The Indonesian Government has denied reports that the extremist Islamic Laskar Jihad army is operating in it's province of Papua, formerly known as Irian Jaya. It's been been investigating claims that the Islamic militants, who were involved in inter-religious violence in the Maluku Islands, had infiltrated Papua, but found no evidence to support the claims. However, Christian religious leaders in Papua insist the militants have set up bases in their province and that they are planning attacks on Christians.

Presenter/Interviewer: Tricia Fitzgerald

Speakers: John Martinkus, journalist

Fitzgerald: Indonesian authorities say reports that the militant Laskar Jihad army is involving itself in the murky world of Papuan politics, are untrue.

The Indonesian Embassy in Australia points out that the Laskar Jihad leader, Jaffar Umar Thalib, has been under arrest for over a month in Java and says Papua's police chief has issued orders for the arrest of any of his followers if they do enter Papua.

But, those claims conflict with reports from a freelance Australian journalist, John Martinkus who's just returned from the province saying he witnessed a night-time Laskar Jihad training session in an isolated camp in western Papua.

Martinkus: In Sorong, which is at the far western tip of Papua I visited a Laskar Jihad training camp there which was outside of Sorong on the outskirts in the transmigration settlements. You know they're basically just open areas full of people wearing black headbands and they do drilling, and they do like sort of martial arts, that kind of thing, and practicing either with weapons or with homemade weapons like muskets and metal tubes bolted to bits of wood that are like one shot guns. And they use them in Ambon and they also use them in Timor.

Fitzgerald: John Martinkus says locals believe Indonesian military and police are giving support to the Laskar Jihad army members.

Martinkus: Papuans who lived out there they were saying that every time training is conducted there members of the police special unit were always in attendance and that also when training was conducted Kopassus members who were based in Sorong had started patrolling through their areas. They basically said that every time there was any guns were found in Laskar Jihad members' houses and they were reported to the police, the matter never went any further. There was also another case of some pro independence Papuans raiding the house of some Laskar Jihad members and finding seven M-16s in there. And then the house would actually belong to a military intelligence captain and also a police officer. And they then came and took weapons away and then of course nothing ever went any further.

Fitzgerald: And if proven true in what is a potentially dangerous development John Martinkus says the Laskar Jihad are recruiting members from Papua's migrant community, Muslim families who have moved to Papua from other overcrowded parts of Indonesia, especially Java.

Martinkus: They are recruiting local Indonesians who've lived in Papua for some time and they're basically telling them that they have to form self-defence groups to protect themselves and also to fight separatism in Papua. And this basically means using them as a shield to intimidate the local Papuans, much the same as they did in East Timor with the militias.

Fitzgerald: John Martinkus says it's not only pro-Jakarta militias who are gearing up for a show-down in Papua. He found that the assassination of the moderate Papuan independence leader Theys Eluay, last year, has stirred up anti-Indonesian sentiment amongst rebels of the Free Papua Army, the OPM.

Mr Martinkus visited OPM camps along the Papua-PNG border. He says the rebels have now torn up an agreement they'd made with moderate Papuans like Chief Eluay to use peaceful dialogue rather than violence in their long-running campaign to separate from Indonesia. He says the rebels are threatening to launch attacks in mid-August when Indonesians will be celebrating their Independence Day.

Martinkus: When Theys was killed, many West Papuan pro-independence people basically said OK, now we've tried the peaceful way, it hasn't really worked. I'm speaking specifically about the OPM. The reaction of those elements who'd previously fought the Indonesians in a military way in the bush has been to say, well look you know now we've tried the peaceful way and now we're going to have to go back to armed struggle. And this is something they in a way reluctant to because it's a very uneven battle, but they feel that that's the only way open to them at the moment and they're talking about re-opening military activities.