[Kabar-Irian] Irian News - 6/18-23/03 (Part 1 of 2)

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- A Nightmare, and a Mystery, in the Jungle 
- U.S. Senate moves against RI military over Papua incident 
- OCHA Consolidated Situation Report No. 133
- Two separatist rebels wounded in clash in Papua 
- TNI shoots rebel in Papua 
- Police seize 105 arms in Papua raids 
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Washington Post
A Nightmare, and a Mystery, in the Jungle 
-- Ambush of School Outing Left 3 Dead, 8 Wounded And Suspicion of Involvement 
by Indonesian Army 
By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 22, 2003; Page A01 

>From the back seat, social studies teacher Steve Emma heard what he thought 
were rocks striking the Toyota Land Cruiser carrying him and his colleagues 
from the Tembagapura International School on a picnic outing through the rain 
forest of Papua, Indonesia, on Aug. 31, 2002.

Then the windshield shattered.

Rick Spier, behind the steering wheel, jerked and pitched forward. Blood and 
tissue splattered onto the seat and dashboard. In the passenger seat, principal 
Edwin "Ted" Burgon slumped over, moaning and gurgling.

"Get down! Get down!" Emma shouted to the two women behind the front seats. As 
bullets riddled the vehicle, owned by the teachers' employer, the PT Freeport 
Indonesia gold and copper mine, Emma peeked out the windshield. He could make 
out three figures. One held a rifle.

He strained to see their faces. But the thick fog and cracked window glass 
obscured his view. "Who are you?" Emma recalled asking. "Why are you doing 
this?"

Today, nearly 10 months later, the U.S. government still does not know for 
certain who ordered or carried out the ambush in which two Americans and one 
Indonesian were murdered and eight other Americans were wounded.

Congress has been given intelligence reports that support the conclusion of a 
preliminary Indonesian police investigation that found that "there is a strong 
possibility" the shooting was carried out by members of the Indonesian 
military. The military has denied involvement in the attack. The FBI is 
continuing to investigate.

"The preponderance of evidence indicates to us that members of the Indonesian 
army were responsible for the murders in Papua," Matthew P. Daley, deputy 
assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, said in an 
interview. "The question of what level and for what motive did these murders 
take place is of deep interest to the United States."

The possibility of military involvement in the attack was raised at a closed 
hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on May 20, 2003. At the 
meeting, a CIA analyst reviewed intelligence reports on the murders, and also 
discussed intelligence indicating that military personnel were seeking to 
withhold evidence from FBI agents who were coming to Indonesia to investigate 
the crime, said several knowledgeable officials. The CIA and FBI declined to 
comment.

The discussion prompted the committee to approve an amendment prohibiting the 
release of $600,000 in military training funds until President Bush certifies 
that the Indonesian government is taking effective measures to bring to justice 
those responsible for the shootings. Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.), who 
sponsored the amendment, confirmed the nature of the committee's deliberations 
but declined to discuss specifics. The amendment is expected to reach the 
Senate floor this summer. 

The Bush administration has opposed the amendment. A White House spokesman, 
Sean McCormack, said "it is important that we do everything possible to improve 
the human rights record of the Indonesian military through continued 
interaction with the U.S. military."

Separately, the State Department is still debating whether to release $400,000 
in fiscal year 2003 military funds to Indonesia given the incomplete status of 
the investigation. In December 2002, the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, Ralph 
L. "Skip" Boyce, delivered a message from Bush to Indonesian President Megawati 
Sukarnoputri. Resolution of the case was important to overall bilateral 
relations, he told her, according to State Department officials. 

But at the same time, Indonesia has received other funds from the United 
States. Since the attack, the Defense Department has given $4 million to the 
Indonesian military, known as TNI, or Tentara Nasional Indonesia, for 
counterterrorism training. 

For two decades, the State Department and some in Congress have wrangled with 
Pentagon officials over the wisdom of providing training for the Indonesian 
military. U.S. officials have long been wary of TNI's grip on political power, 
its vast, shadowy economic holdings and its well-documented human rights 
abuses -- most notably in the provinces of East Timor, Aceh, Papua and the 
Moluccas islands.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton suspended all military aid to Indonesia after 
the eruption of violence throughout East Timor by disgruntled troops and army-
backed militias following the territory's vote for independence from Indonesia. 
By the time Bush took office, only very small U.S. military education programs 
had been restored.

