The West Papuan resistance movement OPM has blamed the tragic death of a New Zealand helicopter pilot in a remote part of the troubled Melanesian region on Indonesia’s security forces and “every nation supporting barbarity”.

In a statement today, the OPM (Free Papua Organisation) chairman-commander Jeffrey Bomanak claimed his movement had undertaken a “thorough investigation” and unilaterally rejected any implication of responsibility for the death of pilot Glen Conning.

He also expressed sincere apologies to the pilot’s family.

Bomanak said the OPM “respects civilians from Sorong to Merauke” and also from “other parts of the world”.

The Jakarta Post reports that Glen Malcolm Conning, 50, a pilot for PT Intan Angkasa Air Service, was killed yesterday after landing in a remote part of Central Papua province with two Indonesian health workers and two children, all of whom survived.

The Cartenz Peace Taskforce, assembled to deal with Papuan independence fighters, retrieved his body from the remote area and transported it to Timika near the Freeport copper and gold mine, reported the newspaper citing a military statement.

“The body of the pilot has been evacuated from the Alama district to Timika and arrived at 12:50 pm local time. The body is currently at the Mimika General Hospital for an autopsy,” Cartenz spokesman Adjutant Senior Commander Bayu Suseno said.

Mimika police head Adjutant Senior Commander I Komang Budiartha told reporters yesterday that three helicopters had been dispatched for the search effort, according to The Post.

‘Heart-broken’ for loss
RNZ Pacific reports that a statement by Natasha Conning on behalf of his family said he was truly loved by his family and friends, who he had cherished spending time with when he was not flying or being in the outdoors.

“Our hearts are broken from this devastating loss,” she said.

The OPM has been waging a low-level liberation struggle in West Papua against Jakarta since a contested UN-supervised Act of Free Choice vote in 1969 in the former Dutch colony, which has been widely condemned as a sham.

In the OPM statement today, Commander Bomanak said: “From the beginning of the brutal invasion and illegal annexation, our war of liberation is the very defence of our homeland, just as it would be for you, and as it was during WWII.”

The “barbarity” of the Indonesian military and police was well known and “illegally supported by a tyranny of vested interests — geopolitical and trade from every nation with armament exports and a resource industry that steals our natural resources”, Bomanak said.

He said the death of the New Zealand pilot was “another tragic chapter in six decades of international support for Indonesia’s crimes against humanity”.

Bomanak also criticised the New Zealand government for allowing citizens to be employed by the “rogue state”.

NZ hostage pilot
In February 2023, pro-independence fighters took another New Zealand pilot hostage. Phillip Mehrtens, 37, who was captured shortly after landing his plane in the remote mountainous area of Nduga to drop off passengers.

He has been held hostage ever since and has featured in several videos and photographs circulated by his captors.

A spokesperson for the West Papua Action Aotearoa (WPAA) group, former Green MP Catherine Delahunty, said in a statement that the killing of Conning was an “utter tragedy for his family and friends”, adding that her movement was concerned over the killing of any civilians in West Papua.

She also noted that the area of the tragedy was a “conflict zone” and that the Indonesian military had a responsibility for the safety of pilots flying there.

Delahunty said the New Zealand government needed to respond to the dangerous situation “affecting our pilots” by calling on Indonesia to allow the UN Human Rights Commissioner and foreign media into West Papua.

She said the government should stop “sitting on their hands and start negotiating with Indonesia for peace, human rights and self-determination in West Papua”.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz