The Hague considers asylum for Irianese

JAKARTA (JP): The Hague is studying a request for political asylum filed by six Irianese holed up at the Dutch embassy since Wednesday, a Dutch diplomat said yesterday.

"We hope our government will come out with its decision as soon as possible," the embassy staff member, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Jakarta Post.

He declined to name the Irianese asylum seekers who arrived at the diplomatic mission at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, but said one is a woman.

According to the staff member, the group managed to reach the embassy without incident.

The group is the first to ask for political asylum in the Netherlands since 1984. The Netherlands gave up the western half of New Guinea Island to Indonesia in 1963.

In 1984, the Dutch reportedly granted asylum to four people from Irian Jaya after they entered the Dutch embassy in Jakarta.

The Irianese are the fifth group of Indonesian asylum seekers who have sneaked into the Dutch embassy in the past six months. The four other groups were East Timorese youths who reject their territory's integration into Indonesia in 1976. Most of them were granted asylum by Portugal.

Over the past few years, dozens of East Timorese have obtained political asylum from Portugal after breaking into foreign embassies in Jakarta.

Quoting diplomatic sources, Reuter reported yesterday that the Irianese asylum seekers are from a previously unknown organization called the Papua Nationalist Forum.

The Free Papua Movement (OPM) is the best known separatist group in Irian Jaya. The movement has intensified its activities in the past months.

OPM members have been holding hostage 11 researchers, including a pregnant Dutch woman and four Britons, since January in an effort to seek recognition of their cause. (pan)