But U.S. policy abruptly shifted after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. 
The United States made it a priority to win the Indonesian military's support 
in fighting al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamyiah, a militant Islamic group based in 
Indonesia.

Now, Congress and the administration are investigating whether the Indonesian 
military, an important instrument of control in the most populous Muslim 
country in the world, might have been involved in an act of terrorism against 
Americans.

A Frustrating Investigation 
The investigation has been difficult for the FBI. When agents visited Indonesia 
in January, they were required to interview witnesses in the presence of 
Indonesian authorities and not allowed to bring forensic evidence back to the 
United States for analysis, sources familiar with the investigation said.

Recently, Indonesian authorities told U.S. officials they would allow forensic 
evidence to be escorted by Indonesian police to the United States for analysis 
at some later date. The authorities also promised that the FBI could carry out 
unsupervised interviews with witnesses. The FBI has yet to schedule a new visit.

The preliminary Indonesian police investigation questioned 30 soldiers and 44 
civilians. Under "temporary conclusions," the Indonesia police report 
said, "there is a strong possibility that the Tembagapura case was perpetrated 
by the members of the Indonesian National Army Force," according to a copy of 
the report obtained by The Washington Post. The probe was headed by veteran 
investigator I Made Pastika.

Among the circumstantial evidence described in the police report was the fact 
that the weapons used in the attack, mostly M-16s, are standard issue to the 
military. The killers fired more than 130 bullets, according to the document.

At a Jakarta news conference shortly after the attack, the chief of the 
Indonesian army, Gen. Ryamizard Ryacudu, laid blame on a separatist movement, 
the Free Papua Movement. The group has repeatedly denied it was involved.

Allen Behm, a former top Australian Defense Ministry official with extensive 
contacts in Indonesia, said he believes the Free Papua Movement could not have 
mounted such an assault. "The separatists simply don't have the motivation or 
the type of ammunition that was used," Behm said.

The ambush occurred about 500 yards from a major military post, along a steep, 
winding road between Tembagapura, a Freeport company mining enclave, and 
Timika, a town built by the company. Drivers and passengers are required to use 
plastic security cards to drive on the road and must stop at three manned 
checkpoints along the way, each time sharing identification and stating a 
reason for travel to the Freeport security guards.

Since 1967, New Orleans-based Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold has owned and 
operated the major share of the world's largest gold mine there. The open pit 
Grasberg mine looks like a ragged bullet wound in the middle of a lush green 
carpet. Trucks with six-foot-high wheels run 24 hours a day hauling out some of 
the mine's estimated 53.3 billion pounds of copper and 62.2 million ounces of 
gold.

To attract employees, of which there are nearly 9,250, the company has its own 
airline and port and has built a $400 million community in Kuala Kencana, 
complete with luxury hotel, golf course, schools, health clinics and power 
plants. The school teachers and principal were contract employees, educating 
the 74 children of Freeport's American, British and Australian employees.

Freeport's exploitation of Papua's rich resources and 700,000 acres of 
surrounding land has generated deep resentment among local people, many of whom 
live in poverty and were relocated as the mine grew.

In 1996, a riot by local residents halted mining operations. In response, 
Freeport began to hire many more soldiers from the Indonesian military to 
protect the mine. The company paid $35 million for military barracks and other 
facilities and equipment. Over the years, the military, police and Freeport's 
security detail grew from 200 people to 2,000, according to a Freeport report. 
The company and its partners in the mine paid the military and police $5.8 
million in 2001 and $7 million in 2002, according to the company. Most of the 
money went for food, housing and vehicle maintenance, a Freeport official said.

Providing security for the mine has become a lucrative enterprise for the 
military in Papua, where it also has other money-making enterprises, such as 
export of tropical birds and tree resins as well as logging and mining. 
Overall, only about one-third of the military's budget comes from government 
funds. The rest comes from a vast network of side businesses.

