LAMBERT Pekikir was taken aback. He could not believe his fellow freedom-fighters planned to surrender their weapons and take up the option of a negotiating table. The chief of the National Liberation Army of the Papua Independence Organization (OPM) for Keerom regency was silent for a second. “It’s crazy,” he said last Monday. “I don’t know whether the reports are true or not. But they seem impossible.”

Lambert’s own resolve is ro