Ed Davies and Telly Nathalia, Jakarta – Indonesia does not face any organised resistance to its rule in Papua and there should be a degree of tolerance responding to cases of banned separatist flags being hoisted, the defence minister said on Monday.
A group of 40 US Congress members recently sent a letter to Indonesia's president calling for the "immediate and unconditional release" of two jailed Papuan separatists and warning that the human rights situation there was deteriorating.
Filep Karma and Yusak Pakage were sentenced to 10 and 15 years respectively for raising a separatist flag in 2004.
"I'm trying to persuade my colleagues in government... that these outbursts of flag-raising or cultural dignity should be tolerated at a certain level," Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono said in an interview with Reuters.
"It's more of an outpouring of grievances. That the Papuans feel they're still not being treated well by us from the central authorities," he added.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has pledged to end conflict in resource-rich Papua and speed up development under a autonomy deal, although critics say it has not been implemented.
Independence activists in Papua have waged a campaign for nearly 40 years to break away from Indonesia, while a low-level armed rebellion has also simmered.
Sudarsono said there was no sign now of armed resistance. "So far we don't see anything. There is no external support in terms of military and weapons."
But in a sign of ongoing tensions, six people were arrested in July on treason charges after hoisting the Morning Star flag, the symbol of the separatist Free Papua Movement (OPM).
On Saturday, a man was also killed after police fired warning shots when a separatist flag was raised, a local official said.
Rights groups have criticised security forces for abuses in Papua, but Sudarsono said that the current administration favoured settling local conflicts through dialogue and violence by security forces "should be a last resort".
Sudarsono also said potential conflict from Muslim migration into Christian-majority Papua had to be handled carefully.
"We see that as a risk, just as what happened 10 years ago in Central Sulawesi also grew out of this internal migration between islands," he said, referring to bloody religious conflict.
In Aceh, another area that suffered a separatist revolt for decades until a peace deal on Aug. 15, 2005, he said that "I think that on the whole it's quite stable".
But he also said that the province on the northern tip of Sumatra was having some problems trying to absorb former rebels, who also sometimes struggled to adapt after decades of conflict.
"They're used to raising their fists or picking up arms, which is much more romantic and more idealistic," he said.
Sudarsono said a key need for the cash-strapped security forces currently was more patrol boats to help police Indonesia's huge coastline and more than 17,000 islands.
Quoting an estimate from the maritime ministry, he said that $26 billion of the country's resources could be stolen this year by well organised and financed smuggling groups involved in areas such as illegal logging or fishing.
That compares with the combined defence and police budget of about $4.2 billion, he said.
Under the rule of former president Suharto, which ended in 1998, it was common practice for the armed forces to use their positions to make money and top-up salaries.
He said a team overseeing the transfer of military businesses had found that out of 1,500 so-called cooperatives or outright businesses, only five or six viable ones remained, while many had collapsed with the onset of competition. (Editing by David Fogarty)