According to press reports at the time of the attack, the company had discussed 
reducing the number of soldiers and police who guard the mine and facilities. 
Freeport said no such discussions took place, and there are no plans to change 
the security arrangements. The FBI still is investigating the possibility that 
the ambush was designed to persuade Freeport to increase its payments to the 
military, according to sources close to the investigation.

"Freeport has been trying to wean the military off the corporate nipple for a 
long time," said Chris Ballard, who used to work for Freeport and is now a 
professor at the Australian National University.

Human rights groups have accused Indonesian soldiers and special forces of 
killing or kidnapping tens of thousands of Papuans in the last three decades. 
In November 2001, seven soldiers in Kopassus, the Indonesian special forces, 
were convicted in connection with the killing of a Papuan independence leader, 
Theys Eluay.

U.S. officials said they believe elements of the military may have wanted to 
frame the separatist group, Free Papua Movement, in the hope of prompting the 
State Department to add the group to the department's terrorist list. If the 
separatists were listed as a terrorist group, it would almost guarantee an 
increase in U.S. counterterrorism aid to the Indonesian military, the officials 
said.

Steve Emma, still immobilized by his injuries and suffering debilitating 
flashbacks, said Bush should apply his with-us-or-against-us formula on 
terrorism if the Indonesian military was involved. "This was an outrageous act 
of terrorism," he said of the attack.

Denver resident Patsy Spier, wife of murdered schoolteacher Rick Spier, has 
walked Capitol Hill for the last six months, campaigning for a cutoff of U.S. 
military aid to Indonesia pending the outcome of the investigation. Her 
flowing, strawberry blond hair, bright green eyes and often cheery manner mask 
the pain of 70 pieces of shrapnel lodged in her torso from the attack.

Spier carries a primer, "Congress At Your Fingertips," in her big purse, to 
help her figure out how Washington works. She has wrangled meetings with top 
U.S. officials, including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, the U.S. 
ambassador in Jakarta from 1986 to 1989, who still is a major influence on U.S. 
policymaking toward Indonesia.

Wolfowitz declined several requests for interviews. But at a meeting with Asian 
defense ministers in Singapore in May, he defended continued U.S. military 
assistance to Indonesia. "I think it is important to understand . . . that the 
issue of [military training] at times is too often, I think, made the one point 
on which we use to indicate our dissatisfaction over issues. . . . I believe 
exposure of Indonesian officers to U.S. [military personnel] has been a way to 
promote reform efforts in the military not to set them back."

Spier is not convinced. "I have led a very fortunate, happy life, and so has 
Rick," Spier said at the end of her first trip to Capitol Hill in 
January. "It's because of his life that I can't let this horrible act happen to 
anyone else. . . . Someone's got to learn something from this. Something 
positive has got to come from this whole thing."

'We Never Felt Safer' 
Rick and Patsy Spier had a romantic marriage. They met at The Pits tavern in 
Wray, Colo., on Patsy's 25th birthday, she recalled recently.

"What do you want for your birthday, Patsy?" a friend had asked her as they sat 
in the bar.

"I want me a long, tall cowboy," she responded.

Just then Rick, employed as a cowhand, walked by. Her friend called to 
him: "Hey Stretch, come and dance with this girl!"

After three months of dating, Patsy fell in love, she said. They eloped and a 
couple of years later began what would be 12 years of teaching abroad, 
including at a copper mine in Peru and in Khartoum, Sudan. The couple 
vacationed in Tasmania and Antarctica. They had just begun their third year 
teaching in the province of Papua, formerly called Irian Jaya.

"We loved it," she said. "We were together all the time." They walked to school 
together and ate lunch together. "We were best friends, and we never felt safer 
anywhere, including America, than we did in Tembagapura."

When the teachers were unable to book rooms at the company-built hotel for the 
weekend because a golf tournament had filled it up, Rick Spier suggested a 
picnic. The surrounding area is home to the largest number of endemic species 
anywhere in the world, and so diverse it includes rain forests, mangrove swamps 
and alpine tundra covered with glacial ice. The Spiers wanted four new staff 
members -- Ted and Nancy Burgon, Steve Emma and Francine Goodfriend -- to see 
the bright orchids, loud frogs, two-story waterfalls and veiny Sarracenia 
purpurea -- fly-trapping pitcher plants -- that made their isolated tip of 
Indonesia so enchanting.

