Newsletter Week 1 - Remote rebels and bygone lifestyles
TLR's First Newsletter looks into the kidnapping of a Kiwi pilot in rural Papua and the last cowboy in the America's West.
Compiled by Josh Schlicht
The following is the first in a new series of weekly newsletters covering one overlooked story of the week as well as some points of interest and recommendation. Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated
A free Pilot, an unfree People
It was almost two years ago when the plane of New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens was beset upon by rebels on a makeshift runway in the far-flung Indonesian region of West Papua. The Kiwi was subsequently held captive for 19 months, moved between distant jungle hamlets as Indonesian special forces failed time and time again to free him. At least six soldiers were killed in the wayward rescue missions with dozens more speculated to have been lost in an especially errant operation.
This week, Mehrtens was finally freed after his captors, the West Papua National Liberation Front, struck a deal with the Indonesian government. Merhtens was filmed leaving a rural village, waving goodbye to the Papuan men, women, and children in the community where he was held against his will. Despite his long and arduous captivity however, Mehrtens appeared healthy upon release, a much longer beard the main physical sign of his ordeal.
The group’s call for total independence of the West Papuan state has not been achieved, and was never really a possibility as Indonesia was not going to cede an entire province for one foreign pilot. However, the rebels did achieve some of their aims. For one, their movement for liberation has gained enormous publicity abroad with many now sympathetic to their cause. The region’s people are primarily Melanesians – ethnically, linguistically, and culturally completely distinct from the Indonesians who came to rule them after John F. Kennedy’s New York Agreement which gave the colonial Dutch territory to Indonesia in 1962.
Since then, the people of the region have had little say in how their land is governed. The largest gold mine on Earth has obliterated sacred mountains in the region and pollution has ravaged the rural communities. Multinational firms and Indonesian officials have rarely taken local concerns into consideration.
When protest was raised in the past, it was violently crushed by Indonesian authorities. The separatist militants, who’ve been fighting in some capacity since 1969, do not have a clean human-rights record either, however. In the recent Mehrtens debacle, the militants executed a women’s rights activist who attempted to negotiate for his release and another New Zealander pilot was killed in an attempted kidnapping in August.
The release of Mehrtens may calm the intensifying conflict. Alternatively, the success of the kidnapping may embolden the rag tag group to continue kidnapping wayward multinational visitors, condemning others to prolonged sentences in the distant jungle hills of West Papua.
Photo of the Week
My partner and I were on a backpacking trip last summer, wandering our way through the expansive wilderness of Colorado’s Flat Tops when we came across a peculiar character – a real Western cowboy.
The Flat Tops are an outfitters paradise rife with expansive high alpine forests, plateaus and marshlands spanning hundreds of miles. Despite its massive size (roughly as large as Rhode Island), the area gets few visitors as none of its peaks scrape the sky like Colorado’s 14ers, no ski resorts dot its landscape, and few roads penetrate the vast and relatively inaccessible wilderness zone.
Within this wild land one can still capture brief, flickering glimpses of the old American West. I captured the above picture of a Mexican vaquero, a full-time shepherd who lives a nomadic lifestyle with his flock for several months at a time. His name escapes me.
We encountered him on the high tundra moving dozens of sheep along as a grumbling thunderstorm beckoned in the distance. My fiancé and I combined our limited Spanish abilities to ask a few questions of the rugged cowboy as he approached. With an ear-to-ear smile the rider relayed to us that we were some of the first people he’d spoken to in days. From the broken conversation I surmised that he travels up from Mexico in the warmer months to herd the sheep along the beautiful but unforgiving landscape, setting up camps here and there for protection from the harsh elements.
He reported no problems with coyotes, bears, or wolves (who’ve just now been reintroduced to the Flat Tops spurring a political firestorm). However, he did concede that the intense lighting storms frighten him.
After exchanging greetings, we parted ways. My fiancé and I tracked several miles to a trail, descended back to our Subaru outback, and made our way back to suburban Denver. Our journey took us along the modern, albeit potholed, i-70 corridor. Spotify provided our songs of choice and a Starbucks stop met our caffeine and sugar needs.
Meanwhile, the vaquero, accompanied by his horses and his border collie, pursued the herd as a storm closed in. As we hung up our keys and flicked on Netflix, he hung his hat and hunkered down in a makeshift camp on the tundra in preparation for the storm as generations of hardened mountain men before him have.Â
Although ranches still provide a cowboy-esque profession to thousands across the west —as popularized by the show Yellowstone – few experience the true nomadic freedom which typified the classic American cowboy era. This vaquero is one of the last of that iconic and bygone time.
Weekly Recommendations:
Here are some articles that interested the TLR writers this week:
Venezuela Election Crisis:
Spain denies 'complicity' in Venezuela's Gonzalez signing letter accepting Maduro victory, Reuters
Afghanistan Updates & Geopolitics:
The Taliban’s gambit for Russian arms, Tanvi Bhale, Reaction
Ukraine:
As the war drags on, Ukrainian refugees wonder: should we go home? Misha Friedman, CodaStory
American Election Cycle: