Geneva – Amnesty International accused Indonesian forces on Wednesday of grave human rights violations in Papua, where the murder of the province's top independence leader last year remains unresolved.
In a report issued during the annual United Nations Commission on Human Rights, it urged the 53-member state body to condemn "appalling" abuses by Indonesia's security forces in Papua, Aceh and elsewhere in the world's largest Muslim country.
Amnesty's report, "Impunity and human rights violations in Papua", documents cases of extra-judicial executions, disappearances, torture and arbitrary detention of activists.
Theys Eluay, who headed the pro-independence Papua Presidium Council, was found dead in his overturned car last November. Police have not ruled out military involvement in the murder although the army has denied all accusations.
"Each failure to investigate or bring those responsible to trial reinforces the confidence of perpetrators that they are above the law," Lucia Withers, Amnesty International's researcher for the Asia and Pacific, told a news briefing.
"If [Papuan] people see no avenues open, they will resort to violence as in Aceh. This is the moment to act," she added, referring to Indonesia's other separatist province.
Amnesty said some 150 people are thought to have been arbitrarily detained and tortured by police in the Wasior area of Papua's Manokwari district in the latter half of 2001.
The sweep was prompted by an attack by an armed group on a logging company in which five police died. "Amnesty condemns these killings but equally condemns the operations that followed which appeared to be little less than a frenzy of revenge," Withers said.
Diplomats say the European Union will present a chairman's statement, a milder form of rebuke than a resolution, to the UN commission. "Just because neither the world's media or the UN is in Papua to witness the violations, does not mean that they are not happening," added Withers, who visited Papua in January.
Eluay's killing bolstered already strong demands for independence among the two million Papuans, who say Jakarta siphons off the province's wealth but gives little in return.