But by 12:30 p.m., a thick fog and constant drizzle drove them to cut the 
outing short and head back home. Navigating around Freeport's huge dump trucks 
and tractor trailers slowed the vehicles to a crawl and separated the one 
driven by Rick Spier from the second one, driven by Ken Balk, by five to 10 
minutes.

Emma, who had been in Indonesia for two weeks, recalled he was asking Rick 
Spier and Nancy Burgon about the Papuans' tribal lifestyle when the first 
volley of shots penetrated the vehicle. 

By the third volley, he said, "I knew Ted was dead." 

'They're Still Out There' 
Emma could hear the metal rip through the vehicle. The gunfire sounded as if it 
came from more than one weapon, not the rat-tat-tat of an automatic weapon. 
After a brief silence, the shooting began again.

"Oh my God!" cried Goodfriend, as bullets tore through her right side and blood 
began pouring from her head.

"They're still out there. They're coming through," Nancy Burgon screamed. It 
seemed whoever was shooting had moved around to the right side of the vehicle, 
which was pierced by hot lead that then broke up into shrapnel and ricocheted 
inside the vehicle. Burgon was grazed on the hip and metal fragments embedded 
in her face.

Emma's upper right shoulder began burning; the heat trickled down his back. 
Another shot tore open his left hip and leg, sending a feeling of fire 
throughout his body.

Outside the Toyota, a fuel-tanker truck appeared at the vehicle's side.

But bullets fired at the truck driver's neck and face stopped him, too. Emma 
could see fuel spraying through bullet holes in the truck's tank and onto the 
SUV. The vehicle's engine was still running.

"It smells like gas. They're trying to blow us up," Emma recalled telling Nancy 
Burgon. 

They debated trying to drive away, but decided it would be too risky. "We're 
going to blow up! We need to turn off the engine!" yelled Burgon. "I'll do it."

"No, I'll do it," said Emma, just as Nancy Burgon hoisted her bloody body over 
Rick Spier's, and saw for the first time how gruesome his wounds were. "How do 
I turn it off?" she fumbled, stunned by the sight and beginning to shake.

"Turn the key to the left," instructed Emma.

"I can't," replied Nancy Burgon, unable to move Spier's body out of the way.

"I think Rick and Ted are dead," she said.

Emma nodded and grabbed her hand. "We'll get through this," he told her, and 
lifted himself over the seat to reach the key. But inside, Emma could feel 
himself losing control and composure.

Overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness and by a wrenching, unforgiving pain, 
Emma kicked open the back door. "God damn it! Come and get me!" he yelled. The 
shooting stopped briefly and then resumed.

"That was a stupid mistake," Emma told himself.

>From the opened back door, he could see three of the six passengers from the 
second SUV -- Ken Balk, his wife Saundra Hopkins and their 6-year-old daughter, 
Taia -- huddled outside their vehicle behind a tire.

Balk's vehicle caught up with the first one, which was positioned headfirst in 
an embankment. 

Driving the second vehicle, Balk had noticed a Papuan dressed in military 
fatigues on the road just in front of the vehicle. From the front passenger 
seat, his wife, Hopkins, recalled seeing several Papuans, one in a black shirt, 
another in black camouflage pants, and a third with an ill-fitting jacket vest. 
As their SUV approached the scene, Patsy Spier saw two puffs of dirt on the 
road in back of a pickup that swept past in the opposite direction. Then 
everything went into slow motion.

As Spier, Balk and Hopkins tell the story, a hail of invisible bullets and 
their fiery shrapnel cut through Spier's back, exploding her 11th rib and 
piercing her kidney with more than 70 shards. Bullets hit their Indonesian 
colleague, Bambang Riwanto, who fell onto Spier, dead.

