highlands, where the project is located.

The Nduga armed conflict has substantiated those fears. About 45,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) seeking refuge from fighting in the areas surrounding Nduga are a very obvious impact of the conflict.

The IDPs, along with the local government and civil society groups, have demanded that the central government pull the military out from Nduga. However, the security authorities, mainly the military, have staunchly ignored the protests.

Why is the military reluctant to draw down its massive presence in Nduga?

The trans-Papua highway is an infrastructure priority of the Jokowi administration. Two major segments in the central highlands are the Wamena-Nduga-Mumugu segment and the Wamena-Jayapura segment. The first costs Rp 4.46 billion (US$312,000). The need to connect isolated areas in highland Papua is the main reason behind the project, a large investment, from which the TNI also receives a budget worth billions of rupiahs to protect the project.

The TNI’s key role in the project has made it the target of armed attacks from separatist groups in Papua highland, including in Nduga, where an armed group killed 16 construction workers on Dec. 1, 2018, and prompted a crackdown on the insurgents which has been going on until today.

However, studies on the trans-Papua highway, such as one by the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) last year and another by Sean Sloan et al. of James Cook University on conservation and development along the trans-Papua economic corridor shows that the project has not only opened up remote areas but also paved the way for illegal logging and illegal mining, causing environmental destruction.

Such illegal business has been related to protection rackets by security personnel, local Papuans told me during my fieldwork. A lack of local participation in the form of consultation and traditional land ownership has indeed drawn sharp criticism from people in Nduga.

Another factor that apparently perpetuates the armed conflict around the trans-Papua project is the illegal trade in ammunition, according to local security authorities, media and activists. The death toll among security personnel has reached nine during the eight-month armed conflict in Nduga. The rebels say they did not conduct regular shooting or armed attacks on security personnel, citing their lack of weapons and ammunition.

However, a photo published on the armed group’s Facebook page in July 2019 showed Egianus Kogeya, commander of the Nduga armed group, displaying hundreds of rounds of live ammunition, supposedly supporting the insurgency operation in Nduga. As the armed group continues its guerrilla campaign, the critical question is, who supplies the group with ammunition?

The arrest of three military personnel involved in selling ammunition to the armed group in Nduga, while they were stationed in Timika, is one answer to the question. Individual soldiers play a crucial role in supplying ammunition to the rebel groups in central highland Papua. One of my fieldwork findings is that the supply chain begins with ammunition availability in Jayapura, Papua’s capital. Some officers have potential buyers to support the armed groups.

Two transiting points are Wamena and Timika. The regencies form the hub to distribute ammunition in the highlands, such as in Lanny Jaya, Paniai, Puncak, Puncak Jaya, Mimika and Nduga. The officers play a crucial part in being able to pass checkpoints at the airports or seaports. It is security personnel, not civilians, who know specific ways to smuggle ammunition with clearance through airports in Papua. The arrest of three army officers at the airport in Sorong, West Papua, and Makassar, South Sulawesi, revealed the ammunition supply chain in Indonesia’s easternmost region.

The big picture of the ammunition trade in Papua exhibits the incomplete reform of the military, initiated in the early 2000s. The military’s withdrawal from the day-to-day political and social spheres is a key point on the TNI’s reform agenda. However, other issues, the reform of military courts and the military business, are two remaining yet crucial goals that have stalled, particularly under Jokowi. The smuggling of ammunition in Papua is part of the military “illegal” business that is virtually invisible.

That Indonesia does not have a specific law on illicit proliferation or supply of ammunition makes it challenging to prevent or terminate the arms trade and even armed conflicts in Papua.

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The writer is a researcher at the Marthinus Academy-Jakarta conducting fieldwork in Papua.

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