[Kabar-Irian] News:May 27-June 2nd 2006

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We apoligize for the scarcity of news and the lateness of this posting. ur
internet connetcion has been down almsot a week and shows little sign of
improving.

May 27-June 2nd 2006
KABAR IRIAN NEWS

TOPICS

* Papuan religious leader spooked by Indonesian security officers
* Quake Rocks Papua:
* Tremor rattles Papua province
* Lawmakers target Freeport bosses
* Freeport treads gingerly through political and logistical minefields
* Freeport Contract Not Final Yet
* Indonesian govt wants to change Freeport royalty payment
* The Case for Placating Jakarta
* Why Indonesia Treats Us (Australia) With Contempt
* Indonesia spying on Papuans: Greens


http://www.rnzi.com/pages/news.php?op=read&id=24438


Papuan religious leader spooked by Indonesian security officers

Posted at 07:56 on 31 May, 2006 UTC

The Head of the Papua’s Baptist church says harassment by Indonesia won’t
stop him speaking out about human rights and justice in the province.

Reverend Socratez Sofyan Yoman has released a list of incidents this year
when he has been terrorised and intimidated by Indonesian military, police
or intelligence officers.

On March 16th, he says his car was destroyed by Indonesian Mobile Brigade
Police who, he says, falsely accused him of having Molotov cocktails to
support a student demonstration in Jayapura.

The latest incident involves him being harrassed and having his passport
taken away by immigration officers at Jakarta airport two weeks ago.

He says this hasn’t made him afraid to continue speaking out.

    “Myself, not afraid because I am talking about the truth and justice
and peace; and Im talking about human dignity and human rights. But
I’m still here, afraid for my two sons. Police - if they listen or
hear, that’s no problem, we have to educate them about peace, justice
and the truth.”

Socratez Sofyan Yoman


---

http://www.pakistantimes.net/2006/05/31/top.htm

(abridged)

 Quake Rocks Papua: Death Toll Swells to 7000 in Indonesia
By Wahyu Muryadi 'Pakistan Times' Foreign Correspondent

JAKARTA (Indonesia): Amid efforts toPhoto save the Quake sufferers, a
severe tremor measuring 6.0 on the Richter scale rocked Indonesia's
easternmost Papua province on Tuesday, sparking panic among people of all
ages.

The temblor came just days after a powerful quake left more than 7,000
dead on central Java island.

The quake struck Papua at 03:28 GMT, with an epicentre located 115
kilometres (70 miles) northwest of central Wamena district, said an
official at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.

The US Geological Survey put the magnitude of the quake at 5.6.

The quake struck Papua at 0328 GMT, with an epicenter located 115
kilometers (70 miles) northwest of central Wamena district, said an
official at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.

---
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=89243&version=1&template_id=45&parent_id=25
Tremor rattles Papua province

Published: Wednesday, 31 May, 2006, 10:06 AM Doha Time
JAKARTA:  A 6.0-magnitude earthquake rocked the easternmost Indonesian
province of Papua yesterday, but there were no reports of injuries or
damage, a meteorological official said.
The temblor struck the Wamena district town in Jayawijaya regency and
nearby areas at about 12.29pm (0329 GMT), said Fadli Yusuf, an official at
Jakarta’s Meteorology and Geophysics Agency.
Fadli said the earthquake’s epicentre was on land about 147km southwest of
Papua’s capital of Jayapura, and took place at about 33km  under the
earth.
There were no immediate reports of injuries or structural damage from the
quake, the latest in a series of strong temblors to jolt Indonesia in the
past four days.
Antara, Indonesia’s state-run news agency, reported the quake triggered
panic among residents in Wamena and in the capital Jayapura.–dpa

---

http://www.thejakartapost.com/detailnational.asp?fileid=20060602.H04&irec=7

Lawmakers target Freeport bosses

Tb. Arie Rukmantara, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Lawmakers should summon top Freeport executives to explain the alleged
environmental damage and human rights abuses at the firm's Grasberg mine
in Papua, a team of legislators says.

Speaking Thursday at the House of Representatives, legislators sent to
monitor the mining giant's activities in Papua urged House Speaker Agung
Laksono to summon PT Freeport Indonesia president commissioner James R.
Moffett and other top management from Freeport's U.S. parent company to a
House hearing.

