Jakarta – Thousands of people attended a ceremony to hoist the separatist Free West Papua flag in a town in Indonesia's easternmost province of Irian Jaya, a report said here Tuesday.
The flag raising ceremony was held at a coordination post of pro-independence supporters in Sorong in southwestern Irian Jaya on Monday, the Suara Karya daily said. No clashes with Indonesian security forces were reported.
The crowd first raised the Indonesian flag and sang the Indonesian national anthem, before hoisting the separatist flag and singing the independentist hymn.
The huge crowd blocked the whole area surrounding the venue barring access to Indonesian security personnel, the daily said.
The flag-raising ceremony was led by the local West Papua representative, Yacomina Isir, and was followed by a mass Christian prayer led by a local Protestant priest.
The daily quoted the head of the Sorong district police, Lieutenant Colonel Ch. Sitorus as saying police had taken no action to stop the ceremony because they received no instructions.
"Whatever the instructions of my superiors, I will enforce them, but for the moment I cannot yet give information on the flag- raising ceremony," Sitorus told the daily.
Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid spent New Year's Eve in Irian Jaya when he flatly rejected any attempt by Irianese to break away from the Republic of Indonesia.
But during a meeting with local leaders in the Irian Jaya capital of Jayapura on New Year's Eve, he agreed to officially change Irian Jaya's name to Papua – the ethnic name of the Melanesian nation, which borders independent Papua New Guinea. He had also apologized for past human rights violations in the province.
Local and international human rights activists have the accused Indonesian military of committing the abuses in Irian Jaya under the pretext of a military operation to suppress the Free Papua (OPM) separatist movement.
Although separatist sentiment in Irian Jaya is strong, the violence has been on a lesser scale than in other regions such as the Muslim stronghold of Aceh or the former Portuguese colony of East Timor which voted on August 30 to break away from Indonesia.
A Free Papua state – rich in gold, copper, oil and gas and other natural resources – was declared by Irian Jaya leaders while the territory was still under Dutch occupation on December 1, 1961.
Indonesia claimed Dutch New Guinea as its 26th province and renamed it Irian Jaya in 1963 – a move recognised by the United Nations in 1969.
But the people of the province consider themselves closer to the Melanesian people of the South Pacific than the dominant Javanese in Indonesia.
The Jakarta Post daily meanwhile said police in Sorong had intercepted a shipment of thousands of rounds of ammunition for automatic rifles, believed to be bound for neighbouring unrest- stricken Ambon island.
The ammunition was discovered on board the state Dobonsolo inter-island ferry on Monday, but the man to whom the crates belonged was still at large, the daily said.
Ambon has been rocked by Muslim-Christian violence since January last year, which has left more than 1,700 people dead.