Screams blended with the loud crash of shattering glass. In the mayhem, the 
immediate focus was to shield little Taia, sitting behind the front passenger 
seat. Lynn Poston, seated next to Taia and badly wounded herself, helped push 
Taia to the floor and cover her with a blanket.

Balk, by then bleeding profusely from bullet wounds in his right side, knee, 
colon and lumbar artery, got out of the vehicle and pulled his wife out. As 
they pulled Taia out, she was shot in the buttock. They moved together to the 
ground and the three huddled behind a tire.

"Gurus! Eskola Amerika! Bebe!" yelled Hopkins, who had been hit in the hip and 
had shrapnel lodged in her head. "Teachers! American school! Child!"

As mother and father crouched on the gravel, protecting their daughter, Balk 
saw a pair of black boots underneath the truck, some 20 yards away.

"Why are they doing this, Mommy?" Taia asked.

"Shhh, be still, be quiet now," Hopkins whispered back.

Balk took another shot to his thigh, and his blood, bones and muscle splattered 
onto Taia. He was already drenched in blood, and was losing so much that the 
couple discussed what they would do if he died. "You should just go home, get 
off the mountain," Balk told his wife.

For what seemed like forever, the parents prayed. They tried to comfort their 
daughter. They both had the same fear: that they would see a pair of boots 
coming toward them. 

They also tried to talk to Poston and Patsy Spier, both still inside the 
vehicle. Balk feared they were going into shock. 

"Lynn, are you okay? Patsy, can you hear us?" he said.

Poston had become hysterical. And both of their voices were becoming audibly 
weaker.

"They aren't going to stop," Patsy Spier thought to herself. "My God, when is 
this going to end?"

Spier thought a lot about her husband as she sat nearly paralyzed in the second 
vehicle. "I had a feeling in my heart that Rick was already gone because I knew 
if he wasn't, he'd be trying to get me out."

Her pain and fear, like the terror described by Emma, Balk and Hopkins, 
overtook all other senses. Dying would end it. "I'm ready. It's okay, they can 
come and get me," Spier thought to herself, she recalled. "Just do it."

Rescue in Confusion 
In a brief lull, Spier heard a distinct human imitation of a bird whistle -- 
and a whistled response. It was not, she later recalled, the whooping calls of 
the Amungme tribe.

They were just 500 yards from the nearest military post. How could anyone get 
on this road without the military or Freeport's knowledge?

Spier was shot again, this time in the foot, which made her think perhaps the 
shooters were under the vehicle. She apologized to Bambang Riwanto, for having 
to shift her weight and move him, a movement that seemed to provoke more 
shooting as his body came into view from the window.

Some 15 to 20 minutes into the ambush, a Freeport manager, Andrew Neale, came 
upon the vehicles as he drove south with his wife. He put the car in reverse 
and sped away to get help. At about the same time, another Freeport manager, 
Bob Kilborn, driving north, saw the tanker truck, two dump trucks and their 
injured drivers. He carried one injured man to his car and another man jumped 
through his window before Kilborn sped away for help, according to a Freeport 
security document.

When Kilborn reached the nearest military post, he ran into a group of 
soldiers. Some of the soldiers agreed to get in this car and head back to the 
ambush site. By then, Neale had arrived with soldiers, too. A brief exchange of 
gunfire followed before the soldiers fanned out on the road, firing their 
weapons. 

"Help! Help! We need medical care," Hopkins, bloodied and still crouching near 
the tire with her husband and daughter, told the first soldier she saw. He 
looked terrified, she recalled, and disappeared. 

At the same time, Patsy Spier, inside the second SUV, heard banging on the back 
of the vehicle. Someone was trying to open it. They were Indonesian soldiers 
there to rescue her. Four of them pulled her limp body from the vehicle. They 
laid her on the ground. Two Papuan men sat next to her and patted her hand and 
put a cooler lid under her head as a pillow.

"Terima kasih, Terima kasih," she whispered to them. "Thank you. Thank you."

Kilborn came over to see how she was. "What about Rick?" she asked him.

"Just a minute, I'll go see," he replied, but never came back.

In the meantime, an Indonesian army soldier, dressed in full camouflage, walked 
up and stood over her, glaring down. She looked at his black boots.