Tjatur Sapta Edy, the secretary of the House working committee on
Freeport, said Thursday the request had been submitted to the House
leaders and Agung was expected to decide on it next week.

Moffett, one of the richest men in America, heads the board of directors
of the New Orleans-based Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc.

Tjatur said the working committee wanted to hear Freeport executives'
response to allegations made by NGOs and community groups about
environmental damage at the mine site.

Environmentalists have said Freeport's disposal of millions of tons of
mine tailings around its mining area has destroyed the ecosystem of a
river and polluted groundwater.

The House was also concerned about accusations the company had hired
soldiers from the Indonesian Military to guard the mine. Activists allege
soldiers working for Freeport committed human rights abuses against the
native Papuan population in the area.

PT Freeport management has denied the human rights allegations and said
the company's operations were in compliance with all the country's laws.

Tjatur said the committee had concluded the government must revise its
current working contract with Freeport to create a more equal
profit-sharing arrangement, to provide more funds for local community
development programs and to reduce the environmental damage the mine
caused.

"Our main goal is to persuade the government to renegotiate the contract,"
he said.

Personally, Tjatur said he would like to see the government increase its
share in the mine to 50 percent. Currently the government has over 9
percent stake.

"We want to hear what the company's executives have to say about the idea."

The most recent contract was signed in 1991 and allows the company to
exploit minerals at Mount Grasberg near Timika until 2021.

PT Freeport spokesman Siddharta Moersjid said he had not received any
information about the planned summons but was optimistic his bosses would
cooperate.

"Basically, we have cooperated, and will always cooperate with anyone here
to continuously improve our performance," he told The Jakarta Post.

"But since I have yet to receive any notification from the House, I can't
provide information about whether our top executives can meet its
request."

---

London Financial Times
May 26, 2006


Freeport treads gingerly through political and logistical minefields

By REBECCA BREAM and SHAWN DONNAN

Freeport McMoRan sits atop the world's largest gold and copper
deposit. But the New Orleans-based mining company has been hard
pressed to reap the full benefits from its Grasberg mine in Indonesia,
even as prices for both metals have soared.

Grasberg's production in the first quarter fell to 225m lb of copper
from 328m lb in the same quarter last year. And this year as a whole,
the company expects to sell 1.3bn lb of copper, down from almost 1.5bn
lb in 2005.

Freeport insists that this decline is due mostly to its timetable for
developing the pit. But a variety of recent setbacks also illustrates
the political constraints to developing some of the world's most
promising areas as more mature producers run out of steam (see next
story).

A blockade by illegal miners shut down the Grasberg pit for four days
in February, prompting a jump in global copper prices.

But longer-term political risk is also becoming "an important
background issue in looking at how quickly prices are going to return
to more normal levels", says Adam Rowley, a commodities analyst with
Macquarie Bank in London.

Indonesian nationalists have renewed calls for Freeport's contract to
be either cancelled or revised. Environmentalists have applied new
pressure on the government to take a more critical look at the
company's practices.

Allegations of corruption linked to Freeport's payments to individual
officers in Indonesia's military, which provides security at Grasberg,
have yielded investigations by both the US Justice Department and the
Securities and Exchange Commission.

While denying any wrongdoing, Richard Adkerson, Freeport's president
and chief executive officer, argues that fears about Indonesian
political risk are inflated.

Through the 34 years the company has operated in Indonesia's remote
Papua province, "we have always had confidence that we could continue
to operate our business", he said in a recent interview.

The bigger problem, he argued, had been "the perception of the world's
financial community about political risk in Indonesia", which in the
past had affected Freeport's ability to raise capital.

Yet companies have also struggled to adjust to a more complex
political environment: Indonesia has become the world's third largest
democracy since the fall in 1998 of Suharto, the country's former
autocratic president, with whom Freeport enjoyed a cosy relationship.

Freeport insiders concede moreover that little meaningful exploration
is being carried out beyond Grasberg, because of an opaque and
shifting regulatory environment.

The complaint is shared by other big miners operating in the country.
Newmont, which operates the massive Batu Hijau copper and gold mine on
the island of Sumbawa, had one of its exploration camps burnt down by
an angry local mob earlier this year. It is also facing a stricter
regulatory environment at Batu Hijau with new curbs on the amount of
waste the mine can generate.

