Jakarta – Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid has arrived in the remote eastern province of Irian Jaya, were calls for independence have been rising, to watch the first local sunrise of 2000, the state Antara news agency said Friday.
Antara said Wahid arrived at the Sentani airport near Jayapura, the capital of Irian Jaya accompanied by several cabinet ministers and Irian Jaya's governor Freddy Numberi who is also state minister for administrative reforms.
Upon arrival Wahid was greeted by some 500 demonstrators who crowded the airport and put up dozens of placards and the Morning Star flag – the symbol of the free state of West Papua for which the Free Papua (OPM) separatist movement has been fighting since 1961.
On the president's agenda are talks with local civic, tribal, religious and student leaders later Friday and on the following morning, watching the first sunrise of the year 2000 from a military house on a hill overlooking Jayapura, Antara said. Students from Cendrawasih university are to be enlisted to assist the police and the military in assuring Wahid's security, Antara reported.
Wahid's visit to Irian Jaya is the first part of his promise soon after he was elected that he would visit both Aceh and Irian Jaya to discuss how their grievances can be addressed. Both provinces are rich in natural resources and there is resentment that little of the profits generated from them are ploughed back into local projects.
Wahid has responded to demands for secession in the two regions by promising them extensive autonomy within Indonesia.
Violence in Irian Jaya has been on a lesser scale but separatist sentiment there is also very strong.
A Free Papua state was declared by Irian Jaya leaders while the territory was still under Dutch occupation on December 1, 1961.
Indonesia claimed Dutch New Guinea as its 26th province and renamed it Irian Jaya in 1963 – a move recognised by the United Nations in 1969.
But the people of the province, which shares a land border with Papua New Guinea, consider themselves closer to the Melanesian people of the South Pacific than the dominant Javanese in Indonesia.