"I kept wanting to touch his gun, to see if it were hot," she said. "But I 
stopped myself."

At the hospital in Tembagapura, Patsy Spier learned what she already sensed -- 
that her husband was dead.

"I want to see him. I have to see him," she told doctors through her sobs and 
shock. "And I want him autopsied. I want everyone to know he was murdered."

Around 9 p.m., some eight hours after she and her husband had started out on a 
picnic, the nurses wheeled Patsy's gurney into a room with Rick's body.

He had a hunk of red cotton in his mouth. The nurse lifted his hand so she 
could hold it. She told him she would always love him. And she said goodbye.
-- Correspondent Doug Struck and researchers Robert Thomason and Margot 
Williams contributed to this report. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Jakarta Post.com
National News
June 24, 2003
U.S. Senate moves against RI military over Papua incident 
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Indonesians might have forgotten the bloody attack at Tembagapura, Papua, 10 
months ago. But Americans, or at least the U.S. Senate, have not.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is trying to block U.S. military aid to 
Indonesia following revelations that Indonesian Army soldiers were most likely 
responsible for the attack in which two Americans and one Indonesian were 
killed and eight other Americans were wounded. 

A front page report on Monday in The Asian Wall Street Journal (AWSJ) said that 
the committee had approved an amendment prohibiting the release of US$600,000 
in military training funds for Indonesia until President George W. Bush 
certified that the Indonesian government would bring to justice those 
responsible for the attack. 

The amendment is expected to reach the Senate floor this summer. 

The Bush administration, according to the report, has opposed the amendment. 

A White House spokesman, Sean McCormack, said: "It is important that we do 
everything possible to improve the human rights record of the Indonesian 
military through continued interaction with the U.S. military." 

Nevertheless, the U.S. government still does not know for certain who ordered 
or carried out the ambush despite an investigation by Federal Bureau of 
Investigation agents at the scene. 

Congress has been given intelligence reports that support the conclusion of a 
preliminary Indonesian police investigation that found that "there is a strong 
possibility" the shooting was carried out by Indonesian soldiers. 

"The preponderance of evidence indicates to us that members of the Indonesian 
Army were responsible for the murders in Papua," Matthew P. Daley, deputy 
assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told AWSJ in 
an interview. 

"The question of what level and for what motive did these murders take place is 
of deep interest to the United States." 

The military, however, has denied involvement in the attacks. Instead, it has 
blamed the poorly-armed separatist Free Papua Organization (OPM). 

The FBI is continuing to investigate the case as its agents were not given free 
access to sources at the scene when in Indonesia. They were required to 
interview witnesses in the presence of the Indonesian authorities and were not 
allowed to bring forensic evidence back to the U.S. for analysis, the report 
said. 

Given the incomplete status of the investigation by the FBI, the U.S. State 
Department is still debating whether to release $400,000 in fiscal-year-2003 
military funds to Indonesia. 

And yet, Indonesia has received other funds from the U.S. According to the AWSJ 
report, since the Papua attack on August 31, 2002, the U.S. Defense Department 
has given US$4 million to the Indonesian military for counter-terrorism 
training. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
Date: 20 Jun 2003

Indonesia: OCHA Consolidated Situation Report No. 133
14 June - 20 June 2003

6. Papua 

General Situation 
A local newspaper, Cenderawasih Pos, reported on Tuesday (17 June) that after 
five months delay, the Governor of Papua presented the Annual Provincial 
Development Progress Report 2002 to the Provincial Parliament. According to the 
Governor, the development in the province during 2002 had been affected by 
internal and external factors, such as the assassination of Theys Hiyo Eluay, 
disputes on implementation of special autonomy, the delay in execution of 
Special Autonomy Budget by the Central Government, the establishment of new 14 
districts, and the conflict in neighboring province of Maluku. 

A local newspaper, Papua Post, quoted the Governor of Papua, Jaap P. Solossa, 
on Wednesday (18 June) that the Central Government should take necessary 
actions to solve poverty problems that might lead to disintegration of the 
province. Meanwhile, the Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security, S.B. 
Yudoyono stated that the Government was conducting a comprehensive review on 
problems in Papua province. He added that in respond to these problems, 
appropriate actions should be taken in order to improve social welfare 
condition, develop mutual trust between the community and the Central 
Government, and avoid separatist movements. 