Despite promising prospects in the archipelago,exploration has been
kept to a bare minimum. According to PwC, between 2001 and 2004 mining
companies spent an average of just Dollars 7m (Euros 5m, Pounds 4m) a
year on greenfields exploration in Indonesia, down from an average of
Dollars 40m in the three years before the 1997-98 Asian financial
crisis.

The Indonesian government is not alone in complicating life for mining
companies as developing countries from Latin America to Mongolia
increasingly seek a greater share of their mineral resources.

This month Mongolia announced it would impose a windfall tax requiring
copper miners to pay a 68 per cent tax on profits when the copper
price - which yesterday was trading just above Dollars 8,000 - is
above Dollars 2,600 a tonne.

Mining executives often say that the Democratic Republic of Congo is
the richest source of copper left on the planet. But it is also one of
the riskiest places to invest.

So far, most investment has come from small, entrepreneurial mining
groups with limited resources, rather than big mining companies.

The infrastructure in a huge country torn by years of civil war is
almost non-existent: mining companies have to build everything they
need themselves, from roads to power lines.

The country is due to hold its first multi-party elections for four
decades at the end of July, but there is a risk that the results could
trigger renewed violence.

"The elections are really just the beginning," says Alex Gorbansky,
analyst at the Frontier Strategy Group.

---

Tempo Magazine
No. 39/VI
May 30 - June 05, 2006

Freeport Contract Not Final Yet

A BPK audit has uncovered peculiarities in royalty calculations.
Could the work contract be reviewed because of this?

THERE'S nothing more annoying for Indonesians than watching the nation's
natural resources being dug out of the ground and sent overseas to make
another
country even more prosperous while all anyone can do in Indonesia is just
bite
their fingernails. It's like the lyrics of the dangdut (form of popular
Indonesian music) song: "We own it but others are enjoying it. Although
it's ours,
other countries are doing the partying."

This is an old story regarding the mining of gold and copper by PT
Freeport-Indonesia. Now however there's something new: the Supreme Audit
Agency (BPK)
has uncovered some peculiarities in the calculations paid by Freeport.
According
to an audit by BPK, the results of which were announced last week, there's a
shortage of Rp20.5 billion in the royalties for 2005 and the first half of
2005.

This difference originates from the base sales calculations per quarter that
are considered to be abnormal. "We do not agree with calculations such as
these," said BPK Chairman Anwar Nasution, somewhat irritated. "This is not
in line
with general accounting principles."

In addition to the matter of defined sales prices, the BPK audit uncovered
two other peculiarities: (1) a sales factor lower than the contract value,
and
(2) sulfur component sales that were not included in the royalty
calculations.
This is in spite of the work contract clearly stating that US$0.004 is to be
paid on every kilogram mined.

It has to be acknowledged that a difference of so many billions of rupiah
like this is by no means an extraordinary figure. Compared to the
compensation of
US$325 million (around Rp3 trillion) for the taxes, royalties, dividends and
fees paid by Freeport to the Government of Indonesia during 2004, this is
like
a single drop of water in a cooking pot.

However, it appears as if what the BPK has now uncovered will end up being
rung out loud and clear because of demands that the government's contract
with
Freeport be reviewed. Up to now, there are several groups (including the
House
of Representatives-DPR) who consider that this "production sharing" mining
contract in Irian Jaya is extremely unfair. "Freeport's production has to be
re-audited in order to confirm exactly how much concentrate has been
mined," said
economist Drajad Wibowo, who now is also a member of the DPR.

For some people, the story of the mining at Freeport is somewhat similar to
what was done by the Dutch Indies Company (VOC) in colonial times long ago.
Since it was granted its mining license back in 1967, Freeport has dug up
tons
and tons of gold and copper worth tens of billions of US dollars, the
proceeds
of which have been enjoyed by the shareholders of Freeport-McMoran Copper &
Gold Inc, a company from the United States that controls the ownership of
Freeport-Indonesia.

No one actually knows for certain just how much actual wealth has already
been taken out of the ground at Freeport. If calculated just since 1988
(when the
Grasberg mine was first discovered), Freeport has already dug up 18 billion
pounds of copper and 26 million ounces of gold out of the earth of Papua.
Based
on the current prices of gold and copper, the estimated value of as much
minerals as this is the equivalent of US$55 billion or Rp500 trillion.

