Kelly Kwalik: The Catholic Teacher Who Became a Papuan Guerrilla Leader

Kelly Kwalik: The Catholic Teacher Who Became a Papuan Guerrilla Leader
Kelly Kwalik left the classroom to lead a guerrilla struggle in West Papua, fighting for the rights and identity of his people.
Origins and Formation: a Papuan Social Mediator
Kelly Kwalik, born Keletus Kelly Kulalok Kwalik in 1955 in the Jayawijaya Mountains of West Papua, belonged to the Amungme indigenous community, which has its own social and political structures.
Raised in a Catholic environment, he trained as a teacher and worked in elementary schools, embodying the role of a social mediator—educating, guiding, and nurturing his community through knowledge, morality, and faith.
However, Kwalik’s life unfolded against the backdrop of deep historical tensions: the controversial integration of West Papua into Indonesia in the 1960s, expropriation of natural resources, marginalization of indigenous cultures, and recurring structural violence.
These realities created a moral and psychological conflict for Kwalik …