[Kabar-Irian] Irian News - 3/23/06 (Part 2 of 3)

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The Age (Melbourne)
Papua on brink of more violence: report
March 23, 2006 - 2:29PM

Indonesia's restive Papua is on the brink of another surge in violence
with the province's fledgling representative body in danger of imminent
collapse, a new report has warned.

Under special autonomy laws meant to provide indigenous Papuans with more
power over their own affairs, Indonesia's government last October agreed
to set up a special council drawn from tribal leaders, religious groups
and public figures.

The Papuan People's Council, established after years of delay, was meant
to provide a buffer to rule from distant Jakarta, helping dampen the
grievances of Papuan separatists.

But after demonstrators last week beat and stoned to death five members of
the security forces at a protest against a US-owned gold mine, a new
report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) warns the five-month-old
council is now in danger of collapse.

Australian Crisis Group analyst Francesca Lawe-Davies said last week's
riots in Jayapura against the giant US-owned Freeport gold and copper mine
highlighted the fragile state of the council.

"The anti-Freeport violence was a way of venting frustration over
long-running grievances ranging from a lack of justice for past abuses to
poverty and corruption to the role of the military in the province," she
said.

"But the very institution that should have a key role in managing these
tensions, the Papuan People's Council, is currently paralysed, partly by
government mishandling but also by its own ineptitude."

Lawe-Davies said the council, known as the Majelis Rakyat Papua, or MRP,
was the most representative body yet to emerge in Papua.

Separatists in the province have waged a low-level insurgency against
Indonesian rule for decades since a 1969 UN-sanctioned vote handed the
province to Jakarta in a referendum widely seen as rigged.

Since then, often brutal or bungled rule has only seen independence
sentiment increase.

Australia has agreed to provide temporary residence visas to 42 of 43
Papuans who landed in Cape York in January claiming Jakarta was carrying
out a campaign of genocide in the province.

ICG said the demise of the people's council would have "grave
consequences" given the region's current volatility.

"Failure to bolster it could deal a fatal blow to the autonomy package
granted to the restive province in 2001, in which many Papuans are already
losing faith," the report said.

It called for President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who has promised to end
the long-running Papua conflict, to meet with the council and acknowledge
its importance.

"The MRP, for its part, should move beyond non-negotiable demands and
offer realistic policy options to make autonomy work," the report said.

Sidney Jones, Crisis Group's South-East Asia Director, said if the council
was allowed to fail, separatist sentiment in Papua would only intensify.

"The central government needs to realise that it is in its own interest to
help the Papuan People's Council succeed," she said.
-- © 2006 AAP
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Detik.com
March 20, 2006
Conflict over TNI, police businesses triggered Freeport riot: Kontras

Jakarta -- The National Intelligence Agency (BIN) has accused
non-government organisations (NGOs) of sponsoring the bloody incident in
Abepura, West Papua. But NGOs are pointing the finger at conflicts over
the provision of security businesses by the TNI (Indonesian military) and
national police (Polri).

Large payments have been found to have been made by PT Freeport Indonesia
to rogue elements of the TNI and Polri. The Abepura riot that killed three
Mobile Brigade and one Airforce officer are suspected to be linked to
conflicts over security businesses.

“I think that underlying the recent problems in Abepura there was a
problem of conflicting business interests between the TNI and Polri in
relation to the provision of security to vital installations at Freeport”,
said the coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of
Violence (Kontras), Usman Hamid, at his office on Jl. Borobudur in Jakarta
on Monday March 20.

Hamid cited as evidence the Global Witness report in July 2005 that said
there were financial payments by Freeport to rogue elements of the TNI and
Polri and military institutions such as the regional military command in
2001 of as much as US$5.6 million. “Isn’t that an irregularity. It could
also be called a bribe”, said Hamid.

Hamid is of the view that an independent audit is needed of the monies
Freeport has paid to the government, including money Freeport has paid for
security services. “Government officials often say NGOs are foreign
lackeys. But I think the government’s behaviour is far worse”, said Hamid.