Freeport-Indonesia is certainly one of the richest sources of money for
Freeport-McMoran. According to Freeport-McMoran's financial report last
year, some
US$3.98 billion (or 97 percent) of the total revenues of US$4.2 billion (Rp39
trillion) of this giant mining company originated from the contribution of
Freeport-Indonesia.

So how much of this actually ended up in the government's pockets? Because of
this dramatic increase in Freeport's profit, last year the government's share
also "exploded" up to US$1.17 billion. However, in previous years, the
deposits were always between US$200 million and US$300 million (see Just
Leftovers
from the Party?). Of this amount, total royalties have never amounted to more
than US$50 million (Rp450 billion).

Is this a large amount? It depends on where you're looking from. Perhaps you
can make your own calculations, based on the following comparisons. According
to Reuters, James R. Moffett, President Commissioner of Freeport-Indonesia
and
concurrently Chairman of Freeport-McMoran, last year received compensation
(salary and expenses) amounting to US$26 million (equivalent to Rp235
billion,
or one fifth of the royalties received by the Government of Indonesia in the
same year). And then there's Adrianto Machribie (President Director of
Freeport-Indonesia) who received compensation of US$3.8 million (Rp35
billion). This
does not include share options already sold that were worth US$1.8 million.

These comparisons could certainly make some people very annoyed. Sony Keraf,
a former Minister for the Environment who is now a member of the Freeport
Working Committee at the DPR, acknowledged that the team was in the middle of
going through recommendations for revising the work contract. He promised
that the
review will be finished before July. With the audit that it already has, the
BPK, which originally had had no contact with Freeport, is now also one of
those putting pressure on the government. "This is in order to be fair and in
line with current conditions," said Anwar.

In response to the BPK audit, Freeport-Indonesia spokesperson Siddharta
Moersjid explained that the company had already paid royalties in line
with the
rules of the game. The method of setting price levels each quarter was
certainly
regulated in the work contract. As regards the matter of lower prices this
came about because shipment of concentrates was delayed because of a
landslide
disaster at Grasberg in October 2003. Buyers agreed to the rescheduling of
deliveries as long as the prices remained the same. And what about the
sulfur?
"Freeport has not made a single cent from sulfur," said Siddharta. "There
isn't
any copper smelting plant that wants to pay for sulfur."

Purnomo Yusgiantoro, the Minister for Energy & Mineral Resources, has chosen
to be careful as regards responding to this investigation. Apparently, the
work contract has to be honored because there is no clause that states
that the
contract can be revised. However, this possibility is still open. A team from
the department is apparently in the middle of carrying out an audit to review
this possibility. "If the results of this point towards revisions, then the
contract will be changed," he said.

It seems as if the unrolling of the Freeport work contract will still take a
long time as the company's mining rights last until 2021. After that they can
still be extended for 10 years twice. In addition, the wealth hidden in the
belly of Grasberg is still very large. Although a lot has already been dug
up,
according to a survey by Freeport, Grasberg still has reserves amounting
to 40
billion pounds of copper and 44 million ounces of gold.

These reserves are equivalent to US$110 billion or Rp990 trillion! It's not
surprising therefore that Grasberg is referred to as the richest geological
treasure trove in the world. Nor is it surprising that Freeport will
protect this
to the death. On one occasion, James R. Moffett described just how much
Grasberg means to Freeport. "This is not just work," he said. "This is like
a
religion."

Yandhrie Arvian and M. Fasabeni

---


Indonesian govt wants to change Freeport royalty payment

JAKARTA, May 30 (Asia Pulse/Antara) - The Indonesian government said
it will not bow to pressure to close down PT Freeport Indonesia, a US
copper and gold mining company operating in the country's easternmost
region of Papua.

However, the government wants to immediately seek renegotiation of its
working contract especially concerning its royalty, which is
considered too small, Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo
Yusgiantoro said.

Local people in Papua and a number of observers have called for the
closure of the company accused of damaging the environment and not
being transparent about its gold and copper production and exports
causing the government losses in taxes.

A working team of legislators has said the government has been left in
the dark for 30 years about gold, silver and copper contents of
mineral concentrate exported by PT Freeport Indonesia from Papua.

Freeport has exported millions of tons of mineral concentrate from
Papua in the more than 30 years it has been operating in Papua without
the knowledge of the government about its gold, silver and copper
contents, the team chairman Tjatur Sapto said.

Purnomo said yesterday a new regulation will be needed to provide a
legal basis for a change to the royalty and other state income
generated from the mining sector.

