Foreigners fanned separatism: Mega

Foreigners fanned separatism: Mega

Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, New York

President Megawati Soekarnoputri says foreigners have been
helping rebels in troubled provinces Papua and Nanggroe Aceh
Darussalam to fight for independence from Jakarta.

Speaking before members of the Indonesian community in New
York, the United States, on Monday, Megawati said most of the
foreigners had entered the country on tourist visas.

"Some of them arrive on tourist visas and go to the provinces
supporting independence ... we cannot afford to be stupid," said
Megawati, who is in the United States to address the United
Nations General Assembly on the country's antiterrorism drive.

On Tuesday afternoon (Wednesday morning Jakarta time), she is
scheduled to hold bilateral talks with U.S. President George W.
Bush.

The two provinces, according to Megawati, have always
attracted foreign interest due to the huge reserves of natural
resources there.

"During the tenure of founding president Sukarno, my father,
world tycoon Onassis even asked Sukarno whether he could lease
Papua for 30 years for a few billion dollars," said Megawati,
referring to Greek shipping mogul Aristotle Onassis.

Earlier, Minister of Justice and Human Rights Yusril Ihza
Mahendra said the government had decided to revoke the visa-free
facility for citizens of some of the 48 countries currently
enjoying the facility, after discovering that a number of foreign
non-governmental organization activists and researchers had
fanned separatism aspirations in the troubled provinces of Aceh
and Papua.

Yusril said such activities had gone on for many years.

"The government must take preventive measures to ensure the
sovereignty of Indonesia," he said.

Megawati underlined on Monday that NAD and Papua were integral
parts of Indonesia and that the state would do whatever it took
to keep the country's territory intact.

"We have to share the same perception that Aceh and Papua
belong to Indonesia ... if they think they have the right to
become independent, then I say every state has the right to
defend its territorial integrity," Megawati said.

Megawati said the government would never bow to the
independence demands from separatist groups in the provinces.

"I believe most Acehnese want to stay as Indonesians, only
four of 19 regencies in the province are dominated by the
separatist movement," the President said.

The government has been striving to stamp out separatist
movements in both provinces.

The government put Aceh, where the separatist Free Aceh
Movement (GAM) has been fighting for independence for the
resource-rich province for 27 years, under martial law on May 19
after a fragile peace agreement signed in December collapsed.
Close to 1,000 rebels and dozens of government troops have been
killed since then.

For Papua, on the other hand, the government decided to divide
the province into three and sent more troops there, moves seen by
many analysts as a systematic attempt to weaken the Free Papua
Movement (OPM), a poorly organized rebel group fighting for
independence since the 1960s.

Earlier this month, the government issued a ruling banning all
foreigners from entering the two provinces.

Megawati further said that Indonesia should not overreact to
the special attention given to the two provinces by the
international community.

Asked about human rights conditions in the two provinces,
Megawati said Indonesian officials should be consulted before any
human rights reports written by foreigners were taken seriously.

"There are many biases in those reports and we should check
whether those reports are true or not," she said.

On the possibility of returning to the negotiating table with
GAM, Megawati said that the government had exhausted all peace
efforts to end the problems.

"But remember it was they who refused to go with the peace
plan," said Megawati, referring to the failed truce signed in
December.