TENSIONS reached a peak when the two opposing masses faced off at a bridge under the hot sun. Brown-uniformed riot police carried rattan canes and shields. They hemmed in the crowd that had inflamed the situation by blocking off the road, and whose number were ten times greater.

That afternoon, on Thursday, March 16, under the bridge which connects the east and west sides of the Cenderawasih University campus in Abepura, they attempted to negotiat