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Students demand UK account for operation

Source
Agence France Presse - August 27, 1999

Jakarta – Scores of students in the easternmost Indonesian province of Irian Jaya have protested over the alleged involvement of British elite troops in a violent hostage-rescue operation in 1996, a report said Friday.

Some 150 students rallied outside the parliament building in the provincial capital Jayapura on Thursday to demand Britain account for its role in allegedly sending Special Air Service troops to rescue 11 hostages who were being held by Free Papua Movement (OPM) rebels, the Jakarta Post said.

They also demanded an explanation from Pretoria over the role of Executive Outcomes, a group of South African mercenaries which has a base in England, the newspaper said.

"The two countries should be held responsible for killing Indonesians in the operation," student leader Aplin Yarangga was quoted as saying.

A team of soldiers from the SAS and Executive Outcomes led the raid to free foreign and Indonesian scientists who had been held captive for months by OPM guerrillas in the jungles of central Irian Jaya.

The captives, part of a team conducting a biological study of the 2.2 million hectare Lorentz reserve in the mountainous region, included four Britons, a German and a Dutchman. They were all freed unharmed, but rebels killed two Indonesian scientists during the operation. Witnesses said 16 foreign troops led the successful rescue bid but left at least 12 villagers dead.

Human-rights and church activists said an anti-rebel crackdown by Indonesian troops ensued "in which many Irianese were massacred, raped, tortured and dispossessed," the Jakarta Post reported.

The students also demanded the International Court of Justice investigate the role of former president Suharto and former military chief general Feisal Tanjung, who is now coordinating minister for political and security affairs.

They also cited Prabowo Subianto, a former lieutenant general in the Indonesian army's elite Kopassus unit and a son-in-law of Suharto, who was in charge of the operation.

The OPM has been fighting for an independent Melanesian state in the former Dutch territory of Western New Guinea since it became the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya in 1964.

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