Rebels reportedly moving with hostages
Rebels reportedly moving with hostages
JAKARTA (JP): The military said yesterday that Irian Jaya separatist rebels holding 13 hostages were planning to move out of their jungle hideout in Mapunduma, Antara reported.
Brig. Gen. Prabowo Subianto, who is supervising the hostage rescue operation, told a media briefing in the Irian Jaya town of Wamena that the military was tightening its layers of blockade around Mapunduma to close the rebels' escape routes.
Prabowo, the chief of the Army's Special Forces, said the rebels might be using the hostages, including four Europeans, along with local villagers who support their cause, as human shields as they attempt to move.
He did not say where the rebels could be heading.
The military has made no further contacts with the rebels since Friday, when the hostage crisis, earlier expected to be resolved by midweek, took a new twist. A top rebel leader Kelly Kwalik had joined up with the rebels on Tuesday and took over the negotiations.
"We believe Kelly will take the hostages out of Mapunduma. So the military is on the alert, and has deployed a team to follow their every move and trail," Prabowo was quoted as saying.
Earlier, two missionaries -- Bishop Herman Munninghoff and Andrean van der Bijl -- said they had run out of means to convince the rebels to release the 13 hostages. The two church officials had been involved in the negotiations with the rebels.
Meanwhile Brig. Gen. Zacky Anwar Makarim, a director at the Armed Forces' Intelligence Agency, told reporters in Wamena that the chief concern of the military is the lives of the hostages.
"We will continue to use persuasion as has been directed by military leaders in Jakarta. A military operation is a last resort. I repeat, a last resort," he said.
Zacky said the thick jungle around Mapunduma makes it difficult for the military cordon to be "100 percent effective".
"We admit that there may be holes which the rebels might use to escape from our blockade," he said.
The hostages were members of a flora and fauna expedition to the Lorentz nature reserve in Baliem Valley. Besides four Britons and two Dutch citizens, there are seven Indonesians, including four from Jakarta.
They were abducted on Jan. 8 near Mapunduma. (emb/mds)