JAKARTA (PINA) — Indonesian soldiers were paid to murder West Papuan independence leader Theys Hiyo Eluay, two members of a commission investigating the killing in the Indonesian-ruled province said.
Indonesia’s Antara news agency quoted the two as saying that the soldiers were paid by their superiors to kill Eluay, an increasingly vocal pro-independence leader. Three Kopassus, or special forces, officers are in detention in Jakarta in connection with the murder.
Commission members John Ibo and Karel Phil Erari were quoted by Antara as saying investigators must now find out who ordered the killing.
Indonesian military chiefs have repeatedly said there was no order to kill Eluay, who was chairperson of the pro-independence Papua Presidium Council.
Eluay was found murdered near the Papua New Guinea border last Nov. 11. He had been abducted the previous evening as he drove home from a military celebration at a Kopassus camp on the outskirts of the West Papua capital, Jayapura.
The national commission has said six soldiers are suspected of involvement, the three detained officers and three non-commissioned officers.
West Papua, bordering Papua New Guinea, was a Dutch colony, like Indonesia. In the 1960s the Indonesians, who had won their own independence from Dutch colonial rule, began fighting to take control of West Papua from the Dutch. The province was officially taken over following a controversial 1969 referendum after the Dutch departed due to American pressure.
Pro-independence West Papuans call the referendum a sham and say only a small number of men who were intimidated by the Indonesian military were allowed to take part.