As well as an independent audit continued Hamid, there needs to be a
review of security systems in the provision of security for vital
installations. “It must emphasise the transfer of security tasks for vital
installations to the national police”, asserted Hamid. (sss)
-- [Translated by James Balowski.]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Jakarta Post.com
Opinion
March 23, 2006
Probable reasons for the violence in Papua
Aleksius Jemadu, Bandung

The student protest in front of Cendrawasih State University in Abepura on
March 16, 2006 was not an ordinary one. Otherwise the protesters would not
have gone so far as to kill three riot policemen and an Air Force officer.
It must have been a climax of an accumulation of frustration on the part
of the Papuans, who have become desperate in the midst of a political game
among the political elite, who compete for control over and economic
appropriation in the province.

An expert on inter-state conflict, Michael Brown (1996), says that we have
to distinguish the underlying from proximate causes of an internal
conflict. The underlying causes of internal conflict concern mass-level
factors, such as economic injustice and political repression.

The problem with these underlying factors is that we cannot predict when
an outbreak of violence is going to occur. Therefore, according to Brown,
we have to find the proximate causes of the conflict. In most cases, the
spread of violence is triggered by a struggle of power among political
leaders, in which the grassroots have no part at all.

It should be noted that students played an important role in initiating
the protest against the state authority. They represented the educated
section of the Papuan people, who are increasingly critical and cynical
about how the political leaders in Jakarta and Papua have been dealing
with the region's future.

As far as the Papuan students are concerned, the presence of the U.S. gold
mine subsidiary PT Freeport Indonesia on Papuan soil is a modern symbol of
a very powerful collaboration between external powers, whose main business
is how to perpetuate their profit-making activities without disruption by
local people.

There is no doubt that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is committed to
the use of peaceful means in resolving the conflict in restive provinces
like Papua and Aceh. It goes without saying that the Papuans are watching
carefully how the central government is going to award some political and
economic concessions to the Acehnese through the formulation of the law on
the governance of Aceh. Such a comparison is inevitable as the Papuans
also want similar treatment.

Although it is not yet clear how the House of Representatives will
translate the principles mentioned in the Helsinki Memorandum of
Understanding on Aceh peace, the central government has implicitly
admitted that it has to go beyond the special autonomy law in addressing
the grievances of the Acehnese.

There is even a prospect of having local political parties in Aceh. In
fact, recently some political activists declared the establishment of the
first local political party in Aceh, called the Acehnese People's Party
(Partai Rakyat Aceh or PRA).

At the same time, there is no clear indication that the central government
will treat Papua the same. Nor is there any honest confession on the part
of the central government that it has failed to empower the grassroots
through the implementation of the 2001 Law on Special Autonomy for Papua.

In fact, the home minister has played down the objections raised by the
chairman of the Papuan People's Assembly (MRP), Agus Alue Alua, who urged
a delay to the local election in West Irian Jaya. According to the MRP,
the establishment of new provinces in Papua should be proposed by the
Papuans themselves and not imposed from above by the central government.

It is interesting to see that the opposition to the formation of West
Irian Jaya province came as the students were demanding Freeport's
closure. There are several reasons behind the protest.

First, they consider the establishment of the new province a blatant
insult to the MRP, whose members are to be respected. The election of the
West Irian Jaya governor delegitimized the MRP in front of its
constituents.

Second, in the eyes of the students, the establishment of the new province
will only lead to the strengthening of control by the central government
as such a policy will create new civilian and security bureaucracies
representing Jakarta's interests.

Third, although the local elections have been peacefully conducted, the
Papuan students suspect that the central government has been instrumental
in inciting conflict among the Papuan leaders themselves. This was
precisely the reason why these young people felt so powerless and
frustrated that they came to justify any means to convey their message.

Let us just hope that the political leaders in Jakarta are wise enough to
see the Papuan issue in its wider perspective. Surely, we mourn those
killed in the Abepura clash. At the same time, we also need to lend some
empathy to thousands of Papuans who still live in dire conditions.
-- The writer is the Head of the International Relations Department and
Head of the MA Study Program in Social Sciences at Parahyangan University
in Bandung. His field of research focuses on civil and internal conflict.
He can be reached at aljemadu at yahoo.co.uk.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ABC/Radio Australia
Indonesians in hiding after Papua protest
Thursday, March 23, 2006. 12:26pm (AEDT)
By foreign affairs editor Peter Cave

Up to 1,200 students are reported to be hiding in the hills around
Jayapura, the capital of Indonesia's Papua province, fearful of revenge
attacks by members of the Indonesian Police Mobile Brigade (BRIMOB).

