On September 15, an Indonesian military unit killed five teenage West Papuans in the highlands regency of Yahukimo. The provincial police chief quickly described the victims, aged between fifteen and eighteen, as members of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), West Papua’s predominant armed resistance movement — an allegation that local church leaders and the TPNPB itself immediately denied.

This rhetorical back-and-forth is common in the aftermath of Indonesian military violence. When the authorities do not smear victims directly as “Kelompok Kriminal Bersenjata” — “armed criminal group,” Indonesia’s euphemism for Papuan resistance — they routinely spin civilian deaths as the unfortunate side-effect of clashes between the Indonesian military and the TPNPB.

Only days before the Yahukimo incident, another five Papuans were killed during a military sweep in the coastal regency of Fakfak. Atrocities are rarer in coastal areas, reflecting both the relative isolation of the mountainous interior and the intensity of the resistance therein. News of the Fakfak massacre was accompanied by a photo of two Papuan elders, stripped naked, with their heads bowed, surrounded by jeering soldiers.