Cendrawasih Post and Papua Post reported on Wednesday (18 June) that during a 
routine patrol in Tor Atas sub-district of Sarmi district, soldiers from Yonif 
122/Tombak Sakti shot two persons identified as members of KSB (a civil armed 
group). They were evacuated to hospitals in Sarmi and Jayapura. 

Population Movement 
Cenderawasih Pos reported on Wednesday (18 June) that 6,000 Papuan refugees in 
camps in Papua New Guinea wished to return to their places of origin in Papua. 
The Head of Provincial Office for Border Affairs in Jayapura, FX Suryanto, said 
that due to financial constraints, his office find it difficult to assist 
Papuan refugees. Meanwhile, the provincial authorities have approached the 
Central Government to take necessary actions. The Governor of Papua said that 
the provincial and district Governments in Papua are willing to share the cost 
involved in the return of the refugees with the Central Government. 

Food Security And Agriculture 
Cenderawasih Pos quoted that Head of Logistic Depot (Dolog) in Manokwari on 
Tuesday (17 June), saying that his team found that 30% of distributed Raskin 
(rice for the poor) was sold by the recipients in exchange of non-rice items. 
Cenderawasih Pos also reported on Thursday (19 June) that local rice 
distributors in Wamena put an extremely high price of IDR 7,000 per kg. The 
distributors also have a full control on the buyer. 

Health 
Cenderawasih Pos reported on 13 June that in cooperation with the Health 
Office, UNICEF held training on Integrated Management of Childhood Illness 
(IMCI) on Thursday (12 Jun). The training is aimed at reducing infant illness 
and mortality rates. 20 nurses and midwives from Puskesmas in five sub-
districts attended the training. 

Education 
Papua Post reported on Monday (16 June) that the Regional People's 
Representative Council (DPRD) of Papua refused to implement the new education 
bill. The Chairman of Commission E, Hulda Wanggober, said that Papua would 
develop its own local education system based on the Special Autonomy. 

Water and Sanitation 
Cenderawasih Pos reported on Friday (13 June) that a water installation project 
in Sarmai Atas village, Nimboran sub-district of Jayapura has not been 
completed yet. Chairman of Commission D in DPRD, Isak Kaplele, urged the local 
government to immediately complete the project to meet community's need. 

Economy Recovery and Infrastructure 
Cenderawasih Pos reported on Thursday (19 June) that the Governor of Papua 
attended a ceremony to mark the development of a seaport bridge in Saubabe 
village of Japen Utara sub-district. The Saubeba project is one of the five 
port projects prioritised in 2003 to be completed in 2005. Another four 
projects are in Manokwari, Kabuena/Serui, Mokmer/Biak, and Samabusa/Nabire. 

This report and previous ones can be found at www.reliefweb.int 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Jakarta Post.com
Latest News
6/17/2003 2:42:13 PM
Two separatist rebels wounded in clash in Papua 

Jakarta (AFP): Two separatist guerrillas were wounded when an Indonesian 
military patrol clashed with rebels in Papua province on Tuesday, the military 
said. 

The clash occurred in Sarmi district on the north coast some 150 miles (250 km) 
west of the provincial capital Jayapura. 

It broke out around 6:00 am (2100 GMT Monday) when a patrol encountered 10 
people carrying one firearm, bows and arrows and machetes, said district 
military commander Colonel Agus Mulyadi. 

Agus said the firearm was confiscated along with bullets and some documents of 
the separatist Free Papua Movement. He said the men belong to a splinter group 
led by Adam Uduas. 

The Free Papua Movement, a poorly armed outfit, has waged a sporadic low-level 
armed revolt since Dutch colonisers ceded control of the resource-rich 
territory to Indonesia in 1963. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Jakarta Post.com
National News
June 19, 2003 
TNI shoots rebel in Papua 

Jayapura, Papua: The Indonesian Military acknowledged shooting two men, one who 
subsequently died as a result of his injuries, claiming they were Papuan 
rebels, on Tuesday in Hut village, Tor Atas district in Sarmi regency.

