Jane Bunce – An Australian Anglican minister says at least 10 people have disappeared in military reprisals since a violent demonstration in Papua.
The Victorian clergyman, Reverend Peter Woods, was speaking at a Free West Papua rally in Melbourne today. He said he fled the demonstration against the US-owned Freeport gold mine earlier this month soon after Indonesian police and military began exploding tear gas and firing into the air.
Mr Woods, from St Andrews Church, Somerville, said he went to Papua to address church meetings, and stumbled on the demonstration while visiting a lecturer at the university in Abepura, outside capital Jayapura, on March 16.
He said local leaders told him police were killed in the ensuing riot and many other people had since disappeared in subsequent military repression. "In the anger and uncontrolled manner of the police and the milliary since that time, there have been reprisals," he said.
Mr Woods said eight men from the mountains of Wamena had disappeared, along with the head of university students in Puncak Jaya. And, on March 28, a 28-year-old student was taken during a lecture at the University of Technology, which was closed down in protest, he said.
On the same day, a 27-year-old man was shot at a family gathering to celebrate his graduation and rushed to hospital where the bullet was removed, MR Woods said.
"The bullet was taken by his father, and despite the efforts of the police and the milliary to get that bullet, that bullet was taken to Jakarta and has found to be associated with the police and the military," he said. "These detainments that are occurring are continuing now and we must speak up."
About 150 people attended today's midday rally in central Melbourne, while others were held in Perth, Sydney and Brisbane.
The rally was calling for Papuan independence from Indonesia and was also held to welcome 42 Papuans who landed at Cape York in January and were last week granted protection visas.
The visa row has strained Australia's relationships with Indonesia, but Prime Minister John Howard said the decision would stand. He said Australia fully supported Indonesia's sovereignty over the province that borders Papua New Guinea.
The area is known by Indonesia as Papua, but was formerly known as Irian Jaya, or West Papua.
Greens Senator Bob Brown today repeated his position that Australia's failure to intervene in Papua was tantamount to racism. "As with East Timor, it will be the Australian people that will change the Australian Government and the Opposition out of their turning of backs on the West Papuan people," he said.