BRIMOB has a reputation for brutality in dealing with separatist conflicts
in places such as Papua and Aceh and has been strongly criticised by
international human rights groups on many occasions.

A student rally last week demanding the closure of the giant US operated
Freeport Gold and Copper Mine deteriorated into a riot that police say has
left six people dead including five members of the security forces.

Elsham human rights group spokesman Aloy Renwarin says the 1,200 students
who live in dormitories at the state-run Cendrawasih University, which was
at the centre of the clash last week, are in hiding.

He says they are hungry and some are in need of medical attention.

The university remains closed and the streets are tense.

However, when asked to go on tape, he refused, saying he feared reprisals.

Local student association spokesman Hans Magel spoke by mobile phone from
Timica near the site of the mine that the students say is polluting the
environment, and is tacitly condoning human rights abuses by the
Indonesian Security forces it pays to protect it from locals displaced by
the operation.

"The students are hiding in the jungle because they feel threatened. They
are short of food, the conditions are not sanitary... it's an emergency
situation," he said.

Last week, Indonesian television footage showed police shooting directly
at students in the university grounds but the authorities still have not
released details of casualties among the demonstrators, maintaining at
first that only blanks were used and then that police only fired into the
air.

Police have confirmed to reporters that members of BRIMOB involved in the
clash have been confined to barracks and their weapons, about 40 in all,
have been taken from them for examination.

Indonesian reporters in Jayapura were reportedly beaten by members of
BRIMOB and had their cameras smashed in the hours and days after the riot

"I can't tell you exactly how many were shot," Mr Magel said.

"In such traumatic circumstances, we ourselves are finding it difficult
gathering casualty figures. The latest information we have is that 22 were
seriously injured."

Indonesian daily Koran Tempo has quoted a spokesman for Indonesia's
Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono, as saying the minister believes
Australian Greens Senator Kerry Nettle was indirectly linked to last
week's violence.

The newspaper says Senator Nettle was a supporter of Papuan independence
and was intending to travel to Papua province next month.

When the ABC talked to the spokesman, Bonnie Leonard, he denied the
newspaper report, but confirmed the minister would appeal to Senator
Nettle not to visit because it was not safe and that the visit might
create more violence.

Senator Nettle says she has not applied to go to Papua but she would like to.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Jakarta Post.com
Headline News
March 23, 2006
Death toll in Papua clash rises to 5
Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura

A police officer died Wednesday from injuries suffered in last week's
clashes with protesters in Jayapura, raising the official death toll to
five, a Papua Police spokesman said.

Sr. Comr. Kartono Wangsadisastra said Mobile Brigade member First Brig.
Suhad Eko Pranoto, 28, who had been in a coma since last Thursday, died at
7:30 a.m. at Abepura Hospital from head and spinal injuries.

"Eko's death brings the number of deaths in the bloody incident in front
of Cendrawasih University to five," Kartono said.

The native of Ngawi, East Java, was the fourth police officer killed in
the incident, while an Air Force soldier also died. All five were involved
in efforts to break up a rally on March 16, when protesters blocked a road
near the campus in Abepura in the provincial capital of Jayapura.

Eko suffered a fractured skull and damaged spine after security officers
were hit by stones thrown by protesters, who were demanding the closure of
the gold and copper mine run by PT Freeport Indonesia.

Kartono explained six other police officers were still being treated at
Bhayangkara Hospital in Jayapura, with one scheduled to undergo surgery
for head injuries.

Eko's body was flown from Jayapura to Surabaya later Wednesday for burial
in his hometown.

Meanwhile, the Papua Legislative Council (DPRP) decided Tuesday to
postpone for two months its plan to hold a plenary meeting to discuss the
mounting demands for the closure of Freeport's mine.

DPRP deputy speaker Komarudin Watubun said the postponement of Wednesday's
meeting was made after taking security into consideration and also the
unavailability of complete data needed for assessment.

Last week's clashes underlined the hatred many Papuans feel toward the
military and police in Papua. The remote province is home to a
decades-long separatist rebellion and has seen scores of rights abuses by
troops, according to AP.

