Indonesia: Free Papua Movement (FPM) rebels fight a war without weapons from a land without food
Wiro Nongganop says he commands a battalion of West Papua independence fighters, but he has no guns, only bows and arrows, and lives in exile in a bark hut, sometimes surviving on potato leaves.
Nongganop and a few members of his Muyu tribe fled their homeland in 2019, crossing the poorly marked Indonesian border for the relative safety of remote western Papua New Guinea.
He says 700 men now live under his command, surviving by growing crops on muddy land gifted by the government while dreaming of an independent West Papua — an elusive goal since Indonesia took control of the western half of New Guinea island 60 years ago.
“If there were weapons we would make war,” Nongganop, a battalion commander in the OPM, or Free Papua Movement, told AFP, as he sat cross-legged in a hut alongside his deputy.