Victims of Abepura riot live in misery

Victims of Abepura riot live in misery

JAKARTA (JP): The more than 230 families whose businesses were
hit by massive rioting in Abepura last week are badly in need of
food and medicine, a local official said Saturday.

Jayapura Mayor Raden Roemantyo said the families lost their
livelihoods after their shops in the central Abepura market near
the capital were reduced to ashes by rioters on March 18.

"They are being accommodated in makeshift tents set up by the
local government outside the market. Their living conditions are
deplorable," he said.

Many eat only once a day, he said. Clean water is scarce, the
environment is dirty and the fear of diseases is widespread, he
added.

Most of the traders who have refused to live in the tents
have been put up by their relatives in Abepura or Jayapura, the
Antara news agency reported.

The Abepura market was torched by hundreds of Irianese natives
after security personnel barred them from seeing the body of Tom
Wapai Wanggai, an activist in the separatist Free Papua Movement
(OPM).

Wanggai died in a Jakarta prison while he was serving his 20-
year term. Armed Forces (ABRI) officials said the angry people
had been fooled by rumors that Wanggai was murdered.

Students at Cendrawasih University in Abepura had hoped that
Wanggai's remains would be brought to the campus where he once
was a professor.

When they learned that the body had been driven straight from
the Jayapura airport to Wanggai's house in Dock 9, an elite
housing complex, the students, joined by local youths, rampaged.

Four people, including a security officer, were killed,
several cars were burned and many houses pelted with stones in
the incident.

Roemantyo said the incident caused estimated losses of about
10 billion (about US$4.3 million).

Medical personnel have been called in to help the victims
injured in the rioting but medical supplies are insufficient, he
said.

Local security authorities said 133 people have been arrested
for their alleged involvement in the violent protest, 43 of whom
are suspected of masterminding the incident.

Antara reported that those suspected of involvement are being
handled by the police and those facing subversion charges are in
the hands of the military.

Quoting police sources, the crackdown will continue until all
the suspects have been arrested.

Religious leaders in the easternmost province have condemned
the violence.

Chief of the Armed Forces' general affairs department Lt. Gen.
Soeyono said last week that the authorities are investigating
allegations that the rioting in Abepura and Timika were
controlled by a Jakarta-based non-governmental organization.
(pan)