Operations at the mine, believed to have the world's third-largest copper
reserves and one of the biggest gold deposits, were halted for four days
last month before demonstrators, mostly illegal miners, left the mine site
near the town of Timika.

The mine is a flashpoint for disputes of many kinds. Some demonstrators
are not interested in closing it but want a bigger share of proceeds to go
to local people and regional governments, Reuters reported.

In Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province, about 500 protesters,
including Papuan students studying on the island, held an anti-Freeport
rally Wednesday.

The demonstrators burned a U.S. flag in front of a monument marking
Indonesia's takeover of Papua in the 1960s after centuries of Dutch
colonial rule.

Similar demonstrations were held in the cities of Mamuju in South
Sulawesi, Surabaya and Bandung.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
BBC
Thursday, 16 March 2006, 13:02 GMT
Protests demanding the closure of a huge gold mine in Indonesia's Papua
province have ended in violence with at least three policemen killed.

The BBC News website spoke to church minister Benny Giay, who went into
the midst of the protest to negotiate with protesters.

------------------------
It all began yesterday when students blocked the road. There were about
1,000 students out on the streets.

But today at around 9am local time I was told that the police had arrived
and were about to force the students to open the road. I knew it could get
ugly.

The students resisted and two hours later there were reports of shootings.

Students were swarming everywhere. They burned tyres on the road. They
felled coconut trees and blocked the road with the trunks.

They were angry and they were loud. They want to see the Freeport mine
operations stopped.

They collected stones and were throwing them at the police and the mobile
brigades. They shouted out:

"Indonesia you are lying. You are robbers. You have been here for years
and you have been stealing from us. Go home!"

The students said they had been driven to this. They feel oppressed and
colonised. They say that although the Indonesian government has been
trying to hide its colonial face for years, Papuans have come to realise
that this is not the kind of life they want.

Church mission
When the shooting started and the violence escalated everybody realised
the situation had got out of hand. The police chief of Papua went to the
Bishop of Jayapura and asked him what the Catholic Church could to do deal
with the students.

I went with a group of Church leaders to the site of the violence. The
students opened the road for us as we were from the Church.

When we got to the Catholic theological college, we started to meet the
casualties. One student had been shot in his left arm. The first hospital
he visited couldn't treat him and the second hospital he went to was being
guarded by the military, so he was hesitant to go in.

He returned to campus and that's where I met him. We took him and two
other victims who had been shot with real bullets - not just rubber
bullets - to hospital.

The bishop and the Church wrote a "pastoral letter" to be broadcast on
local television and radio calling on the police to stop searching houses
and students in dormitories and also calling on students to keep quiet and
to look for constructive modes of dialogue.

'A brutal history'
But dangers to some students still exist. I'm trying to help two students
to a hiding place away from Jayapura. They are scared, they don't know
what reprisals could be enacted, this place has a brutal history.

I want to see a Papua free from fear, terror and oppression. I think the
Freeport mine has become a symbol of all this. It is seen to collaborate
with all the systems of state and so it too is seen as an oppressive
force.

That is why it all exploded so violently.

The way we see it, West Papuans are living inside a house called the
Republic of Indonesia. We are given one room in this house and it is
heavily guarded by the military and the police.

Jakarta decides our menu, what to eat, what kind of clothes we wear. We
have no freedom.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pacific Beat/Radio Australia
Last Updated 23/03/2006
Indon: Four killed in Papua mine protest

The Uniting Church in Australia has called for dialogue and calm in the
Indonesian province of Papua, in the wake of a violent demonstration which
left four Indonesian security personnel dead. The three policemen and a
military intelligence officer were killed at a protest on Saturday by
hundreds of demonstrators, mainly students, who claimed they were fighting
off a police assault at Cendrawasih University in the provincial capital,
Jayapura. The protest was demanding closure of the giant Freeport Mine,
claiming it's multibillion-dollar profits are not benefitiing the people
of Papua, which comprises the mainly Melanesian western half of New Guinea
island.

Presenter/Interviewer: Bruce Hill
Speakers: John Ondowame, international spokesman for the OPM; Reverend Dr
Dean Drayton, President of the Uniting Church in Australia

HILL: It's a violent upsurge in the Indonesian province, which has seen a
low-level pro-independence insurgency by the Free Papua Movement, the OPM,
for many years.

