Associated Press, Thursday November 18, 4:59 PM
Human rights groups accuses Indonesian military of involvement
in Papuan killing
Associated Press
Indonesian troops may have been involved in an attack last week that left a police
officer dead in the restive province of Papua, a human rights group said Thursday and
warned it could spark civil war in the region.
The military said about 100 rebels armed with axes and swords attacked a
government convoy on Nov. 12, as they traveled to the town of Mulia, about 2,300
miles (3,701 kilometers) northeast of Jakarta.
Insurgents with the Free Papua Movement were behind the attack that left one police
officer dead and 12 officials wounded, local military commander Maj. Gen. Nurdin
Zainal told El-Shinta radio.
But John Rumbiak, the international Advocacy Coordinator for the West Papuan
Institute for Human Rights Study and Advocacy, known as Elsham, said the attack
may have been staged by elite Indonesian troops.
"It is likely that Papuans have been used to carry out this attack by the army special
forces, Kopassus, who have been using local groups in Papua in the same way they
manipulated East Timorese to fight their own people," he said in a statement released
in Sydney.
"This is a precursor to civil war," he added.
In East Timor, Jakarta-backed local militias went on a bloody rampage before, during
and after a U.N.-sponsored vote in which the East Timorese overwhelmingly supported
their country's move for independence from Indonesia.
In the statement, Rumbiak said the military action, "threatens the administration of
President (Susilo Bambang) Yudhoyono with a situation where he must give them the
green light for a new military operation. They have already begun to engineer incidents
which will destabilize his presidency."
Indonesia took over Papua from Dutch colonial rule in 1963. Its sovereignty over the
region was formalized in 1969 through a stage-managed vote by about 1,000
community leaders, which critics dismissed as a sham.
A small, poorly armed separatist movement has battled Jakarta's rule ever since.
About 100,000 Papuans - one-sixth of the population - have died in military
operations.
Rights groups have long accused the military of widespread abuses in the province,
including forcibly displacing families and killing unarmed independence supporters.
The province also is home to the largest gold and copper mine in the world, which is
operated by New Orleans-based Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Mine Inc.
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