--xxsd

---

The Case for Placating Jakarta (via Joyonews)

The Australian
Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Opinion

The Case for Placating Jakarta

Let's engage Indonesia in the reconstruction
of its former province

By Allan Behm

THE Howard Government moved with dispatch in deploying our soldiers to East
Timor. Jose Ramos Horta's protestations notwithstanding, Australia could not
have moved faster. Although the present situation is a disaster, the
Australian
Defence Force will eventually succeed in restoring law and order. But
Canberra
needs to address a more fundamental question: Will this stitch in time really
save nine?

East Timor poses a strategic conundrum for Australia: Why should a small and
impoverished country exert so immediate a call on our national resources? The
simple answer is location; a humanitarian disaster in East Timor not only
demands the alleviation of human suffering but also raises the spectre of
refugees, boatpeople, detention centres, the "Pacific solution" and all
the other
problems that so worry the darker side of the contemporary Australian
character.
The more profound answer, however, is also the more difficult: Indonesia.

Indonesia is pivotal to Australia's strategic prospects. If that relationship
is in trouble, Australia is in trouble. Our defence spending would need to
rise dramatically, thereby negating national investment alternatives, and our
capacity to concentrate on matters of more global significance would
diminish.
The measure of strategic harmony with Indonesia is less that our leaders are
mates than that both governments get on with the business of managing a
stable
and constructive relationship. Yet East Timor, even more than Papua, has the
potential to destabilise that relationship.

And Australia's record is not unblemished. In the mid-1970s, Suharto
interpreted Australian policy as one of connivance in the invasion of East
Timor and
its incorporation as a province of Indonesia, an assumption Australia
reinforced by granting de jure recognition.

Successive Australian governments accepted Indonesia's concern at the
prospect of a communist regime in post-colonial East Timor and effectively
acquiesced
in Indonesia's repressive approach to the independence movement there.

But growing international condemnation of Indonesian brutality in East Timor,
coupled with a strengthening separatist movement and justifiable concern
regarding the implications of East Timorese autonomy (or even
independence) for
Australian policy, persuaded the Howard Government to offer some pretty
robust
advice to president B.J. Habibie in 1998.

That advice was not well received, and, according to senior Indonesians then
working in Habibie's cabinet, precipitated the outcome Canberra was
seeking to
avoid. Indonesia cut and ran, trashed the place and left the mess that
distinguishes East Timor today, only this time former comrades in arms
against the
Indonesian occupation are killing each other.

Australia compounded this tactical misjudgment in four crucial ways: in a
"beggar thy neighbour" ploy, it sought to drive the toughest possible deal on
undersea resource development; it supported the creation of a freestanding
East
Timorese defence force, powerless in any serious defence role but a
natural and
armed alternative to an elected government; it withdrew Australian security
personnel from East Timor as soon as it could following the Interfet
deployment; and it encouraged the UN to do the same. A security vacuum
ensued, which the
events of the past few weeks have exploited.

Indonesian fears have not dissipated, however. Jakarta remains worried about
the effect of a Sandinista-type regime in Dili on separatist aspirations
within Indonesia: Aceh, Papua, Ambon, Maluku and Kalimantan. And East
Timor's Prime
Minister Mari Alkatiri, leading a Fretilin party that exists in a kind of
Castroist time warp, has done nothing to allay Indonesian concerns.

At the same time, Indonesia is suspicious of Australia. In a country where
conspiracy theories abound, Australia's intentions towards East Timor and
Papua
are viewed with scepticism. The longer Australian forces remain in East
Timor,
the deeper that scepticism will become. So the Howard Government faces an
exquisite strategic dilemma: How does it pacify East Timor, provide for its
long-term stability and security, taking all the time that will demand,
and at the
same time establish a modus vivendi with Indonesia? The answer may well
lie in
another communication between our Prime Minister and Indonesia's President,
though this time less to rattle Indonesia's chain than to engage our
neighbour
constructively in the economic and security reconstruction of East Timor.

Jakarta and Canberra, between them, are able to guarantee East Timor's
security, and a trilateral treaty to that effect would make good sense. The
insubordination of the East Timorese military offers a golden opportunity
to disband
the defence force. Then, perhaps, the long-suffering people of East Timor
could
focus on the police and the courts to protect their safety and security.
Peace is not just preferable to war: it is cheaper. A generous development
package
would be in Australia's security interests.

