User:Lord Gøn/Timika Airport shooting

The Timika Airport shooting was a mass murder that occurred at Timika Airport in Tembagapura, Indonesia on April 15, 1996. Second Lieutenant Sanurip killed 11 soldiers and 5 civilians and injured at least 10 other people, before being wounded in a shootout and subdued. He was sentenced to death a year later.

Background

 * Yesterday's slaughter followed the machete killing of two Indonesian soldiers from the Irian Jaya-based Batallion 752 at the weekend. Sources said that the two had been hacked to death at the village of Senawan near Mapnduma, 180km north-east of Timika, after an incident involving a local woman. According to one report, the lieutenant had escorted the two soldier's bodies back to Timika and had become highly agitated after viewing the remains. Indonesian army sources said the lieutenant had been suffering form malaria.
 * Kopassus detachments, including a section from D-81, had been deployed to Irian Jaya following the serious rioting in the Timika area last month. They were part of a group of around 500 extra troops sent in to restore order after the troubles in which four people died. This was the second serious incident to occur in Timika in recent weeks. Last month local tribesmen held Kopassus commander, Brig Gen Prabowo and a Freeport manager hostage at the airport for several hours until they were dispersed by Indonesianarmy detachments.
 * Yesterday's shooting took place two days after the chairman of Freeport McMoran Copper and Gold, Mr James Moffett, flew to Timika to discuss a revised offer of financial assistance from Freeport with local Irianese leaders. Three weeks ago a number of tribal chiefs living in the area of Freeport's mining operations called for the closure of the mine, claiming that the US company had contributed little to welfare of the local Irianese. The demand was flatly rejected by the Govt in Jakarta. Last month Mr Moffett promised to review the company's strategy for dealing with Timika tribespeople. According to unconfirmed reports, Freeport has offered about $US15 million a year for community training projects and measures to reduce the environmental impact of the world's copper and gold mine.


 * Two other members of the 752nd Batallion, Sgt. Irkam and Sgt. Subiyanto, who died because because of the GPK Irian Jaya in Senewak village, on Sunday (4/14) at 12:10 PM Eastern Indonesian time.
 * The two members of the Armed Forves was killed by the GPK who disguised themselves as local civilian vegetable vendors.


 * An Indonesian military spokesman said Sanurip had recently returned from a military operation near a gold and copper mine in Timika, which is operated by the American mining giant Freeport, when he opened fire. Freeport had been forced to close the mine after three days of rioting.
 * Tribal separatists in Irian Jaya say the mine, which is protected by Indonesian troops, strips vast profits from the province and returns little.

Shooting
According to military spokesmen Second Lieutenant Sanurip, 36, was reprimanded by another officer for being noisy when he awoke in a hangar that was used by the military as a commando post since the riots in Timika had erupted. As a reaction to this Sanurip began firing with his assault rifle at about 7 a.m. He first shot five other military personnel, including Lieutenant Colonel Adel Gustinigo, commander of Detachment 81, the counter-terrorist arm of the Indonesian army's elite special forces, as well as a major and captain, and then shot indiscriminately at anyone, while running out of the hangar.

Within seconds he killed 16 people – 5 Kopassus officers, 6 ABRI soldiers and 5 civilians, one of them New Zealander Michael Findlay, a helicopter pilot working for Airfast – and injured another 11-13, ten ABRI officers and three civilian/12 were military personnel and the remaining casualty a civil aviation worker. He was being held in military custody in Timika.

Sanurip was eventually shot in the leg and subdued by other soldiers.

Motive
The motive behind the rampage was not immediately known, though it was suggested that Sanurip was suffering from depression and was not in a healthy state, perhaps due to a malaria infection.

It was further reported that an army transporter, carrying the two soldiers killed in Mapenduma, made a fuel stop at Timika airport that morning, and that Sanurip began shooting after seeing their remains and realising that one of them was a friend of his, though it was stated by military spokesmen this information was not true and that there was no connection between the arrival of the bodies and the mass murder.

Also repudiated were initial reports that there was a heated argument between Sanurip and his superiors prior to the shooting.

Victims
Among those killed were:

Among those wounded was Airfast employee Sarjito.

Two Kopassus and one Kostrad treated in Gatot Subroto Civilian in Pondok Indah Four in Jakarta

Aftermath
Sanurip was sentenced to death by a military tribunal in Jayapura on April 23, 1997. After the decision was made public Amnesty International uttered concerns, because the court had rejected evidence regarding Sanurip's mental health.

The Military High Court in Surabaya dismissed his appeal on June 18, 1997, and also discharged him from the Indonesian Armed Forces and ordered him to pay a nominal court fee, whereupon he lodged an appeal to the Indonesian Supreme Court.

He later died in a hospital.


 * A military tribunal has sentenced to death a soldier who went on a shooting rampage in which he killed 16 people in Irian Jaya last year.


 * A military tribunal rejected the defence that Second Lieutenant Sanurip was suffering from malaria-induced depression
 * The defence said Sanurip, who collapsed when the sentence was passed, would appeal. Military experts said it would be the first execution by firing squad of a soldier in almost three decades and that it reflected Indonesia's wish to avoid diplomatic tension with New Zealand and Australia, where Mr Finlay's family lives.