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Gunfight Between Indonesian Police and Separatists
Published 3 years ago
Members of the Indonesian Mobile Police Brigade engage Separatist fighters in a raging gun-fight, and then evacuate civilians out of the Separatists area of control.
The situation in Indonesia is a confusing one. In most of these pseudo civil wars, where a group of separatists is fighting against a government, it's pretty easy to slap a label on everything. For example, if you look at Ukraine, it's easy to say Ukraine good, Russian Separatists bad. In Syria, at the beginning, it was easy to say Separatists good, Assad Regime bad. In Indonesia though, the Separatists are very much in a gray where it's hard to say if they're really the good guys or the bad guys.
On the one hand the Separatists, known as the West Papuan Independence Movement, have been lashing out against a government that has committed several atrocities against them. On the other hand, the Separatists themselves have become the very thing they were fighting against on some levels through there own actions over the past few months. They're very much in a gray area right now, similar to the IRA way back in the day.
For the most part however, this entire situation is a small brush-fire conflict that's burning out. That's why in videos like this, we're seeing the Indonesian Police handle the situation.