Allan Behm, a former head of the international policy and strategy divisions
in the Department of Defence, is a director of Knowledge Pond, which advises
on political risk and strategy.

---

Canberra Times (Australia)
May 31, 2006

Opinion

Why Indonesia treats us with anger, contempt

By Bruce Haigh

[Bruce Haigh is a retired Australian diplomat and the author of The
Great Australian Blight, a book on East Timor from the perspective of
Australia/Indonesia relations, and Pillars of Fear which examines
Australian failures and requirements in regional defence.]

GIVEN the history of Indonesian intelligence organisations, Kopassus
and other elements of the TNI over the past 30 years or so,
particularly in East Timor, West Papua and Aceh, it is inconceivable
that agents loyal to and paid by one or other of these agencies were
not present and active in Dili and other parts of East Timor over the
past six years.

Because of what the loss of East Timor represents to the Indonesian
military establishment in their primary role as protectors of the
territorial integrity of the Indonesian archipelago, they would have
maintained a sophisticated and highly tuned presence in East Timor
ready to exploit tensions and opportunities as they arose; both to
prove that East Timor is not a viable state and to tie up Australian
resources which they would expect to be deployed to East Timor
in the event of trouble.

No doubt they could not believe their luck when Australian troops were
withdrawn at the end of the UN mandate in February 2005.

They are cognisant of the fact that Australian military resources are
stretched thin.

They do not approve of our involvement in Iraq nor of our support for
US policies towards the Middle East, including Iran. To see Australia
suffer some inconvenience or even pain as a result would not unduly
concern elements of the Indonesian military and intelligence elite. To
assist that process might be the objective of some. Plausible
deniability has always underpinned such activities aided and abetted
by the apologists of the pro-Jakarta lobby in Australia.

It has only been two months since Indonesia recalled its ambassador
from Australia over the granting of protection visas to 42 West Papuan
refugees. The Australian media expressed concern that the relationship
had reached its lowest point since the first deployment of Australian
troops to East Timor in 1999.

That is not true. The relationship has had serious flaws and
difficulties for a long time.

>From time to time cracks appeared and after a time they were papered
over. But the frequency with which the cracks appear has been
increasing and the reason is the fundamentally dishonest nature of the
relationship.

The Indonesian military is prepared to be brutal towards the people of
the archipelago in order to maintain the territorial integrity of the
republic. This brutality is an ever-present part of life in those
provinces which want a different dispensation. It is a
well-established and documented pattern of behaviour demonstrated
since the invasion of East Timor in 1975. From time to time brutality
erupts into violence, at which point Australian governments have felt
constrained to comment and perhaps protest. The rest of the time
signals are passed which appear to accept brutality as a part of
Indonesian administration. The Javanese elite believe Australian
politicians talk with a forked tongue, that they vacillate, are
inconsistent, are weak and as a result have caused them
unnecessary problems at home and abroad.

In short, Australian diplomacy makes them angry.

If further proof were needed, recent Indonesian demands that Australia
junk the UN Refugee Convention relating to the processing of people
arriving by boat, that Australia reject support for West Papuan
independence and restate its recognition of that province as part of
Indonesia underline the level of anger and contempt that exists. It
also underlines the lengths to which an unchallenged Javanese elite
will go to protect its interests.

---

Indonesia spying on Papuans: Greens

AUSTRALIA'S intelligence chief has refused to comment on  allegations that
Indonesian officials are spying on West Papuans in  Australia.
    Director general of ASIO Paul O'Sullivan evaded questions about 
alleged Indonesian espionage raised by Greens senator Kerry Nettle  at
a Senate Estimates Committee meeting yesterday.
    Senator Nettle claimed that Indonesian security officials have  filmed
and photographed activists at pro-West Papuan demonstrations  in
Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. She said she had witnessed an 
Indonesian agent at a rally in Sydney.
    Greens leader Bob Brown had given documentation to the Minister  for
Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, she said.
    "I don't think the Federal Government should sit by and allow  foreign
intelligence officers to monitor Australian citizens,"  Senator Nettle
said.
    Justice Minister Chris Ellison declined to comment. "Matters of 
security and intelligence cannot be canvassed in a public forum,"  he
said.
    A spokesman for the Indonesian embassy in Canberra said he was  not
aware of Indonesian security officials spying on Papuans.
    SARAH SMILES