The international spokesman for the OPM, John Ondowame, who' based in
Vanuatu, says things are still very tense in Papua.

ONDOWAME: The situation in West Papua right now is very strictly
controlled by Indonesian military and people are not allowed to move
around, exercising their freedom of movement. Many demonstrators,
including 73 people have been arrested. Some of the students now run away,
hiding in the bush.

HILL: Well some of those students might have something to fear. At the
protest, four Indonesian security personnel were killed, two of the bodies
were actually doused with petrol and set on fire, and one had his skull
crushed with a rock. This is a pretty violent sort of thing to happen?

ONDOWAME: It was a peaceful demonstration. They demanded the closure of
Freeport mining because of reports it is responsible for human rights
abuses, environmental destruction and lack of negotiation with the
landowners, Amungme and Kamoro and the Papuans. Therefore people were
angry and this anger had been there for many, many years.

HILL: It doesn't sound very peaceful if four security personnel were
murdered?

ONDOWAME: It was provoked by Indonesian military because in the beginning,
people, students, they sat down and addressed their grievances to the
authorities. But when the Indonesians provoked the situation and they
directly responded by demonstrating against the police.

HILL: Meanwhile, Papuan church leaders have appealed for outside help.

Reverend Dr Dean Drayton, President of the Uniting Church in Australia,
says they have a close relationship with the Evangelical Church in the
Indonesian province, and they want to help raise their concerns
internationally.

DRAYTON: The church leaders are saying to us very clearly, 'this is not
about independence, it's about how can the autonomy of the province that's
been promised by the Indonesian government, how can that be put into
practice?' Because they feel that they are losing all that has been
precious to them, and the levels of frustration are rising as that sense
of loss and the use of resources of their province are not being
adequately used within the province. They fear that that's just going to
keep on continuing and they want that to stop.

HILL: So what's the Uniting Church in Australia doing in response to this?

DRAYTON: We are listening to what's happening, in regular communication,
and when the invitation came or the request came that we in fact speak to
the Australian government and to the Indonesian government, on the weekend
at a national meeting of our standing committee we in fact are calling
upon the Indonesian authorities to act responsibly and with restraint in
Papua, and to offer more opportunities for dialogue with Papuan religious
and community leaders.

HILL: Four people are dead, members of the security forces, are you
concerned about that aspect of things?

DRAYTON: Of course because when people are killed we're not sure of all of
the events that happened when we look from here. But clearly there were
demonstrations which were reflecting the deep and rising levels of
frustration of the indigenous people in Papua. And whatever happened in
the confrontation, when it leads to in fact police being killed, and
possibly students being killed, then we must be really concerned.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Asia Times Online
March 22, 2003
Tribal Tribulation
Papuan anger focuses on world's richest mine
By John McBeth

Jakarta - The pretext may have been demands for the closure of Freeport
Indonesia's Grasberg copper and gold mine, 500 kilometers away across
Papua's rugged central highlands. But while focusing on the world's most
profitable mine attracted international attention, the true motivation for
last week's bloody demonstrations in Papua's provincial capital, Jayapura,
ran much deeper.

The student-led protests, in which four policemen, an air force officer
and a protester were beaten and stoned to death, underline once again the
need for the Indonesian government to do a lot more to address the remote
territory's grievances, which range from an unfair distribution of the
wealth gleaned from its natural resources to political double-dealing in
Jakarta and a deep-rooted disrespect for Papuan culture.

Analysts say the demonstrations last Thursday had been planned for months
by two radical groups allegedly linked to the territory's fizzling
independence movement. Those plans appear to have pre-dated last month's
unrelated blockade of the Grasberg mine itself,  where police clashed with
several hundred illegal miners panning for gold in the mine tailings, or
waste rock, just below Freeport's mill.

