Irian rebels free two student hostages in PNG

Irian rebels free two student hostages in PNG

JAKARTA (AFP): Irian Jaya separatist rebels hiding in neighboring Papua New Guinea (PNG) Monday released two Indonesian students abducted in Indonesian territory in November, an official said Monday.

"The two hostages were released at 2:30 p.m. (0430 GMT) in Skotchiau area," Vice Consul Supeno Said of the Indonesian consulate in Vanimo, Papua New Guinea said by telephone.

The two were now in Vanimo, the main town of Sandaun province and were undergoing a medical check at a local hospital, he added.

Said said that the hotages, 17-year-old Marwiyah Abubakar and 16-year-old Muhammad Basyir Kadir, were handed over by Mathias Wenda, the leader of an Irian Jaya separatist group currently hiding in PNG to a member of the PNG Commission of Human Rights, Melkio Kapaith.

Kapaith then handed the freed hostages to vice governor of the PNG province of Sandaun, Peien Aloich, who represented the PNG government.

"Both students are lodged in Sandaun Hotel here," Said said.

The consulate has made ready a chartered plane to fly the two hostages to Jayapura, the main town of the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya "at the earliest instance," he said.

Indonesian Consul to Vanimo, Lieutenant Anthony David Mahulette, said earlier that the release had been planned for Sunday but had to be postponed because of the difficulty in getting to the agreed site.

"It is four and a half hours of travel from here (Vanimo), in the middle of the jungle and one has to travel by car for one and a half hours and walk the remainder," Mahulette said, declining to give further details about the site of the release.

Mahulette said a delegation had left Vanimo before sunrise Monday to take the freed hostages from the rebels but he declined to identify the members but that they included two PNG officials and a church representative.

Abubakar and Kadir were abducted by members of the Free Papua Movement (OPM) as they were on their way to their school in the Arso sub-district near the border with PNG on Nov. 22.

A report in the PNG Independent newspaper in December said the OPM had demanded a ransom of US$15,000 for the release of the two.

It quoted OPM leader Nikolaus Ipo Hau as saying if the ransom was not paid, "they will be receiving two dead bodies via the PNG government."

Earlier this month, Indonesia's Military Spokesman Brigadier General Suwarno Adiwijoyo said that Jakarta would make no compromise or negotiate with the rebels.

Another group belonging to the OPM is currently also holding hostage 13 people, including six Europeans, abducted on Jan. 8 in the mountainous center of Irian Jaya.

Negotiations involving church figures have been mounted to try to obtain the release of those hostages.