Yotam Siam, 20, was shot in the left leg while Douglas Yaas, 18, was shot in 
the right leg and the stomach. Douglas died on the way to Sarmi community 
health center. 

Trikora Military Command spokesman Maj. CAJ GT Situmorang said that a gunfight 
erupted at 6 a.m. local time (4 a.m. Jakarta time) between a group of military 
soldiers and 10 rebels at Hut village. 

Military personnel seized a rifle, a round of ammunition, a number of 
traditional weapons and documents on the Free Papua Organization (OPM). 

Meanwhile, Papua Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Daud Sihombing said that he had not 
received any information about the shooting. 

"You'd better ask the military," he said. 
-- JP 
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The Jakarta Post.com
June 21, 2003
Police seize 105 arms in Papua raids 
Nethy Dharma Somba, The Jakarta Post, Jayapura, Papua

Indonesian security forces are claiming initial success on the front lines of 
its second war against separatists in Indonesia, Papua, but warn the worst it 
yet to come.

The Indonesian Military (TNI) and National Police launched operations against 
separatist groups in the resource-rich province after the poorly armed Free 
Papua Movement (OPM) were accused of raiding an arsenal belonging to the TNI on 
April 5. 

Papua Police Sr. Comr. Daud Sihombing said the operations were the first part 
of what would be a prolonged government campaign to crush the separatists, 
after it had dealt with separatists in Aceh. 

He called on the OPM rebels to lay down their arms and for others to give up 
their political campaigns before the planned military offensive. 

Daud said police had so far confiscated 105 guns, more than 440 rounds of 
ammunition and four hand grenades from alleged rebels since it launched its 
operation on July 7. 

A large number of traditional weapons such as arrows, spears and machetes had 
also been confiscated from alleged separatists, he said. 

He was not asked about the fate of those arrested. 

Daud warned that the full attention of the TNI and police would soon focus on 
Papua. 

He said the ongoing operation was to improve the rebel's, political 
campaigner's and the general population's awareness that Indonesia was a 
unitary state. 

He said the preliminary operation was persuasive in its nature "because we want 
rebels to lay down their arms and come back to their home villages to develop 
their futures and the province and accept Indonesia's sovereignty over the 
province." 

Daud conceded that a number of separatists had surrendered and were in police 
custody. He declined to identify them "for their safety". 

He said the government would grant amnesty to rebels and civilians who 
voluntarily gave up their arms and returned home from their hiding places in 
the dense jungles in the province. 

"We will give amnesty to those who voluntarily give up their arms and they will 
not be brought to justice because the operation is aimed at improving their 
nationalism and patriotism," he said. 

"We hope in the next three weeks that more and more rebels and supporters of 
the separatist movement will surrender and return to their daily activities to 
develop their futures." 

The TNI have also launched an operation in Papua. 

Dozens of people, including civilians, have been killed during the operation, 
which has involved soldiers from the Army's elite Special Forces (Kopassus) and 
Strategic Reserve Command (Kostrad). 

Most of the arms and ammunition stolen from the Army has already been 
recovered. However, the Army itself has been implicated of involvement in the 
raid. 

Religious leaders and human rights organizations have demanded an independent 
investigation into alleged human rights abuses that continue to take place 
during the operation. 

The military leadership has again warned Papuan political movements against 
lobbying the international community for support in their fight for 
independence. 

The military is believed to be behind the government's policy to split Papua 
into three provinces in an attempt to weaken the separatist movement. 

The move has been met with opposition from parts of the Papuan people and 
religious leaders, who say the government should focus on implementing special 
autonomy to win the hearts of the people. 

Special autonomy would allow Papuans to a greater share of their resources and 
more say in handling their day-to-day affairs. 

Papua governor Jaap Salossa and Papuan religious leaders were in Jakarta over 
the weekend to ask the government to delay the planned military offensive and 
to disburse the special autonomy funds worth Rp 1.3 trillion (US$15.8 million) 
to finance development projects in the 2003 fiscal year. 
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