Independent team needed to probe Papua ambush

Independent team needed to probe Papua ambush

The Jakarta Post, Timika/Jakarta

Human rights groups demanded on Monday that an independent team
be established to investigate the deadly ambush that left two
U.S. citizens and one Indonesian dead in Irian Jaya on Saturday
as speculation surfaced that military personnel might have been
involved in the incident.

Chairman of the Papuan chapter of the Institute for Human
Rights Studies and Advocacy (Elsham) Aloysius Renwarin condemned
the attack and urged the government to engage foreigners in
tracking down the gunmen and investigating the incident.

Renwarin questioned the roadside ambush that broke out in an
area close to a security post at the Freeport complex, which has
been tightly guarded by the Army's elite forces, Kostrad and
Kopassus.

"If the attackers were members of an armed separatist group,
why did they not target the security post? It's strange. What was
behind that?" he said.

Human rights activists grouped under a coalition called the
National Solidarity for Papua said on Monday that the attack
appeared to have been carried out by "snipers or professional
sharpshooters" accustomed to special military operations.

"This should be taken into consideration when determining the
real culprits," the group said in a statement.

Papua's Trikora Military chief Maj. Gen. Mahidin Simbolon
denied security forces played a role in the attack and simply
said it was impossible for security forces to continuously guard
all the areas in Papua, which is three times larger than Java.

Provincial Police spokesman Comr. Josef Iswanto said bullet
casings showed that the attackers used M-16 and SS1 machine guns,
which are standard issue for soldiers or police personnel.

But he denied the alleged involvement of security personnel,
arguing that rebels had in the past seized weapons from police
and troops they attacked.

Meanwhile, Coordinating Minister for Political and Security
Affairs Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Monday that he was told
by intelligence that three members of the Papuan Presidium
Council (PDP) had held a meeting with several non-governmental
organizations (NGOs) in Australia.

However, he could not say whether the meeting was related to
the incident near the Freeport mine.

"If the information is correct, then I will use a diplomatic
way to find out the main agenda behind the meeting," Susilo said.

Hundreds of soldiers and police officers continued the hunt
for the gunmen on Monday by combing the mist-covered jungles on
the mountains near the scene of the incident.

Mahidin said little progress had been made in the search in
the jungle, located about 4,000 meters above sea level, after
security forces shot dead a suspected rebel earlier in an
exchange of fire on Sunday.

No arrests had been made, and there were no armed encounters
on Monday, he said.

As bad weather and rugged terrain were hampering the search,
Mahidin refrained from promising to capture the gunmen, who
sprayed bullets at two buses carrying Freeport employees from the
Tembagapura International School. Two American schoolteachers and
one Indonesian were killed and 12 others were wounded.

Eight of the injured workers were recovering on Monday at the
Townsville Hospital in northeastern Australia, where they were
being treated after they were flown out of Papua.

Their injuries ranged from "relatively minor" to "very
serious," hospital spokeswoman Kate Coward told AFP.

They are unable to identify their attackers, she added.

In Timika, workers and their families returned to the Freeport
mining complex under tight security on Monday after the road to
the site was closed for two days.

Two platoons of soldiers escorted a convoy of 40 cars and
buses carrying about 140 people, many of them American women and
children, to their houses near the giant gold and copper mine.

The company, an affiliate of New Orleans-based Freeport-
McMoRan Copper & Gold, said production at the open pit mine had
not been affected by the bloodshed.