The Jakarta Post, 9/3/2004 2:30:47 PM
Indonesian rights body says military killed, tortured Papuans
JAKARTA (AFP): Indonesian security forces carried out gross human rights abuses
including murder, torture and arbitrary arrests during two incidents in remote eastern
Papua province, a rights body said on Friday.
The Indonesian National Human Rights Commission said two separate incidents in
June 2001 and April 2003 in Papua, where rebels have been waging a sporadic
separatist campaign, had given troops pretext to launch a violent crackdown.
It found "preliminary evidence that murder, torture and arrests" had been carried out
by military troops and police, the group's Abdul Hakim Garuda Nusantara told AFP.
The 2001 incident in the Papuan district of Wasior stemmed from the killings of five
elite police paramilitary personnel by unknown attackers during a raid on a base camp
of a private firm in the area.
Police carrying out a manhunt after the attack killed at least one civilian they accused
of involvement.
The 2003 case in Wamena district occurred after a raid on a military armory by
gunmen who made off with some 29 grenades and thousands of rounds of
ammunition.
The military, who had accused the rebel Free Papua Movement of carrying out the
raid, deployed troops who allegedly had tortured and arrested civilians and carried out
arson in the area.
Amnesty International in a report last year said troops had tortured villagers and
torched homes during a hunt for separatist rebels.
The London-based group said a human rights activist who had been briefly detained at
a military headquarters in Wamena in April 2003 had reported seeing at least 20
detainees who had been tortured.
Abdul Hakim said his commission would later Friday submit its findings from both
cases to the attorney general's office for "further investigation and legal process" by
state prosecutors.
The military has been accused of widespread abuses in Papua. Seven soldiers have
been jailed for the killing of pro-independence leader Theys Eluay in November 2001.
(**)
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