It's Pretty Hard to Find the Truth in Indonesia's Long-Simmering Papua Conflict

Almost all news about the low-level insurgency in Indonesia's Papua region comes out from two sources: Jakarta-based media gets its information from the National Police, and then the small number of Papua-based news sites publish a rebuttal from the armed Free Papua Movement (OPM).

Both parties are involved in what's become a 50-plus year battle over the region's status as part of Indonesia. The police, and associated security forces, are fighting to keep Papua part of the nation. The OPM, and affiliated militias, are fighting to secede from the country. So when you're trying to figure out what's actually going on, the unbiased truth is often out of reach.

Take recent events in two Papuan villages. The residents of two villages, Banti and Kimbely, were reportedly taken hostage by an armed group—a shocking turn of events in what has long been Indonesia's most-restive province. Except, maybe they weren't.

One resident told the Sydney Morning Herald that no one was holding the villages hostage. The resident, a man named Jonathan Kibak met with Australian media in the city of Timika, proof, he said, that the villagers were free to leave whenever they wanted to. The reports of hostage-taking were a confusion of what was really going on, Jonathan explained. The separatist West Papua National Liberation Army (TPN) was fighting with Indonesian security forces near the villages and the battle made it unsafe for most to risk leaving their homes.

The claim ran counter to the narrative making the rounds in Jakarta. Police officials told reporters that the OPM had taken the villages hostage, setting fire to shops owned by non-Papuan residents, and raping villagers. OPM sources denied the allegations, and laid the blame on "spies" in their midst.

How can one story be so confusing? Access—or the lack of it—that's why. Papua has some of the strictest press restrictions in the world. The entire region has been off-limits to foreign media for decades under a de-facto ban enforced by a "clearing house" that includes military and intelligence officials who were required to vet every request made by the international press. President Joko Widodo promised to open the region up to foreign reporters in 2015, but, to-date, less than 40 foreign reporters have been granted access.

And even local journalists have a tough time reporting in Papua. There's a reason why Jonathan, the source in the Sydney Morning Herald story, had to hike through the jungle and then hitch a ride on a Freeport-owned helicopter to meet with reporters in Timika. No one could make it to either of the affected villages.

Banti and Kimbely are in Tembagapura, a region near Freeport-McMoRan's Grasberg mine—an area shut off to anyone without expressed permission from the mine's US-based owners. The villages surrounding Grasberg—the world's largest copper and gold mine—is off-limits to even the general public, let alone independent journalists. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for even local journalists to figure out what was really going on, explained Irsul Panca Aditra, a Timika-based reporter for Seputar Papua.

"It's just there's no access to the truth," Irsul told VICE.

Timika, a remote city of about 130,000 on the southern coast of Papua, is still some 64 kilometers from either village. That's 64-kilometers down the only road leading toward the Grasberg mine—a road owned by Freeport and full of security checkpoints where only the police, military, and those with Freeport IDs get to pass.

"And if you want to sneak in, you’ve got to walk through the forest and cross the rivers," Irsul told VICE. "It’s just impossible."

Papua is one of the most-remote places out there. The only way to access some communities is by small prop planes, and in the region near Freeport's mine, the company provides all the local infrastructure itself. That's how there are no public roads and why the only public transport available is run by Freeport staff. "There are only buses provided by the company," Irsul explained.

It creates a situation where even local journalists can only rely on the conflicting statements from the police and the independence forces they're fighting to figure out what's going on. It's bad for everyone—especially anyone caught in the middle, explained Suwarjono, head of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI).

“This is confusing for everyone reading the news,” Suwarjono told VICE.

Distorted information leads to bad decisions by Indonesian public officials. Meutia Hafidz, the deputy chairman of the House of Representatives' defense commission, told local media that the hostage situation should be handled with a military operation, even though she had no independent information about what was actually going on in the affected villages.

In conflict situations, sources on both sides of the battle should always be taken into account. But it's the civilians who should be seen as the real holders of the truth, said Yosep Stanley Adi Prasetyo, the head of the Indonesian Press Council. "Those affected by the conflict should be the primary source," he told VICE.

When that's impossible, then the media should rely instead on the accounts of independent experts who have knowledge of what's going on, but don't have a stake in the outcome, Stanley explained. Otherwise, none of the reports can be fully trusted.

"The point is, media should also take a role to not heat up the conflict,” Stanley told VICE. "We should be careful when writing about conflict, because, the fog of war tend to cover the truth."