Two men killed as troops disperse protest in Timika
JAKARTA (JP): Two people died yesterday in the Irian Jaya town of Timika when security officers tried to disperse a group of locals demonstrating over the earlier deaths of two fellow tribesmen.
Stevanus Pekeke, 23, and Timotius Koga, 21, of the Ekari tribe in the Harapan Kwamki Lama village were shot in the head and the abdomen respectively, a church source said.
The two were among about 200 people of mostly Ekari tribespeople marching downtown toward the local police station yesterday morning. The group demanded that police investigate the death of two Ekari hitchhikers who fell off a vehicle belonging to PT Freeport Indonesia mining company on Wednesday.
The source said Pekeke died on the spot while Koga died in the hospital. Their bodies were claimed by their families in the Kwamki Lama village, population of which is about 1,000 people, mostly Ekari.
The source said the demonstrators were halfway en route to the police station when a group broke away and started marching toward the place where the bodies of the teenagers were found.
Security officers had blocked the roads leading both to the station and to the site where the teenagers were found.
The officers tried to persuade the villagers to go home when someone fired an arrow and wounded one officer. A melee then broke out and the officers fired warning shots, hitting the two Ekari.
The local military and police could not be reached for confirmation yesterday, but Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. A. Wahab Mokodongan gave a different version about the tension in the mining town.
He said four people had indeed died, two Wednesday while the other two died on Thursday. The first two died after they jumped off a moving vehicle they were riding on their way home from a musical show.
He said the two were among four villagers hitching a ride in a car belonging to PT Freeport Indonesia.
"En route to Freeport's mining areas, the four asked the driver to stop, but their request was ignored," he said. "They suddenly jumped out of the car. Two died after they landed on their heads while the other two were injured."
Two other people died Thursday of troops' gunshots in a riot, Mokodongan said. The troops, attempting to disperse the rioters, had to open fire at the tribesmen who had started to shoot arrows at them.
He said that three soldiers were wounded by arrows Thursday.
Tension
Church leaders in Timika, some 3,000 kilometers east of Jakarta, had warned last week that tension was rising in the town over a dispute about the distribution of a development program fund by PT Freeport Indonesia Company, the operators of the nearby Grasberg copper and gold mine, one of the largest in the world.
On Wednesday, for instance, around 70 armed supporters of the leader of the Moni tribe held a noisy demonstration around the Harapan Kwamki Lama village, demanding that another Moni leader split his Rp 2.3 billion (US$800,000) from the fund with them.
Last year, 12 people died when tribal warfare broke out in connection with a dispute over the company's 1 percent development program fund.
Jakarta-based PT Freeport spokesman Ed Pressman separately told The Jakarta Post that the company was aware of the tension in Timika.
"We agree with the church leaders that there are some problems with the funding of the Integrated Timika Development Program. We are eager to fix these problems and believe that the church leaders have a role to play in helping us accomplish this," he said.
Pressman said the "unfortunate events" that occurred yesterday were "unrelated" to the controversy over the development program funds. He also said the company's operation had not been affected by the events.
PT Freeport Indonesia is 86 percent owned by New Orleans-based Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold with the Indonesian government and foundations holding the remainder. (aan/imn)