As it was, the trouble with the miners, which dates back several years,
served as the pretext for a March 14 attack on the four-star Sheraton
Hotel near the lowlands town of Timika. That attack has been blamed on
members of the Association of Mountain Papua Students (AMPS), an offshoot
of the newly formed Front Pepera Papua Barat and one of the two activist
groups believed to be behind the violence in Jayapura two days later. The
groups are relatively new, and little is known about them apart from their
links with the independence movement.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has made it clear he has no intention
of bowing to protesters and closing the Grasberg mine, which last year
earned the central government US$1.1 billion in taxes and royalties. Hit
hard by the $5 billion Bre-X gold scam in 1997 and by a controversial
ongoing pollution case against the US mining company Newmont, Indonesia's
mining industry is already in the doldrums and struggling to attract new
investment.

Yudhoyono also pointedly warned Jakarta's political elite against becoming
embroiled in the Papua situation, a reference to opposition figures and
other critics who have been seeking to turn public opinion against
Freeport and US oil company ExxonMobil. Only last week, Exxon was given
the go-ahead to act as the operator of Java's new Cepu oilfield after a
prolonged dispute with the state-run Pertamina oil company, in which
Yudhoyono personally intervened.

Never far from the surface, and often used as a potent weapon by Jakarta
power-holders to pressure the government for personal gain, Indonesian
nationalism in recent years has become increasingly linked to US actions
around the world, particularly those perceived to be an attack on Islam.
Recent protests by Islamic activists included both Freeport and Exxon in a
long shopping list of complaints.

Political manipulation may also be at play. Defense Minister Sudarsono
said this week that there seemed to be "integrated coordination"
connecting separate demonstrations in the past few days at Cepu and the
burning this Sunday of a Newmont Mining Corp exploration camp, 60km from
the company's copper and gold mine on the island of Sumbawa. It was not
clear whether he was referring to actions of opposition politicians or
radical environmentalists.

In Papua, however, a different form of nationalism is ascendant, born out
of the region's incorporation into the Indonesian republic in a
controversial United Nations-sanctioned vote of "free choice" in 1969.
Jakarta's inept handling of its easternmost province and a barely
disguised disdain for the Papuans, who ethnically are distinct from the
ruling Javanese, have only exacerbated a problem that now seems to have
attracted a new and perhaps more radical generation of activists whose
ultimate objective appears to be Papua's independence.

Front Pepera, one of the new radical groups, is reputedly led by Hans
Gebze, an Australian-educated member of the dominant Dani highland tribe
who has strong links with Australian leftist groups. Crisis Group
International (CGI) analyst Francesa Lawe-Davies said it is difficult to
determine what the organization stands for, but noted: "We haven't seen
this level of coordination for several years."

The latest disturbances come after a year in which Freeport contributed
five times as much to central government coffers as ever before. Since
1992, royalties and taxes have averaged an annual $180 million, with the
company adding more to the economy in the form of salaries, local
procurements for food and other supplies, and community-development and
local-government programs.

The problem, of course, lies in how much actually goes to Papua - an issue
that rests solely with the central government. Of this year's $1.1
billion, Papua is guaranteed 80% of the royalties, or a paltry $65
million. Even then, instead of being sent directly to Jayapura, the money
must first go to the notoriously tight-fisted Finance Ministry in Jakarta
before it is redistributed.

Last-minute changes to the 2001 Special Autonomy Law by Jakarta's House of
Representatives denied Papua a share of corporate taxes, by far the
largest chunk of the annual payments. But as compensation, it is supposed
to receive an additional 2% of the total grant Jakarta hands out to
regional governments each year. That, according to a recent World Bank
review, amounted to about Rp1.8 trillion ($200 million) in 2005 - to go
along with the more than Rp3 trillion it gets as a normal allocation.

Papuan leaders complain about the slow disbursal of funds, but Jakarta has
a complaint of its own. Local police and prosecutors, working under the
supervision of the Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK), are currently
investigating widespread corruption in the governor's office and several
of the province's 19 regencies. Jakarta is also scratching its head about
the whereabouts of $4 million it recently provided in electoral support
funds to Papuan officials. As in Aceh, Indonesia's other special autonomy
region, Papua has not always been well served by its own elite.

Up the coast from Freeport, BP is developing the 24-trillion-cubic-foot
Tangguh gas field, which will eventually provide the major source of
income for the newly created Indonesian province of West Irian Jaya.
Although revenues will only begin to flow after a four-year cost-recovery
period, the company is expected to contribute as much as $200 million a
year to the province when Tangguh reaches full production capacity in
2016.

Under a complicated formula that also applies to Aceh, 70% of post-tax
revenue will be divided up between the provincial administration in Sorong
(40%), the three districts affected by the project (30%) and the central
government (30%). Now, $200 million would appear to be far more than the
threadbare West Irian Jaya administration could absorb without slippage.

If finances are a problem, the political situation in Papua is a minefield
of Jakarta's own making. While the rebel Free Papua Movement's (OPM)
stuttering bow-and-arrow insurgency hardly poses a serious challenge to
Indonesian security forces, the threat of spreading civic unrest could
well be real if the government continues to treat the Papuans as less than
equals.

The latest recipe for rancor has been the March 10 local elections, which
in effect cemented in place West Irian Jaya as a separate province and
ignored the entreaties of moderate Papuan leaders to give the idea more
time. The passage of a 1999 bill dividing Papua into three provinces -
Papua, Central Irian Jaya and West Irian Jaya - has long been a catalyst
for discontent, particularly among the elite in Jayapura who stand to lose
the most.

In 2001, president Abdurrahman Wahid's administration enacted the Special
Autonomy Law, which states that any territorial division has to be
approved by a 42-member Papuan People's Council (MRP). But avowed
pluralist Wahid was subsequently replaced by avowed nationalist Megawati
Sukarnoputri, who proceeded to issue a presidential decree in early 2003
creating West Irian Jaya - covering all of Papua's so-called Bird's Head
region.

Legal experts say the special-autonomy legislation trumps the 1999 bill,
but it has one glaring loophole: there is nothing that specifically says
it supersedes previous laws. Former ambassador Sabam Siagian, a member of
the Papua Forum, is also critical of the fact that Megawati's home affairs
minister, retired army general Hary Subarno, appears to have deliberately
delayed the formation of the people's council.

Indonesia's Constitutional Court last year gave the green light to the
creation of West Irian Jaya, but the whole episode and the decision to go
ahead with the elections is seen as another case of Jakarta riding
roughshod over Papua's newly won autonomous status. "What's so damaging is
that they have been ignored," Siagian said. "The deeper problem is that
Jakarta doesn't have the attention span to deal with Papua."

Under the best of circumstances, covering events in Papua in any objective
way is difficult - even on the ground. But the government and its myriad
opposition groups don't make it any easier, first by denying access to
foreign journalists and applying a selective process to other
dispassionate observers, and also by leveling an unending stream of
human-rights-violation allegations at Indonesian security forces that have
not been independently verified.

Take the case of 43 Papuans who sailed in January from the coastal town of
Merauke to Australia's Cape York Peninsula in an outrigger canoe and are
now seeking political asylum. Leaving aside the veracity of their claims
of torture and repression by Indonesian soldiers, the episode illustrates
the problem of trying to get a clear picture of what is going on in
Indonesia's largest and least-populated territory.

Papuan and Western human-rights groups claim the Indonesian military is
still engaged in genocide on a scale previously seen in East Timor, but
Jakarta-based Western diplomats say they have seen nothing to support
those allegations. Many Australians betray a bias by referring to the
territory as West Papua, the same name used by the independence movement.
Although the province was called Irian Jaya during president Suharto's
rule, it was subsequently changed by Wahid's administration to Papua - not
West Papua.

East Timor has clearly left an indelible mark on the Australian psyche.
While that is understandable given its life-saving role after the bloody
events of 1999 and Indonesia's refusal to punish those responsible for the
violence, there is a sense in Indonesia that certain Australian
human-rights groups are now rubbing their hands and thinking they can help
to accomplish independence for Papua as well.

This month the Australian ambassador to the United States, former spy
chief Dennis Richardson, asked that same question in a speech criticizing
the motives of those fighting for Papua's independence. "Perhaps those
critics cling to an Indonesia which no longer exists, and for them to
accept the Indonesia of today and to reinforce the positive developments
in Indonesia is to deprive them of their raison d'etre," he said.

In a country such as Indonesia whose intelligence services often prefer to
deal more in conspiracy theories than fact, it feeds into the long-held
belief that Australia is out to dismember its vast northern neighbor. That
may seem implausible, but for diehard nationalists - particularly in the
military and the House of Representatives - it is no laughing matter and
frequently arises in public statements.

The government, on the other hand, has failed to provide any genuine
reassurances that it has improved its treatment of the Papuans - yet
another example of Indonesia's lack of attention to public relations and
to international opinion. Critics say closing the province off to Western
journalists and independent human-rights monitors, as has been the case
for the past three years, inevitably leaves the impression that Jakarta
has something to hide.

Minister Sudarsono, a political scientist who has been trying to reform
the military, makes it clear that the government's closed-door policy
won't change any time soon. What makes the government nervous, he
explained recently, is that foreign reporters will act as a magnet for
disaffected Papuan groups and only worsen an already difficult, though
hardly crisis, situation.

The Indonesian military has an unenviable reputation to live down, but its
more recent behavior in Aceh shows it may be making important progress on
the human-rights front. Western diplomats say the last verified case of
serious rights abuse in Papua occurred two years ago, in response to a
separatist raid on an armory in the central-highlands town of Wamena.

Observers also note that during the latest disturbances in Jayapura and
Timika, the paramilitary Police Mobile Brigade, a notoriously
trigger-happy force that goes by the unfortunate acronym of "Brimob",
appears to have acted with considerable restraint. Although four members
of the security forces died and another 19 were wounded in the Jayapura
incident, there is no evidence so far that they killed any protesters.

Thousands of students, however, have taken to the hills fearing reprisals
in the wake of the recent violence. Witnesses say that the police also
appear to have made tactical mistakes in dealing with the protesters.

Sudarsono acknowledged there have been past incidents of brutality and
rape committed by government troops, but he said there is a tendency to
insinuate that they were systemic and institutionally inspired. The same
bias was obvious in the coverage of the August 2002 ambush that killed two
American schoolteachers in the now-infamous Tamika ambush, with some
Western newspapers alleging - without supporting evidence - that it had
been planned by the top military leadership.

One of the biggest issues internationally is the government's military
strength in Papua. Military analysts, relying on a variety of sources, now
say there are 11,000 troops spread across the largely roadless territory -
not 15,000 as has been widely reported. That is still substantially more
than was originally thought, an indication the army may have beefed up
under-strength battalions already in the province, particularly those
stationed close to the Papua New Guinea border. There are currently more
soldiers per citizen in Papua than anywhere else in Indonesia - though
Papua is a massive territory to defend.

Human-rights groups, who use the high-end figure, claim reinforcements are
continuing to be sent in. Jakarta, on the other hand, insists that they
are deliberately misreading normal yearly rotations. Government officials
privately admit that because most of the troops are based in and around
towns, it leaves the impression the province is over-militarized.

The government's plan to base a third Army Strategic Reserve (Kostrad)
division in Sorong, the old oil-mining town that serves as the West Irian
Jaya provincial capital, won't be realized until 2014, a much longer term
than originally thought. Even then, the division will be split between
Sulawesi and Papua, with the apparent task of strengthening security
across the entire eastern region. Both existing Kostrad divisions are
based on Java.

All this conforms with recent moves, precipitated by the Ambalat
territorial dispute with Malaysia over oil resources, to pay more
attention to the country's territorial integrity. In Papua, for example,
diplomatic sources say that the army is departing from its previous
anti-guerrilla posture and putting greater emphasis on combined
battalion-level operations that fit better with its newly defined role as
an external defense force.

Like many countries in Southeast Asia, Indonesia has dealt poorly with its
minorities. Papua is perhaps the most glaring example, a vast Melanesian
territory whose people and culture are starkly different from those of the
rest of the archipelago. The Javanese, in particular, who continue to have
a dominant influence on Indonesian public life, have shown little patience
for the Papuans, their aspirations or their culture.

It is this unhappy attitude that the Indonesian government has to
overcome. Sudarsono, a Javanese himself, understands it well. He told
foreign reporters recently that a lack of respect for Papua's unique
culture ranks alongside economic injustice and unfair distribution of
state income as one of the biggest problems confronting efforts to bring
about genuine reconciliation.
-- John McBeth is a former correspondent with the Far Eastern Economic
Review. He is currently a Jakarta-based freelance journalist.
-- (Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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