Lindsay Murdoch, Jakarta and agencies – Many expected the attack, but not the savagery of it. Wielding axes, they split open the head of the first policeman they saw in a police station on the outskirts of Jayapura, the capital of West Papua.
Another was killed as the attackers, after a crackdown on the troubled province's independence movement, turned on Indonesian settlers with spears, arrows, axes and Molotov cocktails, setting homes and businesses on fire.
"We declare war on them," the local police chief, Assistant Superintendent Alex Sampe, told Agence France Presse yesterday as his officers started rounding up truckloads of Papuan students and activists, kicking and beating them as they were arrested. Nearly 100 people were arrested, the official Antara news agency reported.
Observers fear that West Papua has plunged into a cycle of violence that may threaten the Freeport copper and gold mine, Jakarta's biggest taxpayer.
It is also feared that violence will escalate in Aceh, the staunchly Muslim province at the opposite end of the Indonesian archipelago, after the Defence Minister, Mohamad Mahfud, warned this week of a military campaign to wipe out the Free Aceh Movement. "If we act firmly and forcefully for just a short while we might convince the rebels that a dialogue is the best way to settle the problems of Aceh," he said.
But critics of the Government said big military operations in the past had only sent the independence movement underground and won it more popular support.
In Jakarta, critics of President Abdurrahman Wahid say the crackdown on separatist movements across the country mirrors the dark days of repression under the former dictator Soeharto.
Pro-independence leaders are being rounded up and jailed, and Amnesty International says it has documented increasing intimidation of human rights defenders in Aceh. "Serious and widespread human rights violations, including arbitrary detentions, torture and unlawful killings, are continuing in Aceh during operations by the Indonesian security forces against the armed opposition group, the Free Aceh Movement," Amnesty said.
A promise by Mr Wahid this week to introduce Islamic law in Aceh is unlikely to stem resentment towards Jakarta. "Apathy is very deep," said Mr Sofyan Hamzah, chief cleric of the Baiturrahman mosque, in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh. "The Government has such low credibility."
The Jakarta Post said in an editorial yesterday that the arrest last week of six Papuan leaders, including Mr Theys Eluay, "bore all the hallmarks of the Soeharto regime". The newspaper warned that if people were convicted and sent to jail for preaching peaceful methods in their struggle for independence "the Government will no longer be able to take for granted international support for Indonesia's territorial integrity".
A presidential spokesman, Mr Wimar Witoelar, was quoted as saying the Wahid Government was concerned about the Indonesian military's build-up of troops in Aceh and West Papua. "It's really hard not to allow the military to do anything," he was quoted as saying.
West Papuan human rights activists and church officials blame the latest violence on the security forces and on Mr Wahid, who has cut off contact with independence leaders and reneged on a promise to allow the separatist Morning Star flag to be flown.
Hardline separatists, angry at an agreement signed by moderate independence leaders to lower the flag after December 1, have vowed to attack Indonesian security forces and any settlers seen aiding the troops.
Mr Wahid had accepted an invitation to visit West Papua on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, a presidential palace spokesman said yesterday.
Observers in Jayapura warn that the situation in the province is set to worsen after police announced they intended to summon for questioning two more independence leaders, Mr Thom Beanal and Mr Willy Mandowen. Both men are moderates who advocate a peaceful struggle to end decades of repression.