Lindsay Murdoch – Three churches claim they have obtained evidence that Indonesian soldiers are responsible for the deaths of at least 137 people during a military crackdown in Irian Jaya over 18 months.
The report, presented yesterday to the Indonesian Human Rights Commission in Jakarta, detailed how at least 11 villagers were shot after returning from the jungle. About 90 of the deaths occurred this year, the report said.
Most of the deaths were caused by hunger and sickness following displacement from their homes by the military operation, launched after anti-Indonesian rebels took 26 people hostage in 1996.
The report by local parishes of the Catholic Church, Indonesian Evangelical Church and the Christian Evangelical Church, claims that Indonesian forces based in the province have burned 13 churches, 166 homes, two health clinics and 29 other buildings.
Churches are the only outsiders to keep in contact with the province's remote villages.
The report said the military crackdown was designed to re-establish government control after the hostage drama, during which the Indonesian armed forces were forced to withdraw from the region.
The armed forces regarded villagers as hostile because they provided sanctuary for the rebel Free Papua Movement, which took 26 hostages - seven of them Europeans - in early 1996 and held most of them for five months.
The drama ended when Indonesian troops, led by now deposed President Soeharto's son-in-law, Lieutenant-General Prabowo Subianto, launched a rescue operation. Two Indonesian hostages were killed by the rebels during the attack.
Following Mr Soeharto's ouster from power last week, Lieutenant-General Prabowo was removed from his job as commander of the elite Army Strategic Reserve (Kostrad).
Ms Janet Hunt, the executive director of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, described the report as "disturbing" and said the Indonesian Government, often represented in Irian Jaya by the army, appeared to be on a permanently hostile footing with the local population.
She urged the Australian Government to seek the immediate withdrawal of units responsible for the deaths.