Jakarta – Police in Irian Jaya (West Papua) have named two separatist leaders as suspects and charged them with treason following a recent congress at which the country's easternmost province was declared an independent state, a report said yesterday.
The first suspect is Theys H. Eluay, chairman of the Presidium Council which organized the May 29-June 3 Papuan People's Congress in the province's capital of Jayapura. The second suspect is the council's secretary general, Thoha Al Hamid.
The congress, which was partly funded by the Indonesian government, was attended by about 3,000 separatists, tribal leaders and some foreigners. It ended with a unanimous declaration of freedom. Al Hamid yesterday complied with a summons for questioning at the Jayapura Police headquarters, after he had defied it on Saturday, Antara reported.
The suspect, who was accompanied by his lawyer Anum Siregar of the province's Legal Advocacy and Human Rights Institute, said he was asked 15 questions about the separatist congress. "The investigation has not yet been directed to other issues, as the questions were focused on the Papua congress," Al Hamid was quoted as saying after the interrogation.
He said he failed to attend the police summons on Saturday because he was at a meeting with visiting Human Rights Minister Hasballah M. Saad.
Local police have also summoned Agus Alua, chairman of the congress' organizing committee, for questioning as a witness in the same case. "So far, there have been only two suspects," Siregar was quoted as saying by Antara.
Talks with Gus Dur Al Hamid said West Papua's rebel leaders will meet with President Abdurrahman Wahid in Jakarta on June 25 or 26 to report on the results of the congress, to which the government had donated Rp3 billion (US$349,000). He said the separatists will tell Wahid the Papuan people wish to secede from Indonesia.
Separately yesterday, Eluay said his council has adopted an agenda to follow up congress' resolutions. Items on the agenda include determining policies to help achieve independence and the formation of a team to conduct political negotiations.
"We have done this because the [Papuan] people have expressed their wish to separate from the unitary state of Indonesia. The central government should be able to understand this political aspiration," said Eluay.
President Wahid said the government did not recognize the congress because it did not represent all people of the province, particularly the pro-Jakarta faction, whereas some foreigners had been present.
The president also vowed to take measures against any concrete activity designed to set up an independent state of Papua. But the government has said military force must not be used to crush the separatist movement, and the congress should not be deemed as an act of treason.
West Papua officially became part of Indonesia in 1969 following a UN-sanctioned act of self-determination carried out in accordance with an agreement signed in New York by the Indonesian and Dutch governments as well as the United Nations. Historians and separatists say the so-called Act of Free Choice was a sham.
Apart from a lone governor in Papua New Guinea, not a single foreign country has publicly supported the independence movement. Russia yesterday joined the US, the Netherlands, Australia and other nations in opposing the declaration of independence, and defended the province as an integral part of Indonesia.
"Our country takes the same stance in relation to efforts by separatists to proclaim independence in West Papua," said a statement from the Russian Embassy in Jakarta.