August 26, 2007
~snip~ No one saw who killed them, and the church report obtained by The Sunday Age described their deaths as "mysterious killings" — a term with a particular meaning in Indonesia. It suggests there's no mystery at all.
The term emerged in the mid-1980s, when Indonesian soldiers and police killed about 5000 criminal suspects, mostly in Java. The killings remained unexplained until 1989, when then president Soeharto admitted ordering them in a campaign of "shock therapy".
Church workers who investigated the Nabire killings believe they, too, were carried out by Indonesian security forces — part of a largely hidden but steady trickle of murders, designed to intimidate Papuans seeking independence.
With churches stepping into the void left by a crackdown that has effectively silenced Papuan nationalists, clergy and church workers are increasingly targeted for harassment, intimidation and worse. The targets include the Reverend Socratez Yoman, head of the Baptist churches in Papua and an outspoken critic of human rights abuses. He alleges Indonesian police and army intelligence officers last month threatened him with a pistol outside his church in Jayapura, the Papuan provincial capital. ~snip~
http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/mysterious-killings-seek-to-silence-papuan-voices/2007/08/25/1187462582842.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1warning: graphic photos at link