Rebel shot dead in hunt for Papua gunmen

R.K. Nugroho and Febiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Timika/Jakarta

Security forces shot dead a suspected rebel during a gunfight on Sunday in the hunt for the armed men who killed two American schoolteachers and an Indonesian near a U.S. copper and gold mine in the country's easternmost province of Irian Jaya.

Papua Trikora Military commander Maj. Gen. Mahidin Simbolon and Provincial Police chief Insp. Gen. Made Mangku Pastika said a soldier, Chief Pvt. Suherman, was also injured in the shootout, which broke out at 11 a.m. local time.

Mahidin said thick fog hampered efforts to hunt down the gunmen, who are suspected members of the rebel Free Papua Organization (OPM), led by Kelly Kwalik, who ambushed two buses carrying PT Freeport Indonesia employees from the Tembaga Pura International school to Timika. Three people, two U.S. citizens and one Indonesian, were killed in the incident, and another 12 were injured.

Eight of the wounded, three males and five females, including a six-year-old, were flown to Townsville, Queensland in Australia. Seven were listed in good or stable condition.

Hundreds of police and military personnel were deployed to comb the jungle to find the attackers. More troops were coming to help in the hunt, said Mahidin, who arrived in Timika on Sunday.

He said security forces wanted to capture the gunmen alive in order to identify them and learn the motive for the attack. He said there could be as many as 15 gunmen who were involved in the attack.

The hunt would continue for at least one week or until security was completely restored, he said.

On Sunday in Jakarta, National Police chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar conveyed his condolences on behalf of the government to the families of those killed, and ordered the immediate arrest of the gunmen.

"They (the attackers) used M-16 machine guns and a rocket launcher. We are intensifying the search around the area," he said.

Da'i said the U.S. government had expressed its understanding of the deadly attack and offered to help in the investigation.

Activities at the immense open-pit mine operated by Freeport, an affiliate of New Orleans-based Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, continued on Sunday despite the shock felt by workers, who feared further attacks.

"The company's activities are proceeding as usual despite the fear of more violence against employees," said a worker, who asked not to be named.

Saturday's incident was the bloodiest involving foreigners in almost four decades of intermittent warfare between security forces and separatist rebels in Papua.

The troubled province also saw occasional kidnappings of foreigners, which were blamed on rebels. In June last year, two Belgian documentary filmmakers, Johan van den Eynde and Phillipe Simon, were abducted in Jayawijaya by rebels who released them two months later.

Since 1963, the poorly organized OPM has waged a low-level insurgency against Papua's integration into Indonesia, which was formally ratified in 1969 by the United Nations. Separatists claim that Papua gained independence from Dutch rule on Dec. 1, 1961.