Swiss journalist heads home at last

Swiss journalist heads home at last

JAKARTA (AFP): A Swiss journalist was bound for home Saturday
after a 10-day ordeal in a mosquito-infested Indonesian jail
where he faced the threat of a five-year jail term for working
while on a tourist visa.

Oswald Iten, 50, a reporter for the Zurich-based Neue
Zuericher Zeitung, was relaxing at the Swiss embassy in Jakarta
Saturday afternoon, accompanied by immigration police who would
escort him to his flight to Zurich.

"He is quite well and happy to be out," the newspaper's Asia
editor Beat Wieser, told AFP by phone from the embassy.

Wieser said Iten, who flew into Jakarta from the remote
province of Irian Jaya under police escort earlier in the day,
was in good health, and had "no more problems."

No restrictions had been placed on him by Indonesian
authorities, who had said they would be happy to see him back --
but with a journalist's visa.

"So you can't really call this a deportation ... It is one of
the amazing things that can happen in this country," Wieser
added.

Days earlier Iten had been in a police lockup in Jayapura, the
capital of Irian Jaya, where he shared a toiletless cell with 28
other men. Police there told him he was facing trial and a five-
year jail term.

Arrested on Dec. 2 for taking photographs and notes during
anniversary celebrations by pro-independence Papuan separatists,
he was put in the same jail as five members of the separatist
movement, including their leader Theys Eluay.

Subversion

Iten was released on Wednesday. The separatists, arrested a
week before Iten, have been charged by police with subversion for
advocating the province's secession from Indonesia.

An American national was also deported from Irian Jaya two
months ago after he was seen taking photographs in the town of
Wamena in the aftermath of a riot which left up to 30 people
dead.

Irian Jaya has seen a series of outbreaks of violence linked
to a stepped-up pro-independence campaign there in the past weeks
in which at least 18 people have died.

Pro-independence sentiments have been on the rise in the
province, especially since East Timor was allowed to separate
from Indonesia after a UN-held ballot there in August 1999.

Deputy chairman of the Papuan Presidium Council Thom Beanal
claimed that Irianese were ready to secede from the Republic of
Indonesia and run a modern government.

"We are ready but have not been given the chance yet," Thom
once said, recalling that in 1961, even when Irianese had
nothing, they were also prepared for independence. Now, with a
lot of educated people, Irianese were even more ready (for
independence).

However, the Indonesian government maintained that unitary
state of the